YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY Gift of
W. L. Ehrich

9n npptal
FROM THE
JUDGMENTS OF GREAT BRITAIN
RESPECTING
THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA.
CONTAINING
AN HISTORICAL OUTLINE
OF THEIR
IHerits ana Sffitronga as Colonies;
• AND
STRICTURES UPON THE CALUMNIES OF BRITISH WRITERS.
SECOND EDITION.
By ROBERT WALSH, Esq.

Quod quisque fecit, pat i tur; aut ore in scelus
Repetit, sucque premitur exemp !o nocens. senega.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, AND CO.; BALDWIN;
CRADOCK AND JOY; OGLE, DUNCAN, AND CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW; AND P. WRIGHT,
45, BROAD STREET, BLOOMSBURY.
1820.

DEDICATION.

To ROBERT OLIVER, Esa.
of baltimore.
Dear Sir,
This is a clumsy volume, and its tenor may not
be exactly in unison with your opinions and predilections.
I could, therefore, have wished to attach your name
rather to its intended adjunct, which may have higher
claims to regard : but I am anxious to improve the first
opportunity of bearing public testimony to a character,
which an acquaintance of many years, has taught me to
view as of uncommon worth and elevation. Itis only afew
months ago that your merits were commemorated in your
native land, in a strain which those inhabitants of your
adopted country, who know you well, cannot deem too
lofty, nor hesitate to re-echo. In proclaiming you public-
spirited, open-hearted and munificently hospitable, the dis
tinguished assemblage in Dublin spoke as our experience
would have led us to speak. A remarkable strength of
natural abilities, maintained in full exertion by an active,
vehement spirit, and the favour of fortune seconding a
sound judgment and steadfast faith in commercial deal
ings, have put you in possession of an ample estate, to
which you daily vindicate your title by a noble use of it
in the offices of beneficence and friendship.

IV DEDICATION.
I have another object in addressing you thus in my ca
pacity of author. It is, to witness, — in opposition to
the false relations of the British travellers, — that the na
tive American is not backward in recognizing and ho
nouring the estimable qualities and just pretensions of a
fellow-citizen of foreign birth. We make no distinc
tions and have no reserved feelings, where respect and
confidence are abstractly due : if, blended and com
pounded as we are, the case would be otherwise, it
would not certainly be so in reference to Irishmen.
With them, the process of assimulation in all respects,
is more easy and natural than with any other people.
America owes them much. She cannot but sympathize
deeply in the wrongs they have suffered at home. In
the same nation in which they have always found a tyran
nical mistress, she, throughout her colonial existence,
found a jealous step-mother, and now finds a malevolent
scold. I am, dear sir,
truly and affectionately,
your obedient servant,
Robert Walsh, jtjn.
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 1819.

PREFACE
OF THE AUTHOR.

I. About the end of the month of January last, I
undertook to prepare for the press, a Survey of the insti
tutions and resources of the American republic ; and of
the real character and condition of the American peo
ple. A work of this kind, wrought from authentic in
formation, appeared to me to constitute the best refuta
tion of the slanders, which are incessantly heaped upon
us by the British writers. In assuming the task, I ex
pected to be able to complete it in the course of the
present summer ; and accordingly set on foot such en
quiries in the several divisions of the Union, as the de
sign prescribed. After pursuing my first arrangements
for a couple of months, I discovered that I had not duly
measured the delays incident to the collection of facts,
over so extensive a surface, and through the agency of
gentlemen engrossed, for the most part, by professional
affairs. Finding that I must allow a longer term than
was at first proposed, for the accumulation of materials,
I fell upon the plan of making up, in the interval, a pre
liminary volume, which should embrace a review of the
dispositions and conduct of Great Britain towards this
country, from the earliest period ; and a collateral reta
liation for her continued injustice and invective.
WhatI now submit to the public, is the fruit of the plan
just mentioned. Itis not offered as a digested book : but

VI PREFACE.

as a series of Notes and Illustrations; and it could not be
other, from the shortness of the time within which it has
been composed. The immediate object required, indeed,
nothing more. I have to apologize rather for the bulk
ofthe volume, which exceeds my own expectation; and
is owing to the impression under which I proceeded,
that the quotations, instructive in themselves, and useful
towards elucidation and proof, should not be curtailed
for the sake of economizing a certain number of pages.
As respects diction, I have aimed at clearness and sig-
nificancy alone. What has been instantly transferred
from the desk to the press, must necessarily be liable to
the reproach of diffusion and roughness. It is not a mo
del of style or of epitome that is wanting on such an oc
casion as the British writers have created, for the exer
tion of our faculties of literary defence, whatever these
may be ; but an aggregation of facts pointedly told, and
the production in detail of whatever tends to rectify per
verse, or propagate just opinions.
My purpose in this undertaking generally, is not merely
to assert the merits of this calumniated country ; I wish
to repel actively, and if possible, to arrest, the war which
is waged without stint or intermission, upon our national
reputation. This, it now appears to me, cannot be done
without combating on the offensive ; without making in
roads into the quarters of the restless enemy.
I had long indulged the hope, in common with those
Americans who were best affected towards Great Bri
tain, that the false and contumelious language of the
higher class at least, of her literary censors, would be
corrected by the strong relief, in which our real condi
tion and character were daily placing themselves before
the world. We expected that another tone more con-
formabl to truth and sound policy would be adopted,
when we had on our side the degree of notoriety as to
those points, which usually overawes and represses any
degree of assurance in the spirit of envy and arrogance.
But the disappointment is complete, for every American
who has paid attention to the tenor of the late British
writings and speeches, in which reference is made to these

PREFACE. Vll
United States. The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews,
have, within the twelvemonth past, by the excesses of
obloquy into which they have given from the most un
worthy apprehensions, put beyond question the insuf
ficiency of any amount of evidence, and of all the ad
mitted laws of probability and reasoning, to work the
reformation to which I have alluded.
It was, too, believed by many, that the British writers
would assign some bounds to their attacks, as long as we
forbore to recriminate ; and it was thought harsh and
uncharitable to touch the sores and blotches of the Bri
tish nation, on account of the malevolence and folly of a
few individuals, or of a party, within her bosom. The
whole is proved to be mere illusion. There is no intem
perance of provocation, which could have excited more
rancour, and led to fiercer and wider defamation, than
we find in the two articles of the forty-first number of
the Quarterly Review, which treat of American affairs.
The whig journals have begun to rail in the same strain :
the Opposition have joined, with the ministerial party,
even on the floor of parliament, in a hue and cry against
"American ambition and cruelty ;" and in affecting to
credit the coarse inventions of Englishmen who have
either visited us for the express purpose of manufacturing
libels, or betaken themselves to this expedient on their
return home, as a profitable speculation. It is enough,
that the desire of emigrating to the United States should
spread among the population pf England, in an extent
deemed invidious, or hurtful ; that the territorial security
ofthe Americans on one side should appear about being
rendered complete, with some possible danger to the
stability of the British empire in the West Indies, to
throw the British politicians of every rank, and denomi
nation, into paroxysms of despite and jealousy, and to en
list them in a common scheme of misrepresentation
which may inspire the British farmer and artisan with a
horror of republican America, and the nations of the
world with a distrust of the spirit of her government.
We cannot defeat their purpose as far as their country-

Vlll PREFACE.

men are concerned : but we may guard the better against
the effects ofthe hatred and contempt which they labour
to inculcate, by acquainting ourselves thoroughly with
the true nature and scope of their designs. If we have, as
I verily believe, a band of implacable and indefatigable
foes, in those who direct the public affairs, and mould the
public mind, of Great Britain, we should be fully alive to
the fact, and alert in using the means in our power, of
restraining the effusions of their malice. National an
tipathies are to be deprecated in themselves ; to excite
them wantonly, is an offence against humanity and re
ligion ; but we are not censurable, if they are produced
incidentally, by the course which self-defence may re
quire of us to pursue. It is the English writer who be
comes doubly culpable, if his pertinacity in defaming the
United States, be such as to leave to the American,
whose right it is to check this as well as every other
form of hostility, no resource for the purpose, but the
exhibition of what is odious and despicable in the charac
ter, conduct, and composition of the British nation.
There is much truth in the old maxim of the schools —
retorquere non est respondere : to retort is not to reply.
The present case forms an exception, however ; for the
British writers and orators never threw out their re
proaches against the United States, without putting-
Great Britain in glorious contrast ; it is the excellence,
the purity, and the liberty, and the comfort, which they
see at home, that, they would fain have us believe, quicken
their sensibility, and embitter the expression of their
hate, to the evils and abuses abounding on this side the
water. Thus, to expose their real spirit and aims, and
to fortify the confidence in our relative merit, necessary
to us in this struggle with systematic detraction, we are
compelled to investigate and set forth the misery and
turpitude by which they are surrounded, and the wrongs
and insults of which we have had constantly to complain.
This is not mere recrimination ; it is resistance to de
grading comparisons and injurious pretensions ; we tear
off one of the many disguises which our enemies assume

PREFACE. IX
to facilitate their project of bringing us into disrepute
with mankind.
It is, certainly, wretched sophistry to argue, as they
do, from single instances of disorder and vice ; and
neither fair nor charitable to display only what is bad in
a mixed system, in which the good may greatly predo
minate. We' would not be entitled to follow this exam
ple, but for the purpose of repressing it, by shewing how
severely Great Britain may suffer in her turn from its
adoption elsewhere. Upon the principles of the logic
which she has used against the United States, she might
be proved to be the most miserable and wicked nation
that has ever existed. The publicity which she gives to all
her domestic transactions and circumstances; the discus
sion which her foreign policy and administration undergo,
in and out of parliament, lay bare all her vulnerable points.
Never before was such a mass of materials prepared for
the satirist of national vices and distempers, as is to be
found in the debates and reports of her legislature, and in
the innumerable chronicles of her internal history, which,
as we there have it, is but a tissue of the grossest enor
mities and the most cruel distresses.
In endeavouring to establish her invariable unkindness
and injustice to this country, and her liability to reproach
in an indefinite degree beyond ourselves, on the grounds
of disparagement whichshe is never weary of repeating,
it is not to American writers and travellers, toobscureand
vulgar witnesses, labouringunderthesuspicion of national
prejudice, personal pique, or gross venality, that I shall
have recourse ; but to British authorities of the highest
standard ; to British historians and legislators, and even
to the very journals, which serve as the spiracles, through
which the torrents of venom are incessantly spouted
against the American people. Our accusers in Great Bri
tain have built their charges upon English testimony, and
that the least respectable of its kind. I shall be found, in
impeaching her in return, to use not suspicious foreign,
but, in almost every instance, unquestionable British
statements; not the allegations of General Pillet — quite as
Vol. I.— B*

PREFACE.

trustworthy as those of the Jasons and Fearons—but
the records of Parliament and the circles of the British
empire. Here, it cannot escape the reader, how much
more dignified and warrantable the retaliation, than the
attack ; and that, in repelling aggression with evidence
derived from these sources, we do not descend to the level
of those who bespatter us with ordure amassed by natural
or hired scavengers of their own blood and temper.
" The libels of the present day," said Mr. Burke, in
his retort upon the Duke of Bedford, "are just ofthe
same stuff as the libels of the past. But they derive an
importance from the rank of the persons from whom
they come, and the gravity of the place where they are
uttered. In some way or other they ought to be noticed."
We think and reason thus, in respect to the calumnies
with which we have been lately assailed in Great Britain.
All that is accumulated, for instance, in the Edinburgh
and Quarterly Reviews, in the articles which form the
immediate provocation upon which I now write, is an old
compost of vile ingredients and impure leven, in itself
unfit to be handled, and much more unfit to be imitated.
Those journals, however, exert an unrivalled influence
over the British public ; they are not without considerable
authority on the continent of Europe, where they are
widely circulated ; they have credit and sway with num
bers of readers, even in the United States : in the cata
logue of their authors and special patrons we find men of
eminence, both in letters and politics ; some who have a
material share in the public councils of their country,
and whose writings, on other subjects than the affairs of
America, possess a degree of excellence, which invests
the pamphlets in question with a general character of
great weight and value.
2. I will pass from the instance of these Reviews to
another, worthy of particular observation, on many ac
counts ; in which also, the merest, most hacknied ribaldry
respecting America, is rendered important and memora-

PR S FACF. XI
ble by " the rank of the persons from whom it came, and
the gravity ofthe place where it was uttered."
Westminster school is one of the principal semina
ries of classical education, for the sons of the British
nobility and gentry : for those who are destined, either
by birthright or custom, to become her legislators and
rulers ; to wield the national power, and give the tone to
national sentiment. It has been long the practice, in this
institution, to exhibit annually a Latin play, of which the
characters are filled by the senior students, about to be
translated to one ofthe great universities. The perform
ance is attended by a crowd of great personages — by mi
nisters of state, dignitaries of the church, and patrician
families ; and all the eclat is given to the occasion of
which we can suppose it susceptible. A Latin prologue
and epilogue, serving as specimens of scholarship, usually
accompany the play. In an exhibition ofthe kind, which
took place about the conclusion of our late war with Great
Britain, the subject chosen for the epilogue was emigra
tion to the United States. It was treated in the form of a
colloquy between a person preparing to embark, and a
patriotic Englishman attempting to dissuade him from the
adventure. Nothing can exceed the terseness of the lati-
nity, but the virulence of the abuse lavished upon America,
in this piece. Whatever the writings of the British tra
vellers could furnish, that was most injurious, and insult
ing to the American people, is here elaborately condensed,
and imbued with a new and more active venom. The
following is a translation of part of this classical lampoon .
" DAVUS TO GETA.
" Whither do you propose to fly? Get. To Hesperia (America).
— Da. What ! to that country which is beyond the ocean ; a coun
try barbarous in itself and inhabited by Barbarians! In that coun
try Geta, Astrtea is not a virgin, but a virago : sometimes, as report
goes, she is a drunkard, often a pugilist ; sometimes even a thief.
Nor is it easy to say whether the tenor of their manners is more to
be admired for simplicity or elegance: a negro wench, as we are
told, waits on her master at table in native nudity ; and a beau will
strip himself to the waist, that he may dance unincumbered, and
with more agility. Do you love your glass, every hqur bring* witfc

Xll PREFACE.
it a fresh bumper. There you have the gum-tickler, the phlegm-
cutter, the gall-breaker, the antifogmatic. No man is a slave there,
for negroes are not considered as of the human species in America.
Every man thinks what he pleases, and does what he pleases. The
young men spurn the restraint of laws and of manners : his own
inclination is there every man's sufficient diploma. Bridewell and
the stews supply them wilh senators, and their respectable chief jus
tice is a worthless scoundrel. Does a senatorial orator dexterously
aim to convince his antagonist ? he spits plentifully in his face ;
and that this species of rhetoric may be more efficacious, tobacco
furnishes an abundance of saliva for the purpose. The highest
praise cf a merchant is his skill in lying. Then their amusements !
to gouge out an eye with the thumb, to skin the forehead, to bite
off the nose, and to kill a man, is an admirable joke. Believe me
Geta, even if the black vessel of transportation you embark iu
should bear you safely to this elysium of yours, the very passa»e
would exhaust all your funds, and your whole life would be held in
pledge, never to be redeemed : your destiny at last would be to
feed the rats of a prison. But come, think better of this scheme
while you have it in your power. Let the ruined man, the impious
wretch, the outlaw, praise America ; if you are yet in your senses, Geta
stay at home."
The whole of the dialogue may be read in the Port
Folio, into which it was copied in the year 1816, from
the English Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1815, to
which it was committed thus for circulation, three months
after the signature of the treaty of peace and amity be
tween Great Britain and the United States. The able
writer, who introduced it into the American journal, at
taches to it a commentary which equally deserves to be
read entire, and of which I adopt the following passages
as speaking what is due from me to the occasion.
" Thus it is, that at an age when impressions are apt to take the
strongest hold of the mind,— with the associations most calculate
to give vividness and effect to the sentiments uttered— at the direr
tion and under the superintendence of the reverend preceptors m
the first school of class.cal education that Great Britain can boast-
in the presence, and with the sanction of persons deemed highly
respectable for rank, learning, character, and station-the youn-
sons of ¦ thenobihty arid gentry of England are taught to pronounce
applaud, and give effect to, the most glaring and disgusting f™se'-
hooos, and the most virulent and vulgar abuse against thii country and
its inhabitants universally. J

PREFACE. Xlll
'* There is nothing in (he invectives of the Quarterly Review
more abusive and flagitious than this epilogue. I am no advocate
for keeping up national animosity, but 1 do not approve of the doc
trine of non-resistance ; nor do I feel the obligation upon Ameri
cans of submitting tamely to the insult, when the persons who have
descended to these aspersions are themselves liable to the retort.
Had this attack been the hasty effusion of a political partizan, or
the witty scurrility of a writer whose sarcastic talent furnishes his
daily bread, or had we been subjected even to the mistaken correc
tion of a well-meaning observer, it might have been passed over ;
but this, the studied deliberate composition of deep-rooted enmity,
deserves no quarter. One style of reply to impartial and friendly
reprehension, another to the sarcastic rancour of a ' proud and in
sulting foe.'
" It may be, as it seems to be, the intention in Great Britain, to
educate tlieir youth in sentiments of the most sarcastic and rancor
ous hostility towards America ; and I dare say the attempt will suc
ceed ; and I dare aver also, that it will be met, as it naturally must,
by corresponding feelings on this side the water."
3. We were not altogether ignorant, in the United
States, that much of the favour shown to us, since the
commencement of the present century, by the whig party
in parliament, and their connexions out of doors, arose
from the relation of a minority or opposition, in which
they stood in the British government. Yet we believed,
that there was enough of real cordiality in their feelings,
and of elevation in their sentiments, to prevent them, at
all times, from countenancing gross misrepresentations of
our condition and character, and raising groundless cla
mours against our political transactions and views ; from
setting us in a false or invidious light, merely to embarrass
and discredit the ministry, or to promote some domestic
ends, such as those of checking emigration, and counter
acting extravagant plans of parliamentary reform. An
attentive observation of the language concerning our af
fairs, held of late by the whig journals and the par
liamentary opposition, has convinced me that we were
deceived in supposing they had not always acted, in rela
tion to this country, altogether from party feelings and
aims, and would not readily sacrifice justice and truth,
where it was concerned, to selfish considerations.
There is but one interpretation to be put upon the

XIV PREFACB.
course they have taken, in regard to the execution of
Ambrister and Arbuthnot, and the agreement between
Spain and the United States for the transfer of the Flo-
ridas. It has been a system of exaggeration, not to say
slander, designed to bring the ministry under the suspi
cion of pusillanimity and supineness, and to recommend
the assailants to the nation as the truer Britons ; the more
spirited assertors and anxious guardians of her honour
and interests. This accomplished, it was immaterial what
feuds and ruinous strife, and what injustice to the United
States, might follow, if their clamours raised a ferment
among the British people, and thus forced the ministry
to pursue to extremity, an unattainable redress, and frus
trate a fair and equitable arrangement. Remark the ar
tificial tone and hyperbolical representation, so well,
though not primarily calculated to produce discord and
aversion between the two nations, — of leading members
ofthe minority in both houses of parliament.
Mr. Tierney (House of Commons, May 19th, 1819).
" There was one foreign power to which he must direct the attention
of the house, with the same view as he had mentioned France — be
meant America ; she was out of the pale of confederation ; with her
we had a separate treaty of peace ; towards her we had long cast an eye
qf jealousy, and it well became us to be prepared for the worst. Let the
house consider only what had happened in the last three months. Two
British subjects had been executed hy an American commander. There
might be circumstances warranting his conduct, and justifying, accord
ing to the law of nations, the approbation which his government had
expressed : but he (Mr. Tierney) was old enough to remember the time
when, had two British subjects been executed by a foreign state in time
of peace, this country would not have put up with it quite so tamely.
He knew the subject was a sore one, and he did not wish to
press it farther.
" While the noble lord opposite was at Congress, two German
Princes could not have exchanged a few meadows without important
expresses being despatched to him. But America owned no Con
gress ; because she was a long way off, ministers seemed to think
that danger could not be near, and she was accordingly allowed to
take up a position on a vast continent, as injurious as possible to the
colonial returns of this country, putting them in imminent and unde
niable jeopardy.
" Let the house and the country reflect then, if it was not the

PREFACE. XV
duty of the government to do something to prepare the empire for pos
sible mischiefs that might arise even from France and America."
Sir Robert Wilson (June 4th, 1819). — "America aspired too much
after her own aggrandizement. She had sent commissioners to South
America to inspire hope and energy there. She had established a
strong force in Texas, the province next to Mexico. America would
next demand Cuba."
Mr. M'Donald (4th June, 1819) — " Such an aggrandizement of a
powerful rival, as the acquisition of Florida, ought not to be passed over
without a strict enquiry into the cause of this most extraordinary and
unprecedented proceeding, &c."
And the Marquis of Lansdowne (in the House of Lords, May 11th,
1819)— *•* Of all the events that could happen at this time, there was not
one which so deeply affected the commercial interests of Great Bri
tain as the cession of the Floridas to the United States. The pos
session of those provinces would enable the Americans to annihilate
the British trade in the West India seas ; and give them an oppor
tunity of connecting themselves with the black governments there
in a manner that might prove essentially injurious to our interests.
The cession should have been guarded against at the Congress of
Vienna. No one at Vienna conceived it necessary to make any
provision that should have the effect of preventing the aggrandize
ment of the United States. Hitherto there was a balance on which
this country used to rely for her security, and it was an essential
part of this balance to prevent the Floridas from being ceded to the
United States. The conduct of General Jackson, in the execution
of Ambrister and Arbuthnot, was unparalleled in the history qf ci
vilized nations. If at the time when Copenhagen was taken by
the British troops, Lord Cathcart, who then commanded them,
found that several persons belonging to neutral countries had been
engaged in the defence of the place, and ordered them to be exe
cuted, on pretence that they had no right to take up arms against
Great Britain, would not that act have been a gross violation of the
laws of nations."*
It may be doubted whether any measures which could
have been taken at the Congress of Vienna to guard
against the severance of Florida from Spain, would have
proved effectual : but the idea of a concurrence of the
members of that Congress in precautions against the
aggrandizement of the United States, for the security of
* The language of the ministerial journals,' concerning General Jackson,
bordered on the infuriate. Thus we read in the London Courier of March 25,
1819. " General Jackson has the most villainous look ever beheld ; he is
never seen to smile. The hero is worthy ofthe people, and the people ofthe Aero."

xvi PREFACE.
Great Britain, has something of the marvellous, besides
implying an extraordinary sort of equity. We had not
been called on to explain how our security might be
affected by her aggrandizement in the West Indies ; or
how the balance on which we might have relied, was de
stroyed by " the positions" she had "taken up," all over
the world : positions commanding every sea of commer
cial importance ; Heligoland, Malta, in addition to Gib
raltar, the Isle of France, the Island of Ceylon, the Prince
of Wales' Island, New South Wales, the Cape of Good
Hope. " Our noble station at the Cape of Good Hope,"
says a London paper, " commands the commerce of
the globe : it is the natural key to India, ihe bridle qf
America, the surface which we might people with hardy
Englishmen is upwards of 100,000 square miles. Make ¦
the Cape a free port for the nations of Europe, and we
banish North America from the Indian seas?, The
powers of the Continent may smile when they find Great
Britain, while herself adding constantly new kingdoms to
her dominions in the East, and grasping at every mari
time station of consequence in the four quarters of the
globe, exclaiming against American ambition and ag
grandizement, because the United States had acquired
a contiguous province, from which, if in foreign hands,
they must be subject to the severest annoyance, by fan-
negotiation, and with the relinquishment of large pecu
niary claims, and well founded pretensions to territory of
much greater extent and intrinsic value.
The American government and people are as little
likely " to demand the Island of Cuba," as they are " to
connect themselves with the black governments of the
West Indies." They want no slave islands ; and to insti
gate the blacks of Hay ti to foment and protect insurrec
tion in the British islands (for this must be meant by the
Marquis of Lansdowne) is an atrocity of which they must
ever be incapable, though Great Britain, in her next war
with us, should repeat the example which she has here
tofore given, of exciting the negroes of the southern
states to supplant and butcher their masters. The case

PREFACE. XV11
which the British Peer selected to illustrate the justness
of his sentence upon General Jackson, is every way an
unfortunate one for the purpose. His Lordship and all
his colleagues of the opposition had denounced the attack
upon Copenhagen as a heinous aggression ; to be pa
ralleled in treachery and outrage, only by Bonaparte's
invasion of Spain. What parity of reason, then, in the
supposed case of Lord Cathcavt putting to death the
strangers whom he might have found assisting in the de
fence of the capital of a civilized power, a member of the
European christian commonwealth, so unexpectedly and
iniquitously attacked, and that of the American general
pursuing a savage horde into an adjacent territory, from
which it had issued to desolate the American frontier,
and there executiug two European adventurers, proved
to be its instigators and accomplices ? As the Danes
did not follow the practice of massacreing their pri
soners, the strangers who might have identified them
selves with them, would not, when seized, have been
subject to the punishment of death by retaliation, as
were the allies of the Seminoles, even under the Euro
pean law of nations. If the custom of Europe be deter
minative of that law in apy particular, it may be confi
dently invoked in favour of the execution of Arbuthnot
and Ambrister, on the supposition that they were actually
leagued with the Indians, as the British ministry have ad
mitted ; for, during the great wars of the Germans and
Poles against the Turks, death was the immediate lot
of the European christian found acting on the side of
the infidels. So there has never been the least hesita
tion in the Mediterranean waters and territories, about
despatching at once the renegade, no matter of what
christian country, taken in arms on board a Barbary cor
sair, or in a predatory descent upon the coast.
I find it difficult to reconcile the full knowledge which
the Marquis of Lansdowne must possess of the history of
the British empire in India, and in Ireland, with his de^-
claration, "that the conduct ofthe American general was
unparalleled in the history of civilized nations." This de-
Vo&. i— C*

Xviii PREFACE.
claration, I deem the more remarkable, as it was only
two months before (March 3, 1819), that, on the occasion
of the vote of thanks moved to Lord Hastings and the
British Generals in India, the Marquis of Lansdowne
made, in the House of Lords, the following statement in
cluding, as will be seen, a case of at least as criminal an
aspect as that of the American General.
The Marquis of Lansdowne said : "He felt it his duty to observe,
that there appeared on the face of the papers before their Lord
ships, a transaction which could not be passed over m silence— a
transaction which must be made the subject of some expression ot
censure, if thanks were to be generally voted to the whole army oi
India The transaction to which he alluded, was the execution oi
the Killedar of Ihe fort of Talneir. It appeared, that after a vigor
ous resistance made by the fort, this commander had come out and
surrendered. The garri:on left in the fort, however, resisted, ine
fort was then attacked by the British army and taken ; and the
whole of the garrison was put to the sword. However much ne
might regret such a proceeding, he did not make it the subject ot
complaint. Perhaps, under the circumstances of the case, it was
unavoidable ; but what must be their Lordship's opinion of the
transaction that followed. The Killedar, who had remained in the
possession of the British commander, was deliberately put to death.
It was impossible to leave this horrible circumstance out of view in
any vote of thanks which their Lordships should give. The des
patch of Sir Thomas Hislop states, that whether the Killedar was
accessory to the treachery of the garrison or not, he was justly
punished with death on account of his rebellion in the first instance.
There was no ground for concluding that this unfortunate com
mander had any concert with the garrison in their treachery ; but,
according to every rule of European war, some proof of that con
cert ought to have been exhibited, before the right of punishing
him was assumed. As to the assertion, that he was guilty of re
bellion in holding out ¦after his master had submitted and conclud
ed a treaty of peace, that was an offence over which a British autho
rity could have no legal cognizance. He was accountable for his
rebellion to Holkar only. But how was he to know that he was in
rebellion 1 How was he apprised of the conclusion of the treaty 1
He had no information of it but through the report of the British
army. Would their LoviUIiips say, that upon information received
from an enemy, the commander of a fortress was bound to surren
der, or even to discontinue hostilities, and that he was liable to the
punishment of death if he refused ? If, indeed, he had been a party
to the treachery of the garrison, he might have been, for that act,
.liable to punishment, after au inquiry before a regular military trir

PREFACE. XIX
bunal ; but with the other charge of rebellion the British commander
could have nothing to do."
I am particularly struck with another example of dis-
ingeniousness and exaggeration on the part of our friends
of tha opposition, which i have now before me in a
speech of Earl Grey, at the Newcastle Fox dinner of
the 31st of December, 1818. This nobleman stands,
with Lord Grenville, at the head ofthe Old Whigs; he
was trained by the side of Fox, and deserved to be called
the Diomedes of the band who waged so powerful a war
in the House of Commons under that leader. His zeal
for parliamentary reform even surpassed that of his col
leagues; but on his ascension to the House of Lords, his
feelings and views on this subject underwent a material
change, although he still continued inseparable in other
questions from his first associations ; and, in his American
politics, ranked with the most strenuous antagonists of
the ministerial system. As the imagination of a large
proportion of the British politicians has been particularly
affected with the extensive emigrations, that of his lord
ship is disturbed, in an especial manner, with the cry for
universal suffrage and annual parliaments; and he proba
bly feels the more anxious to discredit these innovations,
from having himself taken the lead in the House of Com
mons in arraigning the constitution of the British Legisla
ture. The example of America, as to the point of re
presentation, seemed naturally tointerfere with his object,
and was therefore to be invalidated, not merely by being
shown to have no application to the circumstances of
Great Britain, but by being exhibited as of a most malig
nant and revolting character in itself. To this design I
ascribe the use which he made, on the occasion above-
mentioned, of Fearon's " Sketches of America," and the
character which he gave of the book and its author. I
shall make the case better understood by transcribing
that portion ofthe speech to which I allude, before I give,
as I intend, some glimpses of the true light in which the
Sketches are to be viewed, and must have been viewed,

XX PREFACE.
in fact, by the noble Earl. After drawing a frightful
picture ofthe state of England, he proceeded thus:
c* But there is even a more dreadful instancethan ours to be found in
the history of a country whose popular constitution must furnish matter
of much interesting 'observation to every lover of freedom. The con
stitution of America is free and popular in the largest sense. Now,
what is the case in America 1 A gentleman was deputed by thirty-nine
families, who had been driven by the necessities of the times to think of
emigration — a melancholy proof of our present condition. On his re
port they were to depend, for the spirit of the country, and the induce
ments it might hold out. The gentleman's name is Fearon. He has
published the report whicli he made to these persons, and his book is
full of ihe most valuable information, and is distinguished by the marks
not only qf an inquiring, observing, and intelligent mind, but of the
greatest fairness and impartiality. What does Mr. Fearon say of the
operation of their laws and of this boasted constitution?''
His lordship then adduced, as decisive revelation,
what Fearon had written concerning the process of elec
tion and the distribution of offices in America ; and he
concludes in these words — " This is Mr. Fearon's state
ment, and I should observe to you, that he is by no
means a willing witness on the subject. Why do I re
peat these thing ? Is it that I may depreciate the value
of popular rights in your estimation ? Far from it; I
wish merely to show yon that, under a system which
may appear more perfect, similar, or even greater abuses,
may still exist than in England."
We must conclude that the orator had actually read
the work on which and its author, he pronounced so
lofty a panegyric ; which he thus held out to the world
as the source of the most authentic information concern
ing American affairs. He has, in fact, by the latitude
and emphasis of his recommendation, become the spon
sor of the whole. It is a serious accountability ; and I
must confess that I am surprised at the boldness of the
proceeding. In the first place, as to the point of our elections and
the distribution of public trusts, Fearon's allegations are
confined to the affairs of two states only, New York and
Pennsylvania, and the choice of one federal officer, the

PREFACE. XXI
chief magistrate. It happens that those are precisely
and notoriously the parts of the union, in which the game
of state politics, a comparatively insignificant one, bears
the worst character and appearance. In them there is
more perhaps, of what, as long as human nature is not
perfect with us, must exist in a certain measure, in the
rest, — I mean paltry intrigue for petty offices, and in
terested effort to influence votes. Cases of some enor
mity may occur in the first line of abuse, and suffrages
be sometimes given from mere party subserviency ; but
it is as absurd to compare what happens here in these re
spects, with what prevails in England, as it would be to
compare the amount and description of the mendicity
in our streets, or of the criminal delinquency on our ca-
landers, with those of which we read in Colquhoun's
Treatises and the late Parliamentary Reports.
Whoever talks of a degree of bribery and corruption,
and undue influence in America, like that of the neigh
bourhood of the treasury of London, and the theatres of
English suffrage, whether the shires or boroughs, deals
in the most extravagant hyperbole. Fearon only repeats
on this subject, what he pretends to have heard from
two persons of his own country, Mr. Cobbett and Mr.
Hulme, both of whom, be it remarked, peremptorily
disclaim the language which he imputes to them, and
accuse him of an impudent imposture. He might, per
haps, have read it in some of the wild declamations
which are published among us during the heat of a con
tested election, and from the exaggerating spirit of
party recrimination. But nothing that has ever hap
pened in this country, furnishes the least foundation for
asserting broadly, that votes and places are bought and
sold. Throughout the states, the right of suffrage is
exercised, in general, with independence and integrity,
by freeholders jealous of their prerogative, strangers to
the want and very idea of a largess, and too proud to
submit to any dictation. The elections in New Eng
land, for instance, are marked by a strictness of deco
rum, probity of spirit, and universal intelligence of

Xxii PREFACE.
action, such, as an European accustomed to view the
people every where as populace, would not be capable of
imagining.* ,
On this subject, moreover, it is not what may be done
or said in some of the large cities on the Atlantic coast
that furnishes a test of the practice among the mass of
this nation.
With respect to disorder and corruption in the system
of voting and appointing to office, under the generel go
vernment, the oracle of Lord Grey says no more, from
himself, than that " he became acquainted with facts in
Washington which no man could have induced him to
believe without personal observation." With more than
common discretion, he abstains from telling what those
facts are, but proceeds to give an account of what he
there heard respecting the " appointment" of the Pre
sident by the caucus of Congress, which he represents,
indeed, as a mandate issued to the electors in the different
states, and never disobeyed. But Lord Grey could not
have been so ignorant of the letter and whole analogy of
our institutions, as to have understood this to be more, in
form or fact, than a recommendation from a certain num
ber of Members of Congress assembled extra-officially,
to the people at large, to vote for a particular individual
as their chief magistrate. The proceeding is, certainly,
* " I have lived long in New England,'' said Dr. Dwight, the late dis
tinguished President of Yate College, " and have never yet known a single
shilling given to purchase a vote." This is the testimony of one than whom
no person could have had better opportunities of knowledge. He describes
thus the manner of a New England election.
" In New England, on the morning of an election day, the electors as
semble either in a church or a town-house, in the centre of the township, of
which they are inhabitants.
" The business ofthe day is sometimes introduced by a sermon, and very
often by public prayer. A moderator is chosen: the votes are given in with
strict decency ; without a single debale ; without noise, or disorder, or
drink; and with not a little of the sobriety seen in religious assemblies. —
The meeting is then dissolved ; the inhabitants return quietly to their homes,
and have neither battles nor disputes. I do not believe that a single woman,
bound or free, ever appeared at an election in New England since the coloni
zation of the country. It would be as much as her character was worth."
Reply to the Quarterly Reviewers, 1315.

PREFACE. XX111
an irregularity, and unsafe as a precedent ; yet, so far, it
cannot be said, to have been of practical injury, or of any
real significance. I believe it is not doubted by any one,
but that the personages who have been elected in succes
sion to the office of President, and particularly the one
who now fills it, would have succeeded equally with the
people, without the forward counsel of such an assembly ;
and, it seems to me, no less certain, that it is not in the
power of any cabal of whatever composition, to impose
any man upon the people as their chief magistrate ; to
effect the adoption of one to whom the preference would
not be given spontaneously.*
On the whole, all that is found in Fearon's book, touch
ing these matters, does not, when fairly examined, impli
cate in general, " the laws and boasted constitution" of
America ; for, there is nothing that calls in question the
conformity of the representation in Congress, with the
theory of those laws and that constitution. The " case in
America" admitted of application to the project of par
liamentary reform in England, only so far as it could be
shewn, that the right of suffrage was not excercised
honestly and independently in the election of Congress :
that this body was not free from corrupt dealings towards
the people and within itself; and did not fully and fairly
represent the nation. No accusations of the kind are
hazarded by Fearon, and I am sure that whosoever
might utter, would find it impossible to sustain them, in
the opinion of impartial minds.
It may be worth while to obtain an idea of the general
doctrines concerning this country, of the book to which
Earl Grey has so formally put his authoritative seal. I
* " We hnow," say the Edinburgh Reviewers, in their number for De
cember, 1818, (article on Universal Suffrage) " that the leaders of the de
mocratic party, who now predominate in their caucus or committee at
Washington, do, in effect, nominate to all the important offices in North
America.'' It is inconceivable how such an assertion as this could have
been risqued in a publication likely to find its way into the United States.
I scarcely need add that no one in this country ever before heard of a stand
ing committee of the kind; and that no such nomination takes place, be
yond the occasional recommendation to the President, by Members of Con
gress, or others, in their individual capacity, of persons who are soliciting
offices, or on whom it is thought desirable that they should be conferred.

XXIV PREFACE.
take at random, by way of specimen of that " most
valuable information with which it is full," the following
passages. " No species of correction is allowed in the American schools; chil
dren even at home are perfectly independent, (p. 39.) A cold uni
form bigotry seems to pervade all religious sects, (p. 48.) Cleanliness
is scarcely known on this side the Atlantic, (p. 00.) The tradesmen
here (Philadelphia) are less intelligent than men following the like oc
cupations in England, (p. 161.) The Americans are most remaikable for
complete and general coldness ofcharacferand disposition; a cold-blooded
callousness of disposition, (p. 166.) Whatever degree of religious intel
ligence exists is confined to the clergy, (p. 167.) The colour of the
young females of Philadelphia is produced by art; the junior branches
ofthe Society of Friends there, are not at all deficient in the practice of
rougeing. (p. 168.) The dirk is the inseperable companion of all
classes in the state of Illinois, (p. 262.) The United States are cursed
with a population undeserving of their exuberant soil and free govern
ment, (p. 273.) The American lawyers are at least thirty-three and a
third per cent, lower than their brethren in England, (p. 317.) The
Americans, neglecting to encourage any pursuits, either individually or
collectively, which may be called mental, they appear, us a nation, to
have sunk into habits of indolence and indiffere nee: they are neither
lively in their tempers nor generous in tlieir dispositions, &c* (p. 362.)
We do not meet in America with even an approach to simplicity and
honesty of mind. (p. 363.) The nation at large dislike England, and
yet, both individually and collectively, would be offended, should a
bint be expressed that they were of Irish or of Dutch, and not of Eng
lish descent, (p. 368.) No people are so vain as the Americans ; their
self-estimation and cool-headed bombast, when speaking of themselves
or of their country, are quite ludicrous, (p. 368.) Every man in
America thinks he has arrived at perfection, (p. 368.) Every American
considers that it is in.possible for a foreigner to teach him any thing,
and that his head contains a perfect encyclopaedia, (p. 369.) A non-
intercourse act seems to have passed against the sciences, morals, and
literature of America, (p. 371.) The sexes seemed ranked as distinct
races of beings, between whom social converse is rarely to be held. A
universal neglect of either mental or domestic knowledge appears to
exist among the females here, as compared with those of England.
(p. 377.) Such is the habitual indolence of the American people and
their indifference with regard to public affairs, that occurrences of first
rate importance are known bat by few individuals, (p 385) There
would appear to be placed in the very stamina of the people a coldness
a selfishness, and a spirit of conceit, which form strong barriers against
improvement." (p. 391.) b S01"81.

• So Lieutenant Hall in his book of Travels in America, saVs " The
i^n'^r^"^ St'"OBS and si,ent; th™ ^rits are se dom, le-
lnaot!cha^Siy'taC'tUrn,ty' ^ tra'iS WMch We did aot -P-'t "eSt

PREFACE. XXV
Every particular assertion in this medley is in the
nature of antiphrasis ; and the general allegations are
slanderous. The extravagance of several of them be
trays not only a libellous disposition, but an utter want
of judgment in the writer. I will illustrate further "that
fairness and impartiality," which Earl Grey ascribes
to him in the superlative degree. He states (p. 46,)
that in New York allthe churches (forty-five in number)
are well filled on the Sunday. The fact being rather
creditable to that community, it was necessary to give it
another direction ; and this is done by the following ar
bitrary, ridiculous, and malevolent interpretation.—
" The great proportion of attendants at any particular
church appear to select it, either because they are ac
quainted with the preacher, or that it is frequented by
fashionable company, or their great grand-mother went
there before the revolution, or because their interests will
be promoted by so doing." We are not told the particular
indication or circumstance by which this appeared- Where-
ever the religious worship and spirit of this country are
brought into view, it is in the same strain that they are
celebrated ; and ignorance of the scriptures is perpetually
charged upon the whole body of a people by whom the
Bible is, doubtless, more generally possessed and read, in
family, than by any other on earth.*
Our traveller, when he cannot venture to affirm an
opprobrious fact, as of his own knowledge, has recourse
to this form of speech. " I have reason to believe"-— a
convenient mode of calumniating, when, as uniformly
happens with him, the reason is not assigned. Thus,
he says (p. 171,) in relation to Philadelphia, — a city as
remarkable for domestic neatness, order, morality, and
happiness as any which has ever existed, — "Although
the eyes and ears of a stranger are not insulted, in the

* It is used in all the schools in the interior, "and these rcceivo nearly
every native white.
Vol. I.— D*

XXvi PREFACE.
openness of noonday, with evidence of hardened pro
fligacy, I have, nevertheless, reason to believe in its
existence to a very great extent. The habits of the
people are marked by caution and secrecy. There is here
a lamentable want of cleanliness, in such matters as
are removed from the public eye ; an ignorance of order
and neatness in domestic life." Again, when in Ken
tucky, " I have not seen the practice of gouging occur,
though I have good reason to believe in its existence ;"
and when at New Orleans, " At a tavern opposite, I
witnessed a personal conflict, in which I suppose one
of the parties was dirked." Admirably " fair and im
partial !"
According to this " inquiring, observing, and intel
ligent gentleman?' (p. 46, 573,) "conversation in Ame
rican society, that even of the ladies, turns entirely
upon the capture of the Gueriere, and the battle of
New Orleans ; the price of flour and cotton, and the
bad conduct and inferior nature of ' niggars? " He dia
logues much as he goes along, and all his American in.-
terlocutors, of whatever degree, talk in the same cant
phrases ofthe most vulgar cacophony. Their language,
on all occasions, is provincial and plebeian. This
circumstance alone might have excited in the mind of
Lord Grey a distrust of his gentleman's candour, or
of the cast of his associations, both in this country
and at home. The dramatic style of narrative, whe
ther in an historian or traveller, is, at best, open to sus
picion. Mr. Fearon insists earnestly upon " the jealousy and
dislike of foreigners rooted in the breasts of all the native
Americans." He returns often to this topic, and will
have it that, "throughout the states, there is a strong line
of distinction drawn between citizens of native and of
foreign birth?1 (p. 347.) The ample portion which is en
joyed by persons of the last description, of whatever
means of comfort, power, distinction this country affords ;
the manner in which we are consubstantiated and evened
throughout the body politic and social, render it unneces-

PREFACE. XXVll
sary for me to deny the absurd allegation ; buti mention
it, and the earnestness with which it is made, as striking
particulars ofthe evidence which the sketches themselves
offered to the British earl, of their being mainly designed
Jto discourage emigration to the United States. The dis
tinct, elaborate attempt which is made in them, to refute
and disgrace the publications of Mr. Birbeck, is addi
tional proof of this drift, which we can hardly believe
could have escaped the observation of his lordship, though
we should admit that he overlooked the sweeping calum
nies and sinistrous interpretations with which the work
abounds, and the constant solicitude of the author to
qualify what favourable testimony he is compelled to bear,
in such a way as to defeat its allurement.
But, it is not only of flippancy and rancour that we
could convict this traveller, throughout: in several in
stances he might be shown to be guilty of deliberate,
circumstantial falsehood. I will select one which may
represent his whole book, and in which the Quarterly
Review is implicated. In his report from Philadelphia,
dated October 12, 1817, he writes thus : —
" Seeing the following advertisement in the newspapers, put in by
the captain and owners of the vessel referred to, I visited the ship, in
company with a bootmaker of this city.
< THE PASSENGERS
* On board the brig Bubona, from Amsterdam, and who are willing
' to engage themselves for a limited time, to defray the expenses of their
' passage, consist of, &c. Apply on board of the Bubona, opposite
' Callowhill-street, in the river Delaware, or to W. Odlin & Co.
' No. 38, South Wharves.'
" As we ascended the side of this hulk, a most revolting scene of
want and misery presented itself. The eye involuntarily turned for
some relief from the horrible picture of human suffering, which this
living sepulchre afforded. Mr.  enquired if there were
any shoemakers on board. Ihe captain advanced ; his appearance be-
bespoke his office ; he is an American, tall, determined, and with an
eye that flashes with Algerine cruelty. He called in the Dutch lan
guage for shoemakers, and never can I forget the scene that followed.
The poor fellows came running up with unspeakable delight, no doubt
anticipating a relief from their loathsome dungeon. Their clothes, if

XXVIII PREFACE.
rags deserve that denomination, actually perfumed the air. Some were
without shirts, others had this article of dress, but of a quality as
coarse as the worst packing cloth. I enquired of several if they could
speak English. They smiled, and gabbled, ' No Engly, no Eugly,—
one Engly talk ship.'" The deck was filthy. The cooking, washing,
and necessary department, were close together. Such is the mer
cenary barbarity of the Americans who are engaged in this trade, that
they crammed into one of those vessels 500 passengers, 80 of whom died
on the passage.
This account is quoted with evident satisfaction, in the
Quarterly Review, for May, 1819, and the reviewer adds
from himself — " The infamous traffic is confined, ex
clusively, to American vessels."
I have thought it worth while to ascertain the facts of
the case, and they are as follows : — The brig Bubona in
question was a British vessel, from Sunderland, in Eng
land ; she was British property, and navigated on British
account ; her crew was British, and her captain an Eng
lishman, by the name of William Garterell. On arriving
in the port of Philadelphia, he selected as his factors, the
Messrs. Odlin and Co. merchants of that city, whom
Fearon falsely represents as the owners ofthe vessel. The
captain was not " tall," but about the middle size, or
rather below it, and his countenance had an open, agree
able expression. What is more : of the vessels that
entered the port of Philadelphia in the years 1816, and
1817, laden with redemptioners from the continent
of Europe, the greater number was foreign ; these
amounted to ten, of which five were British in British
employment; namely, the brigBubona, above mentioned;
the shipZenophon, captain Goodwin ; the brig Constantia,
captain Janson ; the brig William, captain Arrowsmith,
and brig William, captain Danton.* The condition of
the redemptioners on board the British vessels was no
better than in the others of whatever nation engaged in
the " infamous traffic."
I derive these particulars from unquestionable sources ;
* The other foreign vessels (Prussian and Haneseatic) were, ship Vrow
Cathrina, captain John Van Dyle ; brig Bonifacias, captain Leitman ; brig
Concordia, captain Diedrickson ; ship Vrow Elizabeth, captainBlankman,&c.

PREFACE. XXJX
— the Mr. Woodoridge Odlin, who transacted the busi
ness of the Bubona ; and Mr. Andrew Leinau, a respect
able inhabitant of Philadelphia, who served as general
agent for the foreign redemptioner ships, as they were
styled, and who has in his hands official vouchers, which
I have examined, of their respective national character,
the number of their passengers, &c. It is known, more
over, that as soon as the abuses practised in the trade be
came notorious, the American Congress passed a law
designed to prevent the recurrence of them, and remark
able for the humanity and efficaciousness of its precau
tions. If Fearon really visited the Bubona, which may be
doubted, he, an Englishman, could not have mistaken
her national character, nor that of the captain. This
" tall American, with an eye flashing Algerine cruelty,"
is a phantasm manifestly intended to heighten the injuri
ous effect of the whole malignant fiction. So the use of
the present tense by the Quarterly Reviewers, in their
unwarrantable assertion, argues the design of giving it
to be understood, that the trade is still carried on by
American vessels, with the same abuses as existed before
the passage of the preventive law.
Whether Earl Grey has found " the greatest fairness
and impartiality" in the article of the Quarterly Review,
on Fearon's Sketches, as well as in the latter, I know not ;
but it is certain that the noble lord and the reviewer differ
much in their views of the character of the traveller.
" WTe find Mr. Fearon," says the reviewer, " whenever
England is concerned, venting his ignorant sneers, or in
dulging his spiteful calumnies, at the expense of decency
and truth : he crouches with base servility beforeCobbett;
he grossly libels his fair countrywomen; he is solicitous to
entice the poor of Europe from their country, by fallacies
and lies ; he has greedily seized upon every opportunity of
traducing the best and bravest officers of England ; his
prejudices are rooted in the profoundest ignorance; he
deals in flippant and frequent abuse of scripture ; he is
evidently a man of very limited faculties ; he is in a state

xxx

PREFACE.

of perpetual childhood ; his total want of knowledge is
sufficiently apparent, &c." It isa witness thus blackened,
blighted, and stultified by themselves, and whom in fact,
they convict, in their examination of his book, of gross in
consistency and prevarication, that the master critics of
London bring forward to explode the pretensions ot the
United States to any degree of moral worth, intellectual
dignity, or physical comfort. It is upon his testimony,
" who violates truth and decency, whenever England is
concerned," they affect to believe, and would have the
world believe, besides what I have quoted from him,
and a multitude of other general imputations and parti
cular calumnies, that—" the churches in America are
filled by fanatics, hypocrites, and buffoons ;" that " gam
is the education, the morals, the politics, the theology,
and stands instead ofthe domestic comfort of all ages and
classes of Americans ;" that " the worst degree of corrup
tion which the inventive malice of the worst Jacobin ever
charged upon the government of England, is more than
realized at the American capital ;" that " every election
in America, from the president downwards, is carried on
by bribery, corruption, and intrigue."*
I cannot refrain, in dismissing Mr. Fearon and his
compurgators, from offering to my American reader,
some random testimony concerning the nature of those
abuses in the system of British suffrage and representa
tion, greater than which Lord Grey is pleased to believe,
may or do exist under that of the United States.
In the year 1793, the honourable Mr. Grey, then a
member of the House of Commons, — now Earl Grey,
and a member of the House of Peers — made a motion in
the Commons for a reform in parliament, grounded upon
a petition which he presented, and vehemently supported,
and was understood to have himself composed. The
following quotations are parts of that petition, and the
* The Edinburgh Reviewers have also so far forgotten their station, as to
bestow on Fearon, the epithets " enlightened and intelligent,"and to recom
mend his hook, with the simple reservation that he is " a little given to ex
aggeration in his views of vices and prejudices." See their Cist number.

PREFACE. , XXXI

facts stated in them, which did not admit of denial, are
equally true of the subject at the present day.

" Your petitioners complain, that the elective franchise is so partially
and unequally distributed, and is in so many instances committed to
bodies of men of such very limited numbers ; that the majority of your
honourable House, is elected by less than fifteen thousand electors,
which even if the male adults in the kingdom be estimated at so low a
number as three millions, is not more than the two hundredth part ofthe
people to be represented.
" The second complaint of your petitioners, is founded on the un
equal proportions in which the elective franahise is distributed, and in
support of it,
" They affirm, that seventy of your honourable members are returned
by thirty-five places, where the right of voting is vested in burghage and
other tenures of a similar description, and in which it would be to trifle
with the patience of your honourable House, to mention any number of
voters whatever, the elections at the places alluded to being notoriously a
mere matter of form. And this your petitioners are ready to prove.
" They affirm, that in addition to the seventy honourable members so
chosen, ninety more of your honourable members are elected by forty-
six places, in none of which the number of voters exceeds fifty. And this
your petitioners are ready to prove.
" They affirm, that in addition to the hundred and sixty so elected,
thirty-seven more of your honourable members are elected by nineteen
places, in none of which the number of voters exceeds one hundred. And
thi3 your petitioners are ready to prove.
" They affirm, that in addition to tjie hundred and ninety-seven ho
nourable members so chosen, fifty-two more are returned to serve in Par
liament by twenty-six places, in none of which the number of voters
exceeds two hundred. And this your petitioners are ready to prove.
" They affirm, that in addition to two hundred and forty-nine so
elected, twenty more are returned to serve in Parliament for counties
in Scotland, by less than one hundred electors each, and ten for
counties in Scotland by less than two hundred and fifty each. And this
your petitioners are ready to prove, even admitting the validity of ficti
tious votes.
" They affirm, that in addition to the two hundred and seventy-
nine so elected, thirteen districts of burghs of Scotland, not con
taining one hundred voters each, and two districts of burghs, not
containing one hundred and twenty-five each, return fifteen more
honourable members. And this your petitioners are ready to prove.
And in this manner, according to the present state of your repre
sentation, two hundred and ninety-four of your honourable members
are chosen, and being a majority of the entire House of Commons, are

XXXU PREFACE.
enabled to decide all questions in the name of the whole people of Eng
land and Scotland.
" Religious opinions create an incapacity to vote. All Papists are ex
cluded generally, and, by the operation ofthe test laws, Protestant dis
senters are deprived of a voice in the election of representatives in about
thirty boroughs, where the right of voting is confined to corporate officers
alone: a deprivation the more unjustifiable, because, though considered
as unworthy to vote, they are deemed capable of being elected, and may
be the representatives ofthe very places for which they are disqualified
from being the electors.
" A man paying taxes to any amount, how great soever, for his do
mestic establishment, does not thereby obtain a right to vote, unless his
residence be in some borough where that right is vested in the inha
bitants. This exception operates in sixty places, of which twenty-eight
dp not contain three hundred voters each, and the number of householders
in England and Wales (exclusive of Scotland,) who pay all taxes, is
714,911, and of householders who pay all taxes, but the house and win
dow taxes, is 284,459, as appears by a return made to your honourable
House in 1785.
" In Scotland, the grievance arising from the nature of the rights of
voting, has a different and still more intolerable operation. In that
great and populous division of the kingdom, not only the great mass of
the householders, but of the landholders also, are excluded from all par
ticipation in the choice of representatives.
" Your honourable House knows, that the complicated rights of vot
ing, and the shameful practices which disgrace election proceedings,
have so loaded your table with petitions for judgment and redress, that
one half of the usual duration of a parliament has scarcely been suffi
cient to settle who is entitled to sit for the other half.
" From the peculiar rights of voting, by which certain places return
members to serve in parliaments, eighty-four individuals do, by their
own immediate authority, send one hundred and fifty-seven of your ho
nourable members to Parliament, and your petitioners are ready to name
the members and the patrons.
" Your petitioners are convinced that in addition to the one hundred
and fifty-seven honourable members above mentioned, one hundred
and fifty more, making in the whole three hundred and seven, are
returned to your honourable House, not by the collected voice of
those whom they appear to represent, but by the recommendation of
seventy powerful individuals, added to the eighty-four before men
tioned, and making the total number of patrons altogether only one
hundred and fifty-four, who return a decided majority of your honour
able House.
" Your petitioners inform your honourable House, and are ready
to prove it at your bar, that they have the most reasonable grounds to
suspect, that no less than one hundred and fifty of your honourable
members owe their elections entirely to the interference of peers ;

PREFACE. XXXIU
and your petitioners are prepared to show by legal evidence, that forty
peers, in defiance of your resolutions, have possessed themselves of so
many burghage tenures, and obtained such an absolute and uncontrolled
command in very many small boroughs in the kingdom, as to be ena
bled by their own positive authority to return eighty-one of your ho
nourable members.
" The means taken by candidates to obtain, and by electors to bestow
a seat in your honourable House, appear to have been increasing in a
progressive degree of fraud and corruption. In the 31st year of the
reign of his present Majesty, the number of statutes found necessary to
prevent bribery, had increased to sixty-five."
In confirming the allegations and pressing the object
of the petition, the honourable Mr. Grey said, that " the
evils of the American war were, in his mind, entirely
owing to the unequal and corrupt representation in Par
liament." And Mr. Sheridan made the following ob
servations in the course ofthe debate, to which Mr. Grey's
motion gave rise.
" As to the general challenge of proving the abuse which subsists in
our government, he (Mr. Sheridan) had no delight in it ; but as he must
answer, he should say, that some ofthe abuses of which he complained,
and of which a reform of Parliament was the only remedy, were, that
Peers of the other House sent members to the House of Commons by
nomination ; that the Crown sent members into that House by nomina
tion too ; that some members of that House sent in members by their own
nomination also— all these things made a farce of an election for the
places for which these were returned ; that men were created peers with
out having been of the least service to the public in any action of their
lives, but merely on account of their Parliamentary influence— the pre
sent minister had been the means of creating a hundred of them. He
did not blame him, but the fault was in the system of government ; cor
ruption was the pivot on which the whole of our public government
affairs turned; the collection of taxes was under the management of
wealthy men in Parliamentary interest, the consequence of which was,
that the collection of them was neglected ; that to make up the defici
ency, excisemen must be added to the excise-this soured the temper of
the people; that neither in the church, the army, the navy, or any
public office, was any appointment given, but through Parliamentary
influence ; that, in consequence, corrupt majorities at the will of the
minister.*

* See the Debate in the 30th vol. of the Parliamentary History.
Voi. 1  £*

XXXiV PREFACE.

The following parts of the debate of the House of
Commons respecting the new taxes, which I extract
from the London Courier of June 19, 1819, will show
what degree of reformation that body has undergone
since Mr. Sheridan's exposition of its character.

" The Marquis of Tavistock said, (June 18, 1819.)— Was it not
grievous to reflect, that, when the minister had proposed an income tax,
the house defeated his purpose — or, as the noble lord had expressed it,
relieved themselves and not the country ? Was it not grievous to reflect,
that the house had rejected with indignation the income tax ; and that
when other taxes were proposed, which fell upon the poor and distressed,
they were passed with acclamations, and nothing was talked of but the
triumphant majorities of ministers? (cheering). If any difficulty was
felt in believing this to be a correct view of the case, let it be recol
lected, that when the income tax was refused in 1816, ministers gave up
the malt tax, and the noble lord (Castlercagh) said, " Since Parliament
has relieved itself from the income tax, I and my colleagues relieve the
country by giving up the malt tax." Why did not ministers, entertain
ing this view ofthe different taxes, propose a renewal of the income tax,
which they believed to be a burden upon the members of the house, and
not upon the country, instead of the taxes which they had admitted to
be felt by the country, and especially by the poorer classes ? They
acted so, obviously because they were afraid of a defeat in that house
upon the income tax. But would they have last year proposed the taxes
now required? If they had made the proposal, would it have been en
dured in the last year ofthe last Parliament ? Was it surprising that the
people of this country should be discontented, when they saw their re
presentatives sheltering themselves from an income tax ? (Hear.) — When
they saw those representatives at the same time laying further taxes on
malt, on tea, and on wool ?
" How happened it, that when the people called loudly and earnestly
for retrenchment and economy, the ministers, backed by overwhelming
majorities, answered them by imposing fresh taxes, and increasing their
overpowering burdens? The clear and indisputable cause was, that the
majority of that house were returned by borough-mongering, and corrup
tion, and that the Parliaments continued for seven years."
" Mr. Coke (of Norfolk) said — It was the duty of every man to
oppose the attempt to arm ministers with new powers of collecting
money. He was an old member of Parliament, and he had often
seen and well knew the profligate mode in which the public money
was squandered : he would not trust them with a single farthing. —
He woulAgo the full length qf asserting that this was a corrupt
house, , ' om which no good could be expected. Ministers had no-

PREFACE. :ixxv
thing to do but to summon their troops, and they had a majority
instantly at their command ; it is in fact a joke upon the country
and the people felt it to be so from one end of the kingdom to the
other." _ "Mr. Ricardo maintained, at some length, that the idea of there be
ing si sinking fund was nothing but a delusion.
'/ Before he sat down, he could not help observing, that he con
curred in every thing which had been said by the noble marquis,
regarding the necessity of a reform in the representation of that
house." As Earl Grey has rendered this subject of British re
presentation and election of importance to us, I will set
it in a broader light by additional extracts from the de
bates of the House of Commons, as I find them reported
in the ministerial newspaper, the London Courier. The
speakers, with the exception of Lord Cochrane, are all
members of considerable distinction.
" Mr. Tierney asked (Feb. 7, 1817,) if the house recollected the
numbers of holders of offices now sitting there. There were not less
than sixty of these gentlemen, all of whom were liable to be dismissed
at pleasure. If they deducted their number from some of the minis
terial majorities, the result would appear, that the fair and free sense
of the house was against the measures of ministers. Many members,
too, were certainly connected by the ties of relationship to those who
were in power."
"Mr. Brougham said (June 8th, 1819.) that the whole of that which
gave the patronage of a borough in the county he had mentioned,
which returned two members, and which had never been disputed, was
the gross andwilful abuse of a great charitable estate, intended strictly for
the education of the poor?
" Mr. Brougham said (Feb. 17, 1818,) that in the last year of every
Parliament, more benefit accrued to the public than during all the pre
ceding years of its existence."
" Mr. Calvert said (Feb. 7th, 1817,) that he was one of six persons
who had sent two members to Parliament, and for which, each member
paid 4,5001,"
" Lord Cochrane said (June 20th, 1817,) he remembered very well
the first time he was returned as a member to the house, which was for
the borough of Hornton, on which occasion the town bellman was sent
through the town to order the voters to come to Mr. Townshend's, the
head man in that place, and a banker, to receive the sum of 101. 10s.
This was the truth, and he would ask, how could he, in that situation,
be called a representative of the people in the legitimate co. stitutional
sense of that word 1

XXXVI PREFACE.

" He had no doubt but there were very many in that house, who
had been returned by similar means. His motive, he was now tully
convinced, was wrong, decidedly wrong ; but as he came home pretty
well flushed with Spanish money, he had found this borough open, and
he had bargained for it; and he' was sure he would have been returned,
had he been Lord Camelford's black servant, or his great dog."
" Sir Robert Heron said (May 19th, 1818,) that the necessity of re
form had ofteen been acknowledged by the house itself. Distinguished
members had offered to prove at the bar its corrupt constitution, but no
strong desire to proceed to those proofs had ever been manifested on
the part of the house. The corruption was manifested by the Grenville
act, which declared the house no longer fit to be trusted with the deci
sion of its own elections— by the oaths and precautions which it declared
to be absolutely necessary to prevent partial decisions."
" Mr. Lockhart said (March 2d, 1818,) that he approved of the ge
neral principle of the (election laws amendment) bill, especially that part
forbidding the distribution of cockades. He had known 30,000 cock
ades given away at an election, and this signal of party was thus made
an engine of bribery, not to the multitude at large, but towards persons
of particular trades."
" Mr. Wynn said that, at one election he knew that 8,0001. had been
given to special constables. At another election 1,500 special con
stables had been engaged at half a guinea a day each."
Camelferd election. — " Mr. D. W. Harvey observed (July 2, 1819,) —
the counsel who conducted the case before the committee, undertook to
prove the existence of a conspiracy for procuring a corrupt return for
the borough ; and the report of the committee showed that tha^ charge
had been in a great measure substantiated. The facts were — th^tt there
were twenty-nine electors for Camelford, — that that borough had been
frequently the subject of sale or barter — and that it was now the pro
perty of a noble lord, whom he would not name, as those who had read
the report ofthe committee must know that his lordship's name was no
secret. Not long before the last election, a meeting of five of the
electors was held at an inn near the borough, called the Allworthy,
which meeting was joined by a certain Reverend Divine, who expressed
to the individuals assembled, a desire to return two members to serve in
Parliament for the borough of Camelford. To this estimation the
electors did not object. They annexed only one condition to their
compliance with it, namely, that a large sum of money should be de
posited for certain purposes which were mentioned in a whisper. It
appeared that with that condition the Reverend Divine would not, or
could not, comply. The five electors, however, did not abandon their
design. Accordingly they met again at another inn near Camelford,
called the Five Lanes, where a letter signed James Harvey was read,
offering 6,000l. for the power of returning two members for the bo
rough of Camelford, to be distributed among any fifteen (being a ma
jority) ofthe electors. — This proposal was agreed to. The reply of the
letter, containing the acquiescence in the proposal, was addressed to
Mr. Sibley, the partner of Mr. Hallet. It was proved before the com-

PREFACE. XXXVii
mittee that Mr. Hallet had held up 6,000l. before his partner, Mr.
Sibley, and had said — " Sibley, do you think the Camelford electors
will bite at this?" As a security for the money, it appeared that the
'half notes of the 6,000/. were deposited at Camelford. Ultimately,
however, the conspiracy failed, and the election was lost. It did not
appear, however, that the half notes had been returned ; for it was
proved that Hallet or Sibley had said — " What damned rogues those
Camejford electors are ! do you know I could not get back the half
notes from them without making some compromise !"
Mr. Southey had informed us, in Espriella's Letters,
that Englishmen regard all kinds of deceit as lawful
in electioneering, — that they stop not at asserting the
grossest and most impudent falsehoods ; — that at a Not
tingham election the mob ducked some, and killed
others ; that on such occasions no frauds, pious or im
pious, are scrupled ; that any thing like an election, in
the plain sense of the word, is unknown in England ;
that a majority of the members of the House of Com
mons are returned by the most corrupt influence ; that
seats in that house are not uncommonly advertised in
the newspapers ; that, although oaths are required of
the voters, they are evaded by the grossest means ; that
votes are publicly bought and sold.*
All this is abundantly illustrated in the history of the
English elections of the summer of 18 18. Much of the
time of the courts of justice and the House of Com
mons, since, has been occupied in the investigation of
cases of bribery and corruption, involving the most au
dacious fraud and perjury, Besides that of Camelford,
already mentioned, those of Grampound and Barnstable
may be cited as edifying specimens. The tactics of the
boroughs are thus instructively explained, in the num
ber of Bell's Weekly Messenger, of the 29th of June,
1818.
" Among the various scenes now exhibiting in the progress of the
business of the general election, there are one or two to be seen in some

* See Letter xlviii.

XXXV111 PREFACE.
of the borougl.s which deserve not only to be generally known, but
which we should hope will not be soon forgotten,. We deem it a duty
to call particular attention to one of these elective bodies. Upon the
arrival of their late member to repeat his canvass, he was met by the
electors in a body, and the first question put to him was, whether he
was willing to pay the usual gratuity of 40/. per man ? — that is to say,
to invite them all to a breakfast, where each should find a 40/. bank of
England note under his saucer. The gentleman replied that he was
really not rich enough to give this expensive breakfast to three hundred
voters ; but that he had rendered the borough such important services
in their trade, roads, and harbour, that he trusted their gratitude would
not seize the present occasion of turning him out ; but if they insisted
on the 40/. per man, they must seek for some one who was better able
to buy them at that price."
" In another borough, the practice of the election we understand to
be as follows : — The price of the worthy and independent electors is
50/. per head, and one of the principal men in the town being a banker,
the money is to be paid in his notes, and at his bank. Upon tbe day
preceding the nomination and return, the town crier gives public notice
for- all theelectors to appear personally at the banking house of Mr.  ,
to consult upon a suitable member for their independent borough.
Each appears accordingly, and receives his fifty pounds. On the fol
lowing day, the banker appears at the hustings or town hall, recom
mends very warmly Mr. such a one, and the electors immediately elect
him. No questions are asked as to the fifty pounds, or from whom it
came, and no one of course takes any blame to himself for having
received a bribe from the worthy Mr. such a one. Each is willing to
swear that he never saw his money. The vote is given only from good
will to the banker, and it seems that the oath does not apply to gratui
ties from third persons."
" In a third borough, the money is given by the ' man in the moon,'
who deputes an attorney for his agent. In a few days the same attorney
produces a notice from the same man in the moon, that he could wish
their respected and most independent borough to be represented by
Mr. A. and Mr. B. two gentlemen with whose worth he is acquainted.
The recommendation is adopted as a matter of course, and two persons
as fitted for corruption as themselves are sent into Parliament. In a
word, there is scarcely a slang term or slang practice, which may not
be found in the abominable practices of some of these boroughs, in
which perjury is made a comedy, and the most atrocious roguery con
verted into a jolly pleasantry. All these things are going on before
our eyes."
In scenes of disorder and violence, the late election
was as rich as any former occasion of the kind. The
treatment of Sir Murray Maxwell is not unknown to
us on this side of the Atlantic. Such horrible outrage
as was practised in Westminster by the mob, and such

PREFACE. XXXIX
ribaldry as was exchanged on the hustings by the rival
candidates, " men of rank and fashion," might procure
from those who write, within the Westminster uproar,
some toleration for the occasional animation of our voters,
and the rough declamation of our stump orators in the
electioneering contests of the southern states.
The condition of things in Ireland, with regard to the
choice of legislators, is truly melancholy, as it is described
in a late book of travels, possessing the highest autho
rity.* " So far," says the author, " are the wretched
tenants of the cabins from receiving benefit for their in-
opposite distinction of freeholders, that it operates a
contrary way, and puts them to expense and loss of time,
without the privilege of having any choice. Ruin would
inevitably overtake him who should dare to presume to
have any opinion but that dictated to him by his land
lord ; and the candidate who should solicit, or accept
without solicitation, the vote of a tenant, against the
will of his landlord, must answer the irregularity with
his life, and incur the general odium of his own class
of society. Popular opinion has little or no influence in
the election of the one hundred Irish Members. Election
contests with us procure, for a time, some consideration
for the lower ranks — what dignifies the English cha
racter debases the Irish. The magnitude of the evil is
greater than can be conceived by those who have not
had an opportunity of witnessing its effects. In the
most venal places in England, besides the bribe, some
condescension is expected ; here the poor voter is only
degraded by an additional link to the chain of his de
pendency. The representation of the town rests mostly
each body corporate, which seldom exceeds twelve
members. The selecting for representation by the ex
tent of the population was a farce, in which the people
had no assigned part to act. The democratic part of
the British constitution, quoad the Irish, had better not
exist." * Observations on the State of Ireland, written in a tour through that
country, by J. C. Curwen, Esq, M.P. London, 1818. Vol. II. Letter li.

Xl PREFACE.
" In some instances, the very favours granted the Ca
tholics are considered as sources of aggravation, if not of
insult~emblazoned badges of slavery ! in conferring the
elective franchise, they have been denied the exercise of
a free choice, the proudest prerogative of Englishmen ;
and compelled to feel, in the discharge of the granted
privilege, their own inferiority."
4. It is not in newspapers, reviews, and parliamentary
speeches alone, that the United States are traduced in
England. Her writers of former treatises on subjects
connected with general literature, and even with natural
science, fall into preposterous digressions about the un-
worthiness of their " American kinsmen," and are not
always inordinately scrupulous as to their disparaging
statements. I have an instance at hand in the following
passage of a late work, entitled " The History and
Practice of Vaccination, by James Moore, Director of
the National Vaccine Establishment at London, Mem
ber of the Royal College of Surgery, &c.
" The freedom that reigns in the Uuited States of America, is incom
patible with unanimity ; consequently, the vaccine had to struggle there
with a long and violent opposition, which was not much allayed by the
exertions of the President, Mr. Jefferson, who patronized the new prac
tice ; yet by degrees it spread and was introduced even among the In
dian tribes. It was in the year 1799, that this important benefit was
conveyed to the United States from Great Britain. Indeed, except
the produce of the soil, what that is valuable has not that nation received
from us ? Certainly their arts, literature, laws, and religion, the model
of their political establishments, and even their love of liberty. — Yet
when Great Britain was hard pressed by Napoleon, the United States
submitted to the threats and depredations of the tyrant, &c. But let
England forget this and rejoice in being able to add the vaccine to the
other benefits conferred on the Americans. And may our physicians
continue to instruct them to cure and prevent the diseases of their coun
try ; may our poets soften and delight them ; and, above all, may our
philosophers improve their dispositions, and perhaps, in a future age,
their animosity will cease, and there will spring up in that country some
filial gratitude !"*

C. 12.

PREFACE. xii
All this objurgation in a history of the vaccine ! The
absurdity and malice of deviating into such topics on
such an occasion, Would be manifest, though the princi
pal accusation should be acknowledged to be sustainable.
But what are we to think of the member of the Royal
College of Surgeons, when we reflect that it is unjust ;
that he must have known it to be so ; and that it may
be retorted" upon England with tenfold force ? There,
had the vaccine to struggle with a longer and more violent
opposition, than in any of the other countries into which
it has been introduced. No heavier disgrace was ever
brought upon the medical faculty, or the human mind
in civilized life than by the prejudices with which it
was encountered among a part of the British population,
and the pamphlets sent forth against it from the British
press, in the names of London physicians eminent in
their profession. The opposition to it amounted to
phrenzy, even in such quarters ; and in the protracted
controversy, the foulest scurrility was mixed with the
wildest raving. I need but mention Dr. Moseley's
Essay on the Lues Bovilla, and the publications of
Doctors Rowley, Squirril, Birch, Lipscomb, &c.
In the very book of the director, we have all the evi
dence we could desire against Great Britain on this
head; and in the voluminous publication of Dr. Ring,*
there is still more. I refer to this work particularly,
because it was well known to our faithful historian, who
read in it the reverse of what he has alleged against
America. Dr. Waterhouse, of Boston, acknowledges,
indeed, in one of his essays, which Dr. Ring has quoted,
that some incredulity was displayed, and some ridicule
indulged, in New England, at the first annunciation of
the discovery ; but Dr. Ring furnishes the testimony of
the same physician, and others of the faculty in the
United States, to show with what rapidity it conciliated

* Treatise on the Cow-Pox, containing the history of Vaccine Inocula
tion, by John Ring, Member ofthe Royal College of Surgeons in London.
Part 2d, 1803.
Vol. I.— F*

xiii ' PREFACE.
even the warmest zeal in its favour, and was carried into
general operation. One of Dr. Waterhouses statements
to him, of 1801, says, — " The arguments throrvn out in
England against this noble discovery and its application,
are detailed here (in Boston), but a great majority be
lieve and will be saved." Ring writes thus himself, —
" Some unlucky cases, it seems, have damped the ar
dour of a people (the Americans,) who received the new
inoculation with a candour, a liberality, and even gene
rosity much to their credit." He recites the cases and
adds, " This was enough to damp the ardour of any na
tion." A few pages onward, he mentions its signal
progress throughout the United States; compliments
the American government for communicating it so
promptly to the Indian tribes ; and subjoins the fol
lowing remarks : " In England the public opinion is, at
the time of my. writing this (1803, five years after Jen-
ner's promulgation of the discovery!) rather wavering.
Falsehoods, propagated by the most, base and despicable
characters, have been too successful."*
It occurred to me to place the extract from surgeon
Moore's work, under the eye of Dr. Redman Coxe, the
present learned professor of Materia Medica in the
University of Pennsylvania ; so honourably and de
servedly mentioned in Dr. Ring's work as the physician
to whom Pennsylvania is primarily indebted for the be
nefit of vaccination. Dr. Coxe has had the goodness
to put into my hands a small paper of notes, which I
copy as decisive testimony on the subject, .since his
knowledge of the progress and establishment of the
discovery in the United States, is more direct and mi
nute than that of any other person.
" I am confident I am correct in asserting, that no novelty of
equal importance to mankind, was ever received in any country,
with more rapidity — more unanimity, or more extensively. It was
true, the. same cautious spirit which ought invariably to govern us
in concerns of this nature, led many medical men (not to oppose
* P. 760. The controversy raged with unabated violence as late as 1806-T.

preface. xliii
its progress, but) merely to await the result of experiments, in or
der to determine their judgments. What opposition has this Jen-
nerian blessing ever met with in this country, lhat equals even a
tenth part of that which it received in Great Britain 7 Let Mr. Ring's
elaborate production on the subject of vaceination clear us from the
reproach thrown on us.— In that work, his pen has unfolded the
opposition it encountered from almost every quarter of the United
Kingdoms of Great Britain ; an opposition, the effects of which have
scarcely yet subsided there; whilst here, for many years, even a
whisper against it has not been raised.— Were it necessary, I could
give you perhaps one hundred letters from medical men in all parts
of America, received within twelve months after I had introduced
it here, earnestly applying for the infection, and requesting infor
mation respecting the disease. I saw, in fact, nothing like oppo
sition ; — I read of none in our Medical Journals. An uniform desire
was every where evinced to spread the benefit as speedily as possi
ble. A few miserable quacks alone, who depended on the small
pox for their daily bread, protested against it— and even of those,
the greater part soon were obliged to yield to the popular opinion in its
favour. " Such are the facts which stifle the inconsiderate assertion of Mr.
Moore — I need scarcely add to the number; which if, necessary,
I could easily do. The disease had fully established its reputation in
America within two years from its first introduction here ; and long
before its claims were admitted freely in Great Britain."
There are some points at least, as to which " the free
dom that reigns in the United States of America," would
notseem to be incompatible with unanimity. If the whole
population of those states were canvassed, perhaps not
one individual would be found disaffected to the form and
constitution of their government. The number malecon-
tent with the system of administration, or distrustful of
the ability and integrity of the present executive councils,
is certainly so small as to disappear on a glance at the
mass of citizens in the opposite temper of mind. Firmis-
SIMUM IMPBRIUM QUO OBEDIENTES GAUDENT.
How far has the freedom which reigns in Great Bri
tain proved effectual to create unanimity as to her political
institutions, and the composition and course of her national
councils ? Is not the monarchy itself odious to a multi
tude of her subjects? The mechanism of her legislature
and cabinet, and the system of administration are matters
of disgust and outcry through every rank and class of her

xllV PREFACE.
inhabitants. From the highest quarters we are informed,
and, indeed, the fact cannot fail to be perceived, even at a
distance, that the great majority of the British people
have not the least confidence in the patriotism and disin
terestedness of any of the parties in Parliament, or of the
men in place ; all are believed to aim only at the possession
of power and patronage. Among the lower orders, sedi
tion is declared to have a permanent abode, and to prowl
without intermission. " There prevails," said Mr. Lamb,
in the House of Commons (March 11, 1818,,) " though
to what extent I willnot pretend accurately to define, in
all the manufacturing districts, a spirit always active, in
veterate, and implacable; not exasperated by suffering ,;
not soothed by prosperity ; not allayed by time ; a spirit
ever laying in wait, and in ambush, to take advantage
of the disasters of the country."
We see fully verified at this moment, the creed of this
member of Parliament, a whig leader : the habitual leven
of insurrection only becomes the more active and expan
sive, as the rate of wages or the supply of food declines.
It places the British government, in the season of ferment,
as at present, under tbe horrible necessity of shedding,
with the apparatus of war, the blood of the guiltless, per
haps loyal peasant, whom the want of occupation draws to
the convention of starving manufacturers, and hairbrain-
ed, or counterfeit demagogues.* It leads — I cannot say
obliges—that government, to resort to one of the most
hateful ofthe devices of timorous despotism — the employ
ment of spies and informers, who cannot execute their
office, without, toa certain degree, studiously exasperating
the discontents, and encouraging the delusions, against
which it is the alleged object of their mission to guard.
It does more : it throws the constitution off its poise ; it
'creates a potential dictatorship in the ministry, who either
do feel, or profess to feel themselves'bound to consult the
i — — _^_—
* See the history of the Manchester meeting, of August, 1819, at which
women 'and girls were cutttntl'tram'itoeti down'by corps of dragoons, and'Ieft
mangled and Weltering, to be convened' in oarts to the hospitals.

PREFACE. XlV
tranquillity ofthe state, or of particular parts of the king
dom, at the expense of the established forms and rules of
law; counting upon what they are always sure to procure,
indemnity by vote of Parliament. — What is there in the
American republic comparable to this state of things ?
This want of unanimity, this propensity to rebellious
violence, among the lower orders, has placed the British
rulers under another embarrassment, the most awful that
can be imagined, and far outweighing any evil in our si^
tuation, produced or threatened by our negro slavery.
According to the best authorities, the system of the
poor rates in England, is proceeding to take the whole
produce ofthe land from the owner, with very little bene
fit to the poor. It already " amounts, with the land tax
and tythes, in many parishes, to a disherison of the pro
perty of the landholder."* It " falls exclusively on lands
and houses, the dividends (exceeding twenty-seven mil
lions sterling) upon the unredeemed national debt, of
«ight hundred millions sterling, being wholly exempt."f
Its operation is most oppressively partial, independently of
this last .circumstance, so .unjust and invidious. It forms
a tax thus characterized, which, according to some, must
amount for the year 1818, lo ten millions sterling,! per
haps to twelve ; and this product is chiefly consumed in
rearing the offspring of improvidence and vice. It is fast
multiplying the already immense number of paupers, and
widening the acknowledged degeneracy of the labouring
classes.^ It exhibits, in short, to use the language of
ColqUhoun, one ninth part of a numerous nation existing
as paupers, ^vagabonds, idlers, and criminal offenders, afr
the expense of one third of the remaining population." \\
In the year 1812, the number of paupers who received
parish relief, besides vagrants, was 1,208,125, outof a po*-
* Report onithePoor Laws, from the Committee ofthe House of Com
mons, 1817. Appendix.
t Observations on the Poor JLaw. By J. LordShefEeld. London, 1818.
t .Ltfxrd Sheffield.
§ See Note X.at the end of this.volunw!.
|| Treatise on indigence. P. 862.

xlvi PREFACE.
pulation of 10,653,000.* The proportion of really im
potent paupers in the number just stated, was but one
seventh, according to the ratio officially returned for
"1804. *' It will be found, on investigation," says Col-
quhoun, " that, of a million and a half of paupers with
their families, now living chiefly on the labour of others,
considerably more than half a million are in the vigour
of life, and whose labour, if well directed, ought to pro
duce at least ten millions sterling beyond their present
earnings; which sum is totally lost to the community, in
addition to what is expended in affording them a feeble
and scanty subsistence."! Since the termination of the
last war, this wretched and noxious class of persons has
been progressively increasing in number, and deteriorat
ing in character.
The only true remedy for this manifold, portentous
evil, is the abolition or great reduction of the poor rates.
But the government, though it has before it the alterna
tive of ultimate ruin to the country, dares not go beyond
palliatives. J Near a million of sturdy beggars could not

* Clarkson's Enquiry on Pauperism. Londip, 1816.
t Treatise on the Wealth, Power, 'and Resources of the British Empire.
London, 1814.
J The late act of Parliament, (59 G. HI. 1 819,) " to amend tbe laws for the
relief of the poor," aims only at mitigating, not eradicating, the evil. Very
little confidence seemed to be entertained by Parliament, in its efficacy for
any purpose. Mr. S. Bourne, the member most active on this question, had
unsuccessfully proposed a bill, respecting the failure of which I find the follow
ing remarkable observations in Bell's Weekly Messenger of 17th May, 1819.
" The two great interests ofthe country, the agricultural and the manu
facturing interests, are here in direct conflict. The complaint of the landed
interest is, that they have to pay the poor-rates for the manufacturing labour
ers : that the manufacturers not only employ and wear out the men, but, as
it were, produce and call into existence a mendicant population ; and, after
they have had the best days of the labourer, and encouraged him to marry
and rear a large family, they return him unto the parish from whence they
first took him.
" The object of this bill was, that all who resided three years in any parish,
should be settled in such parish, or, in other words, (for such was its purpose
as well as its effect,) that the manufacturing towns and districts should sup
port their own old and sick poor. Accordingly, all the manufacturing dis
tricts have, to a man, united in opposition against it, and, by a private ad
dress to every member of Parliament singly, have actually succeeded in
throwing it out, and this in a House of Commons, the majority of which is

PREFACE. Xlvii
be starved with impunity ; they would be provoked by
absolute deprivation to persevering violence; such a
nucleus for riot and rebellion, is not to be set in motion,
to gather actively what no array of the military might
be sufficient to crush, without extensive desolation. Co
lonization is now attempted as a means of relief; and
the Cape of Good Hope is chosen as the theatre, in or
der that a double purpose may be answered : but this
expedient, if any number of the vampyres can be drawn
off, will be like tapping for a radical dropsy. The poor
rates will continue, with the taxes* and the tythes, gene-
necessarily ofthe landed interest. We must confess that this issue ofthe
bill has very much surprised us, and, we believe, neither Mr. Bourne him
self, nor any of the committee, expected this event. The bill, however, is
lost for the present session.''
* " It was acknowledged," said Lord Ebrington, in the House of Com
mons, (April Q8th, 1819,) " that a labourer, whose income did not exceed
iSl. a year, paid 27s. a year duty on the salt he consumed." Dr. Phillimore,
in the course of hisspeeeh of the same date, respecting the salt duties, made
this statement. " The bushel of salt is taxed at forty times its value, and
the tax falls upon all the necessaries of the poor. No tax operates more on
their morals ; and it had been found, that wherever it prevailed, it was the
sure forerunner of crime. It was distinctly stated in an address of the grand
jury for the county of Chester, that the profit derived from selling untaxed
salt was so great; and operated so powerfnlly, as to taint the morals of that
part of the community. The evidence before the committee, derived from
various sources, all tended to establish the same conclusion. The tempta
tion to steal, and conceal what was stolen, was such as to cause the practice
too generally to prevail."
The following quotations from the debates of Parliament will illustrate the
operation of another single tax, upou the lower orders.
" Mr. Grattan said, as to the dangerous prevalence ofthe fever in Ireland
being in part attributable to the confined air of the abodes of the poor, there
could be no stronger proof than the relaxation granted by government, ena
bling the parties deprived of adequate ventillation, to open their windows
without being liable to the window tax."
" If a single individual," said the Marquis of Downshire (House of Lords.
March, 1819,) " lived in a house, it became liable to the window tax ; and
owners therefore, in Ireland, crowded great numbers into one, and shut up
others, to avoid paying the taxes."
"Sir John Newport said, (May 13th, 1818,) he wished to inform the house,
that in comparing the accounts of 1814 and 1818, it was found that no less
titan one-tenth of the windows of the kingdom of Ireland, within tbat period,
had been closed up to avoid the tax, and he should appeal to the house
whether such a circumstance was not calculated to have a most injurious
effect, particularly on the poorer classes, by depriving them of air and light.
Taxation in Ireland had, within a short period, increased with a rapidity
which was grievously felt."

XMii PREFACE.
rating pauperism ; and, above all, the exorbitant system
of manufactures, which perpetually throws back upon the
agricultural districts, as mendicants and desperadoes,
those labourers whom it received from them originally,
in that happier condition of body and mind, which is the
regular effect of agricultural life. It is this operation,
resulting from the English law of settlement as to pau
pers, along with other adventitious causes,* which makes
the returns of mendicity and criminality from some of
the agricultural counties of England, larger than those
from the manufacturing districts, and thus libels, as it
were, that state and occupation most favourable to the
moral and physical welfare of our species.
To revert to Surgeon Moore. His suggestion about
filial gratitude will be found fully answered in the body
of this volume, as well as the chiding remark of the
Quarterly Review, in the article on Fearon's Travels —
that " the American colonists grew up in prosperity,
maintained and fostered by a liberal parent, who saw,
with heartfelt satisfaction, her offspring increase in
strength and stature, and advance with firm and rapid
steps towards maturity." I rely upon the facts and

" Mr. Robert Shaw asked, (April 21st, 1818,) are gentlemen aware, that
under the present act (for taxing windows,) the collectors can demand an
entrance into every room in every house in Ireland, from eight in the morn
ing until sunset, and insist upon admission, under a penalty of 207. ?
" Mr. Shaw stated, (May 6th, 1819,) that in the part of Dublin called the
liberties, the houses were large enough to be subject to the window tax, and
were inhabited by the poor and miserable. The government had felt that
so deeply, that it had announced, that wherever windows had been opened
to facilitate the circulation of air and prevent infection, the tax would be
remitted. It would no doubt be urged that but few had availed themselves
of this offer; but that was because they had unfortunately too little confi
dence in the veracity of government. They did not possess besides the
means of opening those windows. This was proved by the report of Dr.
Parker in 1807 and 1812, and confirmed hy the number of windows closed,
according to the notices given. Those notices amounted for the last three
years to thirty- two thousand, four hundred and twenty-four, of which 3,501
came from Dublin alone, and it might be inferred that the distress was great
which would thus drive men to deny themselves the light of Heaven and a
free circulation of air."
» See Cokrahoun's Treatise on Indigence, p. 273, 4, and Treatise on the
¦Resources ofthe British Empire, p. 13.

PREFACE. xll'x
statements which I adduce in my first sections, as suffi
cient to dispel this hallucination of the reviewers.
The other topic upon which the surgeon has touched,
— the animosity ofthe Americans against Great Britain,
which her philosophers are to correct, in lapse of time,
by improving our dispositions, is a favourite one with the
travellers and reviewers, and is treated by them with the
more emphasis, because it serves to promote their main
object of raising aversion and distrust in the breasts of
their countrymen.
On this score, as well as every other, great injustice is
done to the Americans. No small number of them are
entitled to consider the imputation as a sort of ingrati
tude on the part of a Briton. I will venture to assert
that in no nation, foreign to Great Britain, had she, un
til the second year of our last war, so many warm, firm
friends, and blind admirers, as in the American. A great
party, the Federalists, forming a decided majority in
seven or eight states, numerous in most ofthe others, and
having a full proportion ofthe desert, intelligence, and
wealth of the country, were contradistinguished by their
veneration for her character, and the deep, affectionate
interest which they took in her prosperity. They exulted
in her successes over France, even at the time when she
was waging war upon their own firesides. This was not
merely because they detested and dreaded the ascen
dancy of the French military despotism, but because
much of the old positive kindness and reverence towards
her remained. She might have revived it entirely by a
course of generosity and justice; by teaching her philo
sophers to attempt the" improvementof our dispositions,"
and her politicians to regulate their language and conduct,
upon a different system from that which they have pur
sued. Habitual ejaculations of contempt and ill-nature, join
ed to a new state of things, have a sure tendency to pro
duce total alienation. The new state of things to which
I allude consists in the prostration of the Gorgon in
France, by which so many of us were petrified ; the
Vol. I,— G*

PREFACE.

consequent restoration of our powers of vision and re
flection, in regard to its colossal antagonist; and the re
mission of those intestine heats which, having their
origin, in part, in an inordinate preference ofthe cause
of one or the other European belligerent, conduced in
turn to aggravate that preference. The Anglo-mania
has, I believe, almost universally subsided ; but, not
withstanding the studied contumelies and injuries to
which no American can be insensible, it has not yet been
replaced in the same breasts by sentiments of hostility.
We lament that perilous crisis at which England has
arrived ; when, with a crushing apparatus of govern
ment, a most distorted and distempered state of society,
no reform can be admitted, lest it should run, by its own
momentum, to extremes, and produce general confusion;
when her statesmen, overpowered by the very aspect of
so much morbidness and obliquity, are compelled to ex
claim, Nee vitia, nee remedia pati possumus. We cherish
and esteem the English individuals whom we possess,
and, without coveting the presence of more, we are
ready to entertain the same feelings, to practise all the
charities, towards those who may come among us at
any time, provided it be not for the purpose of holding
us up to the scorn and derision of the world.

CONTENTS.

SECTION I.

Political and Mercantile Jealousy of Great Britain. Peculiar fate of the
North American Colonies in being constantly defamed by the mother-
country. Her early jealousy and selfish alarms. Testimony of Evelyn,
Hume, Postlethwayt, Child, Gee, &c. Measures to prevent the growth
of American manufactures. Illiberal colonial policy. Testimony of Adam
Smith, of Dummer, &c. Scheme of confining the North American settle
ments to the sea-coast. Early panic about emigration ; attempts to
repress it, &c. SECTION II.
General Character and Merits ofthe Colonists. English testimony in their
faveur. Quarterly Review; Burke, Chalmers, &c. Character of theflrst
settlers in New England ; in Virginia; and the other provinces; Their
respectable rank in life; their love of liberty and independence ; the ex
cellence of their institutions ; no obligations to the mother-country on
this score. Charters how obtained. Uniform endeavours of the mother-
country to destroy the Charters. System of religious freedom and equa
lity established by the Colonists ; disturbed, and, in some instances, sub
verted by the mother-country. Religious intolerance of Massachusetts
extenuated. Political intrepidity ofthe Colonists ; leading traits of it in
their history. Their domestic morals and habits ; religious spirit. < Their
attention to the object of general education. Their moderation and bene
ficence towards the Aborigines. Their physical economy and prosperity.
SECTION III;
Difficulties surmounted by the Colonists. The conquest of the wilderness.
Oppressive administration ofthe mother-country. Absence of all external
aid. Struggle with the Indians ; with the French of Canada. Accusations
ofthe mother-country, as to the treatment of the Indians, retorted. Case
of the Acadians in 1755 ; barbarous conduct of Great Britain towards
them. Wars which she made in America, exclusively her own, and not
induced by the interest of the colonies.
SECTION IV.
Great exertions and sacrifices of the colonies in the wars of Great Britain,
between the years 1680 and 1763. Expeditions of New England and New
York against Canada. Hostilities with the Indians in New England and
the Carolinas. Provincial expeditions against the Spaniards in Florida.
Injustice of the mother-country. Reduction ofthe fortress of Louisbourg
by the Provincial troops. Ungrateful return of the mother-country.
Braddock's affair. Colonel Johnson's victory over the French. War of
1756. Mismanagement and imbecility ofthe British generals. Achieve
ments ofthe Provincials. Aspersions cast upon them. Insensibility of
the mother-country to their merits. Confirmation ofthe contents of this
Section by British testimony.

Hi CONTENTS.

SECTION V.

Commercial obligationsof Great Britain to the Colonies. Acknowledgments
of her political writers. Amount ofthe colonial trade at different epochs.
Details of its nature and productiveness. Lord Sheffield ; Mr. Glover;
Anderson ; Chatham ; Mr. Burke ; Champion. Consumption of British
manufactures by the colonies. Good faith of the American merchants.
Rigour of the British monopoly. Disadvantages suffered by the Colonies.
Benefits reaped by Great Britain from her commercial intercourse with
the United States of America. SECTION VI.
Affectionate loyalty of the Colonists at the peace of 1763. No designs of
independence. Refutation of Chalmers and Robertson on this head. Dis
trust and despotic aims of the mother-country. Her ingratitude and harsh
ness. Stamp Act, and its train of outrages and contumelies. Applause
bestowed upon the resistance ofthe colonies by Chatham and Camden.
Character ofthe British councils. Their ignorance concerning America.
Enlightened discourse of Glover. False ideas entertained of America.
Overweening confidence ofthe British ministry and nation. Abuse ofthe
colonies. Colonel Grant, Earl of Sandwich, &cc. ; Ferocity of the hostili
ties waged by the mother-country. Her acrimony of feeling and expres
sion. Her temper of mind at and after the conclusion of peace. Illusions
in which she indulged. Oracles of Loid Sheffield. Contrast between
her dispositions and those of the United States. Her unremitted enmity
and jealousy. Evidences. Disappointment of her hopes.
SECTION VII.
Titles of the United States to the respect and good will of Great Britain.
Animosity and arrogance of the British periodical writers. Edinburgh
Review — its system of derision and obloquy. - How distinguished from
the Quarterly Review in this respect. Instances of its malevolence and
inconsistency. Article on Davis's Travels ; Transactions ofthe American
Philosophical Society ; Letters on Silesia of John Quincy Adams ; Life
of Washington, by Chief Justice Marshall ; Ashe's Travels ; Coluinbiad
of Barlow, Sec. Sneers and Calumnies. Expositionof some of the con
tradictions abounding in the Edinburgh Review. Reprisals upon Great
Britain. SECTION VIII.
The Quarterly Review. Its implacable enmity ; false logic; unworthy pro
ceeding ; invectives and misrepresentations. Articles on American works •
— Inchiquin's View of tbe United States— Lewis and Clarke's Expe
dition—Life of Fulton, by Cadwallader Golden, Esq. This work de
fended against the Quarterly Review. Question of Steam Navigation
Fulton's merits assorted. Controversy respecting the invention of the
Quadrant, called Iladley's. The claims of Godfrey maintained. Original
evidence. James Logan. Contradictions, as to England, detected in
the Quarterly Review. British Critic; London Critical Journal ; their
ribaldry. Examination and Refutation ofthe charge against America of
having declared herself, in Congress, " the freest and most enlightened
nation of the earth." Speech of Fisher Ames. Defence of the American
Congress from other cliarges. Retort upon the British Parliament.

contents" Iii

SECTION IX.

Accusations of the Edinburgh Review respecting the existence of negro
slavery in the United States. Early upbraidings of England on the same
head. Her share in the establishment of that evil. Early denunciations
of it by the colonists. Their repeated attempts to arrest the introduction
of negroes. Inflexibility of the mother country. American abolition of
the slave trade. Measures ofthe State Legislatures and of Congress on
the subject. United States have the merit of priority. Historical de
duction ofthe British slave trade. Its extent and criminality. Deve-
lopements. History of the British abolition of the slave trade. Its in
terested and imperfect character. Selfish aims of the British govern
ment. Supiness of the ministry until the approach of the peace of 1814.
Concession of slave trade to Spain, Portugal, and France. Fatal conse
quences. British capital largely engaged in the illicit trade. Negocia-
tions at the Congress of Vienna. Insidious propositions of Lord Castle-
reagh. Miscarriage. British West Indies adequately supplied with ne
groes since the British abolition. West India slavery ; its character; in
no degree mitigated. Renewed negociations with foreign powers. Their
well founded distrust of the views of Great Britain in relation to the ge
neral abolition of the slave trade. Developement of those views. Frus
tration of her scheme of establishing a right of search in time of peace.
Hypocrisy and imposture. Present state of the slave trade. Vindica
tion of the United States, as regards the existence of slavery within their
bosom. What they have separately effected in the way of abolition.
Colonization. Character and condition of the American negroes, free and
enslaved. Character and deportment of the American masters. Denial
ofthe allegations of the British travellers. State of the British Poor.
SUBJECTS OF THE NOTES.
Indian Warfare. Locke's Constitutions for Carolina. Religious toleration
of Rhode Island. Maroon War in Jamaica. Petition of the Acadians to
the King of Great Britain. Reduction of Louisbourg. Braddock's pa
pers. Loudon's campaigns. Franklins refutation of the British calum
nies 1759. Character of the Royal Governors of the Colonies, Credu
lity of the British Cabinet of 1776—8—9: Debates of Parliament on
American cowardice. Utility ofthe North American colonies as an asy
lum for British subjects. The American Philosophical Society, Mar
shall's Life of Washington. State of society in Great Britain as to the
vices of intoxication and gambling; cruelty to animals; brutal sports and
conflicts, &c. Dr. Colden. Steam Boat navigation. James Logan.
Position of the English and Irish Roman Catholics. Kidnapping in Great
Britain and the United States. British Poor, and Poor Laws. Es-
tablihed Church in England. British prisons; criminal calendar;
dministration of penals justice, finacial affairs, &c.

MEMENTOS.
" Let us read and recollect, and impress upon our souls, the views and
ends of our own more immediate forefathers, in exchanging their native
country for a dreary inhospitable wilderness. Let us examine into the
nature of that power, and the cruelty of that oppression, which drove
them from their homes. Recollect their amaziug fortitude, their bitter
sufferings! the hunger, the nakedness, the cold, which they patiently
endured! the severe labours of clearing their grounds, building their
houseis, raising their provisions, amidst dangers from wild beasts and
savage men, before they had time or money, or materials for commerce !
Recollect the civil and religious principles and hopes and expectations,
which constantly supported and carried them through all hardships, with
patience and resignation !"
Essay on the Canon and Feudal Law, hy John Adams, Esq. 1765.
'* If we do not, my Lord*, get the better of America, America will
get the better of us. We do not fear, at present, that they will attack
us at home ; but consider, on the other hand, what will be the fate of
the sugarislands, what will be the fate of our trade to that country. That,
my Lords, is a most valuable important consideration ; it is the best fea
ther in our wing. The people of America are preparing to raise a navy :
they have begun in part; trade will beget opulence, and by that means
they will be enabled to hire ships from foreign powers."
Lord Mansfield, House of Lords, 1775.
" It hurts me to hear a proposition urged in this house, so destructive to
the welfare of Britain, as American independence. Would not the inde
pendency of America be the eve of their advancement into a flourishing
and naval power P Their situation commanding a species of superiority
over all the earth, they would soon rival Europe in arts, as well as gran
deur, and their power in particular would rear itself on the decay of ours.
Are we, then, so lost to all the feeelings of patriotism, that, with a wan
ton hand, we would lay the foundation stone of a blockade against our own
existence ? Mr. Pultency, House qf Commons, 1777.
" We have heard, indeed, the prosperity of America declared, by Lord Sid-
mouth, when he was minister of state, to be an awful warning to Great Britain,
never hereafter to colonize a new country. Merciful Heaven ! that the
brethern of our ancestors should have founded a mighty empire, indefinite
in its increase — an empire, which retains, and is spreading, all that con
stitutes " country" in a wise man's feelings, viz. the same laws, the samo
customs, the same religion, and, above all, the same language ; that, in
short, to have been the mother of a prosperous empire, is to be a warning
to Great Britain! And whence this- dread? Because, forsooth, our eldest
born, when of age, had set up for himself; and not only preserving, but in
an almost incalculable proportion, increasing the advantages of former re
ciprocal intercourse, and saved us the expense and anxiety of defending,

Ivi MEMENTOS.
and the einbarrasment of governing a country three thousand miles distant !
That this separation was at length effected by violence, and the horrors of
a civil war, is to be attributed solely to the ignorance and corruption of the
many, and the perilous bigotry of a few." No. 24, Edinburgh Review.
" Let our jealousy burn as it may ; lot our intolerance of America be an
unreasonably violent as we please ; still it is plain that she is a power, in
spite of us, rapidly rising to supremacy; or, at least, that each year so
mightily augments her strength, as to overtake, by a most sensible dis
tance, even the most formidable of her competitors." No. 49, Edinburgh Review.
" In one of my late rambles, I accidently fell into tho company of half
a dozen gentlemen, who were engaged in a warm dispute about some poli
tical affair ; which naturally drew me in for a share of the conversation.
" Amongst a multiplicity of other topics, we took occasion to talk of
the different characters of the several nations of Europe ; when one of the
gentlemen, cocking his hat, and assuming such an air of importance as if
he had possessed all the merit of the English nation in his own person, de
clared that the Dutch were a parcel of avaricious wretches ; the French a
set of flattering sycophants ; that the Germans were drunken sots, and
beastly gluttons ; and the Spaniards proud, haughty, and surly tyrants ;
but that, in bravery, generosity, clemency, and in every other virtue, the
English excelled all the rest of the world.
" This very learned and judicious remark was received with a general
smile of approbation by all the company — all, I mean, but your humble
servant." Goldsmith's Essays— Essay XI.

PART I.

SECTION I.
OF THE POLITICAL AND MERCANTILE JEALOUSY OF
GREAT BRITAIN.
" AMERICA is destined, at all events, to be a great and
" powerful nation. In less than a century, she must have a
" population of at least seventy or eighty millions. War can-
" not prevent, and it appears, from experience, can scarcely
" retard this natural multiplication. All these people will
" speak English; and, according to the most probable con-
" jecture, will live under free governments, whether republican
" or monarchical, and will be industrious, well educated, and
" civilized. Within no very great distance of time, there-
" fore — within a period to which those who are now entering
" life may easily survive, — America will be one of the most
" powerful and important nations of the earth ; and her
" friendship and commerce will hsjnore valued, in all proba-
" bility, than that of any European state." Such were the
speculations of the Edinburgh Review, in the year 1814. In
looking forward to what this Journal predicts, — to the su
premacy in power and character which the North Americans
are destined to reach, — there is something not only curious,
but instructive, in the fnct, that they have been and are more
contemned and defamed than any other people of whom
history has kept a record. Compared with our fate in this
respect, that of Bceotia among the ancients, severe as it was
and sufficiently unjust, may be described as condign and
lenient. It was not alone in their exemption from political
and commercial dependence, that the colonies of Greece may
Vol. I.— A

2 POLITICAL AND [PART I,
be said to have been more fortunate than those of modern
Europj. Neither enlightened Greece, — nor even imperious
Rome, or rapacious Carthage, whose colonial policy bore a nearer
resemblance to the modern,— 'made perpetual war upon the
repulalion of its emigrant offspring. The parent state was
sometimes exorbitant in its demands, and tyrannical in the
exercise of its superior force ; but the colony had not to con
tend with a system of universal detraction; — to serve as a
mark for the arrogance, spleen, or jocularity of oratorsc poets,
and reviewers.
The wise man of Europe — homo sapiens Europce— not
satisfied with sneering and railing at these distant settlements,
conspired, at one time, to decry Nature herself in her opera
tions on the new continent; and the theories of Buffon, Ray-
nal, and De Paw, so fashionable and authoritative during a
certain period, though now so entirely exploded, are to be
cited in illustration ofthe state of the European mind towards
the Western World. The feature not the least remarkable,
belonging to this case is, that the particular mother-country
which might have been expected to be most tender of the
feelings and character of her colonies, out of a due regard to
justice, gratitude, and her own interests, was, at times, the
most scornful in her tone, and the loudest in the chorus of ob
loquy. Great Britain continued to throw out sarcasms
and reproaches against her North American kinsmen, after
the continent of Europe had adopted the opposite style, and
had even passed into an enthusiastic admiration. We may
pardon vapouring, - and invective, and affected derision, at
tbe juncture when her authority was directly questioned, and
her colossal power braved by the thirteen pigmy communities
of provincials y and some allowance is to be made for the play
of passions strongly excited, during and immediately after
the struggle, by which she lost so valuable a portion of her
empire: but the same course has been pursued without any
abatement of virulence or exception of topics, towards these
Independent United States ; it has not been abandoned after a
second war, and after a development of character, resources,
and destinies, which would seem sufficient to silence malice
and subdue the most sturdy prejudice". When the " planta
tions" had grown into colonies, England still thought and
spoke of them as the plantations : — since the colonies have
transformed themselves into an independent and powerful
nation, it is the colonies, with an imagery to which increased
jealousy and despite have added new and more hideous chime-
fas, that are yet seen in the English speculum.

SECT. I.J MERCANTILE JK.iLOUSY. 3
We know that some of the states of antiquity harboured a
mischievous jealousy of the prosperity, spirit, and aims of their
colonies ; but it was only when the latter had become truly
formidable; had attained to an equality of strength, and given
unequivocal evidence of. indifference, estrangement, or hos
tility. But among the modern colonies, the Anglo-North
American, were precisely those which stood the farthest from
this relation, — which, in all stages of their existence, whether
we consider their dispositions, or the general circumstances of
their condition, presented the least cause of distrust or alarm
to the powerful parent; One of a traly magnanimous and
judicious character would have seen, as I hope to prove, abun
dant reason for treating them with the utmost latitude of in
dulgence and " ceremonious kindness." England, however,
is the mother country, who, although perpetually proclaiming
the weakness, as well as insulting the origin, and vilifying
the pursuits of her plantations, conceived the earliest fears
for her supremacy ; who displayed, throughout, the keenest po
litical and mercantile jealousy. It is true, that the other
European powers established and maintained in their settle
ments on this continent, a stricter commercial monopoly, and
more arbitrary systems of internal administration. It is
equally true, however, that England always sought to secure
to herself the carriage of the produce of her North American
colonies ; to engross their raw materials, and to furnish them
with the articles of every kind which they required from
abroad : that if, from the cupidity or indifference of her mo-
narchs, charters of a liberal genius were granted to the first
settlers— if, from a like cause, or national embarrassments,
commonwealths thus cast in the mould of freedom, were suf
fered to acquire consistency, and to become identified, as it
were, with their first institutions — she made incessant attempts
to destroy those charters, and substitute a despotic rule. Her
writers on the trade and general politics of the empire, her
colonial servants, civil and military, continually called for a
more rigorous monopoly and subjection. It was owing to
extraneous events, and to the firmness, vigilance and dexterity
of the provinces, that they remained in possession of their
liberties. I scarcely need remark in addition, that it was a
scheme of administration, tending to place them on the level
of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, which impelled them
to attempt and achieve their independence.
The main purpose of this work imposes upon me the task
of adducing some portion of the abundant evidence which
books afford, in support ofthe general assertions made above :

4 POLITICAL AND [PART I.
ftnd it appears to me not unadvisable, on other grounds, to
refresh the memory of the public, with respect to the early
dispositions and proceedings of Great Britain, towards these
North American communities. I will.begin with the point to
which I have last adverted— her political and mercantile
jealousy. 1. This feeling was coeval with the foundation ofthe colonies.
Nothing similar is to be traced so high in the colonial history
even of Spain or Portugal. We have the following testimony
in Hume's Appendix to his account of the reign of James I.
" What chiefly renders the reign of James memorable is, the
commencement of the English colonies in America ; colonies
established on the noblest footing that has been known in any
age or nation."
" Speculative reasoners, during that age, raised many ob
jections to the planting those remote colonies; and foretold,
that, after draining their mother country of inhabitants, they
would soon shake off her yoke, and erect an independent go
vernment in America."
In the excellent article on the British colonies of Pos-
tlethwayt's Universal Dictionary of Trade, there is a more
particular statement to the same effect.
" It is certain that from the very time Sir Walter Raleigh, the father
of our English colonies, and his associates, first projected these esta
blishments, there have been persons who have found an interest in mis
representing or lessening the value of them. When the intention of
improving these distant countries, and the advantages that were hoped for
thereby, were first set forth, there were some who treated them not only
as chimerical, but as dangerous. They not only insinuated the uncertainty
of the success, but the depopulating the nation. These, and other objec
tions, .flowing either from a narrowness of understanding or of hearl, have
been disproved by experience," &c. &c.
" The difficulties whicli will always attend such kind of settlement!
at the beginning, proved a new cause of clamour; many malignant sug
gestions were made about sacrificing so many Englishmen to the obstinate
desire of settling colonies in countries, which produced very little advan
tage. But, as these difficulties were gradually surmounted, those com
plaints vanished. No sooner were those lamentations over, than others
arose in their stead ; when it could no longer be said that the colonies were
useless, it was alleged that they were not useful enough to their mother
country ; that while we were loaded with taxes they were absolutely free ;
that the planters lived like princes, while the inhabitants of England la
boured hard for a tolerable subsistence. This produced customs and im
positions on plantation commodities," &c. &c.
Within little more than a generation after the commence
ment of the plantations, the royal government anxiously began

SECT. I.] MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. $
those formal inquiries into their population and manufactures,
which were often renewed until the period of our revolt,
and of which the results, as to manufactures, served to place
the jealousy that provoked them in a ludicrous and pitia
ble light. In the reign of Charles I.commissioners were de
puted to ascertain the growth and dispositions of New England :
and we find her agent in London, in the time of Cromwell,
informing one of his constituents, that, even then, there were
not wanting many in England, to whom her privileges were
matter of envy, and who eagerly watched every opportunity
of abridging her political liberties and faculties of trade.
Besides emissaries of the description just mentioned, the
ministry of Charles II. dispatched spies to watch over the con
duct and views of the royal governors in America. From the
same motive, printing presses were denied to the plantations.
We are told by Chalmers, that " no printing press was allowed
in Virginia;" that " in New England and New York there
were assuredly none permitted," and that " the other pro
vinces probably were not more fortunate." * When Andros
was appointed by James II. captain-general of all the northern
colonies, he was instructed " to allow of no printing press."
In an official report of Sir William Berkeley, governor of
Virginia, dated 20th June, 1 67 1, there is the following charac
teristic passage : — " I thank God we have no free schools, nor
any printing; and I hope we shall not have them these hun
dred years. For learning has brought disobedience, and
heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged
them and libels against the best government : God keep us
from both." Accordingly, every effort was made to shut
out the pestilent tree of knowledge. On the appointment of
Lord Effingham to the governmeut of Virginia, in 1683, he
was ordered, agreeably to the prayer of Sir William Berke
ley, " to allow no person to use a printing press on any occa
sion whatever."
The erect port, and firm tone ofthe legislature ofthe infant
Massachusetts, not only filled the cabinet of Charles II. with
alarm for the metropolitan sovereignty, but actually overawed
them, so as to prevent the measures of repression which would
otherwise have been pursued ; and to maintain the province
in the license of action necessary for its prosperity. Curious
and remarkable evidence on these heads is extant in the Me-

* Political Annals of the United Colonies, chap. is.

6 P0LITICAL AND [PART I.
moirsof Evelyn,* who was one of the council of Charles II.
His language deserves to be quoted.
" The 6th of May, 1670, I went to council, where was produced
a most exact and ample information ofthe state of Jamaica, and of
tbe best expedients as to. Nem England, on which there was a long de
bate; but at length it was concluded that, if any, it should be only
a conciliating paper at first, or civil letter, till we had better informa
tion of the present face of things, since we understood they were a people
almost upon the very brink of renouncing any dependence on the crown."—
Vol. i. p. 415.
" The first thing we did at our next meeting, was to settle the form
of a circular letter to the governors of all his Majesty's plantations
and territories in the West Indies and Islands thereof, to give them
notice to whom they should apply themselves on all occasions, and to
render us an account of their present state and government; but
what we most insisted upon was, to know the condition of New England,
which, appearing to be very independent as to their regard to Old England
or his Majesty, rich and strong as they now were, there were great debates
in what style to write to them; for the condition of that colony was
such, that they were able to contest with all other plantations about
them, and there was fear of their breaking from all dependence on this
nation.'' — Ibid.
" The matter in debate in council on the 3d of August, 1671, was,
whether we should send a deputy to New England, requiring them of
the Massachusetts, to restore such to their limits and respective pos
sessions as had petitioned the council ; this to be the open commission
only, but in truth with secret instructions to inform the council of the con
dition of those colonies, and whether they were qf such power as to be able to
resist his Majesty, and declare for themselves as independent ofthe crown,
which we were told, and which of late years made themrefractory. Coll.
Middleton being called in, assured us they might be curbed by a few
of his Majesty's first rate frigates, to spoil their trade with the Islands ;
but though my Lord President was not satisfied, the rest were, and we
did resolve to advise his Majesty to send commissioners with a formal
commission for adjusting boundaries, &c. with some other instructions." —
p. 417." We deliberated in council, on the 12th of January, 1672, on some
fit person to go as commissioner to inspect their actions in New England, and
from time to time report how that people stood affected." — p. 423.
When the real amount of the " riches and strength, and
the power to resist," mentioned in these extracts, is traced in
the returns made from New England at the era in question, it
is difficult to think of the apprehensions of the British court
with any degree of seriousness.
2. The fisheries, shipping, and foreign West India trade of
the colonies had scarcely become perceptible, before the Bri
tish merchants and West India planters caught and sounded
? A work of a very interesting cast in all respects, published in London
in 1818 in 2 vols, quarto. The article devoted to it in the Quarterly
Review has, no doubt, made the most of my readers acquainted with
iU general character.

SECT. I.J MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. 7
the alarm. As soon as the colonists, in the progress of wealth
and population, undertook to manufacture, for their home con
sumption, a few articles of the first necessity, such as hats,
paper,s &c. a clamor was raised by the manufacturers in
England, and the power of the British government was ex
erted to remove the cause of the complaint The Discourse
on Trade, of Sir Josiah Child, a work published in 1670,
but written in 1665, and long considered as ofthe highest
authority, expresses, in the passages which I am about to
quote, the prevailing opinions of the day. " Certainly it is
" the interest of England to discountenance and abate the
" number of planters at Newfoundland, for if they should in-
" crease, it would in a few years happen to us, in relation to
" that country, as it has to the fishery at New England, which
" many years since was managed by English ships from the
" western ports ; but as plantations there increased, it fell to
" the sole employment of people settled there, and nothing of
" that trade left the poor old Englishman, but the liberty of
" carrying now and then, by courtesy or purchase, a ship load
" of fish to Bilboa, when their own New English shipping are
w better employed, or not at leisure to do it."
" New England is the most prejudicial plantation to this
t( kingdom. — I am now to write of a people, whose frugality,
" industry and temperance, and the happiness of whose laws
" and institutions, promise to them long life, with a wonderful
" increase of people, riches and power ; and although no man
" ought to envy that virtue and wisdom in others, which them-
" selves either can or will not practice, but rather to commend
" and admire it ; yet I think it is the duty of every good man
" primarily to respect the welfare of his native country ; and
"therefore, though 1 may offend some whom I would not
" willingly displease, I cannot omit, in the progress of this dis-
" course, to take notice of some particulars, wherein Old Eng-
" land suffers diminution by the growth of the colonies settled
" in New England."* * *
" Of all the American plantations, his Majesty has none so
" apt for the building of shipping as New England, nor any
" comparably so qualified for the breeding of seamen, not only
" by reason ofthe natural industry of that people, but princi-
" pally by reason of their cod and mackerel fisheries ; and in
" my poor opinion, there is nothing more prejudicial, and in
" prospect more dangerous to any mother kingdom, than the
iC increase of shipping in her colonies, plantations, or pro-
" vinces," &c— Chap. 10.
Illustrations of the spirit testified in these extracts from

S POLITICAL ANI> [PART I.
Child, may be collected from the work of Joshua Gee,
" On the Trade and Navigation of Great Britain," published
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and also held in
great estimation. This writer proposed plans " for making
the plantation trade more profitable to England, by strengthen
ing the act of navigation," but suggested, at the same time,
the expediency of suffering some of the plantation commo
dities to be carried directly to the straits of the Mediterra
nean. He thought it necessary too, to assign many reasons why ,
the " plantations" neither sought nor couid acquire indepen
dence. The following passages are from his thirty-first chapter.
" But before I proceed to show the great advantage those additional ma
terials would be to carry on the aforesaid manufactures, I think proper to
take notice of an objection made by some gentlemen, whicli is, that if we
encourage the plantations, they will grow rich, and set up for themselves,
and cast off the English government.''
" I have considered those objections abundance of times ; the of-
tener I think of them, the less ground I see for such doubts and
jealousies." " It must be allowed,New England has shewn an uncommon stiffness. We
think however, all judicious men, when they come to examine thoroughly
into their fears, will see they are groundless ; and that as it seems impos
sible for the other colonies to join in any such design, so nothing could be
more against their own interest: for if New England should ever attempt
to be independent of this kingdom, the stopping their supplying the sugar
islands, and coasting and fishing trade, would drive them to the utmost dif
ficulties to subsist as aforesaid : and of consequence the part they have in
that trade would fall into hands of other colonies, which would greatly in
crease their riches. But if some turbulent spirited men should ever be ca
pable of raising any defection, a small squadron of light frigates would en
tirely cut off their trade, and if that did not do, the government would be
forced, contrary to their practice, to do what other nations do of choice, viz.
place standing forces among them to keep them in order, and oblige them
to raise money to pay them. We do not mention this with any apprehen
sion that ever they will give occasion, but to shew the consequences that
must naturally follow."
" Some persons, who endeavonr to represent this colony in the worst
light, would persuade us they would put themselves under a foreign power,
rather than not gratify their resentments," &c.
" Now as people have been filled with fears, that the colonies, if
encouraged to raise rough materials, would set up for themselves ; a
little regulation would remove all those jealousies out of the way, as
aforesaid," &c.
" It is to be hoped this method would allay the heat that some people
have shewn (without reason) for destroying the iron works in the planta
tions, and pulling down all the forges ; taking away in a violent manner, their
estates and properties, preventing the husbandmen from getting their plough
shares, carts, or other utensils mended ; destroying the manufacture of ship
building, by depriving them ofthe liberty of making bolts, spikes, or other
things proper for carrying on that work ; by which article, returns are made
for purchasing woollen manufactures, which is of more than ten times the
profit that is brought into this kingdom by the exports of iisn manufactures.''

SECT. I.] MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. §
" The present age is so far unacquainted with the cause of the increase.
of our riches, that they rather interrupt than encourage it, ajid instead nf
enlarging, lay hold of some small trifling things, which they think may torn li
their private interest, rather than promote the general good; and if tiny
think any commodity from the plantations interferes with something uve
have at home, some hasty-step is taken to prevent it; so that for the sake
of saving a penny, we often deprive ourselves of things of a thousand times
,the value."
The report made in 1731, at the command ofthe British par
liament, by the Board of Trade and Plantations, concerning the
" trades carried on, and manufactures set up, in the colonies,"
betrays much disquietude, and recommends that, " some ex
pedient be fallen upon to direct the thoughts of the colonists
from undertakings of this kind; so much the rather, because
these manufactures in process of time, may be carried on in a
greater degree, unless an early stop be put to their progress."
The report carefully notes that in New England " by a paper
mill set up three' years ago, they make to the value of ,£.200
sg. yearly." The measures adopted by the parliament in 1732
and 1733, were symptomatic ofthe morbid sensibility common
to all classes of politicians as well as traders. By the act " for
the better securing and encouraging the trade of his majesty's
sugar colonies in America," the interests of New England were
sacrificed to those of the sugar planters.
The petition of Rhode Island and Providence, against the
sugar colony bill, occasioned a debate in the House of Com
mons in 1733, some parts of which deserve to be copied as in
teresting in a double point of view.
" Sir John Bernard moved for leave to bring up the petition.'' —
" Sir Wm. Yonge said, I must take notice of one thing which I have ob
served in the petition. They therein tell us, that as to the bill now depend
ing before us, they apprehend it to be against their charter. This, I must
say, is something very extraordinary ; and, in my opinion, looks very like
aiming at an independence, and disclaiming the authority and jurisdiction
of this House, as if this House had not a power to tax them, or to make any
laws for the regulating tlie affairs of their colonies; therefore, if there were
no other reason for our not receiving the petition, on this single account I
should be against it."
" Mr. Wennington — I hope the petitioners have 110 charter which debars
this House from taxing them as well as any other subjects of this nation. J.
am sure they can have no such charter."
" Sir John Barnard alleged that, tbe language of the petitioners was 'that
they humbly conceive, that the bill now depending, if passed into a law,
would be highly prejudicial to their charter.' It may be that this House
has sometimes refused to receive petitions from some parts of Britain,
against duties to be laid on ; but this can be no reason why the petition I
have now in my hand should be rejected. The people in every part of Bri
tain have a representative in this House, who is to take care of their parti
cular interests, and they may, by means of their representative in this house,
offer what reasons they think proper against any duties to be laid on, But
Vol. I.— B

10 POLITICAL -AND [part r.
the people who are the present petitioners, have no particular representa
tives in this House, therefore, the} have no other way of applying or offering
their reasons to this House, but in the way of being heard at the bar of
tbe House, by their agent here in England. I'herefore, the case of this
petition is an exception."
" The question being put for bringing up the petition, passed in the ne
gative." — {Parliamentary History.)
The trade of the northern colonies with the foreign. West
India Islands, would have been totally prohibited according to
the praj*er of the sugar planters, had not the parliament ap
prehended distant consequences, of a nature incompatible with
the general British policy as to France.* The spirit ofthe le
gislation under review, is strikingly exemplified in the law of
1732, to prevent the ' exportation of hats out of the plantations
* in America, and to restrain the number of apprentices taken
' by the hat makers, in the said plantations, &c.' So also, in
the act of 1750, prohibiting, under severe penalties, the erec
tion of any slitting-mill, plating-forge, or furnace for making
steel, See. Heavy complaints were made in Great Britain,
that the people of New England, " not satisfied with carrying
out tlieir own produce, had become carriers for the other co
lonies." The injustice of the restraints imposed or solicited,
may be understood from the circumstance that New England
had no staple to exchange for the British manufactures.
" Hats," savs the Account of the European Settlements,+
" are made in New England, which in a clandestine way, find
" a good vent in all the other colonies. The setting up this,
" and other manufactures, has been in a great measure, a mat-
" ter necessary to them ; for, as they have not been properly
" encouraged in some staple commodity by which they might
" communicate with their mother country, while they were
" cut off from all other resources, they must either have aban-
" doned the country, or have found means of employing their
" own skill and industry to draw out of it the neqessaries of
" life. The same necessity, together with their convenience
" for building and manning ships, has made them the carriers
" for the other colonies."
New England, Massachusetts particularly, was constantly

* See Account of the European Settlements in America, vol. ii. p. 17a
Moreover, according to the same authority, " The northern colonies de
clared, that if they were deprived of so gi'eat a branch of their trade, it must
necessitate them to the establishment of manufactures. For, if they were
cut off from their foreign trade, they never could purchase in England the
many things for the use or the. ornament of life, which they have from
thence, &c."
4 Ibid, p. 175. A.D. 1757.

SECT. I.j MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. 11
arraigned and threatened, for contempt of the act of naviga
tion, and the subsequent regulations of a like purport, although
by the confession of the board of trade itself, in its reports,
nature left them no alternative but disobedience, or a long
and feeble infancy. These restraints, — those relating to ma
nufactures, at least, — were as unnecessary, as vexatious and
unjust, Our experience since the separation, has demonstrated
the extravagance of the apprehensions of the mother country,
when referred to New England at the beginning of the last
century. The- selfishness must have been extreme, the
jealousy exquisite, which generated the phantoms of an in
dependent empire and rival manufactures in that quarter,
at so early a period. The opinions of Adam Smith, concern
ing the British legislation generally, in the case of the Ame
rican colonies, carry with them an authority not lo be resisted,
and belong especially to an exposition, such as the one in which
I am engaged. I am the more strongly tempted to adventure
upon pretty copious extracts from the seventh chapter of his
fourth book, in which he particularly treats of that legislation,
since most of our domestic historians, inattentive to the cry, if I
may be allowed the phrase, of the very facts which they relate,
talk volubly ofthe " wise and liberal policy" of Great Britain."*
" The policy of Europe has very little to boast of, either in the original
establishment, or so far as concerns their internal government, in the sub
sequent prosperities of the colonies of America."
*' Folly and injustice seem to have been the principles which presided
over, and directed the first project of establishing those colonies ; the folly
of hunting after gold and silver mines, and the injustice nf coveting the
possession nf a country whose harmless natives, far from having ever in
jured the people of Europe, had received the first adventurers with every
mark of kindness and hospitality."
"The adventurers, indeed, who formed some of the later establish
ments, joined to the chimerical project of finding gold and silver mines,
other motives more reasonable and more laudable : but even these motives
do very little honour to the policy of Europe."
" The English Puritans, restrained at home, fled for freedom to Ame
rica, and established there the four governments of New England. The
English Catholics, treated with much greater injustice, established that of
Maryland ; the Quakers, that of Pennsylvania, &c. &c.*'
" The government of England contributed scarce any thing towards
effectuating the establishment of some of its most important colonies in
North America."
"When those establishments were effectuated, and had become so
considerable as to attract the attention of the mother country, the first
regulations which she made with regard to them had always in view to
keep to herself the monopoly of their commerce ; to confine their mar
ket, and to enlarge her own at their expense, and consequently rather to
damp and discourage, than to quicken and forward the course of their pros
perity. In the different ways in which this monopoly has been exercised,
* See Ramsay — Colonial History, chap. i.

I-fc POLITICAL AND* [PART I.
consists one of the most essential differences in the policy of the different
European nations with regard to their colonies. The best of them all, that of
England is only somewhat less illiberal and oppressive than that of any ofthe resU
"England purchased, by some of her. subjects, who felt uneasy at
home, a great estate in a dislaiit country. The price indeed was very
small, and instead of thirty years purchase, the ordinary price of land
in the present, times, it amounted to little more than the expense of
the different equipments which made the first discovery, reconnoitered
the coast, and took a fictitious possession of the country. The land
Avas good and of great extent, and the cultivators having plenty of good
ground to work upon, and being for some time at liberty to sell their
produce where they pleased, became, in the course of little more than
thirty or forty years, (between 1620 and 1660) so numerous and thriv
ing a people, that the shop-keepers and other traders of England,
wished to secure to themselves the monopoly of their eustom. Without
pretending, therefore, that they had paid any part, either of the original
purchase money, or of the subsequent expense of improvement, they
petitioned the parliament that the cultivators of Ameriea might, for
the future, be confined to their shop ; first, for buying all the good*
which they, wanted from Europe ; and, secondly, for selling all such
parts of their own produce as those traders might find it convenient to
buy, for they did not find it convenient to buy every part of it. Some
parts of it imported into England might have interfered with some of
the trades which they themselves carried on at home. Those particular
parts of it, therefore, they were willing that the colonists should sell where
they could ; the farther off the better ; and, upon that account, proposed
that their market should be confined to the countries south of Cape
Finisterre. A clause in the famous act of navigation established this
truly shop-keeper proposal into a law."
" The maintenance of this monopoly has hitherto been the principal, or
more properly, perhaps, the sole end and purpose of the dominion which
Great Britain assumes over her colonies. It is the principal badge of
tlieir dependency, and it is the sole fruit which has hitherto been
gathered from that dependency. Whatever expense Great Britain has
hitherto laid out in maintaining this dependency, has really been laid out
in order to support this monopoly."
" While Great Britain encourages in America, the manufactures of
pig and bar iron, by exempting them from duties, to which the like
commodities are subject, when imported from any other country, she
imposes an absolute prohibition upon the erection of steel furnaces
and slit-mills in any of her American plantations. She will not suffer
her colonies to work in those more refined manufactures even of their
own consumption ; but insists upon their purchasing of her merchants
and manufacturers all goods of this kind which they have occasion for."
" She prohibits the exportation from one province to another by
water, and even the carriage by land on horseback or in a cart, of hats,
of wools and woollen goods, of the produce of America ; a regulation
which effectually prevents the establishment of any manufacture of
such commodities for distant sale, and confines the industry of her
colonists in this way to such coarse and household manufactures, as a
private, family generally makes for its own use, or for that of some of
its neighbours in the same province."
" To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of
every part of their oisn produce, or from employing their stock and industry
in the way that they judge most advantageous to themsehet, is a manifeti

SECT. I.}- MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. 13
¦eiolalion ofthe most sacred rights of mankind. Though they had not been
prohibited from establishing such manufactures, yet in their present state
of improvement, a regard to their own interest would, probably, have pre
vented them from doing so. In their present state of improvement, those
prohibitions, perhaps, without cramping their industry, or restraining it
from any employment to whicli it would have gone of its own accord, are
only impertinent badges of slavery, imposed upon them, without any suffi
cient reason, by the groundless jealousy of the merchants and manufacturers
of the mother country.''
" Of the greater part of the regulations concerning the colony trade,
the merchants who carry it on, it must be observed, have been the prin
cipal advisers. We must not wonder, therefore, if, in the greater part of
them, their interest has been more considered than either that of the colo
nies or that of athe mother country. In tlieir exclusive privilege of supply
ing the colonies with all the goods which they wanted from Europe, and of
purchasing all such parts of their surplus produce as could not interfere
with any of the trades which they themselves carried on at home, the in
terest ofthe colonies was sacrificed to the interests of those merchants."
" If the whole surplus produce of America in grain of all sorts, in salt
provisions, and in fish, had been put into the enumeration, and thereby
forced into the market of Great Britain, it would have interfered too much
with the produce of the industry of our own people. It was probably not
so much from any regard to the interest of America, as from a jealousy of
this interference, that those important commodities have not only been
kept out of the enumeration, but that the importation into Great Britain of
all grain, except rice, and of all salt provisions, has, in an ordinary state of
the law, been prohibited."
" The non-enumerated commodities could originally be exported to all
parts of the world. Lumber and rice having been once put into the enu
meration, when they were afterwards taken out of it, were confined, as to
the European market, to the countries that lie south of Cape Finisterre.
By the 6th of George III, c. 51. all non-enumerated commodities were sub
jected to the like restriction. The parts of Europe which Ho south of Cape
Finisterre, are not manufacturing countries, and we were less jealous ofthe
colony ships carrying home from them any manufactures which could inter
fere with our own."
3. As the plantations advancedjin numbers, strength, wealth,
and manufactures, they awakened a still more lively distrust,
and jealous vigilance, in the mother country. In 1715,
a bill was brought into the House of Commons to abolish all
the charter governments ; against which tryrannical project,
the agent of Massachusetts, Dummer, published an elaborate
and masterly pamphlet. One of the sections of his " Defence
of the New England Charter," is headed thus, — " The ob
jection that the charter colonies will grow great and formi
dable, answered :" — and the author details, with much anxiety,
the circumstances which, in his opinion, established the pro
bability ofthe reverse. He begins his argument with stating,
" There is one thing I have heard often urged against the
" colonies, and indeed, it is what one meets from people of
<( all conditions and qualities. 'Tis said, that their increasing
" numbers and wealth, joined to their great distance from

14 POLITICAL AN6 [PART t.
" Gieat Britain, will give them an opportunity, in the course
•' of some years, to throw off their dependence on the nation,
" and declare themselves a free state, if not curbed in time.
" 1 have often wondered to hear some great men profess their
" belief of the feasibleness of this, &c."* The House of
Commons continued, as may be seen, from the portion given
above of their debate of 1733, on the petition from Rhode
Island, to be tremblingly alive on this point. It displayed its
sensibility even in a more marked way, a few years after.
In 1740, it voted, upon the complaint preferred by the ge
neral court of Massachusetts, against governor Belcher, for
denying to them the disposal of the public monies, — " That
" the complaint, contained in the New England memorial
" and petition, was frivolous and groundless ; an high insult
" upon his majesty's government, and tending to shake off
" the dependency of the said colony upon this kingdom, to
" which, by law and right, they are and ought to be subject."
When the general court ventured to censure one of their
agents, Mr. Dunbar, for giving evidence before parliament on
the bill for the better securing the trade of the sugar colonies,
the House of Commons voted, nem. con. — " That the pre
suming to call any person to account, or pas6 a censure upon
him, for evidence given by such person before that House, was
an audacious proceeding, and an high violation of the privileges
of that House."
The fate of the Albany plan of union, familiar to the me
mory of all who have read our history, affords additional
proof of the temper which it is my object to illustrate. A
confederacy of the colonies for the purpose of defence against
the French and Indians, was at first instigated by the British
government; but it could tolerate no arrangements except
such as were incompatible with their liberties. It finally pre
ferred leaving them exposed to the most formidable dangers,
and itself to the cost and trouble of their protection, rather
than acquiesce in any scheme of coalition, in the execution
of which, they might, to use the language of Franklin,
" grow too military, and feel their own strength." t In the
pamphlet which this great statesman published, in 1760,
to show the impolicy of restoring Canada to the French, there
is a section allotted to the question, "whether the American
colonies were dangerous in their nature to Great Britain." He
found it necessary, on every occasion, when an advantage
was sought for them, to set in formal array, all the considera-
•Page 73.
f See Memoirs of Franklin, p. 142, American edition.

SECT. I.] MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. 15
tions which pleaded against the bare supposition, of their being
disposed or able to effect their independence.
To lessen the danger, or obviate new hazards, for her sove
reignty and monopoly, England embraced the policy, of confining
the settlements in North America as much as possible to the sea
coast. The great points of preventing the French power from
being iramoveably established at their back, andover the whole
vast interior ; of securing the Atlantic provinces not only from
this evil, but from theircruel scourge— the Indians; of opening
the fruitful and beautiful countries beyond the Appalachian
mountains to English cultivation and empjre, were all postponed
to views, of which it is difficult to say whether they were more
self.sh or short sighted. The plan of a colony on the Ohio,
for the salutary and noble purposes just enumerated, was con
ceived in America in the middle ofthe last century, submitted
fruitlessly to the British government in 1768, and offered anew
by Dr. Franklin in 1770, with the engagement on the part of
the projectors, to be at the whole expense of establishing and
maintaining the civil administrration of the country to be set
tled. A few extracts from the two Reports* of the Board of
Trade and Plantations, on-the subject, to the Lords of the privy
council, will explain the favourite system in relation to the
plantations. " The proposition of forming inland colonies in America is, we humbly
conceive, entirely new: it adopts principles in respect to American settle
ments, different from what have hitherto been the policy of this kingdom,
and leads to a system which, if pursued through all its consequences, is,
in the present stale of that country, of the greatest importance."
" And first with regard to the policy, we take leave to remind your lord
ships of that principle which was adopted by this Board, and approved and
confirmed by his majesty, immediately after the treaty of Paris, viz. the
confining the western extent of settlements to such a distance from the
seu coast, as that those settlements Should lie within the reach of the trade
end commerce of this kingdom, upon which the strength and riches of it
dqprnd ; and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction, which
was conceived io be necessary for the preservation of the colonies, in a
due subordination to, and dependance upon, the mother country; and these
we apprehend to have been two capital objects of his majesty's proclamation
of the 7th of October, 1763, by which his Majesty declares it to be his
royal will and pleasure, to reserve, under his sovereignty, protection, and
dominion, for the use of the Indians, all the lands not included within the
three new governments, the limits of which are described;therein, as also
all the lands and territories lying to the westward, of the sources of the
rivers which shall fall into the sea from the west and north-west, and by
which all persons are forbid to make any purchases or settlements whatever,
or to take possession of any of the land* above reserved, without special
license for that.purpose."
 ,  !  1 — — ¦ ¦  ¦"  — ¦  -'" "
• Fourth vol. Franklin^ Works, article Ohio/ Settlement.

16 POLITICAL AND [PART I.
" The same principles of policy, in reference to settlements at so great
a distance from the sea coast as to be out of the reach of all advantageous
intercourse with this kingdom, continue to exist in their full force and
spirit ; and though various propositions for erecting new colonies in the interior
parts if America have been, in consequence of this extension of the boundary
Une, submitted to the consideration of government (particularly in that part of
the country wherein are situated the lands now prayed for, with a view to
that object,) yet the dangers and disadvantages of complying with such
proposals have been so obvious, as to defeat every attempt made for carry
ing them into execution."
" Tho effect of the policy of this kingdom in respect to colonizing Ame
rica in those colonies where there has been sufficient time for that effect to
discover itself, will, we humbly apprehend, be a very strong argument
against forming settlements in the interior country ; more especially when
every advantage derived from an established government would naturally
tend to draw the stream of population ; fertility of soil, and temperature
of climate, offering superior incitements to settlers who, exposed to few
hardships, and struggling with few difficulties, could, with little labour, earn
an abundance for their own wants, but without a possibility of supplying ours
with any considerable quantities."
" Admitting that the settlers in the country in question are numerous as
report states them to be, yet we submit that this is a fact which does, in
the nature of it, operate strongly in point of argument against what is pro
posed — tor if the foregoing reasoning has any weight, it certainly ought to
induce you to advise his majesty to take every method to check the progress
of these settlements, and not to make such grants of land as will have au
immediate tendency to encourage them."
The language of the royal servants of North America was
of the same tenor with that of the Lords of Trade. The
commander in chief of his Majesty's forces there wrote, in
1769, to Lord Hillsborough, who presided over the colonial
department. " As to increasing the settlements to respectable provinces, and to colo
nization in general terms in the remote countries, I conceive it altogether in
consistent with sound policy. I do not apprehend the inhabitants could
have any commodities to barter for manufactures, except skins and furs,
which will naturally decrease as the country increases in people, and the
deserts are cultivated ; so that in the course of a few years, necessity would
force them to provide manufactures of some kind for themselves ; and
when all connection upheld by commerce with the mother country shall
cease, it may be expected that an independency in her government will
soon follow. The laying open new tracts of fertile country in moderate
climates might lessen the present supply ofthe commodities of America,
for it is the passion of every man to be a landholder, and the people have
a natural disposition to rove in search of good land, however distant."
The governor of Georgia, above named, is quoted with
great deference by the Lords of Trade, as having written to
them thus : "
" This matter, my lords, of granting large bodies of land in the back
parts of any of his majesty's northern colonies, appears to me in a very
serious and alarming light; and I humbly conceive, may be attended with
the greatest and worst of consequences ; for, my lords, if a vast territory
be granted to any set of gentlemen, who really mean to people it, and

SECT. I.J MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. 17
actually do so, it nrast draw and carry out a great number of people from
Great Brit ain ; and I apprehend, they will stfon become a kind of separate
and independent people, who will set up for themselves ; that they will
soon have manufactures of their own, &c. : in process of time, they will
become formidable enough to oppose his majesty's authority," &c.
It is curious, and demonstrative of the sense commonly en
tertained of the views ofthe British government, that some of
the advocates for the project of interior settlements, insisted,
that such establishments would serve as a check upon attempts,
on the part of the old colonies, to become independent, by
draining them of their population. There is, in fact, much
plausibility in the suggestion, which is made in one ofthe me
morials on the subject, of the year 1767 — that of General
Lyman. " The period will doubtless come, when North Ame-
" rica will no longer acknowledge a dependance on any part of
" Europe. But that period geems to be so remote, as not to be
" at present an object of rational policy or human prevention,
" and it will be rendered still more remote by opening new
" scenes of agriculture, and widening the space which the co-
" lonists must first completely occupy."*
I shall not be considered going wide of my subject, if I
advert here, to the fact, that the British government has pur
sued, with respect to India, a policy similar to that recom
mended in the foregoing extracts, in relation to North Ame
rica. I need only appeal to the authority of Mills, who, in
his " History of British India," uses this emphatic language.
" If it were possible for the English government to learn wis-
" dom by experience, which governments rarely do, it might
" at last, see with regret, some of the effects of that illiberal,
" cowardly, and short-sighted policy, under which it has taken
" the most solicitous precautions to prevent the settlement of
" Englishmen; trembling, forsooth, lest Englishmien, if al-
" lowed to settle in India, should detest and cast off its yoke !'r
¦" It is wonderful to see how the English government, every
" now and then, voluntarily places itself in the station of a
" government existing in opposition to the people, a govern-
" ment which hates, because it dreads the people, and is hated
'* by them in its turn. Its deportment with regard to theresi-
" dence of the Englishmen in India, speaks these unfavour-
" able sentiments with a force which language could not easily
«' possess."! The Edinburgh Review, in quoting the first of these para-

* See Macpherson's Annals of Commerce. Quarto Ed. vol. iii. 469.
f B. 6. vol. iii. p. 334, 336.
Vol. I— C

18 - POLITICAL AND [PART 1.
graphs, affects, indeed, to doubt whether " the obstructions
" which have been thrown in the way of colonization in In-
u dia, have arisen mainly from the idea that another nation of
" Englishmen would spring up there, who might take upon
" them to govern themselves ;" and it cannot admit that " any
*' Englishman would be base enough not to wish to see another
11 America arise at a distance, which might relieve Britain
" from the fear of her rivality?'* But no one that has read the
masterly work of the historian whom I have just cited, will
hesitate between his opinions on the subject, and those of any
anonymous critic; and there is a corroborative circumstance
too notorious to be questioned : I mean the attempt sanctioned
in the same quarter, to prevent the diffusion of Christianity
among the Hindoos, from an apprehension of danger to the
British power. + I am myself unable to devise a juster or
stronger commentary upon the policy towards the North Ame
rican colonies, than is furnished in the following general obser
vation of the Edinburgh critics, in allusion to the case of
India. " We cannot conceive any thingjmore discreditable to
" a government, than to place itself in opposition to a measure,
" conducive, and almost essential to the prosperity of a great
" empire, merely because it would be attended with a chance,
" at some distant period, of a curtailment of the extent of its
" dominions." It is not easy to forget that at the commencement of the ne
gotiations at Ghent, in 1814, a policy was betrayed by the Bri
tish government, in the demands of its commissioners, touching
a new Indian boundary, akin to that which discountenanced
the plan ofthe Ohio settlement. Nor ought we to forget the
eloquent condemnation of the pretension of 1814, pronounced
by Sir James Mackintosh, in the House of Commons, — a con
demnation equally due to his majesty's proclamation of the
7th October, 1763, and to the system of the Lords of Trade.
" The western frontier of North American cultivation is the
" part ofthe globe in which civilization is making the most
" rapid and extensive conquests on the wilderness. It is the
" point where the race of man is the most progressive. To
* No. 61.
t See the " Christian Researches in Asia," of the Bev. Claudius Bu
chanan.— The writer adduces a letter to himself, dated May 14, 1806, from
Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, which contains the following passage : '' Twenty
years and more have now elapsed, since in a sermon before Ihe House of
Lords, I hinted to the government the propriety of paying regard to the pro
pagation ot Christianity m India ; and I have since then, as fit occasion of
fered, privately, but unsuccessfully, pressed the matter on the consideration
of those in power."

SECT. I.J MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. 19
" forbid the purchase of land from savages, is to arrest the
" progress of mankind. — More barbarous than the Norman
" tyrants, who afforested great tracts of arable land for their
" sport, ministers attempted to stipulate that a territory quite
" as great as the British islands, should be doomed to an eter-
" nal desert. They laboured to prevent millions of freemen and
" Christians from coming into existence. To perpetuate the
'* English authority in two provinces, a large part of North
" America was for ever to be a wilderness. The American
" negociators, by their resistance to so insolent and extravagant
" a demand, maintained the common cause of civilized men."*
4. Emigration to the colonies proved, from the outset, a
subject of alarm for the mother-country. Her apprehension
from it was two-fold ; of her own depopulation, and the trans
lation and decline of her manufactures.
" The barbarism of our ancestors," says the author of the
European Settlements in America, " could not comprehend how
" a nation could grow more] populous by sending out a part
" of its people. We have lived to see this paradox made out
" by experience, but we have not sufficiently profited of this
" experience; since we begin, (in 1757,) some of us at least,
<l to think that there is a danger of dispeopling ourselves, by
" encouraging new colonies, or increasing the old."
Precautions were taken against too great an efflux from the
kingdom, to America, even in the time of James I. and were
renewed on several occasions in that of his successor. The
circumstance is noticed by Hume in the following terms : —
" The Puritans, restrained in England, shipped themselves
" off for America, and laid there the foundations of a go-
" vernment, which possessed all the liberty, both civil and
(< religious, of which they found themselves deprived in their
" native country. But their enemies, unwilling that they
" should any where enjoy ease and contentment, and dread-
" ing, perhaps, the dangerous consequences of so disaffected
" a colony, prevailed with the king to issue a proclamation,
" debarring these devotees access even into those inhospitable
" deserts."t
In 1637, a proclamation was issued by Charles I. " to re-
" strain the disorderly transporting of his majesty's subjects to
" the colonies without leave ;" and in 1638, another, " com-
" manding owners and masters of vessels, that they do not
" fit out any with passengers and provisions to New England,

* Speech on the Treaty with America— April 1815.
+ Chanter Z9..

f Chapter 52

20 POLITICAL AND [PART. I.
" without license from the Commissioners of Plantation."
One incident ofthe operation of this interdict has attracted the
notice of all the historians, and is thus strikingly told by
Robertson. " The number ofthe emigrants to America drew the attention of go
vernment, and appeared so formidable, that a proclamation was issued,
prohibiting masters of ships from carrying passengers to New England,
"without special permission. On many occasions this injunction was eluded
or disregarded. Fatally for the King, it operated with full effect in one
instance. Sir Arthur Haslerig, John Hampden, Oliver Cromwell, and
some other persons, whose principles and views coincided with theirs, im
patient to enjoy those civil and religious liberties, which they struggled in
vain to obtain in Great Britain, hired some ships to carry them and their at
tendants to New England. By order of Council, an embargo was laid on
these when on the point of sailing; and Charles, far from suspecting that
the future revolutions of his kingdoms were to be excited and directed by
persons in such an humble sphere of life, forcibly detained the men des
tined to overturn his throne, and to terminate his days by a violent
death."* Towards the close of the seventeeth century, the alarm of
depolutation, and trans-atlantic manufactures, from the re
moval of British subjects to the colonies, had increased, and
become the theme of much political speculation. Sir Josiah
Child thought it necessary to investigate minutely the reality
of the danger, and devoted to the question a consi
derable section of his work on Trade. Some few of his
phrases will explain the state of the case. " Gentlemen of
" no mean capacities are of opinion, that his Majesty's plan-
" tations abroad, have very much prejudiced this kingdom
" by draining us of people.* I do not agree that our people
" in England are in any considerable measure abated, by reason
" of our foreign plantations. This, I know, is a controverted
" point, and 1 do believe, that where there is one man of my
" mind, there may be a thousand of the contrary," &c.+ Child
argued the question upon the true principles of political econo
my, and among other particular views gave the following : —
" I do acknowledge, that the facility of getting to the plan-
" tations, may cause some more to leave us than would do,
" if they had none but foreign countries for refuge : but then
" if it be considered, that our plantations spending mostly our
" English manufactures, and those of all sorts almost imagi-
" nable, in egregious quantities, and employing nearly two-
" thirds of all our English shipping, do therein giveacon-
" stant sustenance to it, may be 200,000 persons here at
" home ; then I must needs conclude, upon the whole matter,
* Fourth vol. History of America.
t Chapter 10.

SECT. I.J .MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. 21
" that we have not the fewer, but the more people in Eng-
" land, by reason of our English plantations in America."*
Notwithstanding the complete refutation of the error by
this and other liberal writers, lively alarms continued to
recur. We find the political economists of England engaged,
in 1756, and at later periods, before and after the American
revolution, in warm controversies respecting the decline of the
British population, from various causes, emigration included. +
The government acted uniformly upon the received prejudice.
The Lords of Trade, in the official report of 1770, which I
have quoted above, refer to the doctrine also quoted, of the
governor of Georgia, in the following terms : — " And there is
" one objection suggested by governor Wright, to the extension
" of settlements in the interior country, which, we submit,
" deserves your lordship's particular attention, viz. the en-
' ' couragement that is thereby held out to the emigration of his
ft majesty's subjects ; an argument which, in the present pe-
" culiar situation of this kingdom, demands very serious con-
" sideration, and has for some time past had so great weight
" with this Board, that it has induced us to deny our concur-
" rence to many proposals for grants of land, even in those
" parts of the continent of America, where, in other respects,
" we are of opinion, that it consists with the true policy/ of the
u kingdom to encourage settlements."
On the recognition of our independence, the panic respect
ing emigration returned, in England, with double violence.
Nothing short of complete depopulation, from the tempta
tions which the seeming natural advantages, or the designing
legislation, of the new republic might offer to his majesty's
liege subjects, was apprehended by the privy coilncil ofthe
home department. Lord Sheffield set himself at work to
medicate the imagination of his countrymen, by depicting
this land as one of multifarious wretchedness, and in al
most the last stage of atrophy. He represented emigration as
the resource only of the culprit, and of those who had
* Chapter 10.
f To discourage it, the device was early employed, which has been
so often resorted to, in relation to the United States. The following title
of a work, which appeared in the mother-country in 1753, will explain
what I mean : " America dissected ; being a true and full account of all
the American Colonies: shewing the intemperance of the climates ; bad
ness of money ; danger from enemies ; and the danger to the souls of the
poor people that remove- thither, from the heresies that prevail there. By a
Rev. Divine of the Church of England, Missionary to America, and D. D.—
Published as a caution to unsteady people, •who may be tempted to leave their
native country,"

22 POLITICAL AND [PART I.
made themselves the objects of contempt. " America would
prove the bane of all others;" " not above one emigrant in five,
to that country, succeeded so as to settle a family ;" " the bet
ter sort of them were begging about the streets of Philadelphia;
Irishmen went there to become slaves to negroes," &c* Ex
pedients more effectual than this phantasmagoria, were adopt
ed by the government, particularly in 1794, in the shape of
prohibitory laws. We had a remarkable instance of its feeling
in 1817, in the act of parliament of that year, by which Bri
tish and foreign vessels were allowed to carry passengers from
Great Britain and Ireland to the United States, in the propor
tion of one passenger only to every five tons, whereas the British
vessels were permitted to convey them to other countries in
the proportion of one for every two tons.
The government of England would seem, at this time, to
have relapsed into that particular " barbarism of our ances
tors," mentioned in the quotation from the European Settle?-
ments. The report ofthe parliamentary proceedings for May,
1818, furnishes the following paragraph :— " In answer to a
" question of a member from a manufacturing town, respect-
" ing the increased progress of emigration, Lord Castlereagh
" replied, that it was the earnest object of government to termi-
" nate this most mischievous evil, and that they were meditating
" means for this purpose." I have had already occasion to
notice some of the means which appear to have been me
ditated by his lordship ; but in looking at the British statute
book, and the repository of orders in council, I find it diffi
cult to conjecture what means could be contrived in the nature
of penal regulation, in addition to those already provided, at
different eras in the British history. The transportation of
machinery is still punishable with death. On the 6th of Fe
bruary, 1817, Lord Lauderdale made his lament in the House of
Peers, that the law interfered to prevent a poor artisan from
leaving his country, and transferring his industry elsewhere ;
and that persons who attempted to export machinery were sub
jected to capital punishment. We have recently seen these
" poor artisans" stealing their way at double expense, to the sea
ports of France, in order to escape thence with impunity, to
the only country which holds out to them the probability of a
tolerable lot. The statute book and ministry lag behind even
the Quarterly Review in illumination on this subject, if we
may judge from this passage, of the number of that Jour
nal, for April, 1816:—" It is vain to imagine, that im-
• See Observations on the Commerce of the United States, by John
Lord Sheffield, 1784.— p. 190, 90.

.SECT. I.J MERCANTILE JEALOUSY. 23
" improvements in machinary can, for any length of time, be
" confined to the country in which they are invented ; and at-
" tempts to prevent manufacturers from emigrating, by penal
" statutes, are not only oppressive, but inefficacious."
The historians relate, that the acts of Charles I. restraining
emigration, " increased the murmurs and complaints of the
" people, and raised the cry of double persecution, to be
" vexed at hume, and not suffered lo seek peace abroad." This
cry is again heard in England, after a lapse of nearly two cen
turies, and that jealousy which, in part, furnished the cause for
it at the earliest period, has now a large share in its production
with a still greater certainty of disappointment.
Nothing remains for the British government, but to pursue
the course which Ovid has indicated as the reproach of the
Argives among the nations of antiquity.
* — Prohibent discedere leges
Paenaque mors posita est patriam mutare volenti.
5. The reduction of the fortress of Louisbourg, in 1745, by
the colonial troops, — the twenty-five thousand soldiers whom
the colonies furnished and maintained in the war of 1755, —
the four hundred privateers fitted out in their ports during the
same period, to cruise against French property, — the large
sums which they advanced, beyond their fair proportion, to
the military chest, — the bonsiderable aids in men and provi
sions, which they sent to the West Indies, — the important,
principal share which they had in the overthrow of the French
power in North America, and in the consequent, unexampled
glory and aggrandizement of England, — these splendid efforts
and services, of which I propose to speak particularly here
after, extorted annual thanks from the British parliament,
and encomiums from the ministry: but they awakened no
real gratitude, and won no solid marks of favour. The old
jealousy was irritated ; and a keener cupidity excited, by such
supposed evidences of power and wealth : the design so long
formed, of discharging upon the colonies, a part of the load of
taxation under which Britain groaned, and of fastening a mi
litary yoke upon their necks, was only confirmed and ripened,
by their generous and excessive exertions, for the triumph of
the mother-countryj over her great rival. This effect was
quickly visible in the stamp-act of 1764 : and the scheme of
subjugation, though intermitted for a moment, was soon made
evident by the revival of that act, and the train of desperate
attempts upon the liberties and spirit ofthe colonies, which the
Declaration of Independence has engraven on the memory of
every American.

&4 POLITICAL AND [PART I.
The views and dispositions ofthe British ministry, from the
year 1763, until the sword was drawn, and during the struggle,
belong more particularly to another section of this volume.
They are, indeed, so well known, as scarcely to call for illus
tration from history. It is alike notorious and confessed,
that the majority of the British nation partook in them, and
finally consented to the recognition of American independence,
not from any change of feelings, but from momentary exhaus
tion and discouragement. As the determination of the colo
nies to resort to arms, became apparent, and after the rupture
was complete, the jealousy of dominion and monopoly, and
the dread of future rivalry ^heightened into rage, and no longer
restrained by immediate interest, were vented in every variety
of passionate and resentful expression. " I must maintain,"
said a ministerial leader in the House of Lords, in the debate
of 26th October, 1775, on the King's speech, "that it would
" have been better that America had never been known, than
" that a great consolidated empire should exist independent of
" Great Britain." Governor Johnstone, and his colleagues
of the opposition, cried shame upon "the ignoble jealousies
daily uttered in Parliament against the Americans." — Just as
an orator ofthe House of Commons found himself, in 1812,
compelled to exclaim and protest against " the perpetual
jealousy of America."* One of the passages which I have se
lected from the Edinburgh Review, to place at the head of this
work, relates a fact, which may be said to speak volumes to
the same purport. It were endless, and it is not within my
present aim, to recount the demonstrations of this feeling, par
ticularly as respects trade and navigation, given by England
since her acknowledgment of our independence. Nor do I
think it necessary to prove further her habitual temper, by
quoting her conduct towards another of her dependencies-
Ireland— whose strength, trade, and manufactures were so
long and cruelly oppressed and crippled, while her domestic
character and history were so grossly misrepresented and tra-
duced.t

* Mr. Brougham's Speech on the Commerce and Manufactures of Great
Britain. t See a victorious work recently published in this country, and entitled
Vindicia Hibernica, by Matthew Carey, Esq.— The sagacious and patriotic
writer ought to pursue his well-laid train of detection. The subject is not
without attraction for Americans in general : and for Irishmen, and the de- •
scendants of Irishmen, it has the deepest interest.

25

SECTION II.
OF THE GENERAL CHARACTER AND MERITS OF THE
COLONISTS,

1. I have said that England is the particular mother-coun
try, which might have been expected to be most tender of the
feelings and character of her colonies, out of a due regard to
justice, gratitude, and her own interests, as well as from the
sympathies of blood, and the dictates of an enlarged philan
thropy. This is a proposition, from which no candid man,
acquainted with the history of the American continent, is
likely to dissent, and which can be fully sustained by drawing
upon the English writers. It is my intention to quote prin
cipally their acknowledgments in favour of the origin and
character, and, as regards Great Britain, of the services and
disposition of the North American colonies. An illustration
of these points by such testimony, will set in a stronger light
the injustice and folly of the sarcasms and contumelies, which
have been directed against the Americans from the same
quarter. " There are few states," says the Quarterly Review,*
" whose origin is on the whole so respectable as the Araeri-
" can — none whose history is sullied with so few crimes.
" The Puritans who had fled into Holland to avoid intoler-
" ance at home, carried with them English hearts. They could
" not bear to think that their little community should be
" absorbed and lost in a foreign nation ;"they had forsaken their
" bjrth place and their family graves ; but they loved their
" country, and their mother-tongue, and rather than their chil-
" dren should become subjects of another state, and speak
" another language, they exposed themselves to all the hard-
" ships and dangers of colonizing in a savage land. No people
" on earth may so justly pride themselves on their ancestors as
" the New Englanders."
Although it has been repeated with great complacency, in
* 4th Number — Review of Holmes's Annals.
Vol. I.— D.

26 POLITICAL AND [PART I
the work just quoted, that the Adam and Eve ofthe co
lonies came out of Newgate, yet it has been admitted, not
only in England, but nearly throughout Europe, that the first
settlers, and all the European generations of British America,
were, i» every respect, more worthy of esteem and encou
ragement, than those of the other parts of this continent.
The Quarterly Review itself,* has drawn a comparison which
is every way to my purpose.
¦" The original settlers from England, in North America, were for the
most part, an austere, frugal, and industrious people, — the hardships and
privations of their early establishments, were not endured with the inspir
ing feelings of military adventurers, but borne with the patience of reli
gious submission; the purity of their morals, tinged with no small portion
of the fanaticism which caused their emigration, kept them from pro
miscuous intercourse with the female Indians ; and hence an unmixed
race was continued, among whom there was no distinction of cast or
complexion, to introduce a difference, or political contention. As no
great inequality of property, the principal cause of political power, ex
isted, there was no great inequality of education among those born in the
country ; none were so destitute of knowledge as the mass of the la
borious in most countries of Europe."
" Comparing the population of Spanish with that of British America,
we shall, at every step, be struck with the wonderful difference in origin,
in progress, and in present situation. The conquerors from Spain,
instead of the frugal, laborious, and moral description of our English
settlers, partook of the ferocity and superstition of an earlier and less
enlightened period. The warriors who had exterminated the Mahomedanism
of Granada, were readily induced to propagate their own religion by
the sword. As few or no women accompanied the first settlers of
South America, their intercourse with native females produced a
race of successors of a most anomalous character, and these, in a
few generations, mixing with the slaves imported from Africa, stiil
further increased the different classes, who, in process of time, more
by the rules of society than by the influence of the laws, assumed
a variety of ranks, according to their greater or less affinity to the
white race. The education of the lower orders in South America has
been totally neglected.''
In the list of English authors who, although not exempt
from gross errors of opinion, display a laborious study and
discriminating knowledge of the formation and character
of the settlements on this continent, I may safely class Mr.
Brougham, distinguished also among the writers of the
Edinburgh Review, and among the leading statesmen of the
British Parliament. In his excellent work on Colonial Policy,
he has advanced, and successfully maintained, doctrines con
cerning the thirteen British colonies,, some of which deserve
to be set apart for our history. I shall avail myself of them
as the occasion offers. To begin with the following passages.
* July, 1817, Article on Spain and her Colonies.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 27
". The first settlors of the colonies were men of irreproachable charac
ters; many of tbem fled from persecution; others on account of an
honourable poverty ; and all of them with their expectations limited to the
prospect of a bare subsistence, in freedom and peace. All idea of wealth
or pleasure was out of the question. A set of men more conscientious in
their doings, or simple in their manners, never founded any common
wealth. It is indeed the peculiar glory of North America, that, with a very
few exceptions, its empire was originally founded in charity and peace."*
" The new emigrants who, at various times, continued to flock to this
extensive country, as it became open and improved, were not of the
same description as the first settlers. They were of a various race, of
different ranks, but chiefly needy men : of different sects, hut of no per
ceptible religion: and of different nations, in which, however, the English
greatly predominated. Some of them were persons of desperate fortunes
and dissolute characters. No combination of circumstances can be
figured, to contribute more directly to the reformation of the new cultiva
tors' character and manners, than that which was found in the situation of
the North Americans colonies." f
" The mixture of various population was, by the influence of those
simple manners, which are formed by an agricultural life, soon blended
into one nation of husbandmen, whose character has communicated itself,
in a great degree, to the most profligate of those, whom compulsion or
despair from time to time introduced. While the purity of manners was
in this way preserved, that firmness of principles in religion and politics
was maintained, which had so eminently contributed to the establishment
of colonies. Sentiments of freedom might find an asylum in America,
when even in Switzerland it should no longer be lawful to think beyond
the rules." f
The " Account of the European Settlements in America,"
published in London, in the middle of the last century, and
ascribed to Edmund Burke, has always possessed a great and
deserved authority. It holds the following language, besides
much more in the same strain, to which I may hereafter advert.
" The Puritans established themselves at a place which they called New
Plymouth. They were but few in number; they landed in a bad season;
and they were not at all supported but from their private funds. The win
ter was premature and terribly cold. The country was covered with
wood, and afforded very little for the refreshment of persons, sickly with
such a voyage, or for the sustenance of an infant people. Near half of them
perished by the scurvy, by want, and the severity of the climate ; but
they who survived were not dispirited with their losses, nor with the hard
ships they were still to endure : supported by the vigour which was then
the character of the Englishman, and by the satisfaction of finding them
selves out of the reach of the spiritual arm, they reduced this savage coun
try to yield them a tolerable livelihood, and by degrees a comfortable sub
sistence. This little establishment was made in the year 1631. It was in
the year 1629, that the colony began to flourish in such a manner, that they
soon became a considerable people. By the close of the ensuing year
they had built four towns, Salem, Dorchester, Charlestown, and Boston,
which has since become the capital of New England."
" Their exact and sober manners proved a substitute for a proper
subordination, and regular form of government, which they had for

Book I. Section I. t Ihid.

28 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART J
some time wanted, and tho want of which, in such a country, had other
wise been felt very severely. The people, by their being generally free
holders, and by their form of government, acquired a very free, bold, and
republican spirit.
" The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in the space of about seventy
years, from a beginning of a few hundreds of refugees and indigent men,
has grown to be a numerous and flourishing people, a people, who from a
perfect wilderness, have brought their territory to a state of great cultiva
tion, and filled it with wealthy and populous towns ; and who, in the midst
of a fierce and lawless race of men, have preserved themselves with un
armed hands and passive principles, by the rules of moderation and justice,
better than any other people has done by policy and arm3."-— Vol. ii. p. 196.
The " Political Annals of the United Colonies, by George
Chalmers," are remarkable for authentic and ample details,
and were published in the course of our revolutionary war,
under the auspices of the British government. The author
displays throughout the design of discrediting the American
cause," particularly the pretensions of New England. He is a
witness whom 1 shall often produce, and whose evidence,
when given in favour of the colonies, is entitled to especial
weight, not only on account of bis political aims and preju
dices, but from the strength of his understanding, the nature
of the records to which he had access, and the diligence of his
researches. Of the settlement of New England he speaks
thus : —
" When New Plymouth consisted only of two hundred persons, of all
ages and sexes, it repulsed its enemies, and secured its borders, with a
gallantry worthy o fits parent country, because it stood alone in the desert,
without the hope of aid." — p. 494.
" Though religious matters engaged much of the attention of the first
planters in Massachusetts, they seem to have been extremely industrious
in temporal affairs. All the laws had a natural tendency to exclude luxury,
and to promote diligence. When the civil wars commenced, they had
already planted fifty towns and villages ; they had erected upwards of
thirty churches and ministers' houses; and they had improved their plan
tations to a high degree of cultivation."
" At the same time that these colonists (the people of New England)
very prudently preferred the blessinsrs of peace, they were not afraid of
tbe disasters of war. They easily repelled an unprovoked attack of th©
neighbouring Indians, with a becoming bravery. They soon after made a
peace with that people, which does equal honour to their justice and good
sense : and they long enjoyed all the blessings of a government conducted
at once with prudence and vigour." — p. 89.
«' Notwithstanding the long Iraiu of public disputes with the mother
country, New England flourished prodigiously. She promoted success
fully the operations of agriculture, she augmented her manufactutes, and
extended her commerce, and she acquired wealth and population in pro
portion to the greatness of all these; because the rough hand of oppression
had not touched the labours of the inhabitants, or interrupted the freedom
of their pursuits."— p. 416.
2. The composition of the first settlements, particularly that
jof Virginia, was early, and continues to be, the theme of

SECT. II.] OP THE COLONISTS. g{>
much raillery and serious accusation. The coarse jest,
which I have before noticed, has been received and treated
in England as an historical fact.* Yet, nothing is better
established, than that the Puritans by whom New England
was originally inhabited, and successively replenished, were,
not only such in their moral character and domestic habits, as
they are described in the quotations I have made, but, for the
most part, men of substance, and of a respectable rank in life.
In the year 1630, ten ships were sent to Massachusetts from
England, with several hundred passengers, many of whom,
says Macpherson, in the second volume of his Annals of Com
merce, were " persons of considerable fashion." The leader of
the congregation of dissidents, who founded the new common
wealth at Plymouth, in 1620, is described, even by the ene
mies of his sect, " as a person of excellent parts, and of a
most learned, polished, and modest spirit." — And it is im
possible to read the terse and touching language used by
those virtuous exiles, in applying to their intolerant country
men for a patent, without acknowledging, that they must
have been of a superior cast of mind in all respects.—
" They were well weaned from the delicate milk of their
" country, and innured to the difficulties of a strange land :
u they were knit together in a strict and sacred bond, by vir-
" tue of whicli they held themselves bound to take care ofthe
" good of each other, and ofthe whole : it was not with them
" as with other men, whom small things could discourage, or
" small discontents cause to wish themselves at home aeain."
&c. &c.
It is accurately stated by Ramsay.t that the first settlers of
New England in general, had been educated at the English
Universities, and were imbued with all the learning of the
times: that not a few ofthe early emigrant ministers possessed
considerable erudition; and that numbers of clergymen of this
description, came over nearly together, in consequence of the
parliamentary act of uniformity, passed in 1662, when upwards
of two thousand Puritan ministers were, in one day, ejected
*"The Americans are the modern Jews, possessing all the qualities
of the ancient, under different masks. They pervade every country
on the face of the earth, and with the phrases of liberty, morality, and
religion, they deceive the most wary, and the most hypocritical. Mr.
Fox has had ample experience of the tribes of Israel ; let him beware
of the refined and complicated cunning of that race, whose Adam and
Eve emigrated from Newgate." — Critical Review, third series, vol. iii. 1806.
" The Americans are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful
for any thing we allow them, short of hanging."— Dr. Johnson — ap. — Bos-
well, vol, ii.
f Colonial Civil History, p. 835.

30 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
from their livings in England.* The Massachusetts planta
tion may be considered as the parent of all the other settle
ments in New England. There was no emigration from the
mother country to any part of the continent northward of
Maryland, except to Massachusetts, for more than fifty years
from the birth of this colony .+
Among the one hundred and five adventurers who sailed
from England with Captain Newport, in 1607, and founded
Jamestown, in Virginia, several officers of high family con
nexions, and of much personal distinction, are designated
by the historians. The first accession of females to the
Virginia settlement, may be cited by the Virginian of the
present day, without a blush for his lineage. " In order,"
says Chalmers, " to settle the minds of the colonists, and to
induce them to make Virginia their place of residence and
continuance, it was proposed to send thither one hundred
maids, as wives for them: ninety girls, ' young and uncor-
rupt,' were transported in the beginning ofthe year 1620 ; and
sixty more, ' handsome and recommended for virtuous demean
our,' in the subsequent year." J Robertson is still more particu
lar in noticing the respectability of these females. The descent
from mothers of this character, is at least as reputable as from
the "maids of honour" ofthe court of Charles II. — and the fa
thers who reclaimed the wilderness and built up a free state,
transmitted a blood which might be deemed as pure and noble,
as any that runs in the veins of the progeny of the debauched
and venal parasites of that monarch. We are told by Robert-
son,§ that, in the time ofthe Commonwealth, many adherents
• Hume notices this transaction, in his History, in the following terms :
" However odious Vane and Lambert were to the Presbyterians, that
party had no leisure to rejoice at their condemnation. The fatal St.
Bartholomew approached, the day, when the clergy were obliged by
the late law, either to relinquish their livings, or to sign the articles re
quired of fbem, declaring their assent to every thing contained in the
Book of Common Prayer, &c. A combination had been entered into
by the more zealous of the Presbyterian ecclesiastics, to refuse the
subscription ; in hopes that the bishops would not dare at once to expel
so great a number of the most popular preachers. The king, himself,
by his irresolute conduct, contributed, either from design or accident,
to increase this opinion. Above all, the terms of subscription had been
made very strict and rigid, on purpose to disgust all the zealous and
scrupulous among the Presbyterians, and deprive them of their liviugs.
About two thousand of the clergy in one day relinquished their cures ;
and, to the great astonishment of the court, sacrificed their interest to their
religious tenets." — Chapter 63.
f Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts— Preface.
t Page 46.
§ History of America, vol. iv.

SECT. II.] OF THB COLONISTS. 31
to the royal party, and among these, some gentlemen of good
families, in order to avoid danger and oppression, to which
they were exposed in England, or in hopes of repairing their
ruined fortunes, resorted to Virginia. Lord Clarendon bears
testimony to this fact in his History of the Rebellion. " Out
of confidence in Sir William Berkeley, the governor of Vir
ginia, who had industriously invited many gentlemen and
others thither, as to a place of security, which he could defend
against any attempt, and where they might live plentifully,
many persons of condition, and good officers in the war, had
transported themselves with all the estate they had been able
to preserve."* Chalmers may be quoted to a similar purport,
and to the general character of the early Virginians. " The
" instructions of Charles 1. gave large tracks of land to indi-
" viduals, men of consideration and wealth, who roused by
" religion, or ambition, or caprice, removed to Virginia, and
" the population of that colony had increased to about twenty
" thousand souls at the commencement of the civil wars." —
p. 125.
" The Virginians, being animated by timely supplies from
" England, displayed a vigor in design and action, which men,
" when left to themselves and dangers, never fail to exert.
" They rejected the timid counsels of those, who advised them
" to abandon their settlements, and retire to the eastern shore
" of the Chesapeake. They not only resisted the attacks of
" their implacable enemies, but with the accustomed bravery
" of Englishmen, pursued them into their fastnesses. Aad
" now, for the first time, the Aborgines receded from the
" rivers, and from the plantations around, leaving their op-
" ponents in possession of the territories that their swords had
« won."— p. 63.
If we turn to Maryland, we may appeal to the same author
with equal confidence.
" The first emigration to Maryland, consisting of about two hundred gen
tlemen of considerable fortune and rank, with their adherents, who were
composed chiefly of Roman Catholics, -sailed from England in November,
1632." " The Roman Catholics, unhappy in their native land, and desirous of a
peaceful asylum in Maryland, emigrated in considerable numbers. Lord
Baltimore laid the foundation of his province upon the broad basis of secu
rity to property, and of freedom in religion, granting in absolute fee fifty
acres of land to every emigrant; establishing Christianity agreeably to the
old common law, of which it is a part, without allowing pre-eminence to
any pafticuler sect." — p. 208.
" In order chiefly to procure the assent of the freemen of Maryland to
a body of laws which the proprietary had transmitted, Calvert, the general,
* Vol, iii. p. 706.

2 CHARACTER AND MERITS fPART I.
called a new assembly in 1637-8. But, rejecting these with a becoming
spirit, they prepared a collection of regulations, which demonstrate equally
tlieir good sense and the state of their affairs." — p. 211.
" The assembly of Maryland endeavoured, with a laudable anxiety, to
preserve the peace of the church ; and, though composed chiefly of Roman
Catholics, it adopted that measure, which could alone prove absolutely
successful. The act which it passed, " concerning religion," recited, " that
the enforcement of tbe conscience had been of dangerous consequence in
those countries wherein it had been practised.' And it enacted, that no
person believing in Jesus Chrilt shall be molested in respect of their religion,
or in thefree exercise thereof, or be compelled to the belief or exercise of
any other religion, against their consent ; so that they be not unfaithful to
the proprietary, or conspire not against the civil government; that persons
molesting any other in respect of his religious tenets, shall pay treble da
mages to the party aggrieved, and twenty shillings to the proprietary.
that those reproaching any with opprobrious names of religious distinctions
shall forfeit ten shillings to the persons injured." — p. 218.
Maryland derived a part of her population from the other
provinces. The Puritans, persecuted by the established church
in Virginia, the Quakers, oppressed by the synod of Massa
chusetts, and the Dutch expelled from Delaware, sought and
found a generous protection, and entire freedom of religious
worship, in the Roman Catholic colony. New York was first
settled by the Dutch, at the time when they had just shaken off
the yoke of Spain ; when they displayed national energies and
virtues of the highest order, and pursued a more liberal and
enlightened policy, with respect to civil liberty, religion, and
trade, than any other people of Europe. The emigrants from
Holland to North America, brought with them the character
istic industry and sobriety, the tolerant spirit and sound eco
nomies, of the commercial republic. The original population
of New Jersey was composed of Swedes and Hollanders, and
of emigrants from the northern eclonies : that of Pennsyl
vania needs not to be celebrated by a reference to the parent
state. The commonwealth, which the wise and humane asso
ciates of Penn, the laborious, frugal, and orderly Germans,
and the intelligent active, and generous Irish, formed, and
brought to beauty and solidity, in so short a time, is a monu
ment, eloquent enough in itself; a creation, upon which no
European writer has looked steadily, without bursting into
expressions of admiration. Even the austere loyalty of Chal
mers, is relaxed by it, and the following emphatic testimony
extorted from his convictions.
" As a supplement to the frame of government for Pennsylvania,
there was published a body of * laws agreed upon in England by
the Adventurers, which was intended as a great charter. And it does
great honour to their wisdom as statesmen, to their morals as men,
to their spirit as colonists. A plantation reared on such ti seed-plot,'

SECT, II.] OF THE COLONISTS. S3
could not fail to grow up.with rapidity, to advance fast to maturity, to afreet
the notice of the world." — p. 643.
"The numerous laws, which were enacted at the first settlement of
Pennsylvania, which do so much honour to its good sense, display the prin
ciples ofthe people; these legislative regulations kept them alive long
after the original spirit began to droop and expire. Had Pennsylvania
been less blessed by Nature, she must have become flourishing and great,
because it was a principle of her great charter, ' that children should be
taught some useful trade, to the end that none may be idle, but the
poor may work to live, and the rich, if they become poor, may not
want.' That country must be commercial, which compels factors,
wronging their employers, to make satisfaction, and one-third over ;
which subjects not only the goods but. the lands of the debtor, to
the payment of debts ; because it is the credit given by all to all, that
forms the essence of traffic. We ought naturally to expect great in
ternal order when a fundamental law declares, that every thing, ' which
excites the people to rudeness, cruelty, and irreligion, shall be discou
raged and severely punished.' And religious controversy could not disturb
her repose, when none, acknowledging one God, and living peaceably in
society, could be molested for his opinions or his practice, or compelled
to frequent and maintain any ministry whatsoever. To the regulations
which were thus established as fundamentals, must chiefly be attributed
the rapid improvement of this colony, the spirit of diligence, order, and
economy, for which the Pennsylvanians have been at all times so ce
lebrated."— p. 643.
Swedes and Fins, a simple and virtuous race of men,
opened the soil of Delaware, and were joined by the Dutch,
and by emigrants of different nations, from the neighbouring
provinces. New England, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, gave
the first inhabitants to the Carolinas. In consequence of the
revocation of the edict of Nantz, a multitude of French Pro
testants, of the most respectable families, established them
selves in South Carolina. These were followed, at different in
tervals, by numbers of their own countrymen, and of Germans
and Swiss, professing the same religious tenets. The character
ofthe French settlers has been recently pourtrayed by a young
American, in a language which I am proud to quote, as a
specimen of what is produced in those literary societies,
whose existence even the European critics would not, in all
likelihood, condescend to notice.
" History derives more than half its value from the moral parallels
and contrasts which it suggests. It is a singular coincidence of this
sort, that between the years 1682 and 1688, at the very time that Wil
liam Penn, the gentlest and purest of all rulers, was rendering his
name for ever illustrious, by establishing, in America, a refuge for the
wretched and oppressed of the whole earth; Louis _XIV. one of the
most gorgeous and heartless of sovereigns, was delivering up three
hundred thousand families of his Protestant subjects to the atrocious
tyranny of the fanatical Lc Tellier, and the sanguinary Louvois ; and
by his ambition of universal empire abroad, and his bigotry and osten
tation at home, was preparing for Erance fho»e calamities which hav»
Vol. I— E.

JJ4 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
since fallen Upon her. The Huguenots were the most moral, industri
ous, and intelligent part of the Trench population, and when they were
expelled from their native country, they enriched all Europe with the
commerce and arts of France. Many of the more enterprising of them,
finding themselves shut out, by the narrow policy of the French court
from Louisiana, where they had proposed to found a colony, turned their
course to New York and to South Carolina, where they soon melted into
the mass of the population.
" Certainly, we cannot wish to sec perpetuated among 11s the old Asiatic
and European notions of indelible hereditary excellence ; and equally wild
are those theories of a fantastical philosophy, which would resolve all the
intellectual and moral qualities of man into accidental physical causes.
But surely there is a point at which good feeling and sound philosophy can
meet, and agree in ascribing the best parts of our character to the moral
influence of a virtuous and intelligent ancestry.
" Considering the subject in this light, we may well look back, with pride,
to our Huguenot forefathers. The modern historians of France have rarely
done them full justice. The decline which the loss of their industry and
arts caused in the commerce of their own country, and the sudden increase
of wealth and power which England and Holland derived, from them, are
sufficient proofs that their general character was such as I have described.
Nor are they to be regarded solely as prosperous merchants, and laborious
and frugal artisans.
" The French character never appeared with more true lustre than it did
in the elder protestants. Without stopping to expatiate in the praise of
their divines and scholars, Calvin, Beza, Salmasius, and the younger
Sealiger : Claude, Jurieu, Amylraut, and Saurin, nor on those of Sully, the
brave, the wise, the incorruptible, the patriotic ; I shall only observe, that
though his own countrymen have been negligent of bis glory, and choose
to rest the fame of French chivalr}' on tlieir Dunois, tlieir Bayard, their
Du Guescelin, and their Crillon, we may search their history in vain for a
parallel to that beautiful union of the intrepid soldier with the profound
scholar, ofthe adroit politician with the man of unbending principle, ofthe
rigid moralist and the accomplished gentleman, which is to be found in the
life of the Huguenot chief, Mornai Du Plessis.
"Many of those who emigrated to this country, after the revocation of
the edict of Nantes, were the companions, tbe sons, or the disciples of
these men, and they brought hither a most valuable accession of intelli
gence, knowledge, and enterprise."*
A considerable number of Palatines, rivalling the Dutch in
habits of industry and order, settled in North Carolina, in the
beginning of the 18th century. The memorable ravages
of war committed at that period in the countries of the
Rhine, drove into England seven thousand ofthe ruined inha
bitants, Palatines and Suabians. Three thousand of them
were transported to New York, and a part of these found their
way. into the other provinces. It seems incredible, yet is matter
of parliamentary record, that the expense incurred for their
transportation, — not more beneficial to them, than to the co
lonies which received them — drew complaints from the British
House of Commons. A body styling itself the citadel of
* An Anniversary Discourse delivered before the New York Historical
Society, December, 7, 1813, by Gulian C. Verplank, Esq.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 35
Protestantism, and the refuge ofthe victims of Catholic bigot
ry, could, nevertheless, in a formal representation to Queen
Anne, discourse querimoniously ofthe squandering away great
" sums upon the Palatines, a useless people, a mixture of all
" religions, and dangerous to the constitution," — with the de
claration besides, that " it held those who advised the bringing
" them over to England, as enemies to the queen and king-
" dom." How different the conduct of the unpretending
Quakers of Pennsylvania, by whom the portion of the wretch
ed exiles that took shelter there, was — not defamed or stinted,
but, according to an English writer, most kindly entertained
and assisted !*
The poverty and humble condition of a part of the emigrants
to the middle and southern provinces, constitute the heaviest
reproach to which they are liable, if we except, indeed, the cir
cumstance, — notable in the case of Georgia particularly — of so
many of them being Scotchmen; which forms, no doubt, a
just subject of ridicule for the wits of Edinburgh. The gene
ral estimation in which our emigrant ancestors should be held,
is proclaimed in the rapid growth, strength, order, and felicity
of the communities, which they added to the British empire.
The mighty difficulties which they vanquished — the conquests
which they made over nature, and over a savage enemy greatly
exceeding them in numbers and the means of annoyancet —
the freedom and liberality of their institutions, and the inte
grity in which those institutions were preserved — the solicitude
and success with which they laboured to render universal
among them an acquaintance with the rudiments of learning
— all these points, which 1 propose to enlarge upon in the
subsequent pages — demonstrate the noblest qualities ; enter
prise, industry, perseverance, valour, sagacity, humane, and
broad views, setting them plainly above the mass of their co-
temporaries in Europe.
The white population of Georgia consisted of only fifty
thousand souls in the year 1775, and but forty-five years had
then elapsed since the foundation of the colony : yet, though so
weak, and though vulnerable and sure of being assailed, on
every side, she joined, in that year, the confederacy against the
mother-country. The character of her founder, general Ogle
thorpe, — who lived to see her independence and sovereignty
acknowledged— rwas such as to have hallowed that of the
exiles who seconded his plans of civil government, and fought
* Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. p. 6.
f See Note A.

36 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
under his banners against the Indians and Spaniards. The
Oglethorpes, the Robinsons, the Penns, the Roger Williams,
the Smiths, the Cal verts, may be placed at the head of the
worthies to whom Adam Smith alludes, in the following pas
sage of the fourth book of his Wealth of Nations. " It was
" nottthe wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice of
" thef European governments, which peopled and cultivated
" America. In what way, then, has the policy of Europe
'* contributed either to the first establishment, or to the pre-
" sent grandeur of the colonies of America ? In one way, and
" in one way only, it has contributed a good deal. Magna
(l virum mater ! It bred and formed the men who were capa-
" ble of achieving such great actions, and of laying the founda-
" tion of so great an empire ; and there is no other quarter ofthe
" world, of which the policy is capable of forming, or ever has
" actually and in fact, formed, such men. The colonies owe
" to Europe the education and great views of their active and
" enterprising founders, and some of the greatest and most
" important of them, so far as concerns their internal govern-
" ment, owe to it scarce any thing else."
3. The occasional exportation to the plantations, of those
whom the government of England chose to denominate con
victs, vagrants, and " dissolute persons," is the njost plausible
ground for the language of contempt and derison, which has
been se commonly indulged, with respect to the original stock
of these States. The fact taken in the broad and unqualified
manner in which it is usually announced, would exalt but
little the generosity and justice ofthe mother-country, if the
character ofthe first and voluntary settlers be admitted to have
been such as it appears in the foregoing pages, upon the testi
mony of the British writers. An impartial investigation of this
subject gives it, however, a different complexion from that
which it commonly wears.*
Franklin calculated in 1751,+ that there were then one mil
lion or upwards of English souls in North America, and that
scarce eighty thousand had been brought over sea. Among this
number of emigrants, not one-eighth was ofthe description men
tioned above, and it is certain, from the uniform acknowledg
ment of history, that those who were, did not adulterate, but
imbibed, themselves, in a great degree, the character of their
predecessors. Numbers became, in process of time, laborious
and orderly citizens ; anxious and exemplary fathers of families.

Discourse on Trade, chap. x. f Essay on Population.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 37
I have quoted in p. 27 some remarks made by Mr. Brougham
in his " Colonial Policy," which bears upon the true theory of
this point ; and I may add here from the same work, " that if
" the convicts in the colony of New Holland, though sur-
" rounded on the voyage, and in the settlement, by the com-
" panions of their iniquities, have, in a great degree, been re-
" claimed by the mere change of scene, what might not be
" expected from such a change as that which the transported
" persons experienced on arriving in America ?"*
It is to be noted, that the real convicts were received by
the colonists not as companions, but as servants ; and if the
circumstances of their comparative paucity did not render ab
surd a general reproach upon our descent, it is difficult to
conceive why any generation in Great Britain should not be
stigmatised in its origin, on account of the much more consi
derable proportion of " dangerous rogues," who remained at
home. Chalmers tells us, that " it is to James I. that the
" British nation and the colonists owe the policy, whether sa-
" lutary or baneful, of sending convicts to the plantations." —
The excuse which this writer offers for the British nation
would seem fitted to operate as efficaciously in favour of the
colonies : — " The good sense of those days justly considered
" that their labour would be more beneficial in an infant set-
" tlement, which had an immense wilderness to cultivate, than
" their vices could possibly be pernicious."+
But there are other considerations, of a nature, to render a
Briton cautious, how he attempts to handle this topic offensive
ly. When we find the term convicts used, in reference to the
persons transported, during three-fourths Of the seventeeth
century, we are not to understand it in the opprobrious sense
in which it was generally received, and was tyranically meant ,
to be employed. The several parties who alternately gained
the ascendancy in the furious struggles of that era, in Eng
land, oppressed and exiled, under this appellation, the objects
of their political resentment, or their religious intolerance.
Chalmers even confesses, that the only law which, in the
time of James I. justified the infliction of expulsion, unknown
to the common law, was the statute of Elizabeth, which en
acted that "dangerous rogues might be banished out of the
" realms ;" and he adds that it is probable the obnoxious men
were transported agreeably to the genius of the administration
of the time— by prerogative.
The extent of the guilty abuse and cruel hardship to which
', Book j. Sect. I. f Chap. iii. Political Annals.

38 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
this assumption of power led, can be readily imagined, from
the facility of sweeping off the obnoxious and distressed, under
the denomination of vagrants, or " dangerous rogues." It may
be worth while, in order to illustrate the point further, to refer
to Sir Josiah Child's account of the peopling ofthe plantations,
which, from its early date, carries with it a particular autho
rity, and which, at the same time, furnishes a curious picture
of the miserable state of things in England at the epoch in
questiou. He relates, in the first instance,* that Virginia and
Barbadoes were partly settled by a loose, vagrant people, who
must, if there had been nO English plantations, have starved at
home, or " else have sold themselves for soldiers, to be knocked
" on the head, or starved in the quarrels of England's neigh-
" hours, as many thousands of brave Englishmen were, in the
" Low Countries, as also in the wars of Germany, France,
" and Sweden; or else, if they could by begging or otherwise
" arrive to the stock of two shillings and sixpence, to waft
" them over to Holland, become servants, where none are
" refused." Then come the following passages : —
" But the principal growth and increase of the aforesaid plantations of
Virginia and Barbadoes happened in, or immediately after, our late civil
wars, when the worsted party, by the fate of war, being deprived of their
estates, and having some of them never been bred to labour, and others
made unfit for it by the lazy habit of a soldier's life ; there wanting means
to maintain them all abroad with his Majesty, many of them betook them
selves to the aforesaid plantations, and great numbers of Scots soldiers
of his Majesty's army, after Worcester fight, were, by the then prevailing
powers, voluntarily sent thither.
" Another great swarm, or accession of new inhabitants to the aforesaid
plantations, as also to New England, Jamaica, and all others his Majesty's
plantations in the West Indies, ensued upon his Majesty's restoration,
when the former prevailing party being, by a divine hand of Providence,
brought under, the army disbanded, many officers displaced, and all the
new purchasers of public titles dispossessed of their pretended lands, estates,
&c. many became impoverished and destitute of employment ; and, there
fore, such as could find no way of living at home, and some who feared the
re-establishment of the ecclesiastical laws, under which they could not
live, were forced to transport themselves, or sell themselves for a few years,
to be transported by others to the foreign English plantations.** And some
were of those people called Qakers, banished for meeting on pretence of re- '
ligious worship."
In noticing the prevalence of the practice of transportation,
after the, Restoration, Chalmers remarks, that it was probably
upon the authority of the statute which empowered the King
to send Quakers to the colonies.T This is the statute 13, 14,
ch. ii. c. 1, " for preventing the dangers that may arise by
" certain persons called Quakers, and others refusing to take
* Discourse on Trade, chap. x. t Chap. xv. Annals. ,

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 39
"the lawful oaths." It enacted, that it should be lawful for
his majesty, to cause such refractory persons to be transported
beyond the seas. We are informed by Hume,* that Cromwell
caused the royalists who engaged in conspiracies against his
government, to be sold for slaves and transported. On the
suppression of Monmouth's rebellion against James II., those
of his followers who escaped judicial massacre, were treated
in the same way. Chalmers furnishes, from the records of
the plantation office in London, a letter from James to the
governor of Virginia, which states, that the crown " had been
" graciously pleased to extend its mercy to many rebellious
" subjects who had taken up arms against it; by ordering their
" transportation to the plantations ;" and which directs the go
vernor to propose a bill to the assembly for preventing the
convicts, those rebellious subjects, from redeeming themselves
by money, or otherwise, until the expiration of ten years at
least. The assembly refused to co-operate in this scheme of
royal vengeance, and the inhabitants of Virginia received the
victims with the sympathy due to their situation.
Either from a sense of the futility of expostulation, or
from the advantage which the labour of the convicts pro
mised, or from a knowledge of the fact which must now be
clear to all, that most ofthe persons transported were but the
victims of misfortune, and of the tyranny or bigotry of their
countrymen, the colonists did not at first condemn, or remon
strate against, the system of transportation. But it had not
been pursued long after the Restoration, before open opposition
was made. Maryland ventured even to legislate adversely,
and drew upon herself, in consequence, the reprobation ofthe
crown lawyers, who contended that every law of the colonial
legislature, passed to restrain a measure that was allowed and
encouraged by acts of parliament, was void ab initio. " Whe-
u ther," says Chalmers, " from the too great numbers brought
" into Maryland, or from an apprehension that their vices
" might contaminate the morals of the colonists, the introduc-
" tion of criminals was then deemed an inconvenience : and a
" law was passed ' against the importation of convicted per-
" sons into the province,' which was continued at different
u times, till towards the beginning of the reign of Anne."t
The persistance of the British government in the practice
of transporting real malefactors, after the colonies had grown
into considerable commonwealths, and signalized themselves
by the noblest qualities and most valuable services, was an
* History, chap. lxi. + Book L chap. xv.

40 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I,
indignity, of which the impolicy must be as obvious, as the
arrogance and ingratitude. If it could not extinguish their
glowing loyalty, it was, however, deeply felt and resented.
In Franklin's piece on the causes ofthe American discontents
before 1768, he includes it in the list of their grievances, and
employs this strong language. " Added to the evils which I
" have enumerated, the Americans remembered the act au-
" thorising the most cruel insult perhaps ever offered by one
" people to another, that of emptying the English gaols into
" their settlements. Scotland, too, has within these two years
" (in 1766) obtained the privilege it had not before, of send-
" ing its rogues and villains to the plantations." When the
illustrious patriot expostulated, by the direction of his consti
tuents, with the British minister on this head, he was told that
England must be relieved of her moral putrefaction — and his
laconic reply adumbrates the nature of the case. " What
" would you say, if, upon the same principle, we sent you our
" rattle-snakes ?" Fortunately, there was a virtue in the cha
racter and condition of the despised and outraged colonists,
which secured them from the infection, and even converted the
virus into wholesome nutriment for the state.
4. The love of liberty and independence is the trait which,
if any, would seem to assure to a people, the admiration and
applause of an Englishman, pursuant to his own boasted
principles and perpetual claims. It is impossible to deny this
merit to the North American colonists, even in the superla
tive degree ; whatever doubts may be affected in relation to
the other high titles asserted for them by their descendants.
Hume, in noticing the commencement of their establishments,
remarks that " the spirit of independency which was then
" reviving in England, shone forth in America in its full lustre,
" and received new accession of force from the aspiring charac-*
" ter of those who, being discontented with the established
" church and monarchy, had sought for freedom amidst those
" savage deserts."* To the early settlers," as well as to their
posterity of 1775, the well known language of Mr. Burke,
was strictly applicable. " In the character of the Americans,
" a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks
" and distinguishes the whole. This fierce spirit of liberty, is
" stronger in tbe English colonies than in any other people of
« the earth."+

* Appendix to the reign of James I.
f Speech on Conciliation with the colonies.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 41
The first planters in Virginia called for arrangements of the
most liberal, character, and within fourteen years from the
settlement, that constitution by which they became freemen
and citizens, was fixed in its genius and permanent forms.*
Freedom was the errand of the colonists of Plymouth and
Massachusetts ; and these, so properly styled, republican dis
senters, framed accordingly their body politic and social, upon
principles of perfect equality. The complete organization of a
republic in the representative form, within the same term after
the landing at Plymouth, as that just mentioned in the case
of Virginia, under circumstances so new and critical, — in defi
ance of the adverse habits, spirit, and scheme of rule, which
predominated in the mother-country, — has drawn forth expres
sions of wonder and homage from some of the more liberal of
the British historians.
As the Puritans spread themselves over New England, they
gave to the distinct communities which they established, con
stitutions still more democratical ; and that, although bold
and elevated in their plans, they were not visionary or rash,
is proved by the duration and happy effects of those constitu
tions. After relating, that on the 14th January, 1639, all the
free planters upon Connecticut river, convened at Hartford,
formed a system of government, and after giving the substance
of that system, the faithful historian of Connecticut, Trum
bull, makes the following remarks, which all who read his
work must feel to be just. " With such wisdom did our
venerable ancestors provide for the freedom and liberties of
themselves and their posterity. Thus happily did they guard
against every encroachment on the rights of the subject. This,
probably, is one of the most free and happy constitutions of
civil government which has ever been formed. The forma
tion of it at so early a period, when the light of liberty was
wholly darkened in most parts ofthe earth, and the rights of
men were so little understood in others, does great honour to
their ability, integrity, and love of mankind. To posterity,
indeed, it exhibited a most benevolent regard. It has con
tinued with little alteration, to the present time, (1814). The
happy consequences of it, which, for more than a century and
an half, the people of Connecticut have experienced, are be
yond description, "t
* " Thus early, says Stith, " was the assembly of the colony studious
and careful to establish our liberties ; and we had here, in the eighth and
ninth articles of its laws, ^Petition of Right passed, above four years before
that matter was indubitably settled and explained in England." — History
of Virginia, book 5.
f Vol. i. c. 6.
Vol. I.— F

42 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
Chalmers, who wrote to prove the uniform " self-suffi
ciency, and rebellious dispositions of New England," repre
sents with much chiding and lamenting, how " the first set
tlers of New Haven erected a system suitable indeed to
their own views, but altogether independent on the sove
reign state ;" and how " there was established, in Rhode
Island and Connecticut, a mere democracy or rule ofthe peo
ple ; every power, as well deliberative as active, being invested
in the freemen of the corporation, or their delegates, and the
supreme executive of the empire, by an inattention little ho
nourable to the English statesman of those days, being wholly
excluded."* Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts,
traces, in a summary and striking manner, the operations of
the spirit which gives so much umbrage to Chalmers. " It is
" observable, allthe colonies, before the reign of King Charles
" the Second, Maryland excepted, settled a model of govern-
" ment for themselves. Virginia had been distracted under the
" government of presidents and governors, with councils, in
" whose nomination or removal the people had no voice, un-
** til in the year 1620, a house of burgesses broke out in the
" colony, neither the king, nor the grand council at home,
" having given any powers or directions for it. The governor
" and assistants of Massachusetts, at first intended io rule the
" people, and, as I have observed, obtained their consent for
" it ; but this lasted two or three years only ; and, although there
*' is no colour for it in the charter, yet a House of Deputies
" appeared suddenly, in 1634, to the surprise of their magis-
" trates, and the disappointment of their schemes for power.
" Connecticut soon after followed the plan of Massachusetts.
" New Haven, although the people had the highest rever-
" ence for their leaders, and for near thirty years, in judicial
" proceeding, submitted to their magistracy (it must, how-
" ever, be remembered, that it was annually elected,) without
" a jury, yet in matters of legislation, the people, from the
" beginning, would have their share by their representatives.
" New Hampshire combined together under the same form as
" Massachusetts. Lord Say tempted the principal men of
" Massachusetts to make themselves and their heirs nobles
" and absolute governors of a new colony, but under this
" plan, they could find no people to follow them."t
In Maryland and Pennsylvania, the first assemblies esta
blished a popular representation, and, in all their political

•Page 290, 204, Annals'.
t Vol. ii, p. 298.

SECT. IL] OF THE COLONISTS. 43
regulations, proceeded upon broad views of civil freedom.
The same remark may be extended to the Carolinas,* and to
New York. The inhabitants of this province wrested from the
patentee, the Duke of York, in 1681, privileges of self govern
ment similar to those assumed in the other plantations. No
one of the proprietaries was able to establish, without modifica
tion, the constitution which he framed for his grant ; all were
compelled, in the end, to acquiesce in the more liberal order
of things required by the assemblies ofthe people. In some
ofthe provinces, no time was lost in abolishing primogeniture
and entail, which Adam Smith so justly styles, " the two most
unjust and unwise regulations that exist."
The first emigrants to Virginia, New England, Maryland,
and Pennsylvania, would seem to have been universally, in
their respective eras, much in advance of those whom they
left at home, as regards not only private morals, but the love
and intelligence of freedom. Whoever has studied the history
of England, with the due attention to particular facts, must be
convinced, that until the revolution of 1668, the theory of li
berty was, except in the case of a few illustrious individuals,
as little understood as practised ; and in fact, we may descend
much lower, without being greatly edified on this head. In
the time of James I. the epoch of Virginia and New England
— a slavish reverence of monarchy was nearly universal, and
the system of administration altogether absolute and arbitrary.
Ofthe social state, we may judge from the representations of
Hume, who tells us, that " high pride of family then prevailed ;
that it was by dignity and stateliness of behaviour, that the
gentry and nobility distinguished themselves from the com
mon people;" and that, " much ceremony took place in the
common intercourse of life, and little familiarity was indulged
by the great." The concurrence of the colonists in the same
political maxims and arrangements, the reverse of what pre
vailed in England, and throughout Europe, — the contentment
and tranquillity which reigned among them, as to political
doctrines, and forms of government, particularly in New
England, are strikingly contrasted with the sanguinary and
unprincipled struggles in the mother country ; with that
" continued fever in the domestic admiration," and those
" furious convulsions and disorders" which are so eloquently
painted by Hume. The political distractions extant in the
colonial history, were occasioned, almost universally, by the
ambition and avarice of the proprietaries, or the violence

• See Note B.

44 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
attempted upon the charters by the English government and
its representatives in America.
5. The preceding survey makes it sufficiently plain that no
credit can, in strictness, be allowed to England for the insti
tutions which the colonists framed, themselves, in the wilder
ness. Nor is any fairly due to her, for the liberal purport of
the charters which they received. All the original charters,
except that of Georgia, were granted between the years 1603
and 16S8. It would be setting at defiance both history and
reason, to ascribe to the house of Stuart, or to the Protectorate,
any fond or liberal dispositions in favour of the cause of free
dom in America, stripped of all gothic encumbrances. An
English historian has remarked, on the subject ofthe patents
accorded by the first James and Charles, that these monarchs
were glad to get rid of the turbulent, republican religionists,
at any rale; and freely invested them with any privileges, to
be exercised on a desolate continent, at the distance of three
thousand miles, where, as they supposed, it could never be of
account to extend the arm of prerogative. The English Uni
versal History makes the following statement, of the manner
in which the congregation of Brownists, succeeded in their
application : —
" Sir Robert Naunton was then one of the secretaries of
" state, and the exiled Puritans, as they were then called,
" knew him to be their friend.
" They applied to Naunton fbr leave to settle in those in-
" hospitable wilds, where the Indians, savage as they were,
" were more desirable neighbours than the tyrants from
" whom they fled. Naunton had the address to persuade
" James I., that it was bad policy to unpeople his own king-
¦*' doms for the benefit of his neighbours ; and that whatever
u exception he might have, he could have none in granting
" them liberty of conscience, where they would still continue
'« to be his subjects, and where they might extend his domi-
" nion. His majesty's answer was, that it was a good and
" honest proposal, and liberty was accordingly granted."*
" At our first planting America," says the author ofthe Eu
ropean Settlements, " it was not difficult for a person who had
" interest at court, to obtain large tracks of land, not inferior in
" extent to kingdoms ; and to be invested with a power very
" little less than regal over them ; to govern by what laws, and
" to form what sort of constitution he pleased."t The same

* Vol. xl. p. 572. f Vol. ii. p. 298.

SECT. II.] OP THE COLONISTS. 45
author remarks,* " that nothing of an enlightened and legisla
tive spirit appears in the planning of the English colonies,
and that the charter governments were evidently copied
from some ofthe corporations at home." The patent of the
council of Plymouth comprehended the continent of America,
from New Scotland to Carolina. In less than eighty years,
fifteen hundred miles of the sea coast were granted away :
some of the grants — that especially to Lord Clarendon and
others, of the whole track of country lying between the thirty-
first and thirty-sixth degrees of north latitude— extended to the
Pacific Ocean : in several instances the same ground was em
braced in different grants.
The acquisition of territory in America was the ruling
passion ofthe times; and Charles II. found the gratification
of this passion an easy mode of compensating his adherents,
and feeding the rapacity of the courtiers. It is an observa
tion of Macpherson, in his Annals, that " the charters of
Rhode Island and Connecticut were carelessly given by a very
careless monarch." The agent of Connecticut won the per
sonal favour of the monarch, by presenting him with a ring
of an extraordinary mechanism, the gift of Charles I. to the
agent's grandfather. He found means, also, to secure the
support ofthe Chamberlain of his Majesty's household, and of
the Lord Privy Seal, for the colony's petition. t Penn obtained
his patent from the restored Monarch, as Sir George Calvert
had procured that of Maryland from James I. — by virtue of
court patronage. It had been promised to his father, admiral
Penn, a great favourite ; and Clarkson relates, in his life of
the son, that it was allowed as payment of a debt of sixteen
thousand pounds sterling, due from the royal government to
the admiral. Calvert is said by Chalmers to have indited
his own grant : Penn caused to be given to his the com
plexion required by his aims. Both of these illustrious men
were actuated in the adoption of liberal provisions, by their
love of freedom, as well as by a knowledge of their true
interests. But the historians are unanimous in declaring
that the other lord proprieters gave the pledge of civil ana
religious liberty from no other motive than that of alluring set
tlers ; and the acknowledged necessity of this expedient be
speaks the high character of those, who, in that age, could be
gained upon no other terms. Much stress is to be laid on the

• Vol. ii. p. 361.
f Trumbull's History of Connecticut, b. i. c. 1*.

46 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
coincidence of Chalmers, with these views, and it may be as
serted from the following passage of his Annals.*
" It was rather the example of the Spaniards, than the practice ofthe
renowned nations of antiquity, which was copied by England in colonizing;
because similar success and wealth was expected. Prompted by his ambi
tion, perhaps more by his vanity, the primary designs of James I. were,
to share in the gold and silver which were expected from mines, to rule
the colonies in the same manner as he had proposed to govern Ireland, as
territories belonging to his person, and therefore subject to his will, though
his ultimate views are not so easily discerned. The great corporations
which have acquired the honour of planting the first permanent settlements,
had no other object, probably, than the expectation qf sudden gain from the
working of mines, a project, of all others, the most delusive, the most to
be discountenanced by nations which regard their own good.'' — p. 675.
" The country which had been denominated Florida by the French and
Spaniards, by the English Virginia, at length owed its final settlement as
much to the rapacity of the courtiers of Charles II., as to the facility of
a prince, who wished to reward those to whom he was so much indebted,
with a liberality that cost him little. The pretence, which had been used
on former occasions, of a pious zeal for the propagation of the gospel among
a barbarous people who inhabited an uncultivated country, was succesfully
employed to procure a grant of that immense region, lying on the Atlantic
Ocean, betweeu the thirty-sixth degree of north latitude and the river St.
Matheo. On the 24th of March, 166S, this territory was erected into a
province, by the name of Carolina. They, the lord proprietors, were in
vested with as ample rights and jurisdictions within their American palati
nate, as any Bishop of Durham enjoyed within his diocese. And the pre
sent charter seems to have been copied from that of Maryland.
" Thus was that colony established upon the broad foundation of a re gn-
lar system of freedom of every kind ; which it was now deemed necessary to
offer to Englishmen, to induce them to encounter all the difficulties of plant
ing a distant country, covered with forests, and inhabited by numerous tribes,
to endure the dangers of famine, and the damps of the climate."
When the nature and tendency of the colonial charters be
gan to be understood at the British Court, it was quickly re
solved to attempt their destruction. As early as 1635, Charles
I. assailed that of Massachusetts ; and Charles II. repenting of
his prodigal and heedless distribution of freedom, continued
the warfare upon colonial liberties in general. All the char
ters of New England were vacated by James II., whose plan
it was to reduce the colonies under one arbitrary government.
By her new and forced compact with King William, Massa
chusetts lost a valuable part of her original privileges ; and in
the reign of this Monarch, Pennsylvania, although, indeed,
soon regained, by the indefatigable zeal and consummate ad
dress of Penn, was, without any respect to her charter,
annexed to New York, the province which had perpetually
to wrestle with the royal government for the common rights
'¦ — ,. , , » . ,
* Page 517.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 47
of Englishmen, Early in the reign of queen Anne, a bill was
brought into Parliament, which proposed the abrogation ofthe
charters of New England, of East and West New Jersey,.
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Carolina, upon the ground of
their being prejudicial and repugnant to the trade of the king
dom, to her Majesty's revenue, &c* The bill failed from the
weight of reasonings, looking to the interests ofthe mother-
country. In the year 1748, the ministry offered another bill,
by which the King's instructions were to have the force of law
in the colonies ; but the plan involved an usurpation which,
when displayed in full light, and traced in its consequences
both to England and America, appeared to the majority ofthe
Commons too gross and dangerous for immediate adoption. It
swept away all the charters without trial or legal judgment.t
Upon the occasion ofthe extension of the mutiny act to Ame
rica, in 1755, the agent of New England, near the British go
vernment, Bollan, a man of sagacity and impartial mind, ap
prized his constituents of his possessing the best evidence, that
it was meditated at the British court " to govern America
like Ireland, by keeping up a body of standing forces with a
military chest, under some act similar to the famous Poyning's
law." If more direct and determined efforts to effect the object
were not subsequently made by the government, until the year
1754, it was because the enterprise bad become too hazard
ous. The colonies had attained to considerable strength, and
grown inflexibly tenacious of their liberties ; their aid was
indispensable for the destruction ofthe French power on this
continent; and this circumstance made it of course eligible to
preserve, or at least, not wholly to destroy, their good will and
national sympathy. It was apprehended, moreover, in Queen
Anne's time, as may be seen by one of the quotations which
1 have made from Gee, — that they might, if chafed and dis
gusted, throw themselves into the arms of France, and turn
the scales in favour of that hated rival. To considerations of
this nature are we to ascribe the forbearance so fortunate for
all parties ; not to any tenderness for transatlantic freedom, or
to a generous admiration ofthe noble spirit and carriage ofthe
transatlantic kindred. Until the period when their enslavement
was systematically and perseveringly attempted, circumstances
had uniformly been such, as to render that course of proceed-
* For a particular account of this bill and the proceedings of the
House of Commons thereupon, see Macpherson's Annals of Commerce,
vol. iii. <tto. p. 47.
t See Minot's Continuation of the History of Massachusetts, p. 146.
vol, i.

48 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART. II.
ing, incompatible with the prosecution of objects deemed of
immediate necessity or higher importance. Had not this been
the case, whig and tory would have alike assailed the consti
tutional privileges of British America. *' When the war is
closed" said the elder Pitt to Dr. Franklin, during the struggle
of 1756, between France and England, " if I should be in the
ministry, I will take measures to prevent the colonies from
having a power, to refuse or delay the supplies, which may be
wanted for national purposes."
6. The system of religious freedom, co-eval with the esta
blishment of some of the colonies constitutes, a proud dis
tinction for the founders. There is a glory to be envied by
the world, in the first, and continued recognition and en
forcement of the rights of conscience, by constitutional law.
Compared with it, the sublimest discoveries in science, the
most useful invention in the arts, the most- majestic physical
monuments, must appear as secondary, in the opinion of those
who consider what would be the effect, for the dignity and
happiness of our species, were the example universally fol
lowed ; and what the evils that have flowed and continue to
flow, from religious intolerance. This glory cannot be denied
to the provinces of Maryland, Rhode Island,* and Penn
sylvania ; and it brightens with the reflection, how com
pletely the human mind was elsewhere shut to the voice
Of reason and humanity. Religious equality was unknown
to the codes of Europe ; and persecution, adopting, wherever
it prevailed, the injustice as well as terrors of the inquisition,
raged in the countries claiming to be the most refined and
enlightened. Even, in the United Provinces, so often — to
use the language of Hume, cited as models of toleration, though
all sects were admitted, yet civil offices were only enjoyed by
the professors .of the established religion. I need not re
mind those jyho have read the work of this incomparable
historian, of the state of things in England— of the mean
and ignobje arts, as well as the sanguinary atrocities practised
in the wars of the leading sects, which, as he remarks, throw
an indeliable stain on the British annals. t A single extract
from his history willlllustrate the progress of reason and hu
manity in the Scottish parliament, but a little before Penn
organized his commonwealth, and nearly two generations
after Maryland had taken the principles which I have
quoted,^ as the foundations of her polity. " In a session

* See Note C. f Chap. 68. J Page SS.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 4!)
June, 1673,) of the Scottish parliament, a severe law was
enacted against conventicles. Ruinous fines were imposed
both on the preachers and hearers, even if the meet
ings had been in houses; but field conventicles were sub
jected to the penalty of death, and confiscation of goods.
Four hundred marks (Scots), were offered as a reward to
those who should seize the criminals ; and they were indemnified
for any slaughter which they should commit in the execution of
such an undertaking. And, as it was found difficult to get
evidence against these conventicles, however numerous, it was
enacted by another law, that, whoever, being required by the
council, refused to give information upon oath, should be
punished by arbitrary fines, by imprisonment, or by banish
ment to the plantation*?'*
The Catholics of Maryland, who had hoped to escape the
fell spirit of triumphant bigotry, by renouncing their country,
were not long suffered to remain undisturbed in their remote
and hard-earned retreat. Their scheme of religious charity,
was as incomprehensible, as hateful, to their old persecutors.
Some of the most desperate and fanatical of the sectaries, who
had repaired to the Catholic asylum, were instigated to dis
turb it's tranquillity, and to set themselves in array against
their magnanimous hosts. During the Commonwealth in Eng
land, the proprietary government of Maryland was subverted,
and the affairs of the province put into the hands of commis
sioners, creatures of the protector. The spurious assembly
which they convened, after recognizing Cromwell's "just title
and authority," enacted, that " none who professed the Popish
religion could be protected in the province by the laws of Eng
land !" The Catholic missionaries in Maryland, who from the
year 1640, had begun to carry the light of the gospel among
the Indians, were compelled to desist, on the ground that they
aimed at forming a party against the English government, to
enable themselves to become independent.
Things took nearly the same course after the reinstating
of the proprietary by Charles II. " The troubles in Mary-
" land," says Chalmers, " were made a foundation, whereon
" were raised fresh complaints against the proprietary in Eng-
" land for partiality to Papists. Lord Baltimore, in justifi-
" cation of himself and the province, showed the act of 1649,
" concerning religion, which had been confirmed in the year
" 1676, as a perpetual law, and which tolerated and protected
" every sect of Christians, but gave special privileges to none.
v Chapter 66.
Vol. I.-G

50 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
" It was in vain for him to represent, that he had endeavoured
" to divide the offices of his government as nearly equal among
" Protestants and Roman Catholics, as their abilities would
" permit; that he had given almost the whole command ofthe
" militia to the former, who were entrusted with the care of
" the arms and military stores. Tbe ministers of Charles II.
" to throw the imputation of popery from their own shoulders,
" commanded that all offices should be put into Protestant
"•hands."* The Church of England was at length established by law
in Maryland ; and the Catholics were rewarded for the " mild
est of laws," for " a moderation unparalleled in the annals of
the world,"t by being disfranchised, and subjected anew to
the restrictions and penalties, from which their charter had
seemed to assure them a perpetual protection. The condition
to which they were reduced, by the government of William,
was not only a horrible injustice in itself, but a scandalous
breach of national faith. The protestant religion had been al
ready established by law in Virginia, in 1661, and that colony
converted, likewise, into a theatre of persecution. An at
tempt was made, at the beginning ofthe eighteenth century, to
give the same ascendancy to the Church of England, in Caro
lina; but it encountered a spirited and successful resistance
from the inhabitants.
7. The excesses of bigotry which were committed by the
Puritans of New England, during the seventeenth century,
can neither be disguised nor defended. They admit, how
ever, of some extenuation, which is to be found in such con
siderations as the following, offered by one of their descend
ants :% — " To vindicate the errors of our ancestors, were to
" make them our own. It is allowed, that they were culpable ;
" but, we do not concede that, in the present instance, they
" stood alone, or that they merited all the censure bestowed on
" them. Laws, similar to those of Massachusetts, were passed
" elsewhere against the Quakers, and particularly in Virginia.
" If no execution took place here, as it did in New Eng-
" land, it was not owing to the moderation of the church,
" (Jefferson, Virg. Query xviii). The prevalent opinion among
" most sects of Christians, at that day, that toleration is sinful,
" ought to be remembered ; nor should it be forgotten, that the
" first Quakers in New England, beside speaking and writing
" what was deemed blasphemous, reviled magistrates and
* Chapter 15. t Chalmers.
| Holmes, in his American Annals.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 51
" ministers, and disturbed religious assemblies ; and that the
" tendency of their tenets and practices was to the subversion
" qf the commonwealth, in that period of its infancy. " (See
" Hubbard, MS. N. Eng. Hazard Coll. i. 630 ; ii. 5, 96 ; and
" the early historians of New England.) In reviewing the
" conduct of our revered ancestors, ' it is but just to make
" allowance for the times in which they lived; and the occa-
" sions of their measures."
Any accusation or sarcasm on this head, comes with a
wretched air from Great Britain. Her cotemporary history is
a tissue of all that can be conceived most atrocious, or malig
nant, or preposterous in the hostilities and extravagances of
fanatacism ; it cannot be surpassed in the annals of those enor
mities and follies, which provoke alternately laughter and
tears, scorn and horror. On comparing the condition and
pretensions of the English and Scotch nations, (for the re
proach attaches to the whole,) with those of the zealots of
New England, every one will perceive at once on which side
lies the greater load of guilt and shame. Massachusetts had
no assembly or synod, rivalling the Rump Parliament, or the
presbytery of Argyle; — there is no transaction in the history
of that province, upon the same scale of mischief and absur
dity, as the affair ofthe Popish plot — there is nothing like the
conviction and execution of Stafford, upon the evidence of
Oates and Tuberville ; no judicial career vying with the cir
cuits of Kirk and Jefferies.
The religious ferment subsided in New England before the
expiration of the seventeenth century. Not an instance is to
be found, in her subsequent history, of sanguinary or vexa
tious persecution for variations in opinion or worship.* The
rigour exercised against particular sects, in the other colonies,
is to be traced in all cases, to the instigation, or general
influence, of the mother country. At the separation, advan
tage was immediately taken of the entire freedom of legisla
tion, to put all denominations of Christians upon a footing of
equality ; and this proceeding shows how prevalent the spi
rit of toleration had become among the colonists. That
the reason and humanity of England lagged far behind, is
sufficiently attested by the Draconian Code concerning the Ca
tholics, which survived our revolution, and the disabilities from
which the Protestant dissenters are not yet relieved. If I did not
find it stated in the fourth number of the Quarterly Review, that
" the northern states have hardly outgrown their fanaticism,"
and that there is, in America, " scarcely any medium between
* See Note D.

52 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
" over-godliness and a brutal irreligion," I would confident
ly appeal for what we now are, as respects our religious
spirit, to the following statement, ofthe 31st number of that
authoritative journal. " The old settlers of America carried
" with them habits of strict morality and austere religion.
" The descendants of these old settlers have outgrown the
" intolerance and bigotry of their ancestors, but have retained
" their virtues, and embellished them by humane manners.
" They are republicans as much by principle and duty as by
t( prejudice and inheritance."
1 would not hesitate to concede to the author of " the Bri
tish empire in America," that '* the great foible of the New
England history is the story ofthe witches."* — But this story
has aspects widely different from that under which it is ex
hibited abroad. Belief in witchcraft was epidemic in the
seventeenth century, and could not fail to extend to New
England. The insulated situation of her inhabitants, — one
which presents them, to use their own graphic language, as
" conflicting with many grievous difficulties and sufferings in
the vast howling wilderness, among wild men and wild
beasts"t — the austerity of their domestic habits — the solem
nity of their religious feelings — the terrific dangers to which
they were hourly exposed — their daily intercourse with the
Indians, whose conversation was perpetually of demons and
necromancers — the new maladies of body, resulting from a
new and crude climate — the heart-sickening recollections of
" the pleasant land of their nativity," of which the ravening
brood of tyrants would almost be forgotten, as memory recall
ed its better features, with the enjoyments and ties of their
youth — all these influences combined against the force of their
reason, and contributed to render irresistible the contagion of
the European superstition. The simple example of the mo
ther country might account for their infatuation; and the ex
tent to which it is chargeable upon that example, may be
understood, from the following passage of Hutchinson's His
tory of Massachusetts. " Not many years before the delusion
" seized New England, Glanville published his witch stories
" in England; Perkins and other Nonconformists were earlier ;
" but the great authority was that of Sir Matthew Hale, re-
" vered in IVew England, not only for his knowledge in the
u law, but for his gravity and piety. The trial of the witches
" in Suffolk was published in 1684. All these books were
* Preface.
t Petition ofthe General Court of Massachusetts to the king. (1680.)

SECT* II.] OF TH.E COLONISTS. 53
" in New England, and the conformity between the behaviour
" of Goodwin's children, and most ofthe supposed bewitched
" at Salem, and the behaviour of those in England, is so exact
" as to leave no room to doubt the stories had been read by the
" New England persons themselves, or had been told to them by
" others who had read them. Indeed, this conformity, instead
" of giving suspicion, was urged in confirmation of the truth
" of both ; the Old England demons and the New being so
" much alike. The court justified themselves from books of
" law, and the authorities of Keeble, Dalton, and other law-
" yers, then of the first character, who laid down rules of con-
" viction as absurd and dangerous as any which were prac-
" tised in New England." * The authors of the Universal
History have also stated some palliative facts, which deserve
to be reported upon such authority. — " In justice to the mi-
" nistry and people of New England, we are to observe, that
" the persecutions for witchcraft were carried on by wretches,
" partly to gratify their private resentments and interests, and
" partly from a spirit of enthusiasm and credulity; nor could
" they have happened, had it not been for the weakness of the
" governor and Dr. Mather, who were rendered the tools of
" more designing men. The people in general, and some
" ministers, particularly Mr. Caleb of Boston, detested them,
" and remonstrated against them from the beginning, but all
" to no purpose. "t
All ranks in Scotland and England concurred in raising a
complete demonocracy for those countries, throughout the se
venteenth century. Lord Kaimes asserts, in his Sketches of
the History of Man, that during the civil wars every one be
lieved in magic, charms, spells, sorcery and witchcraft. An
incident related by Evelyn, for which no parallel is to be
found in American history, shows the temper of the times in
England. " 29th March, 1652 — was that celebrated eclipse
of the sun, so much threatened by the astrologers, and which
had so exceedingly alarmed the whole nation, that hardly any
one would work or stir out of their houses, so ridiculously were
they abused by knavish and ignorant star-gazers." The Long
Parliament, alias, " the great reformation parliament," issued
several commissions " to discover and prosecute witches,"
and upon those commissions were many unfortunate persons,
of both sexes, tried and executed. We should not forget the
testimony of Hume, with respect to the state of Scotland, at
the period in question. " The fanaticism which prevailed,
* Vol. ii. chap. i. f "Vol. xxxix.

54 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART 1.
e' acquired, besides the malignants and engagers, a new object
" of abhorrence. These were the sorcerers. So prevalent was
" the opinion of witchcraft, that great numbers, accused of
" that crime, were burnt by sentence of the magistrates,
" through all parts of Scotland. In a village near Berwick,
" which contained only fourteen houses, fourteen persons were
" punished by fire, and it became a science every where much
" studied and cultivated, to distinguish a true witch by proper
" trials and symptoms."*
I have now before me a quarto volume, published in Lon
don, in the present year (1819), and entitled, " The memo
rable things that fell out within the Island of Britain, from
1638 to 1683, by the Rev. Mr. Robert Law, of that time."
This work is little more than a chronicle of the witchcraft of
Britain, during the interval to which it is confined ; and, truly,
the details of credulity and judicial murder which it furnishes,
might entitle New England to expect very gentle usage in that
quarter on the subject of witchcraft. Among the papers pre
fixed to the u Memorable things," is a *' True relation of an
apparition, expressions, and actings, of a spirit, which infested
the House of Andrew Mackie, in Scotland, in 1695;" which
relation is signed on oath by at least twelve regular clergymen
of especial sanctity and authority. The worthy minister, Law,
has left, in his journal, a notice of New England, which may
reasonably be taken as the epitome of the popular notions of
the day, concerning that colony. It is sufficiently remarkable
to be copied.
" (August, 1676.) These of New England that had planted that part of
America, are grievously troubled by the natives, who make inroads upon
the plantations, and kill many of the English, having by their slaves,
(that were with the English and fled to them again,) learned the art of
shooting guns, purchasing out of France and Holland guns, swords, and
pycks, make them much ado and great trouble, so that they were necessi
tate to shift for themselves in other parts of the world. The truth is, the
Protestants in all parts of the world suffer in these sad tymes. The origin
of these in New England went from England in'the days of queen Mary
of England, when the persecution against the Protestants was raised there,
and in the days of queen Elizabeth, her successor, a Protestant was well
supplied with money and other necessaries to make good that plantation.
They were all furnished with able ministers, and grew up to a famous and
glorious church. Their church government was and is yet independent,
and of their stale it is aristocracic. They refused to own the king of Britain
as their king, only in commemoration qf their coming out qf England, they
now and then send him a free gift."
For thirty years after the settlement of Massachusetts> 
* Chapter 59.

SECT. II. j OF THE COLONISTS. 55
while victims were daily sacrificed by fire and the rope, in
Great Britain, — none suffered for witchcraft in that colony.
Hutchinson asserts truly, that " more were put to death in a
single county of England for that cause, than suffered in New
England from the planting until his time, in 1760."* The
phrenzy endured in America but seven months; whereas it
may be said to have continued, with little or no abatement, in
the mother country, in Scotland particularly, — for a long series
of years. If Cotton Mather partook ofthe wretched delusion,
he was at least as excusable as Sir Matthew Hale ; and we
may doubt whether there was any learned judge of New Eng
land, cotemporary with chief justice Blackstone, who would
have gravely summed up the evidence, respecting the reality
of witchcraft, and as gravely decided it to be, " most eligible
to conclude, that, in general, such a thing as witchcraft had
been."t North America, of the eighteenth century, can fur
nish no counterpart for the story of the Cock Lane ghost.
Hutchinson has, on this subject, some observations in addition
to those I have quoted from him, which ought not to be with
held. " The trial of Richard Hatheway, the impostor, before
" lord chief justice Holt, was ten or twelve years after the
" trials in New England. This was a great discouragement
" to prosecutions in England for witchcraft, but an effectual
" stop was not put to them until the act of parliament in the
" reign of his late majesty, George II. Even this did not
" wholly cure the common people, and we hear of old women
" ducked and cruelly murdered within these last twenty years.
" Reproach, then, for hanging witches, although it has been
" often cast upon the people of New England by those of Old,
" yet it must have been done with an ill grace."
8. As respects political intrepidity, we may challenge a
comparison between our ancestors, and the communities the
most renowned for that potent virtue. The instances of it with
which our colonial annals abound, are inestimably precious,
as lessons and incentives for the American people at all limes,
and under all circumstances. We cannot too often remind
each other how heroically the first settlers, and the generations

* Hist, of Mass. vol. ii. chap. i.
t Commentaries, b. iv. c. iv. " Witchcraft, or sorcery, is a truth to which
every nation in the world, hath, in its turn, borne testimony, by either ex
amples seemingly well attested, or prohibitory laws, which at least suppose
the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits."

56 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART i.
immediately succeeding, overlooked their own physical weak
ness and domestic dangers, and braved the power and pride
of the mother country, in asserting the rights of man and the
privileges recognized or implied in their charters. The com
plaints which the British historians and orators have uttered
concerning their haughty and refractory spirit, and their early
aspirations after positive sovereignty, are to be cherished as
testimonies borne to the elevation of their character. I repeat
with exultation, and think there should be no anxiety on the
part of any American, to avoid the reproaches intended to be
made by such allegations as the following : —
" The persons whom the Plymouth company sent over to America,
as soon as they landed there, considered themselves as individuals united
by voluntary associations, possessing the natural rights of men who form
a society, to adopt what mode of government, and to enact what laws they
deemed most conducive to general felicity. Suitably to these ideas, they
framed all their future plans of court and ecclesiastical policy.*
" Massachusetts, in conformity to its accustomed principles, acted
during the civil wars, almost altogether as an independent state. It
formed leagues not only with the neighbouring colonies, but with foreign
nations, without the consent or knowledge of the government of England.
It permitted no appeals from its courts to the judicatories of the sovereign
state; and it refused to exercise its jurisdiction in the name of the com
monwealth of England. It erected a mint at Boston, impressing the year
1652 on the coin, as the era of independence.** Thus evincing to all
what had been foretold by the wise, that, a people of such principles, reli
gious and political, settling at so great a distance from control, would
necessarily form an independent state.f
" During the greater part of the reign of Charles II. the colony of Con
necticut acted rather as an independent state, than as the inconsiderable
territory of a great nation. The general orders of that prince were con
temned, because the royal interposition was deemed inconsistent with the
charter. The acts of navigation were despised and disobeyed, because
they were considered equally inconsistent with the freedom of trade as
with the security of ancient privileges: and the courts of justice refused
to allow appeals to England, because the powers of ultimate jurisdiction
were claimed from the patentj
" On receiving authentic news of the revolution of 1688, and the
accession of William and Mary, though the people of Massachusetts spoke
with deference of the higher powers in England, and of their relationship
to it, tliey resolved, with their peculiar spirit, that the settlement of their
government on that, extraordinary oceasion, belonged wholly to them
selves." J
" The Americans have had all along a reluctance to order and good
government, since their first establishment in their country. They
.have hssn obstjiiate,__Hndutiful, and ungovernable from the very begin
ning; from their first infant settlements in that country. Tliey began
to manifest this spirit as early as the reign of Charles I. They disputed
* i Bobertson's History of America, vol. iv.
t Chalmers, chap. viii. Annals.
t Ibid.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 57
our right of fishing on tlieir coasts, in the times of the commonwealth and pro
tectorate, &c*
" The bad consequences of planting northern colonies were early predicted.
Sir Josiah Child foretold, before the revolution, that they would, in the endj
prove our rivals in power, commerce, and manufactures. Davenant adopted
the same ideas, and foresaw what has since happened : he foresaw that when
ever America found herself of sufficient strength to contend with the mother
country, she would endeavour to form herself into a separate and independent
state. This has been the constant object of New England, almost from her ear
liest infancy," &c. +
We find the colony of Virginia, when only in its seven
teenth year, (1624,) and just recovered from the heaviest
disasters, answering, through its general assembly, an angry
and insidious inquiry into its condition and dispositions, or
dered by the king and privy council, and resisting the arti
fices and threats of the commissioners deputed from England
for the purpose of extorting a surrender of its charter, with
the utmost sagacity and boldness, or, to use the phrase of its
historian, Stith, "with sharpness and vigour;" — with an array
of the loftiest principles, and in a style of composition, very
little inferior to the best of that age.J The same colony, only
twelve years after, seized the royal governor, Harvey, become
odious to them by his exactions and insolence, and sent him a
prisoner to London. And it is further illustrative of her in
trepidity, that Charles I. considered the proceeding as an act
of rebellion, and reinstated the obnoxious officer, — to super
sede him, however, immediately, by one of a character dissi
milar in all respects. Virginia, prepossessed in favour of
the royal cause, resisted the government of the Protectorate,
by arms, in 1651, and submitted at length to the powerful
squadron sent to enforce her obedience, only upon terms
which do infinite honour to her courage, and remain a striking
memorial of her resolute and enlightened attachment to liber
ty. The following abstract of some of the articles of capitu
lation will be read with interest. 1. " The plantation of
" Virginia, and all the inhabitants thereof, shall remain in
" due subjection to the Commonwealth of England, not as a
" conquered country, but as a country submitting by their own
" voluntary act, and shall enjoy such freedoms and privileges
* Earl Talbot, in the house of Lords. Debate of Feb. 29, 1776.
+ Lord Mansfield, in the House of Lords. Debate Nov. 15, 1775.
| See the account of this controversy, in the 5th book of Stitli's History of
Virginia. " Every titheable or taxable inhabitant," says Burke, " voted for
members of assembly. And what honour does not the choice of sncb an assem
bly as that of 1624, reflect on the colonists; what sagacity and public spirit
does it not suppose in them, at a juncture so delicate and trying, to have selected
a body which immediately saw their true interest, and pursued it with ardour
and unanimity, in the face of the royal commissiouers, and in defiance of the
authority and resentment of the king."
Vol. I.— H

58 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
" as belong to the free people of England. 2, The general
"assembly, as formerly, shall convene, and transact the affairs
" of the colony. 3. The people of Virginia shall have a free
" trade, as the people of England, to all places, and with all
" nations. 4. Virginia shall be free from all taxes, customs,
" and impositions whatsoever; and none shall be imposed on
" them, without consent ofthe general assembly; and neither
"forts nor castles be erected, or garrisons maintained without
" their own consent,"*
Her subsequent conduct has been the theme of lofty pane-
fyric with all the historians. She took advantage of the sud-
en death of a governor named by Cromwell, to restore the
royal officers, and proclaimed Charles II. even before intelli
gence was received of the demise of the Protector. The
spirit which produced these exploits, descended without'inter-
rnption or enervation, and proved its identity and divinity in
the resolutions offered by Patrick Henry, in 1765; in the pro-
fpsitions for a general congress, and in the Declaration of
independence. The career pursued by Massachusetts from her birth, is
pre-eminent for daring, as well as dexterity, and may be con
sidered in these respects as unique in the annals of the world.
To the charter, as containining a confirmation of some portion
of her natural liberty, she clung with a pertinaciousness,
under every vicissitude and pressure, which must awaken in
all generous breasts, a thrilling sympathy, and a lively admi
ration. Diminutive as she was in 1635, yet, when a rumour
reached the colonies, that the measure of a general govern
ment for New England, was decided upon as the British
Court, her magistrates and clergy agreed unanimously that,
" if such a governor were sent, the colony ought not to accept
him, but to defend its lawful possessions." When her patent
was demanded in 1638, by order of the king in council, it was
answered, that if the charter should be taken away, the peo
ple would remove to another place, and confederate under
some new form of government ; and " such was their resolu
tion," says the historian Hutchinson, "that they would have
sought a vacuum domicilium, (a favourite expression with
them,) in some part of the globe, where they would, according
to their apprehensions, have been free from the controul of
any European power"f We have the evidence of one of the
* See vol. ii. chap. ii. of Burke's1 History 6{ Virginia: — for the entire con
vention, and a just commentary upon the magnanimous deportment of the
colony. + Vol i. p,87.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 59
spies of Archbishop Laud, in the colony, that it was, at this
period of her history, accounted purjury and treason in her
General Court, to speak of appeals to the king.
In 1641, the General Court established the one hundred laws,
called the Body of Liberties. The strain of them, so abhorrent
and advantageously distinguished, from the geneius ofthe co-
temporary legislation in England, shows with what fearless
determination these pilgrims marched up to their invariable
object, of civil and religious freedom. The memorable league
of the New England plantations, in 1643,* is another proof of
tbe independant and confident spirit, with which they pro
vided for their own protection. " It originated," says Chal
mers, " with Massachusetts, always fruitful in projects of in
dependence. No patent legalized the confederacy, which con
tinued until the dissolution of the charters, in 1686. Neither
the consent nor approbation of the governing powers in
England was ever applied for or given. The principles upon
which this famous association was formed were altogether those
of self-government, of absolute sovereignty."t Massachusetts
saw from the beginning, the true bearing of the acts of navi
gation of 1651, and 1660, and of the custom house duties pre
scribed in 1672, upon her interests and natural rights, and she
evaded or resisted them, until the whole weight of the mother
country was turned to their enforcement. The officer sent
from England, to collect the customs at Boston, was recalled,
upon his representation, " that he was in danger of being
punished with death, by virtue of an ancient law, as a sub-
verter of the constitution." When taxed with disobedience,
the General Court did not hesitate to allege, that " the acts of
navigation were an invasion of the rights and privileges of
the subjects of his majesty in that colony, they being not repre
sented in Parliament; and that, according to the usual sayings
of the learned in the law, the laws of England were bounded
within the four seas, and did not reach America." Some of
the other provinces joined in this language, and were equally
hardy in their practice. Massachusetts, from the outset, openly
contended against the doctrine, that Parliament had a right to
make laws binding the colonies in all cases whatsoever; she
denied the competency of that body to impose any tax upon
them, without the consent of their legislatures. Her theory,
on this head, was solemnly proclaimed in 1692, and embo
died in one of the laws which she then framed under the new
* See vol. i. of Trumbull's History of Connecticut, for a detailed account
of this confederation.
+ Chap. viii. Annals.

60 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
Charter received from William. In 1663, Rhode Island for
mally enacted it, as one of her privileges, that no tax should
be imposed on, or required of the colonists, but by the Gene
ral Assembly. The Assembly of New York nobly passed reso
lutions to the same purport, in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. As early as 1624, the Assembly of Virginia had
set the example of asserting this principle as fundamental.
Massachusetts manifested a strong predilection for the
cause of the independants in England, duringtbe civil wars ;
but she resisted the attempts of the Long Parliament upon
the sacred charter. Being strongly advised, in 1641, when
suffering much domestic distress and embarrassment, to soli
cit parliamentary aid or patronage, she steadily refused,
with a train of reasoning, which well deserves to be noted. —
"If we place ourselves under the protection of Parliament,
we must be subject to all such laws as they should make, or
at least, such as they might impose upon us, in which course,
though Parliament might intend our good, yet it might prove
very prejudicial."*
Ihe carriage of the northern colonies, on the restoration,
when all England fell prostrate before the monarchical pa
geant, — may be best told in the angry language of the loyal
Chalmers. " The people of New England received the tidings
of that interesting event with a caution bordering on incre
dulity ; announced the king in a manner almost insulting; and
submitted not to the resolutions of the supreme power, till
they had, by their own resolves, declared their own privi
leges.** The affectionate reception which Connecticut gave to
the regicides, even after their attainder by Parliament, who
here enjoyed a long life of miserable security, and died in
peace, sufficiently demonstrates her principles and attach-
ments.f She received the royal commissioners with studied
indifference, and with a fixed resolution to deride their autho
rity and disobey their commands'4"
* Hutchinson, chapter!.
+ The regicides, to whom our author refers, were Whally and Goffe, men
of great abilities and accomplishments, of a noble spirit, and winning demea
nour. The conduct of the people of New England towards them, does not,
methinks, sufier in the comparison with the procedure related in the following
passage of Evelyn's Memoirs : "This day, the 30th of Jany. 1660, were the
carcases of those arch rebells Cromwell, Bradshaw, the judge who condemned
his majesty, and Ireton, son-in-law to ye usurper, dragg'd out of their superb
tombs in Westmr. among the kings, to Tyburn, and hang'd on the gallows
there from 9 in yc morning till six at night, and then buried under that fatal and
ignominious monument in adcepe pit, thousands who had seen them in all their
pride, being spectators."' (Vol. i. p. 317.)
J Chapter xii. Annals.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 61
New England generally, prohibited all appeals to the par
liament or the king in council; and Massachusetts in particu
lar, fined and imprisoned certain persons, for designing to
solicit parliament to revise a sentence of the General Court.
This body, on the arrival ofthe commissioners sent by Charles
II. in 1665, to investigate and regulate the affairs of New
England, put them under close supervision; refused to re
cognize their authority, or to impose the oath of allegiance
required from the people, unless with nice restrictions and
limitations ; counteracted all their proceedings, and resolved
" to adhere to the patent so dearly obtained and so long
enjoyed by undoubted right in the sight of God and man."
The commissioners would seem to have been imbued with
something of the spirit which actuates the modern English
critics. One of their letters to the general court, dated in
1668, begins thus: "We have received a letter from your
marshal, subscribed by the secretary, so full of untruth, and
in some places vmnting grammar construction, that we are
unwilling," &c. The account which Chalmers gives of the
conclusion of their transactions in Massachusetts, is an amus
ing picture of the temper of both parties.
" The commissioners at length peremptorily asked the general court, ' Do
you acknowledge the royal commission to be of full force to all the purposes
contained in it?' But, to a question at once so decisive and embarrassing, the
general court excused itself from giving a direct answer, and chose rather to
' plead bis majesty's charter.' The commissioners, however, attempting to hear
a complaint against the governor and company, the general court, with a cha
racteristic vigour, published by sound of trumpet, its disapprobation of this
proceeding and prohibited every one from abetting a conduct so inconsistent
with their duty to God and their allegiance to the king. And, in May, 1665,
the commissioners determined ' to lose no more labour upon men, who mis
construed all their endeavours, and opposed the royal authority.' They soon
after departed, threatening their oponents ' with the punishment which so many
concerned in the late rebellion had met with in England.' " *
All the agents of New England with the British govern
ment, had it in especial charge " to consent to nothing that
should infringe the liberties granted by charter."
The manner in which Connecticut frustrated the attempt of
Andros, in 1675, to acquire for the Duke of York the country
lying westward of the Connecticut river — the discomfiture of
the same tyrannical viceroy of the Stuarts, when he endea
voured, in 1687, to possess himself of her charter — his depo-
position and imprisonment by the people of Boston, in 1689,

* Chap. xvi. Annals.

62 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
and the resumption, by all the New England provinces, of
their abrogated charters and forms of government, even before^
they received any certain intelligence of the success of Wil
liam in England — the re-establishment, in 1668, of the author
ity of Massachusetts over New Hampshire, by the general
court, in defiance of the royal authority* — the violent subver
sion, in 1672, of the proprietary government in New Jersey —
the insurrectionary movements of Albemarle in 1677 — the
revolution of 1719 in South Carolina — the successful strug
gles of the general court of Massachusetts, between the years
1721 and 1730, with the royal governors of that interval,
backed as they were by the countenance of the crown— are
all so many additional incidents, which may be singled out of
a multitude, to exemplify the passionate zeal, the fearlessness,
and activity of the first generations of Americans, in the
cause of civil liberty; as their institutions may be cited to
prove their clear discernment of its true principles and appro
priate forms. England possessed, in the seventeenth century
some votaries to the same cause, of the largest views and
boldest determination: but the true model of freedom was, as
I have already intimated, neither sought nor compehended by
the nation in general. This is palpable from the despotic
genius of the commonweath, and the kindred spirit of the
restoration. The main spring and principle pf the civil wars,
and even of the revolution of 1688, was religious rancour;
not the desire or intelligence of political liberty — an object
always subordinate to the gratification of fanatical hate, and
the acquisition of inordinate power. It is said by Hume, that
the British were, in the time of Charles 1. and till long after,
of all the European nations, the most under the influence of
that religious spirit, which tends to inflame bigotry and beget
desperate factions. " The Scotch nation," he adds, " plainly
discovered, after the restoration, that their past resistance had
proceeded more from the turbulency of their aristocracy, and
the bigotry of their ecclesiastics, than from any fixed passion
towards civil liberty."
The New England plantations could not feel, and did not
find themselves, secure in their distance from the British court.
Whatever influence the circumstance of this distance might be
supposed to exert in bracing their spirit, it must have been
more than counteracted by the immensed is parity of strength;
and the belief, that, if pressed, a new emigration was their only

Chalmers, chan. xix.

SECT. II. OF THE COLONISTS. 63
resource, Their situation altogether, — apparently so forlorn and
critical, — had a stronger tendency to inspire docility and sub
mission to the house of Stuart, than the relative position of
the British people. But let the language and countenance of
the government of New England, in the year 1685, be com
pared with those of the British parliament, towards James II,
at the same period . '' The parliament," says Hume,* "pro
ceeded to examine the dispensing power, and voted an address
against it. The address was expressed in a most respectful
and submissive manner, yet it was very ill received by the
king, and his answer contained a flat denial. The Commons
were so daunted with this reply, that they kept silence a long
time; and when Coke, a member from Derby, rose and said,
' I hope we are all Englishmen, and not to be frightened by a
few hard words,' so little spirit appeared in that assembly,
often so refractory and mutinous, that they sent him to the
tower for bluntly expressing a free and generous sentiment.
" On their next meeting, they very submissively proceeded
to the consideration ofthe supply demanded by the court, and
even went so far as to establish funds for paying the sum voted
in nine years and a half. The king, therefore had, in effect,
almost without a struggle, obtained a total victory over the
Commons ; and instead of contesting an additional revenue to
the crown ; and rendering the king'in somedegree independent
contributed to increase those imminent dangers, with which
they bad so good reason to be alarmed."
I shall have occasion, as I proceed with the main subject,
to notice so many brilliant traits of civil courage, in the career
of the colonists, that I ought to be satisfied, with what I have
adduced: and it is not moreover, a part of my plan, to parti
cularize here, their heroic proceedings after the passage of
the stamp act ; which are sufficiently emblazoned in the ad
miration expressed by the most respectable voices and pens
of England herself. But I must be indulged with culling
from the history of Massachusetts a couple of incidents more,
as contrasts to the anecdote just quoted from Hume. When
Andros, as governor general'of New England, by the appoint
ment of James II. imposed, in the beginning of 1688, a tax of
a penny in the pound on all the towns under his government,
tbe select men, (municiple officers,) of those of Massachusetts,
particularly of Ipswich, voted, "that inasmuch as it was against
the common privileges of English subjects, to have money
raised without their own consent given in an assembly or par
liament; therefore they would petition the king for liberty of
* Chapter Ixx.

64 CHARACTER AND MERITS PART I.
an assembly before they made any rates" — nor did they yield
the point, although put to the test by imprisonment and heavy
fines.* The other case is of the year 1761. In that year, the
governor of the colony, Bernard, took upon himself to equip
the province sloop Massachusetts, upon a more expensive scale
than that prescribed by the House of Assembly, or than what
was called, " the old establishment." On receiving from him
a message relating to it, the house immediately prepared, and
voted by a large majority, an answer which contained the
following passages : " Justice to ourselves and our constituents
oblige us to remonstrate against the method of making or in
creasing- establishments, by the governor and council. It is,
in effect taking from the House their most darling privilege,
the right of originating all taxes."
"No necessity can be sufficient to justify a House of Repre
sentatives in giving up such privilege ; for it would be of little
consequence to the people, whether they were subject to George
or Louis, the king of Great Britain or the French king, if both
were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could levy taxes
without parliament."
9. The most prejudiced ofthe English writers have scarcely
ventured to decry the domestic morals and habits ofthe early
colonists. Industry, order, temperance, and the social affec
tions were demonstrated by the rapid increase of their means,
comforts, and numbers, and by the stability of their institu
tions. The rarity of political changes, or intestine dissen-
tions, of domestic origin, after the several communities were
formed, is in itself, adequate proof of the general subordina
tion to the authority of law and reason. Hutchinson men
tions that " in the Massachusetts colony, for the first thirty
years, although the governor an assistants were annually
chosen by the body ofthe people, yet they confined themselves
to the principal gentlemen of family, estate, understanding
and integrity ;" and that " there were instances in the char
ter governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island, where
the representatives had virtue enough to withstand popular
prejudices, when the governor's council had not."f The
question of restoring to New England, the charter suppressed
by James II. was submitted, after the accession of William III.
to Hook, an eminent lawyer of the British capital, This
enlightened individual, in pronouncing in the affirmative, did
* See*" A Narrative ofthe Miseries of New England, by reason of an arbitarv
government erected there by James II." This curious pamphlet, which arraigns
with the utmost severity the administration of Andros, was printed in Boston
during what it calls "his tyrannic reign," and re-printed in the same place an the
year 1775.
t Vol. ii. chap. i.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 65
not hesitate to describe the colonists as " a people who had
maintained civility beyond any other on earth." The authors
of the modern part of the Universal History, referring to the
same era, remark, that " the police of the inhabitants of New
England, with regard to their morals, surpassed that of any
in the world." Such, indeed, was their reputation for disci
pline and virtue, that the pious of the mother country, sent
over their children for education. The legislators of New
England were, indeed, exorbitantly austere with respect to
the elegant recreations of civilized life: They prohibited,
moreover, horse racing, cock fighting, bull and bear baiting.
In excluding these vulgar and vicious sports, they certainly
did not suffer in the contrast with those who, in Britain, tole
rated such pastime as the following, of which we read in
Evelyn's Memoirs : " There was now (April, 1667,) a very
gallant horse to be baited to death with dogs. — They run him
through with their swords, when the dogs did not succeed,"
&c. Religion was the fundamental order of society, and univer
sally cultivated, in all the colonies north of the Potomac, ex
cept New York. Even in this province, into whose political
being it had not entered as an element, as in the case of Penn
sylvania and New England j it flourished in considerable
vigour and diffusion. Throughout New England, the first
measure in the organization of the commonwealths, was to
establish a system, by which all should partake of religious
worship and instruction. The representation which was made
officially in 1680, to the Committee of Plantations, concerning
the condition of Connecticut in this respect, admits of being
applied to the whole of New England. " Great care is taken
of the instruction of the people of Connecticut in the Chris
tian religion, by ministers catechising and preaching twice
every sabbath, and sometimes, on lecture days; and also by
masters of families instructing and teaching their children .
and servants, which the law commands them to do. We have
twenty-six towns, and there are twenty-one churches in them,
and in every one there is a settled minister."
A mild, steady, sedulous piety, very little polemical or
fanatical, distinguished the founders of Pennsylvania; spread
its purifying and quickening influence over the new settlers
of every nation and sect, and gave a permanent complexion
of efficacious faith to that province. New Jersy had risen
under the same fortunate auspices, and wore a similar aspect.
To the excellent religious character of Maryland, during the
seventeenth century, even Chalmers bears testimony, in op-
Vol. I.— I

66 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART U
position to those who, out of a charitable abomination of the
bare existence of Popery, and in order to persuade the Arch
bishop of Canterbury of the necessity of an established Pro
testant religion in the province, scrupled not to paint it as a
" Sodom of uncleanness, and a pest house of iniquity."* Vir
ginia was devoted to the Church of England : supported a
numerous clergy, upon a most liberal establishment; and in
all her ecclesiastical arrangements, as they are detailed by the
historian, Beverley, f manifested a lively and honest solicitude
for the diffusion and decency of divine worship. In her feel
ings on this head, Burke finds a satisfactory solution for her
tenacious adherence to the royal cause. His observations are
sufficiently remarkable to be copied. " The measures of the
patriots in England, manifestly tended to a complete altera
tion, or rather abolition, of the forms and discipline of that
church, which the Virginians had beed accustomed to revere ;
and the Puritans, whom they held in abhorrence, appeared as
the principal agents in this scheme for the destruction of reli
gion." "This, I apprehend, was the principal, if not the
only motive for their new born ardour, in favour of royalty.
Their political attachments were obviously on the other side ;
and in the career of liberty and resistance, they had even an
ticipated and outstripped the Parliament. They had the same
marked regard for their rights and privileges, as this illustri
ous body ; they resisted with equal ardour, and for a long
time with greater success, the encroachments and the inso
lence of the crown. "f
For the practical religion of Great Britain, during the se
venteenth century, I refer my readers to any the most national
of her historians. In marking the furious, desolating fanaticism
of the Roundheads, Hume admits, that riot, disorder, and in
fidelity prevailed very much among the partisans of the
church and monarchy. The mutual hatred and excitement of
sects gave, he remarks, just reason to dread, at every moment,
" all the horrors of the ancient massacres and proscriptions."§
A state of faction and rebellion, of political and religious dis
sension, inflamed into sanguinary wars — was but little favour
able to morals, and necessarily produced a general taint, which
would not soon, if ever, be completely expelled. Its effects
are visible to us in the literary works which are in our hands,
and which justify the observation of Hume, that, ©f all the
* See Chalmers' Political Annals, chap.xv.
+ History of Virginia, from 1585 to 1780, b. iv. c. vii.
J History of Virginia, vol. ii. c. ii.
§ History of England, chap. lxii.

¦SECT. II. J OF THE COLONISTS. (i7
considerable writers of the age of the two last Stuarts, " Sir
William Temple is almost the only one who kept himself al
together unpolluted by that inundation of vice and licentious
ness which overwhelmed the nation."* The fidelity of the
general picture drawn by the same master hand, has never
been questioned. " The people during the reign of Charles II.
and James II. were, in a great measure, cured of that wild
fanaticism, by which they had formerly been so much agi
tated. Whatever new vices they might acquire, it may be
doubted, whether, by this change, they were, in the main,
much losers in point of morals. By the example of the king
and the cavaliers, licentiousness and debauchery became very
prevalent in the nation. The pleasures of the table were
much pursued. Love was treated rather as an appetite than a
passion. The one sex began to abate of the national charac
ter of chastity, without being able to inspire the other with
sentiment or delicacy. The abuses in the former age, arising
from overstrained pretensions of piety, had much propagated
the spirit of irreligion ; and many ofthe ingenious men of this
period, lie under the imputation of Deism. The same fac
tions which formerly distracted the nation were revived, and
exerted themselves in the most ungenerous and unmanly en
terprises against each other."f
10. Tbe parliamentary party in England ostentatiously
contemned all human learning, and were wholly indifferent
to the object of general education. The American colonists
had scarcely opened the forests, and constructed habitations,
when they bent their attention to that object. As early as 1637,
only a few years after the landing at Plymouth, — the legisla
ture of Massachusetts founded and endowed, for the ancient
languages, and higher branches of learning, — a college, which
began to confer degrees in 1642 ; and has since ripened into
an university of the first class both in extent and usefulness.
To this institution, the plantations of Connecticut and New
Haven, as long as they remained unable to support a similar one
at home, contributed funds from their publie purse, and sent
such of their youth as they wished to be thoroughly educated.^

* History of England, chap. lxxi.
+ Ibid.
% " The Rev. W. Sheppard wrote, in 1644, to the commissioners of the
united colonies of New England, representing the necessity of further asssis-
tance for the support of scholars at Cambridge, whose parents were needy, and
desired them to encourage a. general Contribution through the colonies. The
commissioners approved the motion ; and for the encouragement of literature,

68 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
It seems almost incredible, how much was accomplished in this
way, in the very formation of the settlements. On the death
of the first literary emigrants, natives of Massachusetts, taught
in the province, were qualified to fill the void; and not a few
ofthe first alumni of Harvard College attained to considerable
literary and political distinction in the mother country. But
what is chiefly remarkable, is the provision made for the edu
cation of the body of the people, then and in all future time.
As a specimen ofthe arrangements common to the New England
colonies, I will state those of Connecticut. By her first code
of 1639, every town consisting of fifty families, was obliged
by the laws, to maintain a good school, in which reading and
writing should be well taught; and in every country town a
good grammar school was instituted. Large tracts of land
were given and appropriated by the legislature, to afford them
a permanent support. The select men of every town were
obliged by law to take care that all the heads of families
should instruct their children and servants to read the English
tongue well.
We have read a very eloquent speech of Mr. Brougham,
on the Education of the Poor, pronounced in the British House
of Commons (May, 1818,) in which he lavishes compliments
and congratulations upon Scotland, for her system of parish
schools. He declares that the attention which she had be
stowed, in early times, upon the subject of national education,
reflected immortal honour upon her inhabitants, and that it
had given them the most enviable characteristics, as well a
the happiest fortunes. It was only, however, as he correctly
states, in 1696, that the scheme of extending the means of
instruction to the poorer classes, was rendered effectual, by
what he styles " one of the last and best acts of the Scottish
Parliament," — " a law justly named among the most precious
legacies which it bequeathed to its country." If the merit and
the felicity of Scotland on this score, be so great, how is not
New England exalted and blessed! — where, in the midst of
dangers and labours the most arduous in which a community
of men could be involved, the system so justly commended by
the British orator, was earlier, and has been, I can venture to>
assert, more uniformly and completely, carried into effect.

recommended it to the general courts in the respective eolonies, to take it into
their consideration, and to give it general encouragement. The general courts
adopted the recommendation, and contributions of grain and provisions were
annually made, throughout the united colonies, for the charitable end pro
posed." — Trumbull's Hist, of Con. vol. i. ch. viii.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 69
The outcasts of England, in the first part of the seventeenth
century, brought hither with them, that sense of the import
ance and beauty of national education, which their descend
ants have constantly cherished, and to which England her
self, with all her boasted illumination, is, now only and re
luctantly, come. It is but lately, that her government and her
politicians regarded and treated the universal diffusion of
knowledge,— the instruction of the lower classes, particularly
— as a critical, not to say pernicious theory. " About eleven
years ago," said Mr. Brougham, in the speech to which I
have referred, "Mr. Whitbread broached the subject ofthe
education of the poor. His benevolent views met with great
opposition. He had stroug prejudices to encounter even in
men of high character and talents. It is melancholy and even
humiliating to reflect that Mr. Windham, himself the model
of a finely educated man, should have stood forward as the
active opponent of national education. He was followed by
persons who, with the servile zeal of imitators, outstripped their
master, and maintained, that if you taught ploughmen and me
chanics to read, they would thenceforward disdain to work."*
II. In partitioning the vast region of North America, among
mercantile companies and rapacious courtiers, the monarchs-
of England were wholly unmindful of the interests of the
aborigines. The soil was granted, as though the Indians had
no claim or want, distinct from those of the wild beast ; and
if the settlers had placed them on the same footing, expelled
them alike from their lairs, and hunted them together to de
struction, they might have pleaded the tacit warrant of the
mother country. But they acted in a very different spirit from
that in which the royal patents were framed :. — they purchased
with their own estates, the supposed title of the natives. Al
most every foot of territory occupied by the whites in New
England, at the distance of many years from the formation
of their communities, and until wars of extermination were
commenced against them by the Indians, was thus acquired*
Abundant and well merited honour has been paid to Penn, for
his conscientious dealing in this respect. As much is due,

* " Nobody can have forgotten the murmurs and dissonant clamours, with
w hich the first proposal for communicating the blessings of education to the
great body of the people was lately received." — Edinburgh Review, 1814.
" We well remember, when all attempts to educate the lower classes, were
at once clamoured down by the real or pretended apprehensions, that such edu
cation would disturb the order of society, and would only render the poor dis
contented and impatient." — Bell's Weekly Messenger, December, 1818.

70 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
however, to the founders of the New England colonies ; to
those of Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina. The
Plymouth colony in 1621, and that of Massachusetts in 1629 ;
in 1633, Calvert and his band of Roman Catholics, and Roger
Williams and his associates, in 1634, set the example of that
Christian course which is so properly admired and extolled in
Penn. " To lay a foundation for a firm and lasting friend
ship," says Dummer, after the historians, " they called as
semblies of the Indians, to inquire who had a right to dis
pose of their lands, and being told that it was their sachems
or princes, they thereupon agreed with them for what districts
they bought, publicly, and in open market." It became,
finally, in all the settlements undertaken by the great pro
prietors, a fundamental principle, that territory was to be pur
chased from the aborigines ; and this principle did not spring
from the plantation office at Whitehall, but was rendered neces
sary to the interests of the proprietors by the example just men
tioned, and the dispositions of the settlers.
The civilization and conversion of the Indians early shared
the attention and the resources of the middle and northern co
lonists, and of the southern planters also, though in a lesss
degree.* In 1646, the general court of Massachusetts passed
an act to encourage the propagation of the gospel among the
natives, and associations of clergymen were formed for the
purpose, under its auspices. The work was then prosecuted
with apostolical ardor and devotion, — upon the true maxim
in the case — that " the Indians must be civilized, in order to
being christianized." The attention of the English nation
was not excited to the subject, until accounts were published
in England, of the remarkable progress of the New England
missionaries. In 1649, Winslow, the agent of the united
colonies, at the British court, extorted from the parliament,
by pressing instances and glowing exhortations, an act, which
incorporated a society for the benefit of the " poor heathens,"
and which recommended to the good people of England and
Wales to contribute to its pious objects by a general collection,.
inasmuch as the " New England people had exhausted their
estates in laying the foundations of many hopeful towns and
colonies in a desolate wilderness."

* See Dummer's Defence of the Charters : and Burke's History of Virginia,
vol. ii. ch. ii. The regulations of the assembly of Virginia, in 1654, were
replete with humanity as well as good sense. Here, as well as in New Eng
land, to preserve the Indians from being overreached, all persons were forbid
den to purchase land from them, without the approbation of the assembly.

SECT. II.J OP THE COLONISTS. 71
Although letters were published besides, at the solicitation
of the American agents, from the two universities of Oxford
and Cambridge, calling upon the ministers of Britain to stir up
their congregations to the promotion of so glorious an under
taking, yet, according to Hutchinson, great opposition was
expressed to the collection in England; and it went on so slowly
that an attempt was made to raise a sum out of the army.*
This, too, yielded but a poor harvest. The evangelical cha
rity of England and Wales kindled, however, as the fame of
the New England missions increased, and at length, on the
accession of Charles II. the society, incorporated in 1649,
found itself in possession of six or seven hundred pounds a
year. But as this income arose out of an act of the Common-
ivealth-parliament, it was in danger of being confiscated by the
crown, and was saved at last, only through the interest which
some of the patrons of the institution happened to possess at
court. This fund was committed to some ofthe old magistrates
and ministers of New England, and the historians concur in the
allegation, that never was one ofthe nature more faithfully ap
plied. Notwithstanding, it was near being wrested from them,
in the time of James II. and transferred to much less scrupu
lous custody, by authority of the archbishop of Canterbury.
Meantime the assemblies of New England allotted tracts of
land to such Indians as were likely to become Christians ; sup
plied them with building materials and household utensils;
and assisted in every way, the unremitting efforts of the mis
sionary societies. The bible was translated into the language
of the natives, and published in 1661. Schools were opened
in the Indian settlements ; the children taught to read ; and such
of these as displayed capacity, placed in the grammar schools
of the colonists, and even at the university of Cambridge. To
furnish some idea of what was accomplished, I will extract
one or two short passages on the subject, from Hutchinson.
" In 1660, there were ten Indian towns of such as were called
" Praying Indians, in Massachusetts. — In 1687, as appears by
" a letter of Dr. Increase Mather, there were four Indian as-
" semblies in that province, besides the principal church at
" Natick. In Plymouth, besides the principal church at
" Mashpee, there were five assemblies in that vicinity, and a
" large congregation at Saconet. There were also six different
" societies, probably but small, with an Indian teacher to each,
" between the last-mentioned and Cape Cod ; one church at
" Nantucket, and three at Martha's Vineyard. There were

Vol. i. chap. i.

72 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
" in all six assemblies formed into a church state, having offi-
" cers, and the ordinances duly administered, and sixteen as-
" semblies which met together for the worship of God."*
On these heads, of the occupation of the soil and the treat
ment ofthe Indians— our forefathers have the good fortune to
be defended in the two works, to which the defamation of the
American character may be said tohave been specially allotted :
I mean the Annals of Chalmers and the Quarterly Review.
There is so much solidity, and, what is still more rare, so much
liberality, in their observations, that I may be excused for
transcribing them at length.
" Man," says Chalmers, " having a right to the world from the gift of the
beneficent Creator, must possess and use the general estate according to the
grant, which commanded him lo multiply and to subsist by labour: and little
would the earth havebeen peopled or cultivated, had men continued to live by
hunting or fishing, or the mere productions of nature. The roving of the erratic
tribes over wide extended deserts, does not form a possession which excludes the
subsequent occupancy of emigrants from countries overstocked with inhabitants.
The paucity of their numbers, and their mode of life, render them unable to
fulfil the great purposes of the grant. Consistent, therefore, with the great
charter to mankind, they may be confined within certain limits. Their rights to
the privileges of men, nevertheless, continue the same. And the colonists, who
conciliated the affections of the aborigines, and gave a consideration for their
territory, have acquired the praise due to humanity and justice."+
" As for the usurpation of territory from the natives, by the Atherican slates,
he must be," says the Quarterly Review,:): " a feeble moralist, who regards that
as an evil; the same principle upon which that usurpation is condemned, would
lead to the nonsensical opinion of the Bramins, that agriculture is an unrighteous
employment, because worms must sometimes be cut by the ploughshare and the
spade. It is the order of nature, that beasts should give place to man, and
among men the savage to the civilized; and no where has this order been carried
into effect with so little violence as in North America. Sir Thomas Moore ad
mits it to be a justifiable cause of war, even in Utopia, if a people, who have
territory to spare, will not cede it to those who are in want of room. The
Quakers of Pennsylvania have proved the practicability of a more perfect sys
tem than he had imagined, and the treaty which the excellent founder of the
province made with the Indians, has never been broken. If the conduct of the
other states towards the natives be fairly examined, there will be found a, great
aggregate of individual wickedness on the part of the traders and back-settlers,
but little which can be considered as national guilt. They have never been di
vided among the colonists like cerfs; they have never been consumed in mines
nor in indigo works ; they have never been hunted down for slaves, nor has war
ever been made upon them for the purpose of conquest, though the infernal
cruelties which they exercise upon their prisoners might excuse and almost
justify a war of extermination."

* For the evangelical labours generally of the Anglo-Americans among the
Indians, see the first volume of a late English work, entitled, " History of the
Propagation of Christianity among the Heathens, since the Reformation, by the
Rev. William Brown." — 2 vols. London. See, also, 1st vol. Mass. Hist. Collec
tions, for an ample account, by Daniel Gookin, general superintendant of al!
the Indians, &c. (1764.) -r Book I. t No. 4.

SECT. II.] OF THE COLONISTS. 73
12. — The physical economy of the settlements kept pace
with the moral, and is not less the subject of admiration with
a few of the more liberal among the English writers. Of this
description are the authors of the Modern Universal History,
whose account of the North American Colonies is among the
best parts of their useful work. In tracing the early progress of
Pennsylvania, they dwell with complacency upon " the stu
pendous prosperity of a commonwealth so lately planted, and
so flourishing by pacific measures." When they have brought
the history of New England down to the treaty of Utrecht,
(1713,) they speak thus of her condition.
" The inhabitants of New England, at the peace of Utrecht,
to their native love of liberty, added now the polite arts of
life ; industry was embellished by elegance ; and what would
be hardly credible in antient Greece or Rome, in less than
fourscore years, a colony almost unassisted by its mother
country, arose in the wilds of America, that it transplanted to
Europe, and rendered an independent government, would have
made no mean figure amidst her sovereign states."*
If we ascend with the same accurate reporters to an earlier
period in the career of the people of New England, we shall
be no less edified.
" In 1642, the number of English capable to bear arms
in New England were computed to be between 7 or 8000.
At this time 50 towns and villages were planted, above 40
ministers had houses, and public works of all kinds were
erected at public expense. All this could not have been done
but through the almost incredible industry of the inhabitants,
which had by this time rendered their countiy a near resem
blance of England. Fields were hedged in ; gardens, orchards,
meadows, and pasture grounds were laid out, and all the im
provements of husbandry took place, particularly the sowing
of corn and feeding of cattle. As to the commercial part of
the inhabitants, they shipped off vast quantities of fish for
Portugal and the Straits; besides supplying other places;
England particularly, Scotland and Ireland, They exported
bread and beef to the sugar islands, with oil and lumber of fill
kinds, some of which they sent to the mother country ; and
what is still more surprising', they carried on a great trade in
ship building."!
Some of the features in the physical condition of the Colo
nies, noted in the Official Reports, which were made on the
subject, to Charles II. must have excited either incredulity or
* Vol. xxxix. + Ibid,
Vol. I.— K

74 CHARACTER AND MERITS, &C. [PART I.
envy in his disquiet council. "We leave every man," said the
Governor of Rhode Island, " to walk in religion as God shall
Eersuade his heart; and as for beggars and vagabonds, we
ave none among us." " The worst cottages of New England,"
said another inspector, " are lofted : there are no beggars,
and not three persons are put to death annually for civil of
fences." This representation would have been eqnally true
ofthe middle colonies. I will not place by tbe side of it tbe
cotemporary condition of Ireland, under the immediate domi
nion of Britain, when the spectacle of what exists there at
the present day is too hideous to be endured by the imagina
tion. But it maybe well to furnish a trifling specimen ofthe
state of some of the agricultural districts of England ; and this
shall be drawn from the journal of the faithful Evelyn.
"August 2, 1664. — Went to Uppingham, the shire town of
Rutland ; pretty, and well built of stone, which is a rarity in
that part of England, where most of the rural villages are
built of mud, and the people living as wretchedly as the most
impoverished parts of France, which they much resemble,
being idle and sluttish, The country (especially Leicester
shire) much in common ; the gentry free drinkers."
"August 14, 1664. — Lay at Nottingham. Here I observed
divers to live in the rocks and caves," &c*
* Memoirs, vol. i.

SECT. III.] 75

SECTION III.

OF THE DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED BY THE COLONISTS.
1. The cheering scene which the provinces thus exhibited
in the beginning of the eighteenth century ; the maturity and
stability of their institutions ; the sedateness, humanity, and
piety of their character, are rendered the more creditable and
remarkable, by the disadvantages and difficulties of various
kinds with which they had to contend. It may be said of
them, without exaggaration, that they were the associations of
men, — of all that have existed of civilized origin, — in whom a
backwardness in the arrangements and improvements which
constitute the dignity and comfort of social life; a total neg
lect of the higher arts of civilization, and the pursuits of phi
lanthropy; a fierce, relentless, and even ruthless character,
would have been most natural and excusable. It was their
peculiar lot, at one and the same time, to clear and cultivate a
wilderness; to erect habitations and procure sustenance; to
struggle with a new and rigorous climate ; to bear up against
all the bitter recollections inseparable from distant and lonely
exile; to defend their liberties from the jealous tyranny and
bigotry of the mother country; to be perpetually assailed by a
savage foe, " the most subtle and the most formidable of any
people on the face of the earth"* — a foe that made war the
main business of life, and waged it with forms and barbarities
unknown to the experience, and superlatively terrible to the
imagination of a European.
The general situation of the first emigrants in the midst of
a wilderness, and surrounded by an enemy of this description,
can be imaged without difficulty, and does not require to be
described for those to whom our common histories are familiar
The pictures drawn therein have been realized in part before
our eyes, in the settlement of our western wilds. I say in
part, because, although the immediate labours and dangers
may have been, in some of the modern instances as great, yet,
the distressing, paralyzing influences for the mind, the dura-

* Colonel Barre, in the House of Common;.

76 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED [PART I.
tion of the principal ills, and the obstacles in the way of ulti
mate success, appear much less in the comparison. The An
nals of Chalmer's, Stith's History of Virginia, and Trumbull's
Connecticut, furnish a particularly striking and full detail of
those circumstances of original adversity common to most of
the colonies, which justify any warmth of encomium on their
fortitude, or of admiration at their progress. Well might Lord
Chatham exclaim, in 1774, "viewing our fellow subjects in
America, in their original forlorn, and now flourishing state,
they may be cited as illustrious instances to instruct |the
world — what great exertions mankind will make, when left to
the free exercise of their own powers." Having before me
the accounts of the historians just mentioned, and present to
my mind the various obstacles upon which I am about to
touch, I am filled with new wonder at the results sketched in
my last section. I feel with additional force, the justice of the
beautiful commemoration, which the contemplation of them
drew from Mr. Burke, in 1764, and which that bright intel
ligence uttered, not merely as an orator ambitious of the meed
of eloquence, but as a philosopher attentive to the ordinary
march of human affairs, and the ordinary efficacy of human
powers. " Nothing in the history of mankind," said he, " is
like the progress of the American Colonies. For my part,
I never cast an eye on their flourishing commerce, and their
cultivated and commodious life, but they seem to me rather
antient nations grown to perfection through a long series of
fortunate events, and a train of successful industry, accumu
lating wealth in many centuries, than the colonies of yester
day ; than a set of miserable outcasts, a few years ago, not so
much sent, as thrown out, on the bleak and barren shore of a
desolate wilderness, three thousand miles from all civilized
intercourse."* 2. It is conceded by the historians of every party, that as
far as the mother country was able, in the confusion of her
domestic affairs, or condescended, in the plenitude of her
greatness, to bend her attention to the colonies, she pursued
towards them until the revolution of 1668, at least, a course
of direct oppression. The administration of the chartered
companies, of the proprietary governors in general, and of the
councils and executive representatives of the Stuarts, is ac
knowledged on all hands, to have been burdensome and mis-
chievous.f So far from promoting, it tended to impede the
* Speech on American taxation.
+ See particularly Chalmers — passim.

SECT. III.] BY THE COLONISTS. 77
growth, and break the spirit of the plantations. It was not,
therefore, by favour, but in spite of their political connexion
with Great Britain, that they preserved their liberties, and
became what they were at the end of the seventeenth century.
The condition of the Carolinas, of New York, and New Jer
sey, under the proprietary rule, — of Virginia in the hands of the
London company, and of the Stuart governors, — of this pro
vince and Maryland, when in the gripe of the common
wealth, — of New Hampshire in that of Mason's agents, and
of New England at large during the vice-royalty of Andros, —
are sufficiently known to all who have read our annals.
As soon as the long parliament was settled, it manifested
a determination to assert and exercise an unlimited authority
in the colonies ; and by its act of navigation, and other regu
lations conceived in the same spirit, threw over them a set of
fetters which did not cripple them entirely, only because they
were loosely worn, and sometimes laid aside altogether, in
defiance of the peering jealousy of the metropolitan govern
ment. The community of religious opinion, — the great bond
of union in those days — and a marked predilection for the
cause of the Parliament, obtained for New England, no real
concession or substantial favour — no legal exemption from the
navigation act. She escaped its full pressure, not by the par
tiality of Cromwell, as has been asserted, but by her own
sturdy resolution to be free. Chalmers relates, in an angry
tone, that she foiled the Parliament, and outwitted the Pro
tector, whom, in fact, while she addressed him in terms of
obeisance, she always cautiously avoided to acknowledge in
form. Virginnia refused to receive the navigation act of
1661, and was liable by her devotion to the royal side, to the
particular displeasure of the Commonwealth : But we may
cite, as a sample of the. prevail ing temper of mind in Eng
land, with regard to all the colonies, the instruction given to
the fleet, which the parliament despatched for the reduction
of that province, " to employ every act of hostility" in case of
refractoriness — " to set free such servants and slaves of mas
ters who should oppose the parliamentary government, as
would serve as soldiers to subdue them"* — a parental expe
dient, shewing the antiquity of the feeling, which prompted
the observation of Governor Littleton in the debate of the
British Parliament of the 26th of October, 1775—" that if a
few regiments were sent to the southern colonies of America,
the negroes would rise and embrue their hands in the blood of
their masters."

? Chalmers, c. v. Annals.

78 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED £pART I.
The courageous loyalty of Virginia, although acknowledged
and applauded on the restoration, turned still less to her ad
vantage than the republicanism of New England. A scheme
of restriction, and a train of measures, more prejudicial and
galling than those of Cromwell, were pursued by Charles II.
and his successor, towards those who boasted with truth " that
they were the last of the King's subjects who renounced, and
the first who resumed their allegiance." " With the restora
tion," says Chalmers, " began a series of evils which long
afflicted and well nigh ruined the plantation of Virginia.
One of these evils was, the distribution among certain fa
vourite adherents of Charles II. in England, of a large portion
of the soil, including cnltivated estates, held by every right
which could vestindefeasable property. " Virginia," says the
writer whom I have just quoted, " beheld the JYorthern JVeck,
containing one half of the whole, given away to strangers,
who had shared neither the danger nor expenses of the ori
ginal settlement."*
A spoliation no less iniquitnous was attempted, and partly
accomplished by Andros, in 1688, in New England. There,
on the lawless abolition of all the charters, a declaration
followed, that the titles of the colonists to their lands had
become void in consequence. By this monstrous fiction of
tyranny, the oldest proprietors were summoned to take out,
at a heavy cost, new patents for estates acquired by purchase
from the Indians ; possessed for near sixty years; defended
against the inroads of a barbarous enemy, at the hazard of
life, and improved with incessant toil and immense expense.
Hutchinson remarks,! that according to the computation then
made, all the personal estate of Massachusetts would not
have paid the charge of the new patents required in that
colony. A scheme of despotism and rapine so exorbitant,
could not be long prosecuted with a people that had made
such sacrifices for freedom, and had lost nothing of their
pristine fervor. It was quickly terminated by the popular
insurrection at Boston, already noticed, which deposed all
its abettors, and extinguished the government of James in
New England. — What is called the rebellion of Bacon, in the
annals of Virginia, sprung from grievances of equal inj ustice,
and wanted, lam inclined to think, nothing but ultimate suc
cess, to make it, in the estimation of all, equally noble with
the bold and characteristic movement of Massachusetts.^
* Annals, ch. iv.
+ Vol. i. c. iii.
J This opinion is fully sustained by Burke's narrative of Bacon's rebellion.
— See vol. ii. ch. iv. History of Virginia.

SECT. HI.] BY THE COLONISTS. 79
3. All the thirteen colonies, with the exception of Georgia,
were established and had attained to considerable strength,
without the slightest aid from the treasury of the mother coun
try. Whatever was expended in the acquisition of territory
from the Indians, proceeded from the private resources of the
European adventurers. Neither the crown nor the parlia
ment of England, made any compensation to the original mas
ters of the soil, or could lay claim to a share in the creation of
the rich stock and fair landscape, which so soon bore testimony
to the industry and intelligence of the planters. The set
tlement of the province of Massachusetts Bay alone, cost
£200,000 — an enormous sum at the era in which it was ef
fected. Lord Baltimore expended £40,000 for his contingent
in the establishment of his colony in Maryland : on that of
Virginia immense wealth was lavished ; and we are told by
Trumbull, that the first planters of Connecticut consumed great
estates in purchasing land from tbe Indians, and making set
tlements, in that province, besides large sums in the purchase
of their patents, and the right of pre-emption.
Within a few years after their debarkation, the settlers of
Virginia, of New England, and ofthe Carolinas, were assailed
by warlike tribes, decuple their number, and furiously bent on
their destruction. But the government of the mother country
extended no succour to them in these contests * ; she furnished
neither troops nor money ; built no fortifications ; entered into
no negociatiohs for them ; she manifested little sympathy or
interest in the fate of her offspring. The sense of extreme dan
ger, and the despair of aid from abroad, gave birth, in 1643,
in New England to the confederacy, which I have already
noticed, and without which, in all probability, the colonies
of that region would have been either extirpated, or miserably
crippled. Some of the most considerable of the Indian wars
were immediately brought upon them by the rashness and
cupidity of the royal governors. That, for instance, which
is styled king William's war, — memorable in the annals of
New Hampshire particularly — was owing to a wanton, pre-

* This, and the facts stated in the preceding paragraph, were acknowledged
in acts of parliament, and repeatedly asserted to the British government by the
colonists in their petitions, before as well as during the eighteenth century.
Franklin told the House of Commons, in 1766, on his examination—" The
Americans defended themselves when they were but a handful, and the Indians
much more numerous. They continually gained ground, and drove the Indians
over the mountains, without any troops seat to their assistance from Great Bri
tain." The number of Indian warriors in New England on the arrival of the first
settler, has been computed at eighteen thousand.

80 . DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED [PART I.
datory expedition of Andros, in 1688, against the possessions
of a French individual, situate between Penobscot and Nova
Scotia. It is a remarkable trait in the history of the New England
settlers, that they did not seek, and appear to have been even
unwilling to receive, assistance from the mother country.
The magnanimity of these jealous exiles is placed in full
contrast with the selfishness of the British Court, by the letter
of reproof for their backwardness in solicitation, of the date
of 1676, from the earl of Anglesey, which Hutchinson has
copied into bis history.* " I received your letter," said the
royal privy-councillor to the governor of Massachusetts," in
timating the troubles unexpectedly brought upon you by the
Indians. I must chide you, and that whole people of New
England, that (as if you were independent of my master's
crown, needed not his protection, or had deserved ill of him,
as some have not been wanting to suggest, and use testimony
thereof,) from the first hour of God's stretching his hand
against you to this time, you have not as yet, as certainly be
came you, made your addresses to the king's majesty, or some
of his ministers, &c. I can write but by guess ; yet it is not
altogether groundlessly reported, tbat you are too tenacious of
what is necessary for your preservation ; — that you are poor,
and yet proud. 1 know his majesty hath power sufficient as
well as will, to help his colonies in distress, as others have
experienced, and you may in good time. He can send ships
to help you, &c. and there are many who will not only be in
tercessors to the throne of grace, but to God'' s vicegerent also,
if you are not wanting to yourselves, and failing in that dutiful
application which subjects ought to make to their sovereigns
in such cases."
Another striking illustration of the comparative dispositions
of the parties, is afforded in the fact, which we have upon
the authority of Hutchinson,! — that the collections made in
the colony of Massachusetts for the relief of the sufferers by
the great fire in London, and on other occasions of foreign
calamity, at least equalled the whole sum bestowed upon her
from abroad, from the first settlement, to the abrogation of her
charter by James II.
While the people of New England were providing for then-
own safety, with consummate judgment, and performing pro
digies of valour in innumerable rencounters with the enemy,
they had not even the consolation of escaping the reproach

Vol. i. chap. ii. f Ibid.

SECT. III.] BV THE COLONISTS. 81
of pusillanimity, from the mother country. The court of James
II. besides withholding assistance, on the pretext that it was
not implored, taxed them with wanting hearts to make use of
their means of defence. A part of the nation concurred in
this injustice ; which, even at this distance of time, causes the
breast to swell with indignation, when the bold expeditions
of the colonists, the prodigal effusion of their blood, and the
hardships of their warfare, are passed in review. This emo
tion is not allayed, as we read, in descending through their
history, that on the occasion of the bill, introduced into the
British Parliament, in 1715, for the destruction of all the
charter governments, the first of the charges brought against
them was, " the having neglected the defence of the inhabi
tants !" To convey an idea of the severity and destructive-
ness of the hostilities to which they were constantly exposed,
I will transcribe from the Annals of Holmes, the summary
which he makes, of the evils of the war waged by the New
England Confederacy, in 1676, with Philip, sachem of the
Wampanoags. " In this short, but tremendous war, about six
hundred of the inhabitants of New England, composing its
principal strength, were either killed in battle, or murdered by
the enemy ; twelve or thirteen towns were entirely destroyed;
and about six hundred buildings, chiefly dwelling houses,
were burnt. In addition to these calamities, the colonies con
tracted an enormous debt."
Hutchinson states, " that the accounts which were transmitted
to England, of the distresses of the province of Massachusetts
Bay during this contest, although they might excite compas
sion in the breasts of some, yet were improved by others, to
render the colonies more obnoxious."* In fact, in the very
height of the calamity — at the moment when New England
was putting forth all her strength for the retention of the soil,
— the merchants and manufacturers of the mother country
were clamorous, and the committee of plantations tasked, for
measures of rigour against her, on the ground that her " in
habitants had encouraged foreigners to trafic with them, and
supplied the other plantations with those foreign productions
which ought only to have been sent to England." While
the earth was yet reeking with the carnage of the six hundred
brave yeomen, and the smoke still issued from the ruins of
the six hundred dwellings, a general scheme of oppression
and disfranchisement was projected at the British Court. It
prescribed, without delay, that no Mediterranean passesi
* Vol, i. c. ii.
Vol. L— L

82 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED [PART I.
should be granted to New England, to protect her vessels
against the Turks, till it was seen what dependence she
would acknowledge on his Britannic majesty, and whether
his custom houses would be received."
Most of the colonies had to subdue, and nearly to extermi
nate, in the outset, fierce and populous nations, aiming, within
their bosom, at their utter destruction. Almost every indivi
dual ofthe settlers became a soldier, and was kept perpetually
on the alert : the musket accompanied the plough, and the
employment of these may be said to have been unremittingly
alternate. It is not too much to affirm, that there was more of
military effort and suffering on the part of New England, for
the first half century of her history, than among any equal
number of the civilized inhabitants of Europe within the same
period. The colonists did not merely await, and repel with
g*reat slaughter, the assaults of their indefatigable enemy ;
but they marched to their head quarters, attacked them in
their fortifications, and pursued them through all their re
cesses. To campaigns of wasting hardship, and sanguinary
strife, were added general massacres, prepared by the Indians,
with the utmost refinement of dissimulation, during the inter
vals of their professed submission. We are told by Dum
mer, that, in his time, (17 1 5,) many in England, who were
unable to deny that the colonists had defended themselves,
without being burdensome to the crown, "endeavoured to
depreciate their conquests, as gained over a rude and barba
rous people, unexercised to arms." The general reply of the
eloquent advocate, on this head, contains a true representa
tion of the case, and teaches us a solemn duty. " If it be
" considered, that the New England forces contended with
'• enemies bloody in their nature and superior in number, that
" they followed them in deep morasses ; that the assailants
" were not provided with cannon, nor could approach by
" trenches, but advanced on level ground : and if to this be
" added, the vast fatigues of their campaigns, where officers
" and soldiers lay on the snow, Avithout any shelter over their
heads, in the most rigorous winters; I say, if a just conside-
" ration be had of these things, envy itself must acknowledge
" that their enterprises were hardy and their successes glori-
" ous. And though the brave commanders who led on these
" troops — and most of them died in the bed of honour, must
" not shine iii the British annals, yet their memory ought to
" be sacred in their own country, and there at least be trans-
" mitted to the latest posterity."*
* Defence of the Charters.

SECTi III.] BY THE COLONISTS. 83
3. At the period of the accession of William to the British
throne, this scourge of a savage foe no longer existed in the
heart of the settlements; but obstacles to civil labour, and
causes of inordinate mortality, of the same kind, were even
multiplied. From the year 1690, to the peace of Paris, in
1763, the colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia, were en
gaged in almost unremitting hostilities with the aborigines on
their borders. Their whole western frontier was a scene of
havoc and desolation. After the establishment of the French
at Fort du Quesne, in 1754, the tribes of the Ohio assailed and
laid waste the western settlements of the middle provinces ; and
it is calculated that the colonists lost altogether by war, not less
than twenty thousand adults in the interval from that period to
the peace of 1763.
About the year 1690, the French in the north, and the
Spaniards in the south, began to act as the instigators and
auxiliaries of the savages, and continued for seventy-three
years to be the instruments of infinite distress and mischief to
the Anglo-Americans. Their enmity was occasioned by the
connexion of the latter with Great Britain; and their hosti
lities arose directly, and date exactly, from her quarrels with
France. It is doubtful whether, it' that connexion had not
existed, they would have molested their neighbours. In 1644,
the season of the total dereliction ofthe British provinces by
the mother country, a formal treaty of amity was concluded
between the French of Acadie, and the commissioners ofthe
united colonies of New England. The French of Canada sent
an agent, in 1647, to solicit aid from Massachusetts against the
the Mohawks ; which was refused from an unwillingness to
assist in removing, what might serve as a barrier between the
English and French colonies, in case of a rupture between the
two mother countries. A year after, when it was proposed by
New England, to the governor and council of Canada, that
the parties should contract an engagement to maintain perpe
tual peace, whatever might be the relations of the parent states,
the French entered with alacrity into a negotiation for the pur
pose. It failed only because they required the English colo
nists to aid them against the Iroquois ; and they renewed it
themselves by plenipotentiaries, at a short interval of time,
without success.* These facts warrant the supposition, that,
but for their allegiance to the British crown, the provinces
would have been able to avert the animosities which proved
their severest affliction, and even, perhaps, to make auxiliaries
* Universal History, vol. xxxix. p. 448.

84 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED [PART I,
of the French and Spanish dependencies. It seems, moreover,
upon an attentive review of the history of France, during the
seventeenth century, almost certain, that she would not herself
have attempted, in that period, to arrest their progress : After
wards, they might have defied her powers.
They could, at all events, hold the mother country respon
sible, for the long train of ills, which they suffered from the
neighbourhood of the French, by referring to the treaty of
1632, between Charles I. and Louis XIII. On this occasion,
Charles restored to France, absolutely and without demarca
tion of limits, " all the places possessed by the English in New
France, Lacadie, and Canada, particularly Port Royal,
Quebec, and Cape Breton." An officer, in the British service,
Sir David Kirk, had, under a commission from the crown, made
himself master of Quebec, in 1628, during the war between
England and France. " To this fatal treaty," says a British
writer,* " may be truly ascribed all the disputes we have had
" ever since with France, concerning North America ; our
" king and his ministers being sadly outwitted by Richlieu's
" superior dexterity. The three places delivered up to France
" were not, it is true, thought of the same importance then, as
" they are since found to be ; yet it was very obvious, even
" then, to any considerate observer, that as those French co-
" lonies should increase in people and commerce, those places
" would be ofthe utmost importance to France, and very dan-
" gerous to England ; but more especially, our parting with
" Port Royal and Cape Breton is never to be excused, as the
" possession of them by the French gave them a fair pretext
" for settling on the south side of the river St. Lawrence, and
" thereby claiming the rest of Nova Scotia bordering on Eng-
" land ; whereas, had the French been strictly confined to their
" original settlements on the north side of that river, the coun-
" try is so bad and the trade thereof so indifferent, that before
" now they would probably have quite abandoned them."
4. At a very early period, the mother country cast the re
proach, which she has constantly repeated, against the colo
nists, of provoking the Indian wars, and acquiring the domi
nion of the Indian territory by fraud as well as force. Dum-
mer's Defence of the Charters, written at the commencement
of the last century, treats of this " unworthy aspersion," as the
honest author styles it, and as he proves it to be, by unanswer
able suggestions. With respect to New England particularly,
* Macpherson's Annals, vol. ii. p. 372. Chalmers holds nearly the same
language.

SECT. IH. J BY THE COLONISTS. 85
what he asserts is susceptible of abundant evidence — that " she
sought to gain the natives by strict justice in her dealings with
them, as well as by all the endearments of kindness and huma
nity;" that "she did not commence hostilities, nor even take up
arms of defence, until she found by experience that no other
means would prevail" — and, " that nothing could oblige the
Indians to peace and friendship, after they conceived a jealousy
ofthe growing powers of the English." The congress of the
New England league was particularly authorized, to prescribe
rules for the conduct ofthe colonists, towards the natives; and
its legislation on this head, was tempered with as much for
bearance and mercy, as a due regard for self-preservation,
would possibly admit. So rigid were its enactments against
private violence, and so strict was the execution of them, that
we have an instance of three settlers being put to death at the
same time for the murder of a single Indian.
The New England colonies, far from being exasperated, as
was natural, by the desperate and harassing nature of their
struggle with the aborigines, into an obdurate resentment and
mortal hate against the whole race, exerted, as I have al
ready had occasion to state, unbounded zeal and generosity,
in improving the condition, and refining the character, of
that portion of them whom they were able to propitiate.
I believe the other provinces, to whom the British charge was
extended, and who have been more particularly the object
of it, in recent times, to be capable of vindication : and I am
convinced, that the American writers, who have maintained
the contrary doctrine, have either suffered themselves to be
hoodwinked by prejudice, or have not traced our Indian rela
tions in the detail requisite for the formation of a sound opi
nion. But if the point were not determinable by history, we
might at once infer from the general aims and obvious interests,
the weakness and the wants, of the early colonists, that they
were not the aggressors in the Indian wars. Be this, for the pre
sent, as it may, it cannot be denied, that after hostilities had be
gun to rage; after the savage had been roused to distrust and ven
geance — the case of the settlers was one of the most absolute
self-defence — of extreme necessity. In the contest which I
have noticed, between Philip and New England, and in the
similar struggles in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, the
very existence of these provinces, respectively, was at stake,
and often in suspense. Those English writers who so loudly
inveigh against the North American colonies for their treat
ment of the Indians, may be defied to detect in their annals,
an expedient for the destruction of their inveterate enemy, like

86 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED. [PART I.
that of the employment of the Spanish bloodhounds in Jamaica,
to subdue the Maroon negroes, in the year 1730, and again to
wards the close of the eighteenth century. Certainly, there is
no argument urged by Dallas* or Bryan Edwards, to justify
the recourse, on the part of the government-of that island, to
such fell auxiliaries, which would pot have been available for
the people of New England ; which might not, indeed, receive
additional force from their situation, f The pride of manhood, |
the innate sympathies of kind, and the influence of religion,
with the hardy and virtuous Puritans, must have rendered it
impossible for them to imitate, whije they professed to abhor,
the worst of the atrocities practised by the Spaniards on the
aborigines of the West Indies. §
But, in order to convict the accusers, of a guilt of inhuma
nity, far deeper than any with which they have ventured to
charge their " kinsmen of America," it is not necessary to
refer to their alliance, in Jamaica, with the Spanish chasseurs,
or to their military administration in Hindostan. I would
challenge the closest scrutiny into our history, for a parallel to
the measures which the British commanders adopted, after the
reduction of Nova Scotia, in 1755, of transplanting, and dis
persing through the British colonies, the French inhabitants
of that province. This is a transaction in which the point at
issue was, not existence, but the more easy retention of a con
quest ; in which the victims were, not blood-thirsty and un-
tameable savages, or ferocious banditti, who had aimed at the
extermination, and whose presence seemed incompatible with
the safety of the conquerors; — but "a mild, frugal, industrious,
pious people," of whom only a few had committed any offence,
and who, generally, could be taxed with no more, than having
indirectly favoured the cause, and preferred the dominion, of
their own nation. It has always appeared to me, that the
reason of state was never more cheaply urged, or more odiously

* History of the Maroons, by It. O. Dallas, vol- ii. letters ix. and x. History
ofthe West Indies, by Bryan Edwards, Appendix to Book II.
+ The Edinburgh Review, (No. 4.) in condemning the proceedings of the Ja
maica government, remarks, " If, by our ovsn policy, me have Jilled our colonies
with barbarians, let us not aggravate the original crime," &c. The American colo
nists did not originally fill the country which they acquired, ^|th the barba
rians whom they expelled : they did not even, for the most part, intrude upon
them voluntarily; but were driven by the lash of domestic tyrants.
J '• Some gentlemen," says Bryan Edwards, " even thought that the co-ope
ration of dogs with British troops, would give not onjy a cruel, but also a very
dastardly complexion to the proceedings of government."
§ See Note E.

SECT. III. J BY THE COLONISTS. 87
triumphant, than on this occasion ; that no proceeding in rela
tion to the Indians, for which we have been rebuked by the
British, either before or since our independence, could, by any
ingenuity or eloquence, be made to wear an aspect of so much
wantonness ahd barbarity, as the case of the French neutrals
presents in the simplest form of recital. Although I may seem
to fall into a wide digression, or an awkward anticipation, I
will venture to exhibit it here in some detail, as matter of
history worthy of being more generally and accurately known.
Retribution is due to all the parties ; to those, who perpetrated
the crime, and to the memory of the sufferers, who, with the
Americans that received them, have been aspersed, in order
to weaken the impression of its enormity.
The most particular account which I have found of this
transaction is given in Minot's Continuation of the History
of Massachusetts.* The historian drew his harative from
the manuscript journal of the American commander of the
Massachusetts' troops, to whom the merit of the conquest of
Nova Scotia was due. This officer, General Winslow, of an
unexceptionable and elevated character, left upon record, the
expression of his disgust and horror, in submitting to act the
fart which was imposed upon him by the British authorities.
transcribe some of the shocking details from Minot.
" The French Force at Nova Scotia being subdued, it only remained to de
termine the measures which ought to be taken with respect to the inhabitants,
who were about seven thousand in number, and whose character and situation
were so peculiar, as to distinguish them from almost every other community that
has suffered under the scorge of war."
"They were the descendants of those French inhabitants of Nova Scotia,
who after the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713 by which the province was ceded to
England, were permitted to hold their lands, on condition of makeing a de
claration of allegiance to their new sovereign, which acknowledgment of fi
delity was given under an express stipulatiou that they and their posterity should
not bereqiredto bear arms, either against their Indian neighbours, or transat
lantic countrymen. This contract was at several subsequent periods revived,
and renewed to their children; and such was the notoriety of the compact, that
for half a century, they bore the name, and with some few exceptions, main
tained the character of neutrals."
"The character of this people was mild, frugal, industrious and pious: and a
scrupulous sense of the indissoluble nature of their ancient obligation to their
king, was a great cause of their misfortunes. To this we may add an unalterable
attachment to their religion, a distrust of the right of the English to the terri ¦
tory which they inhabited, and the indemnity promised them at the surrender
of fort Beau-sojour, where it was stipulated that they should be left in the

Chap. x.

88 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED [PART I.
same situation as they were in when the army arrived, and not be punished for
what they had done afterwards."
" Such being the circumstances of the French neutrals as they were called,
the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, and his council, aided by the admirals
Boscawen and Mostyn, assembled to consider of the necessary measures to be
adopted towards them. If the whole were to sufier for the conduct of a part,
the natural punishment would have been to have forced them from their country
and left them to go wherever they pleased ; but from the situation of the
province of Canada, it was obvious that this would have been to recruit it with
soldiers, who would immediately have returned in arms upon the British fron
tiers, it was therefore, determined to remove and disperse this whole people
among the British colonies, where they could not unite in any offensive measures,
and where they might be naturalized to the government and country."
" The execution of this unusual and general sentenee was allotted chiefly to
the New England forces ; the commander of which, from the humanity and firm
ness of his character, was the best qualified to fcarry it into effect. It was with
out doubt, as he himself declared, disagreeable to his natural make and temper?
and his principles of implicit obedience as a soldier were put to a severe test
by this ungrateful kind of duty, which required an ungenerous cunning, and
subtle kind of severity, calculated to render the Acadians subservient to the
English interests to the latest hour. They were kept entirely ignorant of their
destiny until the moment of their captivity, and were overawed or allured to
labour at the gathering of their harvest, which was secretly allotted to the
use of their conquerors."
" The orders from lieutenant governor Lawrence to captain Murray, who was
first on the station, with a plagiarism of the language, without the spirit of scrip
ture, directed that if these people behaved amiss, they should be punished at bis
discretion ; and if any attempts were made to destroy or molest the troops, he
should take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for tooth, and in short, life for life,
from the nearest neighbour where the mischief should be performed."
" The convenient moment having arrived, the inhabitants were called into
the different ports to hear the King's orders, as they were termed. At Grand
Pre, where colonel Winslow bad the immediate command, four hundred and
eighteen of their best men assembled. These being shut into the church, (for
that too had become an arsenal,) he placed himself with his officers in the centre,
and addressed them thus:
" Gentlemen,
"I have received from his excellency governor Lawrence, the king's com
mission, which I have in my hand ; and by his orders you are convened
together, to manifest to you his majesty's final resolution to the French inhabi
tants of this his Province of Nova Scotia."
" The part of duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable to my
natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you who are of the
same species."
" But it is not my business to animadvert, but to obey such orders as I receive,
and therefore without hesitation, I shall deliver you his Majesty's orders and
instructions, namely, That your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and
live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the crown, with all other your effects,
saving your money and household goods, and you yourselves to be removed
from this his province."
" Thus it is peremptorily his Majesty's orders, that tbe whole French inhabi
tants of these districts be removed, and I am, through his Majesty's goodness,
directed to allow you liberty to cary off your money and household goods, as
many as you can without discommoding the vessels you go in. I shall do every
thing in my power, that all those goods be secured to you, and that you are not
molested in carrying them off ; also that whole families shall go in the same

SECT. 1V.J BY THE COLONISTS. 89
vessel ; and make this remove, which I am sensible must give you a great deal of
trouble, as easy as his Majesty's service will admit; and hope, that in whatever
part of the world you may fall, you may be faithful subjects, a peaceable and
happy people."
" I must also inform you, that it is his Majesty's pleasure that you remain in
security, under the inspection and direction of the troops that i have the honour
to command."
" And then he declared them the king's prisoners.
" As some of these wretched inhabitants escapsed to the woods, all possible
measures were adopted to force them back to captivity. The country was laid
waste to prevent tlieir subsistence. In the district of Minas alone, there were
destroyed 255 houses, 276 barns, 155 outhouses, 11 mills, and 1 church ; and the
friends of those who refused to come in, were threatened as the victims of their
obstinacy. In short, so operative were the terrors that surrounded them, that
of twenty-four young men who deserted from a transport, twenty-two were
glad to return of themselves, the others being shot by sentinels; and one of their
friends who was supposed to have been accessary to their escape, having been car
ried on shore, tu behold the destruction of his house and effects, which were burned
in his presence, as a punishment for his temerity, and perfidious aid to his com
rades. Being embarked, by force ofthe musquetry, they were dispersed, accord
ing to the original plan, among the several British Colonies."
Most of the English historians have slurred over this har
rowing drama. It is even asserted in Smollett's Continuation
of Hume, and in the modern Universal History, that the
Acadians were merely disarmed, and then suffered to remain
in tranquility! Entick, in his "General History of the Seven
Years' War," is somewhat more candid ; and for the further
edification of my readers, I will proceed to quote the language
in which this reverend author — of no mean authority — relates
and glosses so portentous an iniquity. As, moreover, his ac
count is the only one through which the affair is circumstan
tially known to the readers of English history, I am disposed
to improve the opportunity, of placing by the side of it, the
vindication of those whom he calumniates.
" In Nova Scotia, matters did not favour the French at all in the year 1755.
General Lawrence pursued his success, and was obliged to use much severity, to
extirpate the French neutrals and Indians, who refused to conform to the laws
of Great Britain, or to swear allegiance to our sovereign, and had engaged to
join the French troops in the spring, expected to arrive from old France, as early
as possible, on that coast or at Louisbourg; some of whom with ammunition,
stores, &c. felt into the hands of our cruizers off Cape Breton. General Law
rence did not only pursue those dangerous inhabitants with fire and sword, laying
the country waste, burning their dwellings, anil carrying off their stock; but he
thought it expedient for his Majesty's service to transport the French neutrals,
so as to entirely extirpate a people, that only waited an opportunity to join the
enemy." " This measure was very commendable. But the execution of it was not
quite soprudant. The method taken by the general to secure the province from
this pest, was to distribute them, in number about seven thousand, among the
British Colonies, in that rigorous season of winter, almost naked, and without
money or effects to help themselves. In which distribution, too many were trans-
Vol. I.— M

90 CHARACTER AND MERITS [PART I.
ported to those colonies, where they might with great ease get to the French
forts, or might facilitate any enterprize from those forts, on the back of our
provinces on the south of the bay of St. Lawrence. Besides, it was exercising
a power he had no. right unto. For his command reached not beyond the limits
of Nova Scotia; and this was loading each government, into which those neutrals
were transported, with an arbitrary and great expense."
" This may be exemplified in the case of Pennsylvania. The quota imposed
on that province was 415, men, women, and children. They landed in a most
deplorable condition at Philadelphia, to be maintained by the province, or turned
loose to beg their bread: and this city not being above two hundred miles distant
from fort Du Quesne, it was very probable the men might get unto, and join
their countrymen at that fort ; or stiengthen the parties, which hovered about
the frontiers, and were continually laying waste the back settlements. The
government in order to get clear of the charge, such a company of miserable
wretches would require to maintain them, proprosed to sell them with their
own consent: but when this expedient for their support was offered to their
consideration, the transports rejected it with indignation, alledging. That they
were prisoners, and expected to be maintained as such, and not forced to labour.
They farther said, that they had not violated their oath of fidelity: which, by
the treaty of Utrecht, they were obliged to take; and that they were ready to
renew that oath, but that a new oath of odedience having been prescribed to
them, by which, they apprehended the neutrals would be obliged to bear arms
against the French, they could not take it, and thought they could not be com
pelled to do it. Thus General Lawrence cleared the country of the French
neutrals ; and the Indians in their interest, who had been very troublesome,
being most of them Roman Catholics, retired to Canada f&T-protection."*
The first remark I would make on this narrative of Entick,
is, that the plan which he ascribes to the government of Penn
sylvania, of selling the exiles, had no existence, and was im
possible, consistently with its principles and powers. That
government, and the inhabitants of Philadelphia, when near
five hundred of them were landed in a plight of misery which
beggars all description, received them with the liveliest com
passion, and provided for their wants with the readiest libera
lity, f They were immediately committed to the charge of

Vol. i. p. 385.
+ I have before me an exemplification of the original subscription paper for
their relief; and a list of the names of some of them, which runs thus: the
Widow Landry, blind and sickly ; her daughter, Bonne Landry, blind; Widow
Coprit, has a cancer in her breast ; Widow Seville, always sickly ; Ann Leblanc,
old and sickly ; Widow Leblanc, foolish and sickly; the two youngest ophan
children of Philip Melanson ; three orphan children of Paul Bujauld, the eldest
sickly, a boy foolish, and a girl with an infirmity in her mouth ; Baptist
Galerm's foolish child; Joseph Vincent, in a consumption; Widow Gautram,
sickly, with a young child ; Joseph Benoit, old and sickly ; Peter Bressay, has a
rupture, &c. Peter Vincent, himself and wife sickly — three children, one
blind, and very young, &c. Such was the treatment which they had experienced
that notwithstanding the charitable attentions which they received after their
arrival in Philadelphia, more than one half of them died in a short time. From
these particulars we may judge how far they were fitted " to strengthen the
parties which hovered about the frontiers !"

SECT. IV.J BY THE COLONISTS. 91
the conservators of the poor, to be lodged and fed at the pub
lic expense; while benevolent individuals of the society of
Friends, made and collected considerable subscriptions for
their more comfortable subsistence. One of the almoners of
the city, on this occasion, Anthony Benezet, — a model of
philanthropy, with whose character those of the English Pub
lic, who have read Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the
Slave Trade, cannot pretend to be unacquainted — devoted,
himself to the alleviation of both the physical and mental
wretchedness ofthe unexpected guests. It is, probably, from
an anecdote connected with his parental exertions in their
favour, that arose the idea which Entick embraced, respect
ing the conduct of the government of Pennsylvania. This
anecdote is thus told by Mr. Roberts Vaux in his excellent
biography of Benezet. " Such was his assiduity, and care of
them, that it produced a jealousy in the mind of one of the
oldest men among them, of a very novel and curious descrip
tion ; which was communicated to a friend of Benezet's —
' it is impossible,' said the Acadian, ' that all this kindness
is disinterested ; Mr. Benezet must certainly intend to recom
pense himself by treacherously selling us? When their patron
and protector was informed of this suspicion, it was so far
from producing an emotion of anger, or an expression of indig
nation, that he lifted up his hands and laughed immode
rately." The reverend historian was right in affirming that the British
commandant in Nova Scotia, imposed an arbitrary and heavy,
and he might have added, unrequited expense upon the colo
nies, among which the neutrals were distributed; but he
laboured under an error in supposing that General Lawrence
" cleared the country" at once. As many were sent away in
1755, as could be disposed of immediately. A considerable
number remained, with whom the same course was pursued a
few years afterwards, upon the inordinate alarm created by
the landing of the French in Newfoundland.
In the first instance, seven thousand of the obnoxious com
munity, as Entick relates, were thus torn from their rustic
homes, and transported in a way worthy of being compared
with the '" middle passage." The quota then assigned to
Massachusetts exceeded one thousand. " This extraordinary
tax," says her historian Minot,* " was about to be laid anew
upon the province, in 1762, by the arrival of nine ships from
Halifax, with 700 French neutrals on board. By an examen
of these people in the beginning of the year 1760, there was
* Vol. ii. ch. v

92 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED [PART I
found to be 1017 of them in the Province, of whom only 394
were able to labour. For the expense of subsisting them, the
Province could procure no allowance from Parliament, and so
had become subject to indefinite taxation in this way at the
discretion of the commander in Nova Scotia."
No proof has ever been produced, — none exists, to support
the charges which Entick prefers against the sufferers — of
having engaged to join the French troops, and refused abso
lutely to take the oath of allegiance to the British sovereign.
On the other hand, their own allegations, as he reports them,
and which give them strong titles to respect, are upheld by
the tenor of the official declarations of the British authorities
in Nova Scotia, who pleaded, little more in substance, than
the positive orders of their government, and a supposed over
ruling necessity, as regarded the more secure dominion of
that territory. Tradition is fresh and positive among us
respecting the guileless, peaceful, and scrupulous character
of this injured people. The impression which it made here,
upon every one who held intercourse with them, contributed
to render more intense, the compassion raised by the misera
ble vicissitude of their fortunes, and the extreme poignancy
of their grief. Their descendants now scattered over these
States, receive, universally from them the same tale of in
justice and woe. It is consigned in the Petition which they
transmitted from Pennsylvania to the King of Great Britain,
and which bears intrinsic evidence, too strong to be resisted
by a feeling and unprejudiced reader, of the truth of all the
details.* To complete the history, I ought to add, that no
attention whatever was paid to their prayer either for imme
diate redress, or a judicial hearing.
Before I finish with this matter, I will claim permission
to moot a simple case, and propound a few natural que
ries. — Had war broken out, in 1808, between France and
the United States, as was expected, — and had the latter
immediately, upon the suspicion, or the certainty, of the
French inhabitants of Louisiana being favourably inclined
to Bonaparte, " cleared" that province of all of them;
of men, and women, of the aged and the young, of the
sick and the insane; " pursuing them with fire and sword,
burning their dwellings, laying waste their plantations, and
destroying their stock"— had those inhabitants been driven
off at the point of the bayonet " in the rigorous season of
winter, almost naked, and without money or effects to help

* See Note F. for the Petition itself, copied from the draught in the hand
writing of Benezet.

SECT. IV.J BY THE COLONISTS. 93
themselves" — had they been thrown in this condition, from
prison ships as confined and wasting as the English hulks,
upon the charity of strangers ignorant of their language, and
prejudiced against their race? — Or, had all this been done by
the American commanders in Louisiana, of their own motion,
and had the American government then refused to listen to
the petition for relief, of that remnant of the prostrate exiles,
which disease and grief had spared, and left them irrevocably
to their fate — what would have been said in Great Britain ?
When would the world have ceased to ring with her execra
tions upon American barbarity? If one of her general offi
cers had afterwards put to death two Americans, found and
acknowledged to be co-operating, with a hostile tribe of sa
vages on the borders of Canada, — would she have suffered this
act to be placed in the same line of atrocity ? or, however
keen her sensibility at the effusion of her own blood, and at a
fancied outrage upon her national majesty, would she have
ventured to denounce the execution of Ambrister and Arbuth
not, as equal in guilt, to the extirpation, upon such grounds
as her historians offer in the case of the Acadians, of a civi
lized community of many thousands, unimpeachable in their
private life; confessedly amiable in their dispositions ; and
happy in the midst of ease and abundance created by their in
dustry and frugality?
5. Notwithstanding the notoriety of the facts upon which
I have touched — that the colonies were planted at the ex
pense of private adventurers, fugitives from relentless perse
cution; that they formed, for the most part, their own consti
tutions ; that they fought and overcame the Indians without
aid from abroad — 'that the mother country built no forts either
on their internal or Atlantic frontier, to protect them from
invasion — that she sent no ships of war to guard their trade,
till many years after their settlement, when their commerce
had become an object of revenue to the crown, and of profit
to the British merchants — that her parliament passed no one
material act concerning them, which did not relate to the
regulation of trade or the enlargement of the metropolitan
authority — yet, even before the expiration of the seventeenth
century, it was not uncommon, for the most distinguished of
the parliamentary leaders, to hold the language which Charles
Townsend employed in in 1765, in his speech in favour of the
stamp act, " that the Americans were children planted by her
care; nourished up by her indulgence, and defended by her
arms." I can trace also, to an early period, the complaints

94 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED [PART I.
repeated by the same British minister, concerning their un
thankful and seditious spirit, and that niggardliness " which
grudged even a mite to relieve the beneficent and venerable
parent from the heavy burdens under which she groaned."
When the disputes consequent on the stamp act grew warm,
these topics were in the mouths of all who supported the
scheme of taxation, and with them were plentifully mixed
the prejudices concerning the pedigree and general character
of the Americans, of which I have spoken in the preceding
section. It is among the remarks made by Franklin, in his
examination before the House of Commons, in 1766, that
" America had been greatly abused in England, in papers,
and pamphlets, and speeches, as ungrateful, and unreasonable,
and unjust, in having, put the British nation to an immense ex
pense for their defence, and refusing to bear any part of that
expense." " Our newspapers and politicians," said one of the ablest
ofthe British writers of that day, " have been lately full of
" invectives against the disposition and conduct of the Ameri-
" cans, and using foul-mouthed reproach. There are indeed a
" set of men, who, from dulness, being totally ignorant of the
" colonies, or from pr\de, ashamed to have a knowledge of
" them, talk of what we, for such is their language, have done
"for them; what money we have spent; what blood we have
" lavished ; and what trouble we have had in establishing and
" protecting them to this day ; and after a thousand such self-
" applauses, declaim against the baseness, ingratitude, and re-
" bellion, of an obstinate, senseless, and abandoned set of
" convicts." In this strain, Dr. Johnson wrote and talked, as the organ
of the ministry. It was in vain that Barre replied to Towns-
end with a fire and force of rhetoric worthy of Demosthenes,
and that Burke declared to Parliament, " the colonies in ge
neral owe little or nothing to any care of ours — a generous
nature has with them, taken its own way to perfection."
Merits of every kind continued to be claimed for the mother
country, and it was particularly insisted, that the blood and
treasure lavished in the American wars, from 1690 to 1763,
were spent in the cause of the colonies alone. This point had
come particularly under discussion in the year 1760, when
the question of surrendering Canada to the French was agi
tated in England. It was argued affirmatively with great zeal,
in a work of high authority at that time, to which Franklin
answered by his celebrated Canada-Pamphlet. The illustri
ous philosopher demonstrated, that the retention of Canada was
of the utmost importance to Great Britain ; but that, though

SECT. IV.] BY THE COLONISTS. 95
desirable for the colonies as a means of preserving peace on
their borders, it would be attended with disadvantages over
balancing this consideration, which had become of the less
moment from the military strength they had acquired, and the
impression they had made upon the Indian nations. He took
one particular view of their case, which belongs to history,
and should be offered to my readers as equally striking and
just. " I do not think that our 'blood and treasure have been
" expended,' as the author of the pamphet intimates, ' in the
" cause of the colonies, and that England is making conquests
" for them ;' yet I believe that this is too common an error ; I
" do not say that they are altogether unconcerned in the event.
".The inhabitants of them are, in common with other sub-
" jects of Great Britain, anxious for the glory of her crown,
" the extent of her power and commerce, the welfare and
" future repose of the whole British people. They could not,
" therefore, but take a large share in the affronts offered to
" Britain ; and have been animated with a truly British spirit,
" to exert themselves beyond their strength, and against their
-" evident interests. Yet so unfortunate have they been, that
" their virtue has made against them; for upon no better foun-
" dation than this have they been supposed the authors of the
" war, and has it been said to be carried on for their advan-
•' tage only."
Adam Smith strengthened the common error, and unwit
tingly promoted the ministerial scheme of deception, by the
following loose passage of the seventh chapter of the fourth
book of his Wealth of Nations. — " The English colonists have
never yet contributed any thing towards the defence of the
mother country, or towards the support of its civil government.
They, themselves, on the contrary, have hitherto been de
fended almost entirely at the expense of the mother country,"
These propositions are inconsistent with the tenor of the opi
nions which I have quoted from the same chapter, and have
not the least hold in the colonial history. A direct and com
plete refutation of them is to be found in Franklin's writings.
With respect to the war of 1756 particularly, which Adam
Smith had, no doubt, immediately in view, the American cham
pion placed the question it its true light to the House of Com
mons, in his examination before that body. His doctrine passed
without contradiction at the moment. " I know the last war
" is commonly spoken of here as entered into for the defence,
" or for tbe sake ofthe people in America. I think it is quite
" misunderstood. It began about the limits between Canada
" and Nova Scotia ; about teritories to which the crown indeed

96 DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED PART I.
" laid claim, but which were not claimed by any British colo-
" ny; none of the lands had been granted to any colonists, we
" had therefore no particular concern or interest in that dispute.
" As to the Ohio, the contest there began about your right of
" trading in the Indian country, a right you had by the treaty
" of Utrecht, which the French infringed ; they seized the tra-
" ders and their goods, which were your manufactures; they
" took a fort which a company of your merchants, and their
" factors and correspondents, had erected there, to secure that
" trade. Braddock was sent with an army to retake that fort,
" which was looked on here as another encroachment on the
" kings territory,) and to protect yonr trade. It was not till
" after his defeat that the colonies were attacked. They were
" before in perfect peace with both French and Indians ; the
" troops were not therefore sent for their defence."
Tbe whole subject, including the motives and ends of what
were called the colonial1 contests of the European powers, was
taken up by Brougham, in his work on their colonial policy,
and so treated as to be no longer a field of controversy. He has
satisfactorily shown, that "the quarrels of the mother country
alone were, in almost every instance, the causes which involved
every part ofthe empire in wars;" that "the foreign relations
ofthe colonies were almost always subservient, and postponed
to those of the parent state;" and that, "so far from involving
her in their quarrels, they suffered more than any part of the
system, by the proper quarrels of the metropolis."
The following desultory extracts from his first volume con
tain general views, which I think it important to present,
upon such authority, and some facts, of which the force will
be more felt, when they are so avouched.
" The supporters of the different economical systems have considered a colony
as a mother country, held in subjection by another state ; not as a part of that
state, connected with it by various ties. It appears more proper to view the
establishment of distant colonies, as an extension of a country's dominions, into1
regions which enjoy a diversity of soil and climate. While the colonies then are
only to be viewed as distant provinces of the same country, it is absurd to repre
sent their defence and government as aburden, either to the treasury or to the
forces ofthe mother country."
"The wars which a state undertakes, apparently for the defence of the colo
nial dominions, are, in reality, very seldom the consequence, even ofher possess
ing those distant territories. Two nations, who would commence hostilities on
account of their colonies, would never want occasions for quarrelling, had they
no possessions. In fact, any influence which the circumstances of the colonies
can exert on the dispositions ofthe parent state, is much more likely to be of a
nature favourable to the maintainance of peace.* *Whatever effects may be
attributed to the attention which has been paid to colonial policy, it is probable
that instead of increasing, it has diminished the frequency of wars in modern

SECT III.] BY THE COLONISTS. 97
times. Whatever circumstances may have involved Great Britain in a colonial
warfare in 1739 and 1756, a little reflection will show us, that the contests were
not occasioned by the possession of territories in America, but only broke out in
that quarter of the globe, as well as in Europe, in consequence of the relations
of European politics between the different powers possessing territories on both
sides of the Atlantic."
" It should seem, that in ascribing to the possession of colonies, the wars of
1739, 1756, and 1778, philosophers have been led into an error, not uncommon
in any of the departments of science, and in none more frequent than in poli
tics, — the mistake of the occasion for the cause, and of a collateral effect for a
principle of causation. They have searched in America for the origin of mis
fortunes, of which the seeds lay near home — in the mutual relations of the
European powers, the diversity of national character, and the belligerent nature
of man."
" The colonies occasion a diversion in favour of the tranquillity and security
of the parent states. Thestreugth and valour which might otherwise be ex
erted, in committing to the chance of war the independence of the European
powers, are displayed in the distant regions of the New World, and exhausted
without danger to the capitals."
" While their colonies thus render to the great maritime powers of Europe
the important service of determining (as it were) the eruption of hostilities, to
the extremities, where it may spend a force that would have proved fatal to the
nobler parts of the system, the structure of those distant communities, is, in ge
neral, of a less delicate nature, and better adapted to sustain the shock of mili
tary operations."
" The old colonies of North America, besides defraying the whole expenses
of their internal administration, were enabled, from their situation, to render
very active assistance to the mother country, upon several occasions, not pecu
liarly interresting to themselves. They uniformly asserted, that they would
never refuse contributions even for purposes strictly imperial, provided these
were constitutionally demanded. Nor did they stop at mere professions of
zeal." " The whole expense of civil government in the British North American
colonies, previous to the revolution, did not amount to eighty thousand pounds
sterling; which was paid by the produce of their taxes. The military esta
blishment, the garrisons, and the forts, in the old colonies, cost the mother coun
try nothing."
" In the war of 1739, when their population and resources were very trifling,
they sent three thousand men to join the expedition to Carthagena. The priva
teers fitted out in the different ports of America, and belonging to the colonies,
were even in that time, both in numbers of men and guns, more powerful than
the whole British navy, at the era of its victory over the Spanish Armada.
Many parts of the colonies have, at all times, furnished large supplies to the
naval force that was destined to protect them. The fisheries of New England,
in particular, used to contribute a vast number of excellent seamen to the Bri
tish navy."

Vol. L— N

98 [part

SECTION IV.

OF THE MILITARY EFFORTS AND SUFFERINGS OFTHE COLO
NISTS, IN THE WARS OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY.
1. The colonies took an active part, and had even an exces
sive share, in the' almost continuous wars which Great Britain
waged between the years 1680 and 1763. As soon as hos
tilities broke out in Europe, towards the close of the seven
teenth century, the belligerent powers industriously kindled
the fiercest animosities between their respective American
dependencies. Those of the French and Spaniards being
greatly inferior in internal strength, thought to compensate
themselves for this disparity, by arraying the Indians on their
side, and keeping their merciless auxiliaries in perpetual ac
tion. They animated and led them, in irruptions into the
British provinces, memorable for the worst evils which charac
terize Indian warfare. The destruction of the settlements of
Port Royal, on the southern frontier of Carolina, by the Spa
niards of St. Augustine, in 1686, — the murderous expedition
of the French against Schenectady and Corlar, in New York,
and their successful attacks upon Salmon Falls and Casco, in
1690, may be cited as specimens, of what is to be considered
as the mere prelude, to the similar hostilities with which the
English colonists were afflicted, almost without intermission,
for more than half a century afterwards. They began nearly
at the same time, to act vigorously on the offensive ; less,
however, by the proxy of the Indians, whom they could attach
to their cause, than in their own persons, and with their own
resources. We find New England twice engaged during
1690, in attempts upon a large scale, to reduce Canada. In
that year, Sir William Phipps, governor of Massachusetts,
with a fleet of eight small . vessels, and eight hundred men,
made himself master of the fort of Port Royal in Acadia, and
took possession of the whole coast from that place to the New
England settlements. Another, and more considerable arma
ment was despatched immediately after, under the same com
mander, against Quebec, but it proved highly disastrous,

SECT. IV.] MILITARY EFFORTS, &C 99
owing to the incapacity of the royal governor.* One thousand
of the New England troops perished in this bold enterprise,
and the vessels employed in it, were all lost on their return,
the colonies that had so nobly strained their means, incurred
a debt of £140,000, and the necessity of issuing bills of cre
dit — the first paper money (born in an evil hour,) which is
mentioned in our annals. The contingent of men, which
Connecticut and New York had stipulated to send against
Montreal, as a diversion in favour ofthe forces directed against
Quebec, was arrested in camp, and dreadfully reduced by the
small pox. This, and other malignant epidemics, made at
different times, great havoc throughout the North American
communities, and are to be classed among the most formida
ble of the numerous obstacles to their progress
These enterprises of New Enland originated in her own
sagacity and intrepidity. The mother country took no part
and little interest in them. Sir William Phipps made a voy
age to London, in order to solicit aid and encouragement for
the prosecution of the object, but met with no success.! " It
would be amazing," says the Universal History, " that the
English court should all the while express so little, or no con
cern, for so fine and well situated a country as Acadia, did we
not consider that King William and the English government
had at this time on their hands, two great wars in Europe, one
in Ireland, and one in Flanders. Whatever had been done
against the French in New France, was effected by the New
England forces, without any assistance from Old England,
farther than that the king and ministry there signed commis
sions.":!: The fruits of the success at Port Royal were lost
by the restoration of the whole territory taken, at the peace of
Ryswick. In 1693, the British cabinet yielding at length to the in
stances of New England, undertook to assist her with a con
siderable force towards another invasion of Canada. The
fleet designated for the purpose, was, however, first employed
in an attempt upon Martinico, and experienced there, disasters
which unfitted it for any further operations. In the mean
while, the colonies eagerly made preparations, in conformity
with the plan concerted in England; which were so great, says
the Universal History, that they probably would have been

* Universal Military History, vol. xl.
t Some years after, Colonel Schuyler, of New York, went to England, at
his private expense, on the same errand.
{ Vol. xxxix.

100 MILITARY EFFORTS PART I.
successful.* In the province jof New York five hundred men
were raised for an attack upon Montreal ; and this body when
sel#upon by a greatly superior force of French and Indians,
fought, adds the same authority, " with inconceivable resolu
tion." An accumulation of debt and trouble was the only
result for the colonies, of the whole arrangement. The French
of Canada were emboldened by its miscarriage, to more
harassing and destructive incursions. Three years after, the
French court equipped a considerable fleet, destined to reta
liate on the British, by ravaging the coasts of New England,
and reducing New York. No means of averting the impend
ing danger were neglected by the colonies; and the only ma
terial injury, besides the labour and expense of considerable
levies, which they suffered from the French plan of conquest,
was the loss of the fort at Pemaquid, erected, most idly,
" by the special order of king William and queen Mary,"
though at the sole and very heavy cost of Massachusetts, and
of which the futility was obvious from the first, to some of the
" poor provincials."
When, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, intel
ligence was received in America, of England being again
at war with France and Spain, hostilities were renewed
there with the utmost animation. In 1702, South Carolina,
with a population of only seven thousand whites, and scarce
ly forty years after its settlement, sent an expensive expedi
tion of six hundred militia, and as many Indians, against
St. Augustine. The whole purpose was not accomplished,
indeed, but great mischief was done to the Spaniards. " It
is almost incredible," remarks the Universal History,! " that
a government so lately settled as that of Carolina, and subject
to such mismanagements from the proprietary, should under
take so unpromising an affair, and be so near succeeding in it
as the Carolinians were." The mystery is to be explained by
the spirit of its popular assembly. Under the same auspices,
a body of Carolinians marched, the following year, against
the Apalachian Indians, the allies of the Spaniards, acting
under the command of a Spanish colonel ; penetrated into the
heart of theie settlements; subdued and dispersed them, and
reduced their whole territory under the British power. An
invasion of Carolina, from the Havanna, was attempted in
1706, by the Spaniards and French, with a formidable force,
and most gallantly repelled and frustrated by troops assem
bled in haste at Charleston. Nearly one half of the assail
ants were either killed or taken, and the infant colony had
* Vol. xxxix. p. 63. + Vol. xxxix.

SECT. IVi] OF THE COLONISTS. ' 101
little to regret on the occasion, except the heavy burden of the
expenses incurred in the military levy.
2. The martial activity of the northern provinces was equal
ly remarkable, and their suffering greater. In 1702, all the
settlements from Casco to Wells were ravaged with fire and
sword, by a party of Indians and French, and one hundred
and thirty of the laborious husbandmen either killed or made
prisoners. A large band of the same enemies surprised, two
years subsequent, the town of Deerfield in Massachusetts, laid
it in ashes, and either butchered or captured the inhabitants to
the number of nearly two hundred. This calamity was imme
diately and fully retorted, by an expedition of five hundred
and fifty New England volunteers, against the French and In
dian settlements of Penobscot and Passamaquoddy ; and but a
small time elapsed before the New England government des
patched another armament, consisting of several thousand men,
to reduce Acadia. The enterprize failed, in consequence of an
injudicious march in the neighbourhood of Port Royal, which
was occasioned by the obstinacy and insubordination of the
officers of the Deptford man of war, under whose convoy the
provincial fleet of transports had been sent.* The attention of
New England was speedily attracted to her domestic safety :
for the French and Indians penetrated, in 1708, to Haverhill,
on Merrimack river, and dealt with that town as they had done
with Deerfield.
The subjugation of Canada continued to be urged upon the
British court by the politicians of Massachusetts aud New
York; but it had no relish for the ministry of the day, who, as
the historians relate, would have preferred rather the extension,
than the abridgment of the French power in America. How
ever, in 1709, orders were received by the provinces to prepare
for the enterprise, upon a larger scale, and obeyed with the
utmost alacrity. After considerable levies had been made, and
the transports and troops kept, four months, in waiting at Bos
ton, for the arrival of the English fleet, it was announced from
London, that a change in the affairs of Europe rendered it ex
pedient to relinquish the expedition !
The account which the historian of New York, Smith, has
transmitted of this affair, developes further its character, and
is highly creditable to the spirit of that province. " The plan
" of operations was concerted at New York, with Francis
" Nicholson, formerly our lieutenant governor, who at the re-
* Universal History, vol, xl. p. 151.

102 MILITARY EFFORTS [PAItT I.
" quest of our governor, and of those of Connecticut and Penn-
" sylvania, accepted the chief command of the provincial
" forces, intended to penetrate into Canada, by the way of
" Lake Champlain. Impoverished as we were, the assembly
" joined heartily in the enterprise. Universal joy now bright-
" ened every man's countenance, because all expected the
" complete reduction of Canada before the ensuing autumn.
" We exerted ourselves to the utmost. Having put ourselves
" to the expence of above twenty thousand pounds, the delay
" of the arrival of the British fleet spread a general discontent
" through the country ; our forces were finally recalled from
" camp, &c. Had this expedition been vigorously prosecuted,
" doubtless it would have succeeded. The allied army tri-
" umphed in repeated successes in Flanders ; and the court of
" France was in no condition to give assistance to so distant a
" colony as Canada. The Indians of the Five Nations were
" engaged to join heartily in the attempt, and the eastern colo-
" nies had nothing to fear from the Ouwenagungas. In Ame-
*' rica, every thing was ripe for the attack. At home, lord
" Sunderland, the secretary of state, had despatched orders to
*' the queen's ships at Boston to hold themselves in readi-
" ness, &c. At this juncture, the news arrived of the defeat
" of the Portuguese ; the forces intended for the American
" adventure were then ordered to their assistance, and the
" thoughts of the ministry entirely diverted from the Canada
" expedition. The abortion of our plan exposed us to conse-
" quences equally calamitous, dreaded and foreseen ; as soon
" as the scheme dropped, numerous parties of the French and
" Indian allies were sent out to harass the English frontiers,
" and committed the most savage cruelties."*
New England, with her usual spirit, pressed an immediate
descent upon Acadia at least, with the military means which
had been collected at such heavy cost; but the captains of the
British men of war on that station, could not be prevailed
upon even to serve as convoy to the transports. To defray their
quota of the expenses of this fruitless armament, the colonies of
Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, issued for the first
time, those ill-omened symbols — bills of credit.
In less than a twelvemonth, New England, engaged — upon
further promises of co-operation frem the mother country,
which were not fulfilled : — in an expedition against Port Royal ;
and with several regiments of her own, supported by a few
English frigates, forced that place to surrender. In the year
* History of New York, Part iv.

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 103
1710, the governments of New England, New York, the Jer
seys, and Pennsylvania, suddenly received orders from the
British sovereign, to hold in readiness their contingents of men
for an enterprise against Canada, in which a powerful fleet,
to be expected in a few days after on the American coast, was
to take the lead. The fleet arrived in little more than a fort
night, bringing requisitions for troops and provisions which it
seemed impossible to satisfy on so short a notice. A congress
of the colonial governors assembled at New London, and took
such measures as to raise and fully equip, a considerable force
in a few weeks. Infinite distress arose out of so sudden and
large a demand for money and provisions ; and a suspicion pre
vailed, that the tory ministry of queen Anne, designed by this
hurried proceeding, to defeat, themselves, the proposed end
of the expedition, and to make New England responsible for
the miscarriage.
The expedition did, in fact, fail most miserably, by the
stranding ofthe British vessels in the river St. Lawrence ; and
the whole blame was cast upon the colonies, as they had fore
boded. The English admiral attributed the loss of his ships
to the advice of the New England pilots, and the French his
torian, Charlevoix, an impartial arbiter in this case, charges
it upon " the distrust and obstinacy of the English admiral."
The pilots made oath that they gave no such advice as was
imputed to them, and that their opinion was neither followed
nor regarded, the English officers having " a mean idea of
their capacity." The general assembly of Massachusetts chal
lenged a formal inquiry into the affair, and sent three of the
pilots to England to be interrogated, who waited many months ;
but no questions were asked, nor elucidations sought by die
British court.*
At the same time not the least credit was openly given to
the colonies for their prodigious exertions and severe losses,
" What," says one of the historians, " would be thought ex
traordinary in any state of Europe, one-fifth part of the whole
inhabitants of Massachusetts, capable of bearing arms, were
in pay that summer, not vagrants, swept as in England, from
the streets and brothels, but heads of families, artificers and
robust young men, whose labour was inestimable to new settle
ments." We have, on the subject of this oppressive business,
the testimony of Dummer to this effect.f " Notwithstanding
some people found it necessary to blame New England, the
better to excuse themselves, yet it has been acknowledged to

Hutchinson, vol. ii. p. 175. , t Defence of the Charters.

104 MILITARY EFFORTS. [PART I.
me by English gentlemen who were then on the spot, and well
experienced in these affairs, that such a fleet and army, wanting
the necessaries they did, could not have been dispatched in so
short a warning from any port of England. It is really astonish
ing, to consider, that these little governments of New England
shonld be able, by their own strength, to perform such great
things in the military way."
These little governments were not moreover, prodigal of
men and money, merely in the struggles at their door, or for
their own seeming interests. When, in 1703, Jamaica, under
the apprehension of an invasion, solicited help from Massa
chusetts, that province sent to the island, several companies
of foot, of which but few individuals ever returned to their
native country. When, in the year 1 705, Nevis was sacked
by Ibberville, New England spontaneously contributed a large
sum of mouey, together with building materials, &c. for the
relief of the sufferers, and never claimed nor received retribu
tion. The British court not only left to the northern colo
nies, the care and expense of their own defence against the
French and Indians, and of the protection and advancement
of the general interests of the empire, in North America,
but drew upon their resources for the execution of its plans of
aggrandisement, in the West Indies. In 1741, three thou
sand six hundred men were assessed and levied upon them.
in aid of the expedition of that year against the island of
Cuba ; and they were at the whole charge of bounty, pro
visions and transports for their respective quotas. Massa
chusetts contributed five hundred men, of whom the equip
ment and transportation cost her £7000. It is calculated by
Hutchinson, that, from the year 1675 to 1713, the epoch of
the treaty of Utrecht, five or six thousand of the youth of
Massachusetts and New Hampshire — the provinces most ex
posed — perished either by the hand of the enemy, or by dis
tempers, contracted in the military service. This judicious
author is of opinion, that the people of New England bore,
during the same interval, " such an annual burden, as was not
felt by any other subjects of Great Britain."*
3. While the northern colonies were putting forth these ex
traordinary energies, and undergoing so severe a probation, the
middle and southern prosecuted their arduous defence against
enemies of an equally fierce and restless spirit ; and were ex
posed to an additional scourge, which could be also traced in

Vol. ii. H. of M. p. 183.

SECT.. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 105
to the cupidity of the mother country. The conspiracy of the
Indian tribes of North Carolina, in 1712, for the extermiua-
tion of the whites, is marked by the massacre of one hun
dred and thirty-seven settlers about Roanoke alone. The
valour and conduct of the militia of the two Carolinas, gave,
on this occasion, a final blow to the power of the Tuscaroras,
one of the most considerable Indian nations of that quarter.
Only three years from this signal exploit, South Carolina was
the theatre of a similar conspiracy, and had to wrestle, near
her capital, with a still more formidable tribe, the Yamassees.
With no more than twelve hundred men on the muster roll,
fit to bear arms, she expelled the multitude of these ferocious
barbarians from her soil, having vanquished them in a gene
ral battle of a most obstinate and sanguinary character. Four
hundred of her white inhabitants fell in the war. There is an
incident in its train, which I shall not do amiss to mention.
" The Assembly of Carolina," says an English historian,*
" passed two acts, to appropriate the lands, gained by con
quest from the Yamassees, for the use of such British sub
jects as should come over and settle upon them. On this
encouragement, five hundred men from Ireland transported
themselves to Carolina ; but not long after, in breach of the
provincial faith, and to the entire ruin of the Irish emigrants,
the proprietors ordered the Indian lands to be surveyed for
their own use, and run out in large baronies. The old settlers
thus losing the protection of the new comers, deserted their
plantations, and again left the frontiers open to the enemy.
Many of the unfortunate Irish emigrants, reduced to misery,
perished, and the remainder removed to the northern colonies."
The number of warriors of the four principal Indian na
tions — the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and Chickasaws —
in the neighbourhood of Georgia and Carolina, are com
puted to have been, as late as in 1733, upwards of four
teen thousand, not less redoubtable by their numerical supe
riority, than their daring and marlial spirit. The campaigns
which were made against them at subsequent periods, exhi
bit for their duration, — like the Indian wars of the northern
and middle provinces, — danger as appalling, and suffering as
intense, encountered with as much resolution, and sustained
with as much fortitude, — as many obstacles overcome with as
much perseverance, — as are commemorated In the military
annals of any people.
* Hewatt's Historical Account of South Carolina and Georgia, London,
P- 228.
Vol. I.— O

306' MILITARY EFFORTS [PAIIT I
Carolina had, at the same time, not only to shake off an
oppressive government, and- extirpate a host of savages, but to
protect herself from a body of negro slaves, greatly out-num
bering their masters, and ripe for revolt and carnage. She
detected, in 1730, a domestic plot, which looked to the mas
sacre of all the whites, and in 1738, found herself engaged in
a servile war, which was brought to a speedy issue indeed, but
not without great slaughter. The negroes were excited, on
this occasion, by the Spaniards, who held out to them the pros
pect of liberty, and received the runaways into the military
service of Spain, — the precise model of the conduct of Great
Brit ain towards the same colony, during our revolutionary war.
Besides the mutual invasions between the Spaniards of Flo
rida and the Carolinians, which I have already mentioned,
others of a later date might be citeds in which the blood and
treasure of the latter were profusely expended. Georgia was
planted in 1733. Already in 1740, this last born among the
colonies, sent forth an armament against St. Augustine, and
two years after, repelled an invasion of the Spaniards, who
made their attack with a force of thirty-two sail, and three
or four thousand picked men.
From the establishment of the French on the Ohio, in the
middle of the eighteenth century, Virginia, Maryland, and
Pennsylvania were cruelly infested with Indian hostilities, and
their sufferings may be regarded as due to the corruption or
sluggishness of the British rulers. The plan early formed by
France, of uniting her colonies of Canada and Louisiana, by
a ehain of forts from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, did
riot escape the sagacity, as it was well fitted to rouse the fears,
of the colonists. They long laboured in vain to obtain the
co-operation of the British court, in anticiparing the French
plan, and to open the eyes of the British statesmen to the
dangers of its execution.* We have seen in the extracts
which I have made from the reports of the Board of Trade
and Plantations, the motive which was indulged in England,
for discouraging anglo- American settlements beyond the moun
tains. The authors of the Universal History acknowledge

* Even before the close of the seventeenth century, the British government
had been admonished of this evil by Dr. Davenant, in tbe following passage of
his Discourse on the Protection and Care of Trade: " Should the French settle
at the disembogueing of the river Meschasipe, in the Gulph of Mexico, they
would not belong before they made themselves masters of that rich province,
which would be an addition to their strength very terrible to Europe. But this
would more particularly concern England ; for, by the opportunity of that set-
lemcnt, by erecting forts along the several lakes between that river and Canada,
they may intercept all the trade of our northern plantations."

ECT* IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 107
it as "certain that from the treaty of Utrecht, to the middle
of the century, the government of England was lulled into a
most fatal security, whilst that of France was making wide
strides towards a total acquisition of North America', by cut
ting off tbe English colonies from the back country." The
same writers teach us, however, in a passage which I am about
to quote, that it was to something more than supineness in tbe
British councils, that New York particularly, owed some of
her worst distresses.
" Spotswood, the lieutenant governor of Virginia, about
the year 1716, a man of sense and spirit, finding the Outaouars,
now called tbe Twightees, extremely well affectioned towards
the English, proposed to purchase some of their lands upon
the river Ohio, and erect a company for opening a trade te
the southward, westward, and northward of the river with the
savages. This was at once a rational and practicable scheme,
but the execution of it depended entirely upon the favourable
dispositions of the natives for the English, which might have
been secured, by the punctual payment of the purchase mo
ney or effects* This noble project clashed with the views of
the French, who had by this time, formed their great schemes
upon the Mississippi, and the ministry of king George I. as
we have already hinted, having reasons for keeping well with
that court, the project was not. only dropped, but the French
were encouraged to build the fort of Crown Point, upon the ter
ritory qfJVew York."*
4. For Europe, the achievments of which I have spoken,
however noble, and in themselves worthy of renown, were, in
a great degree, obscure and insignificant; and England might
even yet cheat herself into the belief, that the Provincials
were as humble in their military, as she represented them
to be in their political and literary capacities. But, an event
happened in 1746, after which, this delusion could not continue,
without taking the character of infatuation ; nor the continent
of Europe fail to be struck, with the singular prowess of the
transatlantic people, and to feel the decisive weight which,
although of a new creation as it were, they already threw into
the scale of Great Britain. It will be at once understood,
* " Spotswood," says Burke, in his History of Virginia, vol. iii. ch. ii. "gave
offence to the British ministry, by urging with too much boldness, the necessity
of establishing a chain of forts for tbe protection of the country between the
Apalachian mountains and the Mississippi." This able governor was dismissed,
for Hrging at the same time, the propriety of a claim for compensation, which
was preferred by some of the provincials, who had accompanied him on an ex
ploring party beyond the mountains.

108 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I.
that I allude to the capture of the celebrated fortress of
Louisbourg, next to Quebec, the strong hold of the French in
the western hemisphere — the key to Nova Scotia — the spring
of every evil to the British fisheries and trade, — and from
the influence of its position, and the extent and immense
expense of its works, which were thought impregnable, com
monly styled the Dunkirk of America. At a moment when
France was without a fear for its safety, and England had
not even raised her hopes to its conquest, the project of re
ducing it was conceived in Massachusetts, and adopted, with
correspondent boldness, by the other provinces of New Eng
land. A body of near five thousand men was imnediately
raised, and a fleet equipped for the purpose, — all without the
concurrence, or even countenance, of the mother country :
An expedition, composed of the greater part of the naval
means of the projectors, and of a body of freeholders, thriving
artificers, and sons of wealthy farmers, led by a New England
merchant, had actually been dispatched before any British
vessels arrived to join in the attempt. I need not repeat the
details of its wonderful success, so well known to every reader
of modern history; but I ought to state the opinions pronounced
by some of the English annalists, concerning the general con
duct ofthe Provincials on the occasion, and the importance of
the exploit. The design pleads for itself too strongly to re
quire certificates, and the merit of it was never claimed by
Great Britain.
" The New England troops," says an English authority re
ceived as the highest, at the time,* " within the compass of
twenty-three days from the time of their first landing', erected
five fascine batteries against the town, mounted with cannon of
forty-two, twenty-two, and eighteen pounds shot, mortars of
thirteen, eleven, and nine inches diameter, with some cohorns;
all which were transported by land, with incredible labour
and difficulty; most of them above two miles: all the ground
over which they were drawn, except small patches or hills of
rocks, was a deep morass, in which, while the cannon were
upon wheels, they several times sunk so deep, as not only to
bury the carriages, but their whole bodies. Horses and oxen
could not be employed in this service, but all must be drawn
by men, up to the knees in mud ; tbe nights in which the work
was done, were cold and foggy, their tents bad, there being
no proper materials for tents to be had in New England at the
outset of the expedition. But notwithstanding these difficul-
* Memoirs ofthe Last War in America.

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 109
ties, and many of the men being taken down with fluxes, so
that at one time there were fifteen hundred incapable of duty,
they went on without being discouraged or murmuring, and
transported the cannon over those ways, which the French had
always thought impassable for such heavy weights; and be
sides this, they had all their provisions and heavy ammuni
tion, which they daily made use of, to bring from the camp
over the same way upon their backs."
" The people of New England," says Tindal, the continua
tor of Rapin,* " behaved on this occasion with great spirit.
Three thousand eight hundred and fifty volunteers, all of
them well affected to tbe expedition, assembled and embarked
at Boston. Though neither the militia nor their commanders
had ever seen any military service, they proceeded vnt h all
the regularity and intrepidity qf veterans. The grand ap
proaches to the body of the place were to be carried on from
the southern side. Here the service was extremely laborious;
the guns for mounting the batteries being dragged through
bogs and incumbered places by the landsmen, for above two
miles. They succeeded, however, to admiration, and by as
sistance of the officers and engineers of the marines, and
some lent them by the commodore, they mounted a large train
of artillery on an eminence called the Green Hill, about three
quarters of a mile from the place. The garrison having made
a resolute defence, and a general assault being expected,
surrendered the 13th of June."
" It is sufficient to state," observe the authors of the Uni
versal History, " that, the colony of New England gave peace
to Europe, by raising, arming, and transporting, four thou
sand men, who took Louisbourg, which proved an equivalent
at the peace qf Aix-la-Chapelle, for all the successes qf the
French upon the continent qf Europe. In the late war with
France, which was concluded in the year 1762, they exerted
the same glorious spirit against the common enemy, and
greatly contributed to that extension of territory in North
America," &c.
The following in the testimony of Smollet,f accompanied
by some remarks, which I am not sorry to produce at the same
time. " The most important achievement of the war of 1744,
was the conquest of Louisbourg. The natives of New Eng
land acquired great glory for the success of this enterprise.
Britain, which had in some instances, behaved like a step
mother to her colonies, was now convinced of their impor-
* Vol. xxi. p. 157. + Continuation of Hume.

TIO - MILITARY EFFORTS [PART P
tance, and treated those as brethren whom she had too long
considered as aliens and rivals. Circumstanced as the nation
is, the legislature cannot too tenderly cherish the interests of
the British plantations in America. They are inhabited by a
brave, hardy, industrious people, animated with an active spi
rit of commerce, and inspired with a noble zeal for liberty and
independence." This historian, in the same breath in which
these-fine sentiments are uttered, does not hesitate to assert,
that " the reduction of Louisbourg was chiefly owing to the
vigilance and activity of Mr. Warren, a British commodore,
and that the operations of the siege, were wholly conducted,
by the engineers and officers who commanded the British ma
rines !" No effort, in fact, was spared in England, to perpe
tuate the affair under this aspect. The agent deputed by
the government of Massachusetts to solicit tbe reimbursement
for the expenses of the expedition, wrote thus from London to
the secretary of the general court of that province : " Upon
my arrival in England, the first newspaper. I met with on the
road contained an address to his majesty, from a sea-port
which trades to Boston ; wherein they congratulated his ma
jesty on the success of his navy, in taking Cape Breton, with
out making the least mention of the land forces employed on
that occasion. When I came to London, I there found the
effects of the arts used to have the conquest deemed a naval
acquisition, as it was afterwards in the most public manner,
declared to be by a noble lord then in the ministry. I deter
mined to attempt to establish the credit of the New England
forces, and for that end drew up a petitition to the secretary of
state, praying that the account of their behaviour, taken on
the spot by the governor, and transmitted to the secretary of
state, might be published by authority ; — after several month's
solicitation, this was promised me; but I soon afterwards re
ceived such treatment as was in effect openly declaring, that
it was determined not to comply with that promise ;— -before
I could prevail, I was forced into a sharper contest than I
should ever choose to be again concerned in."*
Nay, Mr. Warren himself deposed on oath, in the High
Court of Admiralty, seventeen months after the event, " that,
with the assistance of his majesty's ships, &c. he, the depo
nent, did subdue the whole island of Cape Breton :"f— And
we shall, by and by, find, upon the testimony of one of the

* Letter of Mr. Bollan, of April 23, 1752, preserved in the first volume of the
Collections of the Mass. His. Society.
+ Registry of the High Court of Admiralty of England, Sept. 29, 1747.

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. Ill
ministry, that at tbe British court, he, the same deponent, re
presented the Provincials, as having displayed on the occasion,
arrant and ludicrous cowardice ! To make the true spirit and
value of these allegations better understood, I am tempted to
transcribe a few passages from Hutchinson, whose impartiality,
as far as New England is concerned, will hardly be questioned,
and who wrote from personal knowledge.
" The 23d March, 1745, an express-boat, sent to commodore
Warren, in the West Indies, to request his co-operation in the
attempt upon Louisbourg, returned to Boston. As this was a
Provincial expedition, without orders from England, and as
his small squadron had been weakened by the loss of the Wey
mouth, Mr. Warren excused himself from any concern in the
affair. This answer necessarily struck a damp into the gover
nor, and the other persons who were made acquainted with it
before the Provincial fleetsailed. On the 23d April, however,
the commodore arrived. It seems that in two or three days after
the express sailed from the West Indies for Boston, the Hind
sloop brought orders to Mr. Warren to repair to Boston, with
what ships could be spared, and to concert measures with Mr.
Shirley for his majesty's general service in North America.
Whether the land or sea force had the greatest share in the ac
quisition, may be judged from the relation of facts. The
army, with infinite labour and fatigue to themselves, harassed
and distressed the enemy, and with perseverance a few weeks
or days longer, must have compelled a surrender. It is very
doubtful whether the ships could have lain long enough before
the walls to have carried the place by storm, or whether, not
withstanding the appearance of a design to do it, they would
have thought it advisable to attempt it ; it is certain they pre
vented the arrival of the Vigilant, took away all hopes of fur
ther supply and succour, and it is very probable the fears of a
storm might accelerate the capitulation."
" The commodore was willing to carry away a full share of
the glory of this action. It was made a question whether the
keys of the town should be delivered to him or to the general,
and whether the sea or land forces should first enter. The
officers of the army say they prevailed."
" As it was a time of year to expect French vessels from all
parts to Louisbourg, the French flag was kept flying, to decoy
them in. Two East India, and one South Sea Ship, supposed
to be altogether of the value of £600,000. sterling, were taken
by the squadron at the mouth of the harbour, into which they
would undoubtedly have entered."

112 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I.
" With great colour the army might have claimed a share
with the men of war in these rich prizes. Some of the officers
expected a claim would have been laid in, but means were
found to divert it, nor was any part decreed to the vessels of war
in the Province service, except a small sum to the brig Boston
Packet, Captain Fletcher, who being chased by the South Sea
ship, led her directly under the command of the guns of one of
the men of war."*
I would add to these facts, that reimbursement was obtained
from Parliament after seven years qf urgent solicitation. The
Sicture of sordidness and chicane, which is presented by the
lassachusetts agent, in his account ofthe cavils and delays in
terposed to defeat his errand, is as curious as it is disgusting,
when referred to the administration of so great an empire.
" The government of Massachusetts," says the author whom I
have last quoted, " was still, in 1747, soliciting for the reim
bursement of the charge in taking Cape Breton, and by the
address, assiduity, and fidelity of William Bollan, esquire,
who was one of the agents of the province for that purpose,
there was a hopeful prospect that the sull sum, about £180,0000
sterling would be obtained."
" Some of the ministry thought it sufficient to grant such sum
as would redeem the bills issued for the expedition, &c. at their
depreciated value, and Mr. Kilby, the other agent, seemed to
despair of obtaining more ; but Mr. Bollan, who had an inti
mate knowledge of our public affairs, set the injustice of this
proposal in a clear light, and made it evident, that the deprecia
tion of the bills as was effectually a charge borne by the people,
as if the same proportion of bills had been drawn in by taxes,
and refused all proposals of accommodating, insisting upon
the full value of the bills when issued."t
This haggling with the colonial agents, where so signal a ser
vice was in question, — one which purchased an indispensa
ble peace for Great Britain — betrays a spirit which none can be
at a loss to understand, especially when it is recollected,
what immense sums were lavished by her in support of
the continental nations. " If a continent must be supplied,"
was the language of the addresses to the king, from some
parts of England, " if our spoils must be shared, let America
gartake, rather than ungrateful Germany, the sepulchre of
Iritish interest." America did not, however, partake, as we
have seen, until a much later period, and then partook in a
very different degree and form. She received scarcely a

Vol. ii.chap.iv. + Ibid.

SECT. I V.J OF THE COLONISTS. 113
soldier for her defence, and had her pittance of retribution
doled out to her with huckstering parsimony ; while Hanover
was defended with a profusion of blood and treasure, which,
as the historians truly remark, astonished all Europe. The
immense subsidy even preceded the effort of the fickle ally in
Germany: — Tbe slender reimbursement followed haltingly,
the invaluable service of the loyal subject in America. France
stood forth herself, and undertook the whole defence of her
American possessions : Great Britain left the part of princi
pals to hers, acting merely as their occasional, and always
reluctant auxiliary.
By the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, of 1748, the conquest so
hardly earned, and so dearly prized by the provincials, was
surrendered to France, as an equivalent — the only one which
Great Britain had to offer, — for the towns in Flanders taken
by the French from her German ally.* And the achievement
of the colonies proved not merely sterile for their interests,
as it was rendered by this issue, but the cause of a vital dan
ger, and fearful anxiety during many weeks; for, the French
court roused by the loss of Louisbourg, directed against their
coast, the most powerful armament which had ever been sent
into the North American seas; and which, only an unparal
leled train of disastrous casualties, prevented from committing
extensive mischief. The activity and resolution of New Eng
land, in preparing the means of defence, on this occasion,
corresponded with her previous career.
Immediately before this invasion was announced, eight
thousand two hundred men had been voted by the colonies,
and the greater part of them raised, at the requisition of the
British Ministry, for a general invasion of Canada, which the
same ministry abandoned the following year, leaving the
colonies to defray the expense of the levy. This abortive
scheme, and the Louisbourg expedition, involved them in the
greatest financial embarrassments ,s
5* It was not denied in England, that the reduction of
Louisbourg preserved Nova Scotia, and enabled the mother
country to make the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle: nor could it
fail to be perceived frqm the affair, how materially the colonies
might contribute to give her a final ascendancy over her great
rival. Acknowledgements and praise were not, therefore, al
together withheld ; Tbut they were so bestowed, as to betray an
exasperation of those feelings, of which I have particularly
* See Note G.
Vol. I.-P

114 MILITARY EFFORTS. [PART I.
treated in my first section. Scarcely two years elapsed,
before the bill already mentioned, for enforcing all the king's
instructions in the colonies, was brought into Parliament ; and
at the distance of two years more, the new plan for "increas
ing their dependence" began to bear fruit, in the prohibition
of iron and steel manufactories. Among the jealous and un
natural returns for their military efforts in the war of 1744, I
may enumerate the clause inserted by Parliament, (1754,) in
the mutiny bill, subjecting all officers and soldiers raised in
America, by the authority of the respective governors, or go
vernments, to the same rules and articles of war, and the same
penalties and punishments, as those which the. British forces
were liable. A generous opposition was, indeed, made to this
measure in the House of Commons. Some of the objections
which were uttered in the debate on the occasion, are worthy,
in an historical point of view, of being brought to the notice
of my readers. 1 transcribe from the Reports, those of Mr.
Robert Viner, and of Mr. Henry Fox, the minister of the day.
" Mr. Robert Viner said — Our regiments so far, at least,
as relates to the common soldiers, are usually composed of the
very lowest and most abandoned of our people ; but with re
spect to the troops now raised, or that may hereafter be raised
in America, the case is very different : many of them may not,
perhaps, be able to support themselves in the service of their
country, without being paid by their country ; but many of
them have engaged, and many of them will, I hope, engage,
merely for the sake of serving their country ; they have senti
ments of religion, they have sentiments of honour, and by such
sentiments they may be kept under proper discipline, without
such rigorous punishments as are to be inflicted by this bill,
upon our British mercenary soldiers."
" This, Sir, we may be convinced of, from the whole tenor
of our American history. How many wars have our planta
tions from time to time been engaged in : Wars more cruel and
more liable to ambuscade and surprises, than any we have in
Europe, and consequently, such as have always required a
stricter discipline, if possible, than is necessary in this part
of the world ; and yet if we look into their militia laws, we
shall find, that they have but very few military crimes, and
that most of their military punishments are only a very mode
rate fine, or a very moderate corporal punishment, upon such
as cannot pay their fine ; nay, I do not know, that any of our
{damnations ever extended a military punishment to life or
imb ; and yet they have hitherto carried ou, and ended all
-their wars with glory and success. So powerful, Sir, are the

SECT. 1V.3 OF THE COLONISTS. 115
motives of virtue, honour and glory, where proper care is
taken to cultivate them in the breast ofthe soldier, or rather,
where care is not taken to eradicate all such principles, by the
multitude and severity of military punishments."
" Mr. Henry Fox said — T shall grant that there militia have
generally behaved pretty well, in all the wars they have been
engaged in ; they have, indeed, on all occasions, shown un
daunted courage; as Englishmen,! hope, always will,"
The mutiny act proved so odious to the colonists, as seriously
to obstruct the public service, and to render it necessary for
some of the governors to give public assurances, that the
militia, when called to march to the western frontiers, should
not be subject to "its provisions. It was not the only griev
ance ofthe description, and by the imposition of which the
mother country sacrificed justice and policy, to pride, or
routine. By an act of Parliament, the general, or field
officers of the colonial troops, had no rank with the general
and field officers who served by commission from the king ;
and a captain or other inferior officer of the British forces,
took precedence of the provincial officers of the like grade,
though the commissions of the latter were of prior date.
Many attempts had been made, at an early period, to put the
militia at the disposal ofthe royal governors, but always with
out success. The failure of one of these attempts in Connec
ticut, in 1693, was attended with circumstances which deserve
to be cherished in our history. They are thus related by
the historian Trumbull, in his homely though impressive way.
" Colonel Benjamiu Fletcher, governor of New York, had
received a commission entirely inconsistent with the charter
rights, and the safety of the colonies. He was vested with
plenary powers of commanding the whole militia of Con
necticut and the neighbouring provinces. He insisted on the
command of the militia of Connecticut. As this was ex
pressly given to the colony charter, the legislature would not
submit to his requisition."
" The colony wished to serve his majesty's interest, and as
far as possible, consistently with their chartered rights, to
maintain a good understanding with governor Fletcher. Wil
liam Pitkin, Esq. was, therefore, sent to New York, to treat
and make terms with him respecting the militia, until his
majesty's pleasure should be further known. But no terms
could be made with him short of an explicit submission of
the militia to his command."
" On the 26th of October he came to Hartford; while the
assembly were sitting, and, in his majesty's name, demanded

116 MILITARY EFFORTS. [PART I.
their submission of the militia to his command, as they would
answer it to his majesty ; and that they would give him a
speedy answer in one word, yes or no. He subscribed him
self his majesty's lieutenant, and commander in chief of the
militia, and of all the forces by sea or land, and of all the
forts and places of strength in the colony of Connecticut.
He ordered the militia of Hartford under arms, that he might
beat up for volunteers. It was judged expedient to call tbe
trainbands in Hartford, together ; but the assembly insisted,
that the command of the militia was expressly vested by
charter in the governor and company ; and that they could by
no means, consistently with their just rights, and the common
safety, resign it into any other hands. They insinuated, that
his demands were an invasion of their essential privileges,
and subversive of their, constitution,"
" Upon this, colonel Bayard, by his excellency's command,
sent a letter into the assembly, declaring, that his excellency
had no design upon the civil rights of the colony: but would
leave them m all respects as he found them. 1 n the name of
his excellency, he tendered a commission to governor Treat,
empowering him to command the militia of the colony. He
declared, that his excellency insisted, that they should ac
knowledge it an essential right, inherent in his majesty, to
command the militia ; and that he was determined not to set
his foot out of the colony, until he had seen his majesty's
commission obeyed : That he would issue his proclamation,
showing the means he had taken to give ease and satisfaction
to his majesty's subjects of Connecticut, and that he would
distinguish the disloyal from the rest."
"The assembly, nevertheless, would not give up the com
mand of the militia ; nor would governor Treat receive a
commission from colonel Fletcher."
" The trainbands of Hartford assembled, and, as the tra
dition is, while captian Wadsworth, the senior officer, was
walking in front of the companies, and exercising the sol
diers, colonel Fletcher ordered his commission and instruc
tions to be read. Captain Wadsworth instantiy commanded,
¦•' beat the drums," and there was such a roaring of them.
that nothiug else could be heard. Colonel Fletcher com
manded silence. But no sooner had Bayard made an attempt
to read again, than Wadsworth cried, " Drum, drum, I
say." The drummers understood their business, and in
stantly beat up with all the art and life of which they were
masters. " Silence, silence," said the colonel. No sooner
wos there a pause, than Wadsworth spoke with great earnest-

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 117
ness, Drum, drum, I say ;" and turning to his excellency,
said, " If 1 am interrupted again, I will make the sun shine
through you in a moment." He spoke with so much energy in
his voice, and meaning in his countenance, that no further at
tempts were made to read, or enlist men, Such numbers of
people collected together, and their spirits appeared so high,
that the governor and his suite judged it expedient, soon to
leave the town and return to New York."*
6. After the colonies had completely acquired the Atlantic
territory, by purchase and conquest, without pecuniary or mili
tary aid from the government of the mother country, peace
was the natural and fair fruit of their exrtions ; and it must
appear, abstractedly, a gross injustice and hardship, that they
should be deprived of that inestimable blessing by the broils
of Europe. The case assumes a complexion of greater
wron grand oppression, when we reflect, that the wars in which
they were implicated against their European neighbours, arose
out of the culpable ignorance of the parent states, respecting
American geography. The limits of Nova Scotia, and in
general, the boundaries of the French and English possessious
in America, were, with a shameful indifference to the welfare
of the colonists, left by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, unde
cided and indeterminable. Hence, even before it suited the
convenience of the metropolitan countries to break, in Europe,
through the mere truce consequent upon the treaty, their Ame
rican dependencies had begun to vindicate by the sword their
irreconcilable pretensions to territory.
The treaty produced no interruption in the encroachments
of the French of Canada. They pursued unremittingly their
designs upon Nova Scotia, and the western regions ; and em
ployed force for their purpose, where force was requisite.
They seized upon the disputed parts of Acadia ; fortified them
selves on the lakes and the line of the Ohio ; concluded
alliances with the Indian tribes of those regions ; plundered
and destroyed the trading establishments of the British, and
made hostile incursions from their forts into the Virginia limits ;
while the English colonies, though full of alarms at their
progress, and smarting under their blows, were restrained by
their sense of subordination to the government of the mother
country, from taking, at once, the measures of offence which
the provocation justified, and their safety seemed to exast.
" It cannot be dissembled," say the authors of Modern

Book i. chap. xvi.

118 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I.
History, " that the state qf parties in England at this time was
unfavourable to any vigorous steps against the French. The
English Americans had not yet in 1753, ventured to attack
the French themselves, and this forbearance laid them under
inexpressible advantages."*
Thus1 were the colonists prevented, by mal-ad ministration
in Great Britain, from averting the heavy evils they after
wards suffered from the strong footing which the French, more
wisely and honestly directed, were enabled to secure on the
Ohio. The American governors, and particularly Mr. Din-
widdie, lieutenant-governor of Virginia, tried, by " many spi
rited speeches, messages and dispatches,"^ to rouse the British
ministry to a sense of its duty and of the national interest ;
until, finding their representations likely to remain unpro
ductive, they could hesitate no longer about exerting their
own strength to dislodge the enemy. Dinwiddie sent first, in
1753, a messenger — one Major Washington, as the Universal
History styles him, — to summon the French to evacuate their
posts on the Ohio ; and upon receiving a haughty refusal, raised
and dispatched a regiment under the command of this now
transcendant name, to establish the British rights in that quar
ter. The expedition was unfortunate, and no better success,
for the moment, attended the similar movements ofthe northern
colonies. It was, however, recommended from England, that " the
British settlements should unite in some scheme of common de
fence, m the general and open war which was seen to be ine
vitable." The arrangement proposed to them by the mother
country, at that critical moment, when a spirit of generosity
would have dictated a particular tenderness for their liberties,
involved the sacrifice of their main political privilege — exemp
tion from taxation by parliament. I need not relate how this was
resisted; ner dwell again upon the well known Albany plan of
union ; but there is one circumstance in its history which ought
not to be pretermitted. The leaders ofthe Provincial assemblies
were earnestly of opinion, and declared without reserve, that,
if it were adopted, they could undertake to defend themselves
from the French, without any assistance from Great Britain.
They required but to be left to raise and employ their own
supplies, in their own way, under the auspices of a governor
appointed by the crown, to effect their permanent security, and
even predominance on this continent.

Vol. xl. p. 196. t Ibid,

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 119
7, In 1755, Massachusetts levied, in the space of two
months, at the instigation and expense of the crown, a body
of three thousand men, and by this force, joined with a few
hundred regulars from Britain, the French were completely
expelled from Nova Scotia. The British ministry determined
about the same time on a decisive effort, by sending over troops
for the destruction of all the French posts, which had been es
tablished within the immense region to which the British crown
laid claim in America. They committed the enterprise to ge
neral Braddock, of fatal memory, who landed in Virginia early
in that year, with two regiments of British regulars ; and in the
beginning of the summer, set out, reinforced by a body of
Virginia, militia, and friendly Indians, on his noted expedition
against Fort Du Quesne. This officer had too just a sense of
the superiority of the European race of men and soldiers, not to
despise the Provincials. Accordingly, he "neglected, diso
bliged, and threw aside the Virginians, and treated the Indians
with the utmost contempt."* " He showed," says Entick,f
" such contempt towards the Provincial forces, because they
" could not go through their exercise icith the same dexterity
" and regularity as a regiment of guards in Hyde-Park." " In
" conversation with general Braddock one day," says Frank-
" lin, (in his Memoirs,) " he was giving me some account of
" his intended progress. ' After taking Fort Du Quesne,' said
" he, ' I am to proceed to Niagara, and having taken that, to
" Frontenac, if the season will allow time, and I suppose it
" will ; for Du Quesne can hardly detain me above three or
" four days; and then I see nothing that can obstruct my march
" to Niagara.' Having before revolved in my mind the long
" line his army must make in their march by a very narrow
'• road to be cut for them through the woods and bushes ; and
" also what I had heard 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.
" He smiled at my ignorance, and replied, ' These savages may
" indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia,
" but upon the king's regular disciplined troops, Sir, it is im-
" possible they should make any impression.' "J
The humble auxiliaries of Braddock pointed out the dan
gers to which he was exposed, remonstrated againt the confi
dence of his march, and in so doing, heightened his magnani-

* Universal History, vol. xl. p. 203.
t Vol. i.p. 143.
$ See Note. H.

120 MILITARV EFFORTS. [PART I.
mous disdain. The horrible catastrophe is still fresh, in verse
and prose, at almost every fireside in the interior of our country.
Six hundred of his regulars either killed or disabled, by an
enemy not two-thirds of their number, and partly armed with
bows and arrows — himself mortally wounded — the middle
colonies laid bare to the tomahawk and scalping knife — their
frontiers devastated and drenched in blood — consternation
spread throughout British America: — such were the conse
quences of the national and personal pride of the British ge
neral. The moral of the affair is made doubly striking by the
following accurate relation of the English Universal History:
" It is remarkable, that the Virginians and other Provincial
troops who were in this action, and whom Braddock, by way
of contempt, had placed in the rear, far from being affected
with the panic which disordered the regulars, offered to ad
vance against the enemy, till the others could form and bring
up the artillery; but the regulars could not be brought again to
the charge, where, as they said, they were butchered without
seeing the enemy. Notwithstanding this, the Provincials ac
tually formed, and behaved so well, that they brought off the
remaining regulars; and the retreat of the whole was so unin-
termitting, that the fugitives never stopped, till they met the
rear division, which was advancing under colonel Dunbar,"*
I may add, from the Memoirs of Franklin, who wrote as an
eye witness, a passage which throws additional light on the
heroic character of the " king's regular disciplined troops."
" In their first march, from the landing till they got beyond
the settlements, they had plundered and stripped the inhabi
tants, totally ruining some poor families, besides insulting,
abusing, and confining the people if they remonstrated. This
was enough to put us out of conceit of such defenders, if we
had really wanted any."
It was the lot of a provincial commander, with provincial
troops, to restore in a few weeks after the discomfiture of
Braddock, the honour of the British name, and the tone of
the public mind. The plan of operations for the campaign
of 1755, arranged in Virginia, by a congress of governors,
embraced an attempt on the French fort at Niagara, to be
made by the American regulars and Indians ; and an expedi
tion against Crown-Point, to consist of militia from the north
ern colonies. In the course of the summer, an American
force of six thousand men was collected for these purposes at
Albany, the appointed rendezvous, and the command of the
* Vol. xl. p. 204.

SECT. IV. J OF THE COLONISTS. 121
main body devolved upon colonel William Johnson, a member
of the council of New York. When on his march to Ticon
deroga, this officer learned that a large body of the enemy,
composed principally of French regulars, under an expe
rienced commander, Baron Dieskau, had been despatched
from Canada, to intercept the design upon Crown-point.
They met on the banks of Lake George, and Johnson gained
a victory nearly as signal as the defeat on the Monongahela.
Eight hundred of the French, the flower of their troops, were
killed in the action, and their distinguished leader fell, mor
tally wounded, into the hands of the anglo- Americans ; while
the loss of the latter did not exceed one hundred and eighty
men. Dieskau's plan in setting out from Canada with his
invincible Europeans, was to desolate the northern frontier
settlements, and wrap Albany in flames ; — and these were the
evils which Johnson averted, besides regaining for the English,
the esteem and confidence of the Indians, whom Braddock's
tragedy had alienated. According to the English historians,
Dieskau owed his misfortune to presumption, and an obstinate
contempt for the British provincials.
Although great expenses were incurred, and numerous
forces raised by the colonies, to carry into effect the whole
plan of the campaign, little was accomplished, except the re
pulse of the French, on this occasion. In accounting for the
unprofitableness of the preparations of the year, the Univer
sal History represents it as evident, that certain private
discontents lurked in the minds of the chief provincials.
" Whatever they might pretend, they knew well that Brad
dock had a commission, fo act as commander in chief of all
the British troops on the continent of America, and that they
were only to be subordinate to him."* The British govern
ment gave all the eclat to the affair of Lake George, of which
it was susceptible, with an eye to their interests in Europe ; and
we find the parliament, in an address to the king, " thankfully
acknowledging his majesty's wisdom and goodness, in having
generously extended encouragement to that great body of his
majesty's brave and faithful subjects, with which his American
provinces happily abounded, to exert their strength on this
important occasion of the encroachments of the French in
America, as their duty, interest, and common danger obliged,
and strongly called upon them to do."

* Vol. xl. p. 811.
Vol. L— Q

122 MILITARY EFFORTS. [PART I.
8. When open war was at length declared, in 1756, be
tween England and France, the British cabinet manifested the
disposition, to exert the force ofthe empire, against the French
power in North America;— and "the English subjects," says
the Universal History, " all over that continent, seeing their
mother country was determined to support them in earnest,
made extraordinary efforts to bring a formidable force to the
field." It was, in fact, settled by a council of colonial govern-
nors, that twenty-one thousand men should be raised for spe
cific expeditions, notwithstanding the great addition, which
the levies and disasters of the preceding year, had made to
the fiscal difficulties of the colonies. Their evil genius sug
gested to the mother country the appointment to the command
over their forces, and the twelve thousand British regulars
destined to the same service, of a man, in whose character the
leading trait was indecision. The Earl of Loudon, to whom
their fortunes were committed, had not only this defect, but
almost every other kind of incapacity. Authority to act was
wanting, until his arrival; or, at least, was affected to be
thought so, by general Abercrombie, who commanded in the
interval ; and " owing to the unsettled state of the British
ministry,"* he came too late in the year for any enterprise of
moment. It is the opinion of the military critics, that had he
appeared sooner, and possessed the proper degree of energy,
the whole plan of operations concerted at New York, and
which looked to the reduction of all the principal posts of the
French, might have been effected. Thus another year was
lost, at an enormous expense to Great Britain, and with infinite
mischief and trouble to the colonies.
Meanwhile the French exerted their accustomed activity,
and gained the most important advantages. They took Fort
Ontario, at Oswego, and made prisoners the garrison of sixteen
hundred American regulars. — By this event they became
masters of the great lakes ; the northern frontier was nearly
laid open, and full scope afforded to the Indians to glut their
vengeance on the English settlers. With common judgment
and exertion, on the part of the British general Abercrombie,
whom I have mentioned above as the commander in chief ad
interim, Oswego might have been preserved. This assertion
is fully established in a work which his immediate predeces
sor, governor Shirley, published in London in 1758, in de
fence of his own military administration in America, f It is,

* Universal History.
+ " The conduct of major general Shirley, late General and Commander
in chief of his Majesty's forces in North America, briefly stated."

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 123
in the same Volume, put beyond question, that the American
garrison, composed of the author's regiment and that of Pep
perell, behaved with the utmost gallantry ; so far that when
the works of the fort were no longer tenable, the officers had
considerable difficulty in persuading the men to lay down their
arms, and that, some of the latter, according to the testimony
of eye witnesses, " suffered themselves to be knocked on the
head by the enemy, rather than submit." "Yet," says go
vernor Shirley, " reports were propagated, and gained credit
in England, tbat the American regiments, (the fiftieth and
fifty-first,) consisted of transported convicts and Irish Roman
Catholics, who by their mutinous behaviour, had contributed
to the loss of the place. Reports were likewise propagated
greatly to the disadvantage of the officers of both regiments ;
but their known characters, and the behaviour of several of
them upon other occasions, in his majesty's service, as well
as this, are sufficient to vindicate their honour."
The principal of the expeditions planned for the year 1756
by the provincial governments, was that against Crown-Point,
to consist of a body of ten thousand men, made up of contin
gents from the colonies north of the Carolinas. Seven thousand
troops were actually collected for the purpose, and the com
mand of the expedition was assigned to major-general Winslow
of Massachusetts. The sufficiency of this force is asserted by
Shirley as unquestionable, from the unanimous opinion of a
council of war held at Albany, at which general Abercrombie
assisted. Winslow was in full readiness, in good time, to
proceed with his provincials, first against Ticonderoga; and
it had been settled, that the British regulars should move up
to forts Edward and William Henry, which the former occu
pied, and be there prepared to sustain or assist them, as the
occasion might require. Tbe inarch of Winslow was delayed
by obstacles ascribable to the improvidence of Abercrombie;
and on the intelligence of the fall of Oswego, all offensive ope
rations in that quarter were countermanded by the Earl of
Loudon. In the letter* which Winslow addressed to the Earl
of Hallifax in London, on the subject of this affair, we find
the following passage : " I write tbat your lordship may be in
formed of the share the American troops under my command
have had in this expedition; and although we did not attempt
Crown- Point, which was the thing principally aimed at by our
constituents, yet we were the means of stopping the current
of the French forces, after their success in carrying Oswego,
* Preserved in the Collections of the Mass. His. Soe. vol. for 1799.

124 MILITARY EFFORTS fJPART I.
and thereby the saving of Albany, and a great part of the
government of New York, as well as the western parts of
New England, which, by their joining their forces at Carilon,
was doubtless their intent."
The right of Massachusetts, to compensation for the provi
sions with which she furnished the king's troops during these
arrangements, was admitted by the Britishfparliament; but se
veral years elapsed before any part of the sum liquidated was
paid. Minot relates a transaction of the. governor of Massa
chusetts with the general court of that province, in relation to
a levy of three thousand five hundred for the Crown-Point
expedition, which exemplifies strikingly, the impression enter
tained by the royal officers in America, of the scrupulosity
of the fiscal conscience of the mother country, where the
northern colonies were concerned. " The governor agreed to
the terms of the general court, and loaned the province thirty
thousand pounds sterling, out of the king's money in his hands,
taking for security, such grant as might be made them for
their extraordinary services by the king or parliament, and a
farther collateral mortgage of a tax, to be raised in the two
following years.*
Notwithstanding that the only brilliant achievements during
the war, had been performed when the provincials singly
opposed the enemy, or were seconded but in a very slight
degree by the British regulars ; and that the adventure of
Braddock had baffled all the domestic arrangements for de
fence, it can occasion no surprise, that the British commander
in chief, at the beginning of 1757, formally laid to the charge
of the colonies, all the calamities of the preceding year. He
established his own infallibility by doing no more, the suc
ceeding campaign, although the British force in America at
his disposal had been augmented to twenty thousand men, and
twenty ships of the line, than make a demonstration upon
Louisbourg. He collected his troops at Halifax ; waited there
some time for advices; then returned gallantly to NewYork and
— dismissed the provincials. Montcalm, who succeeded baron
Dieskau in the command of the military means of Canada, tak
ing advantage ofthe absence of theprincipal part of the British
army, besieged and reduced Fort William Henry, situated on
the southern coast of Lake George, so as to command that lake
and the western line. The Provincial army stationed for the
defence of this important post, made a noble resistance, and
were admitted to an honourable capitulation by the French
commander; but his Indian allies, with circumstances which
* History of the Massachusetts, vol. i, c. xii.

SECT. IV.] OF THE COtONISTS. 125
mark out the case as the pattern of the recent one of the
river Raisin, — either butchered, or appropriated to themselves
as prisoners, a considerable part of the brave garrison. Out
of a New Hampshire corps of two hundred, eighty were mis
sing. It was not merely this horrible catastrophe, and tbe loss
of ordnance, ammunition, provisions, and the shipping on Lake
George, which the colonists had to lament: they saw the In
dians, whom they had been able to attach to their cause,
shaken in their fidelity; and such of the tribes as had deter
mined to keep aloof from the struggle, or had wavered in the
choice of a side, converted into indefatigable assailants.
Massachusetts felt, more than the enemy, the energy of the
British commander in chief, in a controversy which arose be
tween him and her general court, concerning the quartering
and billeting of the British regulars upon the inhabitants.
She resisted, with her ancient spirit, the extension of the act
of parliament on that head, to America, and stood firm under
menaces fitted only for the meridian of Hindostan.
Our illustrious countryman, Franklin, had personal rela
tions with the noble lord, who proved during two years, so
fatal a scourge to the colonies. He has left, in his Memoirs,
the following notice of him, for the edification of posterity.
" I wondered how such a man as Loudon came to be entrusted
with so important a business as the command of a great army.
Instead of defending the colonies with his great force, he left
them totally exposed, while he paraded idly at Halifax, by
which means Fort George was lost. Besides he deranged all
our mercantile operations, and distressed our trade by a long
embargo on the exportation of provisions, on pretence of keep
ing supplies from being obtained by the enemy, but in reality
for the purpose of beating down their price in favour of the
contractors, in whose profits it was said, (perhaps from suspi
cion only,) he had a share; and when at length the embargo
was taken off, he neglected to send notice of it to Charleston,
where the Carolina fleet was detained near three months; and
whereby their bottoms were so much damaged by the worm,
that a great part of them foundered in their passage home."*
In 1758, the elder Pitt breathed a new soul into the British
councils, and resuscitated in the colonies those native energies,
which a long series of exhausting and disappointed efforts,
had sensibly depressed. Under the influence of his magnani
mous spirit, America may be said to have emerged, with the
whole British empire, " from the gulph of despondency, and
risen to the highest point of practical vigour." A contagious
See Note I.

126 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I
zeal gave the fullest effect, to his call upon the colonial go
vernors, for the largest bodies of men the number of the inha
bitants would allow. Fifteen thousand troops were voted by
the three provinces of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New
Hampshire alone. In less than twenty-four hours, a private
subscription of £20,000. sterling for encouraging enlistments,
was filled up in Boston. " The expense," says Minot, " of
the regiments raised for his majesty's service amounted to
near one hundred and twenty thousand pounds sterling : be
sides this, the inhabitants ofthe several towns in the province,
by fines, or by voluntary contributions to procure men for
' the service, paid at least sixty thousand pounds sterling more;
which was, in all respects as burdensome as if it had been
raised as a tax by the government. The defence of our own
frontiers, and the other ordinary charges of government,
amounted to, at least, thirty thousand pounds sterling. The
province had, in one campaign, on foot, seven thousand troops.
This was a greater levy for a single province, than the three
kingdoms had made collectively in any one year since the
revolution." Loudon was superseded, in the beginning of 1758, by ge
neral Abercrombie : but the colonies cannot be said to have
gained much by the substitution. The new commander in
chief wasted a part of their resources, and checked the mo
mentum of the mighty force which Pitt had arrayed on this
continent against the French, by an ill-advised and ill-ma
naged expedition against Crown-Point. He took with him
sixteen thousand men, of whom nine thousand were provincials,
and urged them to a hopeless assault upon Ticonderoga, which
cost the lives of more than sixteen hundred of his bravest
European troops, and of four hundred provincials. " This
attack," says the Universal History, " when no prospect of
success could possibly present itself, was followed by a retreat
as pusillanimous, as the other was presumptuous. The gene
ral reimbarked the troops, and though not an incident had hap
pened that might not have been easily foreseen, or rationally
expected, he returned to his former camp at Lake George."*
Anxious to repair in any way, the mischief and disgrace of
this repulse, Abercrombie consented, at the solicitation of a
native American officer, colonel Bradstreet, to detach him
with three thousand men, against Fort Frontenac, on the
north side of the Ohio. This body of troops, with the ex
ception of only one hundred and fifty-five regulars, was com
posed of Provincials ; and after surmounting, as the historians

t

Vol. xl. p. 220

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 127
acknowledge, incredible difficulties and hardships, it gave an
earnest of victory to the British cause, by capturing the for
tress, together with nine armed vessels, a vast quantity of am
munition, &c. and breaking up thus, the principal depot of
supplies for the south western posts, and the hostile Indians. '
Louisbourg constituted an object of primary importance in
the great scheme for annihilating the French power in America,
which engrossed the care and strained the vigour of Pitt.* The
reduction of that fortress was one of the first operations of the
campaign, and was accomplished with an overwhelming force
indeed, but in a manner highly creditable to the courage of the
victors, among whom the provincials bore a distinguished part.
It was not easy, even for the mother country to forget, or not
to recal at the moment, what had been before achieved by New
England on the same theatre.
9. To dispossess the French of Fort Du Quesne, the bul
wark of their dominion over the western region, entered neces
sarily into the plan ofthe campaign. This object was effected,
not certainly through the judgment and skill of the British
commander, within whose province it fell, but by the magni
tude of the force employed, and the influence of extraneous
events. t The Virginia militia composed a large part of the
army, which general Forbes carried with him in this enter
prise, and were under the immediate direction of Washington.
They performed the chief labour, truly herculean, and infinite
ly more oppressive than would have been necessary, had the
British leader condescended to avail himself, in the choice of a
route and of the season of action, of the experience and topo
graphical knowledge of the provincial colonel. Against the
urgent, reiterated expostulations of the latter, and when
there was left scarcely time to tread the beaten tract, univer-

* Much of the merit of the scheme is due to Franklin, who constantly urged
the conquest of Canada upon the British government. The following statement
of his grandson has never been contradicted in England. " The more Franklin
weighed the subject in his mind, the more was he satisfied, that the true interest
of Great Britain lay in weakening her rival on the side of America, rather than
in Germany ; and these sentiments he imparted to some of his friends, by whom
they were reported to William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham ; who no
sooner consulted him on the practicability of the conquest of Canada, than he
was convinced by the force of his arguments, and determined by the simple
accuracy of his statements. The enterprise was immediately undertaken ; the
command given to general Wolfe," &c. (Memoirs, p. 194.)
+ _" The success of colonel Bradstreet, at Frontignac, in all probability, faci
litated the expedition under Forbes," &c— Russel's Modern Europe, let.
xxxiii.

128 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I.
sally confessed to be the best passage over the mountains, he
selected a road, every inch of which was to be cut, and which
exacted the constant toil of fifteen hundred or two thousand
men. Washington advanced in front, and opened the almost
impervious forest and mountain to the main body of the army.
On the approach to Fort Du Quesne, the British general dis
regarding the caution of his faithful pioneer, sent forward a
select corps of eight hundred men to reconnoitre the adjacent
country. The enemy overpowered this detachment, and had
destroyed it but for the bravery and self possession of a Vir
ginia captain.* Out of a company of one hundred and
sixty-six provincials, sixty-two fell on the spot ; and of the
whole detachment, the number of killed and wounded was
nearly three hundred. From the account of this expe
dition, framed by Chief Justice Marshall, + upon the papers
of Washington, and unquestionably authentic, it is to be
inferred, that if the army of Forbes did not encounter
even a worse fate than that of Braddock, it was not owing
to any superior wisdom of management, or greater pliability,
in the leader.
" The army," says Marshall, " reached the camp at Loyal
Hanna, through a road alleged to be indescribably bad, about
the fifth of November, where, as had been predicted, a council
of war determined, that it was unadvisable to proceed further
this campaign. It would have been almost impossible to have
wintered an army in that position. They must have retreated
from the cold inhospitable wilderness into which they had
penetrated, or have suffered immensely, perhaps have perished.
Fortunately some prisoners were taken, who informed them of
the extreme distress of the fort. Deriving no support from
Canada, the garrison was weak; was in great want of pro
visions ; and had been deserted by the Indians. These en
couraging circumstances changed the resolution which had
been taken, and determined the general to prosecute the ex
pedition." Washington seems to have felt the utmost indig
nation and chagrin at the conduct of the enterprise, and ex
pressed himself with unusual warmth, in his first letters to the
speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses. " We appear,
in my opinion, to act under the guidance of an evil genius.
We shall be stopped at the Laurel Hill this winter. Can ge
neral Forbes have orders for these proceedings ? Impossible.

* See a full account of the service performed by this officer, captain Bullet,
in vol. iii. p. 3, of Burke's History of Virginia.
+ Life of Washington, vol. ii. ch. i.

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 129
The conduct of our leaders is tempered with something I do
not care to give a name to. Nothing but a miracle can bring
the campaign to a happy issue," &c.
When we consider what is the present face of the country
between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, it is doubly interesting
to contemplate the picture drawn of it by the English histo
rians, in their commemoration of this affair. " In the begin
ning of July, 1758, Brigadier Forbes set out on his expedition
from Philadelphia for Port Du Quesne. He was to march
through countries that never had been impressed by human
footsteps, and he had difficulties to surmount, greater, per
haps, than those of Alexander, in his expedition to India ; by
establishing magazines, forming and securing camps, procur
ing carriages, and encountering a thousand unforeseen obsta
cles in penetrating through regions, that presented nothing
but scalping parties of French and savages, mountains, woods,
and morasses," &c*
It is sufficient to repeat the fact, that the colonies had on
foot, in active co-operation with the British forces, in 1759,
twenty-five thousand troops, — to establish their title to a large
share of the glorious results of that year. The number ofthe
provincials was considerable before Quebec, and still greater
in Amherst's arduous expedition, by way of Ticonderoga,
Crown-Point, and Lake Champlain. That ablest of the Brit
ish commanders in America, bore, in the general orders which
he issued, after the complete reduction of Canada, in 1760,
the strongest testimony to " the indefatigable efforts of,
his majesty's faithful subjects in America, and the zeal and
bravery of the officers and soldiers of the provincial troops."
The troops of this description composed altogether the third
frand division of the British force, with which general Pri-
eaux, " assisted by the interest and abilities of the provin
cial leader, general William Johnson," marched to reduce
Fort Niagara, a post of the utmost consequence in itself, and
in relation to the success of the main enterprise of the cam
paign in 1759. The manner in which this service was per
formed will sustain a comparison at least, with that of Aber-
crombie's attempt upon Ticonderoga. I will adopt the narra
tive of the Universal History.
" While Amherst was reducing Crown-Point, and making
himself master of Lake Champlain, Prideaux and Sir Wil
liam Johnson were proceeding against Fort Niagara. On
the 20th of July, Prideaux, to the inexpressible grief of
* Vol, xl. p. 221, Universal Historv.
Vol. I.— R

130 MILITARY EFFORTS [JPART I.
the army, was killed in the trenches, by the bursting of a
cannon, The command then fell upon Sir William Johnson,
who was superseded by brigadier-general Gage, by the appoint
ment qf Amherst. Before Gage could arrive at Niagara,
Johnson had performed wonders. He had carried his ap
proaches within one huudred yards of the covert-way of the
fort ; and the French were so apprehensive of losing that pal
ladium of their interest in North America, that they exerted
their utmost to maintain it, by collecting seventeen hundred
men from all the neighbouring posts, particularly from Detroit,
Venango, and Presque Isle, under the command of Mons.
D'Aubry. Had this reinforcement reached the fort, it must
have been impregnable ; but Johnson made dispositions to
wards the left, on the road leading from Niagara falls to the
fortress, for intercepting it."
" About 8 o'clock, on the 24th of July, the enemy appeared,
and the English Indians attempted in vain to have some talk
with their countrymen, who served under the French. The
battle began with a horrible war-whoop, which was now mat
ter of ridicule, rather than terror, to the English, uttered by
the French Indians. The French, as usual, charged with vast
impetuosity, but being received with equal firmness, and
the English Indians on the flanks doing considerable execu
tion, all the French army were put to the rout, and for five
miles the pursuit continued, in which seventeen officers,
among whom were the first and second1 in command, were
made prisoners. Next morning Sir Wm. Johnson sent a trum
pet to the French commandant, with a list of the seventeen
officers that had been taken, to convince him of the inutility
of further resistance. The commandant found all Sir William
Johnson's intelligence to be perfectly true, and in a few hours
a capitulation was signed, by which six hundred and seven
men, of which the garrison consisted, were to march out with
the honours of war, to be embarked on the lake, and carried
to New York, but protected from the barbarity of the Indians.
The women and children were carried to Montreal, and the
conqueror treated the sick and wounded in a manner so hu
mane, as to prove himself worthy of victory. Thus, for a
second time, this self-taught general obtained an entire tri
umph over the boasted discipline of the French arms. But
that was his least praise. Though eleven hundred Indians
followed him to the field, he restrained them within regular
bounds."* While affecting at home to consider the colonists as of little
efficiency in the field, and even to deride their humblest pre-
* Vol. xl. p. 237,

SECT. IV.J OF THE COLONISTS. 131
tensions to the military character,* the mother country inces
santly called upon their assemblies for more levies, with pro
testations ofthe indispensableness of their fullest co-operation.
They were required, in 1760, to raise and equip, if practi
cable, at least as large a body of men as they had sent forth the
preceding year ; and they obeyed with an alacrity equal to that
which they had manifested, when it seemed necessary for them
to make extreme efforts, to avoid being overrun by the com
mon enemy, let in through the incapacity of the British com
manders. Massachusetts supplied besides, troops to guard
Louisbourg, Halifax, and Lunenburg, and entirely garrisoned
Annapolis, Fort Cumberland at Chignecto, and Fort Frederick
at St. Johns. It was not merely land forces that were fur
nished by New England. Her seamen served in such num
bers on board the British ships of war, that her merchants were
compelled to navigate their trading vessels with Indians and
negroes, f More than four hundred privateers, as I have
already had occasion to remark, issued, during the war, from
the North American ports, ravaged the French West India
Islands, and distressed to the utmost the commerce of France
in all parts of the world.
During the years 1760 and 1761, the southern colonies
were involved in hostilities with the Cherokee Indians. These,
instigated by the French, made the most destructive inroads,
and required some arduous campaigns to be reduced to inac
tion. In 1763, a general Indian war unexpectedly broke
out, of a most disastrous and alarming character. It threat
ened the loss of some of the important posts which had been
wrested from the French, and depopulated a great part of the
western frontiers. Franklin, being asked, on his examina
tion before the House of Commons, whether this was not a war
for America only ; answered, that it was rather a consequence
or remains of the former one, the Indians not having been
thoroughly pacified ; that the Americans bore much the greater
share of the expense ; and that it was put an end to by teh
army under general Bouquet, consisting of about three hun
dred regulars, and above one thousand Pennsylvanians.
The pecuniary charges incurred by the colonists in the seven
years war, greatly exceeded the amount ofthe sums which were
allotted to them by the British Parliament, as an indemnity.
* See Notel.
+ It was asserted, without contradiction, in the House of Commons, in the
debate of March 11, 1778, on the state of the British navy, that ten thousand
of the seamen employed in it during the war of 1756, were natives of North
America.

132 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I.
The excess was two millions five hundred thousand pounds,
not taking into the account the extraordinary supplies granted
by the colonial assemblies. Their whole disbursement did
not fall short of three millions and a half; a sum far more
onerous for them, in the proportion of their ability and habits,
than that which was expended by the crown, great as it was,
could have been for the British people.
On the termination of the struggle in Canada, in 1760, and
the extinction of danger from the French in North America,
the provinces were fairly entitled to an exemption from all
contribution to the exterior military enterprises of the mother
country ; at least until the deep wounds they had received in
their finances, and the most valuable part of their population,
should be healed. A considerable body of native troops was,
however, drawn from them, to assist in the reduction of the
French and Spanish West India Islands ; and Massachusetts
raised in 1762, three thousand two hundred and twenty, as her
quota, for the object of " securing the British dominions, and
particularly the conquests in her neighbourhood." " Many
of the common soldiers," says the historian, Gordon, " who
gained such laurels, by their singular bravery on the plains of
Abraham, when Wolfe died in the arms of victory, were na
tives of the Massachusetts Bay. When Martinico was attack
ed in 1761, and the British force was greatly weakened by
death and sickness, the timely arrival of the New England
troops enabled the former to prosecute the reduction of the
island to an happy issue. A part of the British force being
now about to sail from thence for the Havanna, the New
Englanders, whose health had been much impaired by service
and the climate, were sent off in three ships, to their native
country for recovery. Before they had completed their voyage,
they found themselves restored, ordered the ships about, steer
ed immediately for the Havanna, arrived when the British
were too much reduced to expect success, and by their junc
tion, served to immortalize afresh, the glorious first of August,
old style, in the surrender ofthe place on that memorable day ;
they exhibited, at the same time, the most signal evidence of
devotedness to the parent state. Their fidelity, activity, and
courage, were such as to gain the approbation and confidence
of the British officers." *
There are some general considerations which place in strong
* History of the American Revolution, vol. i. page 103. The writer re
ceived his information not only from public, byt from private, sources; he cites
particularly Brooke Woodcock, Esq. of Saffron Walden, who served at th,e
faking of Belleisle, Martinico, and the Havanna.

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 133
relief, the merit of the multitude of Americans who served as
volunteers in these campaigns. They cannot be supposed to
have been tempted by the slender pay which they received :
for, their domestic affairs were, in all cases, of a nature to
suffer greatly by their absence : They could not be incited by
hopes of preferment, since the provincial forces were uniform
ly disbanded on a peace ; the provincial officers -no further
rewarded by commissions than the enlisting of men made it
necessary ; and the vacancies which occurred among the re
gulars, filled with Europeans : They were liable to perpetual
mortification by invidious distinctions in favour of the British
troops : they were penuriously praised when their prowess was
unquestionable, and outrageously censured when their conduct
gave the least opening to detraction. Under such circum
stances, there are no other motives to be assigned for their
self-devotion, except public spirit, — a sense of duty — a native
manliness of character. In truth, the colonists were unspar
ing of their resources and their blood, not merely from a belief
that the cause was their own, and from a resolution to protect
themselves to the utmost of their ability ; but as members of the
British empire, eager for its prosperity, and deeply interested
in all its concerns ; proud of their kindred and connection with
the British nation, and sympathetic in its prejudices and pas
sions. Whoever gives attention to the public papers of the
era ofthe seven years war, will be convinced, that they enter
ed into the rivalry between England and France, with the
keenness of the school of Pitt, and rejoiced in the success
of the British arms, not more as ministerial to their security,
than to the ascendency of the British power and the glory of
the British name.
10. At the peace of Paris, of 1763, England found herself
the acknowledged mistress of the whole continent of America
north of the Gulf of Mexico, and assured of a permanent naval
supremacy over the nations of Europe. It is a proposition
now hardly disputed, even as an exercise of ingenuity, that for
this vast extension of her power, and the triumph of her for
tunes over those of France, she was largely indebted to the
exiles who adhered to her dominion. Originally, they
had preserved the Atlantic territory from the occupation of
her enemies. No great sagacity is required to perceive, that
had the French settled and retained it, she must have fallen
into the secondary rank as a naval and commercial power.*
* " It appears," says Hutchinson, (vol. i. chap, i.) " that the Massachu
setts people took possession of the country at a very critical time. Richlieu,

134 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I.
What she became, she never could have become, without the
thirteen colonies ; and not unless they had become what their
industry, spirit, and intelligence, made them. Whatever obli
gations, then, she cau pretend, with any colour of plausibility
to have conferred, must fall far short of those which she re
ceived. Then- instrumentality in her elevation and the de
pression of her rival, manifestly overbalances even the degree
of protection which she herself claims to have extended. And
the duty of gratitude appears the more exigent, from the con
sideration of that British feeling, to which I have referred
in the preceding page, as the main spring of their prodigious
efforts in seconding all her aims.
It will seem scarcely credible, that the politicians of En
gland earnestly debated, during the negociations for the peace
of 1763, and while parliament was yet complimenting the co
lonies for their loyal sacrifices, whether Canada should not
be restored to the French, and the Island of Guadaloupe re
tained in preference. The odium of this controversy, which,
in its general purport, put out of question every claim and se
curity of their American brethren, and admitted of no calcu
lation but one of mere commercial profit and loss, was greatly
aggravated by the principal grounds of argument with some
of the most eminent writers of the day who embraced the
affirmative — " that the colonies were already large and nu
merous enough, and that the French ought to be left in North
America to prevent their increase, lest they should become not
only useless, but dangerous to Great Britain." It was in
sinuated," saysRussel,* " by some of our keen-sighted politi-

Richlieu, in all probability, would have planted his colony nearer the sun, if
he could have found any place vacant. De Monts and company had acquired
a thorough knowledge of all the coast, from Cape Sables beyond Cape Cod, in
1604 ; indeed it does not appear that they then went round or to the bottom of
Massachusetts Bay. Had they once gained footing there, they would have pre
vented the English . The Frenchified court of King Charles I. would, at the treaty
of St. Germain's, have given up any claim to Massachusetts Bay as readily as
they did to Acadie; for the French could make out no better title to Penobscot
and the other parts of Acadie, than they could to Massachusetts. The little
plantation at New Plymouth would have been no greater bar to the French in
one place than in the other. The Dutch, the next year, would have quietly
possessed themselves of Connecticut river, unless the French instead of the
English, had prevented them. Whether the people of either nation would have
persevered, is uncertain. If they had done it, the late contest for the dominion
of North,America would have been between France and Holland, and the com
merce of England would have borne a very different proportion to that of the
rest of Europe from what it does at present.''
* ModernJSurope, part ii. letter xxxv.

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 135
cians, that the security provided by the retention of Canada
for the English settlements in North America, as well as for
their extension in the cession of Florida by Spain, would prove
a source of new evils. It would embolden our old colonies
to shake off the controul of the mother country, since they no
longer stood in need of her protection, and erect themselves
into independent states." Franklin, who, at this period, as
agent of some of the provinces at tbe court of London, watch
ed paternally over the interests of the whole, found himself
under the necessity of combating these doctrines in an,elaborate
tract, which I have already noticed. The very existence of
the " Canada-Pamphlet" is an eternal reproach to Great Bri
tain ; and there is an increase of shame, from its being an ap
peal, not to her generosity or her justice, but to her separate
interests. Upon these, the sagacious author, deeming every
higher consideration, idle and misplaced, laid all stress; and
the same thing may be said of the British cabinet, on a refe
rence to the tenour of the discussions respecting the peace both
in and out of parliament. Amid the violent discontents which
the improvident treaty of Paris excited, consolation was found,
not, as some of her writers have gratuitously alledged in the
exemption of the colonies from the annoyance of a European
enemy, and their increased ability to overawe the savages, —
but in " the wide scope for projects of political ambition, and
the boundless field for speculations of commercial avidity,
which the undivided sovereignty ofthe vast continent of Ame
rica, with the exclusive enjoyment of its trade, seemed to open
to the British nation."* We may judge how the colonies
would have fared with the " tory counsels," to whose influence
the demerits of the peace were attributed, had not the retention
of Canada fallen within their selfish and corrupt views, when
we advert to the fact, that the execrable suggestion above
mentioned came from the whigs. To display it in its true light,
as well as to illustrate the temper of mind with which the great
champion of the colonies had to contend, I cannot do better
than quote his bold language on the point.
" But what is the prudent policy inculcated to obtain this
end — security of dominion over our colonies ? It is, to leave
the French in Canada to • check their growth; for otherwise,
our people may increase infinitely from all causes.' We have
already seen in what manner the French and their Indians
check the growth of our colonies. It is a modest word, this
check, for massacreing men, women, and children."
* Bussel, ibid.

136 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I.
" But if Canada is restored on this principle, will not Britain
be guilty of all the blood to be shed, all the murders to be
committed, in order to check this dreaded growth of our own
people ? Will not this be telling the French in plain terms,
that the horrid barbarities they perpetrated with Indians, on
our colonists, are agreeable to us, and that they need not ap
prehend the resentment of a government with whose views
they so happily concur ? Will not the colonies view it in this
light? Will they have reason to consider themselves any
longer as subjects and children, when they find their cruel
enemies hallooed upon them by the country from whence they
sprung ; the government that owes them protection, as it re-
Suires their obedience ? Is not this the most likely means of
riving them into the arms of the French, who can invite them
by an offer of security, their own government chooses not to
offer them?"
" If it be, after all, thought necessary to check the growth
of our colonies, give me leave to propose a method less cruel.
The method I mean, is that which was dictated by the Egyp
tian policy, when the ' infinite increase,' of the children of
Israel, was apprehended as dangerous to the state. Let an act
of parliament then be made, enjoining the colony midwives
to stifle in the birth every third or fourth child. By this means
you may keep the colonies to their present size."
11. 1 havemade no assertion in treating the topics upon which
I have enlarged so much, of the military merits of America,
and the nature of the protection extended to her by the mother
country, which it would not be in my power to vindicate by
British authority of the highest class. And I cannot refrain,
though it is done at the risk of fatiguing my readers by what
may have the air of repetition, from seeking in the records of
the British Parliament for a general confirmation of what I
have advanced, I find this, with every recommendation of un
questionable validity, and sententious eloquence, in a speech
of David Hartley, on the American question, delivered in the
House of Commons, in the year 1775. That gentleman long
held a conspicuous rank in Parliament ; lived in the closest
intimacy with the most eminent British statesmen of the time ;
concluded, as the minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain, the
definitive treaty of 1783, with the United States : and though a
zealous friend of justice and the injured colonies, established
with all parties at home, the character of a devoted patriot.
What follows from him will protect me from the charge of

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. ,137
national partiality in my representations, and serve me as a
useful recapitulation of facts.
Mr. Hartley said, —
" I would wish to state to the House, the merits of this
question of requisitions to the colonies, and to see upon what
principles it is founded ; to revise the accounts between Great
Britain and them. We hear of nothing now but the protec
tion we have given to them; ofthe immense expense incurred
on their account. We are told that they have done nothing
for themselves; that they pay no taxes ; in short, every thing
is asserted about America to serve the present turn, without
the least regard to truth. I would have these matters fairly
sifted out.
" To begin with the late war, — of '56. The Americans
turned the success ofthe war at both ends of the line. Gene
ral Monckton took Beausejour in Nova Scotia, with fifteen
hundred provincial troops, and about two hundred regulars.
Sir William Johnson, in the other part of America, changed
the face of the war to success, with a provincial army, which
took Baron Dieskau prisoner. But, Sir, the glories of the war
under the united British and American arms, are recent in
every one's memory. Suffice it to decide this question : that
the Americans bore, even in our judgment, more than their
full proportion; that this House did annually vote them an
acknowledgment of their zeal and strenuous efforts, and com
pensation for the excess of their zeal and expenses, above
their due proportion. They kept, one year with another,
twenty-five thousand men on foot, and lost in the war the
flower of their youth. How strange it must appear to them,
to hear of nothing down to the year 1763, but encomiums
upon their active zeal and strenuous efforts; and then, no
longer after than the year 1764, in such a trice of time, to see
the tide turn, and from that hour to this, to hear it asserted that
they were a burden upon the common cause ; asserted even in
that same parliament which had voted them compensations for
the liberality and excess of their service.
" Nor did they stint their services to North America. They
followed the British arms out of their continent to the Ha
vanna, and Martinique^ after thecomplete conquest of America.
And so they had done in the preceding war. They were not
grudging of their exertions — -they were at the siege of Car-
thagena: — yet, what was Carthagena to them, but as members
ofthe common cause, friends of the glory of this country !
VOL. i. s

138 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I.
In that war too, Sir, they took Louisbourg from the French,
single handed, without any European assistance; as mettled
an enterprize as any in our history ! an everlasting memorial
to the zeal, courage, and perseverance of the troops of New
England. The men themselves dragged the cannon over
morasses, which had always been thought impassable, where,
neither horses nor oxen could go, and they carried the shot
upon their backs. And what was their reward for this for
ward and spirited enterprise ; for the reduction of this Ame
rican Dunkirk? Their reward, Sir, you know very well — it
was given up for a barrier to the Dutch. The only conquest
in that war, which you had to give up, and which would have
been an effectual barrier to them against the French power in
America, though gained by themselves, was surrendered for
a foreign barrier. As a substitute for this, you settled Hali
fax for a. place d'armes, leaving the limits of the province of
Nova Scotia as a matter of contest with the French, which
could not fail to prove, as it did, the cause of another war.
Had you kept Louisbourg, instead of settling Halifax, the
Americans could say, at least, that there would not have been
that pretext for imputing the late war to their account. It
has been their forwardness in your cause, that made them the
objects of the French resentment. In the war of 1744, at
your requisition, they were the aggressors on the French in
America. We know the orders given to Mons. D'Anville, to
destroy and lay all their sea port towns in ashes, and we know
the cause of that resentment; it was to revenge their conquest
of Louisbourg., " Whenever Great Britain has declared war, they have
taken their part. They were engaged in king William's wars,
and queen Anne's, even in their infancy. They conquered
Acadia in the last century, for us ; and we then gave it up.
Again, in. queen Anne's war, they conquered Nova Scotia,
which, from that time, has always belonged to Great Britain.
They have been engaged in more than one expedition to Ca
nada, ever foremost to partake of honour and danger with the
mother country.
" Well, Sir, what have we done for them ? Have we con
quered the country for them from the Indians ? Have we
cleared it ? Have we drained it ? Have we made it habitable ?
What have we done for them ? I believe, precisely nothing at
all, but just keeping watch and ward over their trade, that
they should receive nothing but from ourselves, at our own
price. I will not positively say that we have spent nothing;
though I don't recollect any such article upon our journals:

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 139
but I mean any material expense in setting them out as colo
nists. The royal military government of Nova Scotia cost,
indeed, not a little sum ; above bOOfiOOl. for its plantation,
and its first years. Had your other colonies cost any thing
similar either in their outset or support, there would have been
something to say on that side ; but, instead of that, they have
been left to themselves for one hundred or one hundred and
fifty years, upon the fortune and capital of private adventur
ers, to encounter every difficulty and danger. What towns
have we built for them ? What desert have we cleared ? What
country have we conquered for them from the Indians? Name
the officers — name the troops — the expeditions — their dates.
Where are they to be found ? Not in the journals of this king
dom. They are no where to be found.
" In all the wars which have been common to us and them,
they have taken their full share. But in all their own dan
gers, in the difficulties belonging separately to their situation,
in all the Indian wars which did not immediately concern us,
we left them to themselves to struggle their way through.
For the whim of a minister, you can bestow half a million to
build a town, and to plant a royal colony of Nova Scotia ; a
greater sum than you have bestowed upon every other colony
together. " And notwithstanding all these, which are the real facts,
now that they have struggled through their difficulties, and
begin to hold up their heads, and to shew that empire which
promises to be the foremost in the world, we claim them and
theirs, as implicitly belonging to us, without any consideration
of their own rights. We charge them with ingratitude,
without the least regard to truth, just as if this kingdom had
for a century and a half, attended to no other object; as if all
our revenue, all our power, all our thought had been bestowed
upon them, and all our national debt had been contracted in
the Indian wars of America ; totally forgetting the subordina
tion in commerce and manufactures, in which we have bound
them, and for which, at least, we owe them help towards their
protection. "Look at the preamble of the act of navigation, and every
American act, and see if the interest of this country is not the
avowed object. If they make a hat or a piece of steel, an act
of parliament calls it a nuisance; a tilting hammer, a steel
furnace, must be abated in America as a nuisance. Sir, I
speak from facts. I call your books of statutes and journals
to witness. With the least recollection, every one must ac
knowledge the truth of these facts.

140 MILITARY EFFORTS [PART I,
M But it is said, the peace establishment of North America
has been, and is, very expensive to this country. Sir, for
what it has been, let us take the peace establishment before
1739, and after 1748. All that I can find in your journals is,
four companies kept up at New York, and three companies in
Carolina. As to the four companies at New York, this country
should know best why they put themselves to that expense, or
whether really they were at any expense at all ; for these were
companies of fictitious men. Unless the money was repaid
into the treasury, it was applied to some other purpose; these
companies was not a quarter full. In the year 1754, two of
them were sept up to Albany, to attend commissioners to treat
with the six nations, to impress them with a high idea of our
military power; to display all the pomp and circumstance of
war before them, in hopes to scare them ; when in truth, we
made a very ridiculous figure. The whole complement of two,
companies did not exceed thirty tattered, tottering invalids,
fitter to scare the crows. This information I have had from
eye witnesses.
" It has not fallen in my way to hear any account of the
three Carolina companies : These are trifles. The substantial
question is, — What material expense have you been at in the
periods alluded to, for the peace establishment of North Ame
rica? Ransack your journals, search your public offices for
army or ordnance expenses. Make out your bill, and let us
see what it is. No one yet knows it. Had there been any
such, I believe the administration would have produced it be
fore now, with aggravation.
" But is not the peace establishment of North America now
very high, and very expensive? I would answer that by
another question : Why should the peace establishment since
the late war, and the total expulsion of the French interest, be
higher than it was before the late war, and when the French
possessed above half the American continent ? If it be so,
there must be some singular reason.
" I cannot suppose that you mean under the general term of
North America, to saddle all the expenses of Canada, Nova
Scotia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Florida, and the West
Indies, upon the old colonies of North America. You cannot
mean to keep the sovereignty, the property, the possession
(these are the terms of the cession in the treaty of 1763) to
yourselves, and lay the expense of the military establishment,
which you think proper to keep up, upon the old colonies.
" Sir, the colonies never thought of interfering in the' pre
rogative of war or peace ; but if this nation can be so unjust

SECT. IV.] OF THE COLONISTS. 141
as to meditate the saddling the expense of your new conquests
separately upon them, they ought to have had a voice in set
tling the terms of peace. It is you, on this side of the water,
who have first brought out the idea of separate interests, by
planning separate and distinct charges. It was their men and
their money, which had conquered North America and the
West Indies, as well as yours, though you seized all the spoils;
but they tiever thought of dictating to you, what you should
keep, or what you should give up, little dreaming that you
reserved the expense of your military governments for them.
Who gave up the Havanna ? Who gave up Martinique? Who
gave up Guadaloupe, with Marigalante ? Who gave up Santa
Lucia? Who gave up the Newfoundland fishery? Who gave
up all these without their consent, without their participation;
without their consultation, and, after all, without equivalents ?
Sir, if your colonies had but been permitted to have gathered
up the crumbs which have fallen from your table, they would
gladly have supported the whole military establishment of
North America.
" Your colonies have now shown you the value of lands in
North America; and therefore you have vested in the crown
the sovereignty, property, and possession of infinite tracts of
land, perhaps as extensive as all Europe, which the crown
may dispose of at its own price, as the land rises in America,
and grants become invaluable ; and to enable the crown to sup
port an arbitrary, military government, till these lands rise to
their future immense value, you are casting about to saddle
the expense either upon the American or the British supplies.
" This country is very liberal in its boasting of its protec
tion and parental kindness to America. It is for that purpose
that we have converted the province of Canada into an abso
lute and military government, and have established there the
Romish church, so obnoxious to our'ancient, and Protestant
colonies. What security, what protection, do they derive? In
what sort are they the better for the conquest of the French
dominions, if we take that opportunity to establish a govern
ment, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, in the utmost degree
hostile to the government of our own provinces, and with the
intent to set a thorn in their sides? Is this affection and pa
rental kindness? Surely you do not expect that they should
be taxed and talliaged to pay for this rod of iron, which you
are preparing for them !
" Now, Sir, I come to a point, in which I think you may
be said to have given some protection, I mean the protection
of your fleet to the American commerce. And even here I

MILITARY EFFORTS, &C. [PART

am at a loss by what terms to call it ; whether you are pro
tecting yourselves or them. Theirs are your cargoes, your
manufactures, your commerce, your navigation. Every ship
from America is bound to Britain. None enter an American
port but British ships and men. While you are defending
the American commerce, you are defending Leeds and Ha
lifax, Sheffield and Birmingham, Manchester and Hull, Bristol
and Liverpool, London, Dublin, Glasgow. However, as our
fleet does protect whatever commerce belongs to them, let
that be set to the account. It is an argument to tbem as well
as to us. As it has been the sole policy of this kingdom, for
ages, by the operation of every commercial act of parliament,
to make the American commerce totally subservient to our
own convenience, the least that we owe to them in return is
protection."

143

SECTION V.

OF THE BENEFITS REAPED BY GREAT BRITAIN
FROM THE AMERICAN TRADE.
1. If so immense a gain, of which she retains a mighty
part in her actual North American possessions, accrued to
Great Britain from the military efforts of the thirteen colonies,
the advantages which she found in her commercial connexion
with them, were not less considerable. Before any thing had
been expended upon them, they began to enrich the treasury,
and feed the strength, of the mother country, by augmenting
her shipping, giving double activity to her trades and ma
nufactures, and even accelerating the increase of her popu
lation. These effects were quickly perceived and announced
by those of her earliest writers in political economy, to whom
she has assigned the first rank among their cotemporaries. To
begin with the testimony of Sir Josiah Child. " England has
constantly improved in people, since our settlement upon the
plantations of America. We are very great gainers by the
direct trade of New with Old England. Our yearly expor-
tations of English manufactures, malt and other goods from
hence thither, amounting, in my opinion, to ten times the
value of what is imported from thence, which calculation I do
not make at random, but upon mature consideration, and per-
adventure, upon as much experience in this trade, as any other
person will pretend to."* " The plantations," says Davenant,
" are a spring of wealth to this nation; they work for us, and
their treasure centres all here. It is better our islands should
be supplied from the northern colonies than from England —
the provisions to be sent to them would be the unimproved
product ofthe earth, whereas the goods which we send to the
northern colonies, are such whose improvement may be justly
said, one with another, to be near four fourths of the value of
the whole commodity ."f

* Discourse on Trade, chap. x.
T Discourse on Plantation Trade.

144. COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS, &C. [PART I.
"An immense wealth," says Gee,* " has accrued to us by
the labour and industry of those people that have settled in our
colonies. Of all the methods of enlarging our trade, was the
finding out of our plantations — the tobacco and sugar planta
tions were indeed the cause of increasing our shipping and
navigation. If we examine into the circumstances of the in
habitants of our plantations, it will appear that not one-fourth
part of their product redounds to their own profit. There are
very few trading or manufacturing towns in the kingdom, but
have some dependence on the plantation trade.
" New England and the northern colonies have not com
modities and products enough to send us in return for pur
chasing their necessary clothing, but are under very great
difficulties, and therefore any ordinary sort sells with them;
and when they are grown out of fashion with us, they are new
fashioned enough there; and therefore those places are the
great markets we have to dispose of such goods, which are
generally sent at the risk of the shopkeepers and traders of
England, who are the great exporters, and not the inhabitants
of the colonies, as some have imagined. As the colonies are
a market for those sort of goods, so they are a receptacle for
young merchants who have not stocks of their own ; and there
fore all our plantations are filled with such who receive the
consignments of their friends from hence; and when they
have got a sufficient stock to trade with, they generally return
home, and other young men take their places ; so that the con
tinual motion and intercourse our people have in the colonies
may be compared to bees of a hive, which go out empty, but
come back again loaded, by which means the foundation of
many families is laid. The numbers of sailors and other trades
men, who have all their dependence upon this traffic, are pro
digiously great. Our factors, who frequent the northern co
lonies, being under difficulties to make returns for such goods
as they dispose of, what gold, silver, logwood, and other com
modities they trade for upon the Spanish coast, is sent home
to. England; as also oil, whale:fins, and many other goods.
Likewise another great part in returns is made by ships, built
there, and disposed of in the Streights, and other parts of Eu
rope, and the money remitted to us."
" There is another advantage we receive from our planta
tions, which is hardly so much as thought on; L mean the
prodigious increase of our shipping, by the timber trade be
tween Portugal, &c. and our plantations, which ought to have
* On the Trade and Navigation of Great Britain, chap. xxxi.

SECT. V.] OF GREAT BRITAIN. 145
all possible encouragement; for by it we have crept into all
the corners of Europe, and become the common carriers in
the Mediterranean, as well as between the Mediterranean,
Holland, Hambro', and the Baltic, and this is the cause of so
great an addition to our shipping, and the reason why the
Dutch, &c. are so exceedingly sunk."
" We have a great many young men who are bred to the
sea, and have friends to support them; if they cannot get em
ployment at home, they go to New England, and the northern
colonies, with a cargo of goods, which they there sell at a
very great profit, and with the produce build a ship, and
purchase a loading of lumber, and sail for Portugal or the
Streights, &c. and after disposing of their cargoes there, fre
quently ply from port to port in the Mediterranean, till they
have cleared so much money as will in a good part pay for the
first cost of the cargo carried out by them, and then perhaps
sell their ships, come home, take up another cargo from their
employers, and so go back and build another ship; by this
means multitudes of seamen are brought up, and, upon a war,
the nation better provided with a greater number of sailors
than hath been heretofore known. Here the master becomes
merchant also, and many of them gain by this lumber-trade
great estates, and a vast treasure is thereby yearly brought into
the kingdom, in a way new and unknown to our forefathers,
for indeed it is gaining the timber trade, (heretofore carried
on by the Danes and Swedes,) our plantations being nearer
the markets of Portugal and Spain than they are."
The great productiveness of the colonies to the mother
country, thus recognized before the expiration, and at the be
ginning, of the eighteenth century, increased in a geometrical
progression from that period, and drew equally pointed ac
knowledgments from later writers. In the year 1728, Sir
William Keith, a man of superior sagacity, who had occupied
the station of governor of Pennsylvania, and investigated per
sonally and in complete detail, the commercial relations of
North America with the other parts of the British empire,
submitted to the British government a very able discourse on
the subject*, in which he presented the following summary
of what he styled " the principal benefits then arising to Great
Britain from the trade of the colonies."
" 1. The colonies take off and consume above one-sixth
part of the woollen manufactures exported from Great Britain;
• See the whole of this curious and interesting paper, in Burke's History
of Virginia, vol. ii. chap. ii.
Vol. I.— T

•3

a

1*6 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [l*AKT I.
which is the chief staple of Erigland, and the main suppbft of
the landed, interest.
" 2. They take off and consume more than double that
value in linen and call icOes, which are partly the product of
Britain arid Ireland, and partly the profitable returns made for
that product when carried to foreign countries.
" 3. The luxury of the colonies, which increases daily, con
sumes great quantities of English manufactured silks, haber
dashery, household furniture, and trinkets of all sorts, as also
a Very considerable value in East India goods.
" 4. A great r&Veriiie is raised to the crown of Britain by
returns made iri the produce of the plantations, especially to
bacco; which at the sarhe time helps England to bring nearer
to a balance hef unprofitable trade tvith France.
" 5, These colonies promote the interest and trade of Bri
tain, by a vast increase Of shipping arid seamen, which enables
them id carry great quantities of fish to Spain, Portugal, Leg
horn, be. ; furs, logwood, and rice, to Holland, where they
keep Great Britaih considerably iri the balance of trade with
those countries.
" 6. If reasonably encouraged, the colonies are now in a
condition to furnish Britain with as much of the following
commodities as it. can demand, viz. masting for the navy arid
all sorts of tirriber, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, oil, rosin, copper
ore, With p'ig arid bar iron; by ineahs whereof the balance "of
trade to Russia and the Baltic may be very much reduced in
favour of Great Britain.
" 7. The profits arising to all those colonies by trade, are
returned in bullion, or rather useful effects, to Great Britain;
where the superfluous 'ca$h,', and other riches,, acquired in
America, must centre; which is* riot one of the least, securities
that Britain has, to keep the colonies always indue subjection.
" 8. Tlie colonies upon the main are the granary of Ame':
ried, and a necessary support to the sugar plantations iri the
West Indies, which could not subsist without them."
To exemplify further the nature pf this commercial ihter-
Surse for Great Britain, I will quote the case of Virginia and
aryland, as Macpherson represents it, for the year 1731,
from the best authorities of that day.*
"Virginia and Maryland are most valuable acquisitions, to
Britain, as well for their great staple commodity, tobacco, as
for pitch, tar, furs, deer skins, walnut-tree planks, iron in pigs;
and medicinal drugs. Both together send annually fo Great
* Annals of Commerce, vol. Hi.

SECT. V.l OF GREAT BRITAIN. 147
Britain, SQfiOQ hogsheads pf tobacco, weighing, ope \jrith
another, $00 pounds weight, which at 9.\d. per pound, comes
tp 375,000/. And the shipping employed to bring home their
fobacco, must be at least 24,000 tons; which at 10/. per ton,
ts 240,000/. the value pf the shipping; the greatest part
thereof by far being English-built, continually and constantly
fitted arid repaired in. England. The freight, at 1/. 10,?. per
hogshead', (thelovy est,) is 90,000/.; and the petty charges and
commission, on each hogshead, not less than 11. or 60,000/.;
which, making together 150,000/., we undoubtedly repejwe
from those two provinces upon tobacco only. The net pro
ceeds of the tobacco may be 225,000/., on which there may
be about five per cent, commission arid petty charges, being
11,950/. There is also imported in the tobacco ships from.
those two provinces, lumber, to the value' of 15,000/., tvvq-
thirds whereof is clear gain, it not costing 4,000/. in that
country, first cost in goods; and as it is the master's privilege,
there is no freight paid for it. Skins and furs, about ,6,QQ0/.
value; 4,00.0/. of which is actual gain to England. Sp the
whole gain tp England amounts to about 180,000/. annually :
ancf morepyer the whple produce of tjiejse tvyo provinces is pajd
for in goods."
Postfethwayt, who published his Universal Dictionary of
Trade in the middle of the last century,, blears a most emphatic
general testimony, " Our trade and navigation," says this
erudite merchant, "are greatly increased by ourcolpnies; they
are a sour.ce of treasure and naval power to this kingdom.
Before their settlements, . our manufactures were few, arid
those but indifferent— the number of English merchants very
small, and the whole shipping pf the natiqn much inferior to
what now belongs to the northern colonies only. These are
certain facts. But sin.ce their .establis.hinent, pur situation has
altered for the better almost to a degree beyond credibility.
Our manufactures are prodigiously increased,— chiefly by the
demand for them in the plantations, where they at least take
off one-half, and supply us with many valuable cqmmpdities
for exportation, which is as great an emolument to the mother
kingdom as to thp plantations themselves," &c.
The North American export trade of Great Britain amount
ed, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, to something
less t(ha,n four hundred thousand pounds sterling ; then no in-
cpns^erabje portion of her whole exports. It had attained
before the separation — to three millions and a half sterling,
pearly one-fourth of her whole cotemporaneous export trade,
the product of centuries, pf intercourse with all the world.

148 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [PART I.
The particular instance of the Pensylvania trade furnished an
illustration of the general increase, which struck the British
statesmen with admiration. In the year 1704, that province
consumed only 11,459/. in value of foreign commodities: in
1772, fifty times as much ; in this last year the export to it
from Great Britain was upwards of half a million sterling.
The exports to the North American colonies alone, exclud
ing the portion of the African trade to be set down to their
account, was one million on an average, from 1739 to 1756—
two million three hundred thousand from 1756 to 1773 — three
millions and an half on a medium of the years 1771, 1772,
1773. The proportion of British goods to foreign goods ex
ported to North America, was of three-fourths British and
one- fourth foreign; whereas to the West Indies, it was of two-
thirds British and one-third foreign.
The foreign and circuitous trade of the northern colonies,
which was prosecuted only by a necessary relaxation, or by an
evasion ofthe navigation act, redounded equally to the profit
of the mother country. It enabled the colonies to pay, and
consequently led them to call, for a greater quantity of her
manufactures. It is thus fully and accurately described in the
third volume of Macpherson's Annals. " The old northern
colonies in America, it is well known, had very few articles
fit for the British market; and yet they every year took
off large quantities of merchandise from Great Britain, for
which they made payments with tolerable regularity. Though
they could not, like the Spanish colonists, dig the money out
of their own soil, they found means to make a great part of
their remittances in gold and silver dug out of the Spanish
mines. This they effected by being great carriers, and by a
circuitous commerce, carried on in small vessels, chiefly with
the foreign West India settlements, to which they took lum
ber of all sorts, fish of an inferior quality, beef, pork, butter,
horses, poultry, and other live stock; an inferior kind of to
bacco, corn, flour, bread, cyder, and even apples, cabbages,
and onions, &c.; and also vessels, built at a small expense, the
materials being almost all within themselves; for which they
received in return mostly silver and gold, some of which re
mained as current coin among themselves; but the greatest
part was remitted home to Britain, and together with bills of
exchange, generally remitted to London for the proceeds of
their best fish, sold in the Roman Catholic countries of Europe,
served to pay for the goods they received from the mother
country. This trade united all the advantages, which the
wisest and most philanthropic philosopher, or the most en»

SECT. V.] OF GREAT BRITAIN. 149
lightened legislator, could wish to derive from commerce. It
gave bread to the industrious in North America, by carrying
off their lumber, which must otherwise rot on their hands, and
their fish, great part of which, without it would be absolutely
unsaleable, together with their spare produce and stock of
every kind ; it furnished the West India planters with those
articles, without which the operations of their plantations must
be at a stand ; and it produced a fund for employing a great
number of industrious manufacturers in Great Britain ; thus
taking off the superfluities, providing for the necessities, and
promoting the happiness of all concerned."
Lord Sheffield even makes the acknowledgment, that, by
this circuitous commerce, they must, in the interval between the
years 1700 and 1773, have obtained from other countries, and
remitted to Great Britain, upwards of thirty millions sterling, in
payment of goods taken from her, oner and above the amount of
all their produce and fisheries remitted directly*. Mr. Glover,
in the beautiful speech which he delivered at the bar of the
House of Commons, in 1775, respecting the American trade,
presented, among many striking views of its productiveness to
Great Britain, the following: " Though I am convinced, that
thesame numberof hands at least is devoted to agriculture here,
and that the earth, at a medium of years, hath yielded the same
increase; as we have been disposed to consume it all among
ourselves, or as our presumption may impute the scarcity to
Providence, restraining the fertility of our soil for ten years
past, in either case we could not spare, as heretofore, our
grain to the foreigner ; a reduction in our exports, one year
with another, of more than 600,000/. The American subjects
took place of the British in markets we could no longer sup
ply; extended their vent from season to season, and from port
to port, and by a circuition of fresh money, thus acquired by
themselves, added fresh numbers to your manufactures; the
rents of land increasing at the same time, till the amount of
exports to North America for the last three years, ending at
Christmas, 1773, stands upon your papers at ten millions and
a half, or three millions and a half at the annual medium."
" One part of our export to foreigners is supplied by colony
produce, tobacco, rice, sugar, &c. through Great Britain, for a
million sterling at a low estimation. There is a known export
of linen, exceeding 2:00,000/., supplied by North Britain to
England for American use. The North British colony-export
in addition, is about 400,000/.', by far the greater part to the
" Observations on the Commerce ofthe American States, 1784.

Jj5P COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS JYARII.
fpbaccp provinces. The whole may be a little short pf
700,000/. The kingdom of 'Ireland takes from England little
short of 2,400,000/. annually in goods. How doth she pay
for them ? A large part in linen and yarn ; the remainder in
cash, acquired by her foreign traffic. In the printed report tp
this House, from their linen committee, it appears, that, in
J771, the linen made, and brought to market for sale in that
kingdom, for its own use and burs, amounted to 2,150,000/.,
and the yarn exported to about ^00,000/. This immense va-:
lue, the employment of such numbers, hath its source in North
America. The flax seed from thence, not worth 40,000/., a
trifle to that continent, forms the basis of Ireland, and reverts
largely in manufacture from her to the original seat of growtli,
In reply, what is the cry of my magnanimous countrymen
without doors ? Dignity! Supremacy ! &c. Upon the North
American imports I shall only remark, that the most consider
able part of their bulky productions is bought by the foreigner,
and of the amount consumed in G^at Britain, the exchequer
liath a capital sharp." Y
5J. In the calculation which Mi'- Burke presented to the
House of Commons, in his speech on thp Conciliation with
America, he included the export trade pf Great Britain to the
West Indies, upon the grpund that this trade and the North
A.meri,can jvere so interwoven, that the, attempt to separate
theni would |ear to pieces the contextjire ofthe whole, and if
pot entirely destroy, very much depreciate the value of all
|hp p'arts. Th,e observation was eminently just, as nothing
can be more certain, than that the prosperity of the West
Indies yvpuld have been infinitely less, without their trade with
the North American colonies. It was by this means that they
were enabled to yield those ample benefits which Great Bri
tain derived from them, in the great consumption and in
crease of her manufactures ; in the employment and increase
of her shipping and sailors; in the enrichment pf individuals ;
and in the abundance of the valuable produce poured into
her Jap. Great as these benefits were, they fell, however, far
sh,prt of those pf the same kind, which accrued to her directly
from the North American colonies. For five years, from 1754
tp 1758, inclusive, her exports to the latter, were, in the total,
near eight millions sterling; to the West Indies, not four mil
lions; and in the course of the term just mentioned, the in
crease pf export tp the northern colonies, was almost four
millions; whereas that to the West Indies, did not amount to
half a million.

SECT. V.j OP GREAT BRITAIN. \$\
The value of the provisions sent from Great Britain fo the
West India islands was trifling. They were furnished with the
necessaries of life by fhe North American colonies, and gene
rally at about half the price at which they could have been
supplied from Great Britain. We are told by Dr. Davenant, iri
his Discburse on the Plantation Trade, that, " before the peribd
at which he wrote (1698,) so little care was taken for the Con
voys which were to protect the supplies of provisions for the
West India Islands, they must, many times, have perished for
want, if they had not been supplied by the northern colonies."
The mother country was, indeed, for the most, uriible to
supply them at all, and occasionally indebted to the same source
as her islands, for the vital sustenance. " Our harvests," says
an dble English writer,* " in a series of years were not suffi
ciently productive to afford support to the people; whilst;
America was blessed with abundance, and like another Egypt
to another 'Canaan, relieved us frorh the apprehension of a
want, of food, ,and from the danger of popular cotrirhbtions, to
obtain by force what the poor were not able to procure by pur
chase. Such was the scarcity pf cofri in this country, at flip
beriod preceding the American waf,' that even the immense
iihportations from thence proved no more thari a bare supply."
. To this state of things Mr. Burke thus eloquently alludes",
in tihe speech fnentioried above. " For some time past the
Old World has been fed from the New. The scarcity which
you have felt, would have been a desolating famine, if this
child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman
fcharity, had not put the full breast Pf its youthful exuberance
to the mouth of its exhausted parent."

* Richard Ghampioh; Esq. deputy pay master general of his Britannic
Majesty's forces, (1784), in his reply to Lord Sheffield's pamphlet. On the
head of the provision for the West Indies, the same enlightened economist
makes the following remarks. " It has been asked by the noble lord, how
did the West India colonies subsist during the war, When even Canada and
Nova Scotia, any more than England, were not open to them, without great
expense and riSque ?" Td this question, it is to be answered, that the greater
;part of the Windward and Leeward Islands were in possession of the
French ; and the three which remained in our hands, were frequently reduced
to great distress. The planters in some of them compromised the labour df
their slaves fof a slender daily food. The situation of Bermuda was so deplor
able, that some of the poorest inhabitants were actually famished ; and it was
owing to the humanity of tlie Americans who suffered them, upon their appli
cation, to supply themsettes with provisions from their states, (from Dela
ware and Connecticut in particular,) that the whole people did not perish for
want."

152 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [PART I.
Besides provisions, supplies of other kinds, which might be
also said to have been indispensable, and unattainable from any
other quarter, were carried to the West Indies by the North
American colonies. We are told by the English writers, that
not less than one hundred thousand casks and puncheons were,
in a year, made in Jamaica, from American staves and head
ing; that the different towns and the buildings in most of the
settlements upon the sea coast of that island, were constructed
with timber imported from America, and that the same use
of thosp articles, — many of them in a greater proportion,—
prevailed in the other sugar islands. Bryan Edwards* esti
mated the whole value of the American commodities im
ported into them annually, at seven hundred and fifty thousand
pounds sterling. The Americans received West India pro
duce in barter, to the amount of about two-thirds, and the
excess of one-third found its way to England for the purchase
or payment of goods. Sugar to a great amount, and a vast
quantity of rum, saleable at no other than the American mar
ket, were among the chief articles taken in return. Some
short extracts from the testimony which the West India mer
chants gave at the bar of the House of Commons in 1775,
will exhibit this intercourse with more minuteness, and au
thority. " North America is truly the granary of the West Indies;
from thence they draw the great quantities of flour and bis
cuit, for the use of one class of people, and of Indian corn,
for the support of all the others ; for the support not of man
only, but of every animal; for the use of man, horses, swine,
sheep, poultry. North America also furnishes the "West In
dies with rice. Rice, a more expensive diet, and less capa
ble of sustaining the body under hard labour, is a more
limited consumption, but it is a necessary indulgence for the
young, the sick, the weakly, amongst the common people, and
the negroes. North America not only furnishes the West
Indies with bread, but with meat, with sheep, poultry, and
some live cattle; but the demand for these is infinitely short of
the demand for the salted beef, pork, and fish. Salted fish
(if the expression may be permitted in contrast with bread,)
is the meat of all the lower ranks of people in Barbadoes, and
the Leeward Islands. It is the meat of all the slaves in the
West Indies. Nor is it disdained by persons of better condi
tion. The North American navigation also furnishes the

Thoughts on the Connexion between America and the West Indies.

SECT. V.'J OF GREAT BRITAIN. 153
sugar colonies with salt from Turk's Island, Sal Tortuga, and
Anguilla, although these islands are themselves a part of the
West Indies. The testimony which some experience has en
abled me to bear, you will find confirmed by official accounts.
" For almost every purpose of the carpenter and the cooper,
it is the lumber of North America that is used. The part
which is furnished by the middle colonies of North America,
is out of all proportion to the others. Without lumber to re
pair the buildings they run immediately to decay. And with
out lumber for the proper packages for sugar, and to contain
rum, they cannot be sold at market ; they cannot even, be kept
at home.
" As to rum, the dependence of all the islands, except
Jamaica, is as great upon the middle colonies of North Ame
rica, for the consumption of their rum, as it is for subsistence
and for lumber. The rum of Barbadoes, the Leeward Islands,
and the government of Granada, does not come into England,
except in small portions. It goes in part to Ireland ; and all
the rest, the great quantity, is distributed chiefly among the
middle colonies of North America, agreeable to the law of re
ciprocal exchange."
4. The mother country was benefited in her eastern empire,
by the great consumption of tea in North America. Our ad
vocates in England, during the disputes which immediately
preceded the rupture, alledged that her usual annual demand
had amounted to 600,000/. sterling, besides great sums for
piece-goods and china ware. It is suggested in Macpherson's
Annals of Commerce,* that there was probably, some exag
geration in this statement ; but admitting the amount to have
been less, it must still have formed an important contribution
to the funds of the East India Company.
Of the vast quantities of lumber imported by Great Britain
and Ireland, no inconsiderable part was drawn from the middle
colonies of North America. The trade arising out of the cod
fishery, furnished near one half of the remittances from the
New England provinces to the mother country. The produce
of their cod fishery was divided into two-fifths of salted
fish for the, European market, and three-fifths for the West
India market, and the amount of sales in the European con
tinental markets, went to Great Britain in payment of goods
purchased there. The spermaceti, whale oil, and whale bone,
proceeding from the whale fishery, as well as the greater
* Vol. iii. p. 545.
Vol. I.— U

154 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS {PART I.
part of the cod oil, were sent to Great Britain, and ministered
essentially to her manufactures. According to the state
ments made in 1775, by the merchants engaged in the Ame
rican trade, to the House of Commons, the fishery generally,
and carrying the fish to market from New England, employed
at that period about fourteen hundred and fifty vessels, of one
hundred thousand tons burthen, and eleven thousand fishermen
and seamen.
The growth and extent of the American fisheries are thus
exhibited by Seybert in his Statistics. " In 1670, the cod
fishery was commenced by the people in New England ; such
was their application, that in 1675, they had in this employ
ment six hundred and sixty-five vessels, which measured
25,650 tons, and navigated by 4,405 seamen ; at that early
period, they caught at the rate of from 350,000 to 400,000
quintals of fish per annum. In 1715, our fishermen first pur
sued the whale. The fish then known as the Greenland
whale, frequented our northern coasts; in a Very short time,
the activity and success of the colonists in taking them, forced
them into more southern latitudes, where the intruders were
followed by the harpoons of their former enemies ; they were
chased off the Azores, along the coast of Africa and Brazil,
to the remote regions of Falkland's Island. The discovery
of a new species of whale was the consequence of this ex
tensive and perilous circumnavigation ; the new fish was found
to be more valuable than that on our northern coasts; to it
they gave the name of the spermaceti whale.
" In 1771, the Americans employed one hundred and eighty-
three vessels, measuring 13,820 tons, in the northern ; and
one hundred and twenty-one vessels, measuring 14,020 tons,
in the southern whale fishery; these vessels gave employment
to 4,059 seamen. From 1771 to 1775, Massachusetts em
ployed annually one hundred and eighty-three vessels, of
13,120 tons, in the northern whale fishery, and one hundred
and twenty-one vessels, of 14,026 tons, in the southern ; na
vigated by 4,059 seamen.
" Before the revolutionary war, the small island of Nan
tucket had sixty-five ships, of 4,875 tons, annually employed
in the northern; and eighty five ships, of 10,200 tons, in, the
southern fishery.*
# Feb. 9, 1778, on the examination of witnesses at the bar of Parliament,
respecting the commercial losses by the war with America — "Mr. George
Davis averred that he had been 26 years concerned jn the whale and cod
fishery; in respect to the former, he tried to take whales with men from
England, but though they could strike them, and had struck several of late,
he had not as yet taken one," &c.

SECT. V.} OF GREAT BRITAIN. 155
The fact is not a little significative, that for the encourage
ment of the British fisheries separately, oil and whale fins,
taken in ships belonging to Great Britain, were allowed to be
imported in her vessels, duty free; while a duty was im
posed on the importation of the same articles, taken or im
ported in vessels belonging to the plantations. Few of my
readers can be strangers to the splendid panegyric of Burke
upon the unparalleled industry and hardihood displayed by
New England in'the pursuit of the whale. It may not be un
seasonable to recall the rebuke addressed to tbe British Par
liament, with which he prefaced it, as well as the merit which
he commemorated. " As to the wealth which the colonies
have drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that
, matter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those
acquisitions of value, since they seemed even to excite your
envy; and yet the spirit by which that enterprising employ
ment has been exercised, ought rather, in my opinion, to have
raised your admiration. What in the world is equal to
it?" &c.
5. So considerable a trade as that between the colonies
and the rest of the British empire produced a correspondent
increase of shipping. The one hundred thousand hogsheads
of tobacco, and the sixty thousand barrels of rice,* annu
ally imported into Great Britain, employed in the trans
portation, seventy thousand tons of shipping, almost wholly
belonging to Great Britain. Altogether, one thousand and
seventy-eight ships, and twenty-eight thousand nine hun
dred and ten seamen, were engaged in the American trade.
The building of ships for sale formed a material branch of
the industry of the northern and middle colonies, and was
brought to great perfection, particularly at Philadelphia.
They supplied the mother country withconsideiable numbers,
at prices much inferior to the standard rate of her cheapest
ports. She found an important advantage in this supply,-- in
as much as it was necessary to the support of her carrying
* By the act of 3 Geo. 11. c. 28. all rice was, for the second time, de
clared to be among the enumerated commodities, which were to pay a tax on
being transported from colony to colony, and who could not be carried di
rectly to any foreign market. This act established, however, an exception
to the general rule; and allowed that " any of his majesty's subjects, in any
ship or vessel built in Great Britain, or belonging to any of his majesty's
subjects residiug in Great Britain, navigated according to law, and having
cleared outward in any port of Great Britain for the province of Carolina,
may ship rice in the same province, and cany the same directly to any part
of Europe, to the southward of Cape Finisterre."

156 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [PART I.
trade, which, to use the language of her writers, " attained
to an amazing height by the aid of her colonies." She was
unable to provide enough of ships of her own construction to
answer her purposes; and this is attested by the fact, that in
the course of the revolutionary war, when America ceased to
be the provider, the foreign shipping employed in her com
merce, which before had borne the proportion of twelve to
forty, rose to that of twenty-nine to thirty-five. Of the ship
ping employed in the commerce of Great Britain, 398,000 tons
were of the built of America. Accordmg to Dr. Seybert's
Statistics, the proportion of the tonnage employed in the com
merce of the colonies and Great Britain, owned by the inha
bitants of Great Britain, amounted to about three and two-
third eighths; the proportion which belonged to British mer
chants, occasionally resident in those colonies, was about two-
eighths, making together nearly six-eighths ofthe whole, and
the proportion of the tonnage so employed, which belonged
to merchants, who were natives and permanent inhabitants of
those colonies, was rather more than two and one-third. eighths
of tbe v£hole.
Of the tonnage employed in the trade of the colonies with
the British West Indies, five-eighths belonged to merchants,
who were permanent inhabitants of those colonies, and three-
eighths to British merchants, who resided occasionally in the
colonies. None of the colonies to the north of Maryland ever had
a balance in their favour in the trade with the mother
country; but always, on the contrary, a large balance against
them. The exports of all the colonies, for the year 1770,
amounted at least to ,tbree millions sterling;* the whole of
which may be said to have turned to her account. What she
did not consume herself of their productions, she received as
the entrepot for Europe, to the great inconvenience and loss
of the American owner; and the proceeds of that proportion
of them— -one-sixth only — which went directly from America
to continental Europe, were invested in her manufactures. I
do not think it necessary to mark the particular utility of tbe
several articles which she consumed, and will content myself
on this head, with repeating after Mr. Burke, " If I were to
detail the imports of England from North America, I could
* 1' An estimate was made this year," ( 17(59) says Macpherson, (Annals,
vol. iii. p. 493,) '¦' of the trade of the North American Provinces, including
Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland: and the exports from Great Britain, are
made to amouut to 3,370,900/. and the exports from the colonies to
8,924,026/." &-C.

SECT. V.J OF GREAT BRITAIN. 157
show how many enjoyments they procured, which deceive the
burden of life; how many materials which invigorated the
springs of national industry, and extended and animated every
part of British'foreign and domestic commerce." With respect
to the trade with the Indians in America, that was wholly on
account of Great Britain. Dr. Franklin stated, in his exami
nation before the House of Commons, what could not be de
nied, — that this trade " though carried on in America was not
an American interest; that the people of America were chiefly
farmers and planters, and scarce any thing which they raised
or produced was an article of commerce with the Indians; that
the Indian trade was a British interest; was carried on with
British manufactures for the profit of British merchants and
manufacturers." Connected with this head of the trade between the colonies
and the mother country, there is one accusation often repeated
against the former, on which I would say a few words: I allude
to their pretended backwardness in paying their debts to the
British merchants. This accusation was abundantly refuted
by the British merchants and manufacturers themselves; who
bore emphatic testimony at the bar of the House of Commons,
in 1775, of the fair dealing and good faith of their American
customers. It is, moreover, rendered highly improbable, by
the fact, that, although six millions sterling were owing the
latter, in December, 1774, yet in December; 1775, two mil
lions only remained to be paid; four millions having been re
mitted, even when a separation seemed inevitable*. It is
true, that at an earlier period, some few British traders had
complained ofthe laws in force in the plantations, for the re
covery of debts, and that parliament had, in consequence,
passed a tyrannical billf, which altered the nature of evidence
in their courts of common law, and the nature of their estates,
by treating real estates as chattels. To facilitate the proof
and recovery of debts, it enacted, that an affidavit taken be
fore the mayor, or other chief magistrate of any town in Eng
land, and properly authenticated, should be received as legal
evidence in all the courts of the plantations, and have the
same force and effect as the personal oath of the plaintiff
made there in open court; and that lands, houses, negroes, and
all real estate whatsoever, should be liable to, and chargeable
with all debts due either to the king, or any of his subjects,
and be assets for the satisfaction thereof, &c.

* Champion, p. 269. f 5 Geo. II. c. 7.

158 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [PART I.
6. Om this subject ofthe trade of America with the mother
country, it would have beem almost enough to have cited the
testimony borne by Mr. Burke and Lord Chatham. The fol
lowing passage of the. speech of the former on the Concilia
tion with America, arose immediately out of his consideration
ofthe custom house returns, and of the evidence of notorious
facts. " The trade with America alone is now withim less
than 500,000/. of being equal to what this great commercial
nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century
with the whole world ! If I had taken the largest year of
those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it
will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protube
rance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body?
The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished every other
part into its present magnitude. Our general trade has been
greatly augmented ; and augmented, more or less, in almost every
part to which it ever extended; but with this material difference,
that of the six millions which, in the beginning of the century,
constituted the whole mass of our export commerce, the colony
trade was but one-twelfth part; it is now (as a part of sixteen
millions) considerably more than a third of the whole."
There is something still more direct and conclusive in the
language of Chatham. He spoke with all the authority which
official station could possibly give in any matter. " When I
had the honour of serving his majesty, I availed myself," said
this illustrious statesman, in one ef his speeches against Gren-
ville's scheme of taxation, " of the means of information which
I derived from my office; I speak therefore from knowledge.
My materials were good. I was at pains to collect, to digest,
to consider them ; and I will be bold to affirm, that tbe profit
to Great Britain, from the trade of the colonies, through all its
branches, is two millions a year. This i"S the fund that carried
you triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were
rented at two thousand pounds a year, three score years ago,
are three thousand pounds at present. Those estates sold
then from fifteen to eighteen years purchase; the same may
now be sold for thirty. You owe this to America. This is
the price America pays you for her protection.1'
The, quotations which I have made from Adam Smith, in
the first section, develop the nature of the commercial re
straint under which the colonies existed. It was, in the
theory, a condition of rigorous servitude. They could im-
• port no^commodity, — with the exception of a few articles, —
qj[ the. growth or manufacture of Europe, but through Great
Britain; they .were allowed a direct foreign trade, only so far

SECT. V.] OF GREAT BRITAIN. 159
as was required by her interests. " The policy of Great Bri
tain," said Mr. Burke, addressing the House of Commons,
" was, from the beginning, the system of a mouoply. No
trade was let loose from that constraint, but merely to enable
the colonists to dispose of what, in the course of your trade,
you could not take; or. to enable them to dispose of such arti
cles as we forced upon them, and, for which, without some
degree of liberty, they could not pay. Hence all your specific
and detailed enumerations; hence the innumerable checks and
counterchecks; hence that infinite variety of paper chains by
which you bind together this complicated system of the colo
nies. This principle of commercial monopoly runs through no
less than twenty-nine acts of parliament, from the year 1660
to the unfortunate period of 1764."*
The celebrated navigation act of 12 Car. II. not only pre
scribed in what vessels, and to what places, the goGds of the
colonies might be exported, but it limited one of their internal
rights; it prescribed what persons might act as merchants or
factors, in the colonies. Three years afterwards, the Parlia
ment passed another bill, " to maintain," as they expressed
themselves, " a greater correspondence and kindness between
the colonies and England ; to keep them in a firmer depend
ence on it; to make the kingdom a staple, not only of the
commodities of tbe plantations, but also of the commodities
of other countries for supplying them." This act (15 Car. ii.
c. 7.) directed accordingly, that no European goods should be
imported into the plantations, but as such should be shipped
in England, and proceed directly on board English or planta
tion ships, &c. The penalty was forfeiture of the goods and
vessel ; one-third to the king, one to the governor of the plan
tation, if the seizure were made there, and one-third to the in
former. And to facilitate the recovery of the penalties, the
informer had his option of suing either in the king's courts,
where the offence was committed, or in any court of record in
England. Many of the articles which the colonies were compelled to
buy of the mother country, could have been procured at a
much cheaper rate elsewhere. She could charge her manu
factures with what imposts she pleased, and the burden fell
ultimately upon the American consumer. It was stated to her
ministers, by the agents of the colonies, that from the extra
ordinary demand in America, for her fabrics, she reaped an
advantage of at least twenty per cent, in the price,' beyond
* Speech on American taxation.

160 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [PART I.
what the articles could be purchased for at foreign markets.
The forced accumulation of American produce in her ports,
reduced its price, by which she gained, on what she consumed,
exactly in proportion to the loss of the colonists. The profit
accruing to her from the portion re-exported, was obviously
considerable. Taking Off, as the colonies did in the latter
years of their dependence, two millions annually of her manu
factures, and depositing with her, compulsorily, produce nearly
to the same amount, it must be sufficiently clear, when the
other circumstances just stated, are kept in view, that they
paid an enormous indirect tax, independently of the charges
to which they were liable, as a consequence of her European
quarrels. Happily their domestic governments, cast in the
simplest mould, and unincumbered with pageantry or surplus
age of any kind, subjected them to no heavy expense. " All
the different civil establishments in North America," said
Adam Smith, " exclusive of those of Maryland and North
Carolina, did not, before their revolt, cost the inhabitants
above 64,700/. a year; an ever memorable example at how
small an expense three millions of people may not only be
governed, but well governed."*
What has been said conveys an adequate idea of the situa
tion in which the North American colonies were placed as to
trade, but I wish to offer something more in illustration ofthe
precipitation and levity, with which their interests, and the
true interests of the mother country at the same time, were sa
crificed, under the influence of an undistinguishing selfishness,
I may quote as of perfect accuracy, since no British writer
ventured to contradict them, the following statements which
Franklin published in London, in 176S.
" They (the colonies,) reflected how lightly the interest of
all America had been estimated here, when the interests of a
few of the inhabitants of Great Britain happened to have the
smallest competition with it. That the whole American
people was forbidden the advantage of a direct importation of
wine, oil, and fruit, from Portugal ; but must take them loaded
with all the expense of a voyage, one thousand leagues round
about, being to be landed first in England, to be re-shipped
for America; expenses, amounting in war time at least to
thirty pounds per cent, more than otherwise they would have

_ * W. of N. c. vii. b. iv. It bespeaks an extraordinary share of political
virtue in the colonists, to have resisted, as they did, during so long and close
a connexion, the example of the mother country, on the score of public ex
penditure and aristocratical distinctions.

SECT. V.] OP GREAT BRITAIN. l6l
been charged with ; and all this merely, that a few Portugal
merchants in London may gain a commission on those goods
passing through their hands.
" On a slight complaint of a few merchants trading with
Virginia, nine colonies were restrained from making paper
money, become absolutely necessary to their internal com
merce, from the constant remittance of their gold and silver
to Britain. But not only the interest of a particular body of
merchants, but the interest of any small body of British trades
men or artificers, has been found to outweigh that of all the
king's subjects in the colonies.
" Iron is to be found every where in America, and beaver
is the natural produce of that country: hats and nails and
steel are wanted there as well as here. It is of no importance
to the common welfare of the empire, whether a subject of the
king gets his living by making hats on this or that side of
the water. Yet the hatters of England have prevailed to ob
tain an act. in their own favour, restraining that manufacture in
America, in order to oblige the Americans to send their beaver
to England to be manufactured ; and purchase back the hats,
loaded with the charges of a double transportation. In the
same manner have a few nail-makers, and still a smaller body
of steel-makers, (perhaps there are not half a dozen of these
in England,) prevailed totally to forbid, by an act of parlia
ment, the erecting of slitting mills, or steel furnaces in
America ; that the Americans may be obliged to take all their
nails for their buildings, and steel for their tools, from these
artificers, under the same disadvantages," &c.
7. I may be permitted, before I leave this topic of com
mercial obligation, to advance to a more recent period. If a
British statesman could not, after the American war, say ab
solutely, as Chatham had done before its occurrence — " Ame
rica is the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength,
the basis of our power," he might, however, safely ascribe no
inconsiderable share of the continued prosperity of" the British
isles, to the commercial intercourse which was re-established
with her, and to her increase in wealth and population. Her
vast consumption of British manufactures, her abundant pro
duction of the raw materials, cotton particularly *, her imports
* In 1791, theflrst parcel of cotton of American growth, was exported
from the United States. Calculated on the average of the six years, from
1806 to 1811, there was annually imported into Great Britain, from the
United States, 34,568,487 pounds, and in 1811, 46,872,452 pounds.
Vol. I.— X

162 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [PART I.
from the East Indies, her traffic with the West, the diffusion,
through her means, of the British commodities of every de
scription over the continent of Europe, gave her, in her inde
pendent state, an aspect nearly approaching to that under
which Chatham saw her in the colonial. A distinguished
member of the British parliament, Mr. Alexander Baring, ex
amined fully in 1808, with the advantages of practical know
ledge and much general commercial learning, the question of
her increased utility, and pronounced that, upon the whole,
she had, in her independent situation^ to a greater degree than
could have been expected from any other, been the means of
augmenting the British resources, in the war with the conti
nental powers — that she contributed in the highest degree pos
sible, all the benefits which one nation could derive from the ex
istence of another, or that one mother country could receive
from that of the best regulated colony*. The same enquirer
ascertained, that three-fourths of tbe money proceeding from
the consumption of the produce of the soil of America, in all
parts of the World, were paid to Great Britain fbr her manu
factures. He developed other benefits, the reality of which
did not admit of dispute, and found it unpardonable "that
his countrymen should entertain a jealousy of the prosperity
and wealth American independence had produced, which not
only served to circulate the produce of their industry, where
they could not carry it themselves, but by increasing the means
of America, augmented in the same proportion her consump
tion of that produce, at a time when the loss of their former
customers, by the persecutions of France, rendered it most
valuable." It will be enough, for the present, in addition to these re
marks, to state the leading facts in the history of our indepen
dent trade with the British empire, as they are exhibited in
the valuable works of Pitkin and Seybert.
The amount of goods imported into the United States from
England in the year 1784, must have been about eighteen
millions of dollars, and in 1785, about twelve millions; mak
ing in those two years, thirty millions of dollars ; while the

In 1755, the cotton manufacture, in England, was ranked 'f among the
humblest of the domestic arts ; the products of this branch were then almost
entirely for home consumption ; in 1797, it took the lead of all the other
manufactures in Great Britain, and in 1809, gave employment to 800,000
persons, and its annual value was estimated at 30,000,000/. or 132,000,000
of doHars. — Seybert.
* -Examination of the Orders in Council, &c.

SECT. V.] OF GREAT BRITAIN. 163
exports ef the United States to England, were only between
eight and nine millions.
On the average of the six years, posterior to the war of our
revolution, ending with 1789, the merchandise annually im
ported into Great Britain, from the United States, amounted
to 908,636/. sterling; and the importations into the United
States, from Great Britain, on the same average, amounted
annually to 2,119,837/. sterling; leaving an annual balance of
1,211,201/. sterling, or 5,329,284 dollars, in favour of Great
Britain. In 1792, according to the estimate of the American
Secretary of the Treasury, our exports to Great Britain and
her dominions amounted to 9,363,416 dollars, and our im
ports to 15,285,428 dollars. Much the greater part of the
imports was from Great Britain, exclusive of her depenr
dencies. From sundry British documents it appears, that the United
States, from 1793 to 1800, imported from Great Britain a
greater amount of manufactures than were exported from
Great Britain during the same period to all foreign Europe.
In 1800, the United States received from Great Britain more
than one-fourth of the amount of the manufactured articles
exported by her to all parts of the world.
During the seven years from 1795 to 1801, both inclusive,
the balance of trade with Great Britain and Ireland, and the
dominions thereof, was uniformly against the United States,
and in the aggregate amounted to 106,118,104 dollars, or
15,159,748/. per annum. The balance in favour of Great
Britain was only 70,116 dollars less than the apparent unfa
vourable balance produced by our trade with all parts of the
world collectively taken.
In 1800, the merchandise exported from Great Britain was
worth 16/. 14*. sterling, or 74.23 dollars per ton; and that
imported from Great Britain into the United States was worth
54/. 4*. sterling, or 240.89 dollars per ton.
In 1802, 1S03, and 1804, there was annually imported into
the United States, from fhe British possessions in Europe, of
merchandise paying duties ad valorem, and of other manufac
tured articles subject to specific duties, the aggregate of
27,400,000 dollars : if we admit that one-fourth of this
amount was re-exported, 20,550,000 dollars of the value
thereof remained for the annual consumption of our popula
tion ; the profits on which were gained by Great Britain. It
is generally calculated that raw materials gain sevenfold by
being manufactured. Such were our contributions in those

164 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [PART I,
years, for the advancement of the skill and industry of the'
British nation.
On the average of the three years, 1802, 1803, and 1804,
the annual value of the merchandise exported from the
United States to the dominions of Great Britain, amounted to
18,665,777 dollars ; and on the average of the same three
years, the annual value of the merchandise imported into the
United States from Great Britain amounted to 35,737,030
dollars; leaving an annual balance of 17,071,253 dollars against
the United States.
The real value of British produce and manufacture exported
to the United States, on an average of the years 1806 and
1807, was 11,417,834/. sterling, or about 50,500,000 dollars;
making one quarter and one-third of all the exports of British
produce and manufacture during those two years. By the
English accounts, the real value of cotton and woollen goods
exported to the United States from England, on an average of
the same two years, was 8,984,886/. or about 39,500,000 dol
lars, as valued in England.
In 1807, the amount of goods, paying duties ad valorem,
was nearly 39,000,000 of dollars; when we add the goods
imported, in the same year, duty free, and those subject to
specific duties, the whole amount importedfrom Great Britain
in 1807, would not, it is believed, fall much short of
50,000,000 of dollars.
The. aggregate value of the exports of every description to
the United States from Great Britain, during the seven years,
from 1805 to 1811, amounted to 62,266,668/. sterling, or
annually to 36,470,471 dollars; their aggregate value to all
parts of the world during the seven years amounted to
376,977,160/. sterling, or annually to 220,800,498 dollars; or,
the United States received annually, of the merchandise of
every description, exported to all parts of the world from
Great Britain, 16.51 per centum, or one-sixth ofthe aggregate
value thereof.
On the average of the seven years, from 1805 to 1811, the
aggregate value of the British produce and manufactures an
nually exported from Great Britain to the United States,
amounted to 35,441,367 dollars ; and the annual value of the
domestic produce of the United States exported to Great
Britain, calculated on the same average, amounted to
9,124,941 dollars; leaving an annual balance of 26,316,426
dollars in favour of Great Britain. Or the annual value of
the exports of every description from Great Britain to the Uni
ted States, on the average aforesaid, amounted lo 36,470,471

SECT. V.] OP GREAT BRITAIN. 165
dollars; and the aggregate annual value of the exports of every
description from the United States to Great Britain and her
dependencies, her East India possessions excepted, amounted
to 16,438,362 dollars; leaving an annual balance of 20,032,109
dollars in favour of Great Britain.
On the return of peace between the two countries, in 1815,
the importation of British goods was great beyond example.
From the 1st of January to the 31st of December, 1815, the
amount of goods paying duties ad valorem, imported from
Great Britain and her dominions, was 71,400,509 dollars.
Nearly the whole of this sum was made up from goods coming
directly "from Great Britain, consisting principally of Woollens
and cotton. The value of articles paying specific duties, from
Great Britain and her dependencies, during the same period,
(calculating their value at the place of importation) was
11,470,586.80 dollars, making the whole amount no less than
82,871,185.80 dollars from Great Britain and the countries in
ber possession.
During the six years from 1302-3 to 1807-8 inclusive, the
United States exported in bullion to India, only 1,742,682/.
sterling, less than had been exported during the same term by
the British East India Company, the officers ofthe Company's
ships, and by the British private trade: the amount which we
exported, was more than two-thirds of that exported from
Great Britain.
It appears that the United States, during the six years from
J802 to 1808, exported to the British East Indies, in merchan
dise, au aggregate of 2,589,589 dollars; or annnally, 431,598
dollars. The treasure (specie) exported in the same term, in
the aggregate, amounted lo 17,626,275 dollars, or 2,937,712
dollars per annum. The importations into those settlements,
consisting of money and merchandise, from the United States,
amounted to 3,369,310 dollars per annum. During the six
years aforesaid, there was exported, from the British East In
dies, to the United States, merchandise, amounting to
18,633,426 dollars, or annually to 3,105,571 dollars. The
treasure exported as aforesaid, amounted in the aggregate to
69,500 dollars, or annually to 11,583 dollars; leaving an an
nual balance in favour of India, of 2,662,390 dollars.
During the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, the United States
supplied the British West India islands with more than nine
tenths of their flour, meal and bread, about two-thirds of their
Indian corn, oats, peas, and beans, about one-half of their beef

166 COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS [PAB,T J,
and pork, niore than one-half of their dried fish, and nearly
the whole of their live stock and lumber.
The average quantity of staves and heading, sent to the
British West Indies, in the years 1805, 1806, 1807, was
17,614,000, being nearly one-half of the quantity exported
during these years. The quantity of boards and plank* for
the same years, on an average was 40,000,000. In 1803,
260,565, and in 1807, 251,706 barrels of flour were exported
to these islands.
The value of flour, bread, and biscuit exported to the Bri
tish West Indies, on an average of the years 1802, 1803,
1804, was about 2,000,000 dollars ; of lumber of all kinds
about 1,000,000; of beef, pork, bacon, and lard, about
800,p00 dollars ; and of Indian corn, rye, and Indian meal,
about 600,000. The quantity of rum imported, during the
same period, was about 4,000,000 gallons annually, and was
valued at about 2,500,000 dollars. The quantity imported,
in the years 1805, 1806, and 1807, was about 4,614,000 gallons
annually. The average amount of duties upon merchandise, annually
imported into the United States from the British West India
islands and North American colonial possessions, from 1802
to 1816, excluding tbe period from the commencement of the
restrictive system to the termination of the late war, exceeds
2,000,000 dollars. The value of the merchandise upon which
these duties accrued is supposed to be equal to 7,000,000
dollars per annum. The average annual amount of exports
to the same places, principally of domestic production, up to
1817, excluding the time of the operation of the restrictive
system, and the continuance of the war, have exceeded
6,500,000 dollars. In 1815, the amount of the duties on
merchandise imported in American vessels from the British
West India Islands and North American colonial possessions,
was, to the amount of duties imported in British vessels, as one
to four; in 1816, as one to five and a half, or two to eleven.
Taking the ratio of 1816, as the basis of calculation, and it is
believed to afford the safest and most solid, — as past experi
ence shows a constant diminution of the amount of duties on
goods imported in vessels of the United States, — it is estimat
ed, supposing the same proportion exists in the exports, that
American vessels are used on the transportation annually of
2,177,924 dollars worth of merchandise, and British vessels,
of 11,322,076 dollars worth of the most bulky articles of
commerce, one-half of which are of the growth, production, or

SECT. V.J OF GREAT BRITAIN. 167
manufacture of the United States. This inequality in the ad
vantages of this commerce, to the navigating interest of this
country, arises from the rigorous enforcement of the colonial
system of Great Britain, as to the United States, while it is
relaxed to all nations who are friendly to the British empire
and her colonial possessions.

168

SECTION VI.
OF THE RELATIVE DISPOSITIONS OF GREAT
BRITAIN A'ND AMERICA, FROM THE
PEACE OF 1763.
1. The oppression and losses which the colonies had en
dured; the shackles imposed upon them; the destitution to
which they had been so long consigned ; the parsimony and
unskilfulness with which aid was finally administered by the
mother country ; the faint praise or the bitter sarcasm which
attended their noblest exertions ; the despicable character and
habitual malversation of their governors;* the immeasurable
evils which they could trace to the indifference, incapacity, or
corruption of British ministers; the general complexion of
the domestic government of Great Britain, so livid in the
contrast with their own, and so ghastly in the pictures of her
party writers; all, were insufficient to stifle their affections,
or shake their allegiance. In the season of their severest dis
tress from the incursions of the Indian and Canadian; at the
height of their dissatisfaction with the restraining and dis
franchising system of the mother country ; they did not turn
their eyes to France, who could have arrested the steps of
their savage invaders, and who would gladly have made any
compromise, or concession of privileges, to attach them to her
empire. Franklin boasted with truth in 1768, " Scotland has
had its rebellion, Ireland has had its rebellion, England its
plots against the reigning family, but America is free from
this reproach." What is related of the Greek colonies, could
be more emphatically said of those of Great Britain— that
they remembered the land of their fathers with filial respect
and affection ; that they retained an invincible prediliction
for its laws and. customs, for its religion and language; that
they followed devotedly its fortunes, and exulted in its glory.
The peace of 1763 seemed to banish every chilling recollec
tion; to heighten their complacency in the connexion with

* See Note K.

SECT. VI.] DISPOSITIONS FROM THE, &C. 169
Great Britain and their admiration of the English constitution.
They fondly thought the true and highest panegyric and tri
umph of the American, to be comprised in the verses of the
Poet, And English merit his, where meet combin'd
Whate'er high fancy, sound judicious thought,
An ample generous heart, undrooping soul,
And firm, tenacious valour can bestow.*
Testimony of a convincing nature superabounds with re
spect to these dispositions. Out of the mass, I will select
that of the two men who, by their opportunities of know
ledge, and soundness of judgment, were entitled, perhaps, to
most weight in the question; Governor Pownall and Dr.
Franklin. The first had been long in some of the highest
offices which the crown could confer in America— -governor
and commander-in-chief of Massachusetts Bay — governor
of South Carolina — lieutenant-governor of New Jersey, &c. :
the second gave the evidence which I shall quote from him,
in 1785, when he could have no interest in making a false or
exaggerated statement.
" I profess," said Pownall, in 1765, " an affection for
the colonies, because having lived amongst their people in
a private, as well as in a public character, I know them —
I know that in their private social relations, there is not a
more friendly, and in their political one, a more zealously
loyal people in all his majesty's dominions. When fairly
and openly dealt with, there is not a people who has a truer
sense of the necessary powers of government. They would
sacrifice their clearest interests for the honour and prosperity
of their mother country. I have a right to say this, because
experience has given me a practical knowledge, and this im
pression, of them."t
" The duty of a colony is, affection for the mother country:
here I may affirm, that in whatever form and temper this af
fection can lie in the human breast, in that form, by the deep
est and most permanent impression, it ever did lie in the breast
of the American people. They have no other idea of this
country than as their home ; they have no other word by which
to express it, and till of late, it has constantly been expressed
by the name of home. That powerful affection, the love of
our native country, which operates in every breast, operates

* Thompson.
f The Administration of the Colonies — Dedication to George Grenville.
Vol. I.— Y

170 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART I.
in this people towards England, which they consider as their
native country : nor is this a mere passive impression, a mere
opinion in speculation— it has been wrought up in them to a
vigilant and active zeal for the service of this country."*
" The true loyalists," said Franklin, " were the people of
America against whom the loyalists of England acted. No
people were ever known more truly loyal, and universally so,
to their sovereigns : the protestant succession in the House of
Hanover was their idol. Not a Jacobite was to be found from
one end of the colonies to the other. They were affectionate
to the people of England, zealous and forward to assist in her
wars, by voluntary contributions of men and money, even
beyond their proportion."
In my first and second sections, I have quoted the language
of several of the British politicians, imputing to the colonies,
even in their infancy, the design of acquiring independence.
As it was my purpose there, merely to set the apprehensions of
the mother country, and the energetic character of our Ameri-.
can forefathers, in a more striking relief, I did not formally deny
the truth of the charge; and it appeared to me that if it were
admitted to be true, the circumstances under which the set
tiers repaired to this continent and consolidated their fortunes,
would furnish them with an obvious and a complete justifica
tion. But it is far from being well-founded; and some obser*
vations on the subject, in this place, may not be deemed su
perfluous. The excessive jealousy of power, and the conscious
ness of tyrannical rule, raised the suspicion in the administra^
tion ofthe Stuarts and ofthe Roundheads; the selfish and do
mineering spirit of the nation at large rendered her susceptible,
at every moment, of lively alarm for her monopoly and sove
reignty. Government and people were, from these causes, in
the language of Mr. Burke, "too acute; perpetually full of
distrusts, conjectures and divinations, formed in defiance of
facts and experience." Whenever a natural or chartered
right, a local privilege and immunity, was pleaded against
the encroachments of their arrogant will or oppressive acts,
they at once fancied and proclaimed, that their whole autho
rity was denied, and that the litigant provinces either medi
tated, or had committed rebellion. They could not perceive
that the very assertion of a privilege implied an acknow
ledgment of their supremacy ; that the eagerness of the co*
lonists to obtain charters from the crown, and their anxiety
to preserve unimpaired those which they obtained,— their

Debate on Disturbances in America, 1770,

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 171
claims to the liberties Of Englishmen as defined and pledged
by the British constitution ; their perpetual appeals to the au
thority of Parliament; amounted to a constant renovation of
fealty, and indicated any other drift than that of separation.
When, after the peace of 1763, the scheme of American tax
ation and servitude was matured, and the determination fixed
to persist in it at all hazards, its immediate authors and abet
tors, in order to render it more acceptable to the nation,
exerted themselves particularly, to spread the impression, that
New England had constantly aimed at independence; that
" the Americans had been obstinate, undutiful and ungovern
able from the very beginning." This was the text taken by
the orators in Parliament, and the writers out of doors, on the
ministerial side, with a view to the conclusion, that all con
cession or gentleness to the intractable provincials would be
futile; that "they never could be brought to their duty and
the true subordinate relation, till reduced to an unconditional,
effectual submission."*
To convict New England of treasonable dispositions in all
stages of her existence, is, palpably, the main object of Chal
mers, in his Annals ; and it would seem, that he, or those in
whose service he writes, did not deem it advisable to relin
quish the argument, as late as the year 1814. In the preface
to a work published under his name in that year, and entitled
" Opinions of eminent Lawyers, on various points of English
Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, &c." I find
the following passage: " None of the statesmen of 1766 or
1768, nor those of the preceding nor subsequent times, had
any suspicion that there lay among the documents, in the
Board of Trade and Patent Office, the most satisfactory
proofs from the epoch of the Revolution in 1668, throughout
every reign, and during every administration, of the settled
purpose of the revolted colonies, to acquire direct independence:
the design had long been entertained of acquiring positive so
vereignty." We have seen what these proofs are, in the extracts which
I have made from his Annals. They amount to no more than
what was extant in the public history of the colonies ; and
may be resolved into a determined assertion, on their part, of.
fundamental liberties, and into acts of sheer necessity. In
illustrating their political intrepidity, I have cited many in
stances of an inflexible tenacity as to natural and chartered
rights, but none of a rebellious or seditious temper. Evidence
» Earl Talbot, House of Lords, 1776.

172 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART I
is not wanting that they would never have submitted to the
deprivation of their privileges; but none exists even of a wish
for independence, while those privileges could be preserved.
If we fix our attention, for a moment, on the situation of the
first settlers, particularly the northern, we shall perceive that,
to exist at all in order and safety; to constitute a regular and
stable commonwealth ; it was indispensable for them to trans
cend the letter of the royal patents. They had no alternative
in the first instance, but to erect judicatories, and establish re
presentative assemblies, in reference to their domestic weal;
and, when no hope of protection from abroad could be in
dulged, to confederate for external defence.
We may wonder that Dr. Robertson, acknowledging the
dereliction of the New England colonies during the evil Com
motions in the mother country, and the extremity of their peril
from the plots of the Indians, should yet censoriously repre
sent their league of 1643, — the only means of their preser
vation, — as " a transaction in which they seem to have con
sidered themselves as independent societies, possessing all the
rights of sovereignty, and free from the controul of any supe
rior power."* Thrown as they were into a wilderness, rather
as reprobates to be sacrificed, than as subjects to be defended ;
committed to the exigencies and chances of a distant settle
ment, and pressed with the highest degree of danger at the
season when all was confusion and dissension in the mother
country ; they must have fallen into anarchy themselves, had
they waited to consult her -rulers respecting their domestic
arrangements; or have perished by the tomahawk ofthe savage,
had they looked' to her for a system of defence, and delayed to
combine their strength and sagacity, so as to assure a common
exertion, whenever it might be wanted, whether for military or
civil objects. The institutions and prosperity that arose out of
this compulsory exercise of discretion, under such untoward
circumstances, excite in me anew, the surprise and admiration
which I have more than once expressed.
The measure of coining money, taken by Massachusetts, dur
ing the civil wars, gave a handle to her enemies in England,
which was used eagerly, from the period of the Restoration, to
the apparition militant of Chalmers and' his numerous associ
ates in the same crusade. That writer lays, as we have seen,
the greatest stress *«ipon its sufficiency, as evidence ofthe
early disloyalty of New England ; and Dr. Robertson found it
"a usurpation;" an unambiguous indication of "the aspiring
* Vol. iv. History of America.

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF \J63. 173
spirit prevalent among the people of Massachusetts." I can
not refrain from offering, in answer to these invidious sugges
tions, a quotation from a paper on the subject published in
the English Monthly Magazine for January, 1799. It com
prises an anecdote which gives the proper air to the orthodox
historian's umbrage " at the tree stampt upon the Boston coin
as an apt symbol of its progressive vigour."
" It seems to be the opinion of Dr. Robertson, that the
people of Massachusetts assumed this ' peculiar prerogative of
sovereignty' in defiance of, or, at least, in opposition to, the
royal authority7. But it ought to be particularly noticed, that
the first coinage was made in the year 1652. Instead, there
fore, of ascribing this measure to the * aspiring spirit of the
people of Massachusetts,' the Doctor might, just as well have
said, that the colonists being nearly deserted, at this time, by
the rulers at home, on account of the civil wars, and the various
forms of government which afterwards followed, were obliged
to coin money from absolute necessity. The following extract
from the Memoirs of the late truly patriotic Thomas Hollis,
will prove this to have been the principal, if not the only cause,
and consequently point out the mistake which Dr. Robertson
has inadvertently fallen into.
" ' Sir Thomas Temple, brother to Sir William Temple, re
sided several years in New England during the interregnum.
After the Restoration, when he returned to England, the king
sent for him, and discoursed with him on the state of affairs
in the Massachusetts, and discovered great warmth against
that colony. Among other things, he said they' had invaded his
prerogative by coining money. Sir Thomas, who was a real
friend to the colony, told his majesty, that the colonists had
but little acquaintance with law and that they thought it no
crime to make money for their own use. In the course of the
conversation, Sir Thomas took some of the money out of his
pocket, and presented it to the king. On one side of the coin
was a pine tree, of that kind which is thick and bushy at the
top. Charles asked what tree that was? Sir Thomas informed
him it. was the royal oak, which preserved his majesty's life.
This account of the matter brought the king into good hu
mour, and disposed him to hear what Sir Thomas had to say
in their favour, calling them a ' parcel of honest dogs?
" The jocular turn which Sir Thomas gave to the story,
was evidently calculated to amuse the monarch in his own

Vol, iv. History of America.

174- DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART I.
way, and bad the desired effect, in disposing him to hear with
good humour, that just defence of the colonies whNch Sir Tho
mas was so well qualified to make. We find he pleaded, that
the colonists thought it no crime to make money for their own
use ; at a time too, when the confusions in the mother country
prevented them from receiving those occasional supplies of
coin, which were absolutely necessary for common circulation.
Such an uncommon exigency required an uncommon expe
dient ; and this will account for the proceedings of the people
of Massachusetts in a more rational manner, than Dr. Robert
son has done."
By the act of 14 Geo. II. c. 37, the Americans were re
strained from creating banks; by that of 24 Geo. II. c. 53,
the governors and assemblies of the respective American pro
vinces were prohibited from making " any act, order, resolu
tion, or vote, whereby paper bills or bills of credit, shall be
created or issued, under any pretence whatever; or from pro
tracting or postponing the times limited, or the provisions
made, for calling in such as were then actually issued and sub
sisting. After the peace of 1763, most of the colonies were
reduced, in consequence of the enforcement of these and other
regulations of a like purport, to a situation worse than that of
Massachusetts in 1672. It is thus stated by Macpherson in
His Annals. " Their foreign trade was almost entirely ruined
by the rigorous execution ofthe new orders against smuggling,
and the collection of the duties in hard silver, which soon
drained the country of any little real money circulating in it.
And, as if government had intended to prevent the colonists
from having even the shadow of money, another act was pass
ed, in a few days after that for the new duties, declaring that
no paper bills, to be thenceforth issued, should be made a legal
tender in payment, and enjoining those in circulation to be
sunk (that is, paid off in hard money) at the limited time."
Had the colonies — some of which were driven to the ex
pedient of barter, — possessed bullion, and proceeded to coin
it, on this emergency, it would not have been difficult for any
liberal enquirer to decide whether the proceeding was to be
interpreted into " an indication of an aspiring spirit," or into a
mere and natural effort for temporary relief from an oppressive
privation. I find it the more unpardonable in Dr. Robert
son to have mistaken or misrepresented the views of the colo
nists, since he has himself furnished an explanation of much
of their apparent indocility in the following paragraph : " In
writing the history of the English settlements in America, it is

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 175
necessary to trace the progress of the restraining laws with
accuracy, as in every subsequent transaction, we may observe
a perpetual exertion on the part of the mother country, to en
force and extend them ; and on the part of the colonies, endea
vours ho less unremitting to elude or to obstruct their opera
tion." The inveterate design of the colonist to become indepen
dent, continued to be a leading topic in the British parliament,
notwithstanding the evidence furnished in their conduct on the
repeal of the stamp act in 1766.* We have a specimen of
the manner in which the charge was supported, in the argu
ment of Sir Richard Sutton, who said in the House of Com
mons, onthe 22d April, 1774, "If you ask an American —
who is his master, he will tell you he has none; nor any go-
vernor but Jesus Christ!" Lord Mansfield was quite sure Uiat
the Americans had meditated a state of independency, par
ticularly since the peace of Paris, and upon this ground,
chiefly, he rested his celebrated declaration in the House of
Lords, " if we do not kill the Americans, the Americans will
kill us." In the quotation which I have made from one of
his speeches on the same point, Davenant is brought forward
as having "foreseen that America would endeavour to form
herself into a separate and independent state, whenever she
found herself of sufficient strength to contend with the mother
country." The learned judge did not, however, deal fairly
with Davenant. This great political teacher — by far the
ablest of his time, and whose treatises, according to his edi
tor, Sir Charles Whitworth, " may be properly called the
foundation of the political establishment of England" — had
delivered, in his Discourse on the Plantation Trade, opinions
respecting the colonies, which Lord Mansfield would have
been very unwilling to produce in their real shape. The fol
lowing, written in 1698, are of this number, and will com
pensate for the space they may occupy in these pages, by their
historical value.
" Generally speaking, our colonies, while they have English
blood in their veins, and have relations in England, and while

* " When the news of the repeal of the stamp act reached America,"
says Macpherson, " it was, notwithstanding the disagreeable nature of the
concomitant act, received with universal demonstrations of joy. Subscrip
tions were made for erecting statues to Mr. Pitt, who had exerted himself
for the repeal ; and resolutions were made to prepare new dresses made of
British manufactures for celebrating tlie 4th of June, the birth day of their
most gracious sovereign, and to give their homespun clothes to the poor,"
&c.

176 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART I
they can get by trading with us, the stronger and greater they
grow, the more this crown and. kingdom will get by them;
and nothing but such an arbitrary power as shall make them
desperate, can bring them to rebel.
" While we keep a strict eye upon their conduct, and
chiefly watch their growth in shipping of strength and for
war, whatever other increase they make, either in wealth or
in number of inhabitants, cannot be turned against us, and
can never be detrimental to this nation. While we are strong
and they weak at sea, they may be compelled to obey the
laws of England, and not to trade directly and upon their
own account with other countries. I do riot think the great
ness these colonies may arrive at in a natural course, and in
the progress of time, can be dangerous to England. To build
ships in the way of trade, or for their own defence, can ad
minister no true cause of jealousy.
"It is true, if in New England, or in other parts there,
they should pretend to set up manufactures, and to clothe as
well as feed their neighbours, their nearness and low price
would give them such advantages over this nation, as might
prove of pernicious consequence ; but this fear seems very re
mote, because new inhabitants, especially in a large extent of
country, find their account better in rearing cattle, tilling the
earth, clearing it of woods, making fences, and by erecting
necessary buildings, than in setting up manufactures, which
is the last work of a people settled three or four hundred years,
growing numerous and wanting territory.
" When we contemplate the great increase and improve
ments which have been made in New England, Carolina, and
Pennsylvania, we cannot but think it injustice not to say, that
a large share of this general good to those parts is owing to
the education of the planters, which, if not entirely virtuous,
has, at least, a show of virtue.
" And to the sobriety and temperate way of living, prac
tised by the dissenters retired to America, we may justly at
tribute the increase they have made there of inhabitants,
which is beyond the usual proportion to be any where else
observed. " Had it not been for provinces begun and carried on by
people of sobriety, the English empire abroad would be much
weaker than it is at present.
" if ever any thing great or good be done.for our English
colonies, industry must have its due recompense, and that
cannot be, without encouragement to it, which, perhaps, is
only to be brought, about by confirming their liberties."

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 177
" And as great care should be taken in this respect, ao,
without doubt, it is advisable, that no little emulations, or pri
vate interests of neighbour governors, nor that the petitions of
hungry courtiers at home, should prevail to discourage those
particular colonies, who in a few years have raised themselves
by their own charge, prudence, and industry, to the wealth
and greatness they are now arrived at, without expense to the
Crown: upon which account, any innovations or breach of
their original charters {besides that it seems a breach of the
public faith) may, peradventure, not tend to the king's pro-
flit.' " We shall not pretend to determine whether the people in
the Plantations have a right to all the privileges of English
subjects; but the contrary notion is, perhaps, too much en
tertained and practised in places which happen not to be dis
tant from St. Stephen's Chapel. Upon which account it will,
peradventure, be a great security and encouragement to these
industrious people, if a declaratory law were made, that
Englishmen have right to all the laws of England, while they
remain in countries subject to the dominion of this king
dom." 2. On the side of the British government, the bias and im
pressions taken after tbe epoch of 1763, were altogether, and
by an almost incredible perversion of heart and of judgment,
the reverse of those which I have ascribed to the colonies. It
was to be expected that the exertions and sufferings of the
latter during the war, and the value of the results to Great
Britain, would have warmed the feelings, and relaxed the
gripe, of any ministry or parliament, however greedy of reve
nue, or tenacious of dominion. The British nation had ac
quired, by the war, lands more than equal in value, to the
amount of' all the expense she had incurred in America from
its first settlement; and she saw opened to her new avenues
of a mpst beneficial commerce. No share was sought or reap
ed by the colonies, in the millions of acres which they had
helped to conquer; they seemed to desire no more than the
loosening of their fetters so far, as to enable therii to recover
from their wounds.
But, to -allow them an interval of ease entered not into the
imagination or heart of their task-masters. The Lords of the
Admiralty issued forthwith, instructions to the commanders on
the American station, to enforce all those acts of trade to
which I have adverted, in the most rigid manner. " The mi
nistry," says Gordon, " obliged all sea-officers stationed on
Vol. I.— Z

178 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [pART I.
the American coasts, to act in the capacity ofthe meanest re
venue oflicers, making them submit to the'usual custom-house "
oaths and regulations for that purpose. This proved a great
grievance to the American merchants and traders. Many il
legal seizures were made; no redress could be had but from
Britain. Besides, the American trade with the Spaniards, by
which the British manufactures were vended in return, for
gold and silver in coin or bullion, cochineal, &c. as occasion
served, was almost instantly destroyed by the armed ships un
der the new regulations."* Immediately after the ratification
of the definitive treaty, the intentions of the government, to
quarter ten thousand troops in America, and to support them
at the expense of the colonies, were authentically announced.
Mr. Grenville avowed it, in the House of Commons, to be his
purpose, to raise the money for the support of those troops,
by a duty on the foreign sugar and molasses imported into
America, and by stamgjs^on sall papers legal and mercantile.
In 1764, Parliament passed "an act imposing duties on the
two first articles; and to secure its execution, the penalties
for the breach of it, or of any other act relating to the trade
and revenues of the British colonies, were made recoverable
in any court of admiralty in the colony where the offence
should be committed, or— at the election of the informer or
prosecutor — in any court of vice-admiralty, which might be ap
pointed by the crown in any part of America. Thus the trial
by jury might be withheld, and the defendant called to sup
port his claim to property seized, at distances which would
make the expense of the pursuit more than the value of the
prize. Moreover, the act provided, that he could recover nei
ther costs nor damages, if the judge certified that there was
probable cause of seizure.
I do not know of any moral phenomenon which history
offers, more hateful— than that those who were entrusted in
Great Britain with the supreme administration, should not only
nave proved utterly insensible to the services and distresses
of the colonies, but have at once resolved to take advantage
ot the expulsion of her rival from the American continent, ef-
teeted, in great part, through their vigorous assistance, and of
the mighty increase and complete disengagement ofthe national
strength, produced by .the same generous co-operation — to
enforce in all its rigour the whole digest of commercial sub
jection; to plunge them into what Mr. Burke so justly describ
ed as " a perfect uncompensated slavery, by joining together
¦• Vol. i. p. 207.

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. **179
the restraints of an universal internal and external monopoly,
with an universal internal and external taxation.
There seems to be now but one voice throughout the
world, respecting the expedients employed to establish this
cumulative despotism — the revenue-acts, stamp-acts, restrain
ing and starving acts, Boston port acts, acts for disfranchising
legislatures, for quartering soldiers in private houses, dragging
men to England for trial, &c. English writers of every
party-denomination, finding that the verdict of Europe was
given unanimously and irreversibly, against this headlong
career of injustice and foHy, have concurred in passing upon
it themselves, the severest sentence of reprobation. They tell
us without hesitation that a scheme of new modelling the
colonial government, so as to increase the power and patronage
of the crown, and enable ministers to enrich their relations
and dependents, was the cause of the war, and of the loss of
America. They adduce these as the prominent features of
the hopeful scheme : —
First, to raise a revenue in America by act of parliament.
to be applied to support, an army there ; to pay a large salary
to the governors, another to the lieutenant-governors, salaries
to the judges ofthe lawand admiralty ; and thus to render the
whole government, executive and judicial, entirely indepen
dent of the people, and wholly dependent on the ministc%.
Second, to make a new division of the colonies, to reduce the
number of them by making the small ones more extensive, to
make them all royal governments, with a peerage in each, &c.
Mr. Burke gave to parliament, in his unanswerable speech
on American taxation, a full account of the dawn and progress
of the new plan of colonial administration. His relation stands
as a monument of the genius of that rule, under which the co
lonies, by their own admirable energies, and a train of provi
dential dispensations, had grown to a strength, and preserved
a spirit, too firm to be broken by its utmost pressure, when all
other barriers to its natural action were removed. The fol
lowing is a part of the testimony of Burke :
" At the pjeriod immediately on the close of the war of 1756,
a scheme of government new in many things seemed to have
been adopted. I saw, or thought I saw, several symptoms of
a great change, whilst I sat in your gallery, a good while be
fore I had the honour of a seat in this house. At that period
the necessity was established of keeping up no less than twenty
new regiments, with twenty colonels capable of seats in this
house. This scheme was adopted with very general applause
from all sides, at the very, time that, by your conquests in

180"* DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART I.
America, yonr danger from foreign attempts in that part of the
world was much lessened, or indeed rather quite over. When
this huge increase of military establishment was resolved on,
a revenue was to be found to support so great a burthen.
Country gentlemen, the great patrons of economy, and the
great resisters of a standing armed force, would not have en
tered with much alacrity into the vote for so large and so ex
pensive an army, if they had been very sure that they were to
continue to pay for it- But hopes of another kind were held
out to them ; and, in particular, I well remember, tbat Mr.
Townsnend, in a brilliant harangue on this subject, did dazzle
them, by playing before their eyes the immage of a revenue to
be raised in America."
The conduct of the colonies in resisting this scheme did not
want for' advocates in the parliament ; and we may claim for
it particularly, the unqualified sanction of Camden and Chat
ham, the most enlightened and conscientious among the Bri
tish statesmen of that day. " We have been," said the first,
" the original aggressors in this business ; if we obstinately
persist, we are fairly answerable for all the consequences.
When we contend that we aim only to defend and enforce our
own rights, I positively deny it. I contend that America has
been driven, by cruel necessity, to defend her rights from the
united attacks of violence, oppression, and injustice. I con
tend that America has been indisputably aggrieved. Perhaps,
as a domineering Englishman, wishing to enjoy the ideal be
nefit of such a claim of taxation, I might urge it with earnest
ness, and endeavour to carry my point ; but if, on tbe other
band, I resided in America, that I felt, or was to feel, the
effects of such manifest injustice, I certainly should resist the
attempt with that degree of ardour so daring a violation of
what should be held dearer than life itself, ought to enkindle
in the breast of every freeman.,
" Pursuing the ideas of a native American, or a person re
siding in that country, what must bel^^sense they feel ofthe
repeated injuries that have for a succession of years past been
heaped on them ? To have their property, under the idea of
asserting a right to tax them, voted away by one act of parlia
ment, and their charters, under an idea ofthe supreme autho
rity of the British legislature, swept away by another vote bf
parliament. Thus depriving them, or rather claiming a right
to dispose of every shilling they are worth, without one of
them being represented by the persons pretending to exercise
this right ; and thus stripping them of their natural rights,
growing out of the constitution, confirmed by charter, and

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 181
recognized by every branch of the legislature, without exami
nation, or even without hearing."*
" The Americans," said Chatham, " are a wise, industrious,
and prudent people. They possess too much good sense, and
too much spirit, ever to submit to hold their properties on so
precarious and disgraceful a tenure. They see us, besides,
immersed in luxury, dissipation, venality, and corruption ;
they perceive, that, even if they were willing to contribute, to
what purposes their contributions would be applied ; to
nothing but the extinction of public and private virtue there,
as has already been the case here."t
An American finds not only instruction, but a gratification
such as is commonly enjoyed, in looking back upon a hideous
evil from which you have lastingly escaped, when he retraces
the portraits drawn by near observers, whose title to credit is
beyond dispute, of the cabinets and men to whom the English
monarch and nation committed the liberties and fortunes ofthe
colonies. Let us see how they are described by three states
men of different political views and connexions, and of the
fullest and most intimate experience in the ministerial govern
ment of the kingdom. In the debate of the House of Lords
of Feb. 1st, 1775, Lord Mansfield said — " I have seen much
of courts, parliaments, and cabinets, and have been a frequent
witness to the means used to acquire popularity, and the base
and mean purposes to which that popularity has been after
wards employed. I have been in cabinets where the great
struggle has not been to advance the public interest; not by
coalition and mutual assistance to strengthen the hands of
government; but by cabals, jealousy and mutual distrust, to
thwart each others designs, and to circumvent each other, in
order to obtain power and pre-eminence."
Lord Chatham, in concluding the defence of his plan of
Conciliation at the sitting of the Lords of the 1st February,
1775, apostrophized ,the ministers of the day thus:
" Yet when I consider the whole case as it lies before me,
I am not much astonished; I am not surprised that men who
hate liberty should detest those who prize it ; or that those who
want virtue themselves, should endeavour to persecute those
who possess it. Were I disposed to carry this theme to the
extent that truth would fully bear me out in, I could demon
strate that the whole of your political conduct has been one
continued series of weakness, temerity, despotism, ignorance,
* Debate in the House of Lords, Nov. 15, 1775.
t Ibid.

162 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [pARTt.
futility, negligence, blundering, and the most notorious servi
lity, incapacity and corruption. On reconsideration, I must
allow you one merit, a strict attention to your own interests ;
in that view, you appear sound statesmen and able politicians.
You well know if the present measure (of reconciliation with
the colonies) should prevail, that you must instantly lose your
places. I doubt much whether you will be able to keep them
on any terms : but sure I am, that such are your well known
characters and abilities, any plan of reconciliation, however
moderate, wise, and feasible, must fail in your hands. Such,
then, being your precarious situation, who can wonder that
you should put a negative on any measure which must, annihi
late your power, deprive you of your emoluments, and at once
reduce you to that state of insignificance, for which God and
nature designed you."
Earlier — in the debate respecting the 'disorders in America,
1770, — Lord Shelburne held this language in the same house:
" My lords, — I scarcely remember a period in history, an
cient or modern, where the ministers of a state, however dead to
the feelings of justice, were so lost to the sentiments of shame,
that they gloried to be detested by every honest individual of
their country. This pinnacle of profligacy was reserved for
the present ministers of Great Britain, who have adopted the
principle of the Roman tyrant as far as they were able; and if
our heads were beyond their power, have at least cut off all
our liberties with a blow."
3. As the fellowship of enterprise, suffering, and object,
during the war of 1756, between the colonies and the mother
country, the copious effusion of their blood in the same mili
tary operations, and their joint triumph, failed to inspire her
even with the sympathies natural to the most common alliance,
the more intimate relations with them into which that war
brought her; the opportunities which it afforded for a thorough
observation of their character and situation; had no effect in
curing her profound ignorance on these points. It appears,
indeed the less extraordinary, that the metropolitian councils
should have remained in this state, when it is noted, that most
ofthe royal governors in America seemed, with all the advan
tages of their situation, to have no clearer insight. Indig
nation might relax into mirth, when we read the language
which the governor of Massachusetts addressed to his princi
pals in 1774. " The colonists talk of fixing a plan of govern
ment of their own ; . and it is somewhat surprising, that so many
in the other provinces interest themselves so much in the be-

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 183
half of this of Massachusetts. I find they have some warm
friends in New York and Philadelphia; and I learn by an
officer who left Carolina, the latter end of August, that the
people of Charleston arc as mad as they are here."*.
If any British statesman could be expected to understand
thoroughly the nature and condition of the Americans, it was
Chatham; yet, he is reported to have spoken in parliament in
1776, in this strain :
" There were not wanting some, when I had the honour to
serve his majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with
an American stamp-act. With the enemy at their back, with
our bayonets at their breasts, in the day of their distress, per
haps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition;
but it would have been taking an ungenerous and unjust ad
vantage. A great deal has been said witliout doors, of the
power, of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to
be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound
bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms.
I know the valour of your troops. I know the skill of your
officers. There is not a company of foot that has served in
America, out of which you may not pick a man of sufficient
knowledge and experience to make a governor of a colony there"
In their first projects for subverting the liberties of Ame
rica; in every step which they took as they prosecuted their
aim ; in all that they uttered, the. ministry betrayed that they
were entire strangers to her spirit and resources. Indeed, the
almost universal ignorance of the British on these points,
rendered them altogether unfit to hold dominion over the co
lonies, and constituted, in itself, a sufficient reason why the
connexion should- be dissolved. We may judge of the delu
sions, common to rulersand people, by the following specimens
drawn from the parliamentary debates.
" My Lords," said the Lord Chancellor Northington to the
Upper House, in 1766, f " tbe colonies are become too big to
be governed by the laws they at first set out with. They have
therefore run into confusion, and it will be the policy of this
country to form a plan of laws for them. If they withdraw
allegiance, you must withdraw protection ; and then ihe little
state of Genoa, or the kingdom, or rather republic of Sweden,
may soon overrun them."
" I have the best reasons for thinking," said the prime mi-
* Letter from the Hon. Gov. Gage to tbe Earl of Dartmouth, dated
Boston, 20th Sept. 1774.
f Debate on disturbances in America.

184 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART i,
nister, Lord North, in 1770,* " that the American associations
not to buy British goods, must be speedily self-destroyed ; be
cause the Americans, to distress us, will not injure themselves j
because they are already weary of giving an advanced price
for commodities they are obliged to purchase; and because,
after all the hardships which they say their commerce groans
under, it is still obviously their interest not to commence ma
nufactures." The eloquent Glover, in the speech at the bar of the Com
mons, which I have already cited, taught that body a more
accurate lesson, while he took an instructive review of the
successive delusions of the nation.
" I would have accompanied others more speculative through
their several gradations of hope, still disappointed, and still
reviving, but for One observation, which I have generally kept
concealed, but will soon reveal to you. But for this observa
tion I might have concurred with the public belief, that the
capital of a province, now declared in rebellion, would have
submitted on the landing of a few regiments; this failing, that
other provinces from ancient jealousy and disgust would not
have interfered, and would have rather sought their own ad
vantage out of that town's distress ; this failing, that they
never would have proceeded to the length of constituting a
certain inauspicious assembly among themselves ; this failing,
that the members of such assembly would have disagreed, and
not framed a single resolution. This last hope having proved
abortive, a new one is popularly adopted, that the first intelli
gence of enforcing measures, at least the bare commencement
of their execution will tame the most refractory spirits. I will
here state the grounds of this, and all the preceding hopes ;
afterwards with your indulgence the ground of my original
and continued doubts.
" Our trading nations naturally assumed, that the present
contention would be with traders in America. The stock of
a trader, whether his own, or in part, and often the greatest
part, a property of others, confiding in him, is personal, lodged
in a magazine, and exposed in seasons of commotion to in
stantaneous devastation. The circumstance of such property,
the considerations, suggested by common prudence, by the
sense of common justice to those, who have given a generous
credit, rarely make room for that intrepidity, which meets
force with force. Hence I admit, that the mere traffickers
would have submitted at. first, and will now, whenever they
* Debate on American tea duty. _

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 185
dare. The reason why they have not dared, is the foundation
of my doubts.
" 1 am speaking to an enlightened assembly, conversant with
their own annals. In those ages, the reverse of comriierciat, when
your ancestors filled the ranks of men at arms, ahd composed the
cavalry of England, of whom did the infantry consist ? A race
unknown to other kingdoms, and in the present opulence of traffic,
almost extinct in this, the yeomanry of England : an order of
men, possessing paternal inheritance, cultivated under their own
care, enough to preserve independence, and cherish the generous
sentiments attendant on that condition; without superfluity for
idleness, or effeminate indulgence.
" Of such doth North America! consist. The race is revived
there in greater numbers, and in a greater proportion to the rest of
the inhabitants ; and in such the power of that continent resides.
These keep the traffickers in awe. These, many hundred thou
sands in multitude, with enthusiasm in their liearfs, with the peti
tion, the bill of rights, and the acts of settlement, silent and
obsolete in some places, but vociferous and fresh, as newly born,
emong them ; these, hot with the blood of their progenitors, the
enthusiastic scourges at one period, ahd the revolutional expellers
of tyranny at another; these, unpractised in fritolous dissipation
and ruinous profusion, standing armed on the spot ; possessing,
delivered down from their fathers, a property not moveable, nor
exposed to total destruction, therefore maintainable, and exciting
all the spirit and vigour of defence ; these, under such circum
stances of number, animation and manners, their lawyers ahd
clergy blowing the trumpet, are we to encounter with a handful
of men sent three thousand miles over the ocean to seek such
adversaries on their own paternal ground. — But these zeill not fight,
says ihe general voice of Great Britain," &c.
It was long before tlie British government and the nVajorify of
the British people, could be persuaded that America would have
the resolution to look the mother country in the face, and steadily
resist its immense power. They supposed a successful resistance
impossible, arguing from considerations natural eriOiigh in the
frame of mind, and habits of action, almost universal throughout
Europe. America consisted, to their eye, only of parts of a
nation, and those fhe meanest in quality, because the least arti
ficial in the modification and tinselled in the drapery ', she had
neither standing armies, disciplined forces, fleets, rior fortresses ;
she wanted great and small arms, flints, ammunition ; she laboured
under a scarcity of coin ; she would have terrible difficulty in
procuring clothing, saltr medicines ; jealousies rankled bet\veert
Vol. I. AS

1S6 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART I.
tbe several provinces, and must quickly , break their precipitate
league, &c. When the revolution took a consistent character, and
generated resources, its impetus was ascribed, b'y these sagacious
reasoners, to any other cause than the heroic spirit which formed
it, and which easily surmounted all common obstacles. They were
never touched by what they could not discern ; and their infatua
tion continued therefore nearly the same in all points. In 1776,
their commissioner on the coast of America, Lord Howe, was in
structed to offer pardon upon submission ; and the letters which
passed between this herald of clemency and Dr. Franklin, as one
of the committee of conference deputed by Congress, were pub
lished the same year in London, to show the insolence of the in
surgents in refusing the offer of pardon upon submission.
The following extract from a speech of Lord George Germain,
of May, 1777, in the House of Commons, will furnish still more
striking evidence of the manner in which the ministry indulged
their own spleen, and fed the delusion of their followers. His
Lordship said, — " As to the campaign, he thought he had the
greatest reason to expect success from the army of General Howe,
being in good order, and more numerous from recruits than in the
last campaign ; while that of the rebels was in much worse order,
and less numerous; that the fleet was also reinforced with some
ships of the line, which were wanting last year; that he thought
himself farther founded in his expectation from the minds of the
people turning ; from their experiencing the misery Of anarchy,
confusion, and despotism, instead of the happiness and security
they enjoyed under the legal government of this country; that
these emotions had operated so strongly in their minds, that
very many deserters had left the rebel army, and come in to Gene
ral Howe with their arms ; many hundreds were coming in every
day: that he had formed his opinion front the circumstance of the
Congress having given up the government, confessing themselves un
equal to it, and created Mr. Washington Dictator qf America.
These circumstances, he thought, promised divisions among them,
That another circumstance, which every day proved of yet greater
importance, was, their being disappointed in their expectations of
assistance from France. They had been buoyed up with that hope,
and niade to believe, that a superior French fleet would be seen
riding on their coasts ; in all which they now felt themselves de
ceived, and resented it accordingly. That they had met with the
same disappointment from Spain ; not that he asserted they had
not received underhand assistance flom both,, in officers, &c. but
what they were promised was open avowed assistance. Yet, Sir,
added his Lordship, for the protection of France they >vbuld pay

SEC 1. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 1S7
largely ; they have offered largely ; they have, by their pretended
ambassadors, actually offered to the French court all our West In
dia islands! There is liberality, Sir! There is love of freedom,
to consign so readily to French dominion and despotism, the whole
West Indies !" *
It was about the date of this happy effusion, — only a few months
before the surrender of Burgoyne, — that Lord Stormont, the Bri
tish ambassador at the court of Versailles, being addressed by
Messrs. Franklin and Deane, commissioners ofthe American Con
gress at the same court, on the subject of an exchange of prisoners,
answered in these words, — " The King's ambassador receives no
application from rebels, unless they come to implore his Majesty's
clemency !"
4. Besides the consideration ofthe colossal power of the mother
country, and the many acknowledged obstacles to successful re
sistance inherent in the condition and habits of the colonies, other
encouragements were wanted by the ministerial majority in parlia
ment, and still more by the body of the people, for perseverance
in the system of tyrannical coercion. In defiance of the fresh ex
perience of the war of '56; ofthe whole current of the colonial
history ; of positive evidence of every description ; the moral and
intellectual character ofthe colonists was made', to furnish those en
couragements. They were at once cowards, knaves, and dolts, re
bellious and insolent, whom it would be easy to subdue,, and just to
bring under a rigorous discipline. The most was made on every
occasion, of these pretended traits and dispositions, for the Support
of the ministerial policy, the gratification of spleen, or the display
of wit, both in and out of parliament. Wh;it passed in that body
ought not to be forgotten ; for it affords a portentous and instruc
tive example of national arrogance trampling on all public deco
rum, all experience and verisimilitude, all self-interest and self-
respect, all justice and gratitude, all the most sacred regards and
endearing affinities.
With respect to the House of Commons, a single extract from
the Reports of its debates may suffice. ' The tenor of this extract
will strike every reader. who-is familiar..w.ith-the. tone and favourite
topics of the late English publications concerning America.
Colonel Grant said, — He had served in America; knew the Ame-

* See note L.

1S8 nrsPosiTipNS FitpsfTpE [parti.
ricans very we)l ; was certain they would not fight ; they would ;
never dare to face an English army ; and that they did not possess
any of the qualifications necessary to make a good soldier; he re
peated many of their common-place expressions ; ridiculed their en
thusiasm in religion, and drew a disagreeable picture of their man
ners and ways of living. *
The picture sketched by the gallant colonel is said to have pro
duced much mirth in fhe Hpuse, and obtained implicit credit from
thp majority. The phrqnicles of thp time relate that a suspicion of
its accuracy did not arise, until Some months after, when news was
received in England ofthe battle of Breeds' Hill ; and of the expe
dition to Canada ; which, as it is related by Brougham in his
Cplpnial Policy, furnishes an excellent comment on the speech of
Graut. " While the mpst sanguine friends of American independence
scarcely ventured to hope that the colonists would be able to main
tain their ground against the forces of the mothpr country, they
astonished the worjd, by commencing offensive operations. The
very first campaign of that unhappy war, was signalized by a suc
cessful expedition of the revolters against the stations pf the British
forces on the frontiers of Canada ; and the gates pf that province
were thus thrpvvn open tp the niost formidable invasion, which
threatened the total conquest pf the country before the end pf the
same year. The gallant leaders tP whom thpse pperatipns were
entrusted, actually reduced the whple pf Upper Canada, and were
pnly foiled in their attempts on Quebec by the ill choice of the
season, owing chiefly tp the divisipns pf opinion that constantly
attend the offensive measures of governments newly formed upon
a popular model ; the union of the besieged in defence pf tbejr
large property, which they were taught to believe would be exposed ,
to the plunder of the rebels, and the extensive pqwers wisely con?
fided by the British government to General Carleton— powers forr
merly unknpwn in any pf the cclonies, and utterly inconsistent with
a government bearing the faintest resemblance to a popular form,
Thus had the infant republic of America, immediately at the com
mencement pf separate pperatipns, and above half a year previpus
to the formal decjaratiqn pf independence, almcst succeeded in the

* Debate of Feb, 2d, 1775. This Colonel Grant was the same that com
manded the detachment whose defeat near Fort Duquesne I have noticed
in my 4th Section, and whiph was preserved from utter destruction by the
hravery pf the Virginia militia.

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 1SQ.
conquest of a British colony, strong by its natural position, by the
vigour of its internal administration, by the experience ofthe vete
ran troops who defended it, and by the skill of the gallant officer
who commanded these forces ; while the only advantages of the
assailants consisted in the romantic valour of their leaders, the en
thusiasm of men fighting in their own cause, and the vigorous coun
cils of an independent community." *
In the House of Lords, the empyrean of British legislation and '
senatorial dignity, " that great body of his majesty's brave and faith
ful subjects with which his American provinces happily abound
ed f," was still more roughly handled than in St, Stephen's Chapel,
" A little before I left London, jn 1775," says Franklin J, " being
at the House of Lords when a debate in which Lord Camden was
to speak, and who indeed spoke admirably on American affairs, I
was much disgusted, from the ministerial side, by many base reflec
tions on American courage, religion, understanding, &c. in which
we were treated with the utmost contempt, as the lowest of man
kind, and almost of a different species from the English of Britain;
but particularly the American honesty was abused by some of the
lprds, who asserted that we were all knaves, and wanted only by
this dispute to avoid paying our debts; that if we had any sense
of equity or justice, we should offer payment ofthe tea," 8cc.
The parliamentary history furnishes copious proof of this states
ment pf Franklin. Such specimens abound as the following : —
Earl Talbot said, '" The noble Earl who spoke last has certainly
hit pff one leading feature of the Americans. His lordship tells
you that, even in the midst of their zeal for freedom and indepen
dence, they were not able to conquer their natural propensity to
fraud arid concealment," Sac. &c.
" The duke of Qhandos rose, and moved an address of thanks.
His Grace began with stating the many public and private virtues
of the sovereign, and the obstinacy, baseness, and ingratitude, qf
his rebellious subjects in America," Sec. S^c.
The extent to which this obloquy was carried on one point, is
evidenced, even by a protest of the minority, who adduced it as one
of their motives to dissent, in the following remarkable language :
" We dp npt apprehend that the tppic so much insisted upon by a
lord high in office, namely, the cowardice qf his Majesty's American
subjects, to have any weight in itself, or be at all agreeable to the
dignity of sentiment which ought to characterize this House. This

f Book II. Sect- i. f Tide page 121, X Memoirs, vol. i.

1<)6 dispositions from the [part i.
is to call for resistance, and to provoke rebellion by the most power
ful of all motives which can act upon men of any degree of spirit
and sensibility.''
The lord high in office alluded to in the protest, was the Earl
of Sandwich, who presided over the admiralty, and possessed a
considerable share of influence in the cabinet. His speech is a
precious sample of the general strain of the mother country'at this
period, respecting her transatlantic offspring. It is a model which
has hardly been surpassed in the multitude of similar effusions at
our expense, to which almost every year since its date has given
birth. Its pleasantry is inimitable ; and the truth of the details,
as well as the delicacy of the tone, will be more strongly felt, on a
reference to what I have narrated, in regard tp the conduct of the
provincials at Louisbourg, and the efficacy of their conquest.
" The Earl of Sandwich said, — Suppose the colonies do abound
in men, what does that signify ? They are raw, undisciplined, cow*
ardly men. I wish, instead pf 40, pr 50,000 of these brave fellpws,
they would produce in the field at least 200,000. The more the bet
ter ; the easier would be the conquest : if they did not run away they
would starve themselves into compliance with our measures. I will
tell your lordships an anecdote that happened at the siege of Louid-
bourg: — Sir Peter Warren told me, that in order to try the courage
of the Americans, he ordered that a great number of them should
be placed in the front of the army. The Americans pretended at first
to be very much elated at this mark of distinction, and boasted
what mighty feats they would do upon the scene of action ; how
ever, when the moment came to put in execution this boasted cou
rage, behpld, every one of them ran from the front to the rear of
the army, with as much expedition as their feet could carry them,
and threatened to go off entirely, if the commander offered to make
them a shield to protect the British soldiers at the expense of their
blood : — they did not understand such usage. Sir Peter finding
¦what egregious cozcards they were, and knowing of what importance
such numbers would be to intimidate the French by their appear
ance, told these American heroes that his orders had been misun
derstood : that he always intended to keep them in the rear of the
army to make the great push; that it was the custom of generals
to preserve the best troops to the last ; that this was also the Ro
man custom, and as the Americans resembled the Romans in every
thing, particularly in courage and a love to their country, he should
make no scruple of following the Roman custom; and he made no
doubt but the modern Romans would show acts of bravery equal
to any in ancient Rome. By such discourses as these, said Sir
Peter Warren, I made shift to keep them with us, though I took

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 1Q1
care they should be pushed forward in no dangerous conflict.—
Now, I can tell the noble Lord, that this is exactly the situation
of all the heroes in North America; they are all Romans. And
are those men to fright us from the post of honour ? Believe me,
my lords, the very sound of a cannon would carry them off, in Sir
Peter's words, as fast as their feet could carry them." *
Although a majority of the noble lords chuckled at the waggery
of the British commodore,' and the vis comica of the head of the
Admiralty, there was, as the above-mentioned protest teaches, a
small minority of the assembly, who neither relished the joke, nor
comprehended the manliness of this course of argument in favour
pf the proscription of a whole people. A generous indignation
at the language held in the House of Commons, roused several of
the members of that body to stem the torrent of opprobrium ; and
I should commit an injustice, if I did not repeat something of
what was uttered on the American side.
" Colonel Barre said, — The Americans had been called cowards :
but the very regiment of foot which behaved so gallantly at Bunk
er's Hill (an engagement that smacked more of defeat than victory)
— the very corps that broke the whole French column and threw
them in such disorder at the siege of Quebeck, was three parts
composed of these cowardsf.'' Governor Johnstone paid the fol
lowing tribute : " To a mind that loves to contemplate the glorious
spirit of freedom, no spectacle can be more affecting than the ac
tion at Bunker's Hill. To see an irregular peasantry commanded
by a physician, — inferior in numbers,— 'Opposed by every cireum-
stance of cannon and bombs that could terrify timid minds, calmly
waiting the attack of the gallant Howe, leading on the best troops
in the world, with an excellent train of artillery, and twice re-
pulsiug those very troops who had often chaced the battalions of
France, and at last retiring for want of ammunition, but in so re
spectable a manner, that they were not even pursued! — whp can
reflect pn such'scenes, andnpt adore the constitution pf gpvernment
which cculd breed such men !" £
The pusillanimity of the provincials served as an enlivening
topic for the circles of fashion, and the clubs' of the coffee-houses,
as well as for the august body of parliament. According to Frank-

* Debate, March 15th, 1775.
+ Debate, October 26th, 1775.
t Ibid — See Note M.

lj)2 niSPOSlTlOiNS PROM THE [PART 1.
lin*, " every man in England, in the year 1761, Seemed to consi
der himself as a piece of a sovereign Over America ; seemed tP jos
tle himself into the throne' with tlie king, and talked of our sub
jects in the colonies." In 1775, almost every man in England
thought himself able to conquer America, and talked, in the words
of the ministry, of the palinode which the dastardly Americans
would sing at. the very appearance of a single British regiment.
The English newspapers of the day bear me out in this represen
tation ; and Franklin has left pn record, in one of his letters f, a
piece cf concurrent testimony sufficiently pointed. If is to be in
serted here, not merely for the sake of the historical fact, but for
the concluding observations, which I wish to be taken as a com
mentary upon all that l^iave quoted on this head from the British
orators. "The word general puts me in mind of a General, your General
Clarke, who had the folly to say, in my hearing, at Sir John
Pringle's., that with a thousand British grenadiers, he would. un
dertake to go from one end of America to the other, and geld all
the males, partly by force, and partly by a little coaxing. It is
plain he took us for" a species of animals very little superior to
brutes. The parliament too believed the stories of another foolish
general, I forget his name, that the Yankees never felt bold !
" Yankey was understood to be a sort of Yahoo ; and the par
liament did not think that fhe petitions of such creatures were fit
to be received and read in so wise an assembly. What was the
consequence of this monstrous pride and insolence ? You first
sent small armies to subdue us, believing them more than suffi
cient ; but soon found yourselves obliged to send greater; these,
whenever they ventured to penetrate our country beyond the pro
tection of their ships, were either repulsed and obliged to scamper
out,— or were surrounded, beaten, and taken prispners. An Ame
rican planter, whp had never seen Europe, was chpsen by us tp
epmmand our tfoops, and continued during the whole war. This
man sent home tp you, one after another, five of your best gene
rals baffled, their heads bare of laurels, disgraced even in the
opinion of their employers. Your contempt of our understand
ings, in comparispn with your own, appeared to be not much
better founded than that of oui cpurage, if we may judge by this
circumstance, that in whatever court of Europe a Yankey nego-
eiator appeared, the wise British minister was routed, put in a pas-

* Letter to Lord Kames. London, April 1 1th, 1767.
t August 19th, 1734.

SECT. VI.] PEACE or 1763. 193
sion, picked a quarrel with your friends, and was sent hpine with
a flea in his ear.
5. The extreme pf acrimony, nay ferociousness, into which the
temper of the ministerial party towards the colonies had run in
England, before the declaration of independence, and even within
three or four years after the peace of Paris, is scarcely conceiveable
on a review of the many circumstances which tended, wilh such
weight of reason and force of pathos, to produce the opposite state
of mind. We have seen that, from a mere calculation of interest,
or from party aims, the restoration of Canada was proposed, at
the very moment of the consummation of the common efforts of
the mother country and the colonies in the struggle with France.
When the colonies had barely ventured to^denoimce the stamp-act,
the idea of a more direct check, of vindictive visitation by similar
means, was admitted and inculcated. Franklin, writing from Lon
don in 1768, tells his correspondent, " I can assure you, that here
are not wanting people, not now in the ministry, but that soon
may be, who, if they were ministers, would take no step to pre
vent an Indian war in the colonies ; being of opinion, which they
express openly, that it would be a very good thing, in the first
place, to chastise the colonists for their undutifulness, and then to
make them sensible of the necessity of protection by the troops
of this country."
We read in the History of Gordon, where he treats of the dis
cussions in parliament respecting the repeal of the stamp-act, that
" the Dukes of York and Cumberland, the Lords of the Bed
chamber, and the officers of the royal household, were for carry
ing fire and sword to America, rather than recall the obnoxious
act- and that the bench of bishops joined them*.'' The unnatu
ral rancour which dictated this fell policy, could readily tolerate
that of starving the provinces of New England, by cutting them
off from the fishery on their own coast. In extenuation of this
measure, and in answer to the objections of the opposition in par
liament, who, with tbe ministry, believed it might produce fa
mine, the Solicitor-General of Scotland, a ministerial oracle, said,
" That though prevented from fishing in the sea, the New Eng.
landers had fish in their rivers, to which this act did not prevent
them from resorting ; and that though he understood their country
was not fit for grain, yet they had a grain of their own, Indian

* Vol. ii- p. 139.
Vol. I.— B b

194 insposrnoNs from the [part i.
corn, on which they might subsist full as zeell as they deserved."*
—When such language was held on a question of this nature, it is
not matter of surprise that, in the same year, the majority in par
liament listened, not merely without shuddering, but with com
placency, to the significative intimation already noticed, of one of
its members, Governor Lytlletou, respecting the seduction of the
American negroes.
The consoling image of a servile war in the southern colonies,
had even become familiar to the meditations of the politicians,
and was industriously presented to the nation. " If the obstinacy
of the Americans continues witliout actual hostilities," said Dr.
Johnson, in his Taxation no Tyranny, " it may perhaps be mollified
by tinning out the soldiers to free quarters, forbidding any perso-*
nal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed, that the slaves should
be set free : — an act which surely the lovers of liberty cannot but
commend. If they are furnished with fire-arms for defence, and
utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of govern
ment within the coimtry, they may be more grateful and honest
than their masters.'' -f
The Governors of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida, in
carrying this plan into effect, forgot the utensils of husbandry,
but not the fire-arms ; and offered them to the negroes, to be used
not strictly for personal defence, but in defence qf their sovereign.
The ministry upheld, in the House of Commons, Lord Dun-
more's celebrated proclamation of the 7th November, 1775, of
which the following passage is hardly yet effaced from the memory
of the Virginians : — " I do declare all indented servants, negroes,
or others appertaining to rebels, free, that are able and willing to
bear arms, they joining his majesty's troops as soon as may be, for
the more speedily reducing this colony to a proper sense of their
duty to his majesty's crown and dignity."
Mr. Burke, referring to this subject in his speech on the Con
ciliation with America, made some remarks ; the last of which
may be particularly recommended to the attention of those Bri-

* Debate ofthe Commons, March 6th, 1775.
f " That this pamphlet (Taxation no Tyranny) was written at the desire
of those who were theu in power, J have no doubt; and, indeed, Johnson
owned to mc, that it had been revised and curtailed by some of them. He
told me, that tliey had struck out one passage, which was to this effect 2—
" That the colonists could with no solidity argue from their not having been
taxed while in their infancy, that they should not now be taxed. We do not
put a calf into the plough; we wait till he is. an ox." He said ," They struck
it out cither critically, as too ludicrous,— or politically, as too exasperatirfg."
(Baswell.)

SECT. VI.} PEACE OF 1763. 19.5 .
tish clitics, who so often discharge upon us, on account of our
slave-holding, " the splendid bile of their virtuous indigna
tion." " Wilh regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and
the southern colonies, it has been proposed, I know, to r :duce it,
by declaring a general enfranchisement of their slaves. This pro
ject has had its advocates and panegyrists. But I could never
argue myself into an opinion of it. Slaves as these unfortunate
black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they
not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation
which has sold them to their present masters ? From that nation,
one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters, is their refusal to
deal any more in that inhuman traffic T'
Th.e manifesto and proclamation which the British commis
sioners for restoring peace, addiessed to the Americans in October
J778, denounced a war of havoc in terms that occasioned a motion
in parliament for solemn reprobation. In the course of the ani
mated debate on this motion*, the American Congress of that era,
now classed by universal assent with the wisest and most virtuous
assemblies of the kind which are mentioned in history, was the par
ticular object of proscription and opprobrium with members of
both parties. Mr. Pozpijs said, " If the Congress could be picked
up, man by man, and put to the most exemplary punishment,
they should all fall unpilied by him, because they really deserved
every severity that could be inflicted on them."
Governor Johnstone^ " approved of the proclamation through
out, and condemned the American Congress in the strongest terms.
He thought no quarter ought to be shown to them ; and if the infer-
nals could be let hose against them, he should approve ofthe measure.
He said, the proclamaiion certanily did mean a tear of desolation ;
jt meant nothing else : it could mean nothing else ; and if he had
been on the spot when it was issued, he would have signed it."
Mr. Attorney General Weddei burn said, " that the proclamation
was as sober, conscientious, and humane a piece of good writing
89 he ever saw : he explained away the phrase of the ' extremes
of war,' and asserted that nothing could be done but what was
necessary to self-preservation ; which he avowed was a sufficient
plea for all the horrois of war."

* Dec. 4th, 17T8,
t His appointment by the ministry as one of the commissioners to Ame
rica, explains the contrariety between his tone at this period, and that which
be adopted at the beginning of tlie war.

196 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE (PART I.
Mr. Macdonald " understood the part of the proclamation
which gave such an alarm, to be nothing more than a warning
lo the rebels not to expect that lenity in future which we had
shown to them during the course of the war, when we looked
upon them as our fellow-subjects, and whom we wished to
reclaim by the most singular mildness and indulgence. By
their alliance with France, the natural enemy of our country,
they had forfeited all right to clemency ; they were therefore in
future to be treated no longer as subjects of Great Britain, but
as appendages to the French monarchy, whose interests they
had preferred to the British : parental fondness should no lon
ger sway the breasts of our rulers ; war should assume a dif
ferent form from that in which it had been conducted from the
beginning of the rebellion; and the Americans might prepare
to be treated, not, indeed, like beasts, or savages, but like
common enemies, for whom we no longer retained any trace
of affection, which their unnatural alliance had absolutely
effaced, but which had subsisted longer than it could have pru
dently been expected, after the many unprecedented provocations
they had given Great Britain to take off the ties of affection at
a much more early period. AVar now they should have in its full
vigour; not such an one as they had been all along accustomed
to, and which had been so tempered with peace, that it scarcely
deserved the name of war. This he conceived to be the meaning
of the words in the proclamation; he hoped it would have the
desired effect on the rebels ; he flattered himself that it was a
happy omen to see the friends of America so alarmed at it : and
their terrors he would deem the forerunners of that general con-i
sternation in America, which would make the deluded colonists
open their eyes before it should be too late, and return to their
allegiance 1,0 the mother country."
6. There is still a sort of incredulity of the imagination when
we reflect, how soon the parent state resorted to the expedient
of annoyance— the last which, in the order of penal visitation,
would present itself to the fiercest hate against the most detestable
object, or to the most just revenge for the deepest and bitterest
injury. It will be at once understood that I mean the employment
of the savages as auxiliaries : — an enormity of rancour and despe
rate ambition, which drew down those blasting thunders from
the genius of Chatham, that seem to be still heard, when we
lopk at the faint image of them conveyed in the parliamentary
history. Two years after the commencement of the revolution,
had this prophetic and generous spirit to tell his countrymen,
in an agony of shame and grief, " It is not a wild and lawless,

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 197
banditti whom we oppose: — the resistance of America is the
struggle of free and virtuous patriots." The cruelty and degene
racy of associating to the British arms the tomahawk and scalping-
knife, — of ' trafficking at the shambles of every German despot"
for the purpose of crushing that resistance; of butchering a peo
ple chiefly descended from British loins, and from whose labours
Britain had reaped so rich a harvest of power and glory, might
well produce the " sanctified phrenzy" to which he was wrought.
But he recollected, besides, how long that people had struggled
with " the merciless Indian' for the possession of the soil on
which they had reared English communities and institutions; and
he felt, in seeing the same inveterate enemy led back upon them,
by the country for whose benefit nearly as much as their own, they
had fought so bravely, and bled so profusely, the peculiar hard
ship and bitterness of their lot, and the unparalleled barbarity and
callousness of England. There was enough to rouse all the ener
gies of his humanity and his patriotism in the item which the
treasury accounts presented of .£160,000 sterling, for the purchase
of warlike accoutrements for the savages; — in that phrase, as ridi
culous as it was ferocious, of Bourgoyne's speech to the Congress
of Indians at the river Bouquet (June 21st, 1777) — " Go forth
in the might of your valour and your cause ; strike at the common
enemies of Great Britain and America, disturbers of public order,
peace, and happiness ; destroyers of commerce ; parricides of the
state ;" — and in the proclamation of Governor Tonyn, of East
Florida, offering a reward for every American scalp delivered to
persons appointed to receive them.
It is an aggravation of guilt that the utmost efforts of the
highest degree of human eloquence, seconded by the most mature
wisdom and approved patriotism, were wholly without effect-
Throughout the war, the mother-country displayed as haughty
and ruthless a spirit, as if she were in fact engaged in crushing
" a wild and lawless banditti," or resisting an hereditary enemy
and rival, alien and odious to her by every principle of estrange
ment and aversion *. The Americans whom she made prisoners
in the contest, persisting, as they did, in rejecting all temptations
to enter into her service against their country, so far from con
ciliating kindness by their magnanimity, experienced a more
rigorous treatment than the French and Spaniards in the same
situation. After many hundreds of them had languished for se
veral years in a cruel captivity, they petitioned the government
jn vain for an equal allowance of provision. The Earl of SheU

» See Note M.

1Q8 DISPOSITIONS FUQM THE [PART I.
burne affirmed in the House of 'Lords, in the debate of Decem
ber 5th, 1777, that "the French officers taken prisoners going to
America, had been inhumanely treated ; but that the American
prisoners in England were treated with unprecedented barbae
rity." The American Board of War had a conference with Mr. Bou-
dinot, the Commissary General of prisoners at York Town, on,
the 21st of December, 1777 ; and after having carefully exa
mined the evidence produced by him, agreed upon the following
report: — " That there are about Q00 privates and 300 officers
prisoners in the city of New York ; and about 500 privates and
50 officers in Philadelphia: — That the privates in New York
have, been crowded all sumpier in sugar-houses ; and the officers
boarded on Long Island, except about 30, who have been con
fined in the provost guard, and in the most loathsome jails :— r
That since the beginning of October all these piisoners, both
officers and privates, have been confined in prison ships, or the
provost : —* That the privates in Philadelphia have been kept in
two public jails, and the officers in the state house : — That, from
the best evidence which the nature of the subject will admit of,
the general allqwance of prisoners, at most does not exceed four
ounces of meat and as much bread (often so damaged as not to be
eatable) per clay, and often much less, though the professed al
lowance is from eight to ten ounces : — That it has been a com
mon practice with the enemy, on a prisoner's being first captured,
to keep-him three, four, or even five days without a morsel of pro
visions of any kind, and then to tempt him to enlist, to save his.
life : — That there are numerous instances of prisoners of war
perishing in all the agonies of hunger, from their severe treat*.
ment: — -That being generally stript of what clothes they have
when taken, they have suffered greatly for the want thereof, dur
ing their confinement."
Mr. Burke, in one of his publications of the year 1 77fS, sar •
castically remarks, " It is undoubtedly some comfort for our disr
appointments and burdens, to insult the few provincial officers
we take, by throwing them with common men into a gaol ; and;
some triumph to hold the bold adventurer Ethan Allen in iron*
in' a dungeon in Cornwall."
This gallant American was taken prisoner, fighting with the ut->
most bravery, in Canada, under the banners of Montgomery. He
was immediately loaded with irons, and transported to England,
in that condition, on board of a man of war. On some observa
tions being made in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Rich
mond,, concerning his treatment, the Earl of Suffolk, one of the

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 199
ministers, made this reply: — " The noble duke says, we brought
over Ethan Allen in irons to this country, but were afraid to try
him, lest he should be acquitted by an English jury, or that we should
not be able legally to convict him. I do assure his Grace, that
he is equally mistaken in both his conjectures ; we neither had a
doubt but we should be able legally to convict him, nor were We
afraid that an English jury would have acquitted him ; nor further,
was it out of any tenderness to the man, who, I maintain, had
justly forfeited his life to the offended laws of his country. But
I will tell his Grace the true motives which induced administra
tion to act as they did. We were aware that the rebels had lately
made a considerable number of prisoners, and we accordingly
avoided bringing him to his trial from considerations of prudencer,
from a dread of the consequences of retaliation ; not from a
doubt of his legal guilt, or fear of his acqnittal by an. English
jury."* The conduct and temper of ministry in the case of Ethan Allen,
— which would have been the same in that of Montgomery, had
he fallen into tlieir hands, — deserves to be visited with the con
trast which is afforded in such a trait as the following, related
.by general Bourgoyne in the House of Common, on the 26th of
May, 1778.
(' The district of Saratoga is the property of Major General
Scuyler of the American troops ; there were large barracks built
by hiin, which took fire the day after fhe British army arrived
on the ground. General Scuyler had likewise a very good dwell
ing-house, exceeding large store-houses, great saw-mills, and other
out-buildings, to the value altpgether, perhaps, of 10,0001. A
few days before the negotiation with General Gates, the enemy
had formed a plan to attack me; a large column of troops were
approaching to pass the small river, preparatory to a general
action, and were entirely covered from the fire of my artillery
by those buildings. Sir, I avow that I gave the order to set them
on fire ; and in a very short time that whole property I have de
scribed was consumed. But to show that the person most deeply
concerned in that calamity did not put the construction upon it
which it has pleased the honourable gentleman to do, I must in
form the House, that one of the first persons I saw, after the
convention was signed, was General Scuyler. I expressed to
him my regret at the event which had happened, and the reasons
which had occasioned it. He desired me to think no more of
it ; said the occasion justified it, according to the principles

* 1776.

200 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART t,
and rules of war; and that he should have done the same upon
the same occasion, — or words to that effect. He did more; —
he sent an aid-de-camp to conduct me to Albany, in order, as
he expressed, to procure me better quarters than a stranger might
be able to find. This gentleman conducted me to a very ele-
gant'house ; and, to my great surpi ise, presented me to Mrs. Scuy
ler and her family ; and in this general's house 1 remained dur
ing my whole stay at Albany, with a table of more than twenty
covers for me and my friends, and every other possible demonstra
tion of hospitality."
7. I do not wish to depreciate the value, or detract from the
glory of the exertions made by the great champions of the
American cause in the British Parliament. The Chathams,
the Camdens, the Shipleys, and the Banes, were animated by a
love of justice and a hatred of oppression ; and these noble sen
timents predominated equally in the breasts of many of our
less conspicuous friends through the British nation. But no
thing is more certain, than that the opposition generally, to the
plans of ministers, had no immediate or principal reference to
the rights and interests of America. It arose out of pre-existing
domestic divisions; and the parties marshalled themselves accord
ingly, in the new dispute ; — the tories and high churchmen on
the side of government ; the religious dissenters and the assertors
of the principles of 1688, in the train of the whig leaders in
parliament, candidates for place, and invariably antagonists of
those in possession. The old combat was renewed with fresh
fury ; the oppression of America served as a battery for the
minority ; while the treasury bench and the dispensers of crown-
patronage made use of the prospect of her subjection, — which
would open a new exchequer, and a new chapter in the Red
Book, — to multiply adherents, and fortify themselves in power.
Doubtless, had they accomplished their object in America, —
had their arms and their arts been successful in that quarter,
with whatever havoc of free institutions, and noble lives, and
fair creations of manly toil, — they would have attained all
their ends at home, and now flourish in British history, as
do the Clives and the Hastings in the annals of the India-
House. The point is no longer open to controversy, that the ministry
had a majority of the British people with them in the begin
ning of the war *. The British nation sanctioned the harshest

point

* The testimony of the ministerial party is emphatically positive on this
int. Lord North said (May 1 4th, 177T) he might justly affirm, That

SECT. VII.] PEACE OF 1763. 20l
measures of coercion, through ignorance of the true state of the
case, and a blind pride of opinion. By degrees, as her agricul
ture, trade, and manufactures began to be seriously affected by
the expenses and embarrassments of the contest, the classes de
pendent upon the prosperity of those branches of industry, saw
it in a less favourable light; and passing from private disagree
ments and expostulations with the ministry, to an open approval
of the policy urged by an indefatigable parliamentary opposition,
determined the peace and the recognition of our independence.
Circumstances brought the affair to public opinion in the last re
sort ; and that opinion yielded to a calculation of profit and loss.
No generous sentiment or broad political reasoning, mingled itself
in fact, or had any sensible influence with the business-like deli
beration of its arbiters and immediate instruments. There were
none at this crisis, as there were none at any antecedent period, who
" hailed it as an extension of British honour and happiness, that
great, and happy, and independent communities of British descent,
should exist in America, with the best characteristics of British
manners and institutions." In parliament, all voices proclaimed
the emancipation of the colonies as an evil of the first magni-
tudef. The question of our independence had, at the outset, to
do with the spirit of corruption and tyranny in the cabinet, and of
arrogance and commercial monopoly in the people. In the end,
it appeared not merely less dangerous to the monopoly than was

there was a very great majority ofthe nation at large, who were for prose
cuting the war against tlieir rebellious subjects in America, till they should.
acknowledge the legislative supremacy of parliament. So Mr. Jenkinson
(March 17lh, 1778): " All degrees of people arose in one unanimous resent
ment; and the war became a popular war. I say this war with America
has been a popular war," &c.
t In the debate of July 10th, 1782, on American Independence, tbe
Earl of Shelburne said, With respect to America, he had always consi
dered her independence as a great evil which Britain had to dread, and to
guard against. Ke had spoken of it in this manner for years past, and
when he believed he was joined in sentiment by every man in the coimtry. He
bad always believed and declared, That the independence of America was
an evil as much to be apprehended and dreaded by America as hy Bri
tain ! This had always been his opinion; and he had constantly laboured,
by every means in his power, to persuade men that this was the case, in
his applications to private men and to public men, to individuals and to
bodies of men. He wished to God that he had been appointed to urge
that proposition, and lo maintain it before Congress ! He was one of the
last men in the country who had been brought over to agree that Bri
tain ought to acknowledge the independence of America ; but circum
stances, he confessed, were changed ; and he was now of opinion, That it
was become a necessary evil which the country must endure to avoid a
greater," &c.
Vol.1.— C c

202 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE . [PART I.
thought; but even likely to prove the reverse. This considera
tion abated the fierceness, and accelerated the submission of pride,
which had, finally, a severer struggle in yielding to France and
Spain. The opposition leaders, who succeeded the authors
of the war in the cabinet, were carried onward, irresistibly, to
the last concession, by the principles upon which they mounted
to power, and by the course of events. As regards the disposi
tions and personal views of the Shelburne administration, the his
tory, now fully disclosed, of the negotiations for peace, has left
few grounds of admiration or gratitude.
8 It has been said, and it may be true, that notwithstanding
the addition of one hundred millions sterling made to the British
national debt, — the effusion of so much blood, — the humiliation
correlative to the triumph ofFrance and Spain, — the indelible stains
left in the national character, not a few of the English politicians
finding the trade with America retained, and even likely to be in
definitely enlarged, were glad, and openly rejoiced, that the
struggle with such potent colonies, foreseen to be inevitable in
progress of time, had ended on such easy terms. But it is much
more certain that, with multitudes of all classes, the dismember
ment of the empire left an ulceration, " a galling wakefulness,''
which found relief only in the most extravagant or malignant
hopes ; and that the experience of the war was lost upon the
majority of the cation, in regard to the character aud destinies
of the colonies. On the conclusion of peace, it was confidently
announced and believed, that the confederacy of the States
would quickly be dissolved ; that the forces of Great Britain
remaining among them, might be called in to quell the disor
ders, which the separation from the mother coimtry must pro
duce; that a second revolution would happen, and restore them,
penitent and submissive, to her dominion. Indeed, to induce
them to lay their independence at her feet, nothing more would
soon be necessary than to hold out the threat of considering
and treating them as a foreign nation in matters of trade. The
Americans were still cowards, for the Irish had fought their
battles, as well by sea as by land*; and, at all events, if they
were not driven by intestine confusion and distress, to return to
their allegiance, Spain would involve them in awful difficulties,

* Tbe modesty of this assertion was the more remarkable from the
notorious fact, that the Irish and Sootch troops, and the German mer
cenaries, formed Ihe major part of the force uhich England employed
against the Colonies. The ministry conceived the plan of hiring twenty
thousand Russians besides, to assist in " fighting their battles" on this
Continent.

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 203
by the claims she was likely to prefer on that part of Louisiana
given up by the treaty.
Such were the topics of consolation administered by writers
of authority, and greedily swallowed by men in office. Lord
Sheffield embodied them in a pamphlet soon after the ratification
of the definitive treaty ; and took, by general consent, the station
of oracle, which he ought never to lose, — so marvellously have
events confirmed all his opinions. I cannot resist the temptation
of quoting some of the most striking of these, as they show the
spirit of the times in England : — " It will not be an easy matter
to bring ihe American Slates to act as a nation ; they are not to
be feared as such by us." " We might as reasonably dread the
effects of combinations among the German, as among the Ame
rican States, and deprecate the resolves of the Diet as those of
Congress." " Every circumstance proves that it will be extreme
folly to enter into any engagements wilh tliem, by which zee may
not wish to be bound hereafter*." "There is not a possibility
that America will maintain a navy." " That country, concerning
which writers of a lively imagination have lately said so much, is
weakness itself "j." " It is not probable the American States will
have a very free trade in the Mediterranean : it will not be the
interest of any of the great maritime powers lo protect them from
the Barbary States. Tliey cannot protect themselves from the
latter ; they cannot pretend to a navy £." " The authority of
the Congress can never be maintained over those distant and
boundless western regions ; and her nominal subjects will speedily
imitate and multiply the examples of independence §." " The
population of America is not likely to increase as it has done, at
least on her coast ||." " There is no country in Europe which pays
such heavy (axes as the American States," ^[ &c.
Looking back to the exasperation atid commotions which were
raised in America by the stamp-act, and to the total change of
the scene on its repeal, Mr. Burke made the just remark that " so
sudden a calm, recovered after so violent a storm, was without
parallel in history." The colonists almost universally vied in de
monstrations of gratitude and glowing expressions of loyalty, as
if the repeal had been a spontaneous and inestimable boon, and
not a retraction, produced by party interests, of an impolitic usur-

* Observations on the Commerce of the United States, 2d edition,
198. t Ibid, p. 206. I Ibid. p. 204.
\ Ibid. p. 190. || Ibid. 201.
if Ibid. p. 193.

204 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART I.
pation. There was something not less remarkable and admira
ble in the transition at the conclusion of the revolutionary war.
Notwithstanding the enormity of the provocations on which the
Americans had taken up the sword, the severity of their sufferings
during the struggle, and the vindictive and ruthless character of the
hostilities waged against them, the tide of their affections turned
rapidly towards the mother country *, and the policy of renewing
with her the closest and most liberal relations compatible with in
dependence, received the sanction of a large majority throughout
the confederation.
Taking the representations of the British writers themselves,
concerning the merits of the dispute so solemnly terminated, it is
impossible to imagine a case, in which natural duty, retributive
justice, and the common good, more plainly exacted from tbe
other side, more even than a mere correspondence of sentiments
and views ; — and yet what a contrast ! as proved by the vogue of
Sheffield's writings and doctrines ; and from such statements as
the following, made in the year 1784, by his ablest antago
nist f : —
" It is sufficient, at this time, to support an opinion of the pro
priety of endeavouring to restore our broken connection with
America, by those conciliatory means, which best tend to regain
the affections of a people, from whom we have derived, and from
whom we may yet derive,; the most solid benefits, to be deemed
the sacrificers of the interests of Great Britain to those of Ame
rica. However laudable, however necessary the pursuit, there is a
prejudice among us arising from intemperate passion, and the vex
ation of disappointment, that precludes, obstructs, or, in some
shape or other, ultimately destroys it."
It would lead me too far to detail the facts which have ren
dered unquestionable and notorious the continued prevalence of
those unworthy dispositions, and the steady prosecution of a
scheme of action in itself demonstrative of their inveteracy. I
could produce British authority on this head, in the shape of direct
confessions and self-reproof, conveyed in books and parliamentary
debates, for every consecutive year from the peace of 17S2 to the
present time. From the abundance of this kind of testimony, I

* This is not indeed the opinion of Judge Marshall (Life of Washington,
vol. v. p. 355) ; but it is proved, by the victory gained for the politics most
favourable to Great Britain in all respects.
k> + Champion. — "Considerations on the Present Situation of Great Bri
tain," London, &c.

SECT. VI.] PEACE OF 1763. 206
will take, at random, some few morsels which no third party at
least, will reject as invalid, and which shall have relation to periods
so recent as 1808 and 1812.
" In England," says Mr. Baring, " our insensible monopoly of
the American trade does not appear ever to have been properly
appreciated : — the events of a civil war left naturally deeper im
pressions on the unsuccessful than the successful party; and while
every little state of Europe was courted, that afforded limited
markets for our manufactures, we seemed to regret that we owed
any thing to our former subjects ; and an increasing commercial
intercourse has been carried on under feelings of unsubdued enmity,
— of which the government, instead of checking sentiments as
void of common sense as of magnanimity, has rather set the
fashion. To this error, in my opinion, the present state of the
public mind towards America is, in a great measure, owing.
Her success and prosperity, though we dare not fairly avow it,
have displeased us; and sentiments have been imperceptibly en
couraged towards her as ungenerous as they are impolitic." *
" 1 know," said Mr. Brougham, in parliament, in 1812," the
real or affected contempt with which some persons in this country
treat our kinsmen of the west. I fear some angry and jealous feel
ings have survived our more intimate connection with them, —
feelings engendered by the event of its termination ; but which, it
would be wiser, as well as more manly, to forget."
" No small part of the English nation," says the Edinburgh
Review, " look with feelings of peculiar hostility towards the
people to which they bear the nearest resemblance, and willingly
abet their rulers in treating them with less respect and less cordi- „.
ality than any other nation. Neither the government nor the po
pulace of this country have forgiven America for having made
herself independent ; and the lowest calumnies and grossest abuse
are daily employed by a court-faction to keep alive the most vul
gar prejudices." (No. 23, 180D). "The Americans asserted
their independence upon principles which they derived from us.
Their rebellion was the surest proof of their genuine descent.
They are descended from our loins, — they retain our usages and
manners, — they read our books, — they have copied Pur freedom,
— they rival our courage, — and yet they are less popular and less
esteemed among us than the base and bigotted Portugueze, and
the ferocious and ignorant Russians."

* Inquiry into the Causes and Consequences of the Orders in Council,
1808, p. 19.

206 DISPOSITIONS FEOM THE [PAUT I.
" There is not an individual who has attended at all to the pro
gress of the present dispute with America (1812) whp dpes npt
see that it was embittered from the first, and wantonly urged to its
present fatal issue, by the insolent, petulant, and preposterous tone
of those very individuals who insisted upon that miserable experi
ment ; and plunged their own country in wretchedness, only to
bring down upon it the reluctant hostility of its best customers and
allies," &c.
9. The reign of Lord Sheffield's sapient opinions, was naturally
prolonged in Great Britain, by the comparative insignificance of
the military and naval establishments of the United States under
the federal administration, — their total disarray after its overthrow,
the simplicity of their institutions, and the vehement altercations
of the parties into which they were thrown. It became anew a
common belief and fond hope with the ministerial politicians,
That America might yet be regained by arms or by arts ; and even
those of the opposition settled down in a contemptuous commisera
tion of her weakness and sinister destinies. The rencontre of the
Chesapeake and Leopard made it quite certain for all parties that
the Americans were cowards; that the Irish had fought their bat
tles in the revolution ; and that there was only food for merriment
or pity in,the idea of their meeting at sea British skill and valour.
The Edinburgh Review told confidently of " the feeble and
shadowy texture of the federal government*;" — it had " little
hopes of a system of polity which, in advancing society, offered no
prizes to talents, and no distinctions to wealth f ;" and foresaw
that "the slender tie which held the United States together would
burst at once in the tumult of war J." Jn 1809, the same journal,
professing always superior liberality and closeness of observation,
as to our affairs, discoursed of us in the following strain : — ¦" As
it is quite impossible to have too much jealousy of France, so, to
wards America we can scarcely have too little. When such rea-
soners as Mr. Leckie, gravely talk of our being insulted by the
Porte, we plainly perceive the errors of a man who has lived in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Turks until he has forgotten
their insignificance. But when France is stretching her iron coasts
on all sides of us, — when her fleets and her camps are within
sight, and we alone, of all Europe, have not been conqueied by
her arms, — it is almost as ridiculous to be jealous of America as
of Turkey, — of a nation three thousand miles off, — scarcely
kept together by the weakest government in the world, — with no

* No. 28. + Ibid. J No. 24.

PART I.] DISPOSITIONS FItOM THE 207
army, and half a dozen frigates; and knowing no other means of
intercourse with other countries than by peaceful commerce."*
In 1812, Mr. Brougham struck the same key in parliament, and
displayed an equal mastery of his subject.
" Jealousy of America ! w hose armies are yet at the plough, or
making, since your policy has willed it so, awkward (though im
proving) attempts at the loom, — whose assembled navies could
not lay siege to an English sloop of war : — Jealousy of a power
which is necessarily peaceful as well as weak ; but which, if it had
all the ambition of France and her armies to back it, and all the
navy of England to boot; nay, had it the lust of conquest which
marks your enemy, and your armies as well as navy to gratify it, —
is placed at so vast a distance as to be perfectly harmless ! and
this is the nation, of which, for our honour's sake, we are desired
to cherish a perpetual jealousy, for the ruin of our best inte
rests." f
The Quarterly Review scarcely deigned even to pass a jest upon
the impotency of the States; and would not " stoop to degrade
the British navy by condescending to enter into any comparison
between the high order, the discipline, and comfort, of an English
man of war and an American frigate ;" — it " disdained any such
comparison ;£." This high disdain of all the belligerent capacities
of America, pervaded not only the royal councils, but the whole
British naval and military service. In the first rencontre at sea,
the Alert, with 20 guns mounted, bore down triumphantly upon
the American frigate Essex, and fired a broadside, expecting to
prove that " the assembled navies of America could not lay siege
to an English sloop of war :" and though the issue gave an air of
paralogy to the business, yet it was soon followed by an instance
of the same happy confidence in the case of the frigate Guer-
riere. I must do the two oracular journals which I have quoted on
this head, the justice to remark, that, at the end of the contest, al
though they omitted to remind their readers of their first opinions,
they did not pass by the perplexing facts in absolute silence. The
Quarterly Review could condescend to say " The Americans have
fought on the element of England with British spirit. On that
element, let it be fairly acknowledged, we have much to commend
in them, and zee hare still something io redeem §." Even before
the termination of hostilities, the Edinburgh Review told of" the

* No. 24.
+ Speech on the Present State of Commerce and Manufactures.
J No. 15, Article on Madison's War.
S No. 30.

208 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE [PART I.
discomfiture of the English naval resourses by the American ma
rine ; of which, by a whimsical coincidence, we have learnt the ex
istence in the same documents that detail its successes ;"— and
speedily came out the round unvarnished tale : —
" We have been worsted in most of our naval encounters with
the Americans, and baffled in most of our enterprizes by land ;
— with a naval force on their coast, exceeding that of the enemy
in the proportion of ten to one, we have lost two out of three, of
all the sea-fights in which we have been engaged ; and at least
three times as many men as our opponent; — while their priva
teers swarm unchecked round all our settlements, and even on the
coast of Europe ; and have already made prize of more than seven
teen hundred of our merchant vessels." ¦f-
It is true, and detracts a little from the force of these acknow
ledgments, that we read in the same number of the Journal, "The
national vanity of the Americans has scarcely any other field of
triumph than the discomfiture of Britain in the war of the Revo
lution." We might produce, by way of rejoinder, perhaps, from
the same hand, out of a number of passages implying the existence
of other fields of triumph, the following : —
" History has no other example of so happy an issue to a revo
lution consummated by a long civil war, as that of the Americans.
Indeed, it seems to be very near a maxim in political philosophy,
That a free government cannot be obtained, where a long em
ployment of military force is necessary to establish it. In the case
of America, however, the military power was disarmed by that
very influence which makes a revolutionary army so formidable tP
Liberty ; for the images of Grandeur and Power (those meteor
lights, which are exhaled in the stormy atmosphere of a revolution,
to allure the ambitious and dazzle the weak) made no impressiou
upon the firm and virtuous soul ofthe American commander." J
" In the United States, M. Talleyrand was surprized to observe,
That a long and violent civil war had left scarcely any trace of its
existence in the character of the intercourse of the various factions
which divided the people. No hatred or animosity was perceiv
able among individuals, — no turbulence or agitation of character
had been permanently engrafted on the sober solid habits of the
colonists. The profound remark of Machiavel appeared for once
to fail, That every revolution contains the seeds of another, and
scatters them behind it.'' *
" The spectacle presented by America during the last thirty or
forty years, ever since her emancipation began to produce its full

+ No. 48. J No. 25. * No. 11.

SECT. Vt.] PEACE OF 1763. 20&
effect, and since she fairly entered the lists as an independent na
tion, — has been, beyond every thing formerly known in the his
tory of mankind, imposing and instructive*'' *
Dr. Seybert has introduced into his Statistics a compendious
statement of the naval events of the war; which furnishes an edi
fying commentary upon the first speculations of the British poli
ticians. " The American navy triumphed in fourteen engagements ; in
some of which, the contending forces were nearly equal, and in
many of them that of the enemy was decidedly superior. The
cases of the Chesapeake and the Argus are the only instances in
which it can be pretended that the enemy had any fair claims to
success, upon the ground of the equality of the respective forces.
" The superiority of our gunnery is confirmed by the number
of killed and wounded on board the enemy's vessels, and the con
dition of their ships after the actions : in several instances the Bri
tish vessels were sunk whilst the fight lasted; in most instances
they were so materially injured as to make their destruction abso*
lutely necessary, — whereas our vessels were commonly, with
scarcely any loss of time, ready to commence another combat."
The number of British merchant vessels captured by the Ame
ricans, and which arrived in port or were destroyed, is determined
by an irrefragable estimate -f, to amount to five thousand five hun
dred : — more, in all probability, than Britain lost in all the wars
which grew out of the French revolution.
Much clamour, it may be recollected, was raised in England
concerning the real amount of force of the American ships, com
pared with the nominal ; but we may judge with what grace this
charge was so indignantly made, by the following statement, which
I copy from the Regulations relative to the Royal Navy, officially
promulgated in 181? : —
" All ships of the second rate, though rated at 9S, carry up
wards of 100 guns.
" In the third rate, some of the ships rated at 80 guns, carry
near 90 ; and others rated at 74, carry 80 guns.
" In the fourth rate, of the skips rated at 50 guns, one class (that
on two decks) carries 58 guns ; another (that on one deck) car
ries 60 and upwards.
' " The frigates rated at 40 guns, carry 50 ; and those rated at
38, carry 46 and upwards.

* No. SO.
f See that very useful work, Niles's Weekly Register, for Jan. 181©.
Vol. I.— D d

210 DISPOSITION?, &C [PART If
" The majority of those rated at 36, carry 44 ; and some of those
rated at 32, carry 46 and 48 ; being more than others that are rated
at 38 and 36.
" Similar differences between the real and the nominal amount
of force exists in the fifth rate ; but it is unnecessary to specify the
details." In the article on Michaud's Travels in America, our friends of
the Edinburgh Review remarked of the western Americans, with
a mixture of contempt and compassion, " Their generals distil
brandy, their colonels keep taverns, and their statesmen feed pigs.''
But it was discovered, by the progress of events, that these generals
and colonels could, notwithstanding, pursue the occupation im
plied by their titles ; and the affairs of Plattsburgh and New
Orleans confounded the critics. " We have actually had to wit
ness the incredible spectacle of a regular well-appointed army of
British veterans, retiring before little more than an equal force of
American militia !"
The whole result of- the war on the land, to which the generals
that distil brandy, and the colonels that feed pigs, largely contri
buted, must have astonished them still more. An aggregate loss
of nearly twelve thousand of his Majesty's troops, and the ineffici
ency of a force of fifty thousand regulars operating at one time !—
and, with respect to the statesmen who feed pigs, there must have
been a lively surprize, and some alteration of sentiment, when the
Marquis Wellesley was found declaring in the House of Lords,
That, in his opinipn, the American Commissioners at Ghent had
shown the most astonishing superiority over the British during the
whole of the correspondence ; and that he had little doubt the
British papers were communicated from the common fund of the
ministers in England. *

*¦ Speech respecting the Negotiation for Peace with America, April 18th,
1815.

211

SECTION VII.
OF THE HOSTILITIES OF THE BRITISH REVIEWS.
1. After the Revolution of lfe8, and still more after the
establishment of the House of Hanover, the North American
Colonies preferred titles of a peculiar force, to the highest esteem
and favour of every Briton who respected and loved the principles
with which those events were connected. They had been ob
noxious to the despotic plans of the Stuarts, and suffered from
their tyranny : they had asserted the rights proclaimed in Magna
Charta with more boldness, and maintained them with more suc
cess than the mother country : they had limited the ravages, and
disappointed the voracity of despotism and corruption, by furnish
ing a secure asylum for the persecuted, as well as the distressed,
from whatever cause *. On these grounds, and the many others
developed in the foregoing pages, their merits might be supposed
to be almost infinite with every English Whig of the last fifty
years ; so great, at least, as to make it, for one of the present
day,notonly a perversion of natural feeling, but a political apostacy,
to treat of their character and concerns, except upon a system of
the utmost liberality and indulgence. Chatham and Charles Fox
had given them an irresistible claim to his gratitude and respect,
in ascribing to their revolt the salvation of the British Constitution.
" The resistance of the Americans to the oppressions of the
mother coimtry," said the last of those canonized statesmen, in the
House of Commons, " has undoubtedly preserved the liberties of
mankind." Our revolution, in its motive, conduct, and conclusion, united
in its favour the suffrages of the most enlightened poi tion of con
tinental Europe ; and there has been of late years hardly an indi
vidual in England, holding a certain rank in the literary or politi
cal world, who has ventured directly to deny it, the most exalted
characteristics. The writers of tlie Quarterly Review have, in
deed, seemed to refuse it all the felicity with which it had been
invested by others, in asserting that, " when America became iu-

* Sec note N.

21'2 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART 1.
dependent, she had no race of educated men to fill the situations
which used to be respected *," but even they, the official guar
dians of tory principles, prejudices, and interest, have yielded to
it a tribute of no trifling import. " The Anglo-Americans, an
active and enlightened people, animated by the spirit and informa
tion derived from their mother-country, contended, as they had
done in the preceding century, with pertinacious zeal, for.a civil
right, the grant of which, in the early part of the contest, might
have restored their tranquillity and preserved their allegiance.—
Happily for them, their patriots were not Atheists, nor their leaders
robbers ; their men of property, education, and morals, took the
lead, and the physical power of the poor and the profligate was
not set up to plunder, to extirpate f, Sec. — There is here enough
of positive and negative praise, to induce us to impute the decla
ration first quoted, to an honest belief that all our educated men
had perished in the course of the revolution !
Tbe N°rth American settlements presented, from their com
mencement, what was pre-eminently calculated to engage the
affectious and kindle the benevolence of the Christian and the
philanthropist, in the rapid and extensive conquests made on the
wilderness, for religion and civilization. Clothing the desert with
beanty and reclaiming it to fruitfulness ; enlarging indefinitely the
boundaries of polished nature, and opening the way for the ex
istence of millions of freemen of the English race over one of the
most favoured portions of the earth, were achievements which,
with all their dignity and value, did not mGre powerfully recom
mend pur American forefathers to the favour and protection of
the good and the wise, than the motives from which they were un
dertaken, and the manner in which they were performed. —
" There was no corner of the globe," exclaimed Chatham, " to
which the ancestors of our fellow-subjects in America would not
have fled, rather than submit to the slavish and tyrannical spirit
which prevailed in their native country." Of such men, no Eng
lishman boasting of his attachment to the present theory of the
British constitution, should, to be consistent, think or speak with
out a glow of admiration. And we, their successors, whpse spi
rit, as far at least as liberty is concerned, cannot be said to have
degenerated from theirs; who have preserved their institutions,
and continued their labours, so as, with similar dangers and toils,
to bring under the dominion of Christianity and civilized art, re-

* No. 4. Article on Holmes' American Annals-
+ Article on Spain and her colonies.

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 213
gions immense beyond the grasp of their imagination — we, con
stituting now a republic of" ten millions of British freemen, who
may be numbered among the most intelligent, the most moral, the
bravest, and the most happy of the human race *," — might well
expect, as we deserve, to find in the philosophers and whigs of
the mother-country, even though of the class of critics by pro
fession, not scoffers and detracters, but earnest friends and pane
gyrists. The Scottish tribunal that sits in constant judgment over
us, by virtue of a mysterious authority, seems to have been aware
of our claims in some of the respects upon which I have touched.
Such language as the following, from the thirteenth number of
the Edinburgh Review, is in unison with reason and true senti
ment, and will make the reproach double, if we should find those
who uttered it, acting in contradiction to its spirit.
" This immense sphere of activity in America, is the crea
tion of yesterday. Even Mr. Ashe, disposed as he is to decry
every thing American, is obliged to admit, that she displays,
in the wonders of her growing industry, a picture at once
striking and exhilerating. It is impossible to contemplate such
a scene without exulting in the triumphs of industry. This
peaceful power is here subduing regions of growing forests,
which conquering armies would fear to enter ; and extending,
with silent rapidity, the limits of civilized existence. We
cannot help wishing that our countrymen, in general, were a
little more alive to the feelings which we conceive such a spec
tacle is calculated to excite ; and that they could be brought to
sympathize a little more in the progress of a kindred people,
destined to carry our language, our arts, and our interests too,
over regions more vast than ever acknowledged the sway of
the Caesars of Rome."
Notwithstanding this just and obvious view of the case, the
commercial obligations of which I have treated, — and all the
ingratiating points of our history, with which the better in
formed among the British writers cannot be supposed to be
unacquainted, the United States have invariably experienced
from them more obloquy and ridicule than the nations of the
European continent, the farthest removed from Great Britain
in their origin, institutions, policy, knowledge, and moral
qualities. There has been no period since our revolution at
which a liberal Briton, looking to the comparative treatment
of the Americans in the British books and parliamentary dis-

* Sir James Mackintosh. Speech on the Treaty with America, April
llth, 1815.

214 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
cussions, might not have repeated what Mr. Burke indignantly
uttered in 1775 : — " The faults which grow out of the luxuriance
of freedom, appear much more shocking to us, than the base
vices which are generated in the rankness of servitude." The
periodical publications have served as constant emunctories
for those humours ; respecting the diffusiveness and virulence
of which, I have already produced adequate testimony. It is
to the language and temper of some of the most important of
those publications, that I mean to direct my attention at pre
sent. I propose to fill up this Section with quotations of their
invidious suggestions, and with cursory observations upon such
of these as seem to call for immediate notice.
2. The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, — confessedly
at the head of all publications of the kind in the world, and
works of great authority wherever letters are cultivated,—
have taken the lead in the war of defamation and derision,
against the American people and institutions. They have,
indeed, carried opposite ensigns, and made their attacks in
modes somewhat dissimilar. The hostilities of the English
critics have been more direct and coarse, and accompanied with
fewer professions of moderation and good-will ; those of the
Scottish, having been waged, almost always with protestations
of friendship, and at times with the affectation of a formal
defence of the object. When the one has said *, — " professing
ourselves among the number of persons who experience no very
particular degree of affection for our transatlantic brethren •?' and
the other — " the Americans are not liked in this country, and we
are not now going to recommend them as objects of our love ; " we
are no admirers of the Americans "j- ;" they approached near

¦* Quarterly. No. 24. _
+ The pliant Boswell set the example to his countrymen of this form of
speech, adding, however, a maxim which they seem to have overlooked.
" Well do you know that 1 have no kindness for the Bostonians. But
nations or bodies of men should, as well as individuals, have a fair trial,
and not be condemned on character alone." (Letter to Dr. Johnson, Jan.
27, 1775). The Quarterly Review has preferred the more energetic spirit
and sousing manner of the Dr. himself; of which a sample is afforded in
the following passage of his Biography. " From a pleasing subject," says
Boswell, " he (Dr. Johnson) 1 know not how or v. hy, made a sudden tran
sition to one upon which lie was a violent aggressor; for he said, "I am
willing to love all mankind, except an American:" and his inflammable
corruption bursting itilo horrid fire, he "breathed oat threatening* and
slaughter;" calling them " Rascals, — Robbers,— Pirates ;" and exclaiming,
he'd " burn and destroy them." Miss Seward, looking to hint with mild

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 215
enough in language to betray the identity of their spirit. Both
have canted about the tender forbearance due on the two sides of
the Atlantic — " the sacred bond of blood and language ;" " the
endearing community of religion and laws ;" the inheritance
of the same principles of government and morals ;" the beauty of
fhe example of natural friends among nations, in contradistinction
to the too readily admitted division of natural enemies," &c. — and
they have harped upon these topics, in the sequel of a tissue of
the bitterest contumelies and sarcasms. But the Edinburgh Re
view particularly has gone farther, with a modesty which is tiruiy
unrivalled. Whilst uttering the most disparaging opinions, and
discharging vollies of sneers, it has inveighed fiercely against " the
bitter sneering against every thing in America" by the ministerial
writers ; reproached them for their insolent, petulant, and prepos
terous tone ; wondered profoundly at the little cordiality and re
spect for America among the British nation ; and seemed to take
tp itself vast credit for the contrary dispositions.
Recently, it has furnished an instance of this manoeuvre,
which outstrips all competition, and has the air of a wanton
mockery of the understandings of its readers, as much as of a
device of party-strategy. In the body of that article of the 6lst
number, which contains the heaviest denunciations, and some of"
the most flippant undersaying, ever directed against this country,
we read the following phrases, the first of, which is, by the way,
a fine specimen of purism in style : — " Among other faults with
which the present English government is chargeable, the vice of
impertinence has lately crept into our Cabinet ; and the Americans
have been treated with ridicule and contempt." " We wish well
to America ; we rejoice in her prosperity, and are delighted to re
sist the absurd impertinence with which the character of her people
is often treated in this country, but," Sec.
I have already given, in the quotations which I have made,
some evidence of the validity of these pretensions, and of the
tenipei aud consistency of the Quarterly Review. But we have
not, perhaps, had enough exactly to determine the degree of au
thority to which the two bands of critics are respectively entitled,
in their judgments concerning America ; whether on the score of
liberality in their feelings, gravity in their deliberations, or steadi-

but steady astonishment, said, " Sir, this is an instance that we are always
most violent against those whom we have injured." — He was irritated still
more by this delicate and keen reproach; and roared out another tre
mendous volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantic."
(Vol. ii. p. 12.)

216 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
ness in their opinions. I will, therefore, look back upon the
complexion of the articles which they have devoted to us, pursu
ing the design which I have mentioned above. To begin with the
Edinburgh critics, those friends and patrons by pre-eminence, who
have always been " delighted to resist the absurd impertinence
with which the character of America has been treated in Great
Britain." They condescended to notice this republic directly, for the first
time, in their fourth number, in the article on Davis's Travels ;
and certainly we had some reason to draw encouraging presages
from their general tone in this outset. There were but two pas
sages in the article, which had a sinister aspect : — one, which
asserted roundly, that habitual drunkenness was in no country so
prevalent as in the United States; — another concerning Franklin,
as follows : " It is certain that the enlightened part of the Ame
rican community begin now. to consider this boasted character in a
very ambiguous point cf view, and to attach much less conse
quence and veneration to his memory than formerly. To him
they are certainly indebted for the most important public services,
and for his strenuous endeavours to introduce ampng them a taste
for science and literature; but, pn the other baud, his canting
exhortations to extreme frugality, have had their effect in preventing
the expansion of the noblest principles of the mind ; and his ex
ample, in the dereliction of religion, has certainly lent an unfor
tunate support to the cause of scepticism and infidelity."
I should be unjust not to acknowledge that full amends were
made, at the same tribunal, to the memory of this " boasted
character," in two copious articles, devoted entirely to his pane
gyric, and producing one of those remarkable antinomies in
its decisions, which fall within the scope of the present expo
sition. A few extracts will be sufficient for the intelligence of
the case : —
" Doctor Franklin, the self-taught American, is the most ra
tional, perhaps, of all philosophers. No individual ever pos
sessed a juster understanding. In much of what relates to the
practical wisdom and happiness of life, his views will be found
to be admirable, and the reasoning by which they are supported
most masterly and convincing. Upon the mechanics and trades
men of Boston and Philadelphia, he endeavoured, with appro
priate eloquence, to impress the importance of industry, sobriety,
and economy, and to direct their wise and humble ambitipn to
the attainment of useful knowledge and honourable independence.
Nothing can be more perfectly and beautifully adapted to its
object than Doctor Franklin's compositions of this sort. The
strong sense, clear information, and obvious conviction of the

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEW. 217
author himself, 'make most of his moral exhortations perfect
models of popular eloquence, &C ** We should think his ac
count of his own life a very useful reading for all young persons
of unsteady principle, who have their fortunes to make prmend in
this world."*
" In one point of view, the name of Franklin must be con
sidered as standing higher than any of the others which illus
trated the last eentury. Distinguished as a statesman, he was
equally great as a philosopher ; thus uniting in himself a rare
degree of excellence in both those pursuits, to excel in either of
which is deemed the highest praise. Each successive publica
tion of this great man's works increases our esteem for his
virtues, and our admiration of his understanding. We can
offer the Americans no better advice than to recommend to them
a constant study of Franklin, of his principles as well as his com
positions. The example of this eminent person teaches that
veneration for religion is quite compatible with a sound practi^
cal understanding. Franklin was a man of a truly pious turn of
mind. He appears to have been a Christian of the Unitarian
School. If his own faith had not gone so far, he at least would
greatly have respected the religion of his country, and done every
thing to encourage its propagation. His moral writings are su
perior to almost any others in any language, — whether we re
gard the sound, and striking, and useful truths with which they
abound, or the graceful and entertaining shape in which they are
conveyed. His piety was sincere and habitual. Feelings of a
devotional cast everywhere break forth in his writings. He is ha
bitually a warm advocate for religion."f
The article on Davis's Travels suggested some kind apolo
gies for us, on the important heads of intellect and literature,
which augured favourably for the justness as well as liberality
of the views, which would be always taken in relation to those
subjects. " We do not mean to deny the charges against the literature
and learning of America : literature is one of those finer manu
factures which a new country will always find it easier to
import than to raise. There must be a great accumulation of
stock in a nation, and a great subdivison of labour, before the
arts of composition are brought to any great degree pf perfec-
tipn. The great avenues to wealth must be all filled, and
many left in hereditary opulence pr medipcrity, befbre there

* No. 16. No. 57.
Vol. I.— E e

818 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
can be leisure enough, among such a people, to relish the
beauties of poetry, or to create an effectual demand for the
productions of genius. These causes may, for some time, re
tain the genius of America in a state of subordination to that of
Europe." " The truth is, that American genius has displayed itself
wherever inducements have been held out for its exertion. Their
party-pamphlets, though disgraced with much intemperance and
scurrility, are written with a keenness and spirit that is not often
to be found in the old world ; and their orators, though oc
casionally declamatory and turgid, frequently possess a vehe
mence, . correctness, and animation, that would command the ad
miration of any European audience, and excite the astonish
ment of those philosophers who have been taught to consider
the western hemisphere as a grand receptacle for the degeneracies
of nature."
Afterwards, from time to time, we found general opinions
uttered in the same quarter, which bespoke a correct apprehen
sion of our case ; and some of which I think it well to intro
duce here.
" Among men, the few who write bear np comparison to the
many who read. We hear most of the former, indeed, because
they are, in general, the most ostentatious part of literary men ;
but there are innumerable men who, without ever laying them
selves before the public, hcve made use of literature to add to the
strength of their understandings, and to improve the happiness of
their lives."
" We must say that the Americans are not fairly judged of by
their newspapers; which are written for the mcst part by expa
triated 1 rishmen, or Scotsmen, and other adventurers of a similar
description, who take advantage of the unbounded license of the
press, to indulge their own fiery passions, and aim at exciting
that attention by the violence of their abuse, which they are con
scious they could never command by the force of their reasonings.
The greater part of the polished and intelligent Americans appear
little on the front of public life, and make no figure in her external
history." (1814)
" It is pleasing to learn, that the isolated inhabitants of the
western forests of America are cheered and enlightened with the
distant literature of Europe ; that there are here men capable of
communicating the benefits of its discoveries ; and emulous in their
turnj, to extend the boundaries of knowledge by new discoveries of
their own." (1805).
" Whenever a taste for literature is created in America, we
have no doubt that her authors will igiprove and multiply to a

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 219
degree that will make our exertions necessary to keep the start we
now have of them." (No. 29).
" The great body of the American people is better educated
and more comfortably situated than the bulk of any European
community, and possess all the accomplishments that are any
where to be found in persons of the same occupation and con
dition." (No. 23).
Having represented, or being capable of seeing, the question
of our literature and intellectual condition in these lights, — dis
cerning the general causes which either retarded our advance
ment, or prevented it from being visible abroad, — liberal cri
tics, " well-wishers to America," delighted to protect her charac
ter from the insults of malice and the judgments of ignorance,
might have been expected to abstain, as much as possible, from
reciting our unavoidable deficiencies or unsuccessful attempts ;
and especially from making them, on every practicable occasion,
the subject of burlesque or opprobrium. They might have
been expected to treat our literary performances with the ut
most lenity, and to hold out to us whatever degree of positive
encouragement Mas consistent with the true interests of literature;
the more as, whatever we may have arrogated to ourselves in
other respects, we have rarely set up exorbitant pretensions on
the score of our books. Let us see how far such expectations have
been fulfilled by the liberals of the Edinburgh Review.
The first production of our press brought within their high
cognizance, was the fifth volume of the Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society. A society of this description
sprung from the most generous aspirations and benevolent aims ;
formed under the auspices of Franklin and Rittenhouse; ar
rested in its promising career by the war of the revolution, which
required all the exertions of its members in other fields of pub
lic service; struggling anew, when the unnatural aggressor had
consented to sheathe the sword, in a community universally en
gaged in business, and under all the disadvantages inseparable
from a new country, to maintain the appearance of vital action,
in order to present a rallyng point and nucleus of science for an
infant nation ; — such a society was, initself, independently of the
general considerations intimated above, fitted to conciliate for
bearance, and even tenderness and support from the votaries of
knowledge in the old world *. Its first offerings might be

* See Note O.

220 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
composed of no very excellent materials ; they might be de
ficient in interest and instruction for an European savant ; yet,
liberal minds, alive to the excellence of its object, and the
remote influences of its rude essays, would not fail to receive
them with respect, and to rejoice in its very existence, as an
auspicious omen, and a certain source of future good. Whe
ther actuated by reflections of this kind, or a confidence in its
positive merit, many of the most illustrious of the scientific world
of Europe have sought to be ranked among its members ; and
displayed the title, when pbtained, in the front pf their works,
with evident satisfaction. Of this number I may cite Dugald
Stewart, the most accomplished and enlightened of the country
men of Edinburgh critics.
These, our well-wishers, proceeded, however, with a spirit
diametrically opposite. They heaped indignities upon the vo
lume of the American Transactions, and made their account of
it the occasion of inuendos and sallies, against the taste and
learning of America in general. The following extracts will
speak for themselves : —
" The want of refinement in Arts and in Belles Lettres, is,
by no means the only circumstance that distinguishes our- kins
men in North America from the' inhabitants of the eastern
hemisphere. They appear to be proportionably deficient in
scientific attainments. The volume now before us, one qf the
very few that ever issue from the American press, contains the
whole accumulation of American discovery and observation
during a course of peaceful years. It extends tp S28 pages ;
and the mpst interesting communication it has to boast of is,
the valuable paper of our countryman, Mr. Strickland. Of
all the academical trifles which have ever been given to the
world, eighty-nine of the pages, the work of Americans, are
the most trivial and dull. Our readers will judge with what
difficulty this mite has been collected, when we mention the
subject,'' &c.
" Some of the American philosophers themselves seem to
have adopted the language of the ludicrously sentimental class
to which Monsieur Dupont de Nemours (the author of one of
the papers) belpngs, and to have thought it a good substitute
for the eloquence and power of fine writing which Providence.
has denied to their race." — " By the manner in which one
of the American contributors cites, and more especially by his
remarks upon classical learning, we are inclined to suspect
that a man who reads die easier Latin poets is not to be met
with every day in North America." — " We cannot resist the
temptation of quoting a passage from his paper ; the moralizing

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 221
part of it is truly American. It is only necessary to add,ybr the
information of the American Academies, that the Latin quotation
is nothing at all to the purpose," &c. — Meanly as Our readers
may be disposed to think of the American scientific circles, they
appear to be highly prized by their own. members. The society
whose labours we have been describing, attaches to itself the name
of ' Philosophical' with peculiar eagerness ; and the meeting-house,
where the transactions of its members are scraped together, and
prepared for being inaccurately priuted, is, in the genuine dialect
of tradesmen, denominated ' Philosophical Hall.'"
" We have dwelt longer upon this article than its merits justify,
for the purpose of stating and exemplifying a most curious and
unaccountable fact , — the scarcity of all but mercantile and agricul
tural talents in the new world?'
3. The American work that next attracted the attention of our
patrons, happened to be from the pen of a minister plenipoten
tiary of the United States on the continent of Europe, the son
of the American President. These qualities of the author,
although they did not entitle him to deference as such, yet gave
him claims to some particular personal favour and respect from
critics of the Whig-school, and of the bon ton. of European Society.
And he would have every right to expect the most indulgent
dispositions ; for his work, if composed of sketches which were
reluctantly permitted to go before the American public in the
pages of an American periodical paper, without ulterior destina
tion, it had taken the shape of a distinct volume, through the
cupidity of a Loudon Bookseller ; — if at the same time it was
altogether free from pretensions, and confessedly limited to certain
heads of observation, upon which accurate information might be
of particular utility to his countrymen. The " Letters from
Silesia," of Mr. John Quincy Adams, to which it will be under
stood that I have been referring, were attended with these circum
stances apparent upon the face of the volume into which they
were collected. I will venture to affirm, moreover, that they
possess much absolute, intrinsic merit ; that they are greatly
above the common standard of applauded English tours ; and
would have been declared creditable in all respects, had they been
the production of an Englishman in a similar station. But the
Edinburgh Review was as ungracious and wayward in this in
stance as in that of the American Philosophical Society. It not

_* Compare this with the quotations in p. 218.

222 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
only launched into broad generalities, and drew far-fetched analo
gies, to decry the work of Mr. Adams, but was at much pains to
disparage his understanding and feelings ; and turned aside from
the only proper subject of animadversion, to carp and sneer at the
studies and mind of his coimtry. These assertions might be the more
strikingly illustrated here, did not the same tone and design per
vade nearly the whole of the article in question ; at the same
time that the critics cannot effectually conceal the sense which
they really entertain of the merits ofthe Letters. A few excerpts
from the article will be enough for the occasion.
" It may appear somewhat hard to subject a work which does
not offend by any pretensions to a comparison with the excellent
standards of its kind ; but when we held this work in our hands,
we could not help thinking of the American Presidency, and ofthe
state of learning in that powerful and prosperous commonwealth."
" Although this author is neither lively nor very instructive, he
shews some qualities which makes him a tolerable companion for
a very short tour?'**" The feelings, of Mr. Adams about his
native country more resemble the loyal acquiescence of a subject
than the personal interest and ardour of a republican."**" His
style is, in general, very tolerable English, whicli, for American
composition, is no moderate praise."**" A spurious dialect, it is
probable, will prevail even at the court and in the Senate of the
United States, until that great commonwealth shall become
opulent enough to break more distinctly into classes." 8tc.
At the appearance of another American work of the highest
possible interest and elevation as to the subject, and proceeding
fro/n the first law-dignitary of the American republic, not more
respectable by his exalted station than by his general talents and
private virtues, — 1 mean the Life of Washington, by Chief Justice
Marshall, — a fair opportunity was afforded the Edinburgh illumi-
nati, to resist " the impertinence and vulgar insolence," and the
" bitter sneering" of the ministerial party with respect to Ame
rican concerns, by the force of example, in a generous exposition
of the merits which they might discover in the performance ; a
scrupulous abstinence from harsh and supererogatory reflections
on the author or his coimtry, and a commemoration of those
traits in the American revolution, which distinguish it as the
purest and noblest among the most important and celebrated in
the history of the world. Nothing would have seemed more
remote from probability, than that the disciples of Fox could, on
the occasion of reviewing an authentic biography of Washington,
labour mainly to appear smart and knowing, at the expense of the

SECT. VII.] BRITISH P.EVIEWS. 223
nation which had produced this model of heroes, and even insult
the faithful and unassuming biographer, who had been his com
panion in arms, had enjoyed his intimate friendship, and shared
with him the labours and honours' of his civil administration,—
Whether they pursued so unworthy a course, and how far they im
proved the opportunity above-mentioned, to the very reverse of
the proper ends, may be ascertained by the following short ex
tracts from the article under consideration : —
" Mr. Marshall must not promise himself a reputation com
mensurate with the dimensions of his work."
" Mr. Chief Justice Marshall preserves a most dignified and
mortifying silence regarding every particular of Washington's pri
vate life, &c. Mr. Marshall may be assured that what passes
with him for dignity, will, by his reader, be pronounced dulness
and frigidity.''
" The speeches in this work display great commercial know
ledge, and a keen style of argument ; but oratory is not to be
looked for in a country which has none of the kindred arts. All
the specimens of American eloquence grievously sin against the
canons of taste."
" A more diffuse and undiscriminating narrative we have sel
dom perused. It is deficient in almost every thing that constitutes
historical excellence," &c. &c.
This last stricture upon the narrative is followed immediately
by the observation, — " It displays industry, good sense, and, so
far as we can judge, laudable impartiality : and the style, though
neither elegant nor impressive, is yet, upon the whole, clear and
manly.'' — No ingenuity but that of the Edinburgh critics would
be adequate to explain how a narrative, acknowledged to possess
these qualities, — which Blair indicates "as the primary qualities
required in a good historian," — could yet be justly proclaimed
" deficient in almost every thing that constitutes historical excel
lence." They are careful, in the abundance of their tenderness for
America, to note, as they proceed with Judge Marshall, " the
ludicrous proposition of her Congress to declare herself the most
enlightened nation on the globe." This taunt had been so often
in the mouth of the party stigmatized for an " odious, miserable,
vulgar spirit of abuse against America," that the repetition of
it by her friends, can be accounted for only by its egregious
pleasantry. I propose to enquire into its justice hereafter,
and hope to render this point at least doubtful. Towards the
conclusion of the article on the Life pf Washington, there is this

224 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
invidious remark : " We think it a pretty strong proof of the
poverty of the literary attainments of America, that she has not
been able to tell the story of her own revolution, and to pour-
tray the character of her hero and sage, in language worthy such
subjects." I do not mean to affirm that the story of our revolution has
been told absolutely well by Marshall, or by Ramsay, whose Life
of Wasiiington is so unceremoniously consigned by the Scottish
reviewers to the circulating libraries. Ramsay's History of
the American Revolution, which, it is probable, they had never
deigned to open, is, however, a respectable production in all
points of view; quite equal, as regards literary" execution, to any
historical essay respecting the affairs of England for the last century,
and superior, as regards the authenticity of materials and oppor
tunities of knowledge. The Somervilles, the Enticks, the Bel-
shams, the Russells, the Adolphuses, the Giffords, the Biglands,
are certainly below the level of Ramsay.
To no people whatever can we apply more exactly than to the
American, the observation which I have quoted from the Edin
burgh Review, that " among them, the few who write bear no
comparison to the many who read." According to the drift of the
Review in making this observation, it would be unjust to de
clare the poverty of the literary attainments of America, on the
ground that she has not yet produced a first rate history of her
revolution ; as, in point of fact, nothing can be more unfounded
than the allegation. We are told by a Scottish authority (Blair)
that the island of Britain was not eminent for its historical pro
ductions till within a few years prior to the time at which he
wrote ; that during a long period, English historical authors were
little more than dull compilers ; when at length the distinguished
names of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, raised the British cha
racter in that species of writing*. Now, if the logic of the
Edinburgh Review, in reference to America, be adopted ; if the
circumstance of our not having told well the story of our revolu
tion be " a pretty strong proof of the poverty of our literary
attainments," we have, in the statement of Blair, " pretty strong
proof" that Great Britain laboured under the same reproach until
the middle of the eighteenth century ; — and the ignominy would
be tenfold, considering the superior advantages of her situation
for centuries before that period. The absence of historians of the

* Lectures on Rhetoric— Lecture 36.

SECT. Vll] BRITISH REVIEWS. 225
highest order is, certainly, the last defect in pur literature tp be
censured by a natipn whose historical authors were but dull com
pilers, so long after she had the full enjoyment of all those facilities
to perfection in the arts of composition, which the Edinburgh
Review has justly stated to be necessarily wanting to a new
country* There is no part of the matter introduced into the Life of
Washington ; there are none of the " provincial documents"
with which it is peevishly said to be lpaded, that are not interesting
and important to the American public ; and for this public the
work was chiefly intended. It became, inevitably, a History of
the American Revolution, not only on account of the connexion,
more or less immediate, of the hero, with all the great occurrences of
the drama, but from the tenor of his manuscripts upon whicli it
was composed, and which the biographer was bound to turn to the
fullest account. Its bulk is not, therefore, a well-grounded ob
jection ; or might, at least, have found indulgence with those who
could not have been ignorant of the more inordinate size of Cla
rendon's History of the Rebellion ; Roscoe's Life of Leo X. ;
Gifford's Life of Pitt; Fra. Paolo's History of the Council of
Trent ; Guicciardini's History, and many other similar works of
great celebrity, of which the subjects are of less real importance and
dignity, and extend through no greater portion of time. But the
true and principally exceptionable feature in Marshall's volumes,
is one which has never, as far as I know, been observed at home,
and which the foreign critics, had they been able to perceive it,
would have been careful not to signalize. He has given a histo-
rical evidence, determining a general phasis pf the revolution, the
desponding representations made by Washington in his private
letters to Congress ; representations which took their hue as well
from the design of the writer to stimulate that body tp the utmpst
pitch pf a particular kind pf effort, as from the engrossing dis
quietudes natural and common with the firmest minds, under the
immediate pressure or apprehension of heavy embarrassments.
The biographer has so exhibited the difficulties inherent in our
defence, and the momentary impressions which their emergence
made upon the Commander in Chief, as to lend much colour of
reason at least to the derogatory suggestion of the Edinburgh
Review,—" He must be blind who does not see, in this History,

? Note P.
Vol. I.-E /

226 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART

1.

that all the array pf American patriotism would have been utterly
unable, but for the incapacity of her enemy, to secure her inde
pendence." The main idea is certainly countenanced by some Of
the letltefs of Washington ; but it is not, therefore, the less un
sound, or easy of refutation, upon a comprehensive and critical
survey of the whole history of the revolution. No British writer
will assert, or admit, that the success of the British forces under
Wplfe, in the memorable siege pf Quebec, was owing to the
" incapacity of the ettemy :" — but the tone of the first dispatches
of that intrepid leader to the British secretary of state, is quite as
desponding as the private communications of Washington to
the American Congress, and would equally, upon the principles of
the Edinburgh Review, warrant such a conclusion. The British
politician of an enlarged and sagacious mind, who will look into
the parliamentary history for the three first years of our strug
gle, will find there, in the facts and views presented by the whig
orators, enpugh tp convince him of the error of any hypothesis,
ifuplying that we could not have worked out our political salvation
but for the mismanagement of the British ministry, and the aid of
the French court,
4. The Life of Washington having failed to draVv the Edinburgh
\vits from the course, to appearance so little in unison with their
professions, which was pursued with the letters of Mr. Adams',
We cannot be surprised if the Colufnbiad of Barlow Wrought no
better effect. It seems to have been committed to the Momus of
the fraternity for special diversion. Accordingly, the American
Epic is introduced, with refined humour, as " the goodly firstling
of the infant muse of America ;'' and by way, no doubt, of man
fully resisting ministerial impertinence, and generously soothing
the feelings of the poet's countrymen for the sentence which it
might be necessary to pass upon his work, — the reviewer imme
diately salutes them as follows : — " These federal republicans are
Very much such people, we suppose, as the modern traders of Li
verpool, Manchester, or Glasgow. They have a little Latin
Whipped into them in their yputh, and read Shakspeare, Pppe,
and Milton, as well as bad English Novels in their days of court
ship and leisure."
I cannot undertake to repeat the exquisite jokes of this article
pn the Columbiad : — such, for instance, as the one about " those
fluent and venerable personages, the rivers Potomak and Dela
ware," nor the many quips respecting the American diction ; but
it is proper to quote one or two more phrases, to illustrate the

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS.
obstinacy of that unlucky mood which would be ever at variance
with the most magnanimous designs of patronage.
" We have often heard it ^reported that our transatlantic
brethren were beginning to take it amiss that their language
should still be called English. As this is the first specimen
which has come into our hands of any considerable work in tlie
American tongue, it may be gratifying to our philological
readers," &c.
" These republican literati seem to make it a point of consci
ence to 'have no aristocratjcal distinctions, even in their Vocabu
lary : they think one word just as good as another, provided the
meaning be clear," &c.
Aspersions upon the capacity and literature ,of the American
people at large, might have been spared by " well-wishers," even
in a criticism upon an American work. But it would seem still
more incongruous and wanton, to hold them up to contempt,
in reviewing a mere book of Travels in America, declared, at
the same time, to be in the last degree incredible and despi
cable. This, however, is done in the account pf Ashe's Travels
in the 30th number of the Edinburgh Journal ; where, while
the reviewer affects to reprobate and deride the tales of the
wretched impostor and swindler *, he lends himself to his malig
nant purpose. It is from them that the magnates of Scottish lite
rature take occasion to flout and decry a nation of kinsmen in the
following language :—

* Dr. Drake relates, in .his '' Picture of Cincinnati," the following, anec
dote of Ashe: —
?* " In the years 1802, 3, Dr. William Gofortb, with an ardour of curiosity
that deserved a better reward than awaited his exertions, dug up in Ken
tucky, and transported to .Cincinnati, several waggon loads of Mammoth-
bones. They were, by the Doctor ,and George Turner, one of the members
ofthe American Philosophical Society, examined attentively, and supposed
to be the remains of no less than six non-descript quadrupeds, most of them
gigantic ! Among the rest, some of the bones of the rhinoceros were
thought to be ascertained. Judge Turner made accurate drawings of
the most curious of those fossils ; but has been soiunfoiitunate as to lose
them. " In the spring ofthe year 1803, the Doctor formed the design of trans
porting these bones to the Atlantic States. They reached Pittsburgh, and
were there stored. Earlyin 1806, Professor Barton made an application to
purchase them ; but at that time they had attracted the attention of a
foreign swindler, named Thomas Arville, alias Ashe, who obtained per
mission of the owner to ship them to Europe, for exhibition ; since which
they have not been heard of- To this personal injury of a worthy individual,
the miscreant has since added a libel on tbe American people."

228 HOSTILITIES OP THE [PART I.
" We would just as readily believe that the orations of
Sheridan are written by a Philadelphia-man, as that the speech of
an American oratpr is the work of a Scottish reporter."
" It is no doubt true, that America can produce nothing to
bring her intellectual efforts into any sort of comparison with that
of Europe. These republican states have never passed the limits
of humble mediocrity, either in thought or expression. Noah
Webster, we are afraid, still occupies the first place in criticism,
Timothy Dwight and Joel Barlow in poetry, and Mr. Justice
Marshall in history ; and, as to the physical sciences, we shall
merely observe, that a little elementary treatise of botany appeared
in 1803; and that this paltry contribution to natural history is
chronicled, by the latest American historian, among the remarkable
occurrences since the revolution. In short, Federal America has
done nothing, either to extend, diversify, or embellish the sphere of
human knowledge. Though all she has written were obliterated
from the records pf learning, there wpuld, if we except the wprks
of Franklin, be no positive diminution, either of the useful pr the
agreeable; The destruction of her whole literature would not oc
casion so much regret as we feel for the loss of a few leaves from
an ancient classic."
" But, notwithstanding all this, we really cannot agree with Mr.
Ashe in thinking the Americans absolutely incapable, or degenerate;
and are rather inclined to think that, when their neighbourhood
thickens and their opulence ceases to depend on exertion, they
will show something of the same talents, to which it is a part of our
duty to do justice among ourselves ; and we are the more inclined
to adopt this favourable opinion, from considering that her histbry
has already furnished occasions for the display of talents of a high
order ; and that, in the ordinary business of government, she dis
plays no mean share of ability and eloquence.''
" That the Americans have great and peculiar faults, both in
their manners and in their morality, we take to be undeniable.
Their manners, for the most part, are those of a scattered, migra
tory, but speculating people; and there will be no great amend
ment until their population becomes more dense, and more settled
in its habits. As the population becomes concentered, and the
spirit of adventure is deprived of its objects, the sense qf honour
ztill improve with the importance qf character." (No. 30.) *
The relish for the topic of the insignificance of American litera
ture, and for the waggish citation pf the names of some of the

Soe Note Q.

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 229
American literati, proved so keen and lasting, that we have been
recently, treated with them again. What archness, sagacity, know
ledge, and dispatch in the following passage of the article on the
Travels of Fearon, — that rightful successor of Ashe, worthy of
exciting the same strain in the reviewer !
" Literature the Americans have none ; — no native literature,
I mean : — it is all imported. They had a Franklin, indeed ; and
may afford to live for half a century on his fame. There is, or
was, a Mr. Dwight who wrote some poems ; and his baptismal
name was Timothy *. There is also a small account of Virginia
by Jefferson ; and an epic by Joel Barlow ; and some pieces of
pleasantry by Mr. Irving : but why should the Americans write
books, when a six weeks passage brings them, in their own tongue,
our sense, science, and genius, in bales and hogsheads ? Prairies,
steam-boats, grist-mills, are their natural objects for centuries to
come. Then, when they have got to the Pacific Ocean, — epic
poems, plays, Pleasures of Memory, and all the elegant gratifica
tions of an ancient people who have tamed the wild earth, and set
down to amuse themselves !"
5. The. Edinburgh Review preluded, as we have seen, with
apologizing for our supposed deficiencies in literature ; but
quickly fell into the habit of emblazoning them to the utmost,
whenever America happened to be in question, even as to matters
entirely distinct. A similar course has been pursued by the
critics in relation to our moral condition, manners, and general

* Dr. Dwight seems to have obtained a permanent niche in the memory
of the critic. Thus we have, on another occasion : — " The poetry of Dr.
Dwight is evidently the growth of a country where only the coarser sorts
of industry yet flourish-" (No. 29). Now, considering this utter unworthi-
ness ofthe Connecticut poet, it is rather extraordinary that Darwin should
have ascribed to his Conquest of Canaan " much fine versification" (Botanic
Garden, note, line 364, part 1); and that Campbell, whom the Reviewers
have placed above all the bards of the age, should have borrowed passages
from his religious epic to adorn a compilation of the beauties of English
poetry. In introducing these passages, Campbell remarks indeed, " Of this
American poet I am sorry to be able to give the British reader no account.
I believe his personal history is as little known as his poetry, on this side
of the Atlantic." But, truly, the British reader might justly complain ;
for Dr. Dwight made so conspicuous a figure in the affairs of New Eng
land, and was so diffusively and advantageously famous throughout this
country, that it would not have been very difiicult to come at his personal
history, even in London. The President of Yale College, the second in the
union in extent and consideration, an eminent divine, a politician of great
influence, a voluminous, popular, and able writer, could remain unknown
only to those who were entirely ignorant of American affairs.

2S0 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.|
dispositions. Their excuses for their" kinsmen of the west," on
these heads, have almost always had, more or less, the air of mock
ery, and carried a sharper sting than their open defamation. The
following passages are wonderfully kind and encouraging, and fur
nish a specimen of the sapient maternal discussions aboat us in
the mother country : —
*' Why the Americans are disliked in this country, we have neveT
been able to understand ; for most certainly tliey resemble us far
more than any other nation in the world. They are brave and
boastful, and national and factious, like ourselves ; — about as
polished as 99 in 100 of our own countrymen in the upper ranks;
?and at least as moral and well educated in the lower. Their virtues
are such as we ought to admire, — for they are those on whieh we
Value ourselves most highly ; and tlieir very faults seem to have
some claim to our indulgence, since they are those with -which we
also are reproached by third parties/' (1814).
" The complaint respecting America is, That there are no peo
ple of fashion, — that their column still wants its Corinthian capital,
or, in other words, that those who are rich and idle, have not yet
existed so long, or in such numbers, as to have brought to full
perfection that system of ingenious trifling and elegant dissipation,
by means of which it has been discovered that wealth and leisure
may be most agreeably disposed of. Admitting the fact to be so,
and in a country where there is no court, no nobility, and no mo
nument or tradition of chivalrous usages, — and where, moreover,
the greatest number of those who are rich and powerful have
raised themselves to that eminence by mercantile industry, we
really do not see how it could well be otherwise ; we could still
submit, that this is no lawful cause either for national contempt
or for national hostility. It is a peculiarity in the structure of
society among that people, which, we take it, can only give offence
to their visiting acquaintance; and, while it does us ,no sort of
harm while it subsists, promises, we think, very soon to disappear
altogether, and no longer to afflict even our imaginations. The
number of individuals born to the enjoyment of hereditary wealth
is, or at least was, daily increasing in that country ; and it is im
possible that their multiplication (with all the models >of European
refinement 'before them, and all the advantages resulting from a
free government and a general system of good education) should
fail, within a very short period, to give birth to a better tone qf
eoruoersation and society, and to mannersmore dignified, and irefimed.
Unless we are very much misinfprmed indeed, the symptoms -of
*H0h a change may already be traced in their cities. Their ypufhs
of fprtune already travel pver all the cpuntries pf Europe fpr their

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 231
improvement ; and specimens are occasionally met with, even in
these islands, which, with all our prejudices, we must admit, would
do no discredit to the best blood of the land from which they ori
ginally Sprung.'"*
There would have been too much of consistency in preserving,
on all occasions, the condescension exerted in these passages. —
The tone of greeting is not so mincing or comfortable in the fol-
loVving extracts : —
" The public functionaries in America are so poorly provided,
that no prosperous counsellor, for instance, will accept of the
office of Judge ; and fevv men of abilities will dedicate them to so
unprofitable a task as the management of public affairs. Their
legislature is therefore deficient both in talent and authority, — and
she has already experienced more than one shock from the irre
gular impulse of that ambition and talent for which no adequate
reCorripence has been provided within the pale of her constitu
tion." (No. £8.)
" The Americans are all jealous republicans, and all outrage-*
ously proud of their constitution, and vain of their country. Thi3
passion exists, in America, in a degree that is both offensive and
ridiculous to strangers !" (No. 40).
" They, of the western country, are hospitable to strangers, be
cause they are seldom troubled with them, — and because they havd
always plenty qf maize and smoked hams f. Their hospitality too
is always accompanied with impertinent questions, and a disgusting
display of national vanity." (No. 13).
" There are-no very prominent men at present in America ; at
least, none whose fame is strong enough for exportation. Munro
is a man of plain unaffected gpod sense. Jefferson, we believe, is
still alive ; and has always been more remarkable, perhaps, for the

*No.40. + The poor Irish at least, are placed out of the rcaeh of so charitable an
explanation ; and if the people of England are hospitable, it is not certainly
from this cause. I take the following from Bell's Weekly Messenger for
Feb. 7th, 1819: —
" On Friday a donation of the Regent gave cheerfulness to the lowly
habitations of the indigent of Brighton. A large quantity of prime beef, to
the value of one hundred pounds, by royal command, was distributed to
the industrious poor with families, in proportions according to their number
and necessities, by the parochial officers. The widows' and t/te orphans'
tears tore testimony ofthe gratitude felt ; and expressions of thankfulness, di
rected towards their beloved and generous benefactor, were universal."

23'2 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
early share he took in the formation ofthe republic, than from any
very predominant superiprity of understanding." (Np. 61).
It is well tp be undeceived, let the nature pf the error be what
it may ; but the Americans had credulously imagined that the
fame of the military and naval commanders by whom the British
were, during the last American war, " worsted in most of their
naval encounters, and baffled in most of their enterprizes by
land *," was " strong enough for exportation." They thought the
same with respect to those " statesmen, most of whom survive, by
whom the affairs of the United States have been administered in
times of great difficulty, with a forbearance, circumspection, and
constancy, not surpassed in those commonwealths who have been
most justly renowned for the wisdom of their councils -j*.'' As re
gards Mr. Jefferson, it will not be deemed an unaccountable illu
sion in the Americans to have ascribed to him " a predominant
superiority of understanding," when it is recollected that they had
read the following remarks in the article of the Edinburgh Re
view, on Janson's Travels : — " Mr. Janson drags individuals into
notice without ceremony. As for his endless invectives against
Mr. Jefferson, they belong to another class of wrongs, and only
obtain their share of the dignified contempt by which that emi
nently zeise ruler has consigned to oblivion all the spoken and
written scurrility of his enemies J." While themselves engaged in
" dragging individuals into notice," the Scottish critics should not
have forgotten the names of John Adains, James Madison, John
Jay, Rufus King, Thomas Pinckney, De Witt Clinton, John
Quincy Adams, and even Mr. Chief J ustice Marshall, all of whom,
by a diligent perquisition, they could have ascertained to be still on
the stage of life. Two of these at least, might be considered as
prominent, since they wrote the principal portion of the work called
The Federalist, which the Scottish dispensers of renown have
themselves described as " a publication that exhibits an extent and
precision of information, a profundity of • research, and an acute-
ness of understanding, which would have done honour to the most
illustrious statesman ef ancient or mpdern times." §

* Edinburgh Review, 1814.
t Ibid. No. 61. Article on Universal Suffrage.
t No. 29.
§ No. 24. Article on Hillhouse's proposed Amendment to the American
Constitution.

SECT. VII.] BE1TISH REVIEWS. 233
In the number of this Journal, the 6lst, which tells us that we
have no prominent men, it is obligingly said, " The Americans are
a very sensible, reflecting people, and have conducted their affairs
extremely well:" but at the same moment the compliment is re
tracted, in a burst of spleen more violent and acrid than any of
the effusions of the Quarterly Review ; which I shall soon be
called to, notice.
"The great curse pf America is the institution of slavery: — of
itself far n,iore than the foulest blot upon their national character,
and an evil which counterbalances all the excisemen, licensers, and
tax-gatherers of England."
" That slavery should exist among men who know the value of
liberty, and profess to understand its principles, is the consumma
tion qf wickedness. Every American who loves his coimtry,
should dedicate his whole life, and every faculty of his soul, to
efface this foul stain from its character. If nations rank accord
ing to their wisdom and their virtue, zohat right has the American,
a scourger and murderer of slaves, to compare himself zeith the
least and the lozoest of the European nations ? much more with
this great and, humane country, where the greatest lord dare not
lay a finger upon the meanest peasant ? What is freedom, where
all are not free ? — where the greatest of God's blessings is
limited, with impious caprice, to the colour of the body! And
these are the men who taunt the English with their corrupt par
liament, with tlieir buying and selling votes ! Let the world judge
which is the most liable to censure ; — we who, in the midst of our
rottenness, have torn off the manacles of slaves all over the world, —
or they who, with their idle purity and useless perfection, have
remained mute and careless, while groans echoed aud whips
clanked round the very walls of their spotless Congress ! The ex
istence qf slavery in America is an atrocious crime, with which
no measures can be kept, — for znhich her situation affords no apo
logy, — which makes liberty itself distrusted, and the boast of it
disgusting." 6. It was, perhaps; known to the authors of the Review, that
no small part of the American public, in spite of all that 1 have
quoted from it of an earlier date, still credulously relied upon
its general professions and character. They magnanimously
determined at length, to dissipate the delusion, or conceived
the project of putting it to the last test, by these fierce in
vectives. 1 will discuss, iii another place, the validity of the sweeping
Vol. I.— G g

234 HOSTILITIES Of THE [PART 1.
charges, founded upon the existence of domestic slavery among us,
my immediate object being little more than to exemplify the feel
ing, or the policy, of the leading journals of Great Britain. We
may, however, delay a while to illustrate further the consistency
and modesty of the Edinburgh critics. In the same article, which
contains the charges just mentioned, they write thus : — " Any per
son with tolerable prosperity here in England, had better remain
where he is. There are considerable evils, no doubt, in England ;
but it would be madness not to admit that it is, upon the whole,
a very happy country. Now, it was only in the number of their
Journal immediately preceding,in the article on Birbeck's Travels,
that we read the following language : —
" With all its excellencies, the English government is a most
expensive one : protection to person and property is nowhere so
dearly purchased ; and the follies ofthe people, and the corruption
of their rulers, have entailed such a load of debt upon us, that
whoever prefers his own to any other country, as a place of resi
dence, must be content to pay an enormous price for the gratifi
cation of his wish. In truth, a temptation to emigrate is now held
out to all persons of moderate fortune ; which must, in very many
cases, prove altogether irresistible. Nor can any thing be more
senseless than the wonder testified by some zealous lovers of their
native land, at any family of small income seeking a more fruitful
soil and a better climate, where half their means may not be seized
to pay the state and the ppor. Mr. Birbeck, as a moderate capi
talist, and the father of a large family, may be justified in every
point ofviezo for leaving this country."
In the last pages of the article on Birbeck's Travels, it is elabo
rately maintained by the reviewer, that the American union will
continue ; but, in the next number of the Journal, we are told
that " it is scarcely possible to conceive that such an empire as the
American shpuld very lpng remain undivided." The truly spund
doctrine of the article on Birbeck furnishes the best answer to this
assertion. It is as follows : —
" It might be proper, however, to consider the real ground of stability
which the government of America possesses, before we decide in so posi
tive a manner against it. There can be little doubt, that the whole question
turns upon the difference of American and European society, and the total
want in the former of that race of political characters which abounds in
the latter. In America, all men have abundant occupation of their own,
without thinking of the state. Every person is deeply interested, and perr
petually engaged, in driving his trade, and cultivating his land: and
little time is left to any one for thinkiiig of state affairs, except as a subject of
conversation. As a business, they engage the attention of no one except the
rulers ofthe countiy ; and even they, keep the concerns of the public subor-

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS, 235
dinate to their own. The governor of a state is generally a large land
owner, and farmer of his own ground. A foreign minister is the active
member of a lucrative and laborious profession, quitting it for a, few
months, and returning to its gains and its toils when his mission is ended.
The business of the senate occupies but a few weeks in the year ; and
no man devotes himself so much to his duties, as to leave it doubtful to
what class ofthe industrious community he properly belongs. The race of
mere statesmen, so well known among us in the Old World, is wholly un
known in the New ; and until.it springs up, even the foundations of a change
cannot be considered as laid. The Americans no doubt are, like other
freemen, decided partisans, and warm political combatants; but what
project or chance can counterbalance, in their eyes, the benefits conferred
by the union, of cultivating their soil, and pursuing their traffic freely and
gainfully, in their capacity of private individuals ? A preacher of insur
rection might safely be left with such personages as the American farmers ;
and until the whole frame of society alters, even a great increase ,of poli
tical characters will not enable those persons successfully to appeal to the
bulk of the community, with the prospect of splitting the uniou. The
cautious and economical character of the Federal Government seems
admirably adapted to secure its •hold over the affections of a rational and
frugal people."
The Edinburgh Review is, doubtless, the last quarter in which
we are to look for proof of the assertions that England is " a very
happy country, where all are free'' — " a great and humane country,
which has torn off the manacles of slaves all over the world." In
the same article in which those assertions are made, we read that
" a very disgusting feature in the present English government is
its extreme timidity, and the cruelty and violence to which its
timidity gives birth;" that in government cases the judges are not
independent; that " the savage spectacle'' is exhibited " of a poor
wretch, perhaps a very honest man, contending in vain against the
weight of an immense government, pursued by a zealous attorney,
and sentenced, by some candidate, perhaps, for the favour of
the crown, to the long miseries of the dungeon." On the
point of England's having " torn off the manacles of slaves all
over the world," the several articles of that Journal concerning
the condition of the blacks in the British West Indies, of the
Hindoos, of the Irish Catholics, furnish an admirable commen
tary. The same Number in which that glorious distinction is
claimed for England, begins with an account of Mills' History of
British India, and ends with a view of the state of the Irish Ca
tholics ; wherein her millions of Irish and Indian subjects are re
presented as labouring under the most galling and withering
tyranny. The language of the follow ing passages, for instance, is
tolerably significative, and has th« advantage of being undeniably
true.

236 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
" Wc find, at the very outset of the history of the East India Company
as a governing" body, a series of acts, of treachery anil unjust violence, such
as it would not be easy fo'match in the annals of men to whom we are ac-,
ciistomcd to consider as the worst of tyrants."
" We are accustomed to raite very flighty the securitv which is derived
fibni "being governed by men having the advantages of English education
and English feelings. But it affords a lesson of niel'anchbfy instruction as
to the feebleness ot this security, when we see gentlemen eminently pos
sessed, of these advantages, and placed far above the reach of want, ready
to destroy the commerce of a great country, to break down the administra
tion of justiee, to oppress fhe people, to violate treaties, to kindle a War, and
to depose a monarch, their ally, merely to secure to themselves the profits
of an illegal traffic."
" Such are the melancholy results ofthe attempts to improve the condi
tion of Bengal, described not by iniihical observers or severe judges, but
by the magistrates who, from the prejudices of their situation, would be in
clined to behold every indication of improvement, under the auspices of a
British administration, with a favourable eye. Every person of rank and
property reduced to the lowest condition, — the cultivator exposed to into
lerable exaction, — the courts of justice virtually closed against suitors, —
the most terrible of crimes increased to that extent, that no security for
persons or property can be said to exist, — minor offences not diminished,
— dissoluteness of morals become more general, — and a police, of which
the vices render it, instead of a benefit, a pest to the country : these, ac
cording to the highest authorities, are the characteristics of that part of
India where our reforms have had the longest time to operate."
" To this picture must those open their eyes, who have been consoling
themselves on every act of aggression and conquest, however unjust in it
self, with the reflection that the extension of the British power was all ex
tension of benefits and of security to the.nativ.es. One advantage has cer
tainly attended the introduction of an English administration : the direct
oppression which the superiors exercised, as of right, over their inferiors
is lessened ; but that oppression was much less terrible than the increased
&cf s of violence and cruelty of the unlicensed plunderers, who were kfpt
in awe by the vigilance ofthe former rulers ; nor can the occasional acts of
violence, on the part ofthe native governments, towards its higher subjects,
bear a comparison with those regulations, which have produced a greater
change in the landed property than was ever known before, and in a few
years reduced the majority of the zemindars to distress and beggary."
" The lawless habits of the people, in the ordinary and best state of the
interior of Ireland, and all the occasional disturbances of a more serious
character, are to be traced to the system of law which has dh ided the in
habitants of Ireland into a Protestant Oligarchy, administering in detail
the government of the Country over a Catholic multitude ; — the one armed
with all sorts of arbitrary powers ; the other excluded from the constitu
tion, and'subjected to every species of penalties."
" In all former times of peace, the establishment for Ireland has been
8000 men- The number voted last year was 22,000. Besides the ex
pense, of maintaining this extra number of 14,000 men, there is also the ex
pense "of police establishments, prosecutions, and a variety of oilier charges,
which grow out of the systeih of governing the people on the ^rincflple
of exclusion from their civil rights. In the last year's public accounts,
there is a charge of 38,952 1, for police establishments in proelaimed
districts; and another for 12,000/. secret service, in detecting treasonable
conspiracies."

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 237
" In vain have the hands of government been strengthened in Ireland,
and the terrors of its power let loose, in every form of civil proscription and
military execution. The evil of an alienated population is not to be so over
mastered. They cannot love a constitution from which they are excluded,
nor venerate a law which withholds from them the rights which it secures
to the more favoured part of the population, by whom it is made and ad
ministered." With respect to the many hundred thousand blacks of the
British West Indies, the manner in which their manacles have
been "torn off" is sufficiently illustrated in the following passage,
quoted by the Edinburgh Review, with full approbation, from a
Report of the African Institution, for the year 1815. " In what
country, accursed with slavery, is this sinking fund of mercy,
this favour of the laws to human redemption, manumission, taken
away! Where, by an opprobrious reversal of legislative maxims,
ancient and modern, do the lawgivers rivet, instead of relaxing,
the fetters of private bondage, stand between the slave and the
liberality of his master, by prohibiting enfranchisements, and
labour as much as in them lies, to make that dreadful, odious
state of man, which they have formed, eternal ? Shame and hor
ror must not deter us from revealing the truth. It is in the domi
nions of Great Britain. This abuse has been reserved for assem
blies, convened by the British crown, and subject to the control
of Parliament."
In the article on Birbeck, (lie negro-slavery of the United
States is spoken of, and with great truth, as existing " in a form
by far the most, mitigated," and it is unanswerably asked, " Who
can compare the state of the slave in the sugar-islands with that
in North America ?" In the article of the 50th number, on the
General Registry of Slaves, all idea of emancipating those of the
British AVest Indies is peremptorily disclaimed, in the name of the
English abolitionists ; and the Reviewer adds, " Unprepared for
freedom as the unhappy victims of our oppression and rapacity
now are, the attempts to bestozo it on them at once, could Only lead
to their own augmented misery, andinvolve both master and slave in
one common ruin." The sagacity which provided this just reflection
in favour of Great Britain and the West India legislature, might
have discovered the same apology for the southern states of
America, and arrested the unqualified sentence pronounced upon
them. In truth, all this sudden pother about the bare continued exist
ence of domestic slavery in this country, may b»at once under
stood to be mere parade, if not artifice, on a reference to fhe
tenor of the article in the first number of the Review, concern-

238 HOSTILITIES OF THE [P.ART I.
ing the Sugar Colonies. The object of that article was to show
that " the sub-divisipn pf the negrpes pf the West Indies, under
the power of masters armed with absolute power," had become
an indispensable policy for Great Britain ; that " the regulation
of the treatment of the slaves" ought to be left to the colonial
legislatures; and, principally, that Great Britain should assist the
consular government of Fiance, (alias Bonaparte) in the attempt
to reduce the negroes of St. Domingo to their previous state of
bondage ; to their cane-pieces, coffee-grounds and spice-walks."
The champions of universal emancipation, who now, in the fer
vour of their apostleship, proclaim it to be " the consummation of
wickedness," on our part, to tolerate even the existence of sla
very in our sputhern states, had then so little presentiment of
their vocation, or susceptibility to the impressions which slavery,
" in the most mitigated form," makes upon them now, as they
contemplate this republic, that they were eager for its revival in
its severest form, and on a very extensive scale, in St. Domingo ;
because the independence of the negroes of that island seemed to
threaten the security of the trade which supplied in part " our
(the British) fleet with seamen, and our (the British) exchequer
with millions." The article in question calculates sanguinely and
argumentatively the advantage secured to Great Britain, on the
supposition that " France had completely succeeded in her colo
nial measures, and, with whatever perfidy and cruelty, restored
the slavery of the negroes." And it is curious to remark the lan
guage held in relation to the beings, for whose fate with us, so
profound and resentful a compassion is now expressed.
" The negroes are truly the Jacobins of the West India islands ;
they are the anarchists, the terrorists, the domestic enemy.—
Against them it becomes rival nations to combine, and hostile go
vernments to coalesce. If Prussia and Austria felt their exist
ence to depend on an union against the revolutionary arms in Eu
rope (and who does not lament that their coalition was not more
firm and enlightened ?) a clpser alliance is imperipusly recom
mended to France, and Britain, and Spain, and Holland, against
the common enemy of civilized society, the destroyer of the Eu
ropean name in the new world."
" We have the greatest sympathy for the unmerited sufferings
of the unhappy negroes ; we detest the odious traffic which has
poured their myriads into the Antilles ; but we must be permitted
to feel some tenderness for our European brethren, although they
are zehite and civilized, and to deprecate that inconsistent spirit of
canting philanthropy, zehich in Europe is only excited by the wrongs

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 239
or miseries qf the poor and the profligate ; and, on the other side
qf the Atlantic, is never warmed but towards the savage, the mu
latto, and the slave ! !
" Admitting all that has been urged against the planters arid
their African providers, we are much of the opinion which Lord
Bacon has expressed in the following sentence: — ' It is the sin-
fullest thing in the world to forsake a plantation once iiv forward
ness; for, besides the dishonour, it is the guiltiness of the blood
of many commiserable persons.' "
The Edinburgh Review is as much at variance with itself,
touching the points of the felicity and humanity of Great Britain,
as in that of her being the dispenser of universal freedom. As far
as the acknowledgment of overspreading pauperism may be consi
dered as an acknowledgment of national wretchedness, we have it in
repeated instances. In the 58th number, this evil is represented
as " the menacing hydra who swells so gigantically, and stalks so
largely over the face of the British land." That this hydra had
left the land, or had ceased to swell and expatiate when the critic
wrote the phrase " It would be madness not to admit England
to be a very happy country," no one acquainted with the progress
of her affairs could be bold enough to affirm. With respect to her
humanity, it is strangely emblazoned in the abstracts and opinions
which the Edinburgh Review has given of the resistance to the
abolition of the slave trade, — of her administration of Ireland and
India, — of her penal code, — of the state of her public charities, her
prisons, her hospitals, and of the character of the ministry whom
she suffers to remain in power. A single passage, which 1 take
from their volume for 1817, may serve to show how the critiqs
vindicate, in the detail, the reputation of superior humanity which
they assert in the gross, for their coimtry : —
" The condition of pauper lunatics, in public institutions, is
shown sufficiently, by what has been already said. At private
mad-houses, the management of the poor v\ as no better. At
Talbot's, Bethnal Green, where the number was 230, and at
Rhodes's, Bethnal Green, where 275 paupers were crowded to
gether, there is a proof of circumstances that deserve severe
censure. At Miles, Worston, of 486 patients, 300 were kept wholly
without medical attention to their mental disorder. The case is
nearly the same throughout the whole of England ; and the sheriff
of Edinburghshire states, that " in no instance did he find a
pauper lunatic treated with kindness ; in several, marked inhuma
nity was observable."
In remarking, in reference to the United States, that " it is
not pleasant to emigrate to a countiy of changes and revolution,"

240 HOSTILITIES OF THE fj?ART I.
the same critics add, to enforce their observation, — " then we have
a parliament of inestimable value." In confirmation of this dis
covery, 1 will appeal to the authority of a late leader of the party
to which they belong :— •> a man whose superlative judgmeut and
candour they have celebrated without bounds.
Sir S- Romilly said, * " Let us recollect that we are the parliament
which, for the first time in the history of this country, twice suspended the
habeas corpus act in a period of profound peace. Eetus recollect that we
are the confiding parliament which entrusted his majesty's ministers with
the authority emanating from that suspension, in expectation that when it was
no longer wanted, they would call parliament together to surrender it into
their hands, — which those ministers did not do, although they subsequently
acknowledged that the necessity for retaining that power had long ceased
to exist. Let us recollect that we arc the same parliament which consented
to indemnify his majesty's ministers for the abuses and violations ofthe Jaw
of which they had been guilty in the exercise of the authority vested in
them. Let us recollect that we are the same parliament, which refused to
inquire into the grievances stated in the numerous petitions and memorials
with which our table groaned, — that we turned a deaf ear to the complaints
ofthe oppressed, — that we eyen amused ourselvers with their sufferings. Let
us recollect that we are the same parliament which sanctioned the use of
spies and informers by the British government, — debasing that govern
ment, once so celebrated for good faith and honour, into a condition lower
in character than that of the ancient Freneh police. Let us recollect that
we are the same parliament which sanctioned the issuing of a circular letter
to the magistracy of the country, by a secretary of state, urging them to
bold persons to bail fot libel, before an indictment was found- Let us
recollect that we are the same parliament which sanctioned the sending
out of the opinion of the king's attorney general and the king's solicitor
general, as the law of the laud. Let us recollect that we arc the same par
liament which sanctioned the shutting of the ports of this once hospitable
nation to unfortunate foreigners flying from persecution in their own coun
try. This, Sir, is what we have done ; and we are about to crown all by
tlie present most violent and most unjustifiable act (the alien act). Who
our successors may be I know not ; but God grant that this country may
never see another parliament as regardless of the liberties and rights
of the people, and of the principles of general justice, as this parliament
has been !"
As an American, I may be excused, if yielding to the pro
vocation of such language as that of the Edinburgh Review,
I dwell a little longer, in this place, upon the evidence of the
more perfect freedom and tender humanity of Great Britain,
which is to be collected from other sources. It has been the
uniform cry of the leading members of the opposition in par
liament, as well as of the Scottish journal, that the ministry
could at any time find a majority to enable them to suspend
the habeas corpus act; and the same authorities have concurred
in the assertions, that when the habeas corpus act was suspended,

* Debate of June 15, 1S18, House of Commons.

SECT. VII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 241
there was no difference between the government of Great Britain
and the rule of the most despotic sovereign ; that the power
which a minister had of committing to prison on such occasions
was quite as great and as dangerous as that of the lettres de cachet,
so celebrated in the annals of France. The last British Parlia
ment, dissolved in 1818, suspended the' habeas coipus twice, —
in a time of profound peace with foreign nations, Lord Castlereagh
averring on the second occasion, that unless the measure were
adopted, "a bloody and disastrous catastrophe was to be expected."
The state of things during the suspension will be made suffici
ently known, by a few quptatipns from the debates in Parliament
on the subject, and will show the real value of the boast for Eng
land, that " the greatest lord dare not lay a finger upon the mean
est peasant."
Lord Holland said (Feb. 19th, 1818) "that forty British subjects had
beon, during the suspension of 1817, immured in prisons, and discharged
without any trial."
Lord A.Hamilton said (Feb. 10th, 1818) " that government had avow
edly employed spies and informers *, who, it was generally admitted, had,
in many cases, fomented the evil which it was the object to counteract.
And he begged now to notice the lamentable condition to which suspected
persons, innocent or guilty, were thus reduced in this frank and/ree country.
Any man was liable, on the information of these fomenting instead of de
tecting spies, — out of malice or to earn their pay, — to be taken by secret
warrant, — to secret imprisonment, — to distant gaol, — all access denied
him ' for fear of tampering,' — a law officer to threaten or bribe, — some ac
complice to give agreeable evidence: — under such circumstances, what
chance had he of bare justice, much less of successfully encountering hi*
enemies! Such proceedings were in direct opposition to all that they had
been accustomed to venerate in the British constitution 1"
Mr. Fazakerley said (Feb. 11th, 1818) "that during the suspension ofthe
habeas corpus, the powers with which it invested government were by no
means sparingly used. The gaols were filled with suspected individuals,
apprehended probably on the information of spies ; and many persons were
thus in all probability, made the victims of the crimes of others. The va
rious provinces witnessed the novel sight, of state prisoners, itinerant state
prisoners, carried about from one place to another. Not that alone ; — they
saw them loaded with irons, and placed in close confinement ! "
Sir F. Burdett observed (March 1 1th, 1818) " that no contradiction had
been attempted of the allegation, that men who had not been found guilty
of any offence ; — who were merely accused, and it was to be presumed,
wrongfully, as they were subsequently discharged, ¦ — were confined in so
litary cells, and loaded with irons. In one instance, two of these unfortu-
* The Eavl of Westmoreland, one of the ministry, observed in the House of Lords,
5th March, 1818, " that spies and informers had, from the earliest periods of history,
been the objects of popular dislike. Eut he believed that no governmenthad ever
existed by which they had not been used ; and that hardly any conspiracy or treason
had ever been detected and punished Without their aid.
Vol. I. — Hh

272 HOSTILITIES OF THE {PART 1.
nate individuals were chained together, compelled mutually to bear all the
infirmities of human nature ; a most inhuman practice, and one to which a
tyraut of old is said to have resorted as to a refinement of cruelty."
SirS. Romilly referred to "the petitions of the two booksellers at War
rington, who being charged with no other olfence than the publishing of a
libel, had had their houses searched, their books and papers seized, and had
been themselves loaded with'irons lik* felons, and committed to the house
of correction, and kept to hard labour, before any trial had taken place."
" There was another case of the same kind," he continued, " but of still
greater cruelty. It was the case of a man of the name of Swindells, whose
house had been broken open in the dead of night, and his books and papers
seized. His wife was at the time far advanced in her pregnancy ; the terror
produced a premature labour, which caused the death of herself and ofthe
child ; and another infant, the only remains of the unhappy man's family,
was, when he was dragged to gaol, conveyed to the parish workhouse, and
from thence, in a short time,.to the parish burying-ground. The man, how
ever, had been guilty of no crime. His family was destroyed, — he was him
self discharged from prison, impoverished, ruined, a widower, and childless,
because some unfounded charge had been brought against him."
Lord Holland said (Feb. 2Tth, 1818) "that the noble duke who had in
troduced the present bill (indemnity bill) had treated the subject rather
lightly, by saying that the government under the suspension act ' had
merely abstracted a few individuals, for a time, from society.' So then,
you take men from their family, friends, employments ; you immure them in
dungeons, you doom them to solitary confinement for months, you expose
their persons to every species of hardship, and their characters to every kind
of suspicion, and you call this ' only abstracting a few individuals from so
ciety for a time!'"
Iii March, 1817, an act was passed by the Parliament, — "the
" seditious meetings bill," — declaring in the case of any public
meeting the punishment of death without benefit of clergy, for non
compliance with the order of a simple magistrate to disperse. At
that period, there were no less than two hundred crimes, besides
murder, treason, and burglary, legally punishable with death ; and
sixty of them had been made capital in the reign of George III. ;
seventeen by one act ; and of the number, one was for shooting a
man ; another the killing of a rabbit ; a third, trying to kill a man in
his bed ; and a fourth, cutting down heads of fish-ponds. To
this list of capital offences may be added, cutting a hop-bine, or
an ornamental tree in gentlemens' grounds ; going to a masque
rade with the face blacked, and many others of a similar cast,.
which are detailed in the speeches of SirS. Romilly and Sir James
Mackintosh, on the British penal code.
By the Marriage Act five capital felonies are created in pne
line. From the pfficial evidence presented tp the House of Com
mons, it appears that nineteen persons, and occasionally twenty-
one, have been executed on the same day in London. We have
an instance, within the three jears last past, of a woman, of the

SECT. Vll.'J BRITISH REVIEW. 24S
name of Mary Ryan, who had assisted her husband in an at
tempt to escape from Newgate, being brought to the bar for this
offence, a few hours after she saw him carried to execution ; and
tried and condemned with her infant at her breast, notwithstand
ing, as Sir James Mackintosh stated in the House of Commons,
that she was, from the delirium of her grief, as incapable of pro
ceeding on her defence, or of extenuating her act, as if she w;ere
in a state of confirmed insanity. Mr. Scarlett, a distinguished
barrister, and member of the House of Commons, asserted, in
his place, without contradiction (on the 2d of March, 1819) that
if there was any countiy more disgraced by sanguinary enact
ments than another, it was England. To illustrate further the
recklessness of the legislature in such enactments, and the nature
of the admonition to which it has remained insensible, I will ex
tract from the parliamentary history, part of a speech delivered in
the House of Commons by a member of high standing, the 13th
of May, 1777, on the occasion of a bill for the better securing
dock yards, &c. by the punishment of death.

Sir William Meredith said,
" Had it been fairly stated, and specifically pointed out, what
the mischief of coining silver in the utmost extent is, the hanging
bill on that subject might not have been so readily adopted : —
under the name of treason it found an easy passage. I indeed
have always understood treason to be nothing less than some act
or conspiracy against the life or honour of the king, and the
safety of the state ; but what the king or state can suffer by my
taking now and then a bad sixpence, or a bad shilling, 1 cannot
imagine. By this nickname of treason, however, there lies at
this moment in Newgate, under sentence to be burnt alive, a girl
just turned of 14 : — at her master's bidding she hid some white
washed farthings behind her stays, on which the jury found her
guilty as an accomplice with her master in the treason. The
master was hanged last Wednesday ; and the faggots all lay ready
for her; no reprieve came till just as the cart was setting out,
and the' girl would have been burnt alive on the same day, had
it not been for the humane but casual interference of Lord Wey
mouth. Good God! Sir, are we taught to execrate the fires of
Smithfield, while we are lighting them now to burn a poor harm
less-child for hiding a whitewashed farthing ? And yet this bar
barous sentence, which ought to make men shudder at the thought
of shedding blOod for such trivial causes, is brought as a reason
for more hansrino- and burning !"

244 HOSTILITIES OF THE [1'ART I.
" When a member of Parliament brings in a new hanging
law, he begins with mentioning some injury that may be doue^
to private property, for which a man is hot yet liable to be
hanged, and then proposes the gallows as the specific infalli
ble means of cure and prevention ; but the bill, in its progress,
often makes crimes capital that scarce deserve whipping. For
instance, the shop-lifting act was to prevent bankers and silver
smiths, and other shops, where there are commonly goods of
great value, from being robbed ; but it goes so far as to make it
death to lift any thing off a counter with intent to steal. Under
this act, one Mary Jones was executed, whose case I shall just
mention : it was at the time when press-warrants were issued, on
the alarm about Falkland's Islands. The woman's husband was
pressed ; their goods seized for some debts of his, and she, with
two small children, turned into the streets a-begging^ It is a
circumstance not to be forgotten, that she was very young (under
nineteen) and most remarkably handsome. She went to a linen-
draper's shop, took some coarse linen off the counter, and slipped
it under her cloke ; the shopman saw her, and she laid it down :
for this she was hanged ! Her defence was (I have the trial in my
pocket) — ' That she had lived in credit, and wanted fpr npthing,
till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her ; but since
then she had no bed to lie on ; nothing to give her children to
eat ; and they were almpst naked : and, perhaps, she might have
dpne spmething wrong, for she hardly knew what she did .' The
parish officers testified to the truth of this story ; but it seems
there had been a good deal of shop-lifting about Ludgate ; an
example was thought necessary, — aud this^woman was hanged for
the comfort and satisfaction nf some shopkeepers in Ludgate-
street ! When brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a
frantic manner, as proved her mind to be in a distracted and de
sponding state ; and the child was sucking at her breast when
she set out for Tyburn."
" But for what cause was God's creation robbed of this its
noblest work ? It was for no injury ; but for a mere attempt to
clothe two naked children by unlawful means. Compare this
with what the state did, aud with what the law did. The state
bereaved the woman of her husband, and the children of a fa
ther, who was all their support ; the law deprived the woman
of her life, and the children of their remaining parent, exposing
them to every danger, insult, aud merciless treatment that des
titute and helpless orphans suffer. Take all the circum
stances together, I do not believe that a fouler m'nrder was ever

SECT. Vll.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 245
committed against law, than the murder of this woman by law.
Some who hear me, are perhaps blaming the judges, the jury, and
the hangman; but neither the judge, jury, nor hangman are to
blame; they are but ministerial agents; the true hangman is the
member of parliament ; he who frames the bloody law is answer
able for all the blood that is shed under it. 1 cannot find in history
any example of such laws as ours, except a code that was framed
at Athens by Draco."
Not merely the act of killing, but the mere attempt to kill game
at night, in an enclosed place, is felony, subject to transportation
for seven years, under the monstrous system of game-lazes. In
1816, according to official returns made to Parliament, twelve
hundred persons were immured in various parts of the kingdom,
for offences against those laws, to the utter ruin and overwhelm
ing distress of many hundreds of poor families. The preservation
of game for the tables of the rich, is the equivalent for this mass
of human misery, which, at the same time, confessedly leads to
a deprivation of morals among the lower orders, considerably
greater in tue proportion.
One of the most respectable British Journals, Bell's Weekly
Messenger, June 22d, 1S18, holds this language: —
" We have often had occasion to say, and we shall repeat it,
that in no country in the world is the revenue so mercilessly col
lected and enforced as in England. In no country in the world is
less conceded to private distress." The critics of Edinburgh can
hardly claim for Scotland an exemption from this last reproach,
if we are to credit the details given in the following extract from
tlie " Proceedings of the House of Commons" for the 30th of
April, 1818.
" Mr. Findlay rose to move for a return of the number of pri
soners confined for small debts in the several prisons of Scotland. t
The House, he was persuaded, could hardly imagine the degree
of misery which the prisoners alluded to were condemned to
suffer; and1 when the numbers who thus suffered were
taken into account, combined with the insignificant debts for
which they suffered, its astonishment must be excited, while
its feelings must be severely affiicter!. In the prisons of Glasgow
alone, there were last year no less than ninety-three persons con
fined for sums under one pound ; and it was to be recollected that
not one of those was likely to come out of prison without having
his morals polluted by the persons he was obliged to associate
with while in prison. The whole number of prisoners thus con
fined in all the Scottish prisons, amounted, he had reason to believe,
tp several hundreds, while he apprehended that those confined for
sums under £5, amounted to some thousands. He had also to

246 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PAHT I.
observe, that none of these poor prisoners were entitled to any
prison-allowance or succour, until ten days after their committal,
while the receipt of each afterwards was only 4d. per day. Yet
the creditor could not commit one of these prisoners without ex
pending ten shillings ; nor could the debtor be released without
paying six shillings."
Some more extracts from the parliamentary debates of the two
last years, will restore the balance between England and Pur
southern states, according to the mode of account opened by the
Edinburgh Review, in the article on Fearon's Travels.
Lord R. Seymour observed (June 17th, 1817) " that gentlemen not con
versant with parish workhouses, were not aware how harshly the pauper-
lunatics were treated in them. To prevent their escape, they were con
signed to the constant wear of the strait waistcoat ; and this being, of all
instruments of personal restraint, the most heating and irritating, the poor
lunatic in it becomes clamorous and noisy; when, to prevent his annoying
his neighbour by his noise, the lancet was applied to him, by which he was
not unfrequently reduced to a state bf exhaustion."
Mr. Bennet presented (Feb. 1st, 1819) "¦ a petition from Dr. Halloran,
now under sentence of transportation for seven years, for forging a frank to
a letter, complaining ofthe hardships and cruelties to which he was exposed.
This case," the honourable member observed, "had excited a good deal
of interest, and very naturally, from the disproportion between the offence
and tbe penalty ; and in reply, it was said that Dr. Halloran' s character
was very questionable, and that he was no clergyman, ike. If the indivi
dual had assumed a character to which he was not entitled, why was he
not prosecuted accordingly ? — but as the case now stood, it would appear
as if the man were tried for one thing, and punished on account of another.
After mentioning the severe treatment to which Dr. H. had been exposed
before trial, in being confined among the most horrible characters,thehonour-
able member proceeded to give au account of the convict Vessel: in which
this individual was now confined ; a statement which he begged the House
to understand, he made from his own personal observation. Dr. H. was
conveyed to the bulks in an open boat, when extremely ill, and left in what
was called a cabin, but what he (Mr. B.) should term a hole or dungeon,
for nineteen hours, without any one going to him, saying nothing of the ab
sence of medical aid ; he was placed in a hole or dungeon with twenty
other convicts — ihe division being twelve feet, square. In this hole or dun
geon were cribs six and a half feet long, and five and a half feet broad;
»nd into one of these cribs six human beings were stowed. Here they
passed the night without the opportunity of turning.
The honourable member added, that when he examined this vessel, he
was compelled to have the aid of a candle; and he not only found the ca
bins limited and confined, as already described, bnt they were dirty and
loathsome in the extreme. Such a sight was abominable to a country call
ing itself Christian, and particularly so to a government that was pecu
liarly Christian. The description of the inside -of a black slave ship had
recently excited a great deal of interest, not only in England, but through
out Europe. But what would the house say when they learned that the
inside of this white slave ship was worse than that of a black slave ship ?
According to the section of the latter vessel, the blacks had one foot six.
inches breadth of reposing room ; but the white slave ship only offered one
foot one inch- He described what he had seen ; he pledged himself for the
truth of what he stated."

SECT- Vll.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 247
Mr. B. Bathurst (one of the ministry) " did not mean to deny that there
might be merit due to the honourable member for his active and personal
interference. Respecting the conditions of the vessels, those who were
condemned fo them must expect many privations and hardships, and the
ships were such as had long peen used. The arguments were therefore,
against the system, not against the particular case. The convict ships were
now fitted up in the way in which they always had been."
Mr. Bennet said (April 3d, 1819) " the House was aware that Ilchester
returned two members to parliament; it was a patronised pi ace ; or, in other
words, if he might be permitted to use them, it was the property of a par
ticular family. It appeared from the petition which he held in his hands,
that the proprietor thought a small number of constituents more advantage
ous; and to accomplish this object, he had pulled down a number of houses,
by which about one hundred families had been driven from their homes,
and were received into a sort of temporary poor-house, where they were shel
tered for a time, yet only eighteen or twenty of them had been paupers,
the rest maintaining themselves by honest industry. Notice was however
given, in consequence of prevailing political dissensions, that these unhappy
families would be deprived of even that shelter ; the parish resisted, and an
ejectment being brought, they were finally turned out. Thus one hundred
and sixty-three men, women, and children, from extreme infancy to extreme
hge, had been driven into the open streets in the most inclement season of
the year! Some had screened themselves from the cold with straw and
hurdles ; some had taken refuge in open stalls, or in the neighbouring
fields ; and a, considerable number of old and young of both sexes, decrepit
old people with helpless infants, and women in the last stage of pregnancy,
bad been huddled together in the town-hall without distinction. The
unroofing of bouses had been heard of as an expedient of exclusion; but it
remained for the agents of the proprietor of this borough, to drive a man,
his wife, and five children from their dwelling, by filling the upper floors with
dung and filth, which oozed and dripped through the ceilings."
7. Few of the persons who may have followed me thus far in
this section, will, I apprehend, any longer doubt that " the vice of
impertinence'- has " crept" into the councils of the Edinburgh
Review, as well as into the British cabinet ; that it has actually
" shared in the odious, miserable, vulgar spirit of abuse'' which it
alleges the opposite political sect to be " fond of displaying against
America ;" that it has never even appeared to undertake her de
fence, but from party-feelings and views ; and that, by perpetually
contradicting itself when treating of her concerns or those of Eng
land, it has forfeited all claim to authority, on either side of the
question. Its readers may still recollect how severely Cobbett
was handled, in the 20th number, for the" versatility of his suc
cessive doctrines ;" and they will readily apply the following-
paragraphs, with which it concluded its collation of those
doctrines. " Now, what is it that we infer from this strange alternation of
praise and blame in the pages of Mr. Cobbett ? Why,— that no
body should care much for either ; that they are bestowed from
passion or party-prejudice, and not from any sound principles of

248 HOSTILITIES OF THE, &C [PART, I.
judgment; and that it must be the most foolish of all things, to
take our impressions from a man whose own opinions have not
only varied, but been absolutely reversed, within these four years."
" By the uncharitable, such a man will always be regarded as
a professional bully, without principle or sincerity, — whose ser
vices may be bought by any one who will pay their price to his
avarice or other passions ; — and the most liberal must consider
him as a person without any steadiness or depth of judgment ; —
accustomed to be led away by hasty views and occasional impres
sions; — entitled to no weight or authority in questions of deli
cacy or importance; — and likely to be found in arms against his
old associates, on every material change in his own condition,, or
that of the country."

249

SECTION VIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
1. The Quarterly Review is an avowed, implacable enemy,
.and somewhat more important to us in its hostilities than the
Edinburgh, on account of its intimate connexion with the British
government. It has constantly argued upon the general question
of American concerns, by a reference to the single class of ex
ceptions, and taken, as the ground of universal reprobation, those
partial irregularities in morals and manners which are to be found
in every country, and which, if they were sufficient to warrant the
charge of barbarism or depravation against a whole nation, would
be equally competent to prove that there is no civilization nor vir
tue left on the earth.
Mr. Burke said, in his speech on the Conciliation with Ame
rica, — " I do not know the method of drawing up an indict
ment against a whole people. I cannot insult and ridicule the
feelings of millions pf my fellow-creatures. I am not ripe to pass
sentence on the gravest public bodies entrusted with magistracies
of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety of their
fellow-citizens, upon the same title as a member of the British
parliament." What this elevated and enlightened personage thus
declared himself incompetent to perform, is the frequent aud fa
vourite achievement of a junto of poets and politicians in London,
who profess to be of the number of his most faithful disciples and
enthusiastic admirers. What he pronounced to be " for wise men,
not judicious ; for sober men, not decent ; for minds tinctured with
humanity, not mild and merciful,— they can practise without shame,
even with ostentation, towards the same country ; the vilification of
which occasioned his remarks.
Opinions utterly repugnant to each other ; the most intemperate
and incautious sallies of hate and jealousy ; allegations so exor
bitant as at once to betray and defeat the purpose of the writers,
characterize the articles of the Quarterly Review whicli relate
to the United States. At the same time, nothing is to be found
in them of the judgment, humour^knowledge, and elocution, which
Vol. 1.— Ii

250 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
recommend other parts of the Journal. The Edinburgh Review
is jocose atj, our expense, through pertness and arrogance ; the
Quarterly, from national fears and monarchical antipathy ; and the
leer of the one is, accordingly, only smirking, while that of the
other is Sardpnic.
It was utterly unworthy of men of high rank in the world of
literature and criticism, — of political teachers of the loftiest pre
tensions, — of wits claiming to be the successors of the Swifts and
Arbuthnots, — to appear speculating, and deciding, and jesting
upon a great country, like America, with such manuals as the
Travels of Ashe, Janson, Parkinson, Fearon, illiterate and inter
ested slanderers, for whom they could not conceal their own
hearty contempt; and whose publications on any other subject,
they would have cast from them in disdainful silence.
If it had become necessary for state purposes, such as the
prevention of emigration, the weakening of a conti ast unfavourable
to the British order of things, and the counteraction of a dangerous
influence with the nations of the continent, — or for the gratifi
cation of a prurient wit, a restless arrogance, or private political
pique, — that the United States should be reviled and derided,
self-respect and sound policy exacted an exertion of patience to
await, or of ingenuity to contrive, some other occasion than those
afforded by reports, the whole cast and tone of which betrayed to
the world the insufficiency and venality of the authors. The
British reviewers would have consulted their own dignity, and
the important object of plausibility in their expositions of our
character and condition more, had they resorted altogether for
texts even to the newspapers written among us by " the expa
triated Irishmen and Scotchmen," of whom the Edinburgh Jour
nal speaks rather than to books coarsely manufactured in Lon
don, ont of the meanest and flimsiest materials brought thither by
disappointed or stipendiary Englishmen, whose pursuits and views
made it impossible for any reflecting person to believe that they
had possessed either the opportunity, capacity, or inclination to
represent the Americans justly and fairly. Other oracles besides
these; or a course of original and well-adjusted detraction, by
argument, assertion, and ridicule, were wanting to enable critics,
of whatever general authority in their vocation, to sophisticate the
feelings, and bewilder the reason of mankind, in relation to the
United States. I question whether a single auxiliary has been
raised on the Continent of Europe for the crusade against the
American name, by the passage which I am about to quote from
the Quarterly Review, as samples of its liberahty and veracity.

SECT. VIII.] 1JUITISH REVIEWS. 251
" Au American's first play-thing is a rattlesnake's tail; — he
cuts down a tree on which the wild pigeons have built their nests,
and picks up a horse load of young birds."
" Intoxication with the Americans is not social hilarity betrayed
into excess ; it is too rapid a process for that interval of generous
feeling which tempts the European on. Their pleasure is first in
the fiery stimulus itself, not in its effect ; — not in drunkenness,
but in getting drunk."
" Hence the ferocity with which the Americans decide their
quarrels : their rough and tumbling ; their biting and lacerating
each other, and their gouging : — a diabolical practice whicli has
never disgraced Europe, aud for which no other people have ever
had a name."*
" Living in a semi-savage state, the greater part of theAmeri-
cans are so accustomed to dispense with the comforts of life which
they cannot obtain, that they have learnt to neglect even those de
cencies which are within their reach."
" They have overrun an immense country, — not settled it. In
this, as in every thing else, the system of things is forced beyond the
age of the colonies."
" The manners are boorish, or, rather brutal.* * In America
nothing seems to be respected ; there the government is better
than the people. The want of decorum among the Americans is
not imputable to their republican government ; for it has not been
found in other republics ; it has proceeded from the effects of the
revolutionary war, from their premature independence, and from
that passion for gambling which infects all orders of men, clergy as
well as laity, and the legislators as well as the people."*
" The state of law in America is as deplorable as that of religion,
and far from extraoidinaiy." -f
" Two millions of slaves are now smarting under the lash in the
American states : more than three millions have been imported
and sold in those pure regions since the defeat of Cornwallis." %

* No. 4. — Article on Holmes's Annals. See Note R.
+ No. 6. — Article jon Northmore's Washington.
% This allegation was made in 1809, only 28 years from the period of
the defeat of Cornwallis ; so that on an average more than 100,000 must
have been annually imported! By.thc census of the population of the
United States for 1810, the whole number of slaves was then only
1,191,361. Therefore, at least two millions must have perished among us
since 1781! It is wonderful that the African Association of London has
not yet availed itself of this portentous fact, vouched by the Quarterly
Review.

252 HOSTILITIES OF THL [PAKTI,
" Every free woman is a voter in America." *.
" The judges are not independent ; but are subservient to the
government, and creatures of the President and Senate." f
" No such character as a respectable country gentleman is
known in America." J
" For the practitioners of law, physic, and surgery, no prepara
tory course of study, no testimonial of competency, no kind of
examination, no particular qualifications, no diploma, no license
are required." §
" Franklin, in grinding his electrical machine and flying his kite,
did certainly elicit some useful discoveries in a branch of science
that had not much engaged the attention of the philosophers of
Europe. But the foundation of Franklin's knowledge was laid,
not in America, but in London. Besides, half of what he wrote
was stolen from others ; and the greater part of the other not
worth preserving. It would be rating his moral writings very
high to estimate them at the same value tp the community as his
eleemosynaiy legacy." ||
" The supreme felicity of a true born American, is inaction of
body and inanity of mind.'^f
" Strange as it may appear, the south-western part of the New
World has already begun to consider the north-eastern as having
passed the meridian of life, and accordingly given it the name of
Old America."**
" The fpunders of American Society brought to the composi
tion of their nation no rudiments of liberal science."
" America is all a parody ; — a mimicry of her parents ; it is,
however, the mimicry of a child, tetchy and wayward in its fancy,
abandoned to bad nurses, and educated in low habits."
In the 4th number we are told — " There has been little
mixture of nations in America, not more than in England ;" but
in the 20th nnmber, we find the reviewer talking of America as
" a nation derived from so many fathers," and explaining " why
the thoughtless, dissolute, and turbulent of all nations should, in
commingling, so neutralize one another in America, that the re
sult is a people without wit or fancy."
At times, this journal has gone into a train of elaborate rea
soning, to prove the opposition of interests between " Old worn-
out," and " New America," aud the certitude of their speedy
severance. From the same motive, — political jealousy and alarm,

* No. 20. + Ibid. t -Ibid.
§ Ibid. || Ibid. H No. 38.
** Ibid.

SECT. VIII.J BRITISH REVIEWS. 253
which it has never been able to conceal, if has dealt in menacing
cautions ; of which the following will serve as an amusin<>-
specimen, and disclose the kind of comfort which is sought
among the ministerial literati of London, for the increase of our
power : —
" It is not in Europe only that the prosperity of Russia is likely
to be advantageous to the British monarchy. There is a nation
without the limits of Europe, to whom, for the sake of our kin
dred race and common language, we would gladly wish prosperity,
but whose hope of elevation is built on our expected fall ; and
who, even now, do not affect to conceal the bitterness of their
hatred towards the land of their progenitors. Already we hear the
Americans boasting that the whole continent must be their own ;
that the Atlantic and Pacific are alike to wash their empire ; and
that it depends on their charity what share in either ocean they may
allow to our vessels. They unrol their map, and point out the
distance between Niagara and the Columbia. Let them look
to this last point well. They will find in that neighbourhood a
different race from the unfortunate Indians whom it is the system of
their government to treat with uniform harshness ! They will find
certain bearded men, with green jackets and bayonets, whose flag
is already triumphant over the coast from California to the Straits
of Anian, who have the faculty wherever they advance, of concili
ating and even civilizing the native tribes to a degree which no
other nation has attempted, and whose frontier is more likely to
meet theirs in Louisiana, than theirs is to extend to the Pacific.
These are not very distant expectations, and they are not unfavour
able to England." (April, 1818).
2. Our backwardness in the production of good books, has not
been quite so favourite and frequent a topic with the Quarterly Re
view, as the other assailable points more in the line of the political
object. In the midst of the first general denunciation of this coun
try *, we find it admitted, we may presume inadvertently, that " it
is no great reproach to the Americans if they have not yet done
more in literature ; and that more ought not to be expected from
their circumstances and population." Nevertheless, the same
writers have not failed to ring all the changes upon the works of
Dwight, Barlow, and " Mr. Chief Justice Marshall." The course
pursued with three of the American publications (inchiquin's View

* Review of Holme's Annals, No. 4.

254 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
of the United States, the Travels of Lewis and Clarke, and Col-
den's Life of Fulton, — to which they aftersvards extended their
notice) is marked by traits as discreditable and disgusting as in
dividuate any case in the annals of British criticism.
The "View of the United States'' was a mere vindication of the
native country of the author from the aspersions cast upon it
abroad : it simply represented the main features of our character
and condition ; pourtrayed, with an impartial hand, some of our
most conspicuous statesmen ; and asserted the merits of two of
the American works, which had been traduced in England. It
attempted no reprisals upon the English aggressors, used no harsh
language, decried no European nation. It did not even run into
an indiscriminate panegyric of the United States, though it pro
fessed to be a " favourable view of them," which might be con
sidered as at least pardonable, after so much had been written in
Europe on the opposite side. Its general complexion argued
liberal studies^ and it was recommended by a diction, liable indeed
to some exceptions, but, on the whole, classical, elegant, and
vigorous. In short, there was enough about it to soften the na
tional prejudices, and even to win the praise of a European critic
of ordinary liberality. The Quarterly Review, however, assailed
this, in itself inoffensive and commendable performance, with the
utmost asperity ; it reviled the author personally ; misrepresented
his opinions and misquoted his language; and took occasion to
rake in all the lampoons and gazettes already noticed, for materials,
out of which it framed what it called "A correct Portrait ofthe
People of the United States;" but what no perspicacious and ge
nerous mind can see in any other light than as a malignant libel
and hideous caricature.
The " History of Lewis and Clarke's Expedition" had not
merely nothing in it to give umbrage, or to rouse national antipa
thies ; biit seemed to prefer irresistible claims upon the favour of
all the friends of knowledge, aud to leave scope only for the mpst
generous sympathies. The book is a simple clear narrative, with
out reference to any invidious topics ; and the expedition itself
was alike unexceptionable in the design, conduct, aud results; all
of which indeed bear a salient character of excellence and dignity.
It stifled the petulance and extorted the admiration of the Scottish
critics, who set the proper example to their brethren of London,
by pronouncing upon it the following eulogy : —
" We must remark, that this expedition does great credit both

SECT. Vm.J BRITISH REVIEWS. 2.55
to the government by which it was planned, and to the persons by
whom it was executed. The good sense, activity, and perseve
rance of the commanders cannot be too much commended ; their
treatment of the natives was humane and kind ; and though their
mission was in its intention conciliatory, yet this purpose could
not have been carried into effect but by men of much good
temper and sound understanding, considering how long they were
exposed to the vexations arising from the suspicion, caprice, and
levity of savages. The great harmony that seems to have pre
vailed, the spirit, steadiness, and exertion, in the midst of so much
hardship and danger, are highly meritorious ; and exhibit a band
of active aud intrepid men, which no country in the world would
not be proud to acknowledge.
This was a strain worthy of the theory of the critical institute,
but the spirit of the Quarterly Review could not be exorcised as
completely, It relented so far as to admit that Lewis and Clarke
" travelled near 9000 miles — the longest river voyage undertaken
since that of Orellana ;" and tbat " they performed with equal
ability, perseverance, and success, one of the most arduous journies
that ever was accomplished." Acknowledged merits of such
magnitude called for tenderness to the reputation ofthe individuals
in all points ; for the kindest interpretation of appearances in the
least doubtful ; yet the English Reviewer did not hesitate scorn
fully to intimate, that they took pleasure in the obscenities of the
Indians ofthe Missouri *; and this affront is given upon no other
foundation than that those obscenities are related. The relation,
too, is iu Latin, uncouth Latin indeed ; but such as it is, it evinces
in the use of this veil a refinement of feeling, the opposite of the im
puted grossness. Let the voyages of Captain Cook, Captain Wil
son, and other English navigators ; or the narratives of any of the
English travellers among savage nations, be consulted, and it will
be seen that they are much less studious of decorum ; and that a
charge of the kind might be made against them with more plausi
bility, if we admit there could be any colour of reason for making

* " The women of the Aiicara Indians prostitute themselves publicly,
in the intervals of dancing. The writer cannot be charged with offending
decency in describing this abomination, — he had related another, not less
abominable, in Latin, from respect to decorum; but in both instances it is evi
dent that both he and his companion were not men who felt any pain at behold
ing tlie degradation of human nature." The very reverse is evident to all who
are not ofthe class of moralists and philanthropists " willing to love all man
kind, except are American."

256 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
it on such a foundation. The personal acquaintance of the two
gallant leaders of the American expedition, requires no argument
to be convinced of their uniform elevation of sentiment arid de
portment, They were, certainly, unfortunate in the chpice pf names for
the natural objects which they were the first to bring tp the
knowledge of the civilized world. But this merit of discovery,
and the sagacity, fortitude, perseverance, exemplary temper dis
played throughput the expeditipn, rendered doubly venial so in
considerable a fault. A refined classical taste has belonged lo
very few of the illustrious men to whom we are indebted for the
enlargement of geographical science ; and the exploration of the
wild creation through whicli Lewis and Clarke penetrated, pre
sented the case, if ever there was one, in which the absence of
that accomplishment could be considered as excusable in itself)
or its effects, — nay, even advantageous on the whole, and im
mediately conducive to the more perfect achievement of the
gigautic enterprize. Instead of the gentle and courteous re
proof which became the occasion, the Quarterly Review made
their bomely nomenclature the subject of unsparing satire, and
turned it into doggrel, levelled not ouly against the heroic ad
venturers, but their country; and particularly against the high
officers of state, with whom the expeditioBi originated. If the
wretched diatribe to which I refer, coarser by far in its texture
than the occasion of it ; too low even for a place in " Coleman's
Broad Grins," belongs to the pen of the Author of the Baviad
and Mceviad, and the Translator of Juvenal ; of the scourge of
poetasters, and the assayer of English verse, — it furnishes a strik
ing example of the power of national prejudice and party-de
votion, to work the most violent and pitiable transformations.
How capital this stroke at the Americans, on the occasion of their
disclosing a new world to the gaze of philosophy and the march
of civilization !
" Flow, Little Shallow, flow, and be thy stream
Their great example, as it will their theme !"
And how natural and happy the transition from such wit in num
bers, to such wit in prose, as the following ! — " From Big-Muddy,
they the explorers — to borrow a title of American extraction r—
proceeded to Jefferson, and with not less felicity to Maddison from
Little Shallow," Sec.
Before I have done with the article in question, I would call
attention to two more passages, as illustrative of the spirit presiding
over the American department of the Journal.

5ECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 257
" It was not long before they{Lewis and Clark) reached the
remotest source of the Missouri, and drank of the fountain, —
a situation not altogether unworthy of being compared with that
of Bruce at the fountain ofthe Abyssinian Nile."
" Langsdorff notices a curious trade which the Americans
carry on in this article of fire-arms on the North-west Coast.
He says they send out a gunsmith in every ship, to buy up at
one place all the guns which want repairing, and sell them as
new pieces at another !"
1 aver, upon the authority of some ofthe distinguished Ame
rican merchants who trade with the North-west Coast, that
this statement, so kindly copied from Langsdorff, is utterly
false. Were it true, it would not enable us as yet, to dispute
the palm of fraudulent ingenuity with our English kinsmen.
It falls short of such a practice as the following, related by-
Mr. Southey in " Espriella's Letters;" a better authority than
Langsdorff: — " A regular branch of trade here, at Birmingham,
is the manufacture of guns for the African market. They
are made for about a dollar and a half; the barrel is filled with
water; and, if the water does not come through, it is thought
proof sufficient : of course they burst when fired, and mangle the
wretched negro, who has purchased them upon the credit of English
faith, and received them, most probably, as the price of human fiesh !
No secret is made of this abominable trade ; yet the government
never interferes ; and the persons concerned in it are not marked, and
shunned as infamous."*
The story from Langsdorff is entitled to about the same cre
dit as the assertion made in the 26th Number of the Quarterly
Review, that Captain Porter, of ihe American frigate Essex,
after losing half his crew, was taken by a ship of inferior force.
The hardihood of the Reviewer may almost confound those
who read the following extract, from the official letter, dated
30th March, 1S14, of Captain Hillyar, of his Majesty's ship
Phcebe (the antagonist of Porter) to Commodore Brown, sta
tioned at Jamaica : — " The defence of the Essex, taking into
consideration our great superiority qf force, tne very discouraging
circumstances of having lost her main top-mast, and being
twice pn fire, did hpnour to her defender, and must fully prove
the courage of Captain Porter."
The ' Life of Robert Fulton, by Cadwallader I). Colden, of
New York,' has experienced a treatment from these upright
critics, more remarkable still, and, if possible, more shameless.
* See also, on this head, Clarkson's History of tlie Abolition of the Slave
Trade, vol. II. c. iii.
VoL.I. — Kk

258 HOSTILITIES OF THE T.FAUT I.
The work of Mr. Colden appears as a mere Biographical Me
moir, read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of
New York, conformably to one of the principal ends of that
respectable institution. It obtained the shape of a book, at
the request of those to whom it was addressed ; and the pro
ceeds of its publication, whatever they might be, were assigned
to the erection of a monument to the memory ofthe illustrious
engineer. The author announced himself, even in the title-
page, emphatically as his friend ; and took charge, avowedly,
of his panegyric. This (for one who had known him in rela
tions ofthe closest intimacy, and when the deceased had left so
many titles to the most solemn commemoration) was unexcep
tionable in itself, and sanctioned, moreover, by abundant pre
cedents in the practice of the European nations. Mr. Colden
was not a writer by profession or habit: he belonged to the
bar ; ac which he had established the highest reputation, and
filled the highest office. He is now mayor of the city of New
York ; a station of great consequence and dignity. He is the
grandson of the Lieutenant Governor Colden who wrote the
celebrated History of the five Indian Nations, and whose
merits and honours in the world of science, are second only to
those of Franklin, among the men that have flourished on the
American continent as politicians and philosophers*. The
biographer of Fulton has shown himself worthy of this descent,
by an acknowledged, invariable probity, — a versatile genius,—
and the assiduous cultivation of the sciences and liberal arts in
the midst, of extensive professional engagements, and of ardu
ous municipal duties. It was in moments snatched from
these, that, to gratify his feelings and the wishes of the learned
society which ranks him as one of its most useful and erudite
members, he framed the Memoir in question, with a full con
viction, derived from the nearest observation, ofthe reality of
the services and qualities which he celebrated : and, whatever
he may have claimed of excellence for the labours of Fulton,
it is impossible he could have been more unassuming, or un
pretending, as respects his own production. If he has asserted
extravagant titles for his subject, it is manifestly without any
designs, — from no impulses, — which can lay him open to per
sonal reproach or incivility. The tenor of his book proves his
competency to his task : in point of style, arrangement, and
general instructiveness, it is all that could be expected or de
sired for the occasion.
He was led by the nature of his theme, and the wonders
of steam-navigation which he witnessed about him, to medi-
* See note S.

SECT. VIII.] BUITISH REVIEWS. g5Q
tate much, and lay the utmost stress upon the magnitude of
its benefits to the human race. It is not surprizing that these
should appear of less consequence and sublimity to an ob
server in England, where, from the shortness of the distances
and the facilities of canal navigation, so little, comparatively,
remained to be done for interhal communication ; where the
small steam-boats, plying on the diminutive streams, and
serving only the purpose of. conveying passengers a few miles
with greater convenience, are so little imposing either to the
eye or to the imagination. But in America, the actual and
future scene in this respect has an engrossing and transport
ing influence, and is of a real importance and magnificence,
which scarcely leave scope for exaggeration in feeling or re
presentation. Mr. Colden saw steam-vessels of four and five hundred tons,
constructed as commodiously, and furnishing as perfect secu
rity for merchandize or passengers, as the ware or the dwell
ing-house ; overcoming with unexampled velocity the power
ful currents of our mighty rivers; multiplying indefinitely on
the innumerable waters of this vast country, and almost ac
complishing the wish of the lover, — the annihilation of time
and space, — in the domestic intercourse of North America.
He could at once extend his view to the southern regions of
this hemisphere; to the continents of Europe, Africa, and
Asia, and see in prospect the same prodigies wrought there,
and the same train o,f moral and physical advantages ulti
mately realized. He had seen a steam-frigate of gigantic size,
moving on the Hudson with the facility and force of motion,
and the military faculties, which would assure invulnerability
to the sea-ports of his country, and might give a new and de
sirable character to maritime warfare *. He had seen, to use
his own words, "the Paragon, of three hundred and thirty-
one tons burthen, tow the steam frigate Fulton, which is of
the burthen of two thousand four hundred and seventy-five tons,
from the ship yards in the Sound, where she was launched, to
the dock or the city of Jersey, on the Hudson, where she was
to receive her machinery, at the rate of four miles and an half
f " Every one," says Cuvier, in his brilliant Discourse of 24th April, 1 81 6,
on the Progress of the Sciences, before the French Institute,—" every one
may see how much this invention of ^team-boats will simplify the navigation
of our rivers, and how much agriculture will gain in men and horses, that
may now return to the fields ; but what we maybe also permitted lo descry,
and what will, perhaps, be more important, is the revolution to which it wiil
lead in maritime warfare and in the power of nations, It is extremely pro
bable that we shall have to reckon this among thq experiments that cau be
said to have changed the face ofthe world."

260 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
an hour ; the same frigate, propelled by that machinery alone^
make a passage to the ocean and back, a distance of 53 miles,
in eight hours and twenty minutes, — the Fulton steam-boat,
which navigates the East River, passing daily through Hell-
Gate, against a rapid frequently running at the rate of six miles
an hour."
The crossing of the broadest and most rapid rivers, before
alike dangerous, difficult, and tedious, had been rendered safe,
easy, and expeditious, by the use of steam ferry-boats, capable
of carrying hundreds of passengers and vehicles at a time, and
almost any mere burden.
From these performances, prospects and hopes naturally
opened upon the mind of our author, which would have
wanned any fancy ; and sentiments of admiration and grati
tude towards Fulton were excited, which cannot appear hy
perbolical to an American, especially at this time, when we
know that a sleam-ship is on her passage across the Atlantic ;
and that a fleet of steam-vessels are making their way, with a
detachment of the army of the United States, to establish a
post at the Yellow Stone, on the Missouri, in the interior of
our continent, two thousand miles from the mouth of the
Mississippi. These two facts render it not improbable that,
by the same means, the passage between Europe and America
will be made in less time, and with less inconvenience, than
a journey between Edinburgh and London was accomplished
half a century ago ; and that a commerce between the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans may be maintained, through the Columbia
and Missouri, with as much certainty and facility, as it is be
tween the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
With such ulterior results as likely, and with the incaleulable
realized good before him, Mr. Colden ventured to say ofthe man
whom he considered as its immediate, intelligent author, that
" there could not be found in the records of departed worth,
the name of a person to whose individual exertions mankind
are more indebted, nor one which would live farther into
time, if not robbed pf the fame due to superior genius, exerted
with wonderful courage, industry, perseverance, and success."
No impartial and reflecting reader could view this declaration
as extravagant, or fail to approye both of the tone and pur
port of the passage which immediately follows in the biogra
phy. " If the construction of a bridge, or the formation of a
canal, has often given a celebrity which has been transmitted
through many ages, what fame and what gratitude does not he
deserve, who has furnished a means of transportation which
piay bring tlje inhabitants of the different quarters of the

SECT. ¥111.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 26i
world nearer to each other than, previously, those of the same
territory considered themselves ; which will spread with a fa
cility before unknown, the influence of religion, civilization,
and the arts ; which will bring the whole human species to an
intimate acquaintance with each other, and will unite mankind
by the bonds of mutual intercourse."
Fulton himself had never pretended that he was the first pro
jector or inventor of steam-boat navigation ; and his bio
grapher is far from having ascribed to him this merit. Mr.
Colden admitted that " some ingenious attempts to propel
boats by steam, had been made long before the time Mr. Ful
ton was known to have thought of it;" and that the idea ori
ginated with an Englishman, Mr. Jonathan Hulls, who pub
lished his scheme in 1737, at London. Our author received
implicitly the statement respecting Hull's suggestions, which
he read in Buchanan's " Treatise on Propelling Vessels by
Steam :'' a work that appeared in Scotland in 1817. What he
claimed for Fulton, and what alone Fulton claimed for him
self, was, his being the first who, by improvements on the
mere conceptions or vain attempts of others, established steam^
navigation so as to render it perpetually practicable and un
boundedly useful; — improvements effected not by a lucky
chance or cunning plagiary, but by a rare ccmbinatipn of in
ventive ppwers pf mathematical and philosophical science, of
mechanical knowledge and experience, and of intrepidity and
perseverance. Buchanan, the Scottish writer whom I have just
mentioned, had owned in his treatise, while vindicating the
credit of origination for Hulls, that " the steam-boats of Ful
ton were theflrst that succeeded in a profitable way." A more
absolute admission, ratifying fully the doctrine of Mr. Colden.
has been made in the April number of Dr. Thompson's Annals
of Philosophy, in an able paper on the Origin of Steam-Boats.
The writer holds the following language : — " It is not a little
remarkable in the History ofthe Arts, and forms a striking in
stance of ihe slow and progressive steps by which they advance;
that that most elegant and useful discovery, the steam-boat,
first brought forward in 1736, by Jonathan Hulls, of London,
and afterwards publicly investigated and tried by Lord Stan
hope and Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, should have been carried
to America, and there first have changed its character from
mere experiment to extensive practice and utility, and thatitshould
again have been introduced into Britain upon the experience of
Americans, only so lately as the year 1813, when it was first
employed upon the river Clyde." Even the Quarterly Review,
in. the article upon which I am about to animadvert, avows it to

262 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PAKT t.
be " beyond all question that Mr. Fulton made considerable
improvements in the application of the steam-engine to the
navigation of boats;" and adds, — " It is quite natural that the
Americans should uphold the reputation of their own country
men. We cannot blame them for it ; and some allowance may
reaionahly be made for excess of panegyric, in speaking of ar
tists of native growth."
I have premised all these details, in order to the better un
derstanding of the article in question, which I will now cur
sorily examine. It begins thus :—
" Although our readers may be inclined to give us credit
for some knowledge of our transatlantic brethren, yet we can
honestly assure them that we were not quite prepared for such
a sally as this of Cadwallader Colden, Esq." 8cc. alluding to
his declaration noticed above of the obligations of mankind to
Fulton. We have then a series of sneers at the panegyrics
pronounced upon the engineer by others of his countrymen,
and at the New York Historical Society. The Reviewers
themselves sit in judgment upon Fulton, and describe him as
f a man who possessed just talent enough to apply the inven
tions of others to his own purposes." Mr. Colden is taxed with
flisingenuity and misrepresentation, and ever and anon, with
as much urbanity as wit, styled " Mr. Cadwallader Colden,"
" friend Cadwallader," " the conscientious and consistent
friend," &c. The critics, by way, we must suppose, of teach
ing him a lesson of ingenuousness and truth, assume, that he
had arrogated for Fulton the merit of discovery, in the case of
the steam-boat, and proceed laboriously to refute the pretended
doctrine. It is unlucky, that in setting out, they could find no stronger
language in the work of Mr. Colden than the phrase, — " We
and all the world are indebted to Fulton for the establishment
of navigation by steam." With the biography in their hands,
and acquainted, no doubt, with what Buchanan had written,
they do not scruple to introduce and parade the theory of Hulls,
in such a way precisely, as if they were the first to announce it,
and Mr. Colden and America to be confounded with the dis
closure. They give an account of Mr. Miller's experiments, in
the year 1787, on the Forth and Clyde Canal, which they ac
knowledge " did not succeed to his entire satisfaction ;" and
they Jay great stress upon those of one of his assistants, of the
name of Symington, who pursued his ideas, with ho better suc
cess in the end. We are told by thpn, that Fulton paid a visit
to Symington, and examined his boat; and in the same man
ner, it is affirmed, equally without the production of any evj-

SEOT. ¥111.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 263
dence, in the paper of Thompson's Annals, to which 1 have re
ferred, That Fulton saw the experiments of Miller : a circum
stance highly improbable, since Fulton was born only in 1765 ;
and did not leave this, his native country, until after his ma
jority. The very attempts of the Reviewers to invalidate the claim
set np for Fulton, tend to show that it is well founded. We
may admit, as Mr. Colden has^done, that Jonathan Hulls was
the first who thought of using the power of steam for naviga
tion*; but it is not pretended that he ever proceeded to apply
his conception, even so far as to make an experiment. It cannot
but be perceived by every one conversant with what is now in
practice, that Mr. Hulls' scheme would not have been effectual
to drive the tow-boat itself, much less to drag " a two-decker."
The steerage of balloons, and plans for the purpose, have been
often suggested ; — we have seen representations of them beat
ing to windward under full sail. Should the art Of governing
them be hereafter discovered and perfected by the same indi
vidual, it will be quite as equitable to deny him the merit of
balloon-navigation, in favour of the fir^t speculators, or of the
authors of the drawings, as it is to detrude Fulton from his
pedestal to substitute Jonathan Hulls.
Patrick Miller never attempted to apply the engine to ves
sels. The Reviewers inform us that, in a book which he pub
lished in 1787, he has said, he had reason to believe that the
power of the steam-engine might be employed to work the
wheels, so as to give, them a quicker motion, and to increase
that of the ship. He announced, at the same time, his inten
tion to make the experiment ; and to communicate the result,
if favourable, to the public. No such communication is alleged
to have been made, and the conclusion is inevitable, that the
result was not favourable. With respect to Symington's boat,
the assertion that it was seen by Fulton is wholly gratuitous :
there is no trace of the fact in the papers of the latter ; it is,
however, not impossible, and will be readily admitted. Mr.
Colden has furnished proof that Fulton communicated the
project of a steam-boat to Lord Stanhope, in the year 1793,
seven years previous. The experiment of Symington on the
Clyde is mentioned in the biography of Fulton ; and it is not

* This is not, however, precisely the case. Some of the English writers
claim the merit for Captain Savery, who, it is said, published the idea in
1698 ; and even proposed wheels over the sides ofthe boat. Hulls took out
a patent in 1736, for " towing vessels into harbour by means of a boat with
paddles, to be worked by steam."

^(54 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
denied in that work, that the American availed himself of the
hints afforded by the abortive or incomplete experiments of
his precursors. Their very errors may have suggested to him
the means of effecting his object. Scarcely one of the illus
trious men who have the credit of noble discoveries or im
provements in physics or in morals, but enjoyed this negative
kind of aid, or the positive advantage of seminal ideas and
partial schemes. Sir Isaac Newton was indebted to the ex
periments and observations of Kepler, and to the discoveries
of Grimaldi; Galileo had seen the telescope of Metius;
Watt profited of the labours of Newcomen ; Dr. Jenner was
not the first who imagined, or suggested, or tried, ihe pro
phylactic power of the vaccine. There is a striking analogy,
in fact, between the cases of Jenner and Fulton : — the glory
of vaccination is not more justly due to the one than that of
steam-boat navigation to the other. The question is not who
first proposed to connect steam with navigation ? but, who first
and completely succeeded in so doing, and enabled others to
succeed ? The world will never consent to exalt the genius and
merits of him who merely throws out a loose hint, or stops
short at a diagram, or finishes with an abortive experiment,
over those of the sanguine and accomplished ehterprizer, who
seizes derelict, and vivifies still-born ideas ; — who, uniting in
himself the aptitude to invent, the sagacity to distinguish, and
the skill to execute, puts the world in lasting possession of
that which others had essayed, with such results only as
tended to arrest the efforts of industry, and discredit the
powers of.art."
When the Reviewers were dragging forward Mr. Symington
as the rival of Fulton, and alleging that his boat fully answered
the expectations which had been formed, it would have been
well if they had told us what those expectations were, and how
fulfilled. For want of this information from them, I am ob
liged to look elsewhere for it. I find an account of Mr. Sym
ington's experiment in the Journals of the Royal Institution
for 1802 : a publication which cannot be suspected of a bias
unfavourable to Mr. Symington. It is there stated that he as
certained that his boat would travel at the rate of two miles and
an half a.n hour, — upon the placid surface of a canal, be it un
derstood, where no current was to be breasted ; but 1 will take
the language of the Royal Institution itself, that it may be
seen how far those who ranked among the best judges in Eng
land were, at that date, from clear ideas of the capacities, or
fixed hopes of the permanent success, of steam-navigation.

«ECT. Vmj BRITISH REVlEWSi 265
" Several attempts have been made to apply the force of
Steam to the purpose of propelling boats in canals ; and there
seems to be no reason to think the undertaking by any means
liable to insuperable difficulties.
" An engine of the kind proposed by Mr. Symington, has
been actually constructed at the expense of the proprietors of
the Forth and Clyde navigation, and under the patronage of
the governor, Lord Dundas; it was tried in December last,
and it drew three vessels from 60 to 70 tons burden, at the
usual rate of two miles and a half an hour. Mr. Symington.
is at present employed in attempting still further improve-
,-npiitc ; and when he has completed his invention, it may,
perhaps, ultimately become productive of very extensive uti-
lity." Mr. Fulton's first boat went almost fi-om off the stocks at
New York, to Albany, a distance of one hundred and sixty
miles, and performed the voyage wilh and against the current
ofthe Hudson, at the rate of five miles an hour. When her
machinery was more perfectly adjusted, she accomplished the
same passage at the rate of eight miles an hour. The vessels
built on Mr. Fultpn's plan, which are now in operation, aver
age ten miles an hour. The difference of speed between Mr.
Symington's boat and Mr. Fulton's, alone argues some material
difference in the machinery. The account above mentioned
contains a description of Symington's boat. It is hardly ne
cessary to add, that it differs totally from that of Mr. Fulton ;
or to ask, Of what use would be Mr. Symington's boat, with a
movement of two and a half miles an hour, in the American
rivers of the south and west, which are now so successfully
navigated by the boats pf Fulton, against currents of three
and four miles an hour ?
If the experiments made in England were so perfect, it is
incomprehensible how it happened that no vessels were con
structed, and put jn common use, until about five years
after Fulton's boats were seen in successful -operation on the
Hudson. Nor is it more easy to conjecture why all the Bri
tish boats now in use are built according to Mr. Fulton's
plan, and not according to that of Hulls, or Miller, or Sy
mington. It. is pleasant to compare tlie pretensions set up for Great
Britain by the Quarterly Review, with the confession of a
British engineer, Mr. Dodd, a man of eminence in his profes
sion, and. a skilful architect of steam-hoats,— ¦ that tbe first of
them which succeeded in Great Britain was built in 1812; and
that, although the Americans had given the fullest trial to the
Vol. I. — LI

266 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
British invention during five years previous, it was necessary
there should be a new one under the eyes ofthe British nation,
to inspire confidence, and induce the building of more boats*.
On the whole, no evidence is to be found ofthe practical uti
lity of the British projects ; but there exists the most violent
presumption to the contrary ; and it is impossible, as regards
England, to resist the force of the interrogation put by Mr
Colden : — "If steam-boats had ever been constructed before
the experiment of Fulton, so near perfection as to show that
they might be used to their present advantage, can it be be
lieved that they would have been abandoned i"
The unanswerable address of an American to a Britomon
this subject, is, " You conceived the idea of propellingbpats
by steam as early as 1698; — you afterwards employed your
selves repeatedly in devising methods and making trials to
carry that idea into effect ; — you could never succped t® your
'satisfaction,' that is, to any advantageous extent; — you relin
quished your impotent endeavours ; — one of my countrymen
appropriated your conception, new modelled your plans,
scanned and detected your mistakes, and, as you confess,
changed in America the character of your invention front
mere experiment to extensive practice and utility :- — the steam
boat issued from his hands as Minerva did from the head of
Jupiter, — a mature creation ; you were content to receive it.,
some years afterwards, ' upon the experience of the Ameri
cans,' neglecting entirely your own boasted constructions of
the same name, the utility of which, if not all sufficient for
you, upon your narrow geographical scale, could be nothing
for the rest of the world. Far, then, from holding so over
weening a language, from taking all the credit, — you shpuld
rather take some shame to yourselves that you were not able
to improve your notions to the point of general utility. If,
with the advantage of discovery, you accomplished, virtually,
nothing in the lapse of more than a century, what must be the
merit of the stranger who, in America, accomplished every
thing at the first cast ? If you did not adopt this mode of na-
vi j at ion until five years after its complete triumph in America,
and then received it with hesitation and a sort of incredulity,
when would it have been turned' to any account among you,
had he not established it there? How long might not the
world have remained without this master-piece ?"
» An Historical and Explanatory Dissertation on Steam-Engines and
Steam-Packets, by George Dodd, Civil Engineer. Lond. 1818. See
Note T.

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 267
If the degree of merit claimed by Fulton could be con
tested with success anywhere, it is in America, for Americans,
who preceded him and the British mechanicians, in the at
tempt to propel vessels by steam. Miller made his experi
ments on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and published his book
in 1787 ; Symington put his scheme to the test in the same
canal in 1801. If Miller, as it is said in Thompson's Annals,
communicated his plan to General Washington in 1787, an
American had previously imparted a more perfect one to the
general. This person, James Rumsej', of Virginia, constructed
a boat to be navigated by steam, in the summer of 1785, after
having obtained an exclusive right to the use of his invention
from two states; in the following year he made an experiment
with her in the Potowmac ; and by the force of steam alone,
propelled her against the current of that river at tbe rate of
four miles an hour. In 1787 he published a pamphlet on the
subject, which I have now before me, bearing this title, " A
Shprt Treastise pn the Application of Steam ; whereby it is
clearly shown, from actual Experiments, that Steam may be
applied to propel Boats or Vessels of any Burthen against rapid
Currents, with great Velocity." His main positions in this
pamphlet are, to use his own words, " that a boat might be so
constructed, as to be propelled through the water, at the rate
of ten m'les an hour, by the force of steam ; and that the ma
chinery employed for that purpose might be so simple and
cheap, as to reduce the price of freight at least one half in com
mon navigation ; likewise that it might be forced, by the same
machinery, with considerable velocity, against the constant
stream of long and rapid rivers." Another passage may be
quoted, as not less pointed and remarkable : —
'' In the course of" the autumn and winter of 17S4, I made
such progress in the improvement of some steam engines
which 1 had longconceived would have become of the greatest
consequence in navigation, that I flattered myself this inven
tion, if it answered my expectation (the truth whereof experi
ments have now established) would render my labours more
extensively useful, by being equally applicable to small boats,
or vessels of the largest size, to shallow and rapid rivers, or the
deepest and roughest seas."
In his communication to General Washington, of March
10th, 1785, he remarks, "1 have quite convinced myself that
boats of passage may be made to go against the current of
the Mississippi or Ohio rivers, or in the gulf stream, from f>0
to 100 miles per day."

HOSTILITIES OV THE [PART !.¦
In Thompson's Annals it is said that Miller appears to have
be§n exclusively the inventor of the double boat; but the first-
which -Ruinsey devised in 1784, was of that description.
Another American of the name of Fitch engaged in a course
of experiments ofthe same nature with those of Rumsey, about
the same time, and a sharp controversy arose between them
with respect to priority *. What can be put beyond question,
is, that Fitch laid his plan before Congress in 1785 ; navigated
the river Delaware up and down, in the year 1786, with a
steam-boat, which was brought, before it was abandoned in
1791, to the celerity of eight miles an hour; and that he ob
tained from the legislatures of New Jersey, Delaware, New
York, and Pennsylvania, an exclusive privilege for those states,
in the years 1786,7. There is not the least probability that
either of these highly ingenious men had even heard of the
suggestions of Savery and Hulls; there can be no doubt, in
deed, of their total ignorance of whatever had been proposed
or attempted in Europe. Their plans and experiments, besides
possessing the merit of originality, have the advantage over
those of Miller and Symington in all other respects. Ascien-
tific comparison does not lie within my province ; but I feel
myself authorized to assert, that the result would be in favour
of the Americans. Their views were more extensive, their
experiments bolder; and they accomplished much more with
machinery of such workmanship as could be procured in this
country, at a time when it lagged far behind Great Britain in
the mechanical arts.
With respect, then, to the point of invention, exclusive of
that of establishment which is conceded to her, America would
seem to have stronger claims, in the matter of steaun-navis;a-
tion, than Great Britain. The mere priority of time in the
conception, where no communication can be presumed, will
be viewed by none as the main consideration or determinate
title. Mr. Colden has mentioned in some detail, in the Life
of Fulton, the attempts of Fitch and Rumsey on our rivers, and
also the subsequent one of Rumsey on the Thames, in England,
whither he repaired, in the expectation of finding greater facY
lities and more opulent patronage for his plans ; but those at
tempts are passed over in silence in the British publications to

* Fitch published a pamphlet also, in 1788, which he entitled " The Ori
ginal Steam-Boat supported, or a Reply to Rumsey." He states therein
that he conceived his plan of steam-navigation in 1785; but discovered
afterwards that two Americans, Mr. Henry and Mr. Andrew Ellicot, both
of Pennsylvania, had thought of it as early as 1775 and 1778. See note T-

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. Qfjt}
which I have adverted*. The writer of the article Steam-1
Engine, in Rees' New Cyclopedia, observes, indeed, that
steam-boats had been used in America before the introduction
of them by Fulton; and "were begun there by Mr. Syming
ton !" a fact very creditable to Scotland, but altogether new
in America, which is without record or tradition of the labours
of this missionary.
To heighten the contrast between their fairness and the
disingenuity of Mr. Colden, the Reviewers treat of the torpedos
of Fulton in a strain, which would imply that his biographer
had represented him as the first to propose the explosion of
gunpowder under water. It might also be inferred from their
language, that he had sought to vindicate the offer ofthe tor
pedos to the different governments of Europe. Now, as to
the point of discovery, nothing can be more positive and un
ambiguous than the renunciation in thebiography. " It would,"
says Mr. Colden, " be doing injustice to the memory of Mr.
Fulton, not' to notice that Mr. Fulton did not pretend to have
been the first who discovered that gunpowder might be ex
ploded with effect, underwater; nor did he pretend to have
been the first who attempted to apply it in that way as the
means of hostility. He knew well what had been done by
another ingenious native American, Bushnell, in our revolu
tionary war." The Reviewers repeat, from this passage, the
instance of Bushnell with all formality, and the air of drawing
it from their own store of knowledge !
With regard to the conduct of Fulton in proffering his tor
pedos to various governments, his biographer goes no farther,
in substance, than to assert that Fulton reconciled it to his
* Brissot de Warville had noticed them in his Travels through the United
States, in the following manner ; — Sept. 1788.
" I went this day to see an experiment near the Delaware, on a boat, the
object of which was to ascend rivers against the current. The inventor was
Mr. Fitch, who had formed a company to support the expense- The ma
chine which I saw appears well executed and well adapted to tlie design.
The steam-engine gives motion to three large oars ol considerable force,
which were to give sixty strokes per minute. Since writing this, 1 have
seen Mr. Rumsey in England, fie is a man of great ingenuity ; and by tho
explanation which be has given me, it appears that his discovery, though.
founded on a similar principle with that oi' Mr. Fitch, is very different from
it, and far more simple in itsexecution. Mr. Rumsey proposed then (Feb. 1789)
to build a vessel which should go to A merica by the help of the steam-engine, and
without sails. It was to malie the passage in fifteen days. I perceive with
pain that he has not yet executed his project, which, when executed, wil.l
introduce into commerce as great a change as the discovery of the Cape of
Good Hope."

270' HOSTILITIES OP THE [PART I.
own ideas of proprietyj and acted from honest impressions,
whether false or correct. The proceeding of Mr. Fulton is
certainly supported by European examples without number,
and may be considered as natural in every sanguine projector.
I cannot easily see how an American, pursuing mechanical
- inventions in Europe, would be prima facie culpable for offer
ing to France and England indiscriminately a destructive
engine of war. The success of the one or the other power is
to be supposed indifferent to his feelings. I grant that, if the
engine could be turned against his own country, he would
never be justifiable. The talents and contrivances of English
engineers have been lent indiscriminately to aid the hostilities
of all the principal nations of Europe, with the sanction of
the government, when the interests of England were not likely
to be affected. The Count de Bonneval and others of his de
scription, were never blamed in Europe for the mere fact of
devoting their genius and skill to the improvement of the
Turkish armies and fortifications. Britain is now enriching
herself by supplying both Spain and her colonies with the
means of warfare ; from her factories issued the weapons and
ammunition with which the nations of Africa assailed and
slaughtered each other, for the purpose of filling her slave-
ships. 1 note these circumstances, to emblazon the modesty ofthe
Reviewers in raising an outcry against the conduct of Fulton,
and the character of his expedient of submarine explosion.
They are, forsooth, filled with honor at this " succinct mode of
murder en masse ;" these " infernal machines," — forgetting the
machines called Congreve Rockets, which, while the torpedos
can be directed only against armaments, have been principally
used by the British against the towns and domestic dwellings
of their enemies; sometimes, as in the instance of Stonington,
to envelope in flames houses in which unoffending American
women and children were placed for shelter. It may be pro
posed, as a problem for their consideration, whether the
destruction of one of the bomb-vessels employed on that occa
sion, by a torpedo, would have been more atrocious than the
net of the British General Sheafi'e at the town of York in
Canada, who left in the fortification from which he was driven
by the American army, a secret mine, that exploded a moment
too soon, or it would have "blown whole regiments into the
air ;" and, as the case was, killed many brave soldiers : — among
them the lamented Pike.
"Lord St. Vincent," say the Reviewers, "appears to have
set his face against this unworthy mpde of warfare, the tor-

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 271
pedo ; feeling, as we believe every British officer would feel,
that setting aside the intent, such devices were for the weak, and
not for thestrong. In his own mind, Mr. Pitt did, we dare say,
condemn it, as every man of sense and honour would. Now, it
is on record, that these' two eminent personages, and every Bri
tish officer, rejoiced in the Congreve Rockets ; and that a board
of British officers ofthe highest rank reported them, after their
trial at Boulogne and Flushing, a most eligible auxiliary to the
British arms. To show how innocent and generous a device
they are, when compared with that " succinct mode of murder
en masse," the torpedo, I will copy some passages ofthe ample
and able account of them which is given in Rees' Cyclopedia,
article Bocket.
" The Congreve Rocket. These rockets are of various di
mensions, are differently armed, according as they are intended
for the field, or for bombardment; carrying in the first in
stance either shells or canister shot, which may be exploded at
any part of their flight, spreading death and destruction amongst
the columns ofthe enemy; and in the second, where they are in
tended for the destruction of buildings, shipping, stores, &c.
they are armed with a peculiar species of composition which
never fails of destroying every combustible material with
which it comes in contact."
" The carcass locket has been used in almost every one of
our expeditions. They did incredible execution at Copenhagen.
At the siege of Flushing, Genera! Mo'nnet, the French com
mandant, made a formal remonstrance to Lord Chatham re
specting the u<e bf them in that bombardment. A small
corps of rocketeers, in the memorable battle of Leipsic, glori
ously maintained the honour of the British arms. All the more
minute and important particulars of this weapon, both of con
struction and composition, are very properly kept a profound
secret. The largest rocket that has yet been constructed, has
net, we believe, exceeded three hundred weight ; but Sir W.
Congreve seems to have in contemplation others weighing from
half a ton to a ton."
" By means of the rocket, the most extensive destruction,
even amounting to annihilation, may be carried among the
ranks of an advancing enemy, and that zvith the exposure qf
scarcely an individual. For this purpose, the rockets are laid
in batteries, &c. They facilitate the capture of a ship by
boarding, by being thrown into the ports, &c, ; the confusion
and destruction which thence inevitably ensue, facilitate, See.
They are peculiarly adapted to add to the dreadful effect of

$7'& HOSTILITIES OF THJ5 [PART !•
fire-ships, which, if tliey were supplied each with a s-ufficient
number of rockets, such an extensive and devastating fire would
be spread in every direction, as to involve every vessel of the enemy
in that destructive element. The floating locket carcass, another
of the inventor's applications, may be thrown in great quantities
by a fai? wind, against any fleet or arsenal, without the smallest
risk, or without approaching within range of guns," &c.
" Little more need be said in reference to the general im
portance and utility of the rocket system," &c.
The inconsistency of the Reviewers, as Englishmen, is fur
ther manifested by the facts, so well attested as to be undeni
able, that the British ministry conceived strong alarms at the
negociations between Fulton and the French government re
specting the adoption of the torpedo ; that they made overtures
to him, and drew him to England ; that they encouraged his
experiments with a view to employ his " infernal machines," if
found effectual, against the enemies of Great Britain; that they
actually made an attempt to destroy the Boulogne flotilla by
his means; and that, after appointing a committee to decide
upon the expediency of adopting his " devices," they finally
-rejected them altogether as impracticable, not as cruel, immoral,
or dishonourable. From what passed, it is not uncharitable to
suspect that the true key to the rejection is furnished in the
saying of Lord St. Vincent, the authenticity of which the Re
viewers do not dispute : " Pitt is the greatest fool that ever ex
isted, to encourage a mode pf war which they whp command
the seas do not want." Mr. Pitt, it would seem from the state
ment of Mr. Colden, remarked, when he first saw a drawing of
the torpedo, with a sketch of the mode of applying it, and un
derstood what would be the effects of the explosion,— that " if
introduced into practice, it could not fail to annihilate all military
marines:" — an effect which Great Britain could not feel it her
interest to promote.
The occasion of the establishment of steam navigation,
appeared to the Reviewers, as that of the exploration of our
western regions had done, very suitable for the vilification of
the American people at large. Accordingly, they proceed in
this exalted language : ; — "The vagrant adventurer, Fulton,
having failed in selling his infernal machines, sets himself to
prove, in a high strain of moral pathos, that* blowing up ships
of war' (so as not to leave a man to relate the dreadful catas
trophe) are humane experiments. We ought not to zeonder after
this, perhaps, that the character of Mr. Fulton has survived in Ame
rica as that of an honest, conscientious, and consistent man, espe-

SECT. VIII.] BElTlbH REVIEWS. 273
daily as Mr. Cadzoallader Colden has supported his claim to it,"
8tc. &c.
Having painted tlie American engineer in the blackest
colours, and denied to him all original genius, tbey have not,
with the London Critical Journal, deemed it advisable to
represent him as " a native of Paisley, in Scotland*, where he
had steam-boats constructed, actually employed both for ex
periment and use." But the author of the article in Thomp
son's Annals, being more kindly in his language concerning
the merits of Fulton, and therefore not under the same restraint,
clinches him and his offspring thus : — " The experiments, by
Mr. Miller on the Fojth and Clyde Canal, we have been in
formed, were either seen by or communicated to the late Mr.
Fulton, engineer of America, who, it is believed, was a native,
or at least resided in this part of Scotland ; but afterwards went
to America, where he had the merit and the honour of intro
ducing the steam-boat, upon an extensive scale, on the great
rivers and lakes of that country ; so that we can trace this
invention most indisputably to a British origin." We cannot
suppose that a " civil engineer," treating of the history of
steam-boats, in the month of April, 1819, was ignorant of the
existence, or had not opened the volume, of Fulton's biogra
phy, where his birth-place is so distinctly aad authentically
stated. The misrepresentation which I have just quoted, is,
therefore, unpardonable, and dishonours the valuable Journal
in which it is fpund. There is a littleness, besides, in some
of the arts practised by the Reviewers, to gratify their spleen
in thisbusiness of steam-boat navigation, which is truly pitiable.
For instance, in the Index to. the nineteenth volume of the
Quarterly Review, at tbe word Colden, we read, "The Life
of Robert Fulton: — its bombastic exordium •" and at ihe vvo«l
Fulton, — " his ingratitude to England?' &.c. making the Index,
in this manner, the vehicle of reproaches of a particular nature,
more direct than are hazarded in the body of tbe volume.
The Reviewers have not been content, in the article airdsr
consideration, with mangling tbe reputation of Fulton and bis*
performances, but have turned aside to assail another Ameri
can, for whom his country has claimed) tfee meiris of ans im
portant invention. I allude to Godfrey, who is e outran pti>-

* They have, however, tir their twentieth n-omber, made- RitlenTiouve «;'
Englishman, The astronomer was born within seven, miles* of PhifadelptiUttr
and nerer absent From' his native- eearrb y. His smeestt'R were efuw 0;i«fes
of the Rhine,
Vol. L— M m

274 HOSTILITIES OFTHE [PARJ I.
ously mentioned in a note, and then introduced in the text
with greater indignity. The note is as follows : — " A man of
the name of Logan, we think, as obscure as Godfrey himself, claimed
for the latter the invention of Hadley' s Quadrant ! — two years
after the description of it had, as he says, appeared in the Philoso
phical Transactions." The reference to Godfrey in the text is
in this strain: — "We are almost malicious enough to wish
Franklin were alive, to see with what little ceremony his ad
miring countrymen have clove-tailed him in between two wor
thies, one of whom. (Godfrey) he has himself designated, in his
correspondence, as a most dogmatical, overbearing, and dis
agreeable fellow, who gave himself airs because he had acquired
a smattering of mathematics."
Before 1 proceed to comment upon the note, which is too
choice a specimen of the temper and knowledge which these
Reviewers bring to the discussion of American affairs, to be
suffered to remain without elucidation, I will beg leave to
quote what Franklin has really said of Godfrey, in order that
my reader may compare it at once with their report, and better
understand the degree of reliance to be placed on their cita
tions. It is not in his Correspondence, but in his Memoirs,
that- Franklin speaks of Godfrey, and it is in these words : —
"Among the first members of om- Junto was Thomas Godfrey,
a self-taught mathematician, great in his way, and afterzeards
inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew
little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion ; as, like
most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal
precision in every thing said, and was for ever denying or dis
tinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation.
I continued to board with Godfrey, who lived in part of my
house, with his wife and children, and had one side of the shop
for his glazier's business, though he worked little, being always
absorbed in mathematics." So much for the smattering of ma
thematics. And were the other parts of the pretended desig
nation verified, it would be difficult to perceive what the habits
of the mathematician in society have to do with the question
ofthe invention of the quadrant.
The "man of the name of Logan, as obscure as Godfrey,"
can be no other than " the honourable and learned Mr. Logan,"
of whom Franklin also speaks in his Memoirs, and who, next
to William Penn, makes the most considerable figure in the
History of Pennsylvania : — whom the proprietary entrusted
with the management of all his affairs in the province, and
cherished through life as the ablest and most faithful of his

S£CT. VIII.] JffRTTISH REVIEWS. S75
friends ; -<-, who made valuable communications to the Rpyal
Society, three of which are tp be found in one volume of its
Transactions, the 38th*; whpse charges as Chief Justice qf
Pennsylvania, were reprinted and read with admiration in Lon
don: who corresponded regularly with the most eminent among
the scientific worthies of his time ; such as Linnseus, Fabri-
cius, Dr. Mead, Dr. Hallev, Sir Hans Sloan, Dr. Fothergill,
Peter Collinson, William Jones (father of Sir William) ; and
whom all consulted with the deference due to a mind of the
first order, in the variety and strength of its powers, and of
indefatigable activity in the cultivation and advancement of
nearly every branch of knowledge. There is a striking simi
larity in the talents, studies, and vocation of Dr. Colden and
James Logan ; and of the latter I think I may say, without
exaggeration, that he was excelled in no respect by any one
of the Europeans who settled on this continent ; and that, if he
is obscure, none was better entitled to the most brilliant illus
tration. An' honest chronicler,' Proud, with whose History
of Pennsylvania the labourers for the American department in
the Quarterly Review ought not to be unacquainted, has
spoken of his " living actions," and made a summary exposi
tion of his character and career, which I will copy for their
instruction, vouching myself, from personal inquiry, for the
accuracy of all the particulars.
" James Logan was descended of a family originally from
Scotland, where, in the troubles of that country, occasioned by
the affair of Earl Gowrie, in the reign of James the Sixth, his
grandfather, Robert Logan, was deprived of a considerable
estate ; in consequence of which, his father, Patrick Logan,
being in reduced circumstances, removed into Ireland, and
fixed his residence at Lurgan, the place of his son James's birth.
Patrick Logan had the benefit of a good education in the uni
versity of Edinburgh, where he commenced master of arts, but
afterwards joined in religious societ}' with the Quakers. This,
his son, James Logan, being endowed with a good genius, and
favoured with a suitable education, made considerable profi
ciency in divers branches of learning and science ; after which
he went to England; from whence, in the year 1699, and about
the 25th of his age, he removed to Pennsylvania, in company

* For the years 1733,, 1734. One of the papers is entitled " Some Ex
periments concerning tLje Impregnation of the Seeds of Plants ;" another,
" Some Thoughts concerning the Sun and Moon, when near the Horizon,
appearing larger than when near the Zenith. See Note U.

276 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PAKT I.
with William Penn, in his latter voyage to America ; and in
1701, he was, by commission from the Proprietary, appointed
secretary of the province, and clerk of the council for the
same." " He adhered to what was deemed the proprietary interest ;
and exerted himself with great fidelity to it. He held the
several offices of provincial secretary, commissioner of pro
perty, chief justice, and, for near two years, governed the pro
vince as president of the council."
" Many years before his death, he retired pretty much from
the hurry and incumbrance of public affairs, and spent the
latter part of his time principally at Stanton, his country seat,
near Germantown, about five or six miles from Philadelphia ;
where he enjoyed, among his books, that leisure in which men
of letters take delight, and corresponded with the literati in dif
ferent parts of Europe. He was well versed in both ancient and
modern learning, acquainted with tbe oriental tongues, a mas
ter of the Latin, Greek, French, and Italian languages ; deeply
skilled in the mathematics, and in natural and moral philoso
phy, — as several pieces of his own writing, in Latin, &c. de
monstrate ; some of which have gone through divers impres
sions in different parts of Europe, aud are highly esteemed.
Among his productions of this nature, his Experimenta Melete-
mata de Plantarum Generatione, . or his Experiments on the
Indian Corn or Maize qf America, with his observations aris
ing therefrom, on the generation of plants, published in
Latin, at Leyden, in 1739, and afterwards, in 1747, repub
lished in London, with an English version on the opposite
page, by Dr. J. Fothergill, are both curious and ingenious.
Along with this piece was likewise printed, in Latin, at
Leyden, another treatise, by the same author, entitled ' Ca-
honum pro inveniendis refractionum, turn simplicium, turn in
lentibus duplicium focis, demonstrationes geometries,? " Autore
Jacobo Logan, Judice supremo et Praside provincial Pennsil-
vaniensis, in America." And in his old age, he translated
Cicero's excellent treatise, De Senectute, which, with his ex
planatory notes, was printed in Philadelphia, with a pre
face or encomium, by Benjamin Franklin, afterwards Dr.
Franklin, of that city, in 1774. He was one of the people
called Quakers, and died on the 31st of October, 1751, aged
about 77 years; leaving as, a monument of his public spirit
and benevolence to the people of Pennsylvania, a library,
which he had been 30 years in collecting (since called the
Loganian Library) ^intending it for the common use and bene-r
fit of all lovers of learning. It was said to contain the best

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 277
editions of the best books, in various languages, arts and sci
ences, and to be the largest, and by far the most valuable col
lection of the kind, at that time, in this part of the world."
The reputation which James Logan deservedly enjoyed for
a profound acquaintance with the mathematics, led- Godfrey
to seek his notice and aid, and to consult him on his projects
in mechanical philosophy. That of the improvement of Davis'
Q.uadrant struck Logan as of the greatest ingenuity and im
portance ; and as Godfrey was then unknown beyond his native
province, he undertook to be the herald and voucher of his in
vention with the philosophers of London. In the month of
May, 1732, he addressed a letter on the subject to Dr. Edmund
Halley ; in which he described fully the construction and uses
of Godfrey's instrument. The following passages of this letter
explain his views of the case, and the motives and objects of
his interposition : —
" I sha'l presume from thy favour shown to me in England,
in 1724, to communicate an invention that, whether it answer
the end or not, will be allowed, I believe, to deserve thy regard.
1 have it thus : —
" A young man, bom in this country, Thomas Godfrey by
name, by trade a glazier, whs had no other education than to
learn to read and write, with a little common arithmetic, hav
ing, in his apprenticeship, with a very poor man of that trade,
accidentally met with a mathematical book, took such a fancy
to the study, that, by the natural strength of his genius, with
out any instructor, he soon made himself master of that, aud
of every other of the kind he could borrow or procure in Eng
lish; and finding there was more to be had in Latin books,
under all imaginable discouragements, applied himself to the
study of that language, till he could pretty well understand an
author on these subjects ; after which, the first time I ever
saw or heard of him, to my knowledge, he came to borrow
Sir Isaac Newton's Principia of me. Inquiring of him here
upon, who he was, I was indeed astonished at his request; but
after a little discourse, he soon became welcome to that or
any other book 1 had. This young man, about 18 months since,
told me he had for some time been thinking of an instrument
for taking the distances of the stars by reflecting speculums,
which he believed might be of service at sea; and not long
after, he showed me a common sea-quadrant, to which he had
fitted two pieces of looking-glass in such a manner as brought
two stars at almost any distance to coincide. (Then follows a
description of the instrument).
" But I am now sensible I have trespassed, iri being so par-

278 HOSTILITIES OE THE [PART U.
ticular when writing to Dr. Halley ; for I well know that to
a gentleman noted for his excellent talent of reading, appre
hending, and greatly improving, less wpuld have been suffi
cient; but as this pcssibly may be communicated by thee, I
shallcrave leave farther tc add, that the use of the instrument
is very easy." &c.
" If the method of discovering the longitude by the moon is
to meet with a reward, and this instrument, which, for all that
1 have ever read or heard of, is an invention altogether new,
be made use of, in that case I would recommend the inventor
to thy justice and notice. He now gets his own and family's
bread (for he is married) by the labour of his own hands only,
by that mean trade. He had begun to make tables ofthe moon,
on the very same principles with thine, till I lately put a copy of
those that have lain so many years printed, but not published, with
W. Innys, into his hands; and then highly approving them, he de
sisted." In the same year, 1732, Godfrey prepared himself an account
of his invention, addressed to the Royal Society; but it was
not then transmitted, from the expectation which he enter
tained of the effect of the letter to Halley. No notice, how
ever, was taken of it by Halley; and after an interval of a
year and a half, Logan resolved to have tlie matter submitted
immediately to the Royal Society. For this purpose he trans
mitted a copy of the leiter, together with the paper of God
frey, to Mr. Peter Collinson, an eminent botanist and member
of the society, engaging him to lay them before that body.
The result is detailed in the following authentic letter * to
Logan, from his respectable friend, Captain Wright, who took
charge of his communications to Collinson : —
London, Feb. 4th, 1734.
Mr. James Logan.
Sir, — Your favour of December 4th I have received, and
immediately carried, that inclcsed to Mr. Collinson (Jan. 26)
who with pleasure received that, as he had done the former ;
and after reading it, with an agreeable smile, he said, " I make
no doubt of removing the uneasiness our good friend is under,
which is all caused by some of Dr. Halley 's cunning." He
very much referred to the management of Mr. Jones's inte
rest, as well as using his own, to have your letters communi-
* Taken from the original, in the possession of Dr, George Logan, the
grandson of James Logan, and who forms one pretty notable exception, at
least, to the rule ofthe Quarterly Review, — that " there is no such person
known in America as a respectable country gcutk'UKtu."

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS.
cated to the Royd Society in the most proper and likely man
ner to have effect.
I soon found means to take a glass with Mr. Jones* who
gave me his company a whole afternoon ; when he often hinted
at Dr. Halley' s ungenerous treatment of you, but said that was not
the only time, for the Doctor had been guilty of such things to others.
He very strongly believes Mr. Hadley was the inventor of his
own instrument, and gives these reasons to support it : — That
as he had dwelt so long on improving and bringing to perfec
tion the reflecting telescope, he could not miss of knowing
how to bring two objects to coincide by speculums ; and he as
firmly believes Thomas Godfrey zeas the inventor of his instrument
by the strength of his genius as Hadley was of his by his help from
the reflecting telescope ; and ^says each one ought to have the
merit of his own instrument. He then asked me the use of the
bow I brought him last year, and in what respect it exceeded
Davis's Quadrant? I told him as far as I could ; but that for
my own part I had never used it. He was pleased with the
invention, and said it deserved notice, if it answered what was
proposed, and desired I would get one made ; for it would
signify nothing to mention it to the society, without a model ;
and that, being produced, would be a strong voucher for
Thomas Godfrey, to show that he had a capacity and a genius
tending that way; and it would be a very good introduction
for the reading of your letter to Dr. Halley. I got one made
in two days, and carried it to Mr. Collinson (30th Jan.), who
sent it to Sir Hans Sloan's, — where it underwent an examina
tion by four or five members, one of whom was Mr. Hadley,
who, with the othprs, highly approved of it. The next day it
was produced to the Royal Society, where Mr. Norris and my*
self were introduced by Mr. Collinson ; and upon reading the
description of the bow, I had the pleasure of hearing your first
letter to Dr. Halley read, which was all that was then read ;
and when done, Mr. Macheu'addressed the president (or the
gentleman who supplied his place ; for Sir H. Sloan was not
there, being absent upon account of his brother-in-law's death)
and said he had the vouchers ready on the table for any one's peru
sal, who might doubt the truth of that letter, or the instrument be
ing genuine, and nowise taken from Mr. Hadley's, but found
out about the same time that his was, or rather prior to it, if
the vouchers were true ; and if they are not, then, said be, " We

* Father of the celebrated Sir William Jones, and an eminent mathema
tician.

280 ' HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
must believe that all the people of Pennsylvania are combined
to impose on the society, — ¦ which no reasonable man can do."
He said some shrewd things of Dr. Halley, and concluded with
saying that the inventor claimed the justice of having that
description registered, which he thought no one could deny
him ; and should that instrument be the park for the longitude,
the inventors of the rest must dispute their priority before the
learned in law. No person said any thing against it ; so that it
will be registered. Mr. Williams has been under some pain
for these two transactions, as miscarried in Jones's hands; but
hope he has cleared it up to your satisfaction. If not, I am
certain of doing it on my arrival.
My hearty desires for yours and your good family's health,
to whom my best respects. I am, dear Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,
Edward Wright.
In the month of June, 17S4, Mr. Logan addressed to the
Royal Society " A further Account of Thomas Godfrey's Im
provement of Davis's Quadrant transferred to the Mariner's
Bow," which under this title, was inserted implicitly in tbe
volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society for the saffle
year*. I proceed to extract some parts of Logan's paper,
which develope further the history of the case.
" Being informed that this improvement, proposed by God
frey, of this place, for observing the sun's altitude at sea, with
more ease and expedition than is practicable by the common
instrument in use for that purpose, was last winter laid before
the Royal Society, in his own description of it, and that some
gentlemen wished to see the benefit intended by it more fully
and clearly explained, — I, who have here the opportunity of
knowing the author's thoughts on such subjects, being per
suaded in my judgment, tbat, if the instrument, as he pro
poses it, be brought into practice, it will, in many cases, be of
great service to navigation, have, therefore, thought it proper
to draw up a more full account of it than the author himself
has given," Sec.
" Some masters of vessels, who sail from hence to the West
Indies, have got some of tbem made, as well as they can be
done here, and have found so great advantage in tbe facility
and the- ready use of thera in those somberly latitudes-, that
they reject all others. It is now four years, since Thomas*
Godfrey hit on this improvement ; for his account of it, laid
* Monflx of Bccember. Article ScJ-

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 281
before the society last winter, in which he mentioned two
years, was wrote in 1732; and in the same year, 1730, after he
was satisfied in this of a real improvement in the quadrant, he
applied himself to think ofthe other, viz. the reflecting instru
ment by speculums, for a help in the case of longitude, though
it is also useful in taking altitudes ; and one of these, as has been
abundantly proved by the maker, and those who had it with
them, was taken to sea, and there used in observing the latitude,
the winter of that year, and brought back to Philadelphia before
the end of February, 1731, and was in my keeping some months
immediately after."
"It was indeed unhappy, that, having it in my power, seeing
he had no acquaintance nor knowledge of persons in England,
that'I transmitted not an account of it sooner. But 1 had other
affairs, of more importance to me ! and it was owing to an acci
dent which gave me some uneasiness, viz. his attempting to
publish some account of it in print here, that I transmitted it at
iast, in May, 1732, to Dr. Halley, to whom I made no doubt
but the invention would appear entirely new; and 1 must own
I could not but wonder that our good will at least was never
acknowledged. This, on my part, was all the merit I had to
claim, nor did 1 then, or now, assume any other in either of
these instruments. I only wish that the ingenious inventor
himself might, by some means, be taken notice of, in a manner
that might be of real advantage to him."
In his letter to the Royal Society, Godfrey expresses himself
in the simple and natural manner which bespeaks entire sin
cerity. He begins thus — " Gentlemen : As none are better
able than the Royal Society to prove and judge whether such
inventions as are proposed for the advancing useful knowledge
will answer the pretensions of the inventors or not; and as I
have been made acquainted, though at so great a distance, of
the candour of your learned Society in giving encouragement
to such as merit approbation, I have, therefore, presumed to lay
before the Society, the following, craving pardon for my bold
ness." He then states that finding with what difficulty a
tolerable observation of the sun was taken by Davis's quadrant ;
he, therefore, applied his thoughts for upwards of two years, to
find a certain instrument. After describing his improvement
and the extent of its utility, he concludes with the following
phrase — " I hope Dr. Halley has received a more full account
of this from J, Lcgan, Esq. ; therefore I shall add nn more than
that I am, &c."
Neither Logan nor Godfrey knew at the date nf these com
munications, that Mr. John Hadley, the vice-president of the
Vot. I.— N n

282 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
Royal Society, had presented a paper to that body, dated May
13th, 1731,* containing a full description and rationale of a re
flecting quadrant of the same character, which he claimed as his
invention, and that his paper was inserted in the volume of the
Philosophical Transactions, for that year. This communication
of Hadley is the foundation of his title to the invention. There
is no direct proof, which I can discover, of his having seen or
heard of Godfrey's instrument; but the quotations which I have
made establish the following facts — that Godfrey, without the
advantage of a hint, or of aid, from any quarter, completed it in
the year 1730; that it was taken to sea soon after, and there
used, in the course ofthe winter of that year, in observing the
latitude, and brought back before the end of February, 1731 ;
that there was, therefnre, a possibility of its being made known
to Hadley, within good time for the preparation of his paper of
the month of May.
The tradition in Philadelphia is, that it was carried to Ja
maica by a captain of Godfrey's acquaintance, and shown there
to a captain of a ship just departing for England, who gave in
formation of it to Hadley, as a person distinguished for his skill
and ingenuity in the construction and improvement of optical
instruments. Be this as it may, the merit of priority, such as it
is, lies manifestly with Godfrey; his invention was as complete,
and passed quickly into use among the American masters of
vessels. Mr. Logan could have np imaginable motive ex
cept benevolence and the promolion of science, fbr producing
and urging the claims of Godfrey ; he expressly disavpws any
pretension to a share in the invention ; his eminent capacity to
judge of its character, precludes all idea of his having been
deceived, as the elevation of his nature and station does that of
his having stooped to practise a deception. It will be seen,
by an extract which I am abnut tp make from one of his letters
of a later date, to the mathematician Wm. Jones, that he retain
ed his persuasion of Godfrey's title, and was not without suspi
cion of foul play.
" I have very little to say on the subject of instruments, but
as in thy teaching. I formerly pbserved thy methods greatly
excelled in neatness, so one instrument may lor speed and cer
tainty very much exceed another ; and Thomas Godfrey's inven
tions were, I think, truly valuable, that by the reflecting specu-
lums appears extremely so. I have here seen two of them as
made by Hadley's direction, who enjoys both the reputation
* The volume of the Transactions in which it is contained, was not, in
fact, published, until after the date of Logan's Letters.

SECT. VIII. J BRITISH REVIEWS. 283
and profit of them, and I cannot but admire at it. Tlmnias
Godfrey has indeed a fine genius for the mathematics, and it
would, for the sake of his birth place, which is the same as
that of my own children, be a great pleasure to ine tp see him
rewarded." The quotation which I have made fram Franklin, shows that
he ascribed the quadrant called Hadley's, to Godfrey; and as
he at one time lived under the same roof with the mathema
tician, and constantly took an interest in his affairs, his testimcny
is of no little moment. We have a decided opinion to the same
effect, from another of his cotemporaries, Dr. John Ewing,
a former provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and one of
the most acute and learned mathematicians whom this country
has produced.* Dr. Rittenhouse, when requested to pro
nounce in the matter, stated in writing, that he knew Mr.
Godfrey and his quadrant, and had no doubt both Godfrey
and Hadley were original inventors; that both instruments
depended upon the same principles," &c. A weight of au
thority is thus found in favour of Godfrey's merit, sufficient to
satisfy us on this side ofthe Atlantic. If we claim no more for
him than the having accomplished simultaneously the same as
is ascribed to Hadley, we shall have reason to be proud of his
name ; and, in comparing the circumstances of his education and
situation with those ofthe vice-president of the Royal Society,
be entitled to attribute to him a superior, nay almost unrivalled
natural genius. It is related that when Newton's Principia
Mathematica made their appearance, " the best mathemati
cians were obliged to study them with care, and those of a
lower rank durst not venture upon them, till encouraged by
the testimonies ofthe learned." The American glazier, without
encouragement from any quarter, wholly self-taught in the
mathematics and in the Latin, ventured upon, and mastered
this great work at an early age ; and finally, with the em
barrassments of an humble trade, and extreme poverty, pro
duced the most useful of astronomical instruments. He may
* See a paper of Dr. Ewing in the lsl vol, of the Transactions of A.
P. S. ; describing an improvement of his own in the construction of
Godfrey's quadrant. He calls it the most useful of all astronomical in
struments the world ever knew. There is, also, inserted in the Ame
rican periodical work, the Port Folio, for Dec. 1817, a letter of Dr.
Ewing, in which he says, " Logan gives a full description of the re
flecting instrument Mr. Godfrey constructed, which appears to be the
very instrument now in common use ; some very trifling differences in
the construction only excepted ; which might have been made by Mr.
Hadley, and which are hardly worth the mentioning in the invention of
such an excellent and uncommon instrument."

284 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
have been, in the courtly language of the Quarterly Review,
" a dogmatical, overbearing and disagreeable fellow ;" but he
must still attract the highest admiration for the strength of his
intellectual powers, and the resolution and perseverance of his
spirit. Let his countrymen universally, attach his name to the
quadrant, and in the course of a few ages, the race between
the names of Hadley and Godfrey will end in the same manner
as the rivalry of the British and American nations in numbers,
power, and] consideration.
There is not the least colour, even for the supposition, that
the American mathematician drew the notion of his improve
ment upon Davis's quadrant, from an external source; every
circumstance imposes the belief that it was entirely the product
of his own genius and combinations. This is not the case,
however, with (respect to Hadley, though we should dismiss
from the question, the possibility of his being indebted to God
frey's labours. 1 do not know but that the Quarterly Reviewers
may cpnsider the authprity which 1 am about to cite — Dr.
Hutton, F. R. S. of London and Edinburgh, and Emeritus
Professor of mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at
Woolwich — quite as obscure as Logan and Godfrey. Never
theless, I will venture to appeal to his Mathematical and
Philosophical Dictionary, in which, at the article Quadrant, I
find the fcllpwing statement.
" Hadley's Quadrant. So called from its inventor John
Hadley, Esq. is now universally used, as the best of any, for
nautical and other observations. It seems the first idea of this
excellent instrument was suggested by Dr. Hooke ; for Dr.
Sprat, in his History of the Royal Society, p. 246, mentions
the invention of a new instrument for taking angles by reflec
tion, by which means the eye at once sees the two objects
both as touching the same point, though distant almost to a
semi-circle ; which is of great use for making exact observa
tions at sea. This instrument is described and illustrated by
a figure in Hooke's posthumous works, p. 503. But as it ad
mitted pf only one reflection, it would not answer the pur
pose. The matter, however, icas at last effected by Sir Isaac
Newton, who communicated to Dr. Halley a paper qf his own
writing, containing the descripticn of an instrument with two
reflections, which soon after the doctor's death was found
among his papers by Mr. Jones, by whom it was communi
cated to the Royal Society, and it was published in the Phi
losophical Transactions for the year 1742. How it happened
that Dr. Halley never mentioned this in his life time, is difficult
to account for; more especially as Mr. Hadley had described

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 285
in the Transactions for 1731, his instrument which is construct
ed on the same principles* Mr. Hadley, who was well ac
quainted with Sir Isaac Newton, might have heard him say,
that Dr. Hooke's proposal could be effected by means of a
double reflection ; and perhaps in consequence of this hint,
he might apply himself, without any previous knowledge of
what Newton had actually done, to the construction of his in
strument. Mr. Godfrey, too, of Pennsylvania, had recourse
to a similar expedient; for which reason some gentlemen of
that colony have ascribed the invention of this excellent in
strument to him. The truth may probably be, that each qf
these gentlemen discovered the method independent qf one
another?' The opinion thus liberally and decorously expressed by Dr.
Hutton, was, without doubt, that of the Royal Society iu
1733, when the whole matter was brought under their con
sideration. Otherwise, they never would have consented to
admit into the volume of their Transactions, the paper of
Logan, after they had published that of Hadley. The Quar
terly Review has attributed to Logan — how accurately let the
reader now decide — the avowal that two years had elapsed
since the appearance of Hadley's paper, when he preferred
the claim of Godfrey. But, admitting the interval to be so
great, if we admit also, the facts of which there can be no
doubt,—- that Godfrey's inslrument was completed in 1730,
and that Logan, when he communicated the invention to Dr.
Halley, in 1732, believed, as he asserts, that it would appear
entirely new to Halley — the delay in the communication of it,
which Logan at the same time satisfactorily explains, can fur
nish no argument nor presumption against the validity of God
frey's claim. The dispute between Sir Isaac Newton and
Leibnitz, concerning the intervention of the method of fluxions,
* If we consider the character which Halley bore, according to the
statement of Captain Wright; his silence with respect to Newton's
paper; and the suppression of Logan's letter — the conviction forces
itself upon the mind, that he had resolved to secure the credit of the
invention to Hadley. By the History of the Royal society, we find
that on the -1st of September, 1732, after the receipt of Logan's letter,
Halley volunteered to attend, on the part of the Society, a trial at sea,
of Hadley's quadrant, and reported in it3 favour, without giving the
least intimation of his knowledge of the conception or completion of
the instrument in any other quarter. The paper of Newton is inserted
in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 465, p. 155, with the descrip
tion — " A true copy of a paper, in the hand-writing of Sir Isaac New
ton, found among the papers of the late Dr. Halley, containing a de
scription of an instrument for observing the moon's distance from the
fixed stars at sea."

286 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
presents a case, similar to the present, in several respects.
Newton published his method only in 1704, after Leibnitz
had given his Differential Calculus to the world. The former
traced his invention to the years 1665, 1666; and the Royal
Society decided in his favour upon this ground. The scientific
world at large has acquiesced in the opinion, that the credit of
origination is due to both these illustrious philosophers ; and
such, in all likelihood, will be its conclusion in regard to God
frey and Hadley.
3. We might have expected from the Quarterly Review about
the same degree of scrupulosity in eulogizing England and its
condition, as in defaming the United States. But it was natural
to look for more consistency in the one case than we have found
in the other. Here we shall be disappointed to an extent
which is truly marvellous, and which destroys all confidence in
any of the generalities so profusely sown in the pages of that
journal. I must be permitted to bring together some of the
many passages establishing the instructive fact.
" Since man has ceased to exist in the patriarchal state, he
has no where, nor at any period, existed in so favourable a con
dition, as in England at the present time." " England is of all
Earts of the world, the most prosperous and the most happy,
lest above all countries, either of the ancient or the modern
world," (No. 31, 1817.)
" England is basking in the broad sunshine of peace and
prosperity. England wants nothing but thankfulness ; nothing
but a due sense of the mercies which are heaped upon her with
an unsparing hand." (No. 37, 1818.)
" England, in the full glory of arts and arms, in the plenitude
of her strength and exuberance of her wealth, in her free go
vernment and pure faith, just laws and uncorrupted manners,
public prosperity and private happiness ; England, in each and
all of these respects, presents an object not to be paralleled in
past ages or in other countries, — an object which fills with as
tonishment the understanding mind, and which the philosopher
and the Christian may contemplate not only with complacency,
but with exultation, with the deepest gratitude to the Giver of
all good, and the most animating hopes for the further prospects
and progress of mankind. (April, 1816.)
" The great mass of our population is in a state which renders them
the easy dupes of every mischievous demagogue." " The English are
an uneducated people." {No. SI, 1816.) " The abuse of the press is the
curse bf English liberty." (Ibid.)
" The London theatres are disgraced by open and scandalous immo
ralities." (Ibid).

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 287
"The next generation may see grass growing in the now populous city
of Nottingham, from the outrages ofthe Luddites." (Ibid.)
" Those who suffered, for the agricultural riots, under the sentence of
the law, were men of substance."
" The men who grow corn are never the men who set fire to it. A
large proportion ofthe misled multitude, who have been burning barns
and corn-stacks, would have been aiding the civil power to repress these
frantic outrages, if they had had their own little property to defend.
Let us not deceive ourselves I Governments are safe in proportion as the
great body of the people are contented, and men cannot be contented,
when they work with the prospect of want and pauperism before their
eyes, as what must be their destiny at last." (April, 1816.)
" In the road which the English labourer must travel, the poor-house
is the last stage on the way to the grave. Hence it arises, as a natural
result, that looking to the parish as his ultimate resource, and as that to
which he must come at last, he cares not how soon he applies to it.
There is neither hope nor pride to withhold him : why should he deny
himself any indulgence in youth, or why make any efforts to put off
for a little while that which is inevitable at the end? That the labour
ing poor feel thus, and reason thus, and act in consequence, is beyond all
doubt" (No. 29 )
" There can be no doubt, that Christian slaves are subject to much
harsh treatment, and especially in Algiers : but no Englishman has been
made a slave : and before we go out of the way to seek for objects of
misery abroad, it would be wise and humane to relieve those which we
have at horae. One would think that the general distress in the agri
cultural and manufacturing classes ; the state of the poor — the prisons—
the hospitals and mad-houses ; would supply us with abundant objects
to relieve the plethora of philanthropy with which we seem to be burst
ing." (Ibid).
"If adversity be favourable to the developement of our virtues, (and
indeed many of our noblest qualities would never be developed under
any other discipline), there is a degree of misery which is fatal to them,
and which hardens the heart as much as manual labour indurates the
skin, and destroys all finer sense of touch." (Ibid.)
" Mournful as this is, it is far more mournful to contemplate the
effects of extreme poverty in the midst of a civilized and flourishing
society. The wretched native of Terra del Fuego, or of the northern
extremity of America, sees nothing around him which aggravates his
own wretchedness by comparison ; the chief fares no better than the
rest of the horde, and the slave no worse than his master ; the priva
tions which they endure are common to all; they know of no state
happier than their own, and submit to their miserable circumstances as
to a law of nature. But in a country like ours, there exists a contrast
which continually forces itself upon the eye, and upon the reflective
faculty. There was a Methodist dabbler in art, who, in the days of our
childhood, used to edify the public with allegorical prints from the
great manufactory of CarringtoD Bowles; one of these curious com
positions represented a human figure, of which the right side was
dressed in the full fashion of the day, while the left was undressed to
the very bones, and displayed a skeleton. The contrast in this worse
than Mezentian imagination, is not more frightful than that between
health and squalid pauperism, who are every day jostling each other in
the street." (Ibid.)
" It is but too true, we fear, that, within the last thirty years, a con-

288 HOSTILITIES OP THE [PART I.
siderable degradation of moral character has been observable among
the lower ranks of society; we wish we could say that it mounted no
higher. The ostentatious display of charitable donations, posted in
front of the public newspapers, would seem to have subdued that pride
and independence of feeling, which would once have shrunk from being
held up as the objects of such charity."
"The labouring people of Scotland live chiefly on potatoes and oat
meal. In the northern counties of England, these furnish the principal
part of every meal, and it is well known that nine-tenths ofthe popula
tion of Ireland subsist almost entirely upon them." (No. 24-
" The article of fish is a luxury in all the great cities and towns of
the empire; is confined to the upper ranks of society." (Ibid )
"The prices of provisions in London are shamefully kept up by mo
nopolies, arising out of overgrown capitals." (Ibid.)
"The sudden stoppage of any particular branch of manufacture usually
sends multitudes to the poor-house." (Ibid.)
" In some parts of England, the paupers average nearly one-fourth
of the population." (Ibid.)
" The: recent parliamentary inquiry has shewn that there are from
120 to 130,000 children in the metropolis without the means of educa
tion, 4,000 of whom are let out by their parents to beggars, or employed
in pilfering. A like proportion would be found in all our large cities, and
throughout the manufacturing districts a far greater" (No. 29)
" When we have stated upon the authority of parliament, that there
are above 130,000 children in London, who are at this time without the
means of education, and that there are from three to four thousand who
are let out to beggars and trained up in dishonesty, — even this repre
sents only a part of the evil ; if the children are without education, the
parents are without religion ; in the metropolis of this enlightened na
tion, the church to which they should belong has provided for them no
places of worship; and 'two thirds of the lower order of people in Lon
don,' Sir Thoma.-. Bernard says : « live as utterly ignorant of the doctrines
and duties of Christianity, and areas errant and unconverted pagans, as if
they had existed in the wildest part of Africa.'' The case is the same in
Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield, and in all our large towns ; the
greatest part of our manufacturing populace, ofthe miners and colliers, are
in the same condition; and if they are not universally so, it is more owino1
to the zeal of the Methodists than to any other cause." (Ibid.)
Most of the paragraphs just quoted refer to the year 1816:
and lest it should be supposed that the representation of this
journal concerning the state of English affairs at home, might
be, at a later period, altogether of an opposite complexion, I
will make some further quotations from the number for Septem
ber, 1818, and take them from the article immediately preced
ing the one in which it is said that " England wants absolutely
nothing but thankfulness."
" Children are daily to be seen in hundreds and thousands about the
streets of London, brought up in misery and mendicity, first, to every
kind of suffering, afterwards to every kind of guilt, the boys to theft,
the girls to prostitution, and this not from accidental causes, but from
an obvious defect in our institutions! Throughout all our great cities,
throughout all our manufacturing counties, the case is ihe same as in the

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 289
capital. And this public and notorious evil, this intolerable reproach, has
been going on year after year, increasing as our prosperity has in
creased, but in an accelerated ratio. If this were regarded by itself
alone, distinct from all other evils and causes of evil, it might well excite
shame for the past, astonishment for the present, and apprehension for
the future; but if it be regarded in connection with the increase of
pauperism, the condition of the manufacturing populace, and the inde
fatigable zeal with which the most pernicious principles of every kind
are openly disseminated, in contempt and defiance of the law and of all
things sacred, the whole would seem to form a fund of vice, misery,
and wickedness, by which not only our wealth, power, and prosperity,
but all that constitutes the pride, all that constitutes the happiness of the
British nation, is in danger of being absorbed and lost."
" The sternest republican that ever Scotland produced, was so struck
by this reflection, that he did not hesitate to vi'xshfor the re-establishment
of domestic slavery, as a remedy for the squalid wretchedness and auda
cious guilt with which his country was at that time overrun."
" So little provision has been made for religious and moral education
in our institutions, and so generally is it neglected by individuals as well
as by the state, that the youth in humble life, who has been properly
instructed in his duty towards God and man, may be regarded as un
usually fortunate. The populace in England are more ignorant of their
religious duties than they are in any other Christian country."
" They who reflect upon the course of society in this country cannot,
indeed, but perceive that the opportunities and temptations to evil have
greatly increased, wliile the old restraints of every kind, have as gene
rally fallen into disuse. The stocks are now as commonly in a state of
decay as the market-cross; and while the population has doubled upon
the church establishment, the number of ale-houses has increased tenfold
in proportion to the population."
" What then are the causes of pauperism ? misfortune in one instance,
misconduct in fifty ; want of frugality, want of forethought, want of pru
dence, want of principle ; — want of hope also should be added."
" To work a reformation in the metropolis, indeed, is a task that
might dismay Hercules himself; a huge Augean stable, which the whole
Thames hath not water enough to cleanse! Yet the greater the evil,
the more urgent is the necessity and duly of setting about the great
business of removing it as far as we may. The points to be considered
are, in what manner we may hope to effect the greatest alleviation of
human misery, to mitigate the sufferings of the poor, to amend their
morals, and to redress their wrongs. Let no man think the expression is
overcharged. If any human creatures, born in the midst of a highly civi
lized country, are yet, by the circumstances of their birth and breeding,
placed in a worse condition, both as physical and moral beings, than
they would have been had they been born among the savages of Ame
rica or Australia: the society in which they live has not done its duty
towards them ; they are aggrieved by the established system of things,
being made amenable to its laws, and having received none of its bene
fits; till this be rectified, the scheme of polity is incomplete, and while
it exists to any extent, as it notoriously dots exist at this time,in thii coun
try, the foundation of social order is insecure."
" It is said among the precious fragments of king Edward, that when
prayers had been, with good consideration set forth, the people must
continually be allured to hear them ; instead of this, a great proportion
are actually excluded, for all the churches in the metropolis, with allthe
Vol. I.— 0 o

290 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
private chapels and conventicles of every description added to them, are
not sufficient to accommodate a fourth part of the inhabitants, upon the
present system of conducting public worship."
" Forty or fifty years ago, murder was so rarely committed in this
country that any person who has amused himself with looking over the
magazines or registers of those times, might call to mind every case that
occurred during ten or twenty years, more easily than he could recollect
those of the last twelve months ; for scarcely a weekly newspaper comes
from the press without its tale of blood. And as the crisis becomes
more frequent, it has been marked, if that be possible, with more fero
ciousness, as if there were not only an increase of criminals, but as if
guilt itself was assuming a more malignant and devilish type."
" Looking, howerer, to those causes which are within reach of disci
pline and law, certain it is that the increase of crimes is attributable in
no slight degree to the abominable state of our prisons, which, for the
most part, have hitherto been nurseries of licentiousness, and schools of
guilt, rather than places of correction, so that the young offender comes
out of confinement in every respect worse than he went in."
9. The two presiding reviews of Great Britain having put
the American people under the ban, those of the second rank
naturally followed so grateful an example. I do not know
whether 1 ought to apply this description to the " British Re
view, or London Critical Journal," a quarterly publication,
which, in general, is marked by nearly an equal degree of
learning and ability with its predecessors. It maintains the
same principles, religious and political, as the Quarterly and
has, of course, entered the lists against the American republic.
The number for May, 1819, contains a copious article headed
" Actual Condition of the United States," and pretended to be
drawn from some of the late works on this country. I have
only to cull some passages from the article to show what a
rich source of correct information and benevolent temper has
been opened to the British Public, in the London Critical
Journal. " The government of Washington, identifying extent of
territory with actual power and future greatness, continues to
add lands to the immense provinces which it already pos
sesses ; it eagerly embraces every opportunity, arising from
the weakness or misfortunes of its neighbours, to provide fields
for remote generations, who it flatters itself will one day out
strip all other nations in warlike exploits and commercial wealth,
under the auspicious stars of the Union. The present rulers of
America appear to think that they shall favour most successfully
the rising fortunes of their country by procuring soil whereon
American heroes and lawgivers may spring up in their order to
fulfil their high destinies."
" In the United States, a debt contracted in one state cannot

SECT. VIIJ.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 291
be sued for in the next ; and a man who has committed murder
in Virginia cannot be apprehended if he make his way into the
neighbouring lands of Kentucky."*
" The states of America can never have a native literature
any more than they can have a native character. Even their
wildernesses and deserts, their mountains, lakes, and forests,
will produce nothing romantic or pastoral ; no ' native wood-
note wild' will ever be heard from their prairies or savannahs ;
for these remote regions are only relinquished by pagan savages
to receive- into their deep recesses hordes of discontented de
mocrats, mad, unnatural enthusiasts, and needy or desperate
adventurers." " The steam-boat was batched in Great Britain, and only
acquired some small additional strength of pinion upon its mi
gration across the Atlantic."
" We are informed that experiments of sailing ships by
means of steam were publicly exhibited on the Forth and
Clyde canal in 1787 j and were either actually witnessed by
Mr. Fulton, or communicated to that engineer, who was then a
resident in that part of 'Scotland, qf which he was understood
to be a native. In answer to some enquiries which we have
made personally on this subject, we are told that Fulton was
a native of Paisley, in the neighbourhood of which place, he
had steam-boats constructed, actully employed both for ex
periment and use, and that he afterwards carried the invention
to America,"
" In the southern parts of the Union, the rights of our holy
faith are almost never practised."
" When the American captains could not fight to advantage,
during the last war, they run away, and in some instances most
shamefully. Their Floric, for instance, after vainly endeavouring
to escape by flight, surrendered to the Orpheus and Shelburne
without firing a single shot.'t

* " The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several states.
" A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime,
who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall, on the
demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be
delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction ofthe crime."
— Constitution of the United States, Article IV. Sect. 2.
• On the 28th of October, 1812, the United States sloop of war,
Wasp, commanded by captain Jacob Jones, took, in forty -three mi
nutes after the first fire, the British sloop of war, Frolic, superior in
force by exactly four twelve-pounders. The gallantry displayed by the
American ship in the action, could not be exceeded, and she was much

292 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART
" The Americans may become a powerful people, but they
want the elements of greatness ; they may overrun a portion
of the world, but they will never civilize those whom they
conquer ; they may become the Goths of the Western Conti
nent, but they can never become the Greeks. The mass of
the North Americans are too proud to learn, and too ignorant
to teach, and having established by act of Congress that they
are already the most enlightened people of the world, they bid
fair to retain their barbarism from mere regard to consist
ency," &c.
The barkings of the innumerable minor Reviews and Ma
gazines are incessant, and may be compared to those of the
prairie dog, of which we read in the accounts of the Missouri
region. They deserve as little to be heeded. I will, however,
advert to one of them — the British Critic — co-ordinate with
the Monthly Review, and long in the enjoyment of great con •
sideration with the ministerial and high church party. It has
recently had a paroxysm of exprobration, on the occasion of
reviewing Mr. Bristed's " Resources of America." This gentle
man, a Briton by birth, educated at home, it has, like the
London Critical Journal, mistaken, or affected to mistake, for
an American, and in reviling the diction of his book, has held
him forth as a sample of American writers. If an author so
affectionately and reverentially disposed towards England, fared
so ill, for allowing some virtue and prosperity to the United
States, these unlucky States had nothing less to expect than a
merciless visitation. I would not undertake to repeat any part
of the pasquinades of the critique, were it not that' they form a
proper sequel to those of the Quarterly Review, and complete
the idea to be entertained of the strain in which we are cele
brated in the British journals generally. The following extracts
will suffice.
" The Americans debated in Congress, during three suc
cessive days, whether they were not the greatest, the wisest,
bravest, most ingenious, and most learned of mankind."
" The North American republicans are the most vain, egotis-

crippled in her rigging and braces. Two hours after possession was taken
of the British vessel, His Majesty's ship Poictiers, of seventy-four guns,
fell in with and captured them both. The disabled state of the Wasp,
and the disparity of force, would have rendered any attempt at resist
ance on the part of the Americans, as ridiculous as the charge brought
against them by the British Review. Let the reader now judge of the
candour or the accuracy of this high-toned journal, when it talks of
" their Frolic," and of the Orpheus and Shelburne, &c.

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 293
ical, insolent, rodomontade sort of people that are any where
to be found. They give themselves airs."
" The Americans have no hjstory ; nothing on which to ex
ercise genius and kindle imagination."
" One third of the people have no church at all. Three and
an half millions enjoy no means of religious instruction. The
religious principle is gaining ground in the northern parts qf
the Union : it is becoming fashionable among the better orders
of society to go to church,"
" The greater number of states declare it fo be unconstitu
tional to refer to the providence of God in any of their public
acts." " The Americans make it a point of conscience never to pay
a single stiver to a British creditor."
" America is like a dissipated boy, combining the feeble
ness of early youth, with the libertinism of manhood ; the cal
culating selfishness of declining years, with the decrepitude
and disease of old age."
" America is easy to conquer,but difficult to keep," &c. &c.
Ribaldry of this desription, which, by its absurdness, softens
the indignation it is fitted to excite, can require no annotation.
But I think it well to examine at once the topic of the first
paragraph, quoted from the British Critic — one which has now
the additional disrelish of triteness, in any English publication;
so often has it exercised the wit, or provoked the spleen, of
parliamentary orators, and periodical censors. We have seen
that the Edinburgh Review talks of " the ludicrous proposition
of the American Congress to declare herself the most en
lightened nation pn the globe." The Quarterly Review also,
in the critique nf Inchiquin's letters, descants scnffingly en this
supposed proposition, and avers that it was withdrawn "only
through fear of giving umbrage to the French Convention."
Mr. Alexander Baring refers tn it, in his pamphlet nn the
Orders in Council, saying, that " the Americans gravely de
bated once in Congress, whether they should style themselves
the most enlightened people in the world;" but he tempers
the pungency of the allusion, by relating now a distinguished
member of the House of Commons, Mr. Wilberforce, seriously
declared in his place, and was no doubt as seriously believed,
" that Great Britain was too honest to have any political con
nexions with the continent of Europe." By a natural progres
sion, or diversity of reading, the story now goes, as the British
Critic has it— "that the Americans debated during three suc
cessive days, whether they were not the greatest, wisest,
bravest, most ingenious, and most learned of mankind!" This

294 HOSTILITIES OP THE [PART I.
is the shape in which it will, doubtless, be embalmed by the
British historians.
Let us attend now to the facts of the case, as they are
apparent upon the face of the printed debate, and remain noto
rious to all who followed the course of our public affairs at the
time. The French revolution had divided the American people
into two great parties ; the one disposed for an intimate alli
ance with France; the other averse from any connexion with
the new republic, and more amicably affected to Great Britain.
General Washington, by adopting and maintaining the policy
of neutrality between the belligerent powers of Europe, and
by giving his countenance and official sanction to Jay's treaty,
so called, of 1795, with Great Britain, had rendered himself
obnoxious to the leaders of that division of our politicians who
favoured her enemy, and would have renounced her trade.
Their antagonists in Congress were fortified in their dislike
and dread of the French republic, and their predilection for
tbe most friendly political intercourse and free commercial
relations with Great Britain, by tbe ill-judged machinations
and intemperate language of the French representatives in
this country, and the open support which the French govern
ment lent to the most insulting trespasses upon our national
sovereignty. General Washington having announced his resolution to
retire into private life, an election for a successor to the chief
magistracy took place in 1796, and gave new animation to the
feelings and plans just mentioned. At the close of the year,
while this election was raging, if 1 may be allowed the term,
Washington delivered his farewell address to the federal legis
lature, and in the house of representatives a committee com
posed of five members, three of whom were friends of his ad
ministration, was appointed to prepare an answer to his speech.
The draught of an answer which this committee reported, con
tained the following paragraph. " The spectacle of a whole
nation, the freest and most enlightened in the world, offering,
by its representatives, the tribute of unfeigned approbation to
its first citizen, however novel and interesting it may be, derives
its lustre from the transcendant merit of which," &c. The
phrase which I have put in italics found its way into the draught,
from the desire of the committee to place Washington at the
highest elevation possible, in opposition to the designs of some
zealots of party in Congress, who aimed at diminishing the lustre
of his personal reputation, and the credit of his system of politics.
Moreover, France had not long before asserted for herself the

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 295
pre-eminence over all nations in freedom and political intelli
gence ; and the authors of the draught, with those of the same
side in Congress, were eager to countervail this, as well as every
other overweening pretension, which might enhance her influ
ence in the United States.
Mr. Sitgreaves, one of the most distinguished members of the
anti-gallican party, explained to the house that " the light spoken
of was political light, and had no reference to arts, science, or
literature ; that it was intended to make the compliment
stronger to General Washington, and was to be regarded as
a matter entirely domestic, and not as a public act for foreign
nations." The answer at large brought into view the main political
questions which agitated the country, and expressed an unquali
fied approval of Washington's official career. A debate arose
upon the general strain of it, which lasted two days. It turned
chiefly upon the point of " the wisdom and firmness" of his
administration, in reference to England and France, and em
braced the investigation of all our relations with the latter
power. Objection had been immediately made tp the phrase
which has furnished so much sport to the British wits, not only
by the opposition, but by several of the most decided federal
members. One of these, Mr. Thatcher, finding that it interfered
with the principal purpose of obtaining an appearance of una
nimity in the homage to Washington and his course of policy,
moved, at length, after it had been discussed with some copious
ness, though incidentally, that the words " spectacle of a whole
nation the freest and most enlightened," should be amended so
as to read " the spectacle of a free and enlightened nation," —
which was carried without a division. In the course of the
debate, a suggestion was, indeed, made, in the way of excep
tion, that the use of the superlative would give umbrage to
France ; but this consideration must have proved the reverse of
dissuasive for the majority, in the state of their feelings towards
that power, with whom they so soon afterwards came to open
war. They concurred in the amendment with such readiness,
from the two-fold motive of facilitating the adoption of the
material parts of the answer, and avoiding what might have the
air of national arrogance.
Thus we see that the famed "proposition of Congress to
declare America the freest and most enlightened nation on the
globe," — the " act of Congress by which the Americans estab
lished that they are the most enlightened people of the world,"
— was no more than an occasional phrase, hazarded by a com
mittee in the draught of a domestic paper, for purposes distinct

296 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
from that of glorifying the nation; which phrase, though
equally suited to favourite aims ofthe majority of Congress, was
disavowed and rejected by that majority, chiefly because it
savoured of presumption, and seemed to infringe upon strict
national decorum. The transaction argues, on the whole, in the
Congress, sentiments opposite to those which it has furnished
the English writers occasion to impute ; and, when we advert
to the nature of the dispositions towards England, which were
mingled with its origin, we must find their representations
still more ungracious and illiberal. An instance of the same
scrupulousness is certainly not to be found in the annals of
the British parliament. I refer to the answers of that body to
the speeches from the throne, and to the votes of thanks as
presented by the speaker, — particularly tbe last, Mr. Abbot, —
to the public servants whom it has distinguished, for self-
applause and claims of national superiority, beyond which, no
intoxication of pride, or reason of state can ever, in the civi
lized world, carry national pretensions. This reference from
an American will, perhaps, be thought a very deficient mea
sure of recrimination ; but it is to be borne in mind, that,
however transcendant may be the British nation, in all respects,
in the comparison with her "kinsmen of the west," her pre
eminence, in valour and science at least, over the other nations
of Europe, is not so far incontrovertible and notorious, as
that, while constantly asserting it herself, she can, without
inconsistency or assurance, make a standing jest of the single
example of exaltedness which she charges upon the American
Congress. The obnoxious phrase in the draught of the American com
mittee was, in fact, warrantable in itself, and might have been
adopted, as it was meant, with perfect propriety. The com
mittee had in view civil and religious freedom combined, and
the diffusiveness of political light, and elementary knowledge —
points iu which I think it hardly possible to contest the supre
macy of the United States. For proclaiming this supremacy,
there were strong motives derived from the peculiar situation
of the country in regard to France, at the juncture. The con
fidence of a part of the American people in their own institu
tions and political wisdom, seemed to be shaken in some degree
by the pretensions of French democracy, and to stand in need
of such confirmation as the body of their representatives could
furnish, for their protection against the most mischievous
delusions. Although I may appear to have allotted already too much
space to this topic, I must claim permission to introduce the

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 297
observations which were made by Fisher Ames, in Congress, on
the occasion. They belong, in strictness, to its history.
Mr. Ames said—" If a man were to call himself more free
and enlightened than his fellows, it would be considered as
arrogant self-praise. His very declaration would prove that
he wanted sense as well as modesty ; but a nation might be
called so by a citizen of that nation, withput impropriety, be
cause in doing se, he bestews no praise of superiority on him
self; he may be, in fact, sensible that he is less enlightened
than the wise of ether nations. This sort of national eulogium
may, no doubt, be fostered by vanity and grounded in mistake :
it is sometimes just; it is certainly common, and not always
either ridiculous or offensive. It did net say that either France
or England had net been remarkable fpr enlightened men;
their literati are more numerous and distinguished than pur
own. " The general character with respect te this country, was
strictly true. Our countrymen, almost universally, possess
some property and some portipn of learning, — two distinctions
so remarkably in their favour as to vindicate the expression
objected to. But go through France, Germany, and most
countries of Europe, and it would be found that out of fifty
millions of people, not more than two or three had any pre
tensions to knowledge, the rest being, comparatively with
Americans, ignorant. In France, which contains twenty-five
millions of people, only one was calculated to be in any re
spect enlightened, and perhaps under the old system ihere
was not a greater proportion possessed of property ; whilst in
America, out of four millions of people, scarcely any part of
them could be placed upon the same ground with the rabble of
Europe. " That class called vulgar, canaille, rabble, so numerous
there, does not exist here as a class, though our towns have in
dividuals of it. Look at the Lazzaroni of Naples: there are
20,000 or more houseless people, wretched and in want ! He
asked whether where men wanted every thing, and were in the
proportion of twenty-nine to one, it was possible that they could
be trusted with power ? Wanting wisdom and morals, how
could they use it? It was therefore that the iron hand of des
potism was called in by the few who had any thing, to preserve
any kind cf controul over the many. This evil, as it truly was,
rendered real liberly hopeless.
" In America, out of four millions of people, the proportion of
those who cannot read and write, and who, having nothing, arg
interested in plunder and confusion, and disposed for both, is
Vol.. 1  P p

298 HOSTILITIES OF THE {[PART I.
exceedingly small. In the southern states he knew there were
people well informed ; he disclaimed all design of invidious
comparison ; the members from the south would be more capa
ble of doing justice to their constituents; but, in the eastern
states, he was mere particularly conversant, and knew the
people in them could universally read and write, and were
well informed as to public affairs. In such a country, liberty
is likely to be permanent. It is possible to plant it in such a
soil, and reasonable to hope, that it will take root and flourish
long, as we see it does. But can liberty such as we understand
and enjoy, exist in societies where the few only have property,
and the many are both ignorant and licentious ?
" Was there any impropriety, then, in saying what was a
fact? As it regards government, the declaration is useful. It
is respectful to the people to speak of them with the justice due
to them, as eminently formed for liberty and worthy of it. If
they are free and enlightened, let us say so. Congress ought
not pnly to say this because it was true, but because their say
ing- so would have the effect to produce that self-respect which
was the best guard of liberty ; and most conducive to the hap
piness of society. It was useful to show where our hopes and
the true safety of our freedom are reposed. It procured in re
turn from the citizens a just confidence; it cherished a spirit of
patriotism unmixed with foreign alloy, and the courage to de
fend a constitution which a people really enlightened knows to
be worthy of its efforts."
The American Congress has had its full share of maternal
abuse. It has been visited with the wrath and the pleasanlry of
the British writers, on other grounds than the one of which
I have just treated. r Wilh the Fullers and the Lord Cochranes
before their eyes, with the Wilkes and the Gordons fresh in
their recollection, they have yet been bold enough to single, for
the purpose of general detraction, out of our legislative annals,
instances of disorderly deportment in individuals. That of
Mathew Lyon and Roger Griswold, the only flagrant case, is
vamped up in all the reviews and books of travels, as if per
sonal violence were a new species of irregularity in the history
of legislative assemblies; and as if the British particularly fur
nished no case of the kind for admonishment. But we have
only to open the parliamentary annals, to find precedenfs of an
early date, which might have sufficed for all purposes. Take,
for example, the rencoretre narrated in the following extract
from the history of the House of Commons of the year 1678,
in the reign of Charles II.
" Debate on Sir J. Trelawney's calling Mr. Ash a rascal.''

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 299
Sir J. Trelawney said — " 1 rise up the earlier to speak, be
cause I wish this had been in another place: but perhaps in a
more sacred place than this* if any man should call me rascal,
I should call him rebel, and give him a box on the ear. The
cause of the quarrel that happened was this. Colonel Birch was
saying — lose this question, and he would vote for a general to
leration. No, said I, I never was for that. And Ash said — I
am not for popery :— said I — nor I for presbytery. I came to
Ash and told him he must explain his words. Said Ash, I am
no more a presbyterian than you are a papist. Upon which I
said, Ash was a rascal, and 1 struck v him, and 1 should have
done it any where."
Sir Wm. Harbord said — " Sir John Trelawney has behaved
himself like a man of honour." Sir John was only slightly re
primanded by the speaker,
The nature of this proceeding and the general spirit which
gave rise to it, and made the punishment so light, is as little
creditable, as the affair of Mathew Lyon, who was, be it re
membered, spurned by the whole American Congress. And it
is quite as fair in me to go back to the case of Trelawney, as it
is in an English writer to recur to that of Lyon. Our party-
heals at the periods when this happened, were also extreme, al
though not indeed fed by religious bigotry.
If, however, a recent case is wanted, it can be furnished
without difficulty. It is from the applauded Travels of Simon,
in England, of 1809, that 1 extract the following history:
" The House of Commons has exhibited lately a very curious
tragi-comic scene. An honourable member, a country gentle
man, and, 1 believe, a county member, took offence at some
slight he had experienced during the late examination in Par
liament ; and having made some intemperate remarks, suppert-
ed by oaths, there was a motion, that the words ofthe honpur-
able member sheuld be taken down. This produced another
explosion from the honourable member, whp was ordered by the
Speaker to leave the house, which he obeyed with some diffi
culty. The House then decided that he sheuld be put intn the
custedy pf the serjeant-at-arms. This resolutien was no sooner
annpunced tp him, than he burst in again, furiously calling lo
the Speaker that he had no right to send him into confinement;

* The Quarterly Review is (maugre the example of Sir J. Trelawney)
greatly scandalised at the story related by Birkbeck, of a citizen of the
state of Indiana having declared before a spiritual tribunal, that he
should not wish to live longer than he had the right to knock down the
man who told him he lied.

§00 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
and that the little fellow in the great wig was the servant,
aud not the master of the House of Commons. The Speaker,
in consequence of the vote of imprisonment, was obliged to
order the serjeant-at-arms to do his duty ; and the latter, with
the assistance of some other officers, succeeded in carrying off
his prisoner after an obstinate combat, — the honourable mem
ber being an Hercules ! What weuld the Parisians say to an
affair like this in their Senat Conservatif, and one ofthe mem
bers in grand costume, giving battle to the door-keeper on the
senatorial floor ?"*
Lyon, the aggressor in the affair of the American House of
Representatives, was not an American, and it is probable that
those who sent him tp the American legislature were chiefly fo-
reigners. The right of suffrage in tbe United States is subject
to few restrictions ; it is acquired, after a few years' residence,
without much difficulty, by Europeans of every order. It
would not, therefore, be matter of surprise, if men of vulgar
manners and unruly spirit-— strangers, with the slough of their
native grossness and virulence, were occasionallv found in pur
Cpngress. Besides, the American representatives belong to
professions, and circles of society, in which the more elaborate
and delicate courtesies cannot be supposed to be practised, nor
self-controul to be acquired in the same extent as in what is
called the fashionable and polished company of the British
islands, where the legislators are beastfully said, to be trained
to habitual politeness, under a discipline suited to their heredi
tary gentility and affluence. Yet, it has so happened, that in
stances of members such as I have described above, are rare in
the annals of Congress ; and that as much decorum has prevailed
in that body at all times, as in any similar institute of modern
days. Since the era of our federal assemblies, the British par
liament has exhibited more scenes of turbulence and indecency ;
a strain of personal reflection has been immemorially indulged
in it, which would not be borne in the former. Mr, Canning
complains, in one of his late speeches, of " the practice in
the House of Commons, of calumniating public men on either
side of the house, by imputing to them motives of action, the
insinuation of which would not be tolerated in the intercourse
of private life." This gentleman allowed himself, on the floor,
to stigmatize Mr. Lambton, one of the most distinguished
orators of the opposition, as " a dolt and an idiot." In Feb,
1817, Mr. Bennet, exclaimed, in his place, against " such
ministers as the noble lord, Casllereagh, who had already
* Vol. I p. 63.

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 301
imbrued their hands in the blood of their country, and been
guilty of the most criminal cruelties." Lord Castlereagh re
plied by giving the lie direct to his accuser. Upon another
occasion in the same year, when vilified by Mr. Brougham,
ihe noble lord described the speech of the honourable and
learned gentleman as " a stain of black, malignant, and libel
lous insinuatien." In reading the invectives cf Mr. Tierney,
and the bitter taunts ef Mr. Canning, we feel a twofeld wpii-
der — at the licentiousness of the parliamentary tongue, and at
the impunity with which such cruel insults are offered on so
conspicuous a theatre,"*
The general style of altercation in both houses of Parliament
during the American war, and at some periods of the admi
nistration of the younger Pitt, has never, 1 am sure, been
equalled in the American congress at any stage of our party
irritations. If 1 open the volumes of parliamentary debates, 1
fall at once upon such specimens of senatorial temperance as
fhe following:
" Lord Mansfield rose in great passion, — he charged the last
noble lord, (Earl of Shelburne,)with uttering gross falsehoods."
¦ — Jllmond's Parliamentary Debates, Feb. 7th 1775.
" The Earl of SbYburne returned the charge of falsehood
to Lord Mansfield in direct terms. — Ibid.
" The Duke of Richmond animadverted in very severe
terms, on an expression which fell in tbe heat of debate from
a noble lord (Lord Lyttleton). He said no man could impute

* The following, of so late a date as June 7th, 1819, is a fair speci
men. " Mr. Canning said : The shuffling, cowardly, and evasive course recom
mended by the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Tierney, shewed what
was his real object, &c.
" Mr. Calcraft here rose to order. He could not listen in silence to the
foul, offensive, and almost unparliamentary aspersions which the rightho-
nourable gentleman had passed on his right honourable friend, on him
self, and on all his friends around him, &c.
"Mr. Canninghere interrupted the honourable gentleman. He thought
that in debate there was tolerably fair room to give and to take ; and
whenever the terms ' indecent' and * atrocious,' which had been applied
to the proposal of ministers were retracted, then, and not till then, should
he retract the epithets which he had applied to the conduct ofthe gentle
man opposite.
" Mr. Calcraft rejoined. Cowardly, evasive, and shuffling! from a man
too, who when he looked on one side on the honourable friends whom
he had betrayed, and at the other side on the honourable friends whom
he had lampooned, but with both of whom he was now united in place,
might reflect, perhaps, on a more exact illustration of such qualities.
(Hear, hear, hear.)"

302 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
littleness, lowness, or cunning to any member of that assembly
(alluding to what his lordship had pointed at Lord Camden)
for delivering his sentiments freely, unless he drew the picture
from something he felt within himself, as by illiberally charg
ing others with lew and sinister designs, the charge ceuld only
properly be applied to the person from whom it originated."
—Ibid. Mr. Edmund Burke said : —
" Sir, the noble lord who spoke last (Lord North) after ex
tending his right leg a full yard before his left, rolling his
flaming eyes, and moving his ponderous frame, has at length
opened his mouth. 1 was all attention. After these portents,
I expected something still more awful and tremendous : 1 ex
pected that the Tower would have been threatened in articu
lated thunder; but I have heard only a feeble remonstrance
against vielence and passion: when Texpected the pewers ef
destructipn to cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war, an over
blown bladder has burst, and nobody has been hurt by the
crack." — Cobbett's Debates, 1770.
In one particular form of indecorum, 1 might almost call it
enormity, the British parliament has gone far beyond what is
known to our experience in America. I refer to the jocularity
indulged on occasions the most pathetic in the facts, or the
most solemn in the consequences for the interests and honour of
the nation.
During the debates on the slave trade in the years 1791 and
1792, when disclosures were made ef crimes committed by
British captains in that trade, so dreadfully atrocious, that even
now they wring the heart, and overpower the imagination of a
cursory reader, laughter resounded from time to time in the
House of Commons ; and that body listened cemplacently to a
speech, from Lord Carhampton, to which nothing can be com
pared, considering the occasion and subject, except, perhaps,
the show of dancing-dogs under the guillotine at Paris, so elo
quently stigmatized by Burke. 1 will take, from the debate of
1791, a mpre particular example ef this almost incredible levity
which has distinguished the British parliament.
" Mr. William Smith related the following anecdote upon the authority
of eye witnesses. ' A child of about ten months old took sick on board
of a British slave-ship, and would not eat. The captain took up the
child, and flogged him wilh a cat; ' D — n you,' said he, " I'll make you
eat, or I'll kill yon.' From this, and other ill-treatment, the child's
legs swelled, and the captain ordered some water to be made hot for
abating the swelling. But even his tender mercies were cruel; for the
cook putting his hand into the water, said it was too hot. ' D — n him,'
said the captain, ' put his feet in.' The child was put into the water,

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 303
and the nails and skin came all off his feet. Oiled cloths were then put
round them. The child was then tied to a heavy log, and two or three
days afterwards the captain caught it up again and said, ' 1 will make
you eat, or I will be the death of you.' He immediately flogged the
child again; and, in a quarter of an hour, it died.' One would imagine,
that the most savage cruelty would here have been satiated; but, extra
ordinary as it might appear, of this detestable transaction, the most de
testable part yet remained. After the infant was dead, he would not
suffer any of the people on deck to throw the body over, but called the
wretched mother, to perform this last sad office lo her murdered child.
Unwilling as] it might naturally be supposed she was to comply, he beat
her til I he made her take up the child and carry it to the side ofthe vessel,
and then she dropped it into the sea, turning her head the other way,
that she might not see it 1" Mr. Smith asked the committee ofthe House
if ever they had heard of such a deed, on which some ofthe inconsiderate
laughed, and on hearing it, he declared with great indignation, that he
should not have thought it possible for any one man in that committee to
have betrayed such a total want of feeling, and that he was almost ashamed
of being a member of the assembly, in which so disgraceful a circumstance
had happened."
We are told by Sir S. Romilly (March 1 1th, 1818) that, " in
the violence of party, cruelties which could not be heard with
out shuddering, had been treated in a British Heuse ef Cpmmpns
with such levity, that it had been facetiously said, that the out
cry which had been raised, was oaly for a Catholic's having
a sore back."
When the question of abolishing the use of climbing boys in
the sweeping of chimneys (the white negro slaves of Enaland,
as they are called by the Quarterly Review) was brought before
the House of Lords in the present year, (1819,) accompanied
with harrowing details of cruelty and suffering, Lord Lauder
dale, who opposed the bill for their relief, got into a facetious
mood, and put his brother peers iu the same, by the following,
among other appropriate and refined anecdotes : " In some parts
of Ireland," the noble lerd sa'd, " it had been the practice,
instead cf employing climbing-boys, to tie a rope round the
neck of a goose, and thus drag the bird up a chimney, which
was cleaned by the fluttering of its wings. This practice so
much interested the feelings of many persons, that, for the sake
of protecting the goose, they were ready to give up all humanity
towards other animals. A man in a country village having one
day, according to the old custom, availed himself of the aid of
a goose, was accused by his neighbours of inhumanity. In
answer to the remonstrance of his accuser, he observed that he
must have his chimney swept. Yes, replied the humane friend
ofthe goose, to be sure you must sweep your chimney, but you
cruel baist you, why dpnt you take two ducks, they will do the
job as well." [Laughing?]

304 HOSTILITIES OF THE [PART I.
Whoever was present in the gallery of the House of Com*
mons, during the examination of Mrs. Clarke, in the affair of
the Duke of York, can well remember the sportfulness of the
House, exercised in loose allusions, and pushed, from time to
time, to clamorous merriment. We have witnessed no such
edifying spectacle, whether as to the cause or the effect, in the
American congress. Before I finish with this topic, I will
offer one case more of parliamentary insensibility, which,
together with what I have already produced, may soften
the horror of the Quarterly Review at the occurrence of
" one member's striking at another" in fhe American congress.
I quote from the proceedings of the House of Commons for
April 7th, 1819:—
Mr. Bennet said —
" That from the year 1781 to ihe year 1818, two thousand nine
hundred aud eighty-seven women convicts, being in the pioportion of
one-seventh of the men transported during the same period, had been
sent out of the country. Of two hundred and twenty women sent from
the year 1816 to 1818, one hundred and twenty-one were sentenced to
the limited term of seven years transportation. Few of these women
ever returned. Their only means of returning was prostitution. Many
of the convicts had received judgment for capital offences, and many
for minor ones. Now the act of the 9th of the King, chap. 74, had been
drawn up on the principle, that persons convicted of minor offences
ought to be confined to penitentiaries, and not sent at a great expense
to a distant settlement. A learned and distinguished judge had told
him, that on the last circuit he was about to sentence a woman to be
transported, when his resolution wasr changed by the clerk of the peace
informing him that it was nearly impossible for women to return. No
classification existed on board, but petty offenders were compelled to
herd and associate with capital convicts and hardened delinquents.
This appeared to him in the light of a gratuitous infliction of pain,
which was unworthy of, and discreditable to, a great countiy. He must
complain also of the manner in which women were brought from coun
try gaols to one spot, for the purpose of being put on board the vessels
destined for New South Wales. One unfortunate girl had been brought
from Cambridge, so bound in chains that it was necessary to saw them
asunder; and another girl from Carlisle, sent up in the same way, on
the top of a coach, had had her child torn from her breast! When she
was brought to Newgate, she was in the utmost sta'e of torture. When
once on board, no distinction was observed between the small and the
great offender ; the girl whose passion for finery had prompted her to
commit a petty (heft, was placed in the same bed with the shameless
prostitute who robbed on system. He held in his hand a letter written
by Mr. Marsden, Chaplain-general in New South Wales, and stating that
promiscuous intercourse between the seamen and female convicts had
prevailed on board a ship which had carried outagreat number of women
previously trained under the care of Mrs. Fry and others, to habits of
morality and decorum.
"Whether the new system of this year, with respect to the regulations
on board female convict ships, would be better than that of last year, he

SECT. VIII.] BRITISH REVIEWS. 305
should not inquire ; but he objected to a system under which, when the
women arrived at New South Wales, they had no place where they could
lay their heads."
Mr. Wilberforce said — " that in the present state of the colony, every
fresh addition to the number transported, while there was no increase of
accommodation, must add to the misery and vice of those who were at
present there, besides plunging the new comers into the same wretched
state." *' Mr. F. Buxton conceived that the case of the unfortunate female
convicts deserved particular consideration. It already appeared that out
of one hundred and sixty women employed in one manufactory, there
were one hundred and twenty turned out every night, and obliged to de
pend, not to say for comforts, but for necessaries, upon the casual wages
of prostitution."
Mr. Bathurst (one of the ministry) said — " that before he examined
the speech oi' the honourable mover, he should allude to tbe argument
of his honourable friend (Mr. Wilberforce), who had argued that no fe
male convicts should be sent off until the report of the committee was
made, and he supposed, till some regulation was founded upon it. Now,
if this argument were followed out consistently, it would go much be
yond the present motion, as it would apply not to one vessel, but to all
convicts, male or female. But then it was argued by the honourable
mover, that it was difficult to keep men, but that females might be kept
with great convenience, &c." (A laugh.)

Vol. I.— Q q

306

SECTION IX.
OF THE EXISTENCE OF NEGRO SLAVERY IN THE UNITED
STATES, AND OF THE BRITISH ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE
TRADE.
l.'I have reserved for the concluding section of this first
part of my Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain, the
topic of our negro slavery, the side on which we appear most
vulnerable, and against which the reviewers have directed their
fiercest attacks. With respect to their reproaches on all other
grounds, enough, 1 think, has been adduced te show how
strangely they have overlooked the lesson of the gospel — he
that is without sin let him first cast the stone. They have
aggravated the offence of malevolence by extreme folly, in
selecting heads of accusation which may be retorted wilh com
plete success. This is as much the case in relation to the
existence of domestic slavery ameng us, as in any Pther in
stance; and I shall not hesitate to avail myself on this occasion,
as heretofore, of an error in reasoning, which springs as well
from a corruption of political morals, as from an eclipse of the
understanding. Of all Europeans, an Englishman is the one,
who should have most cautiously abstained from venting re
proaches, that brought Africa and the slave trade into view :
If there is any nation upon which prudence and shame en
joined silence in regard to the negro bondage of these States,
England is that nation ; but it happened precisely as in all the
other questiens open to the most direct recriminatien, that it is
frcm her the loudest outcries and the sharpest upbraidings have
come. We experienced this particular injustice, even during our
colonial dependence, while she was actively supplying us with
slaves, and endeavouring by the most jealous precautions, to
secure this favourite branch of her monopoly. Her writers
drew invidious comparisons between the situation and pros
pects of the mother couutry and those of the continental
colonies, founded upon the presence in the latter, of the multi
tude of blacks whose numbers and miseries she was daily and

SECT. IX,] NEGRO SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. 307
forcibly augmenting. When her merchants and travellers
returned from this reprobate land, they instituted similar con
trasts; stigmatized the cclonia^ slave-holders ; and could not
pardon the atrocity of retaining in bondage even the white
convicts whom she had thrust into their hands. They spread,
concerning the habitual state of the latter, as well as of the
slaves, tales of horror, pf the nature of which we may ferm
some idea from the following passage, dated 1720, ef the pre
face to Beverley's History of Virginia. " It hath been so repre
sented to the common people of England as to make them be
lieve, that the servants in Virginia are made to draw in cart and
plow as the oxen do in England, and that the country turns all
people black who go to live there ; with other such prodigious
phantasms." The worthy and intelligent historian, whose life
had been spent in that colony, under circumstances the most
favourable to extensive and accurate observation, bore a very
different testimony, which may serve equally well fbr the pre
sent day — " I can assure with great truth that generally the
slaves in Virginia, are not worked near so hard, nor'so many
hours in a day, as the husbandmen and day labourers in Eng
land ; that no people more abher the thoughts of cruel usage
to servants than the Virginians."*
Since our independence, slave holding has seemed to be
fairly let loose to the Briton for the purposes of self-congratu
lation, and of the execration cf American existence; as if, in
deed, England retained ne longer "a connexion with the West
Indies ; frequented no more the coast of Africa ; and had ac
tually " in the midst of her rottenness, torn off the manacles of
slaves all over the world." The negro has invariably figured
in the reperts of the writers ef that nation who have conde
scended to visit this country, as a " goblin damn'd ;" he is the
chief bugbear which Lcrd Sheffield set up, in 1714, to deter
Irishmen from exchanging the blessings of their domestic con
dition, for the miseries of the American ; which Fearon was in
structed to put forward to correct that " most mischievous evil"
the emigration of English artisans ; and which Birkbeck has em
ployed to draw into his own neighbourhood in the Illinois, such
of his countrymen as persist in seeking these shores in spite of
Lord Castlereagh, and ofthe effigies of that evil " which coun
terbalances all the excisemen, licensers, and tax gatherers ef
England." The Edinburgh Review having, in the 60th number, in the
article on Birkbeck' s Travels, presented views tending to en-
* Book IV. c. x.

308 NEGRO SLAVER? AND [PART I*
courage this disposition to emigrate, would seem to have dis*
covered that it had gone too far, and suddenly resolved ta
counteract the effects of its first representations. This is the
natural explanation of the patriotic mood in which we find it ill
the 61st number, where every thing in Britain is represented
as inspiring confidence, and inviting contentment; while all in
America is made to wear a sinister and repulsive aspect. The
zeal of a proselyte is proverbially ardent. Having in a rapid
evolution, set itself against emigration, this journal could,
of course, " keep no measures" with negro-slavery in Ame»
rica. Here was the yawning gulph of crime and perdition,
at which an Englishman should pause, as he was blindly
rushing onward from the tax-gatherer, and the " menacing
hydra (pauperism) that stalked over his native land.'* Better
remain where he was, safe from the demoralizing effect* of
commanding slaves, and with the consolation at home, that
he had "an inestimable parliament;" (hat "the next twenty
years might bring a great deal of internal improvement;" that
" the apprentice laws had been swept>away," and " the strong"
fortress of bigotry rudely assailed." Care was taken at the
same time not to inform him how large a portion of our vast
country, is wholly without the institution of slavery ; how
small a part of our white population is indebted to the labour
of slaves ;— that considerably more than a moiety of our whole
population, inhabiting distinct portions of territory, is altogether
free from the reproach and the detrimeut of commanding slaves,
while a great probability obtains that within " the next twenty
years,'* no inconsiderable part of the remainder will enjoy the
same exemption.
Nor were these considerations, or the facts which I propose
presently to adduce, allowed to interfere with the design of a
sweeping b^nd against the American people, which should put
every Englishman in a better humour with the " rottenness"
of England, by exhibiting her in contradistinction, as the tute
lary genius of freedom, and the country after which he han
kered, as marked with fouler stains, and doubly gangrened to
the very cere. I have already quoted literally the passage of
the Review, which composes t|ie grand arraignment, and will
now repeat the several weighty allegations into which it is
resolvable. They are as follows; — The institution of slavery
is the foulest blot in the national character pf America; its
existence in her bosom is an atrocious crime — the consumma
tion of wickedness, and admits of no sort of apology from
her situation ;-*-the American, generally, is a scourger and mur
derer of slaves, and therefore below the least and lowest of the

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 309
European nations in the scale of wisdom and virtue ; and, above
all, be sinks, on this account, immeasurably in the comparison
with England, who, become the agent of universal emancipa
tion, may challenge the world to decide which of the two
people is the most liable to censure, upon a general considera
tion cf tlieir demerits. These propositions imply, and maybe
converted into, others of this purport—^that America is chiefly
to blame for the establishment and continuance of her negro
slavery; that she could have suppressed it either before or
since her independence, even with safety and ease ; that it is a
system of flagellatipn and murder, with which she is universally
chargeable ; that her congress has remained indifferent to its
enormities ; that on her own part it is incompatible with sound
ness of heart or understanding, and with the love or the posses
sion of political freedom; tbat no nation of Europe, not the lowest
and least, presents a similar or equally revelting spectacle of
servitude ; that England exhibits, within the pale of her power,
a clear sind glorious sunshine of personal liberty and security ;
that she is in no wise implicated in the guilt of the American ;
that her dispositions have always been benign, and her hands
pure, in relation to the unhappy race, whom we conspire to
oppress and exterminate; or at least, that if she has not
always been busy in " tearing off their manacles," and as-
suaging their sorrows, if she has ever been taxable with a part
of their wrongs, and stained with a few drops of their blood,
she has, by her subsequent temper and conduct, purged away
the taint, and made ample amends to them, and to the cause of
justice and freedom.
America and Britain are here put at direct issue, on points
which vitally affect national character; fhe American is
cited, officiously and triumphantly, before the world, by a
British literary tribunal on the Areopagus of Edinburgh, to
measure himself upon them with the Britop. For the sake of
historical truth, as well as for our own honour, and the repulse
of arrogant and invasive pretensions, we are bound to appear,
and answer in the best way we can, towards our own vindi
cation, and the confusion of the aggressor. There is no keen
ness or latitude of retaliation which will appear excessive after
such provocation ; and indulgence will be readily granted, for
the same reason, should details of fact be reproduced, either
familiar to most readers, or harrowing for the feelings of hu
manity. 2. I am not sorry to have an opportunity, at length, of
pleading the apology ofthe early American colonists, on a score

810 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART U
left untouched in the pages which I have devoted to them in
particular. What then is the first general fact which offers
itself in the question ? It is this — that England, who had been
actively, eagerly, engaged in the slave trade since the year 1562,
herself supplied her North American colonists, from the outset,
with negroes whom she sought, and seized, and manacled, on
the coast of Africa, and dragged and sold into this continent.
The institution of negro slavery, " the great curse of America,"
lies indisputably at her door. What was her motive ? The
alleviation ofthe lot of her sons whom she had driven into the
distant wilderness? No British writer has counted so far
upon the simplicity of mankind as to hazard this explanation.
The motive was sheer love of gain; omniverous avarice; look
ing not merely to the immediate profit upon the cargo of
human flesh, but to the greater, and permanent productiveness
ofthe settlements whose staples were to be monopolized by the
mother country.
Let it be conceded, that the colonists received the auxiliaries
thus brought to their hands, and whom they durst not reject,
without repugnance, perhaps with avidity. But, considering
the nature of their respective motives and situation, does the
guilt of the receiver in this case bear any proportion to that
of the trader ? Can the seduced be brought down, by any
principle of reasoning, to the level of the seducer? If the
colonists, the southern particularly, in a new climate noxious
to the white labourer, but favourable to the African constitu
tion ; exposed to much physical suffering from other causes,
and to so many additional influences depressing for the mind ;
liable to be called off from the culture of the soil by the irrup
tions of the savage native ; — yielded to the temptation so imme
diate, of being relieved from the wasting labours of the field,
and enabledto provide more effectually for their defence against
the Indian; — if we suppose them even to have gone in quest of
the negro slave, in a few instances, after the mother country
had set them the example, and given them a taste of the relief
which he could afford, — are they not to be considered quite as
excusable as we can conceive men to be by any possibility, in
any instance of the adoption of domestic servitude, or, indeed,
of the commission of any wrong ?
It is a contested point whether the constitution even of the
native white is equal to the task of cultivating the earth suc
cessfully in our southern states, in the actual condition of its
surface ; but in the first century of settlement, when the forest
was still to be felled, and the climate, more noxious in itself,
exercised a more fatal influence, the service of the negro was

SECT. I.] SLAVE TRADE. 311
more important, and would naturally be thought indispensable
by the colonists.
This plea, too, may be urged for them, that, in common
with the wisest men of the age, numbers believed slavery to
be strictly lawful in itself, both according to natural and re
vealed religion. The same plea has, indeed, been advanced
in favour of the slave-dealing nation; but, though we can sup
pose the conscience of the colonist, with the bible in his hands,
to have remained at rest upon the mere purchase, and appro
priation of the negro, at his door, with the mode of whose
acquisition in Africa he was unacquainted, it is impossible to
imagine so entire a perversion and torpor of human reasou and
feeling, as is implied by the supposition that the former, while
exciting intestine wars in Africa, trapanning the unwary,
tearing the native from the centre cf the dearest ties, exer
cising, in short, the most nefarious arts, and fell cruelties, to
secure the African victim, could remain insensible to the cri
minality of the pursuit. Another bondage, the guilt of which
none have had the hardihood to palm upon the colonists, I
mean that of men of their own colour and nation, objects for the
most part, of the injustice and vengeance of faction and bigotry
in the mother country, tended to reconcile them the more to
the subjection of the negro whom she taught them, at the
same time, to regard as of an inferior species. In every way
did she familiarize and train them to that institution which she
now charges upon their descendants as " the consumation of
wickedness." 3. It has been shown, in my second section, that the colo
nists became dissatisfied, at an early period, with the intro
duction ofthe British convicts among them, and endeavoured,
though ineffectually, both by remonstrance and edicts, to arrest
the practice. They conceived, also, before the expiration of
the seventeenth century, both disgust and apprehension at the
importation of the negro slaves, and took, with no better suc
cess, similar measures for its repression. Some few of the
merchants of the northern colonies had embarked in the trade,
and a comparatively small number of the victims was held in
servitude there; but only a very shcrt time elapsed befere
scruples arose among the conscientious puritans and quakers,
and the whole system fell into disrepute and reprobation.
Clarkson has not been able to show for Great Britain, its
chief patron and agent, so early and pointed an expression of
just views and feelings on the, subject, from any quarter, as is
found in the following facts, which I adduce upon the autho-

312 NEGRO SLAVERY AND fPART I.
rity of public records, and in the language of Dr. Belknap, the
historian of New Hampshire:
" In 1645, the General Court of Massachusetts, which then
exercised jurisdiction over the settlements at Pascataqua,
' thought proper to write to Mr. Williams, residing there,
understanding that the negroes which a Captain Smyth had
brought, were fraudulently and injuriously taken and brought
from Guinea, by Captain Smyth's confession, and the rest of the
company— that he forthwith sent the negro, which he had of
Captain Smyth, hither; that he maybe sent home; which the
Court do resolve to send back without delay. And if you have
any thing to allege, why you should not return him, to be dis
posed of by the Court, it will beexpecteJ you should forthwith
make it appear, either by yourself or your agent.' "
About the same time, viz. 1645, a law was made, " prohibit
ing the buying and selling of slaves, except these taken in law
ful war, or reduced to servitude for their crimes, by a judicial
sentence; and these were to have the same privileges as were
allowed by the law of Moses."
" Among the laws for punishing capital crimes, enacted in
1649, is the following — * 10. If any man stealeth a man, or man
kind, he shall be surely put to death. Exodus, xxi. 16.' "*
In 1703, the legislature of Massachusetts imposed a heavy
duty on every negro imported, for the payment of which botn
the vessel and master were answerable. In 1767, they made
a more direct attempt to effect the object of that impost A
bill was brought into the House of Representatives " to pre
vent the unnatural and unwarrantable custom qf enslaving man
kind, and the importation of slaves into the province." In its
progress it was changed, in consequence of tbe utter imprdbaN
bility of the success of one of that scope, with the royal go
vernor, into " an act for laying an impost for negroes imported."
Even this was so metamorphosed ana mutilated by the council,
tbat the house refused to proceed in the business. It must
have failed with the governor, had it passed both assemblies,
and in whatever shape, as all the royal governors had it in ex
press command from the British cabinet to reject all laws of that
description. The original instructions, afterwards published,
of the date of June 30th, 1761, to Benning J. Wentworth,
Esquire, governor pf New Hampshire, contained this clause—
" You are not to give your assent to, or pass any law, imposing
duties on negroes imported into New Hampshire." t

* See the 4th Vol. Massachusetts' Histor. Coll. for Dr. Belknap's Ac
count of Slavery in that province.
t See Gordon, Hist, of Am. Rev. Vol. V. letter 2.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 313
The legislature of Massachusetts persisted, in defiance of the
known policy of the British rulers ; and in January, 1774,
framed a bill, entitled "An act to prevent the importation of
negroes, and others, as slaves into this province." It passed
through all the forms in both houses, and was laid before Go
vernor Hutchinson, for his sanction. On the next day, the
assembly received a harsh. answer, and notice of prorogation.
The negroes of the province had deputed a committee respect
fully to solicit the governor's consent; he told them that his in
structions forbade it. His successor, General Gage, when so
licited in the same way, gave the same answer.
The courte of justice in Massachusetts went farther than the
legislature. Several blacks sued their masters for their free^
dom, and for wages for past service, upon the grounds, that the
royal charter expressly declared all persons born or residing in
the province to be as free as the king's subjects residing in
Great Britain ; that by the laws of England no man could be
deprived of his liberty but by the judgment of his peers ; that
the laws of the province relating to an existing evil, and at
tempting to mitigate or regulate it, did not authorize it ; that
though the slavery of the parents should be admitted to be
legal, yet no disability of the kind could descend to children.
The first trial took place in 1770, and terminated iri favour
of the negroes. Other suits were instituted between that
period and the revolution, and the juries invariably gave their
verdict for the plaintiffs. The case of the negro Somerset has
been the subject of unceasing boast and compliment for
England. Yet, if we consider the circumstances on both
sides, it must appear less creditable than the judgment of
the Massachusetts court, in 1770. The latter preceded the
British decision by two years; it. was given upon equally broad
principles, in the midst of a long established practice of ne
gro slavery ; and in defiance of the system of the British
colonial administration. We are told by Clarkspn, that in
1768, an African slave prosecuted, in England, a person of
the name of Newton, for kidnapping his wife, and sending
her to the West Indies ; and obtained no more, upon the con
viction ofthe defendant, than one shilling damages, and an
order for the restitution of the woman within six months ;
tbat, with respect to the doctrine of the immediate disen-
thralment of the African slave on his arrival in England,
Judge Biackstonc discountenanced it when his opinion was
sought by Granville Sharp; that no satisfactory answer could
be obtained from the lawyers to whom this philanthropist ap
plied; that Lord Mansfield wavered, or rather inclined to the
Vol. 1.— Rr

314 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART It
adverse sentiment; and that, until the trial of the Somerset case,
the great question had been studiously avoided.
Legislative proceedings in relation to the exclusion of slaves,
similar to those of Massachusetts, are recorded in the annals of
the other New England provinces. Pennsylvania and New Jersey
trod in their footsteps, and early displayed a strong desire, aris
ing from the same considerations, to plant an effectual barrier
against the evil of continued importation; but their enactments
were regularly overruled in England**
The condition of the slaves, in all the provinces north of
the Susquehannah, was more exempt from hardship and abjec
tion than negro slavery had ever been known to be elsewhere,
in modern times, in New England particularly, their lot was
far from being severe. They were often bought by conscien
tious persons, for the purpese of being well instructed in the
Christian religion. They had, universally, the enjoyment of
the Sabbath as a day of rest or of devotion. No greater toil
was exacted from them than from tbe white labourers, who
worked in common with them. In the maritime towns, they
served either in families as domestics, or at mechanical em
ployments; and in neither case did they fare worse than their
white comrades. In the ccuntry, where they were much less
numerous, altegether, and in no instance exceeded three
or four in the hands of one proprietor, they lived as well as
their masters, and not unfrequeutly sat down to the same
table, as their emancipated brethren do at this day in the
interior of Pennsylvania, and the eastern states. For se
rious offences they were committed to the common houses of
correction, to which disorderly persons of all colours were
sent. To be sold to the West Indies, was the most formi
dable punishment, with which they could be threatened or vi
sited. Popular opinion early and spontaneously proscribed the
; slave trade; disgrace attached to the character of those who
were engaged in it principally or ministerially; cases of sea
men perishing by the homicidal climate of Guinea, or in con-
tests with the natives; ahd of death-bed repentance at home,
rendering audible and unequivocal the voice of conscience,
confirmed the public antipathy. Had there been a general rea
diness to engage in the traffic, the opportunity could not have
been found. The British merchants, and the Royal African
Company in particular, which I shall mention further by and
* The law of Pennsylvania, of 1728, imposing a duty upon the import*
alion of negroes, allows a drawback on re-exportation.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 315
by, were too eager for the exclusive enjoyment, to allow the
provincials to share in it in a material degree. The American
vessels which appeared on the African coast, were regarded as
interlopers, infringing a precious monopoly. The Reports of the
" Proceedings in the House of Commons on the state of the
African Company and of the Trade to Africa," informs us that
" proofs were given by the Company of some ships trading di
rectly from Virginia, and other parts of America, and disposing
of their cargoes of tobacco and other commodities, the produce
of that country, on the coast, and in return purchasing slaves
and returning whence they came, under the suffrance[or rather
open toleration ef the geverners and pther subordinate persens
in command." This fact of the toleration of Americans was
brought forward " to prove the injury the forts and gpverners
were to the trade to Africa ;" it being also in evidence that
" the governors were all traders on their own account, or factors
for principals in England, and endeavoured to forestal the mar
ket." In stating the value of the British exports to America,
Lord Sheffield remarks, in his Observations, that there was to
be added " between two and three hundred theusand pounds
sterling, sent lo Africa annually for the purchase of slaves
which were chiefly imported by British merchants into the Ame*
rican provinces." But it is superflueus to adduce testimony of
this kind, since no historical fact is more notorious, than that
by far the greater portion of the negroes introduced into North
America, was brought by British vessels on account of British
merchants, and under the special sanction of the British par
liament." 4. If the government of the mother country, to favour the
British trade with Africa, laboured to prevent the exclusion
of negro slaves even from New Hampshire, its policy on this
head would naturally be of a most determined aud jealous cha
racter in reference to the southern provinces. The history of
Virginia furnishes illustrations as creditable to her, as disgrace
ful to the British councils ; and, though that history in general
may never have been examined by the writers ofthe Edinburgh
Review, they cannot be supposed to have been ignorant of
the following passage of Brougham's Colonial Policy. — " Every
measure proposed by the Colonial Legislatures, that did not
meet the entire concurrence of the British Cabinet, was sure to be
rejected, in the last instance, by the crown. In the co
lonies, the direct power ef the crown, backed by all the re
sources of the mother country, prevents any measure ob
noxious to the crown from being carried into effect, even by
the unanimous efforts of the colonial legislature. If examples

316 Negro slavery and part i.
were required, we might refer to the history of the abolition
of fhe slave trade in Virginia. A duty on the importation pf
negroes had been imposed, amounting tn a prohibition. One
assembly* induced by a temporary peculiarity of circumstances,
repealed this law by a bill which received the immediate
sanction of the crown. But never afterwards could the royal
assent be obtained to a renewal of the duty, although, as we
are told by Mr. Jefferson, all manner of expedients were tried
for this purpose, by almost every subsequent assembly that
met under the colonial government. The very first assembly
that met under the new constitution, finally prohibited the
traffic."* I have suggested the circumstances which would greatly
extenuate any degree of eagerness, on the part of the first in
habitants of the southern provinces, in receiving the British
slave ships. Whatever this may have been in Virginia, the op
posite disposition certainly manifested itself in her legislature,
before the expiration of the seventeenth century. The learned
Judge Tucker, of that state, whose notes on the Commentaries
of filackstone are so highly and justly valued amcngst us, fur
nishes a list of no less than twenty-three acts, imposing duties
on slaves imported, which occur in the various compilations
of Virginia laws. The first bears date in the year 1699 ; and
the real design of all of them was, not revenue, but the re
pression pf the importation. In general, the buyer was charged
with the duty, in order to secure a better reception for the acts
in England, and particularly to render them less obnoxious
to the African Company. The royal assent was first ob
tained, not without great difficulty, to a duty of five per cent.
in this shape. Requisitions for aids from the crown, on par
ticular occasions, furnished pretexts for increasing the duty
from five to ten, and finally to twenty per cent. In 1772,, most
of the duties previously imposed were re-enacted, and the
assembly transmitted, at the same time, a petition to the throne,
which speaks almost all that could be desired for the confu
sion of our slanderers. Judge Tucker has made the follow
ing extract from it, in his Appendix to the 1st vol. pt. 2. of
Blaekstone : —
" We are encouraged to look up to the throne, and implore
your majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity of a
most alarming nature."
" The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast
of Africa, hath long been considered as a trade qf great inhu^
• Book IL Sect. i.

SECT. 1X.3 SLAVE TRADE. 317
manity, and under its present encouragement, we have too much
reason to fear, will endanger the very existence of your ma
jesty's American dominions."
" We are sensible that some of your majesty's subjects of
Great Britain may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic, but
when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the
colonies with more useful inhabitants, and may in time have
the most destructive influence, we presume (o hope, that the
interest qf a few will be disregarded when placed in competi
tion with the security and happiness of such numbers cf your
majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects."
" Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly
beseech yeur majesty to remove all those restraints on your
majesty's governors of this colony, which inhibit their assent
ing to such laws as might check so very pernicious a com
merce." The petition proved unavailing. In the first clause of the
independent constitution of Virginia, " the inhuman use ef the
royal negative" in this matter is enumerated among the reasons
of the separation from the mother country. Mr. Burke, as we
have seen in one of the quotations which 1 have made from his
speech on the Conciliation with America, recognized her
" refusal to deal any more in the inhuman traffic of the negro
slaves as one of the causes of her quarrel with Great Britain."
I must claim permission to connect here with the petition, a
statement subjoined to it by Judge Tucker, which shows that
if did npt cost the British government a moment's deliberation
to sacrifice " the security and happiness of such numbers of
his majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects" to " the interest of the
few" in England. " I have lately been favoured with the pe
rusal of a manuscript copy of a letter from Granville Sharp,
Esq. of London, to a friend ofthe prime minister, dated March
25th, 1794, in which he speaks of the petition thus : " I myself
was desired, by a letter from America, to inquire for an answer
to this extraordinary Virginia petition, I waited on the Secre
tary of State, and was informed by himself that the petition
was received, but that (he apprehended) no answer would be
given." That the inclination to impose the yoke of perpetual bondage
on any part of their fellow creatures, if it ever existed among
the majority of the Virginia planters, soon subsided, is mani
fest from an act which is traced to 1662, declaring that " no
Englishman, trader, or other, who should bring in any Indians
as servants, and assign them over to any other, should sell
them for slaves, norfor any other time than English of like age

318 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
could serve by act of assembly." Thus early was the state
of slavery prohibited where it was not enacted by higher
authority ; and the first opportunity was taken, after the declara
tion of independence, to extinguish the detestable commerce so
long forced upon the province. In October 1778, during the
tumult and anxiety of revolution, the general assembly passed
a law, prohibiting, under heavy penalties, the further importa
tion of slaves, and declaring that every slave imported there
after should be immediately free. The example of Virginia was
followed at different times before the date of the federal consti
tution, by most of the other states.
While the mother country withheld from the provinces the
power of arresting importation, and incessantly added to the
number ofthe blacks, the abolition of slavery itself was wholly
out of the question. It was rendered impossible for the southern
colonists, cnnsistently with their own preservation ; and had it
seemed practicable, and been attempted by any ofthe colonial
legislatures, the royal negative would have been still more
readily and vigorously exercised than in the case of importation.
Even the West India Islands endeavoured, from time to time,
to limit the importation of slaves into their ports ; and were
counteracted the African interest, as it was called, in England.
In 1744, the legislature of Jamaica laid duties amounting nearly
to prohibition; in 1774, they made a similar experiment, alleging
as their motive, the apprehension excited in the island by the
numbers of negroes imported ; the merchants of England en
gaged in the trade, topk the alarm on their side, petitioned
against the duties, and obtained a royal order to the governor
of Jamaica to discontinue the levy.
In the history of the relations of Great Britain with the
American colonies in general, there is no circumstance more
abundantly evidenced, than her steady determination to main
tain her slave trade in the greatest activity ahd extent, whatever
might be tlieir feelings of- disgust or apprehension-; and how
ever gloomy the aspect which the continuation of it gave to
their detinies. Their permanent welfare, their immediate com
fort, weighed as nothing in the balance with the prosperity of
the Royal African Company, and the plenty of American pro
ducts. All that the English writers now pour forth about the in
trinsic horrors and miseries of negro slavery ; its obvious and
certain destructiveness to the morals of the masters ; and its
equally manifest and inevitable tendency to quench the spirit
of liberty, and banish social order and domestic peace ; all, if
we admit it to be true, recoils upon Great Britain, who, having

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 319
these things before her eyes, yet, from the thirst of gain, —
in order that her commerce and revenue should receive every
possible increase — opened this even worse than Pandora's box,
upon the race of her offspring in this hemisphere, and re
morselessly continued to replenish it, in spite of their remon
strances ahd terrors, as long as they remained subject to her
controul. The act which dissolved the indentures of servants enlisting
in his majesty's service in America, is the only one in the re
cords of the British parliament, that looked to the " tearing off
manacles" here. Not a single step was ever taken by the British
government, towards tbe suppression or mitigation, of any form
of bondage in the North American provinces.
5. From the facts which 1 have adduced, we may confidently
infer, that the North American provinces would, but for the op
pressive and avaricious opposition of the mother country, have
put a stop to the importation of negroes at a much earlier pe
riod than the era of their independence. We may even believe,
that, with their general dispesitions and views, they would have
gone further ; since the multiplication of the slaves presented,
next to the will of the British government, the most serious ob
stacle to abolition. We have scarcely ropm to doubt of the
course which New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania,
in particular, would have pursued, in their more favourable
domestic situation, and under the influence of their more ri
gorous principles, had they been free to act as these must have
prompted. As little doubt can be entertained, that, if their
colonial connexion with Great Britain had continued, they
would have been compelled to submit to the continuance of the
evils in question.
The voice of religion and humanity crying out against the
traffic in human flesh, was heard at an earlier period, and more
distinctly, from the bosom of these colonies, than from any
other part of the British dominions. Clarkson has narrated
at large, in his History of the Abolition, the systematic efforts
towards that end, of benevolent individuals on this side of the
Atlantic. He was unacquainted with the pamphlet of George
Keith, written before the end of the seventeenth century ; but
he has celebrated the labours of Lay, Sandiford, Woolman,
Benezet, and Rush. The Scottish critics might have learned
from him, that the writings which gave the first impulse, and
exerted the widest influence, in the cause which they have
united with him in exalting to the skies, issued from this

320 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART II*
quarter;* that a numerous society devoted to tbat cause, and
composed of men of all religious denominations, was organized
here twelve years before any association for the same purpose
had existed in England. There, a multitude of writers and
speakers have contended for the justice, humanity, and evan
gelical character of the slave trade : here, we have had no in
stance of a formal vindication of it, in any shape. I have never
heard of an American speech or pamphlet on the subject, that
did not acknowledge its atrocity.
England renounced the slave trade on the 25th of March,
1807, by a law which enacted, that no vessel should clear out
for slaves from any port within the British dominions after the
1st of May, 1807, and that no slave should be landed in the
colonies after tbelst of March, 1808. She has claimed the me
rit of having set the example of this renunciation to the world.
Lord Castlereagh boasted, in the House of Commons, on the
9th of February, 1818, that, on the subject of making the slave
traffic punishable as a crime, Great Britain had led the way.
Virginia was, however, a sovereign and independent state, when
she abolished the traffic in 1778. Pennsylvania, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island, had the same character, when
they prohibited it to their citizens, in whatever degree or form,
and under the severest penalties, in the years 1780, 1787, 1788.
On the 16tk qf March, 1792, Denmark promulged a law on the
subject of the slave trade, which provided for its total cessation
on the part or in behalf of Danish subjects, at the beginning of
the year 1803 ; and which prescribed that all importations of
slaves into the Danish dominions should cease at the same pe
riod. This law was carried into complete execution, according
to the letter, and has been faithfully observed. It established,
besides, some very salutary regulations for the improvement of
the mind, morals, and general condition of the blacks in the
Danish Islands.
The American continental Congress, so called, passed a re-
solution against the purchase of slaves imported from Africa;
and published an exhortation to the colonies to abandon the
trade altogether. The third Congress of the United States,
under the present federal constitution, prohibited the carrying-
on of the slave trade from our ports. But in order to show
more fully, the grounds upon which the American government
may contest the merit both of priority and zeal with the British,
* Scarcely any suggestion on the subject, of real importance, has been
made in England, which is not to be found in Anthony Benezet's work,
entitled " Some Historical Account of Guinea."

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 321
I will transcribe from the general index to the laws of the
former, the abstract of what it had done in this respect, before
the date of the British prohibition.
l.No citizens or others to build or fit out vessels, &c. to carry on the
slave trade to or between foreign countries, &c. — Vessels fitted out, Sec.
to carry on the slave trade, to be forfeited, &c. (22d March, 1794.)
2. Two thousand dollars forfeit for persons fitting out vessels, or aid
ing, &c.
3° Owners, &c. of foreign vessels, suspected of intention to trade in slaves,
&c. to give bond, &c.
4. Forfeit of two hundred dollars by citizens, for eveTy person received
on board for the purpose of being sold as a slave, &c. A moiety to the
person suing, &c.
5. The importation of slaves into the Mississippi territory from foreign
parts prohibited, under penalty of three hundred dollars for each one ;
and slaves imported entitled to freedom. (7th April, 1798.)
<5. Citizens or residents prohibited from holding any right or property in
vessels employed in transporting slaves from one foreign country to an
other, on pain of forfeiting their right of property, and also double the
value of that right in money, and likewise double the value of the in
terest in the slaves.
7. Citizens or residents not to serve on board vessels of the United States
employed in the transportation of slaves from one foreign country to
another, &c. on pain of fine and imprisonment, Sfc. (10th May, 1800.)
6. Citizens voluntarily serving on board foreign ships employed in the
slave trade, liable to disabilities, penalties, &c.
9. Commissioned vessels of the United States may seize vessels employed
contrary to this act, &c.
10. Vessels seized for trading in slaves, contrary to this act, together with
tackle, guns, goods on board, &c. except slaves, forfeited, &c.
11. Commanders of commissioned vessels to take officers and crews cf
vessels employed contrary to this act, &c. into custody, &c.
12. District and circuit courts to have cognizance of offences against the
prohibitions of this act.
IS. Nothing in this act to authorize the bringing into any state prohibited
persons.
14. A moiety of forfeitures to informers, except Where the prosecution is
first instituted on behalf of the United Slates.
15. After the 1st of April, 1803, masters of vessels not to bring into any
port, where the laws of a state prohibit the importation, any negro,
mulatto, &c. not a native, a citizen, registered seaman, &c. under the
penalty of one thousand dollars. (28th Feb. 1803.)
16. The persons sued under this act, maybe held to special bail.
17. Nothing in this act to prohibit the admission of Indians.
18. Vessels arriving with negroes, mulattoes, or other prohibited per
sons on board, not to be admitted to entry, &c.
19; If any negro, &c. be landed in any prohibited port or place, &c.
the vessel, &c. to be forfeited : A moiety of the forfeiture to the in
former.
20. The oflicers of the customs to notice and be governed by, the laws
of states prohibiting the admission of negroes, &c. and vigilantly t«
carry them into effect, &c
21. The importation of slaves prohibited after the 1st of January, 1808.
(2d March, 1807.)
Vol. I.— S s

322 Negro slavery and [part u
22. Vessels fitted out or sailing, after the 1st of January, 1808, for the
purpose of transporting slaves to any port or place within the jurisdic
tion of the United States, may be seized, condemned, &c. in any of
the circuit or district courts, for the districts where the vessels may be
found or seized.
23- Persons fitting out vessels, &c. to be employed in the slave trade,
after the 1st of January, 1808, or aiding or abetting, &c. to forfeit seve
rally, twenty thousand dollars. — A moiety of the forfeiture to the per
son prosecuting.
24. Five thousand dollars forfeit for taking on board from any of the
coasts or kingdoms of Africa, after the 1st of January, 1808, any negro,
mulatto, &c. for the purpose of selling them as slaves within the juris
diction of the United States, &c. — A moiety of the forfeiture to the
person prosecuting, &c.
25. Vessels in which negroes, &c. have been transported, their tackle,
apparel, &c. to be forfeited, &c.
26. Neither the importer, nor persons claiming under him, to hold any
right to any negro, &c. brought within the United States, &c. in vio
lation of this law, but such negro, &c. to remain subject to Ihe regula
tions of the legislatures ofthe several states, &c.
27. Citizens or residents taking on board, after the 1st of January, 1808,
from the coasts or kingdoms of Africa, &c. any negro, mulatto, &c. and
transporting and selling them within the jurisdiction of the United
States, as slaves, &c. to suffer imprisonmentfrom five to ten years, and
pay a fine, from one to ten thousand dollars.
28. Forfeit of eight hundred dollars for selling any negro, &c. imported
from any foreign kingdom, &c. after the 31st of December, 1807, &c.
A moiety of the forfeiture to the person prosecuting, &c. — The for
feiture not to extend to the seller or purchaser of any negro, &c. dis
posed of by virtue of any regulations of the legislatures of the several
states, in pursuance of this act and the constitution of the United
States.
29. Vessels found, after the 1st of January, 1808, in any river, port, bay,
&c. within the jurisdictional limits ofthe United States, &c, having on
board any negro, &c. for the purpose of selling them as slaves, &c. to
be forfeited, together with their tackle, goods on board, &c.
30. The president may employ armed vessels to cruize on any part of
the coast where he may judge attempts will be made to violate this
act, and instruct commanders of armed vessels to seize and bring in
vessels found on the high seas contravening the provisions of this law,
&c — Masters of vessels seized, &c. liable toa prosecution, andto a fine,
not exceeding ten thousand dollars, and io imprisonment from two to
four years. — The proceeds of vessels, &c. seized, prosecuted, and con
demned, to be divided equally between the United States and the offi
cers and men, &c. whether of the navy or revenue cutters, and distri
buted as in the case of prizes, &c. The officers and men thus entitled
are to safe keep every negro, mulatto, &c. and deliver them to persons
appointed to receive them, ice.
81. Masters of vessels of less than forty tons burden, not to take on
board, after the first of January, 1808, nor transport, any negro, &c.
to any port or place whatever, for the purpose of disposing of him as a
slave, on penalty of forfeiting eight hundred dollars.— A moiety of the
forfeiture to the person prosecuting, &c. — But nothing in this section
to prohibit the transporting, or any river or inland bay of the sea,
within the jurisdiction of the United States, any negro, &c not im-

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 323
ported contrary to the provisions of this act, in any vessel or species of
craft whatever.
32. Masters of vessels, of the burden of forty tons or more, after the 1st
of January, 1808, sailing coastwise, &c. and having on board any negro,
&c. to be transported and sold as slaves, &c. to make out and subscribe
duplicate manifests of ' every negro, &c. and deliver the manifests to
the collector or surveyor, &c. The master, owner, &c. to swear that
the persons were not imported after the 1st of January, 1808, &c. — The
collector or surveyor to certify, &c. grant a permit to proceed, &c.
33. Vessels departing without the master's having made out and subscribed
duplicate manifests of every negro, &c. on board, &c. or taking on
board any other negro, &c. than those specified in the manifests, to be
forfeited, together with tackle, apparel, &c.
34. The master, &c. to forfeit one thousand dollars for every negro, &c.
transported, &c contrary to this act.— A moiety ofthe forfeiture to the
person prosecuting, &c.
35. The master, &c. of every vessel of forty tons or more, sailing coast
wise after the 1st of January, 1808, and having on board any negro,
&c. to sell, &e, arriving in one port of the United States from another,
to deliver the certified manifest, &c. and swear to the truth of it, &e.
— If the collector, &c. is satisfied, &c. he is to grant a permit for the
landing of the negro, &c.
36. Masters, &c. neglecting or refusing to deliver the manifests, or landing
any negro, &c. before delivering manifests, &c. to forfeit ten thousand dol
lars. — A moiety ofthe forfeiture to the person prosecuting, &c.
It is seen by the foregoing abstract, that federal America
interdicted the trade from her ports, thirteen years before
Great Britain ; that she made " it punishable as a crime," seven
years before; that she fixed, for years sooner, the period for
non-irnportation— which period was earlier than that determined
upon by Great Britain for her colonies. We ought not to over
look the circumstance, that these measures were taken, by a le
gislature composed in considerable part, of the representatives
of slave-holding states ; slave-holders themselves, in whom, of
course, according to the doctrine of the Edinburgh Review,
conscience had " suspended its functiens," and " justice, gen
tleness, and pity" were extinguished. What are we te think of
the British parliament, which suffered itself to be outstripped
thus by [such men ? and when would it have abolished the trade,
had it contained an equal proportion of slave-holders from the
West Indies?*
In truth, the representatives from our southern states have
been foremost in testifying their abhorrence of the traffic ; an
abhorrence springing from a deep sense not merely of its ini
quity, but of the magnitude of the evil which it has entailed
* Mr. Pitt said (1792) that the " Parliament being now fully convinced
of the cruelty and injustice of the slave trade, it was their duty to put
an end to it. Were the West India planters to be consulted, they might
think differently," &c. (Parliamentary History).

324 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
upon thejr country. It was only at the last session of the Ame
rican Congress (March 1st, 1819) that a member from Virginia
proposed the following regulation, to which the House of Re
presentatives agreed without a division. — " Every person who
shall import into the United States, or knowingly aid or abet
the importation into the United States, of any African negro, or
other person, with intent to sell or use such negro or other per
son, as a slave, or shall purchase any such slave, knowing him
or her to be thus imported, shall, on conviction thereof, in any
circuit court of the United States, be punished with death."
The rarity of capital punishment in the penal code ofthe United
States, and the extreme aversion from a recourse to it, univer
sally prevailing, make this instance a potent proof, of the sin
cerity of the disppsitions, which we profess respecting the slave
trade. Additional evidence not less striking, is afforded by the
act which passed and became a law at the same time, and of
which the printed abstract is as follows:''
" An act in addition to the acts prohibiting the slave trade.
(3d March, 1819.)
" The president may employ the armed vessels of the United
States to cruise on the American coast, or coast of Africa, to
enforce the acts of congress prohibiting the slave trade. Ves
sels employed, contrary to law, in the traffic of slaves, may be
seized by the armed vessels, and brought into port. The pro
ceeds to be equally divided between the United States and the
captors, whether by an armed vessel or revenue cutter. The
captors to safe keep and deliver the negroes, &c. to the mar
shal, &c. transmitting a descriptive list to the president ; and
the commanders are to apprehend every person found on board
the offending vessels, being officers and crew, and deliver
them over to the civil authority. The president to make regu
lations for the safe keeping, support, and removal out of the
United States, of the negroes, &c. delivered and brought
within their jurisdiction, and may appoint agents on the coast
of Africa, to receive negroes, &c. A bounty of twenty-five
dollars to the officers and crews of commissioned vessels and
revenue cutters, for every negro, &c. delivered to the marshal,
&c. Prosecution, by information, against persons holding ne
groes, &c. unlawfully introduced. Fifty dollars to informant
for each negro, &c. thus delivered to the marshal from the
unlawful holder, by judgment of the court, besides the usual

6. If there be any two pieces of history which Great Bri
tain should wish to see extinguished, in particular, they are
the accounts of the African slave trade itself, and of her abo-

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 325
lition of that trade. Clarkson's relation of the Abolition is a
memorial which, though it has left nothing that is in any way
creditable in the progress of the affair, unemblazoned, and
magnifies inordinately the lustre and utility of the result, still
presents a balance of infamy, which, in my opinion, renders
it desirable that the whole were expunged, for the honor of
human nature. The enormity of the system of crime and
cruelty which he lays open ; the hardened depravity of the
sea-ports which he visited ; the pusillanimity and prevarica
tion of witnesses; the effrontery and security of culprits; the
mean and wicked arts practised by the highest and the lowest
of the kingdom, to defeat his purpose; the leng resistance of
parliament, after the fullest proof of the facts ; the tenor of
the speeches delivered there by some of the members in oppo
sition ; and many other similar traits salient in his book, are
far from being redeemed by the act of abolition, especially
when attention is given to some of the grounds upon which
it was obtained, and to the sequel, which I propose to notice in
due time. We Americans would trust it to the bitterest ene
my of these States, to deduce a narrative of their abolition of
the traffic ; challenge him to lay on what colours he pleased ;
and, provided he would take the facts as his ground work, re
main assured that while the world possessed Clarkson's work,
we could but rise in its estimation.
As a general proposition, it is undeniable, that the nation
which wrested the African from his home, and sold him into
perpetual bondage, is as criminal at least, as those by whom he
was purchased, and who may have retained him in that state ;
It is no less evident, that after having thrown millions of ne
groes into one quarter of the world, and reaped the profits of
the horrible traffic, it is not for her to upbraid the purchasers
for using their bargain, and to summon them in the name of
justice, humanity, and natural rights, to relinquish at once
their hold, at whatever loss and risk to themselves. Yet this
is what is done towards the Americans, by the writers of the
Edinburgh Review, in their character of Britons, and upon the
foundation of the British abolition of the slave trade. It is
therefore fair to pass in review the facts which go to show, that
they have no such privilege, but are obnoxious to the maxims
which I have just stated.
The English embarked in the slave trade in the year 1562.
In that year they carried slaves to Hispaniola ; and the first
cargo was obtained with circumstances of abominable fraud.*
• See the History of Hawkins's Voyage in Hackluyt's Collection, or

326 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
It proved lucrative, and immediately, associations were formed
in England, among the most opulent and distinguished men
of the country, to follow up the adventure. Soon, the object
began to be considered as of national importance, and so early
as the 16th of James 1. a royal charter was granted to a num
ber of eminent citizens of London, as a joint stock company,
to carry on a trade to Africa, with an exclusive privilege.
The private merchants, envious of the harvest which seemed
to await the company, interleped upon the African coast, and
so embarrassed the trade that the charter was abandoned.
Another company was created by Charles 1. ; but it shared
the same fate, from the same cause, — the cupidity and miscon
duct of the unlicensed adventurers. " On the accession of
Charles II." says Davenant,* " representation being soon made
to him, that the British plantations in America were, by de
grees, advancing to such a condition as necessarily required
a greater yearly supply of servants and labourers than could be
spared from England, without the danger of depopulating his
majesty's native dominions, his majesty did (upon account of
supplying these plantations with negroes) publicly invite ail
his subjects to the subscription of a new jeint stock, for reco
vering and carrying on the trade to Africa."
His majesty's subjects obeyed the call with alacrity ; and
some of the most imposing names of the kingdom appear at
the head of the ample subscription list. But poachers swarm
ed again, aud pleaded their natural right, and parliament found
it expedient, in 1697, to lay open the trade for a term of years.
The recrimination between the privileged and the interloping
traders, unfolds abuses and enormities committed before tbe
commencement of the 18th century, similar to those which
were proved to parliament, when the question of abolition was
agitated. It would be needless for me to detail the progress
of the African trade to the highest consideration and favour
with the government; the contest maintained with the com-
in the 4th Book, c. ii. of Edwards's History of the West Indies. Haw
kins was afterwards knighted by Queen Elizabeth, and made treasurer
of the navy. " The success which attended the first expedition to Gui
nea," says Edwards, " appears to have attracted the notice and excited
the avarice of the British government. We find Hawkins in the follow
ing year, appointed to the command of one of the queen's ships, the
Jesus, of 700 tons, and with the Solomon, the Tiger, and the Swallow,
sent a second time on the same trading expedition. In regard to Haw
kins, he was, I admit, a murderer and a robber. His avowed purpose in
sailing to Guinea was to seize by stratagem, or force, and carry away the
unsuspecting natives, in the view of selling them as slaves, &c."
* Reflections on the African Trade, Vol, V. of his Works.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 327
mercial nations on the continent for the monopoly of that trade,
and the successful advances made to this " consummation of
wickedness." Factories were formed on the African coast i forts
built; grants of money obtained from parliament ;* and in the
year 1792, twenty-six acts of that body, encouraging and
sanctioning the trade, could be enumerated by its friends.
In the year 1689, England made a regular convention with
Spain, for supplying the Spanish West Indies with negro slaves
from the island of Jamaica. The twelfth article of the treaty of
Utrecht (1713) "grants to her Britannic Majesty and to the
company of her subjects appointed fcr that purpose (the South
Sea Company) — as well the subjects of Spain as all others being
excluded — the contract for introducing negroes into several
parts of the dominions of his Catholic Majesty in America
(commonly called El pacto de el assiento de negros) at the
rate of 4,800 negroes yearly, for the space of thirty years suc
cessively." To this compact there have been two pointed references of
late in the British Parliament, which I will repeat here in fur
ther explanation of its character. " By the treaty of Utrecht,"
said Mr. Brougham (16th June, 1812) " which the execrations of
ages have left inadequately censured, Great Britain was content
to obtain, as the whole price of Ramillies and Blenheim, an
additional share ofthe accursed slave trade,"
Mr. C. Grant, jun. said, (Feb. 9th, 1818) "that in the begin
ning ofthe last century, we deemed it a great advantage te ob
tain by the Assiento contract, the right of supplying with slaves
the possessions of that very power which we were now paying
for abolishing the trade. During the negociaticns which pre
ceded the treaty ef Aix-la-Chapelle, we higgled for feur years
longer of this exclusive trade; and in the treaty of Madrid, we
clung to the last remains ot the Assiento contract."
By degrees the English merchants engrossed permanently
two-thirds of the whole African exportation, and became the
carriers for the European world. They either supplied the
French Islands directly, or served as the factors of the French
trader on the coast of Africa. They occasionally freighted their
ships to France, to be manned and equipped in the French
ports. They stocked Trinidad, and the province of Caraccas,
by contract with the Spanish government ; and, in the years
1786 and 1788, the Havannah. The Philippine Company of
* From 1739 to 1744, it annually voted to the African Company
10,000/. sterling to pay their debts ; in 1744, the grant was doubled by
reason of the war with France and Spain.

328 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART i»
Spain, when invested with the privilege of importing slaves
into South America, employed, by contract, British vessels,
manned by British seamen. The re-exportation from the
British West Indies, for double profit, was so far encouraged,
that by the West India free port act of 1766, foreign vessels
were allowed to carry from the free ports, negroes imported in
British ships. England established a higher reputation than
any other power fbr skill in the management of the trade, and
in the choice and preparation of the articles of barter. Among
her chief exports to Africa were British spirits, rum and brandy,
guns, cutlasses, and ammunition. Of three millions of pounds
of gunpowder, which she exported in one year, one half was
sent to the West Coast alone ; and, as I have already had
occasion to remark, several thousand persons were exclusively
employed in Birmingham, in manufacturing guns for that
market. In a Report of the Board of Trade dated 1775, stress
is laid upon the necessity of encouraging the trade of fire-arms
to Africa.
England employed from one hundred and fifty to two hun
dred ships in the slave trade, and carried off, on the average,
forty thousand negroes annually; at times one half more, in
the year. In 1768, the number which she took from the coast
between Cape Blanco and the Rio Congo, reached 59,400,
more than double the share that fell to all the other traders.
Mr. Pitt said, in 1792, that Jamaica had imported one hundred
and fifty ihousand negroes in the course of twenty years,
and that this was admitted to be only one-tenth of the traffic.
Mr. Dundas said, on the same occasion, that, " in 1791, the
whole British importation consisted of 74,000, not less than
34,000 of which were exported for the service of foreign
nations." The Parliamentary Report of 1789, on the slave trade,
states, that the whole number of negroes brought to Jamaica
from the year 1655 to 1787, amounted to 676,276, of whom
31,181 died in the harbour, from the noxious quality qf the
drugs employed in making them up for sale. The Edinburgh
Review made the following statements in the years 1805 and
1806. " Before the American war, the Dutch used to carry, in
their own bottoms, from Africa to Guiana, ten thousand ne'
groes annually ; and it is proved, by papers laid before par
liament, but which, we believe, have not yet been printed,
that this importation was greatly increased during the last
war, when those possessions were in the hands of Great Bri
tain. It is certainly not over-rating its present amount, to

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 329
estimate the yearly supply of negroes carried to our conquered
colonies at fifteen thousand, — about one half the supply of
our own islands, which is the subject of the abolition ques
tion."* " The 38,000 slaves exported annually from Africa in British
vessels, are only in a small proportion destined for the use of
the colonies ; above 22,000 are stated by the friends of the trade
to be intended for the foreign settlements. To this must be
added a large number of slaves carried by British vessels under
cover of a neutral flag. From certain documents which we
have had an opportunity of consulting, we cannot estimate these
at less than 8000 ; and the supply of the conquered colonies
considerably exceeds 10,000 annually." f
Authority is to be found for much higher estimates than these.
I take the following from Anthony Benezet's Historical Account
ofthe Slave Trade.
" In a book printed in Liverpool, called, The Liverpool
Memorandum, which contains, amongst other things, an ac
count of the trade of that port, there is an exact list of the
vessels employed in the Guinea trade, and of the number of
slaves imported in each vessel ; by which it appears, that in
the year 1753, the number imported to America by one hun
dred and one vessels belonging to that port, amounted to up
wards of thirty thousand, and from the number of vessels em
ployed by the African company, in London and Bristol, we
may, with some degree of certainty, conclude, there are one
hundred thousand negroes purchased and brought on board
our ships yearly from the coast of Africa. This is confirmed in
Anderson's History of Trade and Commerce, lately printed ;
where it is said, " that England supplies her American colo
nies with negro slaves, amounting in number to above one
hundred thousand every year." When the vessels are full
freighted with slaves, they sail for our plantations in America,
and may be two or three months in the voyage, during which
time, from the filth and stench that is among them, distempers
frequently break out, which carry off commonly a fifth, a fourth,
yea sometimes a third or more of them: so that taking all the
slaves together, that are brought on board our ships yearly,
one may reasonably suppose that at least ten thousand of them
die on the voyage. And in a printed account of the state of
the negroes, in our plantations, it is supposed that a fourth
part more or less die at the different islands, in what is called

t No 13. t No. 16.
Vol. I.— T t

330 NEGRO SLAVERY AND f_PART I.
the seasoning. Hence it may be presumed, that at a moderate
computation of slaves who are purchased by our African mer
chants in a year, near thirty thousand die upon the voyage
and in the seasoning. Add to this, the prodigious number
who are killed in the incursions and intestine wars, by which
negroes procure the number of slaves wanted to load the
vessels." The Edinburgh Review has declared that England is the
nation which " had most extensively pursued and most solemnly
authorized the slave trade;" that she had been "principally
instrumental in barring out from benighted Africa the blessings
of Christianity and the comforts of civilization ;" that it is she
who had " checked or rather blasted in its bud the improve
ment of the African continent." The same strain is familiar in
the speeches of Fox and Wilberforce. The latter reminded
his countrymen, in 1814, in parliament, that they had enjoyed
the largest share of the guilty profits of the slave trade. Mr.
Pitt declared in 1792, that Parliament ought to consider
themselves as the authors of it. His more emphatical lan
guage of the year preceding is recorded by Clarkson — "The
truth is, there is no nation in Europe which has plunged so
deeply into this guilt as Britain. We stppped the natural pro
gress ef civilizatipn in Africa. We cut her off from the oppor-
tunity of improvement. We kept her down in a state of dark
ness, bondage, ignorance, and blpodshed. We have there sub
verted the whole order of nature; we have aggravated every
natural barbarity, and furnished to every man motives for com
mitting, under the name of trade, acts of perpetual hostility and
perfidy against his neighbour. Thus had the perversion of
British commerce carried misery instead of happiness to one
whole quarter of the globe. False to the very principles of
trade, unmindful of our duty, what almost irreparable mischief
had we done to that continent ! We had obtained as yet only
so much knowledge of its productions as to show, that there
was a capacity for trade, which we checked." That capacity
was, indeed checked, not incidentally alone, but directly ; for,
in order to obviate all obstruction to the slave trade, pains were
taken to prevent the Africans from cultivating, with success,
the staples of their soil, — cotton, tobaccp, sugar, and iudigo.
la this point, the English were, as in all others, pre-eminently
culpable, since the number of forts which they possessed along
the coast, with districts round each of them, afforded them
better means, than any other European nation possessed, of
giving the native a taste for agriculture and the true objects of
commerce.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 331
7. The general character ef the British slave trade has been
sp ppurtrayed by the highest and ablest men of the British
nation, that in describing it, I am supplied, in their language,
with the strongest which I could wish to employ. The suffi
ciency of the following testimony will hardly be questioned.
In the Debate on the Abolition in the year 1792, Mr. Wilber
force said, " that of all the trades that disgrace human beings,
this was the very worst. In others, hewever infamous, there
were traits of something like humanity, but in this there was a
total absence of them. It was a scene of uniform, unadulterated,
unsophisticated wickedness; never was there a system so big
with wickedness and cruelty." In the same debate, Mr. Beaufoy
said —
" Who does not recollect, that, by the evidence which the
slave merchants themselves have given at your bar, it appears,
that such, on board an African vessel, is the rate of mortality,
that if the march of death were the same in the werld at
large, the whole human race would be -extinguished in fourteen
years, and the earth itself be converted into one vast charnel
house. Shew me a crime of any sort, and in the slave trade I
will show you that crime in a state of tenfold aggravation.
Give me an instance of guilt atrocious and abhorred, and the
slave trade will exhibit instances of that guilt, more inveterate,
more strongly ropted in all, diffusing a more malignant poison,
and spreading a deeper horror. All other injustice, all other
modes of desolating nature, of blasting the happiness of man,
and defeating the purposes of God, lose, in comparison with
this, their very name and character of evil. Their taint is too
mild to disgust, their deformity is too slight to offend. The
shrieks of solitary murder ; what are they, when compared with
the sounds of horror that daily and nightly ascend from the
hatchway of the slave ship ! J have heard of the cruelties of
the Inquisitions of Pprtugal and Spain ; but what is their
scanty account of blood, when compared with that sweep of
death, that boundless desolation which accompanies the negro
traffic! Superstition has been called man's chief destroyer ;
but superstition herself is less obdurate, less persevering, less
steadfast in her cruelty, than this cool, reflecting, deliberate, re
morseless commerce."
In the debate of 1807, Sir Samuel Romiliysaid, " The cruelty
and injustice of the slave trade had been established beyond
a doubt. It had been shown to be carried on by rapine and
robbery and murder; by fomenting and encouraging wars; by
false accusations and imaginary crimes. The unhappy victims
were torn away not only in the rime of war, but of profound

332 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART U
peace. They were then carried across the Atlantic in a man
ner too horrible to describe, and afterwards subjected to per
petual slavery."
Lord Henry Petty said, " The slave trade produced in
Africa, fraud and violence, robbery and murder. It gave birth
to false accusations and a mockery of justice. It was the
parent of every crime that could at once degrade and afflict
the human race. After spreading vice and misery all over a
continent, it doomed its unhappy victims to hardships and
cruelties which were worse than death. Cruelty begat cruelty;
the system, wicked in its beginning, was equally so in its pro
gress," &c.
The tone of the Edinburgh Reviewers has been in unison
with that of the eloquent members of Parliament. They have
described the trade as " one long continuous crime involving
every possible definition of evil ; combining the wildest phy
sical suffering with the most atrocious moral depravity ;" as
one " which condemned a whole quarter of the world to un
ceasing and ferocious warfare; which annually exterminated
more than fell during the bloodiest campaign of European
hostility; which regularly transported every six months, in
circumstances of unparalleled affliction, more innocent persons
than suffer in a century from the oppression of all the tyran
nies in the world," In the 24th number of the Review, a
picture was presented so hideous and so faithful, that the re
collection of it would seem sufficient to have stayed any hand
from hazarding, in the same frame, a comparison between the
humanity of England and that of any other nation, in reference
to the sons of Africa.
" The history of the slave trade is the history of a war of
more than two centuries, waged by men against human na
ture; a war too, carried on, not by ignorance and barbarism
against knowledge and civilization ; not by half famished
multitudes against a race blessed with all the arts of life, and
softened and effeminated by luxury; but, as some strange non
descript in iniquity, waged by unprovoked strength against
uninjuring helplessness, and with all the powers which long
periods of security and equal law had enabled . the assailants
to develop, — in order to make barbarism more barbarous,
and to add to the want of political freedom the most dreadful
and debasing personal suffering. Thus all the effects and in
fluences of freedom were employed to enslave ; the gifts of
knowledge to prevent the possibility of illumination; and
powers, which could net have existed but in consequence of
morality and religion, to perpetuate tbe sensual vices, and to

SECT. XI.] SLAVE TRADE. 330
ward off the emancipating blow of Christianity ; and, as if this
were not enough, positive laws were added by the best and
freest nation of Christendom, and powers entrusted to the basest
part of its population, for purposes which would almost neces
sarily make the best men become the worst."
8. However strong these general representations, they are
more than confirmed, by the details of which the world had
the fullest proof. It was remarked with great truth by Mr.
William Smith in the debate of 1 792, in the House of Com
mons, that numberless facts had been related by eye witnesses,
to Parliament, so dreadfully atrocious, that the very magni
tude of the crimes rendered them incredible to others. I will
select some of the particular features in the character of the
trade, and a few of the single incidents, as they were related
in Parliament, upon such evidence as no longer to admit of
contradiction. Mr. Wilberforce said, " it was well known
that it was customary to set fire to whole villages in Africa,
for the purpose of throwing the inhabitants into confusion, and
taking thera as they fled from the flames. Every possible fraud
was put in practice to deceive the ignorance of the natives, by
false weights and measures, adulterated commodities, and other
impositions of the sort."
" On the windward coast an agent was sent to establish a
settlement in the inferior country, and to send down to the
ships such slaves as he might be able to obtain ; the orders he
received from his captain were a very model of conciseness
and perspicuity ; ' he was to encourage the chieftains, by brandy
and gunpowder, to go to war, and make slaves.' He punctually
performed his part, the chieftains were not backward on theirs :
the neighbouring villages were ransacked, being surrounded
and set on fire in the night ; their inhabitants were seized
when making their escape, and being brought to the agent,
were by him forwarded, men, women, and children, to his prin
cipal on the coast. Mr. How, a botanist, who, in the service
of government, visited that country with captain Thomson,
gave in evidence, that being at one of the subordinate settle
ments on the Gold Coast, on the arrival of an order for slaves
from Cape Coast Castle, the native chief immediately sent forth
his armed parties, who, in the night, brought in a supply of all
descriptions, and the necessary assortment was next day sent
off, according to the order. The wide extent of the African
coast furnished but one uniform detail of similar instances of
barbarity." " The exciting of wars," added the same speaker, " be-

334 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
tween neighbouring states, is almost the slightest of the evils
Africa is doomed to suffer from this trade. Still more into
lerable are those acts of outrage which we are continually sti
mulating the kings to commit on their own subjects. A
chieftain, to procure the articles for the gratificaticn nf appe
tites which we have diligently and top successfully taught them
to indulge, being too weak or too timid to attack his neighbours,
sends a party of soldiers by night to one of his own defence
less villages; they set fire to it, and hnrry the inhabitants to
the ships of the traders, who, hovering like vultures over these
scenes of carnage, are ever ready for their prey. We are per
petually told jf villages half consumed, and bearing every
mark of recent destruction. Whithersoever a man goes, be it
to the watering place or to the field, he is not safe. He can
never quit his house without fear of being carried off by fraud
or by force. When the chieftains are going up the country to
make war in order to procure slaves, they are supplied with
muskets and cutlasses by the traders."
Mr. Pitt said on the same occasion — " Can we hesitate in de
ciding whether the wars in Africa are their wars or ours. It
was our arms in the river Cameroon put into the hands ofthe
negro trader, that furnished him with the means of pushing his
trade, and I have no more doubt they are British arms put into
the hands of Africans, which promote universal war and deso
lation, than I can doubt of their having done so, in that indivi
dual instance."
Mr. Wilberforce related that in the year 1789, in the
neighbourhood of the river Cameroon, the master of a Liver-
pppl ship of the name of Bibby, fraudulently carried off thirty-
two relations of one of the chiefs of the country, who had been
put on board as pledges for goods : and to illustrate the fami
liarity of the practice, he quoted the following anecdote.
" When General Rooke commanded in his majesty's settle
ment at Goree, some ofthe subjects of a neighbouring king,
with whom he was on terms of amity, came to pay him a
friendly visit; there were from 100 to 150 of them, men, wo
men, and children ; all was gaiety and merriment, it was a
scene to gladden the saddest, and to soften the hardest
heart: but a slave captain, ever faithful to the interest of his
employers, is not so soon thrown off his guard ; with what
astonishment would the House hear, that in the midst of this
festivity, it was proposed to General Rooke to seize the whole
of this unsuspecting multitude, hurry them on board the ships,
and carry them off to the West Indies. It was not merely one
man, but, three, who were bold enough to venture on such a

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 335
proposal. Three English slave captains preferred it as their
joint request, alleging the precedent of a former governor, who
in a similar case had consented," &c.
One more of the numberless authenticated occurrences of
this nature will suffice. " Mr. Wilberforce said that these enor
mities were increasing ; for, no longer ago than last August,
(1791) when that House was debating on the subject of this
very trade, six British vessels had anchored off the town cf
Calabar, in Africa, a tnwn which seemed devoted tc misfortune.
It appeared from the report, that the natives had raised the
price of slaves. The captains consulting together, agreed to
fire on the town, to compel them to lower the price of their
countrymen. To heighten, if possible, the shame of this pro
ceeding, they were prevented for some time, from effecting their
purpose, by the presence of a French captain, who refused to
join in their measures, and purchased at the high price which
had been put upon the slaves."
" However, in the morning they commenced a fire which
lasted for three hours. During the consternation, the wretched
inhabitants were seen making their escape in every direction.
In the evening, the attack was renewed, which continued until
they agreed to sell their slaves at the price stipulated by the
captains. In this attack upwards of twenty persons were de
stroyed." The situation of the slaves on board ship, or what is com
monly called the middle passage, even surpassed in horror the
depravity and cruelty exhibited in the original acquisition. Lord
Grenville declared in 1806, in the House of Lords, "that in the
transports 'ion of the negroes, there was a greater portion of
misery condensed within a smaller space, than had ever existed
in the known world. This he had saidon a former occasion,
and would repeat." Mr. Fox observed, in the House of Com
mons, that acts of barbarity proved upon the slave captains in
course of the voyages, were se extravagant that they had been
attributed to insanity." The single instance ef the British ship
Zong, in 1781, from which the captain threw into the sea one
hundred and thirty-two slaves, alive, in order to defraud the
underwriters in England, gives a truly demoniac character to
the temper and conduct of the commanders of the slave ships.
The assertion of Lord Grenville, just quoted, would seem to be
warranted by the facts which were in undeniable evidence before
the committees of Parliament. With respect to the middle
passage — apart from the administration of the ship's officers,
still more barbarous, than the situation was deplorable, — the

336 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I
principal features of it are these, according to the testimony of
witnesses produced on the side of the trade.
Every slave, whatever his size might be, had only five feet six
inches in length, and sixteen inches in breadth, to lie in. The
floor was covered with bodies stowed or packed according to
this allowance. But between the floor and the deck or ceiling
were platforms, or broad shelves, in the midway, which were
covered with bodies also. The height from the floor to the ceil
ing, within which space the bodies on the floor and those on the
platforms lay, seldom exceeded five feet two inches, and in some
cases it did not exceed four feet.
The men were chained, two and two together, by their hands
and feet, and were chained also by means of ring-bolts, which
were fastened to the deck. They were confined in this manner
at least all the time they remained upon the coast, which was
from six weeks to six months, as it might happen. Their allow
ance consisted of one pint of water a day to each person, and
they were fed twice a day with yams and horse beans. In
struments were kept on board to force them to eat when
sulky. After meals they were jumped up in their irons for exercise.
This was so necessary for their health that they were whipped
if they refused to do it, and often danced thus under the lash.
They were usually fifteen or sixteen hours below deck out of
twenty-four. In rainy weather they could not be brought up
for two or three days together. If the ship was full, their
situation was then inexpressibly distressing. They drew their
breath with anxious and laborious efforts. Thus crammed to
gether some died of suffocation, and the filth and noisomeness
occasioned putrid and fatal disorders ; so that the officers who
inspected them in a morning, had occasionally to pick dead slaves
out of the rows, and unchain their carcases from the bodies of
their fellow-sufferers, to whom they were fastened.
The scenes and practices in the next stage of the sacrifice, —
the sale in the West India port, — rivalled those of the transporta
tion. The slaves who survived the passage, frequently arrived
in a sickly and disordered state, and then they were made up
for the market, by the means of astringents, washes, mercurial
ointments, and repelling drugs, so that their wounds and dis
eases might be hid. Many people in the islands, in Jamaica
particularly, were accustomed to speculate in the purchase of
those who were left after the first day's sale. They then carried
them out into the country and retailed them there. A most re
spectable witness declared that he had seen these landed in a

SECTION IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 337
very wretched state, sometimes in the agonies of death, and
sold as low as a dollar, and that he had known several to expire
in the piazzas of the vendue-master.
9. In the list, of the evils and atrocities accompanying this
trade, one of the most certain and shocking, was the extensive
mortality, independent of that inseparable from the wars and
devastations in Africa, to which it gave rise. We read in
Macpherson's Annals, that the whole number of negroes deli
vered, fell short of the number shipped, twenty or thirty per
cent. ; that in Jamaica, if fifteen out of twenty new negroes
bought, were alive at the end of three years, the purchaser was
thought very lucky. We are told by the Edinburgh Review
(No. 8) that upon an average no less than seventeen in an hun
dred died before they were landed, and that there was a further
loss of thirty-three in the seasoning, arising chiefly from diseases
contracted during the voyage. " Of the Africans," says Dr.
Dickson, in his Mitigation of Slavery, " above one-fourth pe
rished on the voyage to the West Indies ; and 4| per cent, more,
being nearly the annual mortality of London, died on an average,
in the fortnight intervening between the day of entry and sale.
Tp clpse this awful triumph ofthe king of terrors, between one-
third and eue-half> er about twp in five were lost in " the sea-
spning," within the three first years." The representations of
Mr. Wilberforce on this head were never invalidated, and are as
follows. " It would be found," he said, " upon an average of
all the ships, upon which evidence had been given, that, exclu
sively of such as perished before they sailed from Africa, not
less than twelve and a half per cent, died on their passage ; be
sides these, the Jamaica report stated, that four and a half per
cent, died while in the harbours, or on shore, before the day of
sale, which was only about the space of twelve or fourteen days
after their arrival there, and one-third more died in the seasoning,
and this in a climate exactly similar to their own, in which
they were acknowledged to be healthy. Thus out of every lot
of one hundred shipped from Africa, seventeen died in about
nine weeks, and not more than fifty lived io become effective
labourers in our islands."
Mr. Wilberforce adduced, on another occasion, upon the
authority of indisputable evidence, some cases of particular
mortality, of which I wil! transcribe his relation, because it
brings into view additional attributes of the trade.
" It was no longer ago than in the yenr 1788, that Mr.
Isaac Wilson, whose intelligent and candid -manner of giving
Vol. L— U v

338 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
his evidence, could not but impress the committee with a high
opinion of him, was doomed to witness scenes as deeply dis
tressing as almost ever occurred in the annals df the slave
trade." " His ship was a vessel of three hundred and seventy tons,
and she had on board six hundred and two slaves, a number
greater than we at present allow, but rather less, I think, than
what was asserted by the slave merchants to be necessary, in
order to carry on their trade to any tolerable profit. Out of
these six hundred and two she lost one hundred and fifty-five.
1 will mention the mortality also of three er four more vessels,
which were in company with her, and belonged to the same
owner. One of them brought four hundred and fifty, and bu
ried two hundred ; another brought four hundred and sixty-
six, and buried seventy-three ; another brought five hundred
and forty-six, and buried one hundred and eighty-eight : be
sides one hundred and fifty-five from his own ship, his num
ber being six hundred and two ; and from the whole four, after
the landing of their cargoes, there died two hundred aud
twenty. He fell in with another vessel, which lost three hun
dred and sixty-two: the number she had brought was not spe
cified. To these actual deaths, during and immediately after
the voyage, and the subsequent loss in what is called the sea
soning, I consider that this loss would be greater than ordinary
in cargoes landed in se sickly a state. Why, sir, were such
a mortality general, it would, in a few months, depopulate the
earth. We ask the surgeon the causes of these excessive
losses, particularly on board his own ship, where he had it
in his power to ascertain them. The substance of his reply
was, that most of the slaves appeared to labour under a fixed
dejection and malancholy, interrupted now and then by lamen
tations and plaintive songs, expressive of their concern for the
loss of their relations and friends and native country. So pow-
erfully did this operate, that many attempted various ways of
destroying themselves; some endeavoured to drown themselves,
and three actually effected it ; others obstinately xefused to
take sustenance, and when the whip and other violent means
were used to compel them to eat, they looked up in the face of
the officer, who unwillingly executed this painful task, and
said, in their own language, ' Presently we shall be no more.'
Their state of mind produced a general state of langour and
debility, which were increased, in many instances, by an un
conquerable abstinence from food, arising' partly from sickness,
partly, to use the language of slave captains, from « sulkiness.'

SECT IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 339
These causes naturally produced the dysentery; the contagion
spread, numbers were daily carried off, and the disorder,
aided by so many powerfnl auxiliaries, resisted all the force of
medicine. " The ship in which Mr. Claxton, the surgeon, sailed, since
the regulating act, afforded a repetition of all the same horrid
circumstances I have before alluded to. Suicide, various ways,
was attempted and effected, and the same barbarous expedi
ents were resorted to, in order to compel them to continue
an existence too painful to be endured : the mortality also was
as great."
10. Bryan Edwards, in his History of the West Indies,*
computes the total import of negroes, in British vessels, into
all the British colonies of America and the West Indies, from
1680 to 1786, at 2,130,000, being on an average of the whole,
20,095 annually. He acknowledges that this estimate " is
much less than is commonly supposed," and that he had not
" sufficient materials to enable him to furnish an accurate state
ment." There can be no doubt that he is far short of the real
number. It is calculated, as we have seen, by Anderson,
that the annual British export from Africa was one hundred
thousand, and the annual mortality twenty thousand. Mr. Long
confesses, in his History of Jamaica, that twenty-seven thou
sand were imported into that island in two years and an half;
and Mr. Edwards puts down the Jamaica importation at one-
third of the whole. The Dutch colonies of Demerara, Guiana,
and Berbice fell into the hands of Great Britain in 1797 ; and
immediately called for a great number of negroes, having
been prevented from supplying themselves during the war.
It is averred in the Edinburgh Review (No. 24) that the British
slave trade then rose to fifty-seven thousand, aud continued at
that standard for eight years; that is, until 1805, when the
importation into the Dutch colonies was terminated by an order
in council, to appease the jealousies and clamours in the old
islands. Taking the data which the statements quoted in the preceding-
pages afford, I should not certainly transcend the mark, if I
added ten thousand to the average of Edwards. If we state it,
in round numbers, at thirty thousand, we shall have, for the one
hundred and six years, three millions one hundred and eighteen
thousand negroes imported into the British possessiens alone.
But to have the whole number which Great Britain obtained
* B. IV. c. 2.

340 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
from Africa, we must bring into the account those whom she
procured antecedent to the year 1680, and after the year 1786;
those whom she imported directly into the foreign possessions,
under the contracts, and otherwise ; and also, those who perish
ed on her hands on the coast of Africa, and in the transportation.
The aggregate of her immediate prey must have exceeded six
millions, and we may rate the direct mortality for which she is
answerable, at two millions, for the century of the trade pre
ceding the abolition.* If we call to mind, besides, the general
physical suffering undergone by the survivors, before they
reached their ultimate, most calamitous lot ; fhe mental agony
implied in their divulsion from their native soil and the bonds
of kindred and friendship; we must stand aghast at the account
pf crime which remained open against the British nation at
the time of the abolition. In addition to the items mentioued,
those are ot no small moment which are suggested in Mr. Pitt's
apostrophe to the House of Commons. " Do you think nothing
ofthe ruin and the miseries in which so many other individuals,
still remaining in Africa, are involved, in consequence of
carrying off so many myriads of people ? Do you think nothing
of their families which are left behind ; of the connexions
which are broken ; of the friendships, attachments, and re
lationships that are burst asunder? Do you think nothing of
the miseries, in consequence, that are felt from generation to
generation, of the privation of that happiness which might be
communicated to them by the introduction of civilization, and
of mental and moral improvement ?"
From the foregoing exposition, it may be asserted, with
confidence, that the British slave trade caused immediately,
during the two centuries of its legal prosecution, the destruc
tion of more negroes than have existed, altogether, in North
America, since the first settlement. The leaders of the aboli
tion, the Pitts, the Foxes, the Horsleys, did not hesitate to
bestow upon that destruction the most fearful of epithets.
" What is it," exclaimed Lord Grenville, " but murder to

t This is much below the calculation of her own writers. " The
number," says one of these, " of slaves which the ships professes to take
is not an exact criterion of the number actually taken. The public num
ber does not include the quota, allowed to the respective officers of the
ship; nor do the owuers confine themselves to any exact number, if,
on the arrival of the ship in Africa, the commodity is cheaper than they
expected." For obvious reasons, the moitality of the negroes in the
transportation would not be disclosed in all its extent. The number
smuggled by the British into the Spanish possessions, while they enjoyed
;the assiento, was not inconsiderable.

6ECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 341
pursue a practice which produced annually untimely death to
thousands of innocent and helpless beings !" Now, I would
ask, which it is, the Briton or the American, that can, with
most propriety, be stigmatized, nationally, as " a murderer
of slaves ?"
If we admitted as true all that the British writers have related
ofthe condition and treatment ofthe slaves in this country, we
could yet defy them to make out an amount of injustice, and
suffering, and cruelty, in any way equal to that which they have
charged and proved upon their African trade. In portentous
individual instances of inhuman conduct, whether as to enor
mity or multitude, that trade far outstrips the North American
negro slavery ; the history of which presents, indeed, no authen
ticated case of barbarity which does not appear almost venial,
in the comparison with the monstrous proceedings consigned in
the parliamentary minutes of evidence.
11. The thirst of gain and the ambition of commercial su
premacy, which engaged and animated the British people and
government in this detestable traffic, inspired them with the aim
of monopolizing every market for human flesh. The cargo of
negroes was carried with equal readiness to Caraccas or to Ja
maica, to Pennsylvania or to Guiana. No discrimination was
made as to the character of the masters to whose absolute will
they were to be consigned, or to the nature of the climate or
the toil, which they were to undergo. The French and the
Spaniards had, like ourselves, their full share of obloquy from
the English traveller, on account of the severity of their rule
over the very slaves whom the English trader had sold to them ;
and the French and Spanish character stood degraded, on the
same account, in elaborate contrasts with the British, when the
French and Spanish ports were crowded with British slave
ships, and the British ministers struggling for the prolongation
ofthe Assiento-contract.
Doubtless^ Great Britain was answerable for the fate of the
whole number of beings whom she delivered over to perpetual
bondage in this hemisphere ; knowing the temper and habits
of the Spanish and French planters, she partook in the guilt
of their excesses of cruelty towards the slaves whom they had
received from her ships. In the case of the slavery in her
own islands she was more than an accessary; and it could
not be surpassed in hardship and inhumanity. That in the
Spanish and French, or even the Dutch possessions, was not
worse; and in the American provinces universally acknow
ledged to be much more mild. While every where in the

342 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I
latter, there was an excess of births over deaths among the
negroes, and in some, a rapidity of increase ; in the British West
Indies, the whole stock required renewal in less than fifteen
years.* I had intended to copy from the parliamentary statements
some ofthe facts illustrative of this additional waste ofthe hu
man species, and of the condition and treatment of the negroes,
under British dominion ; but I have already dealt in details
of this nature, as much as is compatible with my limits, and
the tenderness due to the feelings of my readers. It is enough
to refer to the debates in the British parliament on the abolition,
and on the slave registry bills. The tone of the British wri
ters has often been such on these subjects, as if they considered
the conscience of England clear with respect to the slave
trade and to slavery, because these were unknown in her own
immediate territory. This miserable casuistry was noticed in
Parliament in the year 1792, in the following pointed and just
remarks. Mr. Robert Thornton said, — " the people of England were
called a humane set of people. Liberty was the boast of our
island ; and it was said, that no African was landed on our soil,
who did not instantly become free. They were guilty, however,
of a contradiction, as long as they sent those miserable wretches
elsewhere into slavery ; they were governed by a selfish prin
ciple ; they could send these wretches out of their sight to be
vilified, and disgraced, and scourged, but they did not them
selves, like to witness their cries, their tears, and all their degra
dation. He recollected an old motto, ' Qui facit per alium,
facit per se.' "
Neither the Parliament nor nation could, at any time, plead
ignorance of the character of the trade, and of West India
slavery. The collections of early voyages ; the reports of tra-

* " According to Sir Isaac. Newton," says Dr. Dickson, " mankind die
off, and are renewed every thirty-three or thirty-four years. But the
slaves collectively, bought and bred, die off, and are renewed, in about
fifteen years ; and therefore more than twice as fast as the rest ofthe spe
cies; and the bought alone more tha.n four or five times as fast." When
the whole number of slaves in the British West India Islands was com
puted at 265,666, the annual consumption of them was estimated at 23,743.
Mr. Malthus remarks in the Appendix to his Essay on population, that
if the slaves in the West Indies had been only in a tolerable condition; if-
their civil condition and moral habits had been made only to approach to
those which prevail among the mass ofthe human race in the worst go
verned countries in the world, it is contrary to the general laws of nature
to suppose, that they would not have been able by procreation fully to
supply the effective demand for labour.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 343
vellers ; the mutual, printed accusations of the Royal African
Company, and the private adventurers ; the inevitable notoriety
of facts where considerable cities were almost entirely devoted
to the traffic: the constant intercourse with the West Indies,
through all ranks of life ; the solemn admonitions ofthe writers
whom Clarkson has cited; the insurance cases which were
brought into the courts of justice; — preclude the charitable
supposition that mercy, and justice, and honour were unconsci
ously trampled upon in the race ef commercial competition. Mr.
Wilberforce, after displaying, in his speech of 1792, the enor
mities of which I have mentioned a small part, added, " nor
do we learn these transactions only from our own witnesses ;
they are proved by the testimony of slave-factors themselves,
whose works were written and published long before the pre
sent enquiry."
I have observed that, until the year 1786, no society was
formed among any description of persons in England, which
had for its object the abolition of the trade. The callousness
of the government too is almost inconceivable. Clarkson re
lates that Granville Sharp communicated all the facts ef the
hideeus case of captain Zong, with a copy of the trial to the
Lords of the Admiralty, as the guardians of justice upon the
seas, and to the duke of Portland, as principal minister of
state ; but that no notice was taken by any of them, of the in
formation thus imparted. When the Quakers presented, in
1783, their petition to Parliament against the slave trade,—
the first of that purport ever presented, — Lord North admitted,
in the House of Commons, the grievousuess of the evil, and
only " regretted that the trade against which the petition
was so justly directed, was, in a commercial view, become
necessary to almost every nation in Europe." In 1776, the
estimable David Hartley, after exposing to the House of Com
mons, the abominations ofthe slave trade, and laying on the
table of the House some of the fetters and other instruments
of torture employed on board of the slave ships, made a
motion " that the slave trade was contrary to the laws of God
and the rights of man." This motion was seconded by the
patriot and philanthropist, Sir George Saville, who lives so
brilliantly in the splendid eulogy of Burke ; and yet it failed
utterly. The proceedings of the Commons the year following
(1777) on the state of the African Company, are remarkable
on account of the tone which prevailed in the discussion. It
was such, as if the trade were not only unimpeached, but unim
peachable. Nothing betrayed the business to be considered
in, any other light than as an ordinary one, except, perhaps,

344 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
the following remarks of Mr. Temple Luttrell, who had the
charge of unfolding the case of the Company and the interests
of the trade. " Some gentlemen may, indeed, object to the
slave trade as inhuman aud impious, but, hard as the case of
a negro slave may appear to a free born Briton at first view,
I conceive him to be far less an object of commisseration, (his
native state and local birthright being taken into the comparison,)
than a poor impressed sailor within this island," &c. Another
extract from the speech of Mr. Luttrell, which passed without
animadversion, will show the prevailing temper and policy
on the subject; — how coolly and nicely the comparative value
of human flesh was calculated in an assembly of " free-born
Britons." " In the slave trade also, there might be prodigious improve
ments ; but the attention of the Board of Trade and plantations
' in this matter has been too much limited ; the negroes from the
gold coast, suit our West India islands remarkably well ; they
are laborious, bold, hardy, and live upon little besides salt fish
and roots, which they meet with in Jamaica. The negroes
from Congo, Angola, and the lower Guinea, are of a more soft,
voluptuous, and effeminate nature, and their women chiefly till
the ground ; so that upon being transplanted to the hardships of
our sugar colonies, they commit suicide rather than endure
them ; hence it is that one Gold Ceast negro is worth, for sugar
plantations, two of the others; but in North America, where
they meet with food and entertainment, and usage better
adapted to their habits, they do perfectly well."
12. At length, iu 1787, through the indefatigable exertions
of a few humane individuals in the middle ranks of life, the
enormities of the slave system, in all its stages, were forced
upon the attention of the government and nation. A member
of parliament of great personal consideration, took up the
subject of abolition with the zeal of an apostle, and the reso
lution of a martyr. He announced his intention to summon
the government to the performance of its duty ; and at once a
din of protestation and fierce defiance arose from every quar
ter. The slave trade, says Clarkson, appeared, like the fabu
lous hydra, to have a hundred heads ; the merchant, the plan
ter, the mortgagee, the manufacturer, the politician, the leglis-
lator, the cabinet minister, lifted up their voices against its
annihilation." The humanity and patriotism of Mr. Pitt, Mr.
Fox, and of some other distinguished orators of parliament,
were, however, enlisted with Wilberforce; and no inconsider
able number of auxiliaries had been gained throughout the

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 345
country, by the diffusion of the tracts of Benezet, Sharp, and
Clarkson ; of pathetic songs, and moving pictures, and what
ever could vivify public feeling and excite national shame.
Among the higher classes, little real progress would seem to
have been made ; since, according fo Clarkson, most of the
persons of rank and fortune in the west end of the metropolis,
were converts to a pamphlet from the pen of a Liverpool cham
pion, entitled, " Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the
Slave Trade," in which the holiness of the trade was stoutly
maintained. In 1788, when a sufficiently marked excitement had been
produced in the country, and the imposing shape of evidence
before the Privy Council given to facts, a bill was brought into
the House of Commons for the mere regulation of the trade, so
as to diminish the miseries ofthe middle passage. At this day,
it is scarcely credible what resistance was made, both in doors
and out, to this bill, which common humanity seemed to exact;
what dilution it underwent in its progress; and how narrowly
it escaped extinction, notwithstanding the earnest support ofthe
minister, and a phalanx of the ablest rhetoricians who have ever
existed. It was bandied several times in new forms, between
the two houses, and at length passed the Lords, through an
ordeal, says Clarkson, as it were of fire. He adds, that it was
" the first bill which ever put fetters upon tbe destructive
monster — the slave trade ;" but the fact soon transpired, that it
missed its aim, and was interpreted by the slave merchants into
an additional charter, or recognition of their pursuit as a lawful
branch of commerce,
In 1789, Mr. Wilberforce ventured to lay upon the table of
the House of Commons, as subjects for future discussion, twelve
historical propositions founded upon the evidence in the case of
the slave trade, reported by the privy council. Matters were
not ripe fbr the proposal of abolition to parliament, until 1791,
when Mr. Wilberforce made his first grand motion to that effect.
After a vehement and protracted debate, in which the leaders
of the cause exerted their utmost ability, it was lost by a con
siderable majority. For the opinion to be entertained of this
result, 1 need only refer to the language of Mr. Fox and the
Edinburgh Review. Mr. Fox said, in the debate, that " the
trade was defensible upon no other ground than that of a high
wayman ; and that if the house, knowing as they did by the
evidence what it was, did not by their vote mark to all mankind
their abhorrence of a practice so savage, so enormous, so repug
nant to all laws human and divine, they would consign their
character to eternal infamy." The Edinburgh Review nas told
Vol. I.— Xx

346 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
us, that " the question of the slave trade was always one in
which interest, or an apprehension of interest, stood more dar
ingly and nakedly opposed to humanity and justice, than any
other' on record." Certainly, never was a question of such
awful import so treated as this was, by the numerous advocates
of the slave trade in Parliament. On the occasion just men
tioned, Mr. Grosvenor said, " that gentlemen had exhibited a
great deal of eloquence in exhibiting in horrid colours the traffic
in slaves. He acknowledged it was not an amiable trade; but
neither was the trade of a butcher an amiable trade ; and yet a
mutton chop was, nevertheless, a good thing." *
Another and equally strenuous effort was made, the ensuing
year, in the House of Commons, by the abolitionists. The
house rejected the proposition of Mr. Wilberforce, but mani
fested a disposition to vote a gradual abolition. So much, after
the admissions extorted by the testimony, from the leaders of
the majority, and with the prospect of an effervescence of public
sentiment from the cogent arguments and eloquent pictures of
the speakers in the affirmative, could not, in decency or policy,
be refused. Mr. Pitt, who, on this occasion, put forth all the
energies and beauties of his unrivalled oratory, afterwards ex
pressed himself in his place, in these terms: — " 1 feel the infamy
of the trade so heavily, and see the impolicy of it so clearly,
that I am ashamed 1 have not been able to convince the house
to abandon it altogether at an instant — to pronounce with one
voice the immediate and total abolition. There is no excuse
for us, seeing this infernal traffic as we do. It is the very death
of justice to utter a syllable in support of it."
Mr. Dundas, one of the antagonists of immediate abolition,
in a short time, brought in a bill for a gradual one, with some
singular additions. He proposed that, for the future, none but
young persons should be allowed to be taken from Africa, and
that a bounty should be given upon the importation of young
negresses into the West Indies. On this latter point, Mr. Fox,
in his overwhelming answer to Mr. Dundas, bore with particular
severity. — " A right honourable gentleman proposes a bounty
on the importation of females, or, in other words, he proposes
to make tip the deficiency in the proportion of sexes, by offering

* In the final debate in the House of Lords, in 1807, Earl St. Vincent
said — "He was surprised at the proposition of abolition before the house,
and considering the high character and intelligence of the noble pro
poser, Lord Grenville, he declared he could account in no other way for
his having brought it forward, but by supposing that some Obiman had
cast his spell upon him '." ( A laugh)

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 347
a premium to any crew of unprincipled and savage ruffians,
who will attack and carry off any of the females of Africa ! — a
bounty from the Parliament qf Great Britain, that shall make
the fortune of any man, or set of men, who shall kidnap or steal
any unfortunate females from that continent ! who shall bring
them over as slaves, in order that they may be used for breed
ing slaves !" In the course of the debate, Mr. Dundas declared
that these United States would, if Great Britain abandoned the
slave trade, purvey for the West Indies ; and he added — " Is
it to be imagined that the Americans are so favorably disposed
towards this country, as to resist the temptation of forming so
valuable a connexion with our colonies? A connexion once
begun by supplying them with negroes would not end there ;
and we might lose the West Indies without accomplishing our
object." Mr. Fox replied, that he icas not so much alarmed by the
possibility of the British Islands getting into habits qf inti
macy with foreigners. Though the apprehension of Mr. Dundas
concerning our assumption of the British slave trade has, no
doubt, vanished from the minds of his successors in office, we
may suspect, that the alarm at the possible consequences of an
intimacy between these States and the West Indies, is one ofthe
motives ofthe present rigorous system of commercial exclusion.
The Commons voted a gradual abolition, and the Lords re
fused to concur. The next year, 1793, the former refused to
renew their vote, and rejected a motion of Mr. Wilberforce, to
abolish that part of the British trade by which the British mer
chants supplied foreigners with slaves. This motion, however,
being revived in 1794, was finally carried in a very thin house :
but lost with the Peers by a majority of forty-five to four. I
need not recite the annual and fruitless attempts of the abolition
ists between this period and the year 1807, when they finally
succeeded. The degree of merit for the interval, to which the
Parliament and nation are entitled, may be collected from the
following passage of the Edinburgh Review.*
" The vast and general sensation produced by the first de
velopment of the horrible traffic in human flesh, speedily gave
place to a much more sober and partial sentiment of reproba
tion; no small difficulty was experienced in attracting the at
tention of the public to the discussion for many years ; it was
pretty uniformly debated among empty benches, in those august
assemblies, whose icalls can scarce contain their crowds, when

* No, 47.

348 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART U
a person qf honour is to be attacked, or a female qf easy virtue
is to give evidence."
The degree of success obtained at any time with the public,
and the final triumph of the question, were owing in no small
measure to considerations of expediency. It was found impor
tant to give quile as extensive a circulation to Clarkson's Essay
on the Impolicy of the Slave Trade, as to the pamphlets on its
criminality, and the abstracts of the evidence respecting i(s un
paralleled barbarities. In Parliament, the abolitionists laboured
mainly to prove, that instead of being advantageous to Great
Britain, it was most destructive to her interests ; was the ruin of
her seamen; prevented the extension of her manufactures; was
no longer necessary for the maintenance of the due number of
labourers in the West Indies; that a much more lucrative in
tercourse with Africa might be substituted for it ; that the other
powers of the world would either relinquish it, or be unable
to carry it on, so that all would remain upon a footing, &c.
Mr. Wilberforce, in his first speech, admitting, for argument's
sake, that " the rivals of Britain — the French," might take it
up, asked, " Would they not then be obliged to come to us,
in consequence of the cheapness of our manufactures, for what
they wanted for the African market?" We find the Edin
burgh Reviewers rebuking the great abolitionist, in their 47th
number, for talking, in his printed letter to M. Talleyrand,
ofthe great sacrifice which England had made in the abolition,
after he and all his coadjutors had uniformly, and so effica
ciously, pleaded the mischievousness of the traffic to her,
whether as a nursery for seamen, or a channel for the employ
ment of capital.
In the final debate of 1807, ou the abolition, Mr. Whitbread,
one of its most zealous advocates, said — " It was complained
that too much feeling and too much passion bad been carried
into this discussion. He complained on the contrary, that it
had been madeloo little a question of feeling, and that it had
been made almost entirely a matter of cold calculations of
profit and loss between English money and African blood."
Lord Castlereagh, indeed, did, in his first interview with the
Emperor of Runia, on the subject of general abolition, expa
tiate upon what the British Parliament had done in spite ofthe
suggestions qf national interest ;* but, in the general confer
ences on the same subject, at Vienna, " Lord Castlereagh," says
the protocol of the sitting of 20th January, 1815, " communi-
* See Letter of Lord Castlereagh to Earl Balhurst, dated Vienna, Jan
uary 2d, 1815, among the papers laid before Parliament, April, 1815.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 349
cated authentic documents to prove that the affair in question,
the interest of the powers of Europe went hand in hand with
their duty ; that the abolition was particularly for the real ad
vantage, and even indispensable for the security, ofthe colonial
countries,"* &c.
On all hands, there must be an immediate concurrence in
the general allegation of the Edinburgh Review, that " for the
long space of twenty years, Mr. Pitt could persuade about
three-fourths ofthe members of Parliament to adopt any scheme
of finance, or of external policy which he choose to counte
nance, but did never once prevail against the slave trade and
consignees of sugar in Bristol and Liverpool."f The Reviewers
have made this failure, considered in connexion with the prompt
success of the Fox administration, the ground of a most atroci
ous charge against the memory of Mr. Pitt — that he was not
sincere in the cause of abolition, as a minister, although he
might have been as a man. The distinction would not save him,
if this were true, from being regarded as the vilest of hypo
crites, nor the genius of the British government from appearing
as the most entirely artificial and selfish ever known. The
strain of Mr. Pitt's speeches absolves him, however ; and Clark
son has borne the strongest testimony to his good faith. His
colleague in the ministry, particularly the lord chancellor,
Thurlow, exerted themselves indefatigably, in opposition to the
measure, and weakened the impression of his station. The
stigma does not attach to him, but to the Parliament, if he
could make a majority in such a case; if he could bring them
to act properly on a question the most important for humanity,
and the reputation of the British name, only by using his in
fluence as minister ; that is, as the head of a party, and the
dispenser of place and patronage. There is another question
which neither Mr. Pitt nor Mr. Fox could have carried through
both houses of Parliament, even as ministers — that of catholic
emancipation ; and the reader will remark that it is alone on two
points of this description, in which the freedom of millions was
involved, ministerial influence has been found ineffectual in the
British legislature.
In the course of the present parliamentary session, (1819)
Mr. William Smith of Norwich — to whom the cause of aboli
tion is as much indebted as to any other parliamentary advo
cate, except Mr. Wilberforce — stated to the House of Commons,
that even at last in 1807, after the twenty years discussion, is

t Pieces Officielles de Schoell. vol vii. t No. 24.

350 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
required all the efforts of almost every member of that house,
who had any title to the character of an orator or a statesman,
to carry the act through the Parliament. In fact, in the final
debates, the justice and humanity of the trade were maintained
as boldly as they ever had been ; arguments of counsel were
heard at the bar, and petitions received, against the abolition ;
Lord Castlereagh, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Hawkesbury, Lord
Eldon, Lord Westmorland, Mr. Rose, Mr. Bathurst, spoke in
opposition. These were the men who, immediately after the
abolition became a law, took the place of its patrons in the
o-overnment. Clarkson remarks, that though the bill had now
passed both houses, " there was an awful fear Jest it should not
receive the royal assent, before the Grenville ministry was dis
solved." This awful fear was founded upon the conviction that,
with a ministry adverse to the measure, no parliament could be
found to adopt it at the instigation of a member out of office.
There is nothing, therefore, forced, or illiberal, in the conclu
sion, that it was a general party movement ; an act of subser
viency in the old routine to the wiil of an administration firmly
united and inextricably entangled in the object ; that had that
ministry been dissolved before the royal assent was given, the
slave traffic would be at this day a lawful branch of British
commerce.* As the case was, seventeen years had elapsed
since superabundant, irrefragable evidence of the history and
character of the traffic was officially before Parliament : within
that interval it had been allowed to flourish on au enlarged
scale. Sir Samuel Romilly told the House of Commons, in
1806, that " since the year 1796, no less than three hundred
ahd sixty thousand Africans had been torn away, under the
continued sanction of Parliament, from their native land."
This estimate is certainly too low, for the annual exportation
of the British, according to the Edinburgh Review, rose to
57,000, after the acquisition of the Dutch colonies in 1797.
The Report of the African Institution for the present year
* The following extract from the debate of the House of Commons of
June 27th, 1814, will shew thatl am not alone in this conjecture.
" Mr- Phillips said — •
•' I cannot forget that the public voice had been raised even more loudly
against the slave trade before the administration of Mr. Fox, than during
its brief existence; and to such a degree I do think the gratitude of the
friends ofjustice and humanity due to that short-lived and much misre
presented administration, that I do in my conscience believe, but for them,
the British slave trade would at this moment have been continued to the dis
grace of the country, to the outrage of public feeling, and in violation of
every principle of policy, justice and humanity.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 351
(1819), states the average at 55,000, and admits that the num
ber taken from Africa in 1806 and 1807, in the prospect of the
approaching abolition ofthe trade, was very considerable.
From the period when Mr. Pitt declared to Parliament that
they had examined sufficiently into the nature of the trade to
enable them to decide, and must be now convinced of its cruelty
and injustice, until the date of the cessation of importation into
the British colonies, the number of rtegroes carried into slavery
by the British merchants, with the authority of the nation,
could not have been less than one-third of the whole number
now existing in the United States.
13. My readers may already understand, that the British
abolition is not quite so abundantly creditable, as to render it
an adequate foundation for invidious reflections on the United
States. But I will suppose that the motives were altogether pure
and magnanimous; that it was the immediate fruit of Chris
tian conviction ; — a national act of contrition and atonement.
The questions then arise, — was it in itself a sufficient repara
tion for the wrongs done to Africa ? and if not, has Great
Britain performed her utmost to make full amends? The ad
vocates of the abolition admitted universally, what all must
perceive, that by it she had merely stopped the increase of her
vast debt to that continent and to humanity ; that she was
bound to go further ; to rectify the condition of the negroes
within her dominions, and, if possible, to withdraw all the other
nations from tbe slave trade. Every one saw that unless her
example were imitated by the slave-dealing powers of Europe,
her proceeding, however useful to her own commerce and cha
racter, would be productive, comparatively, of little advantage
to Africa, and followed by an extensive clandestine trade in her
own dependencies.
Reviewing the statements of those who brought about the
abolition, respecting the immensity of the crime she had com
mitted, and the misery and mischief she had caused ; and on the
other hand, the estimates made by the anti-abolitionists, of the
vast emolument and general advantages which she had gained,
in the prosecution of the trade, closet-moralists thought it in
cumbent upon her, to interpose her whole strength in favour of
the region she had so long desolated, and of the portion of its
offspring within the limits of her empire, in any way that might
be found necessary to give efficacy to her intervention, and at
any risk. For the sake of an addition to her revenue, she had
hazarded and incurred the loss of thirteen flourishing colonies ;
for the acquisition of slips of territory in America, and of sugar

352 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I,
islands filled with black slaves, — for points of honour and mari
time prerogative ; for security from possible dangers,— she had
waged long and destructive wars. She might, then, to make
her atonement for the enormity and havoc ofthe slave trade, in
some degree commensurate with her guilt — to prevent the con
tinuance of a system subversive of the law of natiens, and of
the principles of Christianity ; superlatively baneful and immo
ral, — she might, if no other means would suffice, unsheath her
sword, and be assured in so doing of the favour ofthe God of
battles,, and of all the friends of humanity and justice on earth.
On such an occasion it became her, when convinced of the fu
tility cf every other expedient, to exert her maritime superiority,
regardless of all forms and obstacles — a course of proceeding
not without precedent in her history.
At the period of her abolition, France and Spain being at
war with her, had long been cut off from the trade. The
only power engaged in the prosecution of it, was Portugal,
whose government depended upon her for its existence.
Scarcely a year elapsed, when Spain returned to a state
of amity with her, under such circumstances, as rendered
it impossible she should be refused any boon she might be
pleased to ask. But 1 will leave it to an English writer to
explain the nature of the conjuncture, and to state the result.
1 find the following exposition in a remarkable work published
the last year (1818) in London, and entitled, " A View of the
present Increase ofthe Slave Trade, by Robert Thorpe, L. L. D.
late Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, and Judge ofthe Vice Ad
miralty Court in that Colony."
" At the moment England abolished the slave trade, all Eu«
rope was most favourably circumstanced to ensure an univer
sal abolition. The royal family of Spain threw themselves
into the arms of France, and were handed to a prison. The
royal family of Portugal sought the protection of England, and
were safely conveyed to tlieir Brasil dominions. We only
wanted the co-operation of these powers to establish a perfect
abolition; we upheld them as kingdoms; we had aright to
insist on their abolishing the slave trade; every principle of
justice and humanity called for such a demand, while the po
licy and professions of this nation should have made compli
ance necessary. Such a requisition could not have been con
sidered as interfering with the independence of those govern
ments, nor with the rights of their subjects. Independence is
not comprised in a power to enslave, nor do the lawful rights of
any people consist in their ability to invade the natural rights
of man. While England was exhausting her blood and treasure

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 353
in defence of the liberty of Spain and Portugal, she was not
warrantable in diminishing the resources of her wealth, to ex
tend the cruelty of their commerce ; but the most fortunate coin
cidence was criminally neglected."*
Nothing can be more just than all this representation. Every
one acquainted with the history of the era of Buonaparte's in
vasion of the Peninsula, must be convinced, that it was in the
power of England, to extort from Portugal and Spain the abo
lition of their slave trade. " It would have been," said Mr.
Canning, palliating the omission in the House of Commons,
" unwise to have taken a high tone with them in the day of
their distress; a strong remonstrance on this subject would
have gone with too much of authority, and have appeared
insulting."f So fastidious a delicacy, where the object was,
according to the British theory, of immeasurable importance
to the repose of the national conscience, and to humanity !
The day of the absolute dependence of those powers upon
England, was the only day in which there was any likelihood
ofthe accomplishment of that object with them, aud a strong
remonstrance against the prosecution of a system so exorbi
tantly wicked and pernicious, could not in itself have worn
the air of insult, but would rather have appeared an act of
noble friendship and resolute philanthropy. With the lives and
happiness of millions of Africans, and all the other momen
tous considerations attached to the extinguishment ofthe slave
trade, at stake, fhe opportunity was to be improved determin-
ately, though at a greater cost than a little violence done to
perverted feelings, and the excitement of an impotent discon
tent. If Spain and Portugal could be induced to comply at
once, then, as no lawful trade in slaves would exist during the
war, Great Britain ruling the seas, and exercising the belliger
ent right, of search, might repress all illicit trade, and take
much more effectual precautions against its revival in any shape.
In this point of view, the opportunity seemed doubly precious,
and irretrievable.
The coincidence was, to repeat the language of Dr. Thorpe,
" criminally neglected." The British abolition took the cha
racter of a division of the British share of the trade between
foreign powers, and a number of British subjects upon whom
the act of Parliament would not serve as a restraint. The
anti -abolitionists predicted this, and contributed to the fulfil
ment ofthe prediction. Portugal was left at liberty to supphy
not only her own dependencies, but those of Spain ; and to the
* Page 24. t Debate on the Treatv of 1814.
Vol. I.— Yy

354 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
latter, cargoes were incessantly carried under the Portuguese
flag, until at length the British cruizers were authorized to
bring in for adjudication, such Portuguese ships as might be
found carrying slaves, to places not subject to the crown of
Portugal. It was discovered, within the year after the ter
mination by law of the British exportation, that the trade
itself had not suffered the least abatement ; but, on the con
trary, was plied with greater activity, to a greater extent, and
with aggravated barbarity, under the Spanish, Swedish, and
Portuguese flags. " The slave trade," says the report, dated
1810, of the commissioners of African inquiry, " is at pre
sent carried on to a vast extent. By the autumn of 1809,
the coast of Africa swarmed with contraband vessels; and it
was not until the arrival of a small squadron of his majesty's
vessels, early the next year (1810!) that any interruption could
be given to their proceedings." In 1810, Great Britain concluded
a treaty with Portugal, by which she secured to herself great
commercial advantages, and consented that Portugal should
carry on the trade in slaves from the African dominion (claimed
or in possession) of the Portuguese crown, precisely the great
marts of the trade — Portugal announcing, at the same time,
with what sincerity will soon be seen, her resolution to co
operate with his Britannic majesty in the cause of humanity
and justice, &c.
To display the efficacy of the British abolition for the first
years, I will here make a few extracts from the Reports of the
London African institution — a society which boasts of the most
illustrious names, and is the centre of information respecting
African affairs.
" Circumstances," says the Report of 1809, " have come
to the knowledge of the directors of this institution, which
leave them no room to doubt that means are at this moment
employed by persons formerly engaged in the slave trade, for
eluding the salutary provisions of the abolition act, and perpetu
ating the guilt and misery of that traffic."
" No foreign states," says the Repert of 1810, " have hi
therto followed the example set them by the legislatures of
Great Britain and the United States of America. The flags of
Spain and Sweden have of late been extensively employed
in covering and protecting a trade in slaves. Nor is this all.
It has been discovered that, in defiance of all the penalties
imposed by act of Parliament, vessels under foreign flags
have been fitted out in the ports of Liverpool and London, for
the purpose of carrying slaves from the coast of Africa to the
Spanish and Portuguese settlements in America. Some car-

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 355
goes from that coast have been landed at St. Bartholomews,
and smuggled thence into English islands. The discovery of
one transaction has likewise discovered to the directors facts,
which tend to implicate persons of some consideration in so
ciety in the guilt of these and similar practices."
"On the coast of Africa," says the Report of 1811, "the
same melancholy scene has been exhibited during the last
year, which the directors had the pain of describing in their
former report. The coast has swarmed with slave ships,
chiefly under Portuguese and Spanish colours, &c. Suffice it
to say, that accounts from various quarters concur with certain
judicial proceedings which have taken place in this country,
to prove, that a very considerable trade in slaves has been car
ried on of late, and a large portion of it by means ofthe capi
tal and credit qf British subjects.*** After the length to which
the report has already run, the directors are unwilling to enter
into minute details, with regard to the means which have been
practised in the West Indies, to elude the laws prohibiting the
importation of slaves. Suffice it to say, that they have re
ceived information which satisfies them that those laws have
been grossly, and in some instances openly, violated, by the
importation of slaves, to a considerable extent, into pur own
West India colonies."
" There is a large class of contraband slave ships fitteJ out
chiefly from London or Liverpool, destined in fact to the coast
of Africa," &c.
" The representations," says the Report of 1812, " which
the directors made in their last report, of the extent to which
the slave trade had revived on the coast of Africa, appear to
have fallen short of the truth. The result ofthe intelligence
which they have since received is, that, during the year 1810,
no less than from 70 to 80,000 Africans were transported as
slaves from the western coast of Africa to the opposise shores
of the Atlantic. The greatest proportion is either a British
or an American trade, conducted under the flags of Spain and
Portugal. " What," says the Report of 1813, " has been represented
as a bona, fide Spanish or Portuguese slave trade, has turned
out, upon strict examination, to be in many instances, a trade
in slaves, illegally carried on by British capital and British
subjects, and in some instances by American subjects."
" The directors have to bring before the general meeting a
new species of slave trade, carried on, it should seem, between
Egypt and the island of Malta. They have received informa
tion on which they are disposed to rely, stating that several

356 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I
slaves have been brought from Alexandria to that island, and
there sold to Englishmen, as well as to Maltese inhabitants.
These poor creatures consist principally of negro children,
brought from countries bordering on the Upper Nile," &c.
" It is with extreme regret that the directors are againobliged
to State the want of success which has attended their repeated,
earnest and urgent representations to government respecting the
slave trade, carried on by means of the Portuguese island of
BiSsao," &c.
" The condition of the slaves, in the new British conquests,
the Isles of France and pBourbon, is wretched in the extreme.
It is with feelings of deep regret that the directors, in proceed
ing to advert to the condition of slaves in the West Indies,
express their belief that most flagrant abuses continue to exist
in the administration of the law, as far as regards those unhap
py beings, if, indeed, they can be said to be under the protec
tion of any law."
" The directors cannot close their observations on tbe state
of Africa, without adverting to the exportation of arms and
gunpowder to that continent. It is well known that before the
passing of the act for the abolition of the slave trade, these
were exported thither in very large quantities, Letters re
ceived from persons in Africa, whose veracity is unquestion
able, assert the fact, that the slave traders are supplied with
these necessary implements of their traffic, solely from this
country, and that, indeed, thev were to be obtained no where
else." " A very considerable slave trade," says the Report of 1814,
" is still carried on to the islands of France and Bourbon."
" There is too much reason to believe that a considerable
traffic of slaves still exists on the north coast qf Africa?'
"The board have still to lament the continuance of flagrant
abuses in several of the West India islands," &c.
14. On the triumph of the allied arms over the power of Bo
naparte, in the spring of 1814, another crisis seemed to present
itself, propitious to the object of universal abolition. Great
Britain had the chief share of the glory and profit of that
event ; it was to her, in the language of all her subjects, that
Europe owed its deliverance; she had rescued Portugal and
Spain ; restored Ferdinand to his throne, and reinstated
the house of Bourbon in France. Hence, it would be im
possible for the governments of those countries to resist her
solicitations in favour of Africa; or, at all events, to brave
her power, in case she manifested a determination to interpose

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 357
it as a shield between that continent and their ruthless cupi
dity. The African Institution, in the Report which I have last
quoted, did not overlook the new turn of affairs. " The di
rectors," said the Report, "have long been persuaded, that all
that can be effected, in inducing particular states to renounce
the traffic in slaves, however important in itself, will produce
but a very partial benefit to Africa, unless, on the conclusion
of a general peace, the renunciation should become general,
and be adopted as a part of the standing policy of the great
commonwealth of Europe. While the war continues, it is a
matter of no moment whether the slave trade is abolished in
France ; but it is obvious, that, if a general peace should leave
the merchants of that country at liberty to renew their former
traffic in their fellow-creatures, little comparatively will have
been achieved for Africa by all the generous efforts of this
country. The present moment having appeared to the directors
to be peculiarly favourable to the hope of obtaining a recogni
tion ofthe great principles ofthe abolition, and even the entire
and unqualified renunciation of this nefarious traffic by all the
great powers of Europe, they have endeavoured to impress
upon the minds of his majesty's ministers, the unspeakable, im
portance of establishing a general convention among the Euro
pean powers, for that purpose."
To aid the British negotiators at Paris, the two houses of
Parliament voted unanimously on the 2d of May, addresses to
the Prince Regent, representing the importance of a general
abolition, and their conviction, that unless it took place, the
practical result of the restoration of peace would be " to open
the sea to swarms of piratical adventurers who would renew and
extend, on the shores of Africa, the scenes of carnage and ra
pine in a great ineasure suspended by maritime hostilities; to
kindle a thousand ferocious wars," &c. In supporting the ad
dress of the House of Commons, Mr. Wilberforce truly remark
ed, that " with regard to France, the war had practically
abolished the trade, and therefore, if carried on by her, it
would be creating it anew."
On the 30th May, 1814, the treaty between Great Britain
and France was signed at Paris; and Io ! Fran«e was allowed
a term of five years in which to pursue the traffic in human
flesh, and his Britannic Majesty restored to his most Christian
Majesty all the colonies, factories, and establishments, of what
ever kind, which France possessed Ihe 1st of January, 1792,
in the seas and upon the contipents of America, Africa, and
Asia, with the exception ofthe islands of Tobago and S_t.
Lucia, and of the Isle of France and its dependencies. This

358 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART U
was an electric shock for the abolitionists upon principle, and
the signal for a vigorous party assault upon the ministry.
It seemed impossible to doubt that Frahce would have
yielded, had the immediate and total prohibition of the trade
been made the sine qua non of the restitution of her colonies ;
or had she been tempted with the Mauritius. Her utter ina
bility to renew the war, and the certainty that the allies would
not have passed over to her side to enforce her pretensions to
the slave trade, were points on which even the most credulous
could not be deceived.
The African Institution passed resolutions of reprobation;
petitions without number were got up throughout the country;
motions made in Parliament ; and the stir had on the whole an
imposing character. The following is part of the represen
tations of the African Institution on the occasion. " A provi
sion is contained in the recent treaty of peace with France, the
consequence of which must be the revival of the slave trade on
a large scale, and to an indefinite extent. This revival is at
tended with circumstances of peculiar aggravation. Great and
populous colonies, in which, during the iast seven years, the
importation of slaves has been strictly prohibited, have been
freely ceded to France, not only without any stipulation for the
continuance of that prohibition, but with the declared purpose
on the part of that country, of commencing a new slave trade
for their supply."
The apprehensions of the Institution did not receive much
relief on the appearance of the French slave trade ordinance.
By a circular letter from the administration of the customs,
dated 29th August, the merchants of France were apprized,
that " the traffic was restored in all its privileges, and might
be carried on from every port having a public bonding ware
house : — That all the goods, foreign as well as domestic, in
cluding arms and ammunition, required for this trade, might be
shipped for the coast of Africa, duty free : That the same provi
sion extended to the ship's provisions, both for the crew and ne
groes : That the cargoes or provisions were not to be employed,
except in the purchase and conveyance of negroes: That
French ships only could engage in the trade ; and, that they
might import into all the French colonies, of which the govern
ment should recover possession, as well as those ceded by the
treaty." The language held in Parliament was no less emphatical than
that of the African Institution. As a specimen, I will offer some
extracts from the speech of Lord Grenville.
" That the immediate and total abolition of the slave trade

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 359
might, in this treaty, if pursued with zeal, have been with cer
tainty obtained, is, unless I am greatly misinformed, the general
sentiment of all who are conversant in foreign negotiation ; the
concurrent and decided judgment of enlightened statesmen in
every country in Europe,"
" What credulity will acquiesce in the pretence, that to extort
from France the surrender of her conquest, was easy ; to dis
suade her from the revival ofthe slave trade impracticable ?"
" This treaty has secured to our country commercial profits,
and colonial acquisitions, at the expense of France ; inconsider
able in value, I admit it, but still sufficient to brand our na
tional character with tha dishonour of interested guilt. To
France the renewal of the slave trade is conceded ; into her
hands we deliver up the wretched inhabitants of Africa ; and
from her in return we receive back those advantages ; the con
tract is reciprocal ; the transactions simultaneous ; included in
the same treaty, never will they be separated in the opinion of
mankind." " We have consented to revive and guarantee the slave trade,
not because we feared war, but because we thirsted for more
extended possessions. Such will be the just judgment, both of
the present time, and of posterity ; the opinion of impartial men
in ail ages. If, they will tell us, you could not otherwise refuse
yourselves to a dishonourable contract for guilt, you might have
proffered in exchange for it the abandonment of these acquisi
tions, an exchange which France most certainly would gladly
have accepted."
" You are fully sensible also, how difficult it will be to pre
vent the application of British capital to this wickedness when
authorized by France. How large a portion of this trade will
really be carried on in her name by your own subjects ; how
much of it will be diverted to the supply of your own colonies,
under a pretended destination to those with which they are so
closely intermixed in the West Indian seas."
The subject was taken up officially in the Edinburgh Review,
aud treated with as little reserve. The Reviewers cried out
against " the vile mockery of an abolition in reversion, expect
ant upon a five years term of unstinted, nay encouraged slave
trade." " England," they added, " has no manner of difficulty
in obtaining Malta, Tobago, St. Lucia, the Isle of France, (not
to mention the Cape) ; in short, any thing which may serve her
interests ; she surrenders Guadaloupe, that her islands may be
supplied by smuggling."
Lord Castlereagh defended the treaty upon the grounds
«f " the strong objection," of the French rulers to immediate
abolition, because they would appear to submit to English die*

360 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
ration ! of the importance of ending the negotiation in mutual
respect and confidence ; ofthe danger bf prolonging the war by
insisting upon a concession which France felt to be dishonour
able to her character as a nation, &c. He was " ready to
admit, that Guadaloupe and Martinique being permitted to be
points of depot, did, to a certain degree, increase the probabi
lity of ah illicit trade being carried oh from those islands with
the British colonies. But if France had even consented to
abolish the trade, the number of depots which would have
otherwise existed, was sufficiently numerous for the illegal
introduction of slaves into the islands belonging to Great Bri
tain. From the Havanna and Porto Rjco, the possessions of
Spain, slaves might very easily find their way into the British
colonies." His lordship remarked, too, a point of delicacy as
to pressing the abolition : " However disposed' he and the Bri
tish nation might be to make sacrifices for it, he' could assure
the House that such was not the impression in France, and that
even among the better classes of people there, the British govern
ment did not get full credit for their motives of acting. The
motives were not there thought to arise from benevolence, but
from a wish to impose fetters on French colonies and injure
tlieir commerce."
This misgiving of the French was of no fresh date, and could
not have been altogether unknown to Parliament. In 1807,
Lord Lauderdale, whom Mr. Fox sent to negociate with Bona
parte the preceding year, made the following statement in the
House of Lords. " On my urging to the French ministers the
aoolition of the slave trade, I was answered, that it could hot
be expected that the French government, irritated as it had
been by the negroes in St. Domingo, would readily agree to
the abolition of the trade. 1 answered that the abolition would
have been the only effectual means of preventing the horrors
which had occurred in that island. Then the truth came out.
I was told that England, with her colonies well stocked with
negroes, and affording a larger produce, might abolish the trade
without inconvenience; but that France, with colonies ill-
stocked, and deficient in produce, could not abolish it without
conceding to us the greatest advantages, and sustaining a
proportionate loss."*
The transactions in England, and the fundamental policy
in the case, prompted the British ministry to renew their in
stances with the French government. An island, or if pre
ferable, a pecuniary indemnity to the French planters, was
offered for the immediate abandonment of the trade, or the
* Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. viii.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 361
abridgment of the term stipulated by the treaty. It was pro
posed to France to establish a system of licence, so as to pre
vent the importation into her colonies of more negrces than
would be ?iecessary for the existing plantations, and lo pre
clude the cultivation of new lands. Lord Wellington disco
vered that there was no disposition among the French statesmen
to relinquish the trade at once; but, finally, after a negociation,
the particulars of which are not a little curious, means were
found by England to persuade the French government to put
restrictions upon it; particularly that of confining it to the south
of Cape Formosa.
The first attempts upon the Spanish government bear date in
1814; but Ferdinand was upon his throne, and Spain clear of
the French. The Spanish monarch consented to forbid his sub
jects to carry slaves tp foreign possessions; nothing more could
then be obtained, in the way and upon fhe terms which suited
the views of England.
Lord Castlereagh made his main effort, with the limits
prescribed, at the Congress of Vienna. He succeeded, not
withstanding the opposition of the Spanish and Portuguese
plenipotentiaries, in rendering the eight principal powers, par
ties to the settlement of the question. Four sittings were
specially assigned to its discussion. The fruit of the first, the
only fruit of the whole arrangement, was the celebrated de
claration ofthe 8th of February, 1815, in whicli all the powers
proclaimed their detestation of the character, and their desire to
accomplish the abolition, of the slave trade; at the same time
that they acknowledged the right of each to take its own time
for the total relinquishment on its own part. Talleyrand would
not consent to abridge the term granted to France; Spain would
make no acceptable concession: Portugal professed her readi
ness te limit the duration of her trade to eight years, provided his
Britannic majesty would on his side acquiesce in certain mate
rial changes in the commercial relations between her and Great
Britain. Some ofthe general observations made by the Spanish
and Portuguese plenipotentiaries, in reply to Lord Castlereagh,
are worth repeating. The first, Count Labrador, said, " if the
Spanish colonies of America were, as to the supply of negroes,
in the same state as the English colonies, his Catholic majesty
would not hesitate a moment in decreeing an immediate aboli
tion : But, the question having been before the British parlia
ment from 1788 to 1807, the English traders and planters had
full time to make extraordinary purchases of slaves; and, in
fact, they did so. This was proved by the case of Jamaica
Vol. I. — Z z

362 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
which, in 1787, had only two hundred and fifty thousand
slaves, whereas, at the period of the abolition, in 1807, she
possessed four hundred thousand. During the long war with
England, Spain had been deprived of the faculty of procuring
negroes for herself. Jamaica had ten blacks to one white; in
the island of Cuba, the best provided with slaves of all the
Spanish colonies, there were two hundred and seventy-four
thousand whites, and only two hundred and twelve thousand
slaves." The representative of Portugal alleged that " the position of
Brasil was particularly delicate in this matter ; it was an im
mense country, which was far from possessing the number of
hands necessary for its cultivation ; that a sudden stoppage in
the importation of negroes would be of incalculable mischief, as
well for Brazil as for the Portuguese establishment on the coast
of Africa; that the treatment ofthe slaves in Brasil was notori
ously mild ; and that these considerations made the case of Por
tugal an exception ; at all events she might be excused if she
proceeded leisurely and cautiously in the affair, since, in the in
stance of England, so long an interval had occurred between the
proposal and the adoption ofthe measure."
Tbe primary object of Lord Castlereagh was to secure from
the intrusion of foreign slave vessels, that part of the African
coast, which England had marked out for her general trade. In
the interval between the first aud second general conference,
(21st and 22d of January, 1815,) he signed two conventions
with the plenipotentiary of Portugal, by which Great Britain re
leased the balance due upon an old English loan to Portugal,
and allotted three hundred thousand pounds sterling as a fund
of indemnity for the owners ofthe Portuguese slave ships which
her cruizers had captured before the 1st of June, 1814, on the
ground of their being engaged in the trade illegally : she agreed
at the same time to the abrogation of the treaty of 1810 : Por
tugal, on her part, covenanted to prohibit her subjects from car
rying on the slave trade, in any way, to the north ofthe equator,
it being understood that they were to pursue it unmolested to
the south ofthe line, as long as it should be at all permitted by
the Portuguese laws^
In a secret and confidential letter ef Lord Castlereagh to the
duke of Wellington, at Paris, of August,, 1814,* his lordship
stated, that it was become necessary to consider how far cer
tain Powers might be brought to do their duty in the matter of
* See the Pieces Officielles de Schoell, vol. vii. p. 90.

S ECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 363
abolition, by a sense of interest ; or, in other words, how they
might be deprived ofthe undue advantage which they enjoyed
over the states who, by a feeling of moral obligation, renounced
the trade. Nothing, he suggested; appeared more likely to
work the effect, than a concert among those states to exclude
from their dominions the colonial produce of the refractory
powers. Duke Wellington was instructed to sound the prince
of Benevento on the subject. The true motives of this plan did
not, we may presume, escape the penetration of the latter.
Lord Castlereagh proppsed it anew at Vienna to the emperor of
Russia, in his formal interview with that monarch, on the sub
ject of the slave trade. The abolition states could not, he
urged, do less than adopt it: Unless they gave a preference to
such colonial products as were not raised by slaves newly in
troduced, they would be partakers in the scandal and crime ac
companying the growth of such as were ! The British negotia
tor was indiscreet enough to submit the project for adoption, at
the conferences of the plenipotentiaries ; with the modification
that the products of the colonies in which the trade was forbid
den, should be alone received, or those of the vast regions of
the globe furnishing the same articles by the labour of their
own native inhabitants, meaning, says Schoell,* the British
possessions in the East Indies. The ministers of Spain and
Portugal protested against this expedient of coercion, and
threatened that their courts would exclude in turn the most va
luable export ofthe countries by which it should be adopted.
What England could not persuade the Bourbons to do in 1814,
Bonaparte did spontaneously on his return from the Island of
Elba. He interdicted the French slave trade at once, from
motives of personal interest which few were at a loss to detect.
When Louis was replaced on his throne, nothing remained for
him but to submit, apparently, to the will ofthe British minister
who escorted him into Paris, and who required him not at least
to retract the only favour granted by the arch-tyrant of hu
manity. Accordingly, on the 30th of July, 1815, Talleyrand
announced to Lord Castlereagh that the slave trade was thence
forward, forever, and universally, forbidden to all the subjects
of his most Christian Majesty. The tenor of the correspondence
on the subject between the two viziers is among the curiosities
of that day.
In 1816, England resumed her negotiation with Spain, and,

Histoire Abregee des Traites de Paix, vol. xi.

364 NEGRO SLAVERY ASD £pART 1.
finally, availing, herself of the necessities of the latter, effected
the treaty of Madrid of the 23d Sept. 1817. By this treaty,
Spain, for a sum of four hundred thousand pounds sterling-,
stipulated to renounce the slave trade at once to the norfh of
the line, and to prohibit it entirely, in all her dominions, from
the 30th May, 1820. The sum of four hundred thousand
pounds bore a small proportion, indeed, to the wealth which
Britain had drawu from the traffic in human flesh ; or to that
which she expected to derive from the accomplishment of her
views on Africa.* But the new sacrifice was emblazoned in
Parliament, and the rescue of the northern part of that conti
nent declared to be consummated.
" We have now," said Lord Castlereagh, " arrived at the last
stage of our difficulties, and the last stage of our exertions. One
great portion ofthe world was rescued from the horrors ofthe
traffic. The approval of the grant amounted to this, whether
the slave trade should be abolished or not."
Lord Castlereagh announced, on the same occasion, the con
clusion of a treaty with the Portuguese ambassador in London,
for the final suppression of the Portuguese slave trade ; and the
certainty of its ratification. But his lordship's assurance was
premature. The court of Brasil could not be drawn into any
further retrenchment, than was stipulated in the treaty of Vienna
to which I have adverted. Sweden, who had never authorized
the trade, readily consented to prohibit it, on receiving Guada-
loupe in 1813, in deposit. The king ofthe Netherlands accept
ed ofthe condition of a total renunciation, attached to the resti
tution ofthe Dutch colouies in 1814.
15. Before I proceed to exhibit the actual, and what — it
is to 'be feared from late British statements, which I shall
produce,— -may be considered as the final result of all these
boasted triumphs for Africa, I wish to illustrate further the
English sins of commission. We have seen that the
African Institution acknowledges the participation of Bri-

* In the debate in the House of Commons, (Feb. 9th, 1818,) Mr. Wil.
berforce Baid, " He could not but think that the grant to Spain would be
more than repaid to Great Britain in commercial advantages, by the
opening of a great continent to British industry; an object which would
be entirely defeated, if the slave traffic was to be carried on by the Spa
nish nation. Our commercial connexion with Africa will do much more
than repay us for any pecuniary saciifices of this kind. He himself would
see Great Britain deriving the greatest advantages from its intercourse
with Africa.'' Hansard's Pari. Dei.

SECT. lX.] SLAVE TRADE. 365
tish subjects in the trade, to a great extent. The same admis
sion has been made repeatedly in Parliament, by the highest
authority. Before the establishment of the peace of 1814, Mr.
Whitbread stated in the House of Commons, that " there were,
to his knowledge, persons in England base enough to wish for
the return of peace, on account of the facilities it would afford
for carrying on the slave traffic under another flag." * On the
18th April, 1815. Mr. Barham alleged in the same place, "that
it was a well known fact that a large British capital was em
ployed in British ships, in the slave trade." And on the 9th
of February, 1818, Lord Castlereagh held this language to
Parliament: — " It would be a great error to believe that the re
proach of carrying on the slave trade illegally, belonged only to
other countries. In numberless instances, he was sorry to say,
it had come to his knowledge, that British subjects were in
directly and largely engaged."
With respect to the British West India Islands, it is of noto
riety that they have been replenished with negroes since the
British abolition, lu the quotations which I have made from
the Reports of the African Institution, the contraband trade of
those islands is formally denounced. The Report of that
Society for 1815, is more pointed and circumstantial in its
declarations on the same head, in relation to all of them. It
gives us to understand that twenty thousand negroes had been
yearly smuggled into them, and avers that " all of the settle
ments were confident of having the means of providing them
selves still with slaves in the proportion of their actual de
mand ;" that " insular laws, whose policy plainly depended on
the permanence of the slave trade, remained unrepealed ;" that
" the assemblies still looked to Africa for the supply of their
toasting population." The Edinburgh Review, in expressing
some incredulity with respect to the amount of the illicit im
portation, intimated in the Report, remarks, however, that " to
question the fact of clandestine importation, would prove ex
treme ignorance of West Indian morals, and of the state to
which the administration of the law is of necessity reduced,
where nine persons in ten of the inhabitants are incompetent
witnesses, and are, moreover, the property of the remaining
tenth." f
The same Report denies that the slaves, in any one island,
had, in regard to their legal condition, then derived the least
benefit from the abolition acts. It represents them, also, as
suffering the same miseries ; as equally cut off from all means
• Debate of May 2d, 1814. t No. 50.

366 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
of mental aud religious improvement. In their article upon
this Report, the Edinburgh Reviewers ratify its exposition, and
speak thus of their " sugar-planting brethren :" — " They not
only have taken no steps to encourage religious instruction, but
have again and again attempted to prevent the black popula
tion from receiving it, in the only form in which it ever can
reach them, as things are at present constituted, namely, by
missionary preachers. The zeal of pious men was beginning to
carry the blessings of the gospel into the settlements, not secta
ries merely, but Church of England missions. The wisdom of
colonial legislation took the alarm ; acts were regularly and in
ail the forms passed, to stop, by main force, all such attempts
at illuminating the hundreds of thousands of their Pagan sub
jects. The royal assent has been refused, but they are of suffi
cient efficacy in the interval, and as often as one is annulled,
another is passed. In some of the colonies, the impediments to
manumission are enormous. The tax imposed by the policy of
the law in those enlightened latitudes, for ever closes the door
to emancipation. In Jamaica, the negroes are prohibited from
being taught," &c.
The work of Dickson and Steele, entitled Mitigation of
Slavery, of which I have already availed myself, is one of great
and deserved authority on these subjects. It was published in
London, in 1814, and the writers, who had long resided in the
West Indies in high stations, go even beyond the African Insti
tution in their representations of the nature of the slavery, and
ofthe futility of the abolition acts, in that quarter.
" The abolition," says Dr. Dickson, " of what is called the
African Slave Trade, was, in itself, an object every way wor
thy of the long and arduous struggle which effected it. But
its relative value, as a corrective of West Indian abuses, hath
been greatly over-rated. The reader of this volume will see
distinctly that, as many of the worst evils of the West Indian
slavery were owing to other causes than the African slave
trade, those evils could not possibly be remedied by the aboli
tion of that trade. This important position, so solidly esta
blished in the first part of the following collection, hath been
deplorably exemplified, since the date of the abolition act,, in
the accounts of respectable individuals, and in the correspond
ence of the secretary of state with the West Indian governors.
The facts alluded to, though but a mere specimen of the
West Indian slavery, clearly show, that they flowed from a
source inherent in that slavery itself. An additional proof is>
that, notwithstanding the abolition of the slave trade, the low
price of produce, and the exorbitant price of slaves, (all strong

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 367
motives for economizing their lives), the deaths among the
slaves of one island, in 1810, exceeded the births by above ten
thousand. No cause of any extraordinary mortality is alleged;
but that surplus of deaths appears to have happened in the
common course of business. On the whole, we may safely
affirm, that the general treatment of the slaves, in the old sugar
islands, has not received any material improvement for a cen
tury and a half. The new islands have but copied the old ;
with the difference, that the hardships inseparable from the
clearing of fresh lands have, in all cases, deplorably aggravated
the mortality."
" Facts leave not a doubt in the mind, that the harshness of
the slave laws is but little softened by the lenity of the general
practice in any of the sugar islands. Bad is the best treatment
which the negroes experience in the West India colonies.
They all perform their labour under the whip. Mr. Mathison,
that sensible and candid planter, states broadly, in 1811, the
general practice of under-feeding from one end of Jamaica
to the other. He also believes that excessive labour is one of
the prevailing causes of depopulation among the slaves on that
island." The registry system for the West Indies, is grounded upon
the inefficacy of the abolition there; and, so far as appears by
the facts disclosed in the House of Commons, the one has been
found as nugatory as the ether.* We may take an instance
from the mouth of Mr. Wilberforce, of the state of things in
Barbadoes, where, according to Dr. Dickson f, slavery is not
near so bad as in most of the other islands.
" Mr. Wilberforce said, (April 22d, 1818), that the situation
of the slaves in Barbadoes was most wretched. Lord Sea-
forth, when governor of the island, endeavoured to improve it
by procuring a law to render the murder of a slave capital.
The island was at first enraged with the governor for proposing
such a measure. When it was consented to, and the friends
of humanity in this countiy were led to believe that the condi
tion of the slaves in that island was much bettered, what was
their surprise and disappointment, to find in two years after,
when this law was laid upon the table of the house, that
it was rendered entirely nugatory by a condition annexed to it ;
fbr it was provided, that the murder to be capital must be un
provoked."

* See on this head, the Twelfth Report ofthe African Institution, p. 42.
t Mitigation of Slavery, p. 512.

368 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
" There were cases," Mr. Wilberforce continued, "in which
a negro had purchased his freedom, and the freedom of his
children, and trained them up with the most exemplary care,
yet his offspring had afterwards been seized on by the creditors
of his deceased master, because he had died an insolvent, and
had been thus transported to the mines ef Mexico."
With such testimony as we have seen, notoriously extant,
concerning the importation of negroes into the British West
Indies, and their general condition, after the abolition act, the
British minister, Lord Castlereagh, ventured, in his correspond
ence with the foreign powers in the year 1814 f, to make the
following representation. " The experience of eight years
which have elapsed since the total abolition of the slave trade,
as far as that depended on Great Britain, by the Parliament
of the United Kingdom, has furnished complete proof that the
settlements in the West Indies have not suffered by the want
of fresh supplies of African labourers. These colonies conti
nue to be in a flourishing condition, and since there has been no
new importation of slaves, the treatment of those already pos
sessed has improved, and the lights qf religion and civilization
have been diffused among them."
Another striking case of ministerial hardihood is furnished
in the following extract from a speech of Mr. Goulburn, on the
production of the Registry returns to the House of Commons,
on the 9th June, 1819. " The apparent increase of negro po
pulation had not arisen from any illegal importation of slaves
into our colonies, but Vas attributable to other causes. It
might appear extraordinary that in one island the colonial slaves
had increased, in the course of two years, upwards of five thou
sand. Some of these might be the produce of certain cap
tures + ; but he was perfectly convinced that the augmentation
was not attributable to any illegal traffic !"
Representations of this sort, in the face of those ofthe African
Institution, in defiance of all fact and reason, belong to the old
system which is exemplified in the following passage of Mills's
History of British India.
" When the opinions which Lord Cornwallis expressed of
the different departments of the Indian government, at the
time when he undertook his reforms, (1790), are attended to,
it will not be easy to conceive a people suffering more intensely
* Hansard's Parliamentary Debates.
t Official letter to the British Minister at Madrid, 15th of July, 1814.
t That is to say, of foreign slave ships, whose cargoes have been sold
in the British Islands.

SECT IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 369
by the vices of government. The administration of justice
through' all its departments in a state the most pernicious and
depraved; the public revenue levied upon principles incompati
ble with the existence of private property ; the people sunk in
poverty and wretchedness ; such is the picture on the one hand :
— Pictures of an unexampled state qf prosperity were,neverthe-
less, the pictures held forth at this very moment, by speeches in
parliament, to the parliament and the nation,— and the flatter
ing pictures as they were the pictures of the minister, govern
ed the belief of parliament, and through parliament that of the
nation."* 16. The strain of the communications of the British go
vernment, respecting the slave trade, to the foreign powers,
down to the conclusion of the treaty with Spain, in 1817,
implied that every thing would be accomplished for the por
tion of Africa north of the line, when the abolition was uni
versal with regard to that portion. At every new arrangement,
a descant was (haunted in Parliament, to the triumphant and
generous zeal of the ministry, who, by the progressive deca
pitation of " the hydra," had nearly crowned all the generous
sacrifices of Britain with the expected reward, in the security
of Africa and the reformation of Europe. But there was
reason to suspect that Louis XVIII would not so easily have
made a virtue of necessity in 1815 ; nor Ferdinand, — urgent
as were his pecuniary wants, and comparatively unimportant
as the acquisition of negroes had become to Spain from the
revolt of her colonies, — have prescribed so near a term to the
legal slave trade of his subjects ; had not these menarchs been
assured of an abundant and ready supply where it should be
wanted, whatever anathemas and engagements might be ex
torted from them by the ascendant position and plausible re
clamations of Great Britain. All that circumstances made it
natural to suspect, and rendered, indeed, obviously certain,
has been realized, and is now at length proclaimed by the
British government itself. As the political scheme has reach
ed a crisis when a full and vivid disclosure of the truth is ne
cessary for progression and complete success, it is acknow
ledged outright, and vehemently bewailed, that nothing has as
yet been accomplished for Africa, practically ; that the slave
trade has been constantly increasing, and that no limits can
be descried to its duration or its depredations. Such is the
purport of the thirteenth Report, dated 24th March, 1819, of
the African Institution ; a report which bears intrinsically the
* Book VI. vol. iii. p. S34.
Vol. I  3 A

370 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
character of a government-manifesto ; and which furnishes ma
terials to complete a skeleton of the history of the abolition. I
will use it freely in detailing the result of the British manage
ment as respects France, Spain, and Portugal, severally, and
the main ostensible object of retribution to Africa.
And first, with regard to France. In the Appendix to the
Report, there is an eloquent address on the subject of the
slave trade, to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, which is said
to have been distributed there by Mr. Clarkson, during the
sittings in November, 1818. This address is evidently the
work of the African Institution, under the direction of the
British ministry; and the distribution of it an expedient of both
for their joint and several purposes. It contains the following
statement as to the French trade.
" No sooner was peace proclaimed, than the traders in human
blood hastened from various quarters to the African shores, and,
with a cupidity sharpened by past restraint, renewed their for
mer crimes."
" Among the rest, the slave merchants of France, who had
been excluded for upwards of twenty years, from any direct
participation in this murderous traffic, now eagerly resumed it;
aud to this very hour, they continue openly to carry it on, not
withstanding the solemn renunciation of it by their ewn govern
ment, in 1815, and the prohibitory French laws which have
since been passed to restrain them."
" The revival and progress of the French slave trade have, in
one respect, been peculiarly opprobrious, and attended with ag
gravated cruelty and mischief."
" During the ten years which preceded the restoration of Se
negal and Goree to France, no part of the African coast, Sierra
Leone excepted, had enjoyed so entire an exehiption from the
miseries produced by the slave trade as those settlements, and
the country in their vicinage."
" The suppression of the traffic was there nearly complete ;
and, in consequence, a striking increase of population and of
agriculture in the surrounding districts, with a proportionate
improvement in other respects, gave a dawn of rising prospe
rity and happiness, highly exhilarating to every benevolent
mind." " It was in the month of January, 1817, that these interest
ing settlements were restored to France ; and melancholy,
indeed, had been the effects : no sooner was the transfer com
pleted, than, in defiance of the declarations by which the king
of France had prohibited the slave trade to his subjects, that
trade was instantly renewed, and extended in all directions.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 371
The ordinary excitements to the native chiefs, have produced
more than the ordinary horrors. In the short space of a single
year, after the change of flags, the adjoining countries, though
previously flourishing in peace and abundance, exhibited but
one frightful spectacle of misery and devastation."
" Now, let it here be recollected, that France had professed,
in the face of the civilized world, her abhorrence of this guilty
commerce. In the definitive treaty of the 30th of November,
1815, she had pledged herself ' to the entire and effectual abo
lition of a traffic so odious in itself, and so highly repugnant to
the laws of religion and nature.' As early as the 30th of July,
1S15, she had informed the ambassadors of the allied powers,
that directions had actually been issued, ' in order that on the
part of France the traffic in slaves might cease from that time,
every where and for ever.' She had, even previously to this,
assured the British government, that the settlements of Senegal
and Goree, restored to her by treaty, should not be made sub
servient to the revival ofthe slave trade. Yet, notwithstanding
all this, no sooner do these settlements revert to her dominion,
than the work of rapine, and carnage, and desolation com
mence; every opening prospect of improvement is crushed;
thousands of miserable captives, of every age and sex, are
crowded into the pestilential holds of slave ships, and subjected
to the well known horrors of the middle passage, in order to be
transported to the French colonies in the West Indies. There,
such of them as may survive, are doomed to pass their lives in
severe and unremitting labour, exacted from them by the mer
ciless lash of the cart-whip in the hands of a driver. It would
admit of proof, that probably at no period of the existence
of this opprobrious traffic, has Africa suffered more intensely
from its ravages than during a part of the time which has
elapsed since the re-establishment of the peace of the civilized
world." In another part of the Appendix, itis averred, and sufficiently
proved to the date of September, 1818, that the French au
thorities in Africa allow the slave trade to be carried on to
any extent, under their command ; that in Senegal and Goree,
they themselves are interested in carrying it on ; and that the
French vessels of war connive at the departure of slave ships.
In the body of the Report, positive information to the same
effect, is announced in this language — " The subscribers to
the Institution will no doubl recollect the painful task which
devolved upon the directors last year, in detailing the state of
the slave trade on the coast of Africa, and more particularly
that part of it which lies in the neighbourhood of the French

372 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
settlements of Senegal aad Goree. Of the statements then
made, ample confirmation has since been received, accompa
nied by additional information of a similarly distressing nature.
A considerable slave trade appears also to have been carried
on by French subjects at Allerdra, and other places in the
river Gambia. The information, indeed, which the directors
have received subsequently to their last Report, confirms the
statement therein contained, of the existence', to a great extent,
of this traffic in the French settlements on the coast of
Africa, &c.
So much for the unconditional restoration of the French pos
sessions, and the five years charter for organized kidnapping
and murder !
In the debate in the House of Commons, of February 9th,
1818, which I have already mentioned, some curious particu
lars were disclosed respecting the French slave trade, that de
serve to be known, in addition to the above. 1 will report
them as they were stated by Sir James Mackintosh. " It being
discovered that the trade was still carried on by France with
great vigour, application was made by Sir Charles Stewart, the
British ambassador, in January, 1817, for copies of « Lnws,
Ordinances, Instructions, and other public acts, for the Aboli
tion of the Slave Trade.' The Due de Richelieu had nothing
to communicate but a mere colonial regulation passed eight
days before, prohibiting the importation of slaves into the
French colonies. Notwithstanding the assertion of Prince Tal
leyrand's letter, in spite of the more solemn affirmation of the
treaty, it appears that France had taken no legal measure for
the abolition, during eighteen months, after she professed she
had adopted it. What she did at that time was imperfect, and
it did not appear that she had done any thing since." So little
had she done, indeed, that Sir William Scott found himself ob
liged to release, in 1817, a French slave ship detained by a
British cruiser, on the ground that there was no sufficient proof
that the French vessel, in carrying on the slave trade, had vio
lated the laws of France.
Let us now see how the case stands with respect to Spain
and Portugal, whom it would have been so easy to subdue to
the purpose of abolition, ten years ago, and the mischiefs of
whose legal appearance in the trade, might, therefore, have
been averted. The Appendix to the Report contains a series of
queries, dated December, 1816, addressed by Lord Castle
reagh to the Institution, respecting the state ofthe trade, during
the preceding twenty-five years. Part of the information com
municated in reply is as follows: "The number of slaves

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 373
withdrawn from western Africa during the last twenty-five
years, is necessarily involved in much uncerlainty. There is
reason to believe that the export of the Portuguese was much
more considerable than the amount supposed, 15,000. Pre
vious tp the British abplition, the Portuguese had confined their
trade almost entirely to the Bight of Benin, and the coast to the
southward of it, but in consequence of the reduction in the price
of slaves on the Windward and Gold Coasts, they were gradu
ally drawn thither. The whole of the slave trade, whether
legal or contraband, passes, with very few exceptions, under the
Spanish and Portuguese flags. The Spanish flag is a mere dis
guise, and covers the property of unlawful traders, whether
English, American, or others."
" Since the Portuguese have been restricted by treaty from
trading for slaves on certain parts of the African coast, they
have resorted to similar expedients for protecting their slave
trade expeditions to places within the prohibited district. And
at the present moment, there is little doubt, that a considerable
part of the apparently Spanish slave trade, which is carrying
on to the north of the equator, where the Portuguese are for
bidden to buy slaves, is really a Portuguese trade."
" A farther use is now found for the Spanish flsg, in pro
tecting the French slave traders; and it is affirmed, that the
French ships fitted out in France, for the slave trade, call at
Corunna for the purpose of effecting a nominal transfer of the
property engaged in the illegal voyage, to some Spanish house,
and thus obtaining the requisite evidence of Spanish owner
ship." " In consequence of these uses to which the Spanish flag has
been applied, a great increase of the apparently Spanish slave
trade has taken place of late. And as the flag of that nation is
permitted to range ever the whole extent of the African coast,
it seems to keep alive the slave trade in places from which it
would otherwise have been shut out; and it has of late revived
that trade in situations where it had been previously almost
wholly extinguished."
" The Portuguese flag is now chiefly seen to the south of the
equator, although sometimes the Portuguese traders do not
hesitate still to resort to the rivers between Whydaer and the
equator, even without a Spanish disguise. The only two cruizers
which have recently visited that part of the coast found several
ships under the Portuguese flag openly trading for slaves, in
Sago and the Bight of Benin."
" The slave trade has certainly been carried on during the
last two years, to a great extent north of the equator. The

374 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
native chiefs and traders who began to believe at length that
the abolition was likely to be permanently maintained, have
learnt from recent events to distrust all such assurances. Not
withstanding all that has been said and done, they now see
the slave traders again sweeping the whole coast without mo
lestation. It would be difficult fully to appreciate the deep
and lasting injury inflicted on northern Africa, by the trans
actions ofthe last two or three years. An abolition on the part
of Spain would at once deliver the whole of northern Africa
from the slave trade, provided effectual measures were taken
to seize and punish illicit traders. By the prolongation of the
Spanish slave trade, on the contrary, not only is the whole cf
northern Africa, which would otherwise be exempt, given up
to the ravages of that traffic, and the progress already made
In improvement sacrificed, but facilities are afforded of smug
gling into every island qf the West Indies; which could not
otherwise exist, and which, while slave ships may lawfully
pass from Africa to Cuba, it would, perhaps, be impossible to
prevent." This was the state of things, according to the Institution, at
the end of 1816. We will now see what it was at the begin
ning of the present year, notwithstanding the conventions
signed with Spain and Portugal in the interval. " The Afri
can slave trade," says the Report itself, " is still unhappily
carried on to an enormous extent under the foreign flags, with
aggravated horrors. The directors have to lament the enor
mous extent, not of the French slave trade only; that of Spain
and Portugal appears also to have greatly increased. Notwith
standing the great pecuniary sacrifices made by Great Britain
to these nations, their subjects are stated by the governor of
Sierre Leone to be now deeper in blood than ever." The
Report mentions the fact, that at the distance of more than a
year from the date of the Spanish and Portuguese conventions,
the British naval commander in chief on the African coast had
received ne instructions as to the measures to be taken in pur
suance of them, nor as yet had any commission been established,
as they prescribed.
The estimate which the directors make in the Appendix
to the Report, of the number of negroes transported of late
years from Africa under the Spanish and Portuguese flags,
falls greatly short of the real amount. Dr. Thorpe, whose
testimony, on this head, is certainly entitled to weight, has
made some statements which agree better with the direct
knowledge which we have in this country, of the importation
into the Spanish islands and into Brasil. He alleges that the

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 375
commissioners appointed by the British government to survey
the West Coast of Africa, three years after it had abolished the
trade, reported eighty thousand as the number of negroes an
nually carried away, and divided equally between the Portu-
guese and Spaniards. He computes, himself, from returns
made by persons residing in the Havannah, in the Brazils, and
on the coast of Africa, that the Spaniards carried from the
West Coast, in 1817, one hundred thousand; and the Portu
guese not less. He adds forty thousand as the number taken
by other nations, and from other parts of that quarter of the
globe. There is something almost overpowering for a real
philanthropist in the observations with which this writer con
cludes his calculations. " As it appears that in 1807, about
sixty thousand inhabitants of Africa were annually enslaved,
and in 1817 two hundred and forty thousand, we may judge of
her present deplorable condition, when the very cause of her
barbarous and degraded state has increased four-fold; we
should recollect the unshaken testimony presented to Parlia
ment, which established her miserable condition before 1807;
and we cannot but lament that all the professions for her hap
piness, and promises for her civilization, reiterated since that
time, have been perfectly delusive." *
Dr. Thorpe asserts, also, that at the time Great Britain had
the right of search, nineteen out of twenty of the contraband
slave vessels escaped. One cannot but think that their success
would not have been quite so great, had her cruizers exercised
the same zeal and vigilance in pursuing them, as thev did in
hunting down the commerce of the United States, under the
Orders in Council.
In the first negociations respecting the trade, which Lord
Castlereagh opened with the French cabinet after the treaty
of 1814, he suggested, as a desirable arrangement, the con
cession of a mutual right of search and capture in certain
latitudes, between France and Great Britain, in order to pre
vent an illicit exportation from the coast of Africa. The
Duke of Wellington made the proposition to the Prince of
Benevento, but soon discovered that it was " too disagreeable
to the French government and nation, to admit of a hope of
its being urged with success f ." I do not find from the history
ofthe conferences at Vienna in 1815, that it was more than
hinted in those conferences. Spain and Portugal, however,
in their mock renunciation of the trade north of the equinoc-
* P. 13. View of the Increase of the Slave Trade.
t See his letter toL ord Castlereagh of the 5th Nov. 1814.

376 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
tial line, acceded to a stipulation of like tenor. Great satis
faction was expressed in Parliament with the arrangement,
when tbe Spanish treaty came under discussion. " The intro
duction ofthe right of search and bringing in for condemnation
iu time of peace," was declared to be." a precedent of the ut
most importance." Of this precedent the British minister re
solved to avail himself at once. There is a quasi official ex
position of his proceedings in the thirteenth Report of the
African Institution, of which 1 will abstract as much as may
convey a sufficient idea of the new tura given to the question
of abolition.
The ministers of the great powers were assembled in Lon
don to confer on the subject: all attended readily except the
representative of Portugal, who consented to appear only on
condition of a perfect freedom of action being left to his so
vereign. At a meeting held in February, 1818, Lord Castle
reagh produced a note, which alleged, among other things,
That, since the peace, a considerable revival of the slave trade
had taken place, especially north of the line, and that the
traffic was principally of the illicit description: — That, as
early as July, 1816, a circular intimation had been given to
all British cruizers, that the right of search (being a bellige
rent right) had ceased with the war : — That it was proved be
yond the possibility of a doubt, that unless the right to visit
vessels engaged in the slave trade should be established by mu
tual concessions on the part of the maritime states, tbe illicit
traffic must not only continue to subsist, but increase: That
even if the traffic were universally abolished, and a single
state should refuse to submit its flag to the visitation of vessels
qf other states, nothing effectual would have been done: That
the plenipotentiaries should, therefore, enter into an engage
ment to concede mutually the right of search, ad hoc, to their
ships of war, &c. They did not deem themselves authorised
to proceed so far, but undertook to transmit the proposition to
their respective courts.
It does not appear that the American minister was invited
to be a party lo these conferences. To him, however, Lord
Castlereagh addressed a special letter in the month of June,
1818, enclosing copies of the treaties made with Spain and
Portugal, and inviting the government of the United States
to enter into the plan digested in those treaties, for the repres
sion of the slave trade, which must, otherwise, prove irreduci
ble. The answer of the American government, communicated
at the end of December by the American ambassador, is de
tailed in the Report of the Institution. It asserts the deep and

SECT. IX,] SLAVE TRADE. 3??
unfeigned solicitude of the United States, for the universal
extirpation of the slave trade ; but, with all due comity, de
clines the proposed arrangements, as being of a character " not
adapted to the circumstances or institutions of the United
States." Truly, the United States had sufficiently proved the
British right of search in time of war, to be careful not to create
one for the season of peace.
No answer had been received from the courts whose minis
ters attended the conferences in London, when the congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle furnished the British government with the fair
est opportunity of pushing the adoption of its whole project.
Thither, on the heels of Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Clarkson re
paired with the memorial, which I have already cited. It stated
to the assembled sovereigns — That, " in point of fact, little or
no progress had been made in practically abolishing the slave
trade :" That " all the declarations and engagements of the
European powers as to abolition, must prove perfectly unavail
ing, unless new means were adopted :" That the only means
left were — the universal concession of the mutual right of
search and detention ; and the solemn proscription of the slave
trade, as Piracy under the law of nations.
Lord Castlereagh's official representations were of the same
purport, aud were answered in separate notes from the pleni
potentiaries of Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia. The
respondents profess their readiness to make a combined ad
dress to the court of Brazil, in order to engage it to accelerate,
as much as the circumstances and necessities of its situation
may permit, the entire abolition of the trade ; but all reject the
proposition of a mutual right of search, that new sine qua non
of the salvation of Africa. France, whose cencurrence, ac
cording to Lord Castlereagh, was, ." above all others, import
ant," gave the most peremptory refusal; and suggested, on
her side, a plan of common police for the trade, which would
enable the several powers to know the transactions of each
other, and would keep each government well apprized of all
abuse's within its jurisdiction. Upon the emperor Alexander,
both Lord Castlereagh and the directors of the African Insti
tution had counted, as a sure and irreristible auxiliary. The
" unkindest cut," however, would seem to have come from
his Russian Majesty. The answer of his plenipotentiary was
fitted to produce a double disconcertion; and might be sus
pected of a little malice in the design. Besides alleging that
it appeared to the Russian cabinet, beyond a doubt, that there
were some states which no consideration would induce to
submit their navigation to a principle of such high importance
Vol. I.— 3 B *

378 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
" as the right of visit," he proposed an expedient to effect the
common purpose, which went to deprive England of her sway,
and unembarrassed action, on the Jwest coast of Africa. This
expedient consisted in " an institution, the seat of which should
be a central point on that coast, and in the formation of whicli
all the Christian states should take a part." It is thus parti
cularly described in the Russian note : " Declared for every
neutral, to be estranged from all political and local interests,
like the fraternal and Christian alliance, of which it would be
a practical manifestation, this institution would pursue the single
object of strictly maintaining the execution of the law. It
would consist of a maritime force, composed of a sufficient num
ber of ships of war, appropriated to the service assigned to
them; of a judicial power, which should judge all crimes re
lating to the trade, according to a legislation established upon
the subject, by the common wisdom ; of a supreme council, in
which would reside the authority of the institution, — which
would regulate the operations of the maritime force — would re
vise the sentences of the tribunals — would put them im execu
tion — would inspect all the details, and would render an ac
count of its administration to the future European conferences.
The right of visit and detention would be granted to this insti
tution, as the means of fulfilling its end; and perhaps no mari
time nation would refuse to submit its flag to this police, exer
cised in a limited and clearly defined manner, and by a power
too feeble to allow of vexations ; too disinterested on all mari
time and commercial questions ; and, above all, too widely
combined in its elements, not to observe a severe, but impartial
justice towards all."
Neither the French plan of surveillance, nor the Amphyc-
tionic Institution of his Imperial Majesty, suited the views of
Lord Castlereagh, who could not be persuaded of the practica
bility of either. His lordship finally proposed to qualify the
desired right of search, by limiting its duration to a certain
number of years; and by this and other modifications, " he flat
ters himself," says the thirteenth Report of the African Institu
tion, " that he has made a considerable impression in removing
the strong repugnance which was at first felt to the mea
sure." But the directors themselves do not appear to be so
sanguine, if we may judge from the following passage of the
Report: " Thus ended the conferences, and proceedings of
Aix-la-Chapelle, respecting the more effectual abolition of the
African slave trade, and thus have the directors been disap
pointed in the hopes which they had entertained, of seeing^the

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 379
noble principles, announced to the world by the congress at
Vienna, carried into complete effect, by the sovereigns and ple
nipotentiaries assembled in the course of the last autumn.
Whether such another opportunity of bringing those principles
into action, may ever again occur, cannot be foreseen ; but the
directors must be allowed to express their unfeigned regret,
that so very favourable a combination of circumstances has led
to such unimportant results."
The plan of England to pbtain from the congress a sen
tence of piracy upon the slave trade, appeared to the sove
reigns rather wanting in courtesy towards their royal brother
of the Brasils, while he persisted in authorizing his subjects
to prosecute it indefinitely as to number. It was evident,
said the emperor of Russia, that the general promulgation
of such a law could not take place, until Portugal had
totally renounced the trade. At the same time, the con
gress might not have been able to discern the consistency,
of proclaiming that a capital crime in the subjects of one
nation, which those of another might do with impunity,
under the sanction of recent treaties. It was certainly an
awkward duty for an English ministry, to solicit the denun
ciation of piracy against the slave trade, which the English
nation had, for two centuries, struggled to monopolize. The
reflection upon all the generations of that whole tract of time,
was rather too strong, in the use of such language as this —
" Slave-trading always involves man-stealing and murder.
Even on the passage its murders are numerous,"* &c. The
Lord Chancellor Eldon could have thought so, when, op
posing the British abolition in 1807, " he entered into a
review of the measures adopted by England, respecting
the trade, which, he contended, had been sanctioned by Par
liament in which sat the wisest lawyers, the most learned
divines, and the most excellent statesmen."! Nor could
Lord Hawkesbury, when he moved that the words " in
consistent with the principles of justice and humanity,"
should be struck out of the preamble of the British abo
lition bill. J Nor could Lord Sidmoutb, when he said,
" to the measure itself he had no objection, if it could be
accomplished without detriment to the West India islands:" §
Nor the Earl of Westmorland, in declaring that " though
he should see the presbyterian and the prelate, the metho*
dist and field preacher, the jacobin and murderer, unite is
* The Memorial, t Hansard's Debates, vol. viii. % Ibid. § Ibid.

NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
favour of the measure of abolition, he would raise his voice
against it in Parliament." *
Throughout the conferences and negotiations above men
tioned, we find the continental powers betraying a rooted dis
trust of the motives of the British Government. The vehe
mence of its execrations upon the trade ; the intensify of its
present zeal for the welfare of Africa, contributed to excite sus
picion, when compared with the language I have just cited, and
with the toleration ofthe Spanish and Portuguese traffic before
the peace ; — with the treaty of 1814, by which England, hav
ing secured for herself, in the general distribution of spoil,
some favourite objects of interest, delivered over to the miseries
now so pathetically described, whole provinces which she
boasted of having entirely relieved — with the free export of
fire-arms and ammunition from the British ports to the coast of
Africa ; and with the existence of slavery in its worst form, in
all the British settlements, including those of Asia Minor and
the East Indies. It was remarked that, as soon as it was seen
in England, in 1806, that her trade would be abolished, Par
liament petitioned the King to negotiate with foreign powers
for the abolition of theirs ; but that nothing was vigorously
attempted in this way, — all had been languor and connivance, —
until the conclusion of peace, when the restitution took place,
of considerable colonies, which, being stocked regularly and
cheaply with slaves, while those retained by England received
only a precarious and dear supply, might speedily outgrow
the latter, and supplant them in the markets of the world ;
and when on other grounds avowed and pressed in Parliament,
the commercial interests of England evidently required, if not
universal abolition, at least the restriction to the south of the
equator. France knew that it was with British capital and shipping
that her merchants had embarked in the trade, immediately
after the peace ; Spain and Portugal, that the greater part of
the trade carried on under their flags was on British account ;
and they were somewhat incredulous, when they were told of
the British negotiators being " the organs of a people unani
mous in its condemnation; apprized of all its horrors; im
pressed with all its guilt ; foremost in removing its pollution
from themselves, and waiting with confident, but impatient
hope, the glad tidings of its universal abolition." None of
the powers had ever found those organs disposed to make a
sacrifice for this object, beyond an island, a subsidy, or a
* Ibid,

SECTION IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 381
largess ; which might be considered as offered with a view to
ample compensation in lucre; for Mr. Wilberforce was im
plicitly to be believed, when he said, in the House of Com
mons, in addition to what I have already quoted from him nf
a like tenor, that, " in a commercial point of view, it was of
incalculable advantage to have the supply of that large tract
of country, from the Senegal down to the Niger, an extent of
more than 7,500 miles, with the necessaries and gratifications
whicli British manufactures and commerce afford." * Parlia
ment still contained several of the hitherto inflexible anti-
abolition ists, who had harangued without end to prove the
justice and humanity ofthe trade at large ; its very unanimity,
therefore, where that of foreign powers was concerned, had the
effect of lessening confidence abroad. Such a phenomenon as
thq union of General Gascoyne with Mr. Wilberforce, of Lord
Westmoreland with Lord Grenville, in proclaiming the un
equalled guilt and infamy of the slave traffic, could be viewed
by the Talleyrands and the Nesselrodes only as indicating a
universal sense, of the great importance of the end in view, to
the commercial ascendancy of Great Britain.
It is easily seen, from the strain of the diplomatic notes ad
dressed to Lord Castlereagh at Aix-la-Chapelle, that the Con
gress had a common jealousy of the designs of England upon
the African coast, and acted in concert in disappointing the
hopes, and alarming the policy, of her plenipotentiary. To
maintain a fleet upon that coast would obviously be in the
power of none bu,t England, so that the idea of reciprocity in
the right of search was illusive ; and it was not contrary to the
entire analogy of British maritime administration to suppose,
that, in this case, it might be perverted to the ends of rapacity,
oppression, or monopoly.
The invidiousness of the proceedings of the English states
men, and the incredulity which they have rendered inveterate
in the foreign cabinets, as to their professions, in this matter
ofthe slave trade, make it doubtful whether the cause of real,
universal abolition has not suffered by the intervention of
England. Had the appeal to the justice, humanity, magnani
mity, and true interests of France, Spain, or Portugal, come
from a quarter where no selfish or hostile views could be sus
pected to lurk; had it been urged with steady effort, with
the directness of conscious benevolence, and with only a part
of that eloquence and sagacity which Great Britain has dis-

* February 11, 1813.

382 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
played in the argument, it might, in the end, have effectually
reclaimed those powers, or have raised against them such a
combination of influence as would have led to the same happy
result. But, in dealing with Great Britain, the calculation
with them has been, how to avoid a suspected snare ; to coun
teract an insidious rival policy ; to preserve the interests which
they ostensibly sacrificed, in compliance with the particular
necessities of their situation. Hence a more eager and obsti
nate purpose of filling their colonies with negroes in every
practicable mode ; a greater callousness to the shame and
criminality of the traffic — hence on the part of other powers,
giving the same construction to the instances of England,
little disposition to adopt any system that should cut off their
supplies, or second her aims. Hence, too, the unmeaning en
gagements about abolition after a certain period of enjoyment,
which only serve to stimulate the exertions of the slave trader,
and aggravate the immediate desolation of Africa: "the vows
of future amendment coupled with present perseverance in
guilt ;" sacrifices promised to be made, with a determination to
prove faithless ; solemn assurances of future rectitude, for whose
accomplishment we are to wait until commercial jealousy shall
cease, avarice be satiated, or the sword drawn to enforce
performance. More of cant, hypocrisy, and inconsistency, has never dis
graced any occasion, than this of the abolitition of the slave
trade. While it is admitted universally, and solemnly pro
claimed by the potentates, to be the opprobrium of Christen
dom, and the bane of Africa; "repugnant to the principles of
humanity and essential morality," f they enter into compacts
among themselves for guaranteeing to one or the other, the
unmolested prosecution of it, during such a term as the con
venience of the party may require ; and in no case is there an
intention of observing the limitation prescribed. France de
mands, to use the language of Lord Grenville, five years of
injustice and rapine, of murder and violence, laying waste a
whole quarter of the globe, that she may recruit her colonial
vigour, and particularly that she may have the facility of re-
peopling St. Domingo with slaves, in case of the reduction of
that island; England, the tutelary genius of Africa, specially
ratifies this demand : Portugal and Spain must have eight
years of the same horrible career, and will not agree to desist
even then, unless their commercial relations with England

f See the Declaration ofthe Congress of Vienna, 8th Feb. 1815.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 383
shall undergo a particular change : they acknowledge the teem
ing wickedness of the traffic ; but, unluckily, they have the
prosperity of their dominions to promote : England disclaims all
idea of giving the law on the subject, or pushing matters to an
extremity :* Russia, Austria, and Prussia, cannot undertake to
coerce any power, either as to time or space ; and decide that
each is to be left to consult " the prejudices, habits, and interests
of its subjects, and the circumstances of its situation:" All
pledge themselves, in the last place to make every possible
effort to accelerate the triumph of the magnificent cause of
universal abolition !
The only governments, in fact, which have acted sincerely and
independently, in relation to it, are those of Denmark and the
United States. 1 am free to confess that no small share ofthe illicit
trade has been carried on by Americans, or by persons assuming
the character ; and that no inconsiderable number of negroes
has been clandestinely imported into the most southern parts of
our territory. Perhaps the Federal Government has not exerted
all the vigilance in repressing these abuses, which their enor
mity required ; but the heartiest detestation of them is common
to it and to the majority of the nation. The least participation
in the slave traffic is certainly a deep stain, and a heinous guilt.
The violence which this traffic does, in its very conception, to
the rights and obligation of human nature; its effect in bruta
lizing those who pursue it ; the flagitious and ferocious practices
with which it is attended; the ineffable, accumulated woes
which it inflicts upon its defenceless victims , the immeasurable
, evils of every kind with which it overspreads. the continent of
Africa, and threaten that of America — conspire to invest it with
a character of greater deformity, scandal, depravity, and perni-
ciousness, than belongs to any other general crime of the civiliz
ed world. I have been the more liberal of details concerning
the horrors of the British trade, in order to attract a more
earnest attention to our own late offences of the sort, about
which we have been too supine; and against which the voice of
every good citizen and moral man, as well as the vcice and the
arm of the government, should be perpetually raised.
17. Widely different, under the circumstances in which we
find ourselves, in the case of retaining the wretched race of
Africa in bondage. The most zealous of the English philan-

* See the Prctocol of the third conference at Vienna, Feb. 4th, 1815.

384 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
thropists have not carried their aims so far, with' respect to
West India slavery, as its immediate or speedy abolition. I have
quoted, in my seventh section, the protest entered by the Edin
burgh Review, against the imputation of such a design, either to
the Reviewers or any of the adversaries of the slave trade.
That journal has returned several times to the topic; in the
eighth number, for instance, in tbe following language : — " It
is scarcely necessary to premise, that the advocates for the abo
lition of the slave trade most cordially reprobate all idea of
emancipating the slaves that are already in our plantations.
Such a scheme indeed is sufficiently answered by the story qf
the galley slave in Don Quixote, and we are persuaded, never
had any place in the minds of those enlightened and judicious
persons, who have contended in this cause."
So late as 1817, Lord Holland, one of the most devoted
among the associates of Mr. Wilberforce, moved, in the
House of Peers, a Petition to the Prince Regent, praying
that the idea of emancipating the West India slaves might be
disowned by royal proclamation throughout the islands;
which was done accordingly. Their unfitness for freedom,
no less than the danger to the white inhabitants, has been
alleged as the motive for discarding all pojeets implying their
liberation. This has always been treated in England as a
question of practicability, not of strict justice. To give a spe
cimen of the mode of reasoning on the subject, 1 will extract
a passage from a speech of Mr. W. Grant in the House of
Commons. Mr. W. Grant said, " he had ever conceived that the end
of legislation was to do good, and to consider justice in our
means of doing if. Now there were some occasions on
which it was impossible to do so ; and there the greatest good
must be the object even in violation of strict justice. He
• would illustrate his meaning by au instance. Let them sup
pose a case of emancipation. Wherever slavery existed, there
necessarily existed oppression, and the continuance of slavery
was consequently a continuance of oppression. If he had
professed to do justice, and a slave were to ask him, how
could he account for the use he had in view in making him a
slave ; if he meant to do justice, he should not continue him
a slave ? he should answer, that his means were circumscrib
ed, and that it was true philanthropy to effect the greatest
good, which the nature of the case would admit. If he for
bore to do an act, abstractly an act of humanity, but which
would produce a different consequence, he surely acted rightly;

SECT. IX.J SLAVE TRADE. 385
were he to act otherwise, he should npt satisfy his con
science, because he should not diminish the misery he wished
to relieve."
Expediency is thus justified, and allowed on all hands to
prevail, touching the existence of slavery in the West Indies.
That the British government possesses the power to suppress
it, no one ventures to deny. The Edinburgh Review has
scouted the supposition of armed resistance on the part ofthe
islands, to any exertion of the supreme authority of the
mother country. " If," says the 50th number, " a threat of
following the example of America, that is, of rebelling, be
held out, then the answer is, that what was boldness in the
one case, would be impudence in the other, and England must
be reduced very low, indeed, before she can feel greatly
alarmed at this threat from a Caribbee island." She is, there
fore, responsible for the existence of slavery in the West Indies,
as much as if it existed within her own bosom, and we might
retort upon her the phrase of the Edinburgh Review directed
against us, — " That slavery should exist among men who
know the value of liberty, and profess to understand its prin
ciples, is the consummation of wickedness."
Were the question ofthe abolition of West India slavery to
be treated as one of strict justice, England could have no
escape from its fullest pressure. The circumstance of her
having created and fostered the slavery itself ; of her having
been chiefly instrumental in making it the fate of so many
millions of the race of its victims there, would give every
ppssible degree of force and solemnity to the abstract obliga
tion in the case. While, therefore, slavery continues to exist
undisturbed in the West Indies, the Briten who approves
of the policy of maintaining it, cannot deny to the United
States, the benefit of the plea of expediency in regard to the
emancipation of their blacks. To avert a personal danger
from her planters, and to maintain her lucrative connexion
with the islands, England abstains from " tearing off the
manacles," — the most galling that ever were imposed — from
nearly a million of that race ; she even abstains, upon consi
derations of possible disadvantage, as the postponement ofthe
Registry Bill shows, from measures adapted merely to the
amelioration of their condition.
I have, I think, proved in the first pages of this sec
tion, that but a slight degree of blame attaches to the co
lonists, respecting the existence of slavery in this country;
and that their descendants were in no measure culpable, as
far down as the declaration of our independence. They
Vol. 1.— 3C

386 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
were no more so, than they would have been, for an heredi
tary gout or leprosy, ascribable in ks origin to the vices ofthe
parent state, and which the authors of it should have stu
diously prevented them from curing. The continuation of
the system of slavery among us, during the Revolution, was as
much a matter of necessity, as it ever had been before. It
was not the time for the southern states, to make the experi
ment of a fundamental alteration in the whole economy of
their existence, when they were contending with a ruthless foe,
who sought to array the whole body of negroes against the
whites, and who would have availed himself of the greater
freedom of action which emancipation must have afforded the
latter, to accomplish his diabolical purpose.
But the northern and middle states, more auspiciously cir
cumstanced, began the work of extirpating the evil from their
own bosom, even before the termination of the revolutionary
struggle. In 1780, Pennsylvania decreed a gradual aboli
tion ; in the same year an immediate one was virtually effect
ed in Massachusetts ; the example of Pennsylvania was fol
lowed throughout New England at the distance of a few years;
all that portion of the Union, north of the state of Delaware,
has since pursued the same course.
It was more than a practical moralist could expect or ex
act, that the southern states, retaining sovereign governments
of their own, should trust the federal councils with the deter
mination of such a question, as the emancipation of their
slaves, pn which their highest interests of property and safety
were immediately dependent. No power to decide for them
on this question could be communicated, according to the
drift and nature of our union, either to the Revolutionary
Confederation, or to the actual government. The power of
legislating in all respects for the territory belonging to the
United States, accrued necessarily, however, to both ; and it
was exercised in relation to slavery, by the first, in a manner
to evince the rectitude ofthe general spirit on the subject, ren
dered impotent in the south by the strongest of impulses, if not
the first of duties — self-preservation. The ordinance enacted
by the Congress of the United States, in 1787, for the go
vernment of the territory north west of the river Ohio, con
tains the following article — " There shall be neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than
in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted." This vast region was thus scrupulously
preserved from the evil ; and the states of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois formed out of it, make an integral part of that consi-

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 387
derable and most prosperous division of our empire, into
which, happily, an Englishman may emigrate without " ex
posing his own character or the character of his children to
the demoralizing effect of commanding slaves."
18. The question ofthe existence of slavery is not, as I have
intimated, — could not be, — put within the jurisdiction of the
present government ofthe United States. The condition of
things assuring, for a long time, to the part of the country ex
empt or sopn to be exempt from the evil, a numerical majority
in the federal legislature, this domestic interest ofthe southern
members of the Union, vital and preeminently delicate in its
nature, would have been placed at the mercy of men incapa
ble, like the Edinburgh Reviewers, of understanding it
thoroughly ; liable to an undue bias resulting from the action
of good principles ; and who, whatever their general spirit of
forbearance, considerateness of character, and warmth of poli
tical friendship, might, from ignorance and prejudice combined,
through a mistaken patriotism and philanthropy, or in obe
dience to a sentimental clamor of their constituents, seconded
by a generous zeal in their own breasts, hastily take a step
which would sooner or later involve both master and slave, in
the south, in one common ruin.
As regards, then, the existence of slavery within the limits
of the Union, the federal government has no responsibility
such as that of the British parliament, in its omnipotence,
with respect to the whole internal economy of the British pos
sessions. The eleven of these American states, in which sla
very is now abolished, are not implicated in the demerits of the
question. To break loose from the confederation, and thus to
risk their own political independence, because the other mem
bers do not perform that which is impracticable ; because these
happen, without their own fault, to be afflicted with the curse
of negro slavery ; or to attempt to enforce by arms, an aboli
tion ; is what no sane person will consider as incumbent upon
them, and what would hardly be advised by England, who
neither coerces nor discards the West Indies ; and who
would not " give the law" to Spain, Portugal, or France, with
respect to the slave trade — infinitely the more detestable
crime and destructive evil — when those powers were at her
beck. The eastern and middle states have not been backward in
discharging any duty in the way of exhortation and aid, which
their political and other ties with the slave-holding countries^
might seem to create. Their doctrine as to human rights is as

388 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
broad, as sincerely adopted, and as loudly proclaimed, as that
of England; abolition societies abound in them, who do not
yield in point of zeal to the African Institution, and have no
compromise to make with any government * The citizens of
those states, in emigrating to the west, as they do constantly in
great numbers, manifest the soundness of their feelings and
principles on this subject, by settling in preference, in the
parts from which negro slavery is excluded. Hence the asto
nishing growth of the states of Ohio and Indiana, the first of
which has outstripped, in advances of every kind, whatever
the world had seen in the spontaneous formation of commu
nities. But, those members ofthe Union, of which I am now speak
ing, while they have inculcated without reserve, in the national
councils, every truth, either abstractor practical, appertaining
to the question of our negro slavery, have not been blind to the
just sentiments of their southern associates, who alone are ac
countable ; nor have they overlooked, though they may not have
always fully measured, the difficulties inherent in the situation
of the latter. They, who have better opportunities of under
standing it than the British reviewers, are far from thinking
that it " affords no apology for the existence of slavery." They
see it in the sattie light, in this respect, as they see that of the
West Indies, which the Reviewers have declared a complete
justification ; for, though the negroes in our slave-holding
states are not near so numerous in the proportion to the whites,
as in the West Indies ; and though, from the superiority of their
condition, they are better prepared for freedom, yet they are in
sufficient number to assure, in the event of insurrection, the
most horrible disasters, before they could be subdued, with the
earliest possible aid from the other states ; and, they are still,
from inevitable causes, far from the point of being prepared to
<;xist here, out ofthe bonds of slavery, with advantage to
themselves, or safety to the whites.
10. Before the American revolution, the British policy of
multiplying their numbers by importations from Africa, closed
the door against an attempt to qualify them, by moral and po
litical instruction, for that state. Such an attempt would ap
pear to have been equally impracticable, in the course of the
revolutionary war, if we look only to the engrossing avoca-
* Sec thpwriliii.cs of Dr. Thorpe for an explanation of this inuendo.
He roundly charges Mr. Wilberforce and the Institution, wilh playing into
ihe hands of (he ininistn.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TilADE, 389
tions of the struggle, and to the belligerent system ofthe mo
ther country. But it was so then, and has been ever since,
from other causes; more obviously, as the numbers of the
blacks increased. An effectual training of the kind is incom
patible with their very being as slaves, and with the nature of
the toil incident to their situation. It presupposes their eman
cipation, or such a modification of their existence, as would
be equivalent, in reference to their value as property, or tp
the danger threatened by their exemption from restraint. The
doctrine so long popular and pursued in England, and main
tained openly by some of her most distinguished statemen,*
that the labouring classes should not be enlightened, lest they
might become unwilling to perform the necessary drudgery of
their station in life, and prone to rise against the monarchial
scheme of social order, was not, perhaps, in her case, altoge
ther without foundation as to the latter topic of apprehension.
Now, though the very reverse is the soundest policy for us,
with our institutions, as respects the whites, the doctrine, if
the right of the southern American to consult his own safety
and the ultimate happiness of his slaves, be admitted, is un
questionably just in relation to the body of the southern ne
groes. You could not attempt to improve and fashion their
minds upon a general system, so far as to make them capable
of freedom in the mass and apart, without exposing yourself,
even in the process, or in proportion as they began to under
stand and value their rights, to feel the abjection of their
position and employment, calculate their strength, and be fit
for intelligent concert — to formidable combinations among
them, for extricating themselves from their grovelling and se
vere labours at pnce, and fer gaining, npt merely an equality
in the state, but an ascendancy in all respects. The difference
of race and colour would render such aspirations in them,
much more certain, prompt, and active, than in the case of a
body of villeins of the same colour and blood with yourselves,
whom you might undertake to prepare for self government.
The Duke of Wellington, in the late debate on the Catholic
Emancipation in the British House of Peers, expressed his
beljef that the Catholics of Ireland, if relieved from their
disabilities, would endeavour to put down the reformed reli
gion, and this because of the feelings which must accompany
the recollection, that that religion had been established in their
country by the sword. What cpnsequences, then, might we
npt expect in the case of our slaves, from the sense of recent

* See page 69, Sect. ii.

390 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I
suffering and degradation, and from the feelings incident to
the estrangement and insulation growing out of the indeliable
distinctions of nature ?
I know but of one mode of correcting those feelings and
preventing alienation, hostility, and civil war ; of making the
experiment of general instruction and emancipation with any
degree of safety. We must assure the blacks of a perfect
equality in all points with ourselves; we must labour to in
corporate them with us, so that we shall become of one flesh
and blood, and of one political family ! It is doubtful even
whether we could succeed in this point, so gregarious are they
in their habits, and so strong in their national sympathy. No
sublime philanthropist of Europe^ has, however, as yet, in his
reveries of the impiety of political distinctions founded upon
the colour ofthe body, or in his lamentations over our injustice
to the blacks, exacted from us openly this hopeful amalgama
tion. It would, no doubt, suit admirably the views of our
friends in England, who would then have full scope for plea
sant comparisons between the American and English intellect,
and the American and English complexion.*
1 could suggest another consideration, alone sufficient to
have deterred our southern states from hazarding, since our
revolution, the measure of a general abolition of negro slavery,
accompanied with the continuance of the negroes within their
limits. It would have put those states especially, and this
federal union, at the mercy of Great Britain. The facility
of tampering with the blacks, and of exciting them to insur
rection, would have been increased for her, incalculably, in
their new condition, in time of war. Let her conduct on this
Tiead during the revolutionary struggle, and in our late contest,
in relation both to the Indians and negroes, determine the
point whether she would not have availed herself of the op
portunity. On the subject of the abolition of the negro slavery ofthe
south, Judge Tucker, whom I have already cited, has made
some remarks which cannot fail to have great weight with
every dispassionate and candid mind.
" It is unjust," he says, " to censure the present generation
for the existence of slavery in this country, for I think it un
questionably true, that a very large proportion of our fellow-
citizens lament that as misfortune, which is imputed to them

* See the Quarterly Review of May, 1819, on the point of complexion
" The white men, women, and children, are all sallow in America," &c.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 391
as a reproach ; it being evident that, antecedent to the revolution,
no exertion to abolish, or even to check the progress of slavery,
could have received the smallest countenance from the crown,
without whose assent the united wishes and exertions of every
individual here, would have been wholly fruitless and ineffec
tual : it is, perhaps, also demonstrable, that at no period since
the revolution, could the abolition of slavery in the southern
states have been safely undertaken, until the foundations of
our newly established governments had been found capable of
supporting the fabric itself, under any shock, which so arduous
an attempt might have produced."
" The acrimony of the censures cast upon us must abate,
at least in the breasts ofthe candid, when they consider the
difficulties attendant on any plan for the abolition of slavery,
in a country where so large a proportion of the inhabitants
are slaves, and where a still larger proportion of the cultiva
tors of the earth are of that description. The extirpation of
slavery from the United States is a task equally momentous
and arduous. Human prudence forbids that we should pre
cipitately engage in a work of such hazard as a general and
simultaneous emancipation. The mind of man is in some
measure to be formed for his future condition. The early im
pressions of obediehce and submission, which slaves have re
ceived among us, and the no less habitual arrogance and as
sumption of superiority among the whites, contribute equally
to unfit the former for freedom, and the latter for equality. To
expel them all at once from the United States would, in fact,
be to devote them only to a lingering death, by famine, by
disease, and' other accumulated miseries.. To retain them
among us, would be nothing more than to throw so many of
the human race upon the earth, without the means of subsist
ence ; they would sopn beceme idle, profligate, and miserable.
They would be unfit for their new condition, and unwilling te
return to their former laborious course."
These observations were published in 1803 ; but they are
equally applicable to the succeeding period. Our foreign re
lations were always such in the interval between the com
mencement of the late war with England and the year just
mentioned, as to give an aspect of extreme danger to imme
diate abolition ; and there was no room for the question during
the continuance of the war. The difficulties of the case in
creased, indeed, with the great increase of the negroes, in
dependently of our general political embarrassments, both
internal and external, sufficient to absorb our care and fa
culties.

392

NEGRO SLAVERY AND

It was by gradual, voluntary enfranchisement, not by legis
lative abolition, that an end was put to the villeinage of Eng
land, a bondage as complete and degrading as that of our ne
groes, and which lasted until the reign of Elizabeth. But the
villein, when emancipated, being of the same race, colour, and
general character with the master, was assimilated and con
ciliated at once ; intermarriage neither debased the blood, nor
destroyed the identity, of the nation ; but added to its strength
and security. The gradual emancipation of the negroes of
our southern states, if we supposed them to remain, would,
in the end, produce the same inadmissible condition of things
as the immediate, — a two-fold, or a motley nation ; a perpetual,
wasting strife, or a degeneracy from the European standard of
excellence, both as to body and mind. As far as it has been
tried, it has inspiied no confidence, whether as regards the
happiness ofthe blacks, or the security of the whites. Vir
ginia took advantage of ber independence to authorize manu
mission, which the policy of the mother- cpuntry discounte
nanced. Judge Tucker calculates that upwards of ten thcusand
obtained freedom in Virginia in this way, in the interval be
tween 1782, when she passed her law, and the year 1791. —
In 1810, according to the census, the number of her free
negroes amounted to thirty thousand five hundred and seventy.
In Maryland, there were forty thousand ; the increase having
been near twenty-six thousand since 1790. In the states south
of Virginia, this class was not so numerous, but yet not incon
siderable. We find, by Dr. Seybert's tables, that the free
negroes and mulattoes increased 185.05 per centum, from
1790 to 1800; and from 1790 to 1310, 313.45. This ex
traordinary increase he ascribes to emancipations of slaves by
their masters. Thus the experiment has been ample ; and now
let us see what is the result in the slave-holding states. It is
fully given in the following representations which come from
the pen of a politician well known, and most deservedly and
highly respected in Europe.
" You may manumit a slave, but you cannot make him a
white man. He still remains a negro or a mulatto. The
mark and the recollection of his origin and former state still
adhere to him ; the feelings preduced by thatcendition, in his
own mind and in the minds of the whites, still exist ; he is
associated by his colour, and by these recollections and feel
ings, with the class pf slaves ; and a barrier is thus raised be
tween him and the whites, that is, between him and the free
class, which he can never hope to transcend. The authority
of the master being removed, and its place not being supplied

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 393
by moral restraints or incitements, he lives in idleness, and
probably in vice, and obtains a precarious support by begging
or theft. If he sheuld avoid thpse extremes, and follpw some
regular cpurse pf industry, still the habits pf thpughless im
providence which he centracted while a slave himself, pr has
caught frcm the slaves ampng whoni he is forced to live, who
of necessity are his companions and associates, prevent him
from making any permanent provision for his support, by pru
dent foresight and economy ; and in case of sickness, or of
bodily disability from any other cause, Send him to live as a
pauper, at the expense of the community."
" But it is not in themselves merely that the free people of
colour are a nuisance and burden. They contribute greatly
to the corruption of the slaves, and to aggravate the evils of
their condition, by rendering them idle, discontented, and dis
obedient. This also arises from the necessity under which the
free blacks are, of remaining incorporated with the slaves, of
associating habitually with them, and forming part of the
same class in society. The slave seeing his free companion
live in idleness, or Subsist, however scantily or precariously,
by occasional and desultory employment, is apt to grow dis
contented with Ms own condition, and to regard as tyranny
and injustice the authority which compels him to labour.
Hence he is strongly incited to elude his authority by neglect
ing his work as much as possible; to withdraw himself from
it altogether by flight, and sometimes to attempt direct resist
ance. This provokes or impels the master to a severity which
tvould not otherwise be thought necessary ; and that severity,
by rendering the slave still more discontented with his condi
tion, arid more hostile towards his master, by adding the senti
ments of resentment and revenge to his original dissatisfac
tion, often renders him more idle and worthless, and thus in
duces the real or supposed necessity of still greater harshness
on the piiftof the master. Such is the tendency pf that com-
parision which the slave cannot easily avoid making, between
his own situation and that ofthe free people of his own colour,
who are his companions, and in every thing except exemption
from the authority of a master, his equals : whose condition,
though often much worse than his own, naturally appears bet
ter to him; and being continually under his observation, and
in close contact with his feelings, is apt to chafe, goad, and
irritate him incessantly. This effect indeed is not always pro-
ducedT but such is the tendency of this state of things; and it
operates more extensively, and with greater force, than is
commonly supposed."
Vol. 1.— 3 D

394 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
" But this effect, injurious as it must be to the character
and conduct of the slaves, and consequently to their comfort
and happiness, is far from being the worst that is produced by
the existence of free blacks amongst us ; a majority of the free
blacks, as we have seen, are, and must be an idle, worth
less, and thievish race. It is with this part of them that the
slaves will necessarily associate, the most frequently and the
most intimately. Free blacks of the better class, who gain a
comfortable subsistence by regular industry, keep as much as
possible aloof from the slaves, to whom in general they regard
themselves as in some degree superior. Their association is
confined, as much as possible, to the better and more respect
able class of slaves. But the idle and disorderly free blacks
naturally seek the society of such slaves as are disposed to be
idle and disorderly too ; whom they encourage to be more and
more so, by their example, their conversation, and the shelter
and means which they furnish. They encourage the slaves to
theft, because they partake in its fruits. They receive, secrete,
and dispose of the stolen gcods; a part, and probably much
the largest part, of which thej' often receive, as a reward for
their services. They furnish places of meeting and hiding
places in their houses, for the idle and the vicious slaves ;
whose idleness and vice are thus increased and rendered more
contagious. These hiding places and places of meeting are
so many traps and snares, for the young and thoughtless slaves,
who have not yet become vicious ; so many schools in which
they are taught, by precept and example, idleness, lying, de
bauchery, drunkenness, and theft. The consequence of all
this is very easily seen, and I am sure is severely felt in all
places, where free people of colour exist in considerable num
bers.''* The experience of the states north and east ofthe Susque-
hannah, with regard to this class of persons, is not, on the
whole, much more encouraging. The number of respectable
individuals is considerably greater indeed, but the character
of the mass nearly the same. Nor can it be urged that
they are debarred here, access to the ordinary means of moral
and intellectual regeneration. On the contrary, scbools are
established for them ; they are aided in procuring the conve
niences for religious instruction and divine worship; they are
united in societies adapted to produce self-respect, and men
tal activity ; exemplary attention is paid, in numerous in-
* Letter of Rohert Goodloe Harper, Esq. to the Secretary of the Ame
rican Colonization Society. August 20th, 1817.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 395
stances, to the regulation of their habits and principles. They
have every facility which is enjoyed by the labouring classes
among the whites, of acquiring a plain education, and a com
fortable subsistence, and of making provision for their children.
They have the same legal security in person and property,
and generally, the same pelitical rights as the rest of the
community. In the slave-holding states, they do, indeed, labour under
civil incapacities; and the policy pf denying them the higher
privileges of citizenship, is imperative. We have felt the in
convenience of naturalized Europeans exercising those privi
leges in distinct bodies, collected and animated by national
feeling ; the risk of the African race voting and legislating
with the esprit de corps, is too serious to be incurred, even
where all ofthe race might be free, provided they should be at
all numerous ; and to incur it would be madness, where a con
siderable number of them should, as slaves, remain to be ir
ritated and goaded to revolt, by the invidiousness ofthe exam
ple, and the inevitable conspiracy ofthe others for the universal
release of their brethren. If we suppose that the multitude of
free blacks whem Virginia, fpr instance, has now in her bosom,
would exercise the privileges ofcitizenship, were these granted
to them ; and if we then assume the natural consequences, the
elevation of some of their number to the legislature, and a
concert of views and action among the whole, we must see
that she would have to prepare herself at once for the alterna
tive of a general extinction of her negro slavery, whatever
might be the catastrophe ; or of the establishment of a re
straining code and police whieh, if it proved effectual to pre
vent that danger, must aggravate the condition of the slave,
and defer the period at which his emancipation might other
wise take place. " The experiment, so far as it has been al
ready made among us," says Judge Tucker, " proves that
the emancipated blacks are not ambitious of civil rights.
To prevent the generation of such an ambition, appears ne-
necessary ; for if it should ever rear its head, its partizans, as
well as its opponents, will be enlisted by nature herself, and
always ranged against each other."
20. The complaints which the British travellers and re
viewers have made of the unjust disfranchisement ofthe free
blacks, have then no foundation in fact, as regards the eastern
states ; nor in sound speculation, in reference to the southern.
The disfranchisement which exists in the latter, cannot be
said to be unjust, if injustice in the business of life, be not a

396 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART t.
a mere abstraction, and have any thing to do with the con
sideration of self-preservation, and the welfare of the ma
jority. All qualifications of property in the matter of election
apd legislation would be unjust, and the doctrine of universal
suffrage) which the Edinburgh Review has so stoutly combated, "
the only true one, if the above mentioned complaints were ad
missible. With what an ill grace does reproach on the subject of
disfranchisement, come from an Englishman ! One-fourth of
the whole united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland —
four-fifths of the population of Ireland separately — are inca
pable of sitting in Parliament, and of holding various civil and
military stations. The motive for continuing this system of
exclusion is avowed to be expediency. A large portion ofthe
most intelligent politicians of Great Britain depy tbe fact of
the alleged expediency ; and surely, in the case ofthe Catho
lics pf England, a small body, confessedly qualified in point of
understanding, morals, property, tried loyalty ; there could
be no practicaLinconvenience, as there is not even pretended
to be the least direct danger, in admitting them to all the
benefits of the British constitution; except only that their
admission might render the Catholics of Ireland more earnest
and importunate in seeking the same level. The case of the
latter even, which wears a more plausible air as to expe
diency, is, in this respect, in no degree so strong as that of the
negroes in our southern states, and infinitely beyond it in point
of practical hardship and moral deformity.* England disfran
chises, npt a race of men of a different complexion from her
own, and of inveterate heterogeneity ; degraded, in the gene
ral estimation of the European race, and who had been forced
upon her hands by another country ; insensible to the value of
political rights, and incompetent to exercise them beneficially ;
but a people in whose favour all the natural sympathies, and
most endearing natural affinities plead to her heart ; whom she
and aU the civilized world acknowledge to be their equals in
in the choicest endowments of mind and body; whose country
she invaded and whose independence she crushed ; among
whom she established by the sword that reformed religion, the
dissent from which is the pretext for their disfranchisement ;
to whom she owes a boundless retribution for ages of acknow-
ldged misgovernment and oppression, and gratitude for the
most important services and aids rendered to her in every
branch of her public business. * Sec Note V.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 397
21. Nothing can be more false than the representations of
the English travellers concerning the treatment of the free
bkcks by the whites in the middle and eastern states. It is
not true that they are " excluded from the places of public
worship frequented by the whites;" that " the most degraded
white will not walk or eat with a negro;" or that they are
" practically slaves."* Their situation as hired domestics,
mechanics, or general labourers, is the same in all respects as
that of the whites of the same description ; they are fed and
paid as well ; equally exempt from personal violence, and free
to change their occupation or their employer. They approach
us as familiarly as persons ofthe correspondent class in England
approach their superiors in rank and wealth, and, in general,
betray much less servility in their tone and carriage. They
do not make part of our society, indeed ; they are not invited
to our tables : they do not marry into our families ; nor would
they, were they of our own colour, with no higher claims
than they possess, on the score of calling, education, intelli
gence, and wealth. I confess that whatever claims they might
possess in these or other respects, those are advantages from
which they wculd be excluded; there must remain, in any
case, a broad line of demarcation, not viewed as an inconve
nience by them, but indispensable for our feelings and interests.
Nature and accident combine to make it impassable. Their
colour is a perpetual memento of their servile origin, and a
double disgust is thus created. We will not, and ought not,
expose ourselves to lose our identity as it were; to be stained
in our blood, and disparaged in our relation of being towards
the stock of our forefathers in Europe. This may be called
prejudice ; but it is pne which no reaspning can overcome,
and which we cannot wish to see extinguished. We are sure
that it would prevail in an equal degree with any nation of
Europe who might be circumstanced like ourselves; we do
not find it so gross in itself, or so hurtful and unjust in its
operation, as those of an analogous cast which we see prevail
ing in England. " Men of true speculation," says Mr. Burke,
" instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their saga
city to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If
they find what they seek, they think it more wise to continue
the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away
the coat of prejudice, and leave nothing but the naked reason."

* These arc the allegations of Fearon; worthy of notice only so far as
they have been employed as texts by ihe Reviewers. See note W.

398 N EG tio SLAVERY AND [PART 1.
22. The unfortunate condition and character of the free
blacks generally, are not imputable to the whites; but to the
existence itself of negro slavery among us, and to the circum
stance of a distinctive colour. The first is the work of Eng
land; the other of nature. As the case is, we need not be sur
prised, nor can we much lament, that some of the southern
states have passed laws to discourage manumission. The
enactment of such laws proves that the practice prevailed, or
was likely to prevail, notwithstanding the injuriousness of the
effects. We know that many thousands of the planters of the
old states in the south, are restrained, not by the laws, but by
a tenderness and sense of duty to the negrees themselves, and
to the commonwealth. There are few Americans capable of
reasoning calmly and from experience, on this subject, who do
not concur, in reference to the southern states at ieast, in the
follpwing sentiments ef the enlightened and benevplent en
quirer, whpse accurate representatien pf the cendition of the
free blacks I have quoted above.
u The considerations stated in the first part of this letter,
have long since produced a thorough conviction in my mind,
that the existence of a class of free people of colour in this
country is highly injurious, to the whites, the slaves, and the
free people of colour themselves : consequently, that all eman
cipation, to however small an extent, which permits the per
sons emancipated to remain in this country, is an evil, which
must increase with the increase of the operation, and would
become altogether intolerable, if extended to the whole, or
even to a very large part, of tbe black population. I am,
therefore, strongly opposed to emancipation, in every shape
and degree, unless accompanied by colonization."
Colonization is, in fact, the only reliance in this great ques
tion. Without it, no plan of abolition can be effected for
the security of the whites, or the good of the blacks ; since
the permanence of the latter, free or enslaved, within the
abode, or the neighbourhood, of the former, is the main dan
ger. Colonization is, no doubt, itself attended with appalling
difficulties. The aspect of these difficulties prevented the
legislature of Virginia from adopting, at an early period, a bill,
prepared by a committee, for gradual emancipaticn in that
state. It was thought, and not without reason, that to plant
a nation of negroes in the American territory, would be to lay
the foundation of intestine wars which could terminate only
in their extirpation or final expulsion ; that to assign them a
country beyond the settlements of the whites, would be to put
them on a forlorn hope against the Indians. The expense of

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 399
their transportation and establishment presented itself, also, as
an obstacle little short of insurmountable.*
The expedient of transplanting the free blacks to the coast
of Africa ; of opening there a receptacle for our black popula
tion at large ; occurred to the Virginia legislature in the be
ginning of the present century. At the solicitation of that
body, the federal government endeavoured, in 1802, through
Mr. King, the American ministerin London, to negotiate with
the Sierra Leone Company, for the admission ofthe American
blacks into their colony. But the application did not succeed ;
and the same fate attended a similar attempt, which was made
with Portugal, to obtain an establishment for them within her
South American dominions.
While the British slave trade continued, no hope could be
entertained of the prosperity of such an establishment on the
coast of Africa. " To account," said the Edinburgh Review,
in 1805, " for the failure ofthe Sierra Leone plan, it is quite
sufficient to reflect, that it was undertaken in 1791, on the
supposition then so natural, of the slave trade being about to
cease ; — that, instead of this expectation being realized, the
traffic in question increased daily and hourly in growth ; that
the company in vain besought Parliament to check the trade,
at least in the narrow district where the colony was planted."
In sending our negroes thither, we should only have been fur
nishing aliment for that insatiable passion which occasioned
the introduction of the race into our own country. Constantly
expecting a rupture with Great Britain, or actually engaged
in hostilities with her, from the period of her abolition of the
slave trade, it is only of late that we could again look to the
coast of Africa. The project of making a settlement in that
quarter, for the purpose of gradually restoring our black popu
lation to their native region, and thus extirpating the slavery
which we detest, and fear, has been revived. As soon after
the conclusion of the peace in 1815, as our political circum
stances would permit, a society, styled the American Coloni
zation Society, was formed in the south, on the most liberal
plan, and under the most distinguished auspices. It enjoys the
particular patronage of the legislature of Virginia ; has the
countenance and aid of the federal government ; and appears
to be viewed with an eye of favour by the slave-holding
states. Auxiliary societies have been organized in different
parts of the country, and will, probably, multiply fast, and
excite every where an interest in the important object, which
• Tucker's Notes on Blackstonc.

400 ' NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
will greatly facilitate its success. The principal society has
already caused the western coast of Africa to be explored, and
is sanguine as to the practicability of the plan of settlement
in some district of that coast. I must confess that I have
no hope of its success. The British government, whatever
may be its professions, will not allow any establishment to
thrive and be perpetuated, which may interfere with its par
ticular views in that direction. As long, moreover, as the
slave trade is prosecuted in its present frightful extent, or, in
deed, until it shall be contracted within very narrow limits,
no colony which we may form, can be prevented from be
coming, either its prey, or one of its factories. The acting
attorney-general of Sierra Leone declared in 1812, on the
trial of certain persons for an infraction of the British aboli
tion laws, that the town itself, Sierra Lepne, was "the heart
from which all the arteries and veins of the slave-trading sys
tem had for years been animated and supplied."* The direc
tors of the African Institution, in their answers to the queries
of Lord Castlereagh, already cited, hold the following lan
guage. " Sierra Leone, and its immediate neighbourhood,
may be considered as the only part ofthe African coast where
plans of improvement can be pursued without immediately
encountering the malignant influence ofthe slave trade. It is
almost necessary, therefore, to confine within that sphere, at
least for the present, any direct efforts made for the civilization
and improvement of Africa. Even the establishment formed
in the Rio Pongas, for the instruction ofthe natives, it is fear
ed, must be withdrawn, in consequence of the revival of the
slave trade."
Though, from the commercial jealousy of Great Britain,
the prevalence ofthe slave trade, or our liability to be involved
in wars with the European nations, which would interrupt
our communication with Africa, we should be obliged to with
draw our aims from that continent, fhe plan of colonization
may, I think, still be pursued on our own, with equal conve-
nienceand less risk of final miscarriage. I will not undertake-
to point out the spot for its execution ; this does not belong to
my subject ; but there cannot be Wanting a spot within our
reach, free from all invincible objections. The object is of
infinite importance ; it calls for the earnest attention 6f the
vfhole nation, and the unanimous ageticy of the federal

» SreBr. TlrorpeV View of the present hrcreaser ot" the Stave Trade",
71.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 401
government. " The alarming danger," says General Harper,*
" of cherishing in our bosom a distinct nation, which can never
become incorporated with us, while it rapidly increases in
numbers ; a nation which must ever be hostile to us, from feel
ing and interest ; the danger of such a nation in our bosom,
need not be pointed out to any reflecting mind. It speaks not
only to our understanding, but to our very senses."
S3. In defiance ofthe lessons of history and ofthe true phi
losophy of the human mind, the British writers have insisted,
that freedom must be altogether an empty name in the country
where domestic slavery is established. Their doctrine would
deprive Greece and Rome of the distinction, upon which the
admiration of mankind for those republics has been chiefly
built. Freedom would be just born, as it were, in the world.
" In every age and country," says Hallam, in his History of
the Middle Ages, " until times comparatively recent, personal
servitude appears to have been the lot of a large, perhaps the
greater portion of our species. We lose a good deal of our
sympathy with the spirit of freedom in Greece and Rome,
when the importunate recollection occurs to us, of the tasks
which might be enjoined, and the punishments which might
be inflicted, without control either of law or opinion, by the
keenest patriot of the Comitia, or the Council of Five Thou
sand. A similar, though less powerful feeling, will often force
itself on the mind, when we read the history of the middle ages."
The institution of slavery in the ancient republics was at
tended with every circumstance which might appear incom
patible with the prevalence of true liberty, or of the moral and
political virtues of the highest class.t But who can deny to
Greece and Rome an ample share of those honours ? " We
feel," says Ferguson, in his Essay on the History of Civil

* Letter to the American Colonization Society.
t " In the ancient states," says the Scottish philosopher, Millar, in his
Origin of Ranks," so celebrated upon account of their free government,
the bulk of their mechanics and labouring people were denied the common
privileges nf men, and treated upon the footing of inferior animals. In
proportion to the opulence and refinement of those nations, the number of
their slaves were increased, and the grievances to which they were sub
jected, became the more intolerable."
" Allowing five persons to each family, the Athenian slaves exceeded
the freemen in the proportion of between two and three to one. In the
most flourishing periods of Rome, when luxury was carried to so amazing
a pitch, the proportion of the inhabitants reduced into servitude was in all
probability greater."
Vol. I.— 3 E

402 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [RART I.
Society, "¦ the injustice of the institution of slavery at Sparta.
We suffer for the helot ; but we think only of the superior
order of men in this state, when we attend to that elevation
and magnanimity of spirit, for which danger had no terror,
interest no means to corrupt ; when we consider them as friends
or as citizens, we are apt to forget, like themselves, that slaves
have a title to be treated like men."
Hallam, in the work which 1 have quoted above, has con
tended for the freedom of the English constitution during the
days of English villeinage, and ascribed to the Commons of
those days a proud sense and tenaciousness of equality in civil
rights. In what manner the villeins were treated, and in what
light viewed, will be understood from the following passage of
this author.
"By a very harsh statute in the reign of Richard II. no
servant or labourer could depart, even at the expiration of his
service, from the hundred in which he lived, without permis
sion under the king's seal ; nor might any one who had been
bred to husbandry, till twelve years old, exercise any other
calling. A few years afterwards, the commons petitioned
that villeins might not put their children to school, in order to
advance them by the church; ' and this for the honour ot all
the freemen of the kiugdom.' In the same parliament they
complained, that villeins fly to cities and boroughs where their
masters cannot recover them, and prayed that the lords might
seize their villeins in such places, without regard to the fran
chises thereof."*
If the traits which I have cited in the second section of this
volume, from the early political history of true southern states,
were not enough to convince the mother country of the compa
tibility of the love and possession of the broadest civil liberty,
with the institution of domestic servitude, the part which they
took as colpnies in asserting and maintaining the rights of
America against her scheme of usurpation, ought to have dis
pelled all her doubts on the subject. One of her statesmen,
at least, an adept in the science of human nature, did not
remain in error ; but placed the question befpre her in the
just and full light, as an admpnition against perseverance in
her perilous career. It is strange that it should be necessary to
repeat, for the instruction of some of her most witted writers
of the present day, the following passage of Burke's speech on
the conciliation with America.
" There is a circumstance attending these southern Ameri-
* Vol. iii. c. viii.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 403
can colonies, which makes the spirit of liberty still more high
and haughty there than in those to the northward. It is that,
in Virginia and the Carolinas, they have a vast multitude of
slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the world, those
who are free, are by far the most proud and jealous of their
freedom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a
kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom,
as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad
and general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with
great misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks,
among them, like something that is more noble and liberal. I
do not mean to commend the superior morality of this senti
ment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it ; but I
cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so ; and these people
ofthe southern colonies are much more strongly, and with a
highly and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than those
ofthe northward. Such were all the ancient commonwealths;
such were our Gothic ancestors; such in our days were the
Poles ; and such will be all masters of slaves, who are not
slaves themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of domina
tion combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders
it invincible."
All our experience in America, since the revolution, con
firms the opinion of the orator ; or, at least, assures us, that
the citizens ofthe slave-holding states understand quite as well,
and cherish as fondly, the principles of republicanism, as those
ofthe other members of our union. Bryan Edwards has indi
cated in the character and demeanour of the West Indians,
what we find universal among our south and south-western
brethren. " Of the character," says this author, "common to
the white residents of the West Indies, it appears to me that
the leading feature is an independent spirit, and a display of
conscious equality, throughout all ranks and conditions. The
poorest white person seems to consider himself nearly on a level
with the richest, and, emboldened by this idea, approaches
his employer with extended hand, and a freedom which, in the
countries of Europe, is seldom displayed by men in the lower
orders of life towards their superiors. It is not difficult to
trace the origin of this principle. It arises, without doubt,
from the pre-eminence and distinction which are necessarily
attached even to the complexion of a white man, in a country
where the complexion, generally speaking, distinguishes free
dom from slavery."* * History ofthe West Indies, ch. i. b. iv.

404 NEGRO SLAVERY AND {PART I.
I may apply in the same way the following representations
which Edwards makes in continuation. " Possibly too, the
climate itself, by increasing sensibility, contributes to create an
impatience of subordination. But, whatever may be the cause
of this consciousness of self-importance in the West Indian
character, the consequences resulting from it are, on the whole,
beneficial. If it sometimes produces an ostentatious pride,
and a ridiculous affectation of splendour, it more frequently
awakens the laudable propensities of our nature — frankness,
sociability, benevolence, and generosity. In no part of the
globe is the virtue of hospitality more generally prevalent, than
in the British sugar islands. The gates of the planter are al
ways open to the reception of his guests. To be a stranger is
of itself a sufficient introduction."
24. There is some plausibility in the theory of the Edinburgh
Review concerning the effects of commanding slaves upon
the heart and the morals. But it is not established by our
experience, as true in the general. The native citizen of the
slave-holding state displays, specifically, as much sensibility,
justice, and stedfastness, in all the domestic and social rela
tions, as the European, of whatever country. He is as
strongly influenced by the ties of kindred and friendship ; as
open to the impressions which attemper and refine our nature.
He has had a large share in the formation and administration
of our institutions and laws ; in all the executive offices, civil
and military ; and we have never discovered in him any parti
cular proneness to tyranny or inhumanity ; a torpid conscience,
or an imperfect sense of equality. In none of the nobler vir
tues and qualities has he ever proved deficient, in the compa
rison with the individual born and fashioned among freemen
alone. If there be any thing contradistinguishing in his man
ners and disposition, it is certainly not ferocity or even harsh
ness. The planter of our old southern states has always [been
rather remarkable for his urbanity and facility, as well as for
the dignity and liberality of his sentiments. Morals, it is said,
are more loose in the slave-holding states. If we admitted this
to be the case, it would by no means follow that the institution
of slavery is the principal cause ofthe relaxation. An original
difference of religious institutions, and maxims of conduct; of
soil and climate ; of modes of livelihood and materials of
traffic ; of circumstances attending the connexion with the
mother country ; might give the same result. Domestic sla
very continues in Germany and the northern parts of Europe ;
it has disappeared from the southern; but the dissoluteness of

SECT. II.] SLAVE TRADE. 405
these is notoriously greater. Hungary is more in the odour of
sanctity than the kingdom of Naples. The institution in
question is to be abhorred, on account of the violence which
it offers to human rights, and the abjection to which it reduces
human nature: a priori it would seem to exert a fatal influ
ence on the character of the master ; but our experience at
least, I repeat it, would not justify us in adopting the theory.
When we investigate the dispositions and morals ofthe Eu
ropean nations, it is not with the " lowest and least" of them
alone, but with the highest and greatest that we venture to
compare the white population of our slave-holding states. It
is not unknown to us, that in Russia the number of slaves
held as property, and subject to absolute will, is sextuple that
of our negroes.* That, in the other parts of Europe, where
the institution of slavery does not exist, there are other insti
tutions generating an hundred fold more vice, misery, and
debasement, than we have ever witnessed in the same compass
in America.
25. The laws of the slave-holding states do not furnish a
criterion for the character of their present white population,
or the condition of the slaves. Those laws were enacted, for
the most part, in seasons of particular alarm, produced by
attempts at insurrection ; or when the black inhabitants were
doubly formidable by reason of the greater proportion which
they bore to the whites in number, and of the savage state
and unhappy mood in which they arrived from Africa. The
real measure of danger was not understood but after long
experience ; and in the interval, the precautions taken, were
naturally of the most jealous and rigorous aspect. That these
have not been all repealed, or that some of them should be
still enforced, is not inconsistent with an improved spirit of
legislation ; since the evils against which they were intended to
guard are yet the subject of just apprehension. England in
undated South Carolina, for instance, with barbarians, and
now reproaches her with the measures which she took for her
security against their brute force.
There is no Code Noir which surpasses in atrocity that

* See the Appendix to Storch's Course of .Political Economy, St. Peters-
burgh, 1815. This writer states, that in 3782, the number of male pea
sants or serfs, of the crown, amounted to 4,675,000 ; that they could be
hired out, sold, given away, &c. ; and the number of male slaves, the pro
perty of subjects, he estimates at 6,678,000 ; equally at the disposal of the
masters.

406

NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.

part ofthe British statute bopk relating to Roman Catholics.*
What Englishman will allow us to make this, as it stood be
fore Sir George Saville's Act, er even as it now stands, the
index to British humanity and justice ? Acts of proscription
are still suffered to remain in terrorem, ready for a barely pos
sible emergence. " The laws against the Catholics," said the
Bishop of Worcester, in the House of Lords, (May 19th,
1819,) " had hitherto been administered tenderly and spa
ringly; they would, doubtless, continue to be so administered,
unless some event should occur to render their strict enforcement
necessary." Since the revolution, most of the southern codes have been
softened in regard to the slave police; and the murder of a
negro is now capital throughout our union, except in one
state. I have already quoted the assertion of Dr. Dickson,
that " the harshness of the slave laws is but little softened by
the lenity of the general practice in the British sugar islands."
The reverse of this is notoriously true of the American States.
The patrol laws, for example, of South Carolina, whieh con
tain the most oppressive of her regulations, are rarely put in
execution. In Virginia, the interdict laid, at the time of what
is called Gabriel's insurrection, upon the assemblage of ne
groes — " a seditious meetings bill," like that passed by the
British Parliament in 1817, t — is wholly neglected. No re
straint is in this respect imposed upon them by their masters,
except such as may be necessary for purposes of domestic or
der and labour.
Before our revolution, the negro slavery of this country was,
as we have seen, acknowledged to be universally less severe
than that of any other part of the world. It has undergone,
since that event, a great and striking amelioration. To this
fact, all who have witnessed and compared the former and
present lot of the slaves of our southern states, bear the most
confident testimony. What was once deemed a moderate
treatment, would be now a rigid one ; and the tolerated rigour

* " Laws," says Mr. Burke, in his speech at Bristol, previous to the
election, " were made in this kingdom against Papists as bloody as any
of those which had been enacted by the Popish Princes and States ; and
where those laws were not bloody, they were worse ; as they were slow,
cruel, outrageous on our nature, and kept men alive, only to insult in their
persons every one of the rights and feelings of humanity."
t By the standing Riot Act of England, not more than twelve persons
are allowed to continue together, after it has been read by the Magistrate.
Lord Castlereagh said in Parliament in 1817, *' that there was noj on the
statute book a law which had been more beneficial to the country."

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 407
of the first period , could find no countenance at the present.
The negro has gained nearly as much by our separation from
Great Britain as the white. The causes of this undeniable fact
are various and obvious.
With the importation of the Africans, ceased much of the
dread, which the slave population inspired, while it was con
tinually receiving large accessions of strangers. At this time
by far the greater part of the slaves of the old states, have
been born and brought up by the side of the whites. In pro
portion as the indigenous character predominated, the propen
sity on the one hand to shake off the yoke, and the mistrust on
the other, which occasioned its aggravation, regularly dimi
nished. Another circumstance tended to render the slaves
in a much less degree objects of terror, and to make room for
the kindlier dispositions of our nature to operate ; the whites
came soon to exceed them considerably in number, from emi
gration added to natural increase. Brougham has speculated
in his Colonial Policy, in conformity to the facts in our case.
" There can be little doubt," he says, " that the fatal dis
proportion of the two classes, the great proportion of the im
ported negroes, and the cruel treatment of the slaves in gene
ral, would be all materially altered by any revolution that
should separate the colonies from the parent state, while the
more rigorous administration of an independent community,
would lessen the danger arising from such a mixture of ne
groes, or such abuses of the slave system as might still re
main." Not only does the proportion which the slaves bear to the
free part of the community, contribute to determine their con
dition, but, in general, the greater or smaller numbers in which
they belong to individuals. The abolition of entails and the
rule of primogeniture, together with the evaporation of those
old prejudices which fettered parental affection in the testa
mentary distribution of estates, have, since the establishment
of our independence, led to the subdivision of every kind of
property, in the southern communities. The negroes, being-
more widely apportioned, exist in smaller bands, and are of
course more under the immediate care and inspection of the
masters, in whose eyes they must at the same time have, singly,
more value. The interest of the master in the welfare of
the slave is not to be urged as a full security against ill usage;
but it cannot fail to have a considerable influence ; and
it has been constantly' increasing from the enhancement of
the price of negroes, occasioned by the demand for their la
bour in the new states, and the insufficiency of the supplies

408 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I-
which the illicit importation from Africa can furnish. The
more abundant production of food, the increase of wealth
with the planters, and more strictness of principle and regu
larity of habits, (for these too can be proved to be among the
effects ofthe revolution,) have redounded likewise to the ad
vantage of the slaves.
It is not to be doubted, but that the political discussions,
which preceded our revolution, the spirit of the institutions
which grew out of it, and the diffusion of education, excited
a greater sensibility to hunsan rights : a quicker sympathy
with human sufferings ; a more general liberality of sentiment ;
and a higher pride of character, in the slave-holding part of
our population. Hence a new public opinion sprung up, re
quiring a system-ef lenity and generosity in the government
and sustentation of the slaves ; and repressive, not only of
barbarity, but of habitual severity in any marked degree, and
of what may be equivalent in its effects, habitual indifference
and estrangement. These abuses have become disreputable ;
they expose the man who is guilty of them to the disdain and
reprobation of his neighbours; and in this way are more
efficaciously checked than they could be by any legislative
enactments. The master who should deprive his negro of his
peculium, — the produce of his poultry house or his little gar
den ; who should force him to work on holidays or at night ;
who should deny him the common recreations, or leave him
without shelter or provision in his old age, would incur the
aversion of the community, and raise obstacles to the advance
ment of his own interests and external aims.
26. The American negro slavery is almost wholly free from
two of the grievances which characterize that of the West
Indies— under-feeding and over-working. With regard to the
great article of food, the American negroes are, assuredly,
better supplied than the free labourers of most parts of
Europe. Flesh meat is not attainable for the latter in the
same quantity which is commonly given to the first ; it would
seem, (on this head I refer to the quotations which I have
made from the Quarterly Review,*) not to be attainable at all
for the poorer classes of Great Britain and Ireland. In respect
to clothing and lodging, the comparison would give nearly
the same result. On the score of fuel, the want of which
occasions so mueh suffering in particular counties of Great
Britain, and, as to the point of labour, the advantage is greatly
* See page 328.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 409
on the side of the American negroes in general. I cannot, here
enter into the details of the system, upon which they are
worked on the southern plantations ; but I can say of it, that
it involves nothing like the same intensity, duration, or con
tinuity of exertion, which would appear to be indispensable
in Great Britain, in almost all the lower walks of mechanical
industry, for the mere support of animal life. The average
number of hours of daily toil exceeds there by nearly one
half that which is exacted under the system just mentioned.
A few extracts from recent debates of Parliament will deter
mine the validity of this assertion.
In the House of Commons, (April 20th, 1818,) "Mr.
Peel said, in Manchester alone, 11,600 children were em
ployed in the cotton factories, and the average time of labour
thirteen hours a day. Most of these poor children, after the
thirteen hours of labour, were obliged to go to school to learn
to write.
" Sir Robert Peel said, it was proved that in Lancashire,
children were employed fifteen hours a day, and after any
stoppage, from five in the morning until ten in the evening,
seventeen hours, and this often for three weeks at a time. On
Sunday they were employed from six in the morning until
twelve in cleaning the machinery."
" Mr. Peter Moore said, (May 13th, 1819,) in the town
which he had the honour to represent, (Coventry,) there
were five classes of manufacturers, each working ninety-six
hours in the week, or sixteen hours in the day. The first of
these classes gain, in return for their labour, ten shillings a
week, or two pence halfpenny an hour, which is but a very
trifling share of what they were formerly in the habit of ac
quiring. The second class gained 5*. 6d. a week. The third
2s. 9d., which is labouring four hours for five farthings. The
two remaining classes receive 2s. and Is. 6d. a week, which
is working at the rate of seven and nine hours for a single
halfpenny. " Mr. Mansfield said, (March 25th, 1819,) that he had at
tended a committee that day, before whom a case was proved
of a great number of labourers, who, by working fifteen or
sixteen hours a day, could not earn above seven shillings per
week. The physical condition of the American negro is, on the
whole, not comparatively alone, but positively good, and he
is exempt from those racking anxieties — the exacerbations of
despair, to which the English manufacturei and peasant are
Vol. I.— 3 F

410 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
subject in the pursuit of their pittance.* The old age of the
negro, in Virginia and the Carolinas particularly, is by no
means one of cheerlessness or destitution. He is not tasked
beyond his strength; he is sure of nutriment; he remains in
the midst of his comrades; and, in most cases, has a family
about him with the feelings and attractions of legitimacy ; for,
the polygamy, and promiscuous intercourse between the sexes,
which crown the abominations of West India slavery, are not
common features in the North American.
We have it upon the authority of the Quarterly Review,
that the great body of the British people " work with the
prospect of want and pauperism before their eyes as what
must be their destiny at last ;" that " in the road in which the
English labourer must travel, the poor house is the last stage
on the way to the grave." t If we are entitled to form an
opinion from the Parliamentary Reports, — no mean authority,
— this final stage of the English labourer is worse than any
stage in tbe career of the American negro. The " victim of
American barbarity" finds in his " quarter" comforts which
the tenant of the British poor house might envy, and can ne
ver hope to enjoy.
From the minutes of evidence before the parliamentary com
mittee on the state of the poor, it would appear, that the treat
ment experienced in the receptacles provided for them is
wretched and barbarous almost beyond credibility. By way
of example, the witnesses stated that in one room 28 feet long
by 15 wide, there were two and twenty persons sleeping ; that
* I appeal to the petitions presented to Parliament by bodies of ten and
twenty thousand agriculturists and manufacturers at a time. The following
representation, made by Mr. Brougham in the House of Commons, may be
taken as a specimen of their condition.
" Mr. Brougham observed that the weavers, in consequence of the reduction
of their wages, were compelled first, to part for their sustenance with all their
trifling property by piece-meal, from the little furniture of their cottages to the
very bedding and clothes that used to cover them from the weather. They
struggled on with hunger, and went to sleep at night-fall, upon the calculation
that if they worked an hour or two later, they might indeed earn three half-,
pence more, one of which must be paid for a candle, but then the clear gain
of a penny would be too dearly bought, and leave them less able to work the
next day. To such a frightful nicety of reckoning are human beings reduced
treating themselves like mere machines, and balancing the produce against the
tear and wear, so as to obtain the maximum that their physical powers can
be made to yield ! At length, however, they must succumb ; the workhouse
closes their dismal prospect ; or, with a reluctance that makes their lot a
thousand times more pitiable; they submit to take parish relief; and, to
sustain life, part with the independent spirit, the best birthright of an English
peasant." f See page 287.

SECT. 1X.J SLAVE TRADE, 411
idiots lived promiscuously with the other paupers; that the
fowls and chickens were kept in the pantries where the food
for the poor was kept; that they were in general extremely
ill clothed, &c. The parishes contracted with individuals for
keeping their poor at so much a head, and made them thus
victims of avaricious speculation. It was shown that one in
dividual/armed the poor of no less than forty parishes/receiv
ing six shillings a week for each pauper; and spending of
course as little as possible of this stipend for the accommoda
tion of his guests. London had eighteen thousand poor in the
different workhouses in England. I refer to the Report of the
House of Commons on Mendicity, for a general picture of the
condition of the paupers in those work-houses.
" Your committee," says the Report, " cannot hesitate to
suggest that there are not in the country a set of beings more
immediately requiring the protection of the legislature than
the persons in a state of lunacy and mendicity, a very large
proportion of whom are entirely neglected by their friends and
relations. If the treatment of those in the middling or in the
lower classes of life, shut up in hospitals, private mad-houses,
or parish work-houses, is looked at, your committee are per
suaded that a case cannot be found, where the necessity for a
remedy is more urgent."
The details ofthe Report recal to mind, but with features of
tenfold patheticalness, the touching lament of the poetdabbe:
" Then too I own, it grieves me to behold
Those ever virtuous, helpless now and old,
By ail for care and industry approv'd,
For truth respected, and for temper lov'd ;
And who, by sickness and misfortune try'd,
Gave Want its worth and Poverty its pride:
I own it grieves me to behold them sent
From their old home ; 'tis pain, 'tis punishment,
To leave each scene familiar, every face,
For a new people and a stranger race;
For those who, sunk in sloth and dead to shame,
From scenes of guilt with daring spirit came ;
Men, just as guileless, at such manners start,
And bless their God that time has fene'd their heart,
Confirm' d their virtue and expell'd the fear
Of vice in minds so simple and sincere.
Here the good pauper, losing all the praise
By worthy deeds acquir'd in better days,
Breathes a few months, then todiis chamber led,
Expires while strangers prattle around his bed."*
27- The religious instruction of the slaves cannot be said
to be an object of immediate care with the majority, or any

* See Note X,

413 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
great proportion, of the American masters; but they are far
from refusing them access to it, in any form. It is left at the
option of the negroes to frequent the churches and meeting
houses, which, in the country, have universally a compart
ment for their occupation. The old, or infirm, or those whose
couduct has been exemplary, are indulged with horses to
ride to sermons. They have, in numerous instances, houses
of worship for their separate use, where individuals of their
own number, empowered by the white elders, preach, and
discharge the other functions of the ministry. Itinerant mis
sionaries of the gospel have formed congregations of them in
almost every district; and though the Christian lecture cannot
be otherwise than rare, and the attendance upon it loose, yet
enough is done to leave a salutary impression, and to make it
utterly inconsistent with the truth to say of them, what the
Quarterly Reviewsays.no doubt with great truth, of two-thirds
of the lower order of people in all the large cities and towns of
England, and of " the greatest part of her manufacturing po
pulace, and her miners and colliers," — that they live as utterly
ignorant of the doctrines and duties of Christianity, and are as
errant and unconverted Pagans, as if they had existed in the
wildest pari of Africa."*
South Carolina has had a great share of the obloquy of the
British travellers, on this subject. Their outcry will not be si
lenced, but the friends of justice and humanity will be gratified,
by the following facts which I extract from an official Report,
dated the 14th June, 1819, of a committee of the Board of
Managers of the Bible Society of Charleston, respecting the
progress and present stale of Religion in South Carolina.
" From the best information the committee have been able to
obtain, they find that the Gospel is now preached to about six
hundred and thirteen congregations of Protestant Christians ;
that there are about two hundred and ninety-two ordained
clergymen who labour amongst, them, besides a considerable
number of domestic missionaries, devoted and supported by
each denomination, who dispense their labours to such of the
people as remain destitute of an established ministry. From
actual returns, and cautious estimates where such returns have
not been obtained, it appears that in the state there are about
46,000 Protestants who receive the holy communion of the
Lord's Supper. In the cily of Charleston, upwards of one-
fourth of the communicants are slaves or free people of colour:
and it is supposed that in the other parts of the state, the

See page 288.

SECT. IX.J SLAVE TRADE. 413
proportion of such communicants may be estimated at about
one-eighth. In every church they are freely admitted to attend
on Divine service — in most of the churches distinct accommo
dations are provided for them, and the clergy in general make
it a part of their pastoral care to devote frequent and stated
seasons for the religious instruction of catechumen from
amongst the black population."
This train of affairs in South Carolina is somewhat more
creditable than that in the British West Indies, where scarcely
any thing has been done for the conversion of the negroes. If
we Mid not see by the statements of the Quarterly Review
and the parliamentary papers, to what a deplorable extent the
initiation of the people of England into Christianity has been
neglected,* we should find it difficult to believe that her
established church had, in the course of nearly two centu
ries, attempted nothing towards the regeneration of the mil
lions of heathens who have been held in bondage in her
islands. To this effect, however, is the testimony of all the
best authorities concerning the affairs of those islands. Mo
ravian missionaries alone had sought to introduce the light of
the Gospel among a population requiring its lessons and con
solations, more, perhaps, than any other on earth. At length
the late Bishop Porteus founded a " Society for the conversion
of negro slaves," which has been nearly inoperative. With
respect to the British planters themselves, it is asserted in a
recent work entitled to full credit, that "there is not, and
never was, either worship or instruction of any kind provided
by them for their numerous slaves."f The number of negroes
in the British West Indies baptized and endoctrinated, bears
no assignable proportion to those in the United States.
28. The British philanthropists, in making their appeal in
favour of the former, have seemed to consider every thing
as gained, if only " the humblest and coarsest necessaries of
life, the protection of law, and the assistance of labouring cattle,
could be secured to them. J It is long since so much and more
has been secured to the great majority of the North American
negroes; and the irresistible proof offers itself in the increase
of their numbers. The Edinbugh Reviewers would, with all
their ingenuity, find it difiicult to reconcile the aspersions

* See Note Y.
t Letters on the West Indies, by James Walker, London, 1818. Letter VI.
% Dickson's Mitigation of Slavery. Preface.

414 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
which they cast upon the American as the murderer and
scourger of slaves, with the fact that, according to the rate of
increase from 1790 to 1810, the number of years required for
the duplication of our slave population is only 25.99. The
allowance to be made on account of importations, would not
extend this term to twenty-eight at the utmost, for the natu
ral increase. The population of Great Britain, as appears by
authentic documents, does not double in less than eighty years.*
Even in the most unhealthy districts of South Carolina, where
rice is cultivated, and the labour of the negroes comparatively
severe, they do not diminish in numbers. A benevolent prac
tice prevails among some of the rice planters, of paying to the
overseers, in addition to their regular emoluments, a certain
sum per head (usually ten dollars) for the annual increase ;
and it has proved no insignificant source of revenue to the
latter. " The increase of the American slaves and people of co
lour," says the Quarterly Review of May, 1819, " appears to
have been in a much greater proportion than that of the white
population, and it is not improbable, that in a few generations,
the negro race will exceed the whites in all except the eastern
states. The number of slaves in the United States, is now
above two millions, and including the free negroes, the black
population of America constitutes more than one-fourth part
of the whole." If all this were accurate, it would refute at
once the tales which the orthodox journal has so often re
peated con amore, respecting the treatment of that black popu
lation. It is marked, however, by the usual ignorance, or spirit
of exaggeration, where America is in question. Our census
of 1810 teaches, that, according to the ratio of increase for
the twenty years preceding, the number of years required for
the duplication of the whites was 22.48; and that required
for the slaves, as I have mentioned, 25.99. The whites in
creased from 1790 to 1810, 85.26 per cent; the slaves 70.75.
The mere natural increase is not, however, shown exactly
by this calculation. We should deduct the annual addition
made to the numbers of both from without, which would
probably leave the proportion the same. The whole number
of slaves in 1810, was 1,191,364; and of free people of co
lour, 186,466. Together they did not equal one-fourth of
* " It ^appears by Mr. Pickman's tables," says the Quarterly Review,
" that the population of England and Wales has nearly doubled in the last
hundred years," — a term nearly four times longer than that required for the
duplication of the American negroes.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 41.5
the white population, which was 5,862,092; nor make but
little more than one-sixth of the whole. At present, the
proportion must be still less, as the ratio of increase for the
white population is undoubtedly greater.* In 1810, the white
population of the nine slave-holding states of that period,
amounted to 2,153,455; that of the coloured, free and en
slaved, to 142,862. The census of 1820 will give 3,000,000
at lerast of white population in the slave holding countries
of the union; and not more than 1,700,000 of black,
allowing for the addition made to the number of the last by
illicit importation. Should we admit the ratio of increase to
be the same for both, the political arithmetician of the Quar
terly Review would find it difficult to solve the problem, hi
how many generations " the negro race will exceed the whites,"
especially if he be confined to his own limitation—" in alt
except the eastern states," under which denomination he
could not mean to include Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; con
taining nearly a million of whites, without the alloy of a
slave. 29. The removal of considerable numbers of the slaves from
the old slave-holding states, to the south and south-west, tends
materially to increase the relative majority of the whites in
those states, and is likely to continue, so as greatly to lessen
the danger to which they may be held to be exposed. The
slaves emigrate either with their original owners, or with per
sons of the same or an adjoining state, to whom they are sold,
and who purchase them for their own use; or with the negro
traders as they are called. The greater number go with the
two first descriptions of persons, to a more fruitful soil ; to a
climate equally or more favourable to their constitutions ; alto
gether they suffer but little, if at all, by the change of position.
They are not, in general, committed to a new master, who is
unknown ; or who does not possess the best testimonials as to
his views, aud the respectability of his character. It had been
long the practice to sell the intractable slaves, and such as were
guilty of crimes, to the traders, who disposed of them to the
planters of South Carolina and Georgia. This disposition
even of culprits may scandalize the writers of the Quarterly
Review ; but it is not quite so harsh as that of selling them to
* The operation of it may be understood from the following statement.
In 1790, for every 100 free persons there were 22.13 slaves.
In 1800 . ditto . . . 20.29 do.
In 1810 . ditto . . . 19.69 do.

416 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
the Bey of Tripoli* would have been ; nor worse than the
transportation of the British convicts to Botany Bay, accord
ing to the description of it which I have already given in the
language of members of Parliamentf; or to the character of
it which is implied in the following extract from the volume
of Parliamentary Debates for the year 1792. " Mr. Fox no
ticed the mention that had been made of the transportation of
convicts to Botany Bay, and said, that the hardships of the
passage would appear less extraordinary, when it was known
that the transportation was undertaken by slave merchants,
and slave captains, and that a part of the misery of the con
victs was the effect of slave fetters being used instead of those
employed in general for convicts." J
The proportion of slaves of good character whom the traders
obtain, is small comparatively. The severance or disper
sion of families is by no means so common as might be sup
posed from the tales of the English travellers. This evil is
produced in England, in a hundred instances to one that oc
curs among our negroes, and with tenfold affliction, by the
extensive emigration which the public burdens occasion,' and
* The Report of the Parliamentary proceedings of April, 1819, furnishes
the following.
" Mr. Bennet said (House of Commons) he had no high opinion of the
tender sympathies of ministers on these subjeets. He had in his recollection
what passed on the subject of convicts in the year 1789, when they were first
sent out: when (the house would scarcely believe it) it was proposed and
discussed in the Privy Council, whether the convicts at that time should not
be sold to the Bey of Tripoli as slaves.' This proposition (the proposition of,
as we understood, Lord Auckland) was considered, though of course rejected ;
though it showed how little disposed the government were at that time lo
attend to the situation of the convicts. At the same time, a ship that was
sent out with them had not any settled destination ; and the sentence of some
of the convicts had expired before they reached the colony to which they
were at length consigned."
f See page 304.
J " From the year 1785 to 1801, of 3833 convicts embarked, 385 died on
board the transports, being nearly one in ten." — O'Hura's History of N. S.
Wales. " The difficulties, which for a long course of years attended the plan for
sending our convicts to New South Wales, gave rise to the convict establish
ments at Woolwich, Sheerness, and Portsmouth: where great numbers of
criminals were crowded together to await the hour of their deportation, under
circumstances of the most afflicting nature: many, who have been sentenced
to transportation, having passed the whole period of their punishment in a
state of wretched and useless imprisonment at home. Such was then the
condition of these establishments, that they were pronounced in the House
of Commons, by one of the best and greatest men that ever entered its walls,
to be a hot bed of vice and wickedness." — lioscoe, Observations on Penal
Jurisprudence, IS 19.

SECT. IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 417
the operation ofthe poor laws ; to say nothing of the cases so
common in time of war, of seamen impressed when returning
from distant voyages, and that even witliout being allowed the
comfort of seeing their families.
Kidnapping is frequent ; but the states have universally
subjected it to the severest penalties ; some of them to that of
death. As great an abhorrence for it pervades the whole
country, as any crime can be supposed to excite among a
moral people. The flagellation ofthe slaves for misdemeanors,
or from the impulses of anger, or churlishness in the masters^
is, no doubt, too common ; but it would be -every way unjust
to judge of the conduct of the Americans in this respect, by
what passes in the West Indies. In the use of the lash
the discipline of the southern plantations is contradistin
guished from that of the West Indian, as much as in the de
gree of labour and the supply of food. Public opinion,
and all the other causes of reformation which I have no
ticed, operate equally in this matter. But it is not for an
Englishman to complain of the use of the lash among fo
reigners. The hysterical indignation of the British Reviewers
and travellers on this head, appears even ludicrous, when we
advert to the fact, that no nation employs the scourge more se
verely or generally than the British. Education with her is con
ducted with the birch ; whipping is almost her sum of discipline
in the army and navy ; the seaman is flogged from ship to ship ;
the soldier, tied up to the halberds and exposed in the most
shameful and ignominious manner, dies under the stripes ofthe
drummer, or is withdrawn only when the surgeon who watehes
his ebbing pulse, declares that nature can bear no more. The
number of apprentices in Great Britain is, probably, little less
than that of our negroes ; corporal punishment is as familiarly
inflicted upon them, and as frequently to a brutal excess : I
attest the Old Bailey calendar, when I assert, that they
are oftener maimed and murdered by the hand of the mas
ters. So horrid and multiplied were the enormities of this
kind, which accident or private feeling brought to light, that
the legislature was compelled to interfere ; but with how little
effect the records of the Assizes and the tenor of the late
Parliamentary Reports, will show. In short, there is no form
of human suffering which an Englishman is so much accus
tomed to witness, to hear and to read of, in his own country,
as flagellation in all its varieties and degrees. I do not wish
to pursue this odious topic, on which reprisals might have no
end. further than to quote a passage of some significancy from
Vol. I.—8 G

418 NKGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
a late and excellent work of Mr. Roscoe, of Liverpool. —
" It has frequently been observed, with some degree of exul
tation, that torture is not permitted in this country. If by
torture be meant the subjecting a person to the rack, for the
purpose of compelling bim to give evidence, or to confess an
imputed crime, this country is certainly not chargeable with
so diabolical a practice. But, if the lacerating and scourging
the person of an individual, as a punishment for his offences,
be torture, it is a proceeding not only well known to our laws,
but of frequent occurrente. There are, in fact, few mutilations
or sufferings to which the human frame can be subjected, that
have not, in this country, at one time or another, been resort
ed to as a punishment for offenders ; nor does there appear to
be any obstruction, other than such as arises from the more
improved and humanized spirit ofthe times, to similar punish
ments being again inflicted ; but independent of these barba
rities, the use ofthe whip is general throughout the prisons of
the kingdom, where prisoners, for small offences, are whipped
and discharged?'*
Those advertisements for the recovery of runaways, which
are copied into the English Reviews, and books of Travels,
with exclamations of such horror and reproof, as though Eng
lish newspapers contained nothing to chafe the feelings of
humanity, and rouse the spirit of freedom, are incident to the
existence itself of negro slavery; and I think I have shown
that this is an evil which could neither be avoided nor remov
ed by America. Negroes cannot be held as property, without
being subject to alienation. A mortmain would be impracti
cable, and if it could be established, mischievous to all par
ties. The proclamation ofthe intention to sell, while it gives
effect to the necessary and useful right of alienation, affords
the subject of it a better chance of being transferred into good
hands. At all events, it is an inevitable incident of an inevi
table institution. Slaves who abscond from the master must
be reclaimed, or there would be an end to all slavery in the
most mischievous of all forms of abolition. Without the aid
of the public, the master would be unable to recover the fugi
tive. And it is to be presumed that the latter is, quite as often,
a delinquent seeking independence for the sake of licentious
ness, or from a refractory disposition, as a victim escaping the
exactions of avarice, or the lash of tyranny. Unfortunately,
the character ofthe negro race with us, and indeed the charac
ter which is produced in all cases of bondage, might warrant
* Observations on Penal Jurisprudence, 1819.

SECT. I3L.J SLAVE TRADE. 419
a presumption more unfavourable to the slave. His flight is,
in a general point of view, a violation of the order of society,
which it is the interest, and, abstractedly, the duty of every
citizen to repress and correct.
The Quarterly Review of May, 1819, after transcribing
from Fearon's Travels a couple of plain advertisements of
negroes for sale or hire, which that missionary had extracted
from a New York paper, proceeds thus — " What, subjoins
Mr. Fearon with an amiable warmth, should we say, if in
England we saw such advertisements in the Times newspaper?
Should we not conclude that freedom existed only in words ?
Such would, indeed, be a legitimate conclusion." — Alas, then,
for the freedom of England herself, as late as the year 1772,
notwithstanding the boasts of the Britons of that day ! Clark
son and Granville Sharp have kept a record which, upon the
principles of Mr. Fearon and the Quarterly Review, invali
dates all their pretensions. Clarkson, having mentioned the
opinion given in 1729, by the great law officers of the crown
— that a slave coming from the WTest Indies into Great Britain
did not become free, and that the masters might legally compel
him to return again to the plantations, — makes the following
statement. " The cruel and illegal opinion was delivered in the year
1729. The planters, merchants, and others, gave it of course
all the publicity in their power. And the consequences were
as might easily have been apprehended. In a little time slaves
absconding were advertised in the London papers as runaways,
and rewards offered for the apprehension of them, in the same
brutal manner as we find them advertised in the land of sla
very. They were advertised also, in the same papers, to be
sold by auction, sometimes by themselves, and at others with
horses, chaises, and harness. They were seized also by their
masters, or by persons employed by them, in the very streets,
and dragged from thence to the ships; and so unprotected now
were these poor slaves, that persons in no wise concerned with
them began to institute a trade in their persons, making agree
ments with captains of ships going to the West Indies to put
them on board at a certain price."
Granville Sharp, unmindful, like the British Reviewers,
that the domestic slavery which Britain had planted in our
soil, and so assiduously cultivated, could not be rescinded,
nor divested of its essential properties, also suffered him
self to be fired by some New York advertisements. When
he has recited them, in his " Representation of the Injus-

420 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
tice of Slavery,"* he proceeds, however, in a different
way— •' But hold ! perhaps the Americans may be able, with too
much justice, to retort this severe reflection, and may refer us
to newspapers published even in the free city of London,
which contain advertisements, not less dishonourable than their
own. See the following advertisement in the Public Ledger
of 31st December, 1761. " FOR SALE,
" A healthy Negro Girl, aged about 15 years ; speaks good
English, works at her needle, washes %vell, does household
work, and has had the small pox. By I. W. Sec."
Another advertisement, not long ago, offered a reward for
stopping a female slave who had left her mistress in Hatton
Garden. And in the Gazetteer of 18th April, 1 769, appeared
a very extraordinary advertisement, with the following title.
"-HORSES, TIM WHISKEY, AND BLACK BOY.
" To be sold at the Bull and Gate Inn, Holborn, a very
good Tim Whiskey, little the worse for wear, &c." After
wards, " A chesnut Gelding." — Then, " A very good grey
Mare." — And last oi all, (as if of the least consequence) "A
well made good tempered Black Boy ; he has lately had the
small pox, and will be sold to any gentleman." Enquire as
above." Another advertisement in the same paper, contains a very
particular description of a negro man, called Jeremiah  ,
and concludes as follows : — " Whoever delivers him to^Cap-
tain M — u — y, on board the Elizabeth, at Prince's Stairs, Ro-
therhithe, on or before the Slst instant, shall receive thirty
guineas reward, or ten guineas for such intelligence as shall
enable the captain or bis master, effectually to secure him."
" A creole Black Boy is also offered to sale in the Daily
Advertiser ofthe same date."
" Besides these instances, the Americans may perhaps
taunt us with the shameful treatment of a poor negro servant,
who not long ago, was put up to sale by public auction, toge
ther with the effects of his bankrupt master. — Also, that the

* London, 17(59.

SECT. IX.j SLAVE TRADE. 42]
prisons of this free city have been frequently prostituted of
late by the tyrannical and dangerous practice of confining
negroes, under the pretence of slavery, though there has been
no warrant whatsoever for their commitment."
It may be said that these practices were arrested in Eng
land. They were indeed, and so have they been wherever
this could be done in the United States. But they wee
more wanton and malignant in that country, since they
did not spring out of a general and long-established system of
slavery ; and they show how the people of England would
have acted, if tbe old law had not proved to be, upon labo
rious investigation, peremptory upon the subject. The Bri
tish merchant, however, continued to fit out his ships at Liver
pool or London, for the coast of Africa; the British factory
supplied him with troops of kidnapped negroes; his captain
transported them, with every refinement of cruelty, to the
British West Indies, and there advertised and sold them, un
der the sanction of the British Government, in the name of
his owner, a great stickler, perhaps, for liberty and universal
emancipation ; who railed each day against American incon
sistency and barbarity in holding and advertising slaves, and
repeated complacently the well-known verses of Cowper,
" slaves cannot breathe in England," Sic.
SO. We do not deny, in America, that great abuses and evils
accompany our negro slavery. The plurality of the leading
men of the southern states, are so well aware of its pestilent
genius, that they would be glad to see it abolished, if this were
feasible with benefit to slaves, and without inflicting on
the country, injury of such magnitude, as no community has
ever voluntarily incurred. While a really practicable plan of
abolition remains undiscovered, or undetermined ; and while
the general conduct of the Americans is such only as neces
sarily results from their situation, they are not to be arraigned
for this institution. If, — as I have no doubt is the case, — it
produces here much less misery and vice, than it produces
in the other countries which are cursed with it, it fur
nishes occasion rather for praise than blame. The native
Americans claim the distinction of abusing less the dangerous
power with which it invests the slave-holder; of consulting
more the comfort and general welfare of its victims ; than the
foreigners, Britons not excepted, who so readily participate in
that power on associating themselves to this nation. We are

422 NEGRO SLAVERY AND [PART I.
told by an English writer, Ramsay,* who is supported in the
assertion by Edwards, that, with respect to the West India sla
very, " adventurers from Europe are universally more cruel
and morose towards the slaves than the Creoles or native West
Indians." The analogy is perfect in our case, and of notoriety.
Itis a matter of old experience in Virginia and the Carolinas;
and the American planter appears to like advantage at present
in Louisiana, in the contrast, on this head, with the French and
Spanish, who have pursued, but who are gradually abandon
ing under the salutary influence of our political and social
spirit, an hereditary system of rigour.
In admitting the deformity and evil of our negro slavery,
we are far from acknowledging, that any nation of Europe is
entitled, upon a general comparison between our situation as
it is thus unluckily modified, and her own, with all appen
dages and ingredients, to assign to herself the pre-eminence
in felicity, virtue, or wisdom. On the contrary, we know of
none with which we would make, a general exchange of " in
stitutions," and are assured that there is none, whose mode of
being on the whole, is not much more unfavourable than ours,
to the attainment of the great ends of society. Who can say
that the negro slavery of these states, combined even with
every other spring of ill, existing among us, occasions, propor-
tionably, as much of suffering, immorality, and vileness, as the
unequal distribution of wealth and the distinctions of rank, the
manufacturing system, the penal code, the taxes, the tythes,
the poor rates, the impressment, in England? Are there not
as many of her inhabitants, as the whole number of our blacks,
as effectually "disfranchised;" as entirely uninstructed; in
the last state of penury and distress; whose physical con
dition universally, is hardly better than that of the mqst lowly
plantation slave, and who are heart-struck and broken -spirited,
if not hardened and enraged ?
Let us examine for a moment how the case stands with the
people of England, as to one of the worst of the effects, with
which our, and all ether domestic slavery, is properly re-.
proached, — the abasement of the human character. Lord
Sheffield is a witness who will never be suspected of a dispo
sition to disparage his countiy. In 1818, he published a
pamphlet, entitled Observations on the Poor Laws ; which
contains the following, among other striking representations : —
" There is much truth in the remark that a small additional
increase of the assessments, would, in many instances, render
* Essay on Hie treatment and conversion of slaves, &c.

SBCT IX.] SLAVE TRADE. 423
the land productive of no rent at all. The very aggravated
situation of our little farmers is deplorable ; it ts ruinous."
" In many parishes, three-fourths, sometimes four-fifths of
the parish, actually receive relief ; the greatest part ofthe
population have become beggars, and often insolently insist
upon relief depending rather upon their clamorous demands
than on their industry, foresight, or economy."
" The prevailing abuses have brought the country to such
a pass, and have so demoralized and visited a great proportion
of the people, that, notwithstanding the ruinous expense in
curred by the poor rates, the misery of the lower ranks is so
far from being alleviated, that it is virtually created and ex
tended by it."
In the House of Commons, March 3d, 1818, Mr. Curwen
said, that " the inadequacy of wages and the practice of sup
plying the deficiency of them from the parish funds, had de
stroyed the spirit of independence among the poor." In the
month of March of the year preceding, Lord Castlereagh re
marked to the house, that " it must be aware that a great pro
portion of the wages of the county was paid out of the poor
rates." On the 19th May, 1819, Lord J. Russell said, in the
same place, " he must refer to the conduct of the ministry on
the important subject of the poor laws, the discussion of
which subject not one of his Majesty's ministers had attended.
A lamented friend of his, whose loss was felt every day more
and more — he meant Mr. Horner — had observed that by the
present poor laws, the people were returning fast to a state of
villeinage. The observation was true ; they were returning
to a state of villeinage, and to a state of villeinage that was in
calculably more dangerous than that which existed six cen
turies ago in an age-of darkness and superstition. Sorry was
he to say that the once manly peasantry of this country, were
now become lazy and riotous, aud disrespetful to their supe
riors, and that they were beginning to look up to the laws with
no other view than that of obtaining by them a temporary sub
sistence." We have the curious confession of Lord Sidmouth, made in
the House of Peers, on the 3d June, 1818, that " it was no
torious the dread of transportation had almost subsided, and
perhaps had been succeeded by the desire to emigrate to New
South Wales." This desire, which indicates so clearly the
state of things at home, would not appear, however, to have
been always indulged. Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, in her evidence
before the committee of the House of Commons on the state of
the prisons, mentioned that " several persons, husbands in an-

424 NEGRO SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. [PART I
xiety to follow their wives, and vice versa, were induced to
commit crimes. She instanced one woman who lately suffered
death, viz. Charlotte Newman, actuated by a desire to follow
her husband to Botany Bay, who had committed the same of
fence ; but it was thought proper to make an example of her,
and she was executed !"
I could produce lamentations without end, uttered in Par
liament and in the British pamphlets on domestic affairs, re
specting this prostration of character among the body of the
English people. It is one view ofthe state of society in Great
Britain, which excites grief and comniisseration : but there are
numberless others which fill the mind with horror, and bring
unequalled disgrace upon human nature. The extent and va
riety of the disorder, corruption, oppression, and barbarity;
in short, of every species of guilt, misery, and degradation,
which we find unveiled in the late parliamentary Reports
concerning the poor laws ; the state of the prisons ; the lu
natic asylums, and work houses ; the charitable trusts ; the
mendicity and vagrancy, particularly of London ; the igno
rance of the lower orders ; the administration of the penal
code, — could not be believed, if they were not so authenti
cated ; and can as yet scarcely be conceived to exist in a
community professing to be well governed, and styling itself
the " best and most enlightened" in the world.* America
will be content to admit all that the British traveller have
written of her negro slavery ; to " hold each strange talo de
voutly true ;" and then to stand the comparison with Great
Britain, provided the disclosures of these Reports, the practice
of impressment, the system of discipline in the army and navy,
the proceedings during the suspension of the habeas corpus
act, the excise, and the hulks, be kept in view by the umpire.
* See Note Z.

NOTES.

— »^^5w=-

(NOTE A. p S5.)
The character of the American Indians is too apt to be underrated by the
historians, and the proper degree of credit to be, therefore, withheld from the
European settlers in North America, as regards the issue of the struggle. I
select from writers, who may be considered as of the highest authority, some
general views of Indian hostilities.
" The Indians," says Ramsay, in Ids History of South Carolina, " in their
military capacity, were not so inferior to the whites as some may imagine. The
superiority of muskets over bows and arrows, managed by Indians, in a woody
country, is not great. The savage, quick-sighted aiid accustomed to perpetual
watchfulness, springs from his hiding place, behind a bush, and surprises his
enemy with the pointed arrow before he is aware of clanger. He ranges
through the trackless forest like the beasts of prey, and safely sleeps under the
same canopy with the wolf and bear. His vengeance is concealed, till he sends
tlie tidings in the fatal blow."
" The Indians go to war," says Franklin, in his Canada Pamphlet, " as they
call it, in small parties, from fifty men down to five. Their hunting life has
made them acquainted with the whole country, and scarce any part of it is
impracticable to such a party. They can travel through the woods even by
night, and know how to conceal their tracks. They pass easily between your
forts undiscovered; and privately approach the settlements of your frontier
inhabitants. They need no convoys of provisions to follow them ; for whether
they are shifting from place to pluce in the woods, or lying in wait for an
opportunity to strike a blow, every thicket and stream furnishes so small a
number with sufficient subsistence. When they have surprised separately,
and murdered and scalped a dozen families, they are gone with inconceivable
expedition through unknown ways : and it is very rare that pursuers have any
chance of coming up with them."
Pownall's Administration of the Colonies.
" Our American frontiers," says governor Pownall, in his Administration of
the Colonies, " from the nature of advancing settlements, dispersed along the
branches of the upper parts of our rivers, and scattered in the disunited
vallies, amidst the mountains, must be always unguarded, and defenceless
against the incursions of Indians. And were we able, under an Indian war,
to advance our settlements yet farther, they would be advanced up to the yejy
Vol. I.— 3 H

426 NOTES. [PART I.
dens of those savages. A settler, wholly intent on labouring on the soil, can
not stand to his arms, nor defend himself against, nor seek his enemy. En
vironed with woods and swamps, he knows nothing of the country beyond his
farm. The Indian knows every spot for ambush or defence. The farmer,
driven from his little cultivated 16t into the woods, is lost: the Indian in the
woods is every where at home ; every bush, every thicket, is a camp to the
Indian, from whence, at the very moment when he is sure of his blow, he can
rush upon his prey. The farmer's cow or his horse, cannot go into the woods,
where alone thoy must subsist : his wife and children, if they shut themselves
up in their poor wretched log-house, will be burned in it : and the husbandman
in the field will be shot down while his hand holds the plough. An European
settler can make but momentary efforts of war, in hopes to gain some point,
that ho may by it obtain a series of security, under which to work his lands in
peace. The Indian's whole life is a warfare, and his operations never discon
tinued. In short, our frontier settlements must ever lie at the mercy of the
savages: aud a settler is the natural prey to an Indian, whose sole occupation
is war and hunting. To countries, circumstanced as our colonies are, an
Indian is the most dreadful of enemies. For, in a war with Indians, no force
whatever can defend our frontiers from being a constant wretched scene of
conflagrations, and of the most shocking murders. Whereas, on the contrary,
our temporary expeditions against these Indians, even if successful, can do
those wandei ers. little harm. Every article of their property is portable," &c.
" The Indians," says Loskiel, in his History of the Indian Missions, "need
not much provocation to begin a war with tbe white people ; a trifling occur
rence may easily furnish a pretence. Thay frequently first determine upon
war, and then wait a convenient opportunity, to find reasons for it; nor are
they much at a loss to find them.
" It has occasioned much surprise, that notwithstanding the prevailing fear
of the SixNations, lest the Europeans should become too powerful, they have
sold them-one tract of land after other. Some thought it was done merely for
the sake ofthe presents offered by the purchasers. But experience has shewn,
that this settling of land proved the best pretence for a war. For when the
white people had settled upon the purchased territory, they drove them away
again; They have frequently continued their hostilities against the white
people, even during the settling of the peace, or renewed them soon after.
In such a critical juncture, the Europeans cannot sufficiently guard against
the Indians, especially against the Iroquois. They will treat a white person,
who is ignorant of their evil designs, with all apparent civility, and give him
victuals^nd, drink, but before he is aware, cleave his skull with an hatchet."

(NOTE B. p. 42.)
The first constitution of South Carolina was framed by Locke. M.Verplank,
in the beautiful Anniversary Discourse, from which 1 have made along extract
in the text, celebrates him among " the illustrious dead, the rich fruits of
whose labours we are now enjoying;" as one of the " original legislators of
the country, who gave to our political character its first impulse and direction."
It appears to me, that the great philosopher is not entitled to these distinctions
as far, at least, as his fundamental constitutions for Carolina are concerned.
M. Verplank, in claiming for them, " many excellent provisions," acknow
ledges that they were " in all respects, unnecessarily complicated and artificial."
I see but two provisions in them worthy of particular approbation — to wit
the biennial parliament, and the perfect freedom in religion. On the whole'
it is wonderful how Locke, so practical and sober in his speculations generally
could have fallen upon a scheme of government so fanciful, and indeed so

PART I.] NOTES. 427
preposterous, when viewed in reference to the character and situation of the
colonists for whom it was intended. " Nothing," says Chalmers, " can show
more clearly the fallibility of the human understanding than the singular fate
of these constitutions. Discovered instantly to be wholly inapplicable to the
circumstances of an inconsiderable colony, and in a variety of cases, to be
altogether impracticable, they were immediately changed. The identity of
them was debated by those to whom they were offered as a rule of conduct,
because they had not been consulted in the formation of them. They gave
rise to the greatest dissentions, which long distracted the province, and engen
dered civil discord. And, after a little period of years, the whole, found
inconvenient and even dangerous, were laid aside, and a much simpler form
established."* " Locke," adds this author, "was, in the year, 1670, created a landgrave,
as a rewaid for his services ; and, like the other Carolinian nobles created
under this constitution, would have been consigned to oblivion, but for
those writings that have enlightened the world, while they have immorta
lized himself." Those admirable writings had, undoubtedly, a sensible influence
over the miDds of the American legislators of a subsequent period. Their
impress is distinguishable in our present federal constitution particularly.
His fundamental principles were, however, embodied in political statutes,
and put into steady action, in the midst of the North American wilderness,
even before the era of his birth. If we compare his constitutions for Carolina
with those which the New England settlers framed for themselves, we
will not have so much to complain of " the falibility ofthe human understand
ing" as to mock at the pride of philosophy, and to question the competency
of the highest talents in speculation, to the business of devising the true
rule of action for communities of men. The French philosophers succeed
for their country, no better than Locke for Carolina: Jeremy Bentham's
" Codification" is a masterpiece of absurdity, &c.

(NOTE C. p. 48.)
The body of the Roman Catholic gentlemen, who settled Maryland in
1633, appear to me to be clearly entitled to the merit of priority in the esta
blishment of religious freedom for all Christian sects. Lord Baltimore, as we
have seen in the text, by his original plan of polity, established Christianity
agreeably to the old common law, with the express denial of pre-eminence to
any sect. His associates recognized this principle, and acted upon it from the
outset. The first assemblies of the freemen of Ihe province, held in 1634-5-7-8-9,
all admitted it as fundamental. That of 1649, promulged a statute concerning
religious equality and freedom, which is not only prior in date, as a charter
for all Christian sects, to any other legislative act of the kind, of which this
country can boast, but provides more minutely and anxiously than any other
extant, for the protection of the rights of conscience, and tho preservation
of religious harmony. I know of no law on the subject bespeaking so tolerant
a spirit as to the divisions of Christianity; so prudent and sound a judgment,
and so generous a solicitude. It is to be noted, that among the early settlers,
were several priests. The number of these had increased at the date of the
act, and their concurrence in its regulations is ascertained from unquestionable
evidence. The toleration of the Church of England might have bren unavoid
able for the founders of Maryland, and all events tended obviously to keep

* Annals, p. 528.

428 NOTES. [PART I.
them well with the English government. But no motive of this nature existed
with respect to the secretaries, whose familar appellations they enumerated,
as far as it was practicable, in the law, in order to their greater security even
from insult. The favour of the English government was, on the contrary, to
be gained by the persecution of the Quakers and Puritans.
Roger Williams began his plantation in Providence in 1636. Rhode Island
was settled in 1638. In these settlements, a system of universal toleration
would seem to have been pursued from the beginning.
But there is no specific law on the subject of religious freedom in the first
code of Rhode Island, of 1647, although the concluding paragraph of that code
implies universal toleration. It is said in the Political Annals of Chalmers,*
that among the ordinances of the Rhode Island assembly of 1663, there is
one which enacts, that " all men professing Christianity, and of competent
estates and civil conversation, Roman Catholics only excepted, shall be admitted
freemen, or may choose or be chosen colonial officers." Holmes has repeated
this statement in his very useful Annals ; and its correctness does not appear to
have been questioned by any of our historians. This disfranchisement of
Roman Catholics was so little in unison, however, with the doctrines previously
asserted and acted upon by Rhode Island and her illustrious founder, Roger
Williams, that it was natural to doubt of the existence of the alledged excep
tion. The attention of the public having been drawn to the subject, last win
ter, by Mr. Verplank's Discourse, James Burrill, jun. Esq. the distinguished
senator from the Rhode Island, in the federal congress, zealous for the honor
and credit of Roger Williams, as the earliest apostle of unlimited toleration,
solicited Mr. Samuel Eddy, the secretary of state of Rhode Island to make
research into her records, with a view to the solution of the difficulty. Mr.
Eddy had occupied the station of secretary from October 1797, until May 1819,
and acquired a thorough acquaintance with the archives and antiquities of
Rhode Island. He is, besides, a gentleman of a discriminating mind and
scrupulous veracity, who must inspire the fullest confidence in every point
of view.
Mr. Burrill has had the goodness to communicate to me the answer of Mr.
Eddy, containing the results of a diligent investigation. I am induced to
make it part of this note, notwithstanding its length, being assured that it
will be considered as interesting and valuable, by all who are curious
or concerned about American history. It affords a fine lesson of state libe
rality, and establishes the singular facts — that the restriction in the law, to
those only who professed Christianity, and the exception of Roman Catholics,
were introduced after the year 1688, by some committee who prepared a new
digest of the laws ; that if the restriction, with the exception, was ever
approved of by the Rhode Island Assembly, this approbation must have been
given after 1688 ; and that the object of its introduction and continuation was
solely to win favour in England in the reigns of William and Anne. The
bigotry of the mother country is set in a striking light, by the necessity of such
a feint for the acquisition ^of her good will.
Statement of Mr* Eddy.
The first settlers in Providence, (1636) and in the island of Rhode Island
(1638) were governed by voluntary associations until 1647. Religious liberty
was fully enjoyed in these associations. In March 1643-1, a charter was
obtained by Roger Williams from " the Governor in Chief, Lord Admiral, and
Commissioners for foreign plantations," authorising the inhabitants to adopt
" such a form of civil government as by voluntary consent of all or the greater

C. xi.

PART. I.] NOTES. 429
part of them, they should find most suitable to their estate and condition," " and
to make and ordain such civil laws," &c. " as they or the greater part of them
should by free consent agree unto," to be conformable to the laws of Eng
land so far as the nature and constitution of the place would admit."
Pursuant to this charter, in May 1647, a form of government and a body of
laws were agreed to. The laws are thus introduced :
" And now to the end that we may give each to the other (notwithstanding
our "different consciences, touching the truth as it is in Jesus, whereof upon
the point we all make mention,) as good and hopeful assurance as we are able,
touching each man's peaceable and quiet enjoyment of his lawful right and
liberty, we do agree unto, and by the authority above said enact, establish
and confirm these orders following."
Among others, " That no person in this colony shall be taken or imprisoned,
or be disseised of his lands or liberties, or be exiled or any otherwise moles
ted or destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by some known
law, and according to the letter of it, ratified and confirmed by the major part
of the General Assembly, lawfully met, and orderly managed."
" For as much as the consciences of sundry men truly conscionable, may
scruple the giving or taking of an oath, and it would be no ways suitable to the
nature and constitution of our place, (who profess ourselves to be men of dif
ferent consciences, and not one willing to force another,) to debar such as can
not so do, either from bearing office among us, or from giving in testimony in a
case depending. Be it enacted," &c. " that a solemn profession be accounted
of as full force as an oath," &c. This body of laws is concluded by these me
morable words, " These are the laws that concern all men, and these are the
penalties for the transgression thereof, which, by common consent, are ratified
and established throughout the whole colony. And otherwise than thus, what
is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them
every one in the name of his God. .And let tbe lambs of the Most High
walk in this colony without molestation, in the name of Jehovah their God, for
ever and ever."
These are all the laws relating to this subject under the charter of 1643-4.
The second charter bears date July 8, 1603, was brought over (by Capt. George
Baxter,) and presented to the Court of Commissioners November 24, 1663, and
the next day to " a very great meeting and assembly of the freemen of the co
lony." The day following the Court of Commissioners resigned their authority,
and declared themselves dissolved.
The preamble to this charter recites, " that whereas in their humble address,
they have freely declared that it is much in their hearts (if they may be per
mitted) to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may
stand, and best be maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full
liberty in religious concernments," and then declares, " That no person within
the said colony at any time hereafter shall be any wise molested, punished, dis
quieted, or called in question for any differences of Opinion in matters of re
ligion, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of our said colony ; but that
all and every person and persons may from time to time, and at all times here
after freely and fully have and enjoy his and their own judgments and conscien
ces in matters of religious concernments ; they behaving themselves peaceably
and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness and profaneness, nor
to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others."
The first meeting of the General Assembly under this charter was March 1,
1663-4, when the government was organized. They repealed certain laws
which were " contrary to the form of the present government," and " ordered
and enacted that all other laws be of force, until some other course be taken
by a General Assembly for better provision therein."
The proceedings of this session are all entire, and there is not a word on record
of the Act referred to by Chalmer's Political Annuals, c. xi. and contained
in the revision of 1745 ; purporting to have been passed the Session of 1663-4.
Nor is there any thing on record at either of the sessions this year which has
any relation to the subject, unless the following may be so considered. At

480 NOTES. [PART I.
May session the inhabitants of Block Island being incorporated into a town,
the recorder (secretary) was desired to furnish them with " a transcript of the
body of laws," (enacted Under theflrst charter) and " at present" to communi
cate to them the following words of the charter— to wit : " That no person
within the said colony at any time hereafter, shall be any wise molested, pun
ished,^ isquieted, or called in question for any difference of opinion in matters
of religion, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of the said colony." At
the same time, John Sands and Joseph Kent, freemen of Block Island, pre
sented a petition in behalf of a number of the inhabitants of that island,
praying that the latter might be admitted freemen of the colony ; " and being
demanded if they did know that all the aforesaid persons were men of peace
able and good behaviour, and likely to prove worthy and helpful members in
the colony, they answered yea." Wherenpon they were admitted. No where
have I heard any enquiry respecting religion on the admission of freemen.
At the session in May 1£65, three of the king's commissioners, Carr, Cart-
wright, and Maverick, presented to the General Assembly five propositions or
proposals as they are called in the records ; the firtt and second of which are
in these words — 1st. " That all householders inhabiting this colony, take the
oath of allegiance ; and that the administration of justice be in his majesty's
name." 2nd. " That all men of competent estates and civil conversation, who
acknowledge and are obedient to the civil magistrate, though of different judg
ments, may be admitted freemen and have the liberty to choose and be chosen
officers both civil and military."
In answer to the first, after saying much about liberty of conscience in
relation to oaths, &c. (see Hist. Collections Massachusetts, vol. 7, 2nd series,
page 95.) they enacted that an " engagement of alliance should be given, (the
form of which is prescribed) " by all men capable, within their jurisdiction.
In answer to the second, they enacted, " That so many of them that take the
aforesaid engagements, and are of competent estates, civil conversation, and
obedient to the civil magistrate, shall be admitted freemen of this colony, upon
their express desire therein declared to the General Assembly, either by them
selves, with sufficient testimony of their fitness and qualifications, as shall by
the Assembly be deemed satisfactory ; or if by the chief officers of the town or
towns where they live they be proposed and declared as abovesaid, and that
none shall have admission to vote tor public officers or deputies, or enjoy any
privilege of freemen, till admitted by the Assembly as aforesaid, and their
names recorded, in the general records of the colony."
To the third proposal (see Hist. Coll. Mass. p. 99,) they say, " This Assem
bly do with all gladness of heart and humbleness of mind, acknowledge the
great goodness of God, and favour of his Majesty in that respect; declaring
that as it hath been a principle held forth and maintained in this colony from
the very beginning thereof; so it is much in their hearts to procure the same
liberty to all persons within this colony for ever ; as to the worship of God
therein, taking care for the preservation of civil government; to the doing of
justice, and preserving each other's privileges from wrong and violence of
others." Among other reasons assigned in a law allowing compensation to the mem
bers of Assembly, to enable them the better to discharge their duties, passed
September 26, 1666, is this — " So as in some good measure to answer one main
ground of his Majesty's grant, which was to hold forth a lively experiment,
that a most flourishing civil state, may stand and be best maintained, and that
among his English subjects, with a full liberty in religious concernments."
A militia law, passed May 1677, is concluded with the words — " Provided
always that this Assembly do hereby declare, that it is their full and unaminous
resolution to maintain a full liberty in religious concernments relating to the
worship of God ; and that no person inhabiting within this jurisdiction shall
be in any wise molested, punished, or disquieted, or called in question for any
difference of opinion in matters of religion, who do not actually disturb the
civil peace of this colony."
I have formerly examined the records of the »tate, from iti first settlement,

pART I.] NOTES. 431
with a view to historical information; and lately, from 1063 to 1719, with a
particular view to this law, excluding Roman Catholics from the privileges of
freemen, and can find nothing that has any « eference to it, nor any thin» that
gives any preference or privileges to men of one set of religious opinions over
those of another, until the revision of 1745.
It remains now to account for the law quoted by Chalmers, as contained in
this revision of 1745. To do this, it may be proper to state, that the general
practice was, and which continued under different regulations till 1798, (the
date of the last revision), either for the secretary or others united with him, to
draw up in form the laws and proceedings at the close of each session, and for
the secretary to record the same, and until 1747, to send copies in manuscript
under the seal of the colony, to the several towns. The first order for printing
the proceedings ofthe General Assembly, was in October, 1747. The first edi
tion of the Laws was printed in 1719.* This was attended with so many errors,
that a committee was appointed to correct them, in a supplement that was to
be printed and annexed to the edition. The second was printed in 1730, by
whom, or at what place, I have not learnt. Neither of these editions is in the
secretary's office, nor have I been able to find them. The third was printed in'
Newport, in 1715, and from which I imagine Charmers quoted.
The laws have been uniformly revised by committees. Their practice has
been to embody in one all the different laws on the same subject previously
passed, with such additions and amendments as they thought proper, confirmed
however, before publication, by the General Assembly. The two last revisions
(1767 and 1798,) give no date to the several laws, other than by figures in the
margin, generally opposite the title or first section of the law, referring to the
years when the different laws embodied in one are supposed to have been passed.
These references are inaccurate and deficient.
In the revision of 1745,t the whole of every law purports to have been passed
at a particular session, though composed of a number of acts passed in different
and subsequent years, and which, in many instances, are referred to in the
margin. None of them are dated before March, 1603-i, the time of the first
meeting under the second charter, and of those whicli bear this date not one sec
tion of any one of Hum was passed at this session. The following act, bearing this
date, is traced from its origin, as a specimen of the inaccuracy of the dates in
this revision of 1745. " Be it enacted," &c. " That there be one seal made for
the public use ofthe colony, and that the form of an anchor be engraven there
on, and the motto thereof shall be the word Hope." In the laws of 1647, " It
is ordered that the seal of the Province shall'be an anchor." There is nothing
more on this subject till March, 1663-4, when " ordered that for the present, the
old seal that hath been the seal of the colony, shall be the present seal," until a
new one be procured. May 1664, " ordered, that the seat with the motto Rhode
Island and Providence Plantations, with the word Hope, over the head of the
anchor, is the present seal of the colony." This continued to be the seal till
J 686, when on the surrender ofthe charter, it was broken by Sir Edmund
Andros, and in February, 1689, the charter having been resumed, it was " or
dered that the seal brought in by Mr. Arnold Collins, being the anchor, with
the motto Hope, is appointed to be the seal of the colony, he having been em
ployed by this Assembly to make it." This is now in the secretary's office, and
has ever since been the seal of the colony aud state, is the only one of this de
scription the colony ever had, and is the same pointed out in the before-men
tioned act (revision of 1745) purporting to have been passed ia 1663-4.
The intention in this revision appears to have been either to date the laws at
or after the time when the operations of government commenced under the
second charter, as having derived all their validity from that, or to let the whole
of each law compiled as before-mentioned, bear date when the first act on the
subject was supposed to have existed under the second charter. For al-
* By Nicholas Boone in Boston.
t There have been five, 1719, 1730, 1745, 1767, and 1798.

432 NOTES, [PART I.
though the " body of laws," as enacted under the first charter was conti
nued under the second, yet in no instance do our printed laws imply or ex
press an existence before 1663-4.? Whatever the intention was, great in
accuracy exists as to their true date. Thus the law particularly referred
to by Chalmers, the greater part of which is from Magna Charta, was in
substance passed in 1647, as will appear by an extract on the former part
of this communication. The latter part of the law, and which has occa
sioned this inqairy, is in these words, " And that all men professing Chris
tianity, and of competent estates, and of civil conversation, who acknowledge,
and are obedient to the civil magistrate, though of different judgments in reli
gions affairs, Roman Catholics only excepted, shall be admitted freemen, and shall
have liberty to choose and be chosen officers in the colony, both military and
civil." Now that this law was not passed in 1663-4 is most certain, for not only
does it make no part ofthe record of either session this year, but omitting the
words professing Christianity, and Roman Catholics only excepted, they are the very
words of the second proposition of Carr, Cartwright, and Maverick, made to
the General Assembly in May, 1665, and which at the same time were enacted
into a law.
In addition to this, these commissioners, in a narrative of their proceedings,
under their commission, (Hutchinson's Col. 412.) expressly state that this co
lony " admit all to be freemen that desire it, they allow liberty of conscience and
worship to all who live civilly." They further say, that " this colony, which
admits of all religions, even Quakers and Generalists, was begun by such as the
Massachusetts would not suffer to live among them, and is generally hated by
the other colonies, who endeavoured several ways to suppress them."
The answer of the colony in 1680, to the inquiries of the commissioners for
foreign plantations, as stated by Chalmers, is a farther confirmation of the cor
rectness of this statement, In which they say, that all of different persuasions
and principles " enjoy their liberty according to his Majesty's gracious charter."
" We leave every man to walk as God shall persuade their hearts, and do ac
tively, impassively yield obedience to the civil magistrate." Though Chalmers,
supposing the laws relative to Roman Catholics to have been passed in 1663-4,
considers this answer to have been a designed concealment of that act.
Thus you have positive and indubitable evidence, that the law excluding
Roman Catholics from the privileges of freemen was not passed in 1663-4, but
that they were, by law, at this time, and long after, entitled to all the privileges
of other citizens ; and satisfactory evidence, that these privileges were conti
nued by law until 1719, when, or in one of the subsequent revisions, the words
" professing Christianity," and " Roman Catholics only excepted,'' were inserted
by the revising committee. These words may possibly have been inserted in a
manuscript copy of the laws sent over in 1699, but of this the words afford no
evidence. Roger Williams was an assistant (member of the upper house) in the years
1664, 1670, and 1671. He was chosen in 1677, but refused to serve. He was
also a deputy (member ofthe lower house) in May, 1667. These are the only
years in which he was in office under the second charter. He died in 1682:
" When he was buried with all the solemnity the colony was able to shew."
(Callender.) Most of the first settlers were dead at this time. Indeed, that
such a law should have been passed in the life-time of the first settlers, is hard.y
credible. Religious liberty was their pride and boast. The records abound
with allusions to it. (See Coll. Mass. Hist. Society, vol. vii. 2d series, pp 8b
85,88, 103-4. (See also, Hutch. Coll. 154.) The legal enjoyment of it was
granted and secured at their special request ; and, notwithstanding this dis't.n-
guishing feature in their government, was stigmatized with the most reproached
and opproorious epithets, they considered it as their highest honour; anu

* Policy might have suggested the imprudence of noticing an authority de
rived from an act of the Long Parliament, under which the first charter was
granted.

PART I.] NOTES. 433
themselves in the enjoyment of a natural right, denied to the great body of
mankind. J
I acknowledge that this account does not exhibit a very flatterin" view ofthe
legislative accuracy of Rhode Island ; but I believe it exhibits a true one and
that is my object. It may be proper to add, that each revision ot the laws ap
pears to have been attended with delays and disappointments. It was nearly
twenty years after the appointment of the first committee, for revising and print
ing the laws, before the publication ofthe first edition. There was no printing
press in the colony till 1745, and no newspaper printed till 1758. The colony
was frequently pressed by the government in England for copies of their laws
and other proceedings, and, in 1699, they sent over a copy ofthe laws in manu
script. How, or from what originals they were made up, does not appear. As
usual, it was done by a committee. A list of the laws was ordered to be left in
the secretary's office, but is not now to be found.
I would also suggest, that it appears at all times to have been an important
object with the colony to be on the best terms with the mother country. Being
poor, of small extent of territory, and in contention with the bordering colonies'
both on account of its boundaries and tolerating principles, it required the spe
cial protection ofthe British government. I am inclined to think, that the ex
ception of Roman Catholics in the printed laws (1745), was inserted with the
view of ingratiating the colony the more with the mother coimtry. I have no
evidence of this but the general tenor of the laws, and the spirit of liberality
which they always manifest on rebgious subjects. In 1696, a letter was re
ceived from William Blaithwait, containing a form of association, recommended
to be entered into, to defend the king against the conspiracies ofthe papists,
" in consequence of the discovery of the late horrid conspiracy against his ma
jesty," (the assassination plot). It does not appear that the general assembly
took any steps about it. Why a law should be passed to exclude from the privi
leges of freemen, those who were not inhabitants, by those who believed all to be
equally entitled to their religious opinions, is difficult to conceive, unless for the
purpose above suggested. There were no Roman Catholics in the colony in
1680. (Chalmers, 284.) That this colo.iy was an asylum for the persecuted of
all religions, as well of those of none, is evident from Cotton Mather, who says,
anno 1695, " Rhode Island colony is a collection of Antinomians, Familists, An-
tisabbatarians, Arminians, Socinians, Quakers, Ranters, and everything but
Roman Catholics and true Christians." Douglas, vol. ii. 110, 112. The same
fact is established by tha testimony of others of the old writers, who speak of
tbe colony with the utmost contempt on that account, and also by the evidence
of the colonial records. In the proceedings of June session, 1684, is this entry,
" In answer to the petition of Simon Medus, David Brown, and associates, being
Jews, presented to this assembly, bearing date June 21, 1684, ' we. declare they
may expect as good protection here as any stranger, not being of our nation, re
siding among us, in this his majesty's colony, ought to have, being obedient to
his majesty's laws.'" These Jews are supposed to have been Portuguese.
On the revocation of the edict of Nantz, many of the Hugonots settled in
this colony. In the proceedings of February session, 1689-90, is this entry :
" Ordered, that the Frenchmen that reside at Narragansett be sent for by Major
John Greene, to what place in Warwick he shall appoint, to signify unto them
the king's pleasure, in his proclamation of war (against France), and his indul
gence to such Frenchmen as behave themselves well, aud require tlieir engage
ments thereunto."
It is observable that the laws of the colony never made any provision for as
certaining any other qualification of a freeman, than competency of estate, and
that no test or oaf A -could ever be required by law of any man in any case.
There is one trait in the laws ofthe first settlers of this colony, which places
them, as advocates for the equal rights of all men in matters of religion, on an
elevation above their contemporaries. The liberality ofthe most liberal of the
latter is confined to Christians, believers in Jesus's holy church, (Chalmers, 213,
215, 218, 235.) ; that of the former is extended to all men of civil conversation,
without regard to their opinions, whether Christians or Jews, believers in
Vol. I.— 3 I

434 NOTES. [PART I.
Moses, or Jesus, or Mahomet, or neither. The life only, being of competent
estates, furnished to the former evidence of the fitness to be freeman.
Chalmers justly contends for the equal rights of the Roman Catholics with
other Christians, and he ought, for the same reasons, to have contended for the
equal rights of Jews, Mahometans, and all others, whether believers or not be
lievers ; for their natural rights are certainly equal.
N. B. The records of the colony from 166S to 1686 are. entire. From the
latter period to 1715, the proceedings of the General Assembly are not re
corded ; but manuscript copies of the proceedings during this period, under
the seal of the colony, are»in the town clerk's office, and some of them in the
secretary's office, and have been examined, except for the year 1692, in which
I have found the proceedings of the one session only.
The foregoing is a copy of a communication from Mr. Samuel Eddy, secretary
of this state, from October 1797 to May 1819, and now representative in
Congress, in reply to enquiries made by me relative to the correctness of the
assertion of Chalmers, (Political Annals, p. 276,) that the toleration of Roger
Williams and the first settlers, at Providence and Rhode Island, did not
extend to Roman Catholics. JAMES BURRILL, Jijkr.
Providence, May 12, 1819.

(NOTE D. p. 51.)

It will be thought extraordinary, that Mr. Brougham, who appears to have
read our history, and not to be unacquainted with that of England, should have
hazarded such a statement as the following, in his Colonial Policy. " Lon<*
after the mother country. had relinquished for ever the arts of persecution, they
found votaries in the fconstituted authorities of the colonies ; and the northern
states, at the end of the seventeenth century, afforded the disgraceful example
of that spiritual tyranny, from which their territories had originally served as
an asylum !"* The persecutions for witchcraft, of which I have given a full
explanation in the text, are the only instances of spiritual persecution, if they
can be so denominated, which disgrace the annals of New England at so late a
period as the close of the seventeenth century. None took place afterwards
in any of the colonies, except in New York, where the royal governor, Lord
Cornbury,of detested memory, attempted to stifie the Presbyterian worship ;+
and in Maryland, against the Catholics, at the instigation of the British govern
ment. It is true, that the legislatures of Massachusetts and New York, passed
each, in the first year of the eighteenth century, a law prescribing Catholic
priests, but the motive was political ; it being believed that those priests
laboured uniformly to excite the Indians to hostilities against the An»lo-Ame-
ricans. No doubt, the spirit of intolerance continued for some time to prevail
in a greater or less degree, against popery, alternately the bugbear and the
stalking-horse of the British rulers. They, however, not only studiously
fomented, but exacted that spirit in the colonies; where, as we have seen in
the last Note, it was even thought necessary to counterfeit persecution, in order
to retain their favour.
The author of the Colonial Policy has not specified the period at which the

* B. I. p. 1. t See Smith's History of New York, vol. iii. p. 119.

PART I.j NOTES. 435
mother countiy relinquished for ever the arts of persecution ; and after which
the constituted authorities of the colonies cultivated them ; but he is to be
understood as referring to the end of the seventeenth century. His accuracy,
or his candour, will be illustrated by the following extracts, which I make
from an article of the Edinburgh Review,* commonly ascribed to his pen.
" The arms of William III. overthrew the last remnant of Catholic govern
ment or ascendancy in Britain and Ireland ; and, by the articles in Limerick,
which closed the scene of hostility in 1691, it was expressly stipulated, that
the Roman Catholics should enjoy such privileges, in the exercise of their reli
gion, as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the
reign of Charles II. ; and their majesties, as soon as they can summon a parlia
ment in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics
such farther security in that particular as may preserve them from any distur
bance on account of their religion. This solemn instrument of pacification,
granted in the moment of victory, was ratified and published in letters, patent,
under the great seal, in the fourth year of King William ; and in three years
thereafter, was passed, in direct violation of it, the famous act for preventing
the growth of popery, the foundation and model of the many barbarous enact
ments by which that race of men were oppressed for little less than a century
thereafter." " By this barbarous act, and the satutes by which it was followed up, Catho-
licts were disable from purchasing or inheriting land, — from being guardians
to their own children, — from having arms or horses, — from serving on grand
juries, — from entering in the inns of court, — from practising as barristers,
solicitors, or physicians, &c. &c.
" At the close of the reign of Queen Anne, in short, when the privileges and
liberties of Englishmen stood on so triumphant a footing, nothing remained to
two-thirds of the inhabitants of Ireland, by which they could be distinguished
from slaves or aliens, but the right of voting at elections. Of this, too, they
were deprived under the succeeding sovereigns.''
The following account of the aboye mentioned act, and of some of its effects,
given in Mr. Burke's speech of 1780, at Bristol, previous to the election, is a
still more pointed commentary upon the assertion that the arts of persecution,
were relinquished in Great Britain, for ever, at the end of the seventeenth
century. " A Statute was fabricated," says Mr. Burke, " in the year 1699, by which
the saying mass (a church-service, in the Latin tongue, not exactly the same
as our liturgy, but very near it, and containing no offence against the laws, or
against good morals,) was forged into a crime punishable with perpetual im
prisonment. The teaching schools, an useful and virtuous occupation, even the
teaching in a private family, was, in every Catholie, subjected to the same un-
proportionate punishment — Your industry, and the bread of your children, was
taxed for a pecuniary reward to stimulate avarice to do what nature refused, to
inform and prosecute on this law — Every Roman Caiholic was under the same
act, to forfeit his estate to his nearest Protestant relation, until, through a profes
sion of what he did not believe, he redeemed, by his hypocrisy, what the law had
transferred to the kinsman ax a recompense of his profligacy. When thus
turned out of doors from his paternal estate, he was disabled from acquiring
any other by any industry, donation, or charity ; but was rendered a foreigner
in his native land, only because he retained the religion, along with the pro
perty, handed down to him from those who had been the old inhabitants of that
land before him."
" The effects of the act have been as mischievous, as its origin was shame
ful. From that time, every person of that communion, lay and ecclesiastic, has
been obliged to fiy from the face of day. The clergy, concealed in garrets of
private houses, or obliged to take a shelter (hardly safe to themselves, but infi-

Volume for 1807. Article on Catholic Question.

436 NOTES. [PART I-
nitely dangerous to their country) under the privileges of foreign ministers,
officiated as their servants, and under their protection. The whole body ofthe
Catholics, condemned to beggary and to ignorance in their native land, have
been |obliged to learn the principles of letters, at the hazard of their other
principles, from the , charity of your enemies. They have been taxed to their
ruin, at the pleasure of necessitous and profligate relations, and according to the
measure of their necessity and profligacy. Examples of this are many and
affecting. Some of them are known by a friend who stands near me in this
hafl. It is but six or seven yeais since a clergyman, of the name of Malony,
a man of morals, neither guilty, nor accused of any thing noxious to the state,
was condemned to perpetual imprisonment for exercising the functions of his
religion ; and, and after lying in jail two or three years, was relieved by the
mercy of goverment from pei petual imprisonment, on condition of perpetual
banishment. A brother of the earl of Shrewsbury, a Talbot, a name respect
able in this country, whilst its glory is any part of its concern, was hauled to
the bar of the Old Bailey, among common felons, and only escaped the same
doom, either by some error in the process, or that the wretch who brought him
there could not correctly describe his person ; I now forget which," &c. (See
on this Subject — Note V.)

(NOTE E. p. 86.)
" On the 14th of December, 1795," says Bryan Edwards, (Hist, of W. Indies,
b. ii.) "the British commissioners who went to the Havanna for assistance,
arrived at Montego Bay with forty chasseurs or Spanish hunters (chiefly people
of colour)] and about one hundred Spanish dogs." Their number was really one
hundred and twenty, according to Dallas, and a great proportion of them
not regularly trained, so that the fugitive whom they overtook could not escape
being torn in pieces by them. The following compact is copied from Dallas's
History (vol. ii.) —
" Articles of Agreement between his Britannic Majesty's Commissary and
the undersigned Spanish Chasseurs.
" 1st. We, the undersigned oblige ourselves to go to the island of Jamaica,
taking each three dogs for the hunting and seizing negroes. — 2d. That, when
arrived at the said island, and informed of the situation of the runaway or
rebellious negroes, we oblige ourselves to practice every means that may be
necessary to pursue, and apprehend with our dogs, said rebellious negroes. — -
3d. Our stay in the island shall be three months — ith. If, at the expiration of
our being three months in tlie island of Jamaica, government should consider
our residence there for a longer time necessary, it then shall be at our option
to make a new agreement," &,c. [Here follow the signatures, &c]

(NOTE F. p. 92.)
" To his most excellent majesty George, King of Great Britain, &c. &c.
" The humble petition of his subjects the late French inhabitants of Novia
Scotia, formerly settled on the Bay of Minus aud rivers thereunto belonging ;
now residing in the province of Pennsylvania, on behalf of themselves and

PART I.] NOTES. 437
the rpst of the late inhabitants of the said Bay, and also of those formerly
settled on the river of Annapolis-Royal, wheresoever dispersed.
" May it please your Majesty,
" It is not in oar power sufficiently to trace back the conditions upon which
our ancestors first settled in Novia Scotia, under the protection of yonr
majesty's predecessors, as the greatest part of our elders who were acquainted
with these transactions are dead, bnt more especially because our papers
which contained our contracts, records, &c. were by violence taken from us,
some time before the unhappy catastrophe whicli has been the occasion of the
calamities we are now under, but we always understood the foundation thereof
to be from an agreement made between your majesty's commanders in Novia
Scotia, and our forefathers, about the year 1713, whereby they were permit
ted to remain in the possession of their lands, under an oath of fidelity to the
British government, with an exemption from bearing arms, and the allowance
of the free exercise of their leligion.
" It is a matter of certainty (and within the compass of some of our memo
ries) that in the years 1730, general Philips, then governor of Nova Scotia,
did in your majesty's name confirm unto us, and all the inhabitants of the
whole extent of the Bay of Minas and rivers thereunto belonging, the free and
entire possession of those lands We, were then possessed of, which by grants
from the former French go vernment we held to us and our heirs for ever, on
paying the cusromary quit rents, &c. And on condition that we should behave
with due submission and fidelity to your majesty, agreeable to the oath which
was then administered to us, which is as follows, viz.
" We sincerely promise and swear by the faith of a Christian, that we shall
" be entirely faithful, and will truly submit ourselves to his majesty King
" George, whom we acknowledge as sovereign lord of New Scotland, or
" Arcadia ; so God help us."
" And at the same time, the said general Philips did in like manner promise
the said French inhabitants in your majesty's name, ' That they should have
the true exercise of their religion, and be exempted from bearing arms and
from being employed in war either against the French or Indians.' Under the
sanction of this solemn engagement we held our lands, made further purchases,
annually paving our quit rents, &c. and we had the greatest reason to conclude
that your majesty did not disapprove ofthe above agreement: and that our
conduct continued during a long course of years to be such as recommended us
to your gracious protection, and to the regard of the governor of New England,
appears from a printed declaration made seventeen years after this time, by
his excellency William Shirley, governor of New England, which was pub
lished and dispersed in our country, some originals of which have escaped
from the general destruction of most of our papers, part of which is as
follows. " By his Majesty's command,
" A declaration of William Shirley, Esq. captain general and governor in
chief in aud over his majesty's province of Massachusetts Bay, &c.
" To his majesty's subjects the French inhabitants of his province of Nova
Scotia: Whereas upon being informed that a report had been propagated
among his majesty's subjects the French inhabitants of his province of Nova
Scotia, that there was an intention to remove them from their settlements in
that province, I did, by my declaration, dated 16lh September, 1746, signify
to them that the same was groundless,|and that I was on the contrarj persuaded
that his majesty would be graciously pleased to extend his royal protection to
all such of them as should continue in their fidelity and allegiance to him, and
in no wise abet or hold correspondence with the enemies of his crown, and
therein assured them that I would make a favourable representation of their
state a«d circumstances to his majesty, and did accordingly transmit a repre
sentation thereof to be laid before him, and have thereupon received his
royal pleasure, touehing his aforesaid subjects in Nova Scotia; with his

438 NOTES. [PART 1.
express commands to signify the same to them in his name: Now by Virtue
thereof, and in obedience to his majesty's said orders, I do hereby declare in
his majesty's name, that there is not the least foundation for any appreheusions
of his majesty's intending to remove them, the said inhabitants of Nova
Scotia, from their said settlements and habitations within the said province,
but that on the contrary, it is his majesty's resolution to protect and maintain
all such of them as have adhered to and shall continue in their duty and alle
giance to him in the quiet and peaceable possession of their respective habita
tions and settlements, and in the enjoyment of their rights and privileges as
his subjects, &c. &c.
" Dated at Boston, the 21st of October, 1747.
" And this is farther confirmed by a letter, dated 29th June in the same year,
wrote to our deputies by Mr. Mascarine, then your majesty's chief commander
in Nova Scotia, which refers to governor Shirley's first declaration, of whicli
we have a copy legally authenticated, part of which is as follows, viz.
" As to the fear you say you labour under on account of being threatened to
' be made to evacuate the country, you have in possession his excellency Willi-
' am Shirley's printed letter, whereby you may be made easy in that respect :
' you are sensible of the promise I have made you, the effects of which you
' have already felt, that I would protect you so long as by your good conduct
' and fidelity to the crown of Great Britain you would enable me so to do, which
' promise I do again repeat to you.' y.
" Near the time of the publication of the before-mentioned' declaration, it
was required that our deputies should, on behalf of all the people, renew the
oath formerly taken to General Philips, which was done without any mention
of bearing arms —and we can with truth say, that we are not sensible of any
alteration in our disposition or conduct since that time, but that we have al
ways continued to retain a grateful regard to your majesty and your govern
ment, notwithstanding which we have found ourselves surrounded with diffi
culties unknown to us before. Your majesty determined to fortify our pro
vince and settle Halifax; which the French looking upon with jealousy, they
made frequent incursions through our countiy in order to annoy that settle
ment, whereby we became exposed to many straits and hardships ; yet from the
obligations we were under, from the oath we had taken, we were never under
any doubt but that it was our indispensible duty and interest to remain true to
your government and our oath of fidelity ; hoping that in time those difficulties
would be removed, and we should see peace and tranquility restored : and if
from the change of affairs in Nova Scotia, your majesty had thought it not con
sistent with the safety of your said province, to let us remain there upon the
terms promised us by your governors, in your majesty's name, we should doubt
less have acquiesced with any other reasonable proposal which might have
been made to us. consistent with the safety of our aged parents and tender
wives and children ; and we are persuaded if that had been the case, where-
ever we had retired, we should have held ourselves under the strongest obli
gations of gratitude from a thankful remembrance of the happiness we had en
joyed under your majesty's administration and gracious protection. About the
time of the settlement of Halifax, General Cornwallis, governor of Nova Sco
tia, did require that we should take the oath of allegiance without the exemp
tion before allowed us, of not bearing arms ; but this we absolutely refused, as
being an infringement of the principal condition upon which our forefathers
agreed to settle under the British government.
" And we acquainted Governor Cornwallis that if your majesty was not
willing to continue that exemption to us, we desired liberty to evacuate the
country, proposing to settle on the Island of St. John's, where the French
government was willing to let us have land, which proposal he at that time re
fused to consent to ; but told us he would acquaint your majesty therewith and
return us an answer. But we never received an answer, nor was any proposal
of that made to us until we were made prisoners.
" After the settlement of Halifax, we suffered many abuses and insults from
your majesty's enemies; more especially from the Indians in the interest of the

PARTI.] NOTES. 439
Frencli, by whom our cattle was killed, our houses pillaged, and many of ns
personally abused and put in fear of our lives, and some even carried away
prisoners towards Canada, solely on account of our resolution steadily to
maintain our oath of fidelity to the English government, particularly Rene
Leblanc (our public notary) was taken prisoner by the Indians when actually
travelling in your majesty's service, his house pillaged, and himself carried to
the FreDCh fort, from whence he did not recover his liberty but with great
difficulty, after four years' captivity.
'* We were likewise obliged to comply with the demand of the enemy made
for provision, cattle, &c. upon pain of military execution, which we had rea
son to believe the government was made sensible was not an act of choice on
our part, but of necessity ; as those in authority appeared to take in good part
the representations we always made to them after any thing of that nature had
happened. " Notwithstanding the many difficulties we thus laboured under, yet we
dare appeal 10 the several governors both at Halifax and Annapolis-Royal, for
testimonies of our being always ready and willing to obey their orders and give
all the assistance in our power, either in furnishing provisions and materials,
or making roads, building forts, Sic. agreeable to your majesty's orders and
our oath of fidelity, whensoever called upon or required thereunto.
" It was also our constant care to give notice to your majesty's commanders
of the danger they from time to time have been exposed to by the enemy's
troops, and had the intelligence we gave been always attended to, many lives
might have been spared, particularly in the unhappy affair which befel Major
Noble and his brother, at Grand Pray; when they, with great numbers of
their men, were cut off by the enemy, notwithstanding the frequent advices
we had given them of the danger they were in ; and yet we have been very
unjustly accused as parties in that massacre.
" And although we have been thus anxiously concerned to manifest our
fidelity in these several respects, yet it has been falsely insinuated, that it had
been our general practice to abet and support your majesty's enemies ; but we
trust that your majesty will not suffer suspicions and accusations to be receiv
ed as proofs sufficient to reduce some thousands of innocent people from the
most happy situation to a state of the greatest distress and misery ! No, this
was far from our thoughts ; we esteemed our situation so happy, as by no
means to desire a change. We have always desired, and again desire, that we
may be permitted to answer our accusers in a judicial way. In the mean time,
permit us, Sir, here solemnly to declare, that these accusations are utterly false
and groundless, so far as they concern us as a collective body of people. It
hath been always our desire to live as our fathers hath done, as faithful sub
jects under your majesty's royal protection, with an unfeigned resolution to
maintain our oath of fidelity to the utmost of our power. Yet it cannot be
expected, but that amongst us, as well as amongst other people, there have
been some weak and false-hearted persons susceptible of being bribed by the
enemy so as to break the oath of fidelity. Twelve of these were out-lawed in
Governor Shirley's proclamation before-mentioned; but it will be found that the
number of such false-hearted men amongst us were very few, considering our
situation, the number of our inhabitants, and how we stood circumstanced in
several respects : and it may easily be made appear that it was the constant
care of our deputies to prevent and put a stop to such wicked conduct when it
came to their knowledge.
" We understood that the aid granted to the French by the inhabitants of
Chignecto has been used as an argument to accelerate our ruin ; but we trust
that your maj esty will not permit the innocent to be involved with the guilty ; no
consequence can be justly drawn, that because those people yielded to ihe
threats and persuasions of the enemy, we should do the salne. They were situ
ated so far from Halifax as to be in a great measure out of the protection ofthe
English government, which was not our case ; we were separated from them
by sixty miles of uncultivated land, and had no other connexion with them
than what is usual with neighbours at such a distance; and we can truly say wc

440 NOTES. [PART I-
looked on their defection from your majesty's interest with great pain and
anxiety. Nevertheless, not long before our being made prisoners, the house
in which we kept our contracts, records, deeds, &c. was invested with an
armed force, and all our papers violently carried away ; none of which have to
this day been returned us; whereby we are in a great measure deprived of
means of making our own innocence and the justness of our complaints
appear in their true light.
" Upon our sending a remonstrance to the governor and council of the vio
lence that had been offered us by the seizure of our papers, and of the ground
less fears the government appeared to be under on our account, by their taking
away our arms, no answer was returned us ; but those, who had signed the re
monstrance, and some time after sixty more, in all about eighty of our elders,
were summoned to appear before the governor and council, which they imme
diately complied with, and it was required of them that they should take the
oath of allegiance without the exemption, which, during a course of near fifty
years, had been granted to us and to our fathers, of not being obliged to bear
arms, and which was the principal condition upon which our ancestors agreed
to remain in Nova Scotia, when the rest of the French inhabitants evacuated
the country, which, as it was contrary to our inclination and judgment, we
thought ourselves engaged in duty absolutely to refuse. Nevertheless, we
freely offered, and would gladly have renewed, our oath of fidelity, but this was
not aceepted of, and we were all immediately made prisoners, and were told by
the governor, that our estates, both real and personal, were forfeited for your
Majesty's use. As to those who remained at home, they were summoned to
appear before the commanders in the forts, which, we showing some fear to
comply with, on the account of the seizure of our papers, and imprisonment of
so many of our elders, we had the greatest assurance given us that there was
no other design but to make us renew our former oath of fidelity ; yet as soon
as we were within the fort, the same judgment was passed on us as had been
passed on our brethren at Halifax, and we were also made prisoners.
" Thus, notwithstanding the solemn grants made to our fathers by general
Phillips, and the declaration made by governor Shirley and Mr. Mas^arine in
your majesty's name, that it was your majesty's resolution to protect and main
tain all such of us as should continue in their duty and allegiance to yo^ir ma
jesty, in the quiet and peaceable possession of their settlements, and the enjoy
ment of all their rights and privileges, as your majesty's subjects ; we found
ourselves at once deprived of our estates and liberties, without any^adicial pro
cess, or even without any accusers appearing against us, and this solely grounded
on mistaken jealousies and false suspicions, that we were inclinable to take part
with your majesty's enemies. But we again declare that that accusation is
groundless ; it was always our fixed resolution to maintain to the utmost of our
power the oath of fidelity which we had taken, not only from a sense of indis
pensable duty, but because we were well satisfied with our situation under your
majesty's government and protection, and did not think it could be bettered by
any change which could be proposed to us. It has also been falsely insinuated
that we held the opinion that we might be absolved from our oath so as to
break it with impunity ; but this we likewise solemnly declare to be a false
accusation, and which we plainly evinced, by our exposing ourselves to so
great losses and sufferings, rather than take the oath proposed by the governor
and council, because we apprehended we could not in conscience comply
therewith. '
" Thus we, our ancient parents and grand, parents, (men of great integrity
and approved fidelity to your majesty), and our innocent wives and children,
became the unhappy victims to those groundless fears : we were transported
into the English colonies, and this was done in so much haste, and with so little
regard to our necessities and the tenderest ties of nature, that from the most
social enjoyments and affluent circumstances, many found themselves destitute
of the necessaries of life : parents were separated from children, and husbands
from wives, some of whom have not to this day met again ; and we were so
crowded in the transport vessels, that we had not room even for all our bodies

PART I.] NOTES. 441
to lay down at once, and consequently were prevented from carrying with us
proper necessaries, especially for the support and comfort of the aged and
weak, many of whom quickly ended their misery with their lives. And even
those amongst us who had suffered deeply from your majesty's enemies, on ac
count of their attachment to your majesty's government, were equally involved
in the common calamity, of which Rene Lablane, the notary public before-men
tioned, is a remarkable instance. He was seized, confined, and brought away
among the rest of the people, and his family, consisting of twenty children, and
about one hundred and fifty grand children, were scattered in different colonies, so that
he was put on shore at New York with only his wife and two youngest children, in an
infirm state of health, from whence he joined three more of his children at
Philadelphia, where he died without any more notice being taken of him than
any of us, notwithstanding his many years labour and deep sufferings for your
majesty's service.
"The miseries we have since endured are scarce sufficiently to be expressed,
being reduced for a livelihood to toil and hard labour in a southern clime, so
disagreeable to our constitutions, that most of us have been prevented by sick
ness from procuring the necessary subsistence for our families, and therefore
are threatened with that which we esteem the greatest aggravation of all our
sufferings, even of having our children forced from us, and bound out to strangers,
and exposed to contagious distempers unknown in our native country.
" This, compared with the affluence and ease we enjoyed, shows our con
dition to be extremely wretched. We have already seen in this province of
Pennsylvania two hundred and fifty of our people, which is more than half the
number that were landed here, perish through misery and various diseases. In
this great distress and misery, we have, under God, none but your majesty to
look to with hopes of redress : we therefore hereby implore your gracious pro
tection, and request you may be pleased to let the justice of our complaints be
truly and impartially enquired into, and that your majesty would please to grant
us such relief as in your justice and clemency you will think our case requires,
and we shall hold ourselves bound to pray," &c.
This pathetic appeal ofthe Acadians had not the least effect with the British
government. When Jasper Mauduit, agent of the province of Massachusetts,
represented to Mr. Grenville, the British minister, that his most Christian ma
jesty, looking upon the Acadians as of the number of those who had been his
most faithful subjects, had signified his willingness to order transports for con
veying them to France, from the British provinces, Mr. Grenville immediately
said — ".that cannot be — that is contrary to our acts of navigation — how can the
French court send ships to our colonies ?" (See letter of Jasper Mauduit, dated
Dec. 1768, to the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives — in
the vol. ofthe Mass. Hist. Coll. for 1799.)

(NOTE G. p. 113.)

" The English made, in 1745, an important conquest, which they considered
as an ample indemnification for the losses which the allies had suffered in the
low countries : it was that of Cape Breton," &c. Koch. Histoire Abrigie des
Traitis de faix. Vol. ii.
In the negotiations of 1748, France prescribed the restitution of Louis
bourg as the first acticle of a pacification. It was the first point taken up by
Vol. I.— 3 K

442 NOTES. [PART I.
the plenipotentiaries at Aix la Chapelle ; and the British minister stated at
once the readiness of England to restore it, for certain equivalents. We have
the following account in that instructive work, Histoire de la Diplomatie Frangaise,
(b. v. vol. 5.)
" A memoir was sent by the French court to the Count St. Severin, its mi
nister at Aix la Chapelle, upon the indispensable necessity of Cape Breton to
France, and upon the fatal consequences of leaving that island in the hands of
the English, in relation to the free trade of Canada and Louisiana, and the
general trade of the other powers of Europe." " It will be the more necessary,"
said the official instructions, " to shew merely a moderate wish to recover the
island, as we know that England has it not much at lieart to retain her conquest.
The Count St. Severin may then give the Earl of Sandwich to understand, that
the loss of Cape Breton is less important in itself, than »n account of the stress
laid upon it by the public opinion in France ; and that the king does not attach
so much consequence to the matter himself, as not to prefer an equivalent in
the low countries," &c.
It is »tated in the work from which I have made these quotations, that the
British court proposed to France, in 1755, that the whole southern bank ofthe
river St. Lawrence should remain uninhabited, and the lakes unappropriated.
" The pretext of the war of 1756," says the same work, " on the part of En
gland, was the encroachment of the French on the limits of Acadia, and some
acts of violence committed on the Ohio ; but the real motive was to avail her
self of the supposed weakness ofthe cabinet of Versailles, to destroy the French
navy,andto avenge the defeats of Fontenoy and of Lawfeldt. (Vol. vi. b. 1.)

(NOTE H. p. 119.)
Braddock's papers all fell into the hands ofthe French. In the year 1757,
there was made and published in Philadelphia, a translation of three French
volumes, found oa board a French privateer, and containing authenticated
copies, of those papers. They throw great light upon the origin of his expe
dition, and do not redound to the credit of the British government for wood
faith in its negotiation with France, preliminary to the war of 1756. ABfcw
extracts from the instructions given to Braddock, and his correspondence with
his government, may serve to amuse the American reader.
" His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland," says the letter of instruc
tions of November 25, 1754, " recommends to you that it be constantly ob
served among the troops under your command, to be particularly careful that
they be not thrown into a panic by the Indians, with which they are yet unac
quainted, whom the French will certainly employ to frighten them. His Royal
Highness recommends to you the visiting your posts night and day, tbat your
colonels and other officers be careful to do it, and that you yourself frequently
set them the example, and give all your troops plainly to understand, that no
excuse will be admitted for any surprise whatsoever."
Part of a letter from General Braddock, to the Hon. Thomas Robinson.
" Alexandria, 19th of April, 1755.
. « Governoi -Shirley will acquaint you, Sir, of the expense of New England
upon tke. prodigious levy of men that has been made in these governments, for

TART I.] NOTES.
tlie enterprises of the north, the other governors have done very little, or rather
nothing. I cannot but take the liberty to represent to you " the' necessity of
laying a tax upon all his majesty's dominions in America, agreeably to the result of
council, for reimbursing the great sums that must be advanced for the service
and interest of the colonies in this important crisis."
From ihe same to the same.
" Fort Cumberland, (at Will's Creek)
June 5th, 1755.
" I have at last assembled all the troops destined for the attack of Fort du
Quesne, which amount to two thousand effective men, of which there are eleven
hundred furnished by the southern provinces, who have so little courage and dispo
sition, that scarce any military service can be expected from them, though I have em
ployed the best officers to form them."
" I desired Mr. B. Franklin, Post-Master of Pennsylvania, who has great
credit in the provinces, to hire me one hundred and fifty waggons, and fhe
number of horses necessary, which be did with so much goodness and readiness,
that it is almost the first instance of integrity, address, and ability, tliat I have
seen in all these provinces."

(NOTE I. p. 125.)

His Excellency the Commander in Chief, the Earl of Loudon, though of a
very lordly carriage towards the provincials, was unable to stifle the petulance
of their press. The newspapers of their large towns carped and sneered at
his operations, in a manner that might have provoked the master of fewer legions
to exert a vigour beyond the law. The following piece, published in a New
York gazette, during his presence in that city, shows the boldness of the cen
sorship exercised over the management of the British commanders, and fur.
nishes a good sketch ofthe first campaigns of the war.
Extract of a letter from New York, to a gentleman in London, dated New York,
Angust 26, 1757.
" The situat ion of affairs in America grow more and more dangerous ; and
what makes us despair of seeing things mend, is that, by I know not what fata
lity of conduct in our commanders, the more we are strengthened with land
forces from Great Britain, the more ground we lose against the French, whose
number of regular troops is, according to the best information we can get here,
much inferior to ours.
" To give you some idea of this, all the success we can pretend to boast of
in the course of this war, happened in the two first years of it, when we had
not a fourth part of the regular troops we now have, and the French had at
least an equal number in Cauada and Louisbourg.
" Our campaign in 1755, opened with an expedition against the encroach
ments of the French in Nova-Scotia, with about four hundred troops of the
three regiments posted there, and two thousand New England irregulars fitted

444 NOTES. [PARTI.
out from Boston ; which was conducted in such a manner, that the French forts
upon the Isthmus were soon surrendered to us ; their garrisons transported to
Louisbourg; one of their forts upon the river St. John abandoned by them,
and tlieir settlements about it broken up ; and in the same year our own forti
fications were advanced towards Blontreal as far as lake St. Sacrament, now
lake George, as in the preceding year they had likewise begun to be upon the
river Kennebeck, towards the metropolis of Canada :— and the French general
Deiskau, who came from France that year with about three thousand troops,
and had begun his march to invest Oswego, was prevented from making an
attempt upon it, and defeated in his attack upon our camp at Lake George ;
and in the year 1756, a large party of French regulars, Canadians, and Indians,
which attacked by surprise a party of our batteaux men upon the river
Onondago, were entirely defeated by an inferior number of them.
" No sooner were our forces increased by those which arrived here from
Europe with general Abercrombie, in June, 1756, but things took a very differ
ent turn. Though timely information was given, that a large French camp
was formed within about thirty miles of Oswego, with intent speedily to attack
it ; yet, by some unaccountable delay to send it a reinforcement, that most ma
terial place was lost ; General Webb, who did at last embark with one for its
relief, not setting out till two days before it was taken.
" Our next misfortune, which followed close upon the heels of this, was,
that when our general had got as far as the great carrying-place, at Oneida, (a
pass in the country of the Six Nations,) which was so strongly fortified, and so
inaccessible to the enemy's artillery, that itmight have defied the whole French
army to take it, he demolished the fort and works there in a few days, and
retired with his forces to a place called the German Flats, which is sixty miles
nearer Albany, and soon after to Schenetady, which is no more than seventeen
miles from that city; and thereby not only abandoned the Six Nations of
Indians, and their country, to the enemy, but left the French a free passage
from Oswego, through the Mohawks river, to Schenectady. — And what is still
more extraordinary in this, is, that whilst the general was demolishing the
works at this carrying place, and retiring back to Shenectady, the French were
as busy in demolishing the works at Oswego, and retiring from thence back to
wards Montreal.
" This precipitate retreat was immediately followed by as fatal a delay ; for
though we had a sufficient force ready to have proceeded that year in our
expedition against Crown-Point, yet we wasted the whole season in entrench
ing at Lake George,,and fortifying Fort William Henry there ; the conse
quence of which was, that we not only lost a favourable opportunity for
making an attempt against Crown-Point, but paid for that neglect, by the loss
of Fort William-Henry itself, this year.
" This closed our operations in 1756. The beginning of this year was spent
in making preparations for the expedition against Louisbourg, which took us
up till the latter end of June ; then our transports sailed from hence for
Halifax, with about six thousand regular troops ; and in their passage most
miraculously escaped being taken by the French^ships, which, we are informed,
had been about five days before cruizing off that harbour. After spending
about five weeks at Halifax in holding councils of war, the result of them was,
to lay aside the expedition against Louisbourg.
'' Whilst we were employed in making this dangerous passage lo Halifax,
and holding councils of war there, Mons. Montcalm took the opportunity of
lord Loudon's absence, and proceeded from Quebec to Crown-Point,, with
about ten thousand men, consisting of regular troops, Canadians, and Indians ;
from whence be made Fort William Henry a visit, which he took, after a
siege of about five or six days, and demolished : disabled the garrison, which
consisted of about two thousand three hundred men, from serving against the
French for the space of eighteen months ; made himself master of our maga
zines of provision and stores ; the former of which were of very great service
to the enemy ; and secured the entire possession of the lakes between Lake
Goorge and Montreal; tisitlied this business, and retired with bis army,

PART I.] NOTES. 445
before the return of lord Loudon with his troops from Halifax, which are
expected here every day.
" Such is the present state of our affairs, the fruits of our two last years
inactive campaigns, of our want of proper intelligence, and the little use we
make of what we do get ! we find by woful experience, that our great num
bers of regular troops have been of no service, for want of proper manage
ment ; the French carry all before them : and what the next year will produce,
God only knows ; I tremble to think.''

(NOTE J. p. 131.)

Every account of these campaigns, which was published in England,
contained some fabricated or distorted anecdotes, tending to bring ridicule or
contempt upon the provincials. In Knox's Historical Journal,* for instance,
the most considerable and esteemed work respecting the operations in Ame
rica from 1756 to 1760, 1 find such stories as the two which I am to quote, and
which have neither verisimilitude nor poignancy to compensate for their
falsehood. " March 29, 1758 — Two sail of ships were discovered to cross the basin
below, and run up Moose and Bear rivers, which being unusual for British
ships, a boat was sent down for intelligence and to watch their motions. The
boat returned, and brought up the masters of the two vessels ; they came from
fort Cumberland, and are bound to Boston ; by them we are informed there is
an embargo laid on all the ports of New England, New York, Hallifax, &c.
&c. We hear of great preparations for opening the campaign, that there are
more troops expected from Europe, and that the province of Massachusetts is
raising a large body of provincials to co-operate with the regulars,; the masters
of these sloops say, that all is well at Chegnecto, and also at Fort Edward and
Fort Sackville, where they have lately been; these men farther add, that it
was reported at Boston, that the particular department of the New England
troops this campaign, would be the reduction of Canada ; this was matter of great
mirth to us, and an officer who was present, humorously replied, And let the
regulars remain in the different forts and garrisons, to hew wood and dig sand, fyc.
then the French will be finely humbled in America." — Vol. i. p. 112.
" December 1, 1758 — We weighed this morning about eight o'clock, and
attempted to get out into the bay ; but not consulting the proper time of tide,
we were obliged to put back, and come to an anchor ; about noon we weighed
again with the tide of ebb, and little wind falling, with an agitated sea, occa
sioned by conflicting currents, our transport missed stays, aud we narrowly
escaped being wrecked upon a lee shore, where the vessel would probably
have been dashed to pieces, the western side of the entrance being a complete
ledge of rocks : the master instantly fell upon his knees, crying out — ' What
shall we do ? I vow I fear we shall all be lost, let us go to prayers ; what can

* Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America for the years
1757,1758, 1759, and 1760, by captain John Knox: dedicated, by permission,
to General Amherst. 2 vols. 4to.

446 NOTES. [TART I.
we do, dear Jonathan ?' Jonathan went forward muttering to himself, ' Do — I
vow Ebenezer, I don't know what we shall do any more than thyself;' when
fortunately one of our soldiers, who was a thorough bred seaman, and bad
served several years on board a ship of war, and afterwards in a privateer,
hearing and seeing the helpless state of mind which our poor New England men were
under, and our sloop driving towards the shore, called out, ' Why d— your eyes
and limbs, — down with her sails and let her drive a — e foremost ; what the devil
signifies your canting and praying now?' — Ebenezer quickly taking the hint,
called to Jonathan to lower the sails, saying, ' he vowed he believed that young
man's advice was very good, but wished he had not delivered it so profanely.!
However, it answered to our wish ; every thing that was necessary was trans
acted instantaneously ; the soldier gave directions", and seizing the helm, we
soon recovered ourselves, cleared the sheight, and drove into the bay stern
foremost." Knox's Hist. Journal, vol. i. p. 217-18.
The London newspapers were never witliout " extracts of letters from officers
serving in the British Army in America," which surpassed the formal relations
of the war, in ridicule and obloquy of the Americans. A lampoon of this
decriptions, published in the London Chronicle of May 1759,drew an answer from
Dr. Franklin, which was inserted in the same paper a few days afterwards. I
have not seen this characteristic production in any collection of his works, and
I therefore give it place in this volume, with the aim of which it so happily
coincides. It evidences the staleness, as it explodes the absurdity of those
contumelious allegations against us, which the same spirit that gave them birth
at the earliest period, and has never since declined, now produces in the Bri
tish Journals.

From the London Chronicle.

" Mr. Chronicle,

" Sir, while the public attention is so much turned towards America, every
letter from thence that promises new information, is pretty generally read ;
it seems therefore the more necessaiy that care should be taken to disabuse the
public, when those letters contain facts false in themselves, and representa
tions injurious to bodies of people, or even to private persons.
" In your paper, No. 310, I find an extract of a letter, said to be from a gen
tleman in general Abercrombie's army. As there are several strokes in it
tending to render the colonies despicable, and even odious to the mother
country, which may have ill consequences ; and no notice having been taken
of tbe injuries contained in that letter, other letters of the same nature have
since been published; permit me to make a few observations on it.
" The writer says, " New England was settled by Presbyterians and Inde
pendents, who took shelter there from the persecutions of Archbishop Laud ; —
they still retain their original character, they generally hate Church of tlie England,' says
he. It is very true, that if some resentment still remained for the hardships
their fathers suffered, it might perhaps be not much wondered at ; but the
fact is, that the moderation of the present Church of England towards dissen
ters in Old as well as New England, has quite effaced those impressions ; the
dissenters too are become less rigid and scrupulous, and the good will between
those different bodies in that country, is now both mutual and equal.
" He goes on : ' They came imt with a levelling spirit, and they retain it. Tliey
cannot bear to think that one man should be exorbitantly rich, and another poor ; so
that, except in the sea-port towns, there are few great estates among them. This
equality produces also a rusticity of manners ; for in their language, dress, and in all
their behaviour, they tre more boorish than any thing you ever saw in a certain northern
latitude.' One would imagine from this account, that those who were growing-

?ART I.] NOTES. 447
poor, plundered those who were growing rich, to preserve this equality,
and that property had no protection ; whereas, in fact, it is no more secure
than in the New England colonies ; the law is no where better executed, or
justice obtained at less expence. The equality he speaks of, arises first from
a more equal distribution of lands by the assemblies in the first settlement
than has been practised in the other colonies, where favorites of governors
have obtained enormous tracts for trifling considerations, to the prejudice both
of the crown revenues and the public good ; and secondly, from the nature
of their occupation; husbandmen with small tracts ofthe land, though they
may by industry maintain themselves and families in mediocrity, having few
means of acquiring great wealth, especially in a young colony that is to be
supplied with its cloathing, and many other expensive articles of consumption
from the mother country. Their dress the gentleman may be a more critical
judge of, than I can pretend to be : all I know of it is, that they wear the
manufacture of Britain, and follow its fashions perhaps too closely, every
remarkable change in the mode making its appearance there with a few
months after its invention here ; a natural effect of their constant intercourse
with England, by ships arriving almost every week from the capital, their
respect for the mother country, and admiration of every thing that is British.
But as to their language, I must beg this gentleman's pardon, if I differ from
him. His ear, accustomed perhaps to the dialect practised in the certain north
ern latitude he mentions, may not be qualified to judge so nicely what relates to
pure English. And I appeal to all Englishmen here, who have been acquainted
with the colonists, whether it is not a common remark, that tbey speak the lan
guage with, such an exactness both of expression and accent, that though
you may know the natives of several of the counties of England, by pecu
liarities in their dialect, you cannot by that means distinguish a North
American. All the new books and pamphlets worth reading that are pub
lished here, in a few weeks are transmitted and found there, where there is not
a man or woman born in the country but what can read : and it must, I should
think, be a pleasing reflection to those who write either for the benefit of the
present age or of posterity, to find their audience increasing with the increase
ot our colonies ; and their language extending itself beyond the narrow bounds
of three islands, to a continent larger than all Europe, and to a future empire
as fully peopled, which Britain may probably one day possess in those vast
western regions.
" But the gentleman makes more injurious comparisons than these : 'TAa.'
latitude,' he says,' has this advantage over them, that it has produced sharp, acute
men, fit for war or learning, whereas, the others are remarkably simple or silly,
and blunder eternally. We have 60OO of their militia, which the general would
willingly exchange for 2000 regulars. They are for ever marring some one or
other of our plans, when sent to execute them. They can, indeed, some of them
at least, range in the woods ; but 300 Indians with their yell, throw 3000 of them
in a panic, and then they will leave nothing to the enemy, to do, for they will
shoot one another ; and in the woods our regulars are afraid to be on a command
with them on that very account.' I doubt, Mr. Chronicle, that this paragraph, when
it comes to be read in America, will have no good effect ; and rather increase
that inconvenient disgust which is too apt to arise between the troops of dif
ferent corps, or countries, who are obliged to serve together. Will not a New-
England officer be apt to retort and say, what foundation have you for this odious
distinction in favour ofthe officers from your certain northern latitude ? They may,
as you say, befit for learning ; but, surely, the return of your first general, with
a well appointed and sufficient force, from his expedition against Louisbourg,
without so much as seeing the place, is not the most shining proof his talents
for war. And no one will say Ms plan was marred by us, for we were not with
him. Was his successor who conducted the blundering attack, and inglorious
retreat from Ticonderoga, a New-England man, or one of that cei tain latitude ? —
Thewas to the "comparison between regulars and provincials, will not the latter
remark, that it was 200 New-England provincials, with about 150 regulars, that
took the strong fort of Beausejour, in the beginning of the war ; though in the
accounts transmitted to the English Gazette, the honour was claimed by the

448 NOTES. [PART I.
regulars, and little or no notice taken of the others— That it was the provin
cials who beat general Dieskau, with his regulars, Canadians, and 'yelling In
dians', and sent him prisoner to England. — Thatis was a provincial-born officer,*
with American batteauxmen, that beat the French and Indians on Oswego river.
That it was the same officer, with provincials, who made that long and admirable
march into the enemy's country, took and destroyed fort Frontenac, with the
whole French fleet on the lakes, and struck terror into the heart of Canada. —
That it was a provincial officer,t with provincials only, who made another ex
traordinary march into the enemy's country, surprized and destroyed the In
dian town of Kittanning, bringing off the scalps ef their chiefs — That one rang
ing captain of a few provincials, Rogers, has harrassed the enemy more on the
frontiers of Canada, and destroyed more of their men, than the whole army of
regulars. — That it was the regulars who surrendered themselves, with the pro
vincials under their command, prisoners of war, almost as soon as they were be-
seiged, with the forts, fleet, and all the provision and stores that had been pro
vided and amassed at so immense an expence at Oswego — That it was the regu
lars who surrendered fort Wiiliam-Henry, and suffered themselves to be butcher
ed and scalped with arms in their hands — That it was the regulars under Brad
dock, who were thrown into a panic by the ' yells of 3 or 400 Indians,' in their
confusion shot one another, and, with five times the force ofthe enemy, fled before
them, destroying all their own stores, ammunition, and provision ! — These regular
gentlemen, will the provincial rangers add, may possibly be afraid, as they say they
are, to be on a command with us in the woods ; but when it is considered, that from
all past experience, the chance of our shooting them is not as one to a hundred,
compared with that of their being shot by the enemy ; may it not be suspected,
that what they give as the very account of their fear and unwillingness to venture
out with us, is only the very excuse; and that a concern for their scalps weighs
more with them than a regard for their honour.
" Such as these, Sir, I imagine may be the reflections extorted by such provo
cation, from the provincials in general. But the New-England men in particu
lar, will have reason to resent the remarks on their reduction of Louisbourg.
Your writer proceeds, * Indeed they are all very ready to make their boast of
taking Louisbourg, in 1745; but if people were to be acquitted or condemned
according to the propriety and wisdom of their plans, and not according to their
success, the persons that undertook the siege, merited little praise : for I have
heard officers, who assisted at it, say, never was any thing more rash: for had
one single part of their plan failed, or had the French made the forfetieth part of
the resistance then that they have made now, every soul ofthe New Englanders
must have fallen in the trenches. The garrison was weak, sickly, and destitute
of provisions, and disgusted, and therefore became 'a ready prey ; and, when
they returned to France, were decimated for their gallant defence.' Where
then is the glory arising from thence ? — After denying his facts, ' that the garri
son was weak, wanted provisions, made not a fortieth part of the resistance,
were decimated,' &c. the New-England men will ask this regular gentleman, if
the place was well fortified, and had (as it really had) a numerous garrison, was
it not at least brave to attack it with a handful of raw undisciplined militia ? If
the garrison was, as you say, ' sickly, disgusted, destitute of provisions, and
ready to become a prey,' was it not prudent to seize tfyat opportunity, and put
the nation in possession of so important a fortress, at so small an expence ? So
that if you will not allow the enterprize to be, as we think it was, both brave and
prudent, ought you not at least to grant it was either one or the other ? But is there
no merit on this score in the people, who, though at first so greatly divided as
to the making or forbearing the attempt, that it was carred in the affirmative by
the small majority of one vote only ; yet when it was once resolved on, unani
mously prosecuted the design, and prepared the means with the greatest zeal
and diligence ; so that the whole equipment was completely ready before the
* Colonel Breadstreet. t Colonel Armstrong, of Pennsylvania.

PART I.J NOTES. 449
season would permit the execution? Is there no merit of praise in laying and
executing their plan so well, that, as you have confessed, not a single part of it
failed? If the plan was destitute of 'propriety and wisdom,' would it not have re
quired the sharp acute men ofthe nortlien latitude to execute it, that by supplying
its deficiencies they might give it some chance of success? But if such 'remark
ably silly, simple, blundering mar-plans,' as you say we are, could execute this
plan, so that not a single part of it failed, does it not at least show that the
plan itself must be laid with some ' wisdom and propriety ?' — Is there no merit in
the ardour with which all degrees and ranks of people quitted their private af
fairs, and ranged themselves under the banners of their king, for the honour,
safety, and advantage of their country ? Is there no merit in the profound secrecy
guarded by a whole people, so that the enemy had not the least intelligence of
the design, till they saw the fleet of transports cover the sea before their port?
— Is there none in the indefatigable labour the truops went through during the
seige, performing the duty both of men and horses ; the hardships they patiently
suffered for want of tents and other necessaries ; the readine. s with which they
learnt to move, direct, and manage cannon, raise batteries and form approaches ;
the bravery with they sustained sallies ; and finally, in their consenting to stay
and garrison the place after it was taken, absent from their business and fa
milies, till troops could be brought fiom England for that purpose, though they
undertook the service on a promise of being discharged as soon as it was over,
were unprovided for so long an absence, and actually suffered tea times more
loss by mortal sickness, through want of necessaries, than they suffered from the
arms of the enemy? The nation, however, had a sense of this undertaking dif
ferent from the unkind one of this gentleman. At the treaty of peace, the pos
session of Louisbourg was found of g' eat advantage to our affairs in Europe :
and if the brave men that made the acquisition for us were not rewarded, at least
they were praised. Envy may continue awhile to caval and detract, but public
virtue will in the end obtain esteem : and honest impartially in this and future
ages, will not fail doing justice to merit.
" Your gentleman writer thus decently goes on. ' The most substantial men of
most of the provinces, are children or grandchildren of those that came here
at the king's expence ; that is, thieves, highwaymen, and robbers.' Being pro
bably a military gentleman, this, and therefore a person of nice honour, if any
one should tell him in the plainest language, that what he here says is an abso
lute falsehood, challenges and cutting of throats might immediately ensue. I
shall therefore only refer him to kit own account in this same letter of the peopling
of New England, which he says, with more truth, was by Puritans who fled
thither for shelter from tha persecutions of Archbishop Laud. Is there not a
wide difference between removing to a distant country to enjoy the exercise of
religion, according to a man's conscience, and his being transported thither by
a law, as a punishment for his crimes ? This contradiction we therefore leave
the gentleman and himself to settle as well as they can between them. One
would think from his account, that the provinces were so many colonies from
Newgate. The truth is, not only Laud's persecution, but the other public
troubles in the following reigns, induced many thousand families to leave Eng
land, and settle in the plantations. During the predominance ofthe parliament,
many royalists removed or were banished to Virginia and Barbadoes, who after
wards spread into the other settlements : the Catholics sheltered themselves in
Maryland. At the restoration, many of tbe deprived nonconformist ministers,
with their families, friends and hearers, went over. Towards the end of Charles
the Second's reign, and during James the Second's, the Dissenters again flocked
into America, driven by persecution, and dreading the introduction of popery
at horae. Then the high price or rewa: d of labour in the colonies, and want of
artisans there, drew over many, as well as the occasion of commerce ; aud when
once people begin to migrate, every one has his little sphere of acquaintance
and connexions, which he draws after him, by invitation, motives of interest,
praising his new settlement, and other encouragements. The ' most substantial
men' are descendants of those early setders : new comers not having yet had
time to raise estates. The practice of sending convicts thither, is modern ;
Vol. L— 3 L

460 NOTES. [PART I.
and the same indolence of temper and habits of idleness that make people poor
and tempt them to steal in England, continue with them when they are sent to
America, and must there have the same effects, where all who live well, owe
their subsistence to labour and business ; and where it is a thousand times more
difficult than here, to acquire wealth without industry . Hence the instances
of transported thieves advancing their fortunes in the colonies, are extremely
rare ; if there really is a single instance of it, which I very much doubt ; but of
their being advanced there to the gallows, the instances are plenty. Might they not
as well have been hanged at home? — We call Britain the mother country, but
what good mother besides, would introduce thieves and criminals into the com
pany of her children, to corrupt and disgrace them ? — And how cruel is it, to
force, by the high hand of power, a particular country of your subjects, who
have not deserved such usage, to receive your outcasts, repealing all the laws
they made to prevent their admission, and then reproach them with the detested
mixture yon have made : ' The emptying their jails into our settlements', says a
writer of that country, ' is an insult and cdntempt, the cruelest perhaps that
ever one people offered another; and would not be equalled even by emptying
their jakes on our tables.'
" The letter I have been considering, Mr. Chronicle, is followed by another,
in your paper of Tuesday, the 17th past, said to be from an officer who attended
Brigadier-general Forbes, in his march from Philadelphia to fort Du Quesne ;
but written probably by the same gentleman who wrote the former, as it seems
calculated to raise the character of the officers of the certuin northern latitude, at
the expence of the reputation of the colonies, and the provincial forces.- — Ac
cording to this letter writer, if the Pennsylvanians granted large supplies, and
raised a great body of troops for the last campaign, it was not obedience to his
majesty's commands, signified by his miviister, Mr. Pitt, zeal for the king's ser
vice, or even a regard for their own safety ; but it was owing to the ' general's'
proper management of the Quakers, and other parties in the province. The
withdrawing of the Indians from the Freneh interest by negociating a peace,
is all ascribed to the general, and not a word said to the honour of the poor
Quakers, who first set those negociations on foot, or of honest Frederick Post,
that completed them with so much ability and success. Even the little merit
of the Assembly's making a law to regulate carriages, is imputed to the gene
ral's ' multitude of letters.' Then he tells us ' innumerable scouting parties
had been sent out during a long period, both by the general and Col. Bouquet,
towards fort Du Quesne, to catch a prisoner if possible, for intelligence, but
never got any.' — How happened that? — Why, ' it was the provincial troops, that
were constantly employed in that service,' and they, it seems, never do any
tiling they are ordered to do. — That, however, one would think, might bo easily
remedied, by sending regulars with them, who of course must command them,
and may see that they do their duty. No; the regulars are afraid of being shot by
the provincials in a punic-— Then send all regulars. — Aye ; that was what the colonel
resolved upon. — ' Intelligence was now wanted, (says the letter writer) colonel
Bouquet, whose attention to busines was [only] very considerable [that is, not
quite so great as the general's, for he was not of the northern latitude} was deter
mined to send wo mode provincials a scouting.' — And how did he execute his
determination ? why, by sending ' Major Grant of the Highlanders, with seven
hundred men, three bundled of them Highlanders, the -rest Americans, Vir
ginians, and Pennsylvanians !' — No blunder this, in our writer ; but a misfortune ;
and he is nevertheless one of those ' acute sharp' men who are ' fil for learning ."
— And how did this major and seven hundred men succeed in catching the pri
soner? — Why, their ' march to fort Du Quesne was so conducted the surprise was
complete.' — Perhaps you may imagine, gentle reader, that this was a surprise of
the enemy. — No such matter. , They knew every step of his motions, and had,
every man of them left their fires and huts in the fields, and retired into the fort.
— But the Major and his 700 men, they were surprised; first to find nobody there
at night, and next to find themselves surrounded and cut to pieces in the morn
ing ; two or three hundred being killed, drowned, or taken prisoners, and
among the latter the major himself. Those who escaped where also surprised at

PARTI.] NOTES. 451
their own good fortune ; and the whole army was surprised at the major's bad
management. — Thus the surprise was indeed complete ; — but not the disgrace ; for
provincials were there to lay the blame on. The misfortune (we must not call it
misconduct) of the major was owing, it seems, to an un-named, and perhaps,
unknown provincial officer, who, it is said, ' disobeyed his orders and quitted
his post.' Whence a formal conclusion is drawn, ' that a planter is not to be ta
ken from the plough and made an officer in a day.' — -Unhappy provincials ! If
success attends where you are joined with the regulars, they claim all the honor,
though not a tenth part of your number. If disgrace, it is all yours, though you
happen to be but a small part of the whole, and have not the command ; as if
regulars were in their nature invincible, when not mixed with provincials, and
provincials of no kind of value without regulars ! happy is it for you that you
were neither present at Preston Pans nor Falkirk, at the faint attempt against
Rochfort, the rout of St. Cas, or the hasty retreat from Martinico. Every thing
that went wrong, or did not go right, would have been ascribed to you. Our
commanders wouid have been saved the labour of writing long apologies for
their conduct. It might have been sufficient to say, provincials were with us !
A NEW-ENGLANDMAN.'
May 9, 1759.

(NOTE K. p. 168.)
With respect to the character of the royal governors, see Franklin's piece
on the Causes of the American Discontents, Burke's Speech on Am. Taxation,
and most of the English Histories passim, in which our colonial affairs are in
troduced. The royal governors were, in several instances, detected in the
grossest peculation, and almost universally involved themselves, by their spirit
of tyranny, religious bigotry, or rapacity, in quarrels wilh the provinces over
which they were placed. The frequent and sudden prorogation, or dissolution,
of the colonial assemblies, by which they vainly endeavoured to worry the
people into submission, was one of the causes of those quarrels. They trans
mitted to the British ministry accounts of their provinces, either entirely false,
or miserably imperfect. " Governments,' says Smith, the historian of New
York, addressing the Earl of Halifax, 1758, " have been too often bestowed
upon men of mean parts, and indigent circumstances. The former were inca
pable of the task, and the latter too deeply engrossed by the sordid views of
private interest, either to pursue or study our common weal. The worst con
sequences have resulted from this measure, &c. All attempts for conciliating
the friendship of the Indians, promoting the fur trade, securing the command
of the lakes, protecting the frontiers, and extending our possessions far into
the inland country, have too often given place to party projects and contracted
schemes, equally useless and shameful. If the governors of these plantations
had formerly been animated by generous and extensive views, the long pro
jected designs of our common enemy might have been many years ago sup
planted at a trifling expense," &c. I should suggest another source of oppres
sion and disaffection, akin to that ofthe conduct ofthe governors, which is thus
stated by Stokes, a zealous royalist, in his View ofthe Constitution of the Bri
tish Colonies in America, (1 vol. 8vo. Lond. 1784.) " There was a fatal prac
tice, from the first establishment, which greatly weakened the king's cause in
all the American colonies, I mean the bestowing almost every lucrative office
in America, that could be exercised by deputy, on some person residing in
Great Britain, who employed a deputy, with a slender allowance, to execute

432 NOTES. [PART I.
the office for them : this deputy had neither weight in the proviuce, nor any in
terest in toe government under which he lived," &c.
The altercations between Lord Cornbury, as governor of New Jersey, and
tbe legislature of that state, at the beginning ofthe eighteenth century, may be
cited as examples of the treatment to which the colonial assemblies were ex
posed, as well as of the spirit with which tbe character and station of the Ame
rican freeman were maintained. Cornbury attempted encroachments and op
pressions ; the assembly resisted and complained. In their first strong remon
strance, they hold this language : " Liberty is too valuable a thing to be easily
parted with ; and when such mean inducements procure such violent endea
vours to tear it from Us, we must take leave to say, they have neither heads,
hearts, nor souls, that are not moved with the miseries of their country, and
are not forward with their utmost power lawfully to redress them. We con
clude, by advising the governor to consider what it is that principally engages
the affections of a people, and he will find no other artifice needful tban to let
them be unmolested in the enjoyment of what belongs to them of right ; and a
wise man, that despises not his own happiness, will earnestly labour to regain
their love."
The remonstrance, which ended with this passage, was presented in form to
the governor, by Samuel Jennings, the speaker ofthe house of assembly ? Smith,
the historian of New Jersey, gives an amusing account of the interview.*
" Jennings was undaunted, and Lord Cornbury, on his part, exacted the ut
most decorum ; while, as speaker, be was delivering the remonstrance, the
latter frequently interrupted him wilh a stop, uhut's that? &c, at the same time
putting on a countenance of authority and sternness, with intention to con
found him. With due submission, yet firmness, whenever interrupted, he
calmly desired leave to read the passages over again, and did it with an addi
tional emphasis upon those most complaining ; so that,,on the second reading,
they became more observable than before; he at length got through; when the
governor told the house to attend him again on Saturday next, at eleven o'clock,
to receive his answer. After the house was gone, Cornbury, with some emo
tion, told those with him, that Jennings had impudence enough to face the D — /."
The governor produced his answer after some days ; and, as he ascribed the
resistance which he experienced to the Quakers, he assailed them with a gross-
ness of invective, which that society could hardly have expected to hear from
any mouth, and much less from that of a chief magistrate, bred at the court
of St. James. " I am of opinion," said his lordship " that nothing has hin
dered the vengeance of just heaven from falling on this province long ago, but
the infinite mercy, goodness, long suffering, and forbearance of Almighty
God, who has been abundantly provoked by the repeated cryirg sins of a per
verse generation among us, and more especially by the dangerous and abominable
doctrines, and the wicked lives and practices of a number of people ; some of
whom, under the protended name of Christians, have dared to deny the very
essence and being of the Saviour of ihe world.
" We find, by woful experience, that there are many men who have been
permitted to serve on juries here, who have no regard for the oatbs they take,
especially among a sort of people, who, under a pretence of conscience, refuse
to take an oath ; and yet many of them, under the cloak of a very solemn affir
mation, dare to commit the greatest enormities, especially if it be to serve a
friend, as they call him.
" Of all the people in the world, the Quakers Ought to be tbe last to com
plain of the hardships of travelling a few miles, who never repine at the trouble
* See his " History of the Colony of New Jersey, to the year 1721," for the
entertaining details of the controversy between the governor and the assembly.
The early history of this state is as edifying as that of any other of our confe
deracy. It yields the most animating lessons of energetic freedom and philan
thropic liberality. It deserves to be more read than I presume it to be, and to
be better digested than it is in the work of Smith.

PART I.} NOTES. 453
"and charges of travelling several hundred miles to a yearly meeting, where it is
evidently known, that nothing was ever done for the good ofthe country, but, on the con
trary, continual contrivances are carried on for the undermining ofthe government, both
in church and stale."
The courteous governor railed passionately at the assembly itself; gave them
the lie direct, and signalized the speaker, and another member, as men " known
neither to have good morals, nor good principles :" " mean and scandalous, sedi
tious, fraudulent, &c." — The assembly did nbt omit to reply, and to repay his
excellency without stint. It was a noble spirit of independence, that, under
the circumstances of the colony at that period, dictated such language as the
following ; which, strong as it is, does not convey an adequate idea ofthe keen
ness and energy of the whole address.
" We are apt to believe, upon the credit of your excellency's assertion, that
there may be a number of people in this province, who will never five quietly
under any government, nor suffer their neighbours to enjoy any peace, quiet,
nor happiness, if they can help it ; such people are pests in all governments ;
have ever been so in this ; and we know of none who can lay a fairer claim to these
characters than many of your excellency's favourites." " Our juries here are not so
learned or rich as, perhaps, they are in England, but we donbt not, full as
honest." " Notwithstanding those soft, cool, and considerate terms, of malicious,
scandalous, and frivolous, with which your excellency vouchsafes to treat the
assembly of this province, they are of opinion, that no judicious or impartial
man will think it reasonable that the inhabitants of one province should go into
another to have their wills proved."
" It is the general assembly of the province of New Jersey that complains,
and not tbe Quakers, with whose persons (considered as Quakers) or meetings,
we have nothing to do, nor are we concerned in what your excellency says
against them ; they, perhaps, will think themselves obliged to vindicate their
meetings from the aspersions which your excellency so liberally bestows upon
them, and evince to the world how void of rashness and incomideration your ex
cellency's expressions are, and how becoming it is for ihe governor of a province to
enter the lists qf controversy, with a people who thought themselves entitled to his pro
tection of them in the enjoyment of their religious liberties ; those, of them who are
members of this house, have begged leave, in behalf of themselves and friends,
to tell the governor, they must answer him in the words of Nehemiah to San-
ballat, contained in the 8th verse ofthe 6th chapter of Nehemiah, viz. : ' There
are no such things as thou sayest, but thoufeignest them out of thine own heart.'
" These bold accusers of your excellency, the members of this assembly, are
a sort of creatures called honest men, just to the trust reposed in them by the
country, who will not suffer their liberties and properties to be torn from them
by any man, how great soever, if they can hinder it."

(NOTE L. p. 187.)

Loud George Germain is said to have left the ministry, still persuaded (after
the capture of Cornwallis), of the practicability of subduing America in an
other campaign. General Lloyd, the great tactician, had suggested a piaa ot
operations, by which this might be' easily done! The deceptive assurances
quoted in the text, from Lord George Germain's speech, were rivalled in the
speeches of the other members of the government. The following extracts

454 NOTES. [PART 1".
from the debates of the House of Lords, of 1788, belong to the same blind
system of ministerial tactics.
" The Earl of Suffolk said, that it had been strongly relied upon in debate,
that America would spurn the offers held out in those, bills (American conci
liatory bdls.) For his part he was of a very different opinion. He had the
most undoubted information, that the Americans were in the greatest distress,
and would therefore embrace any reasonable propositions of peace and civil
security." Viscount Weymouth said— with regard to what the Duke (of Grafton) had
thrown out respecting a treaty between France and America, the most con-
, vincing way of reply would be not to argue upon it, but to come immediately to
the point, for which reason he would fully and fairly speak to it ; he did, there
fore, in the plainest and most precise manner, assure their lordships, that he
knew not qf any such treaty having been signod or entered into, between the court qf
France and the deputies of Congress, and he hoped their lordships would not fail to re
member, that it was on the 5th of March (1778), likewise, that he stood up in his
place, and declared he knew nothing of any such thing, nor had any authentic
information of any such treaty being either in contemplation or existence."*

(NOTE M. p. 191.)

The charge of cowardice against the Americans was discussed, pro and con,
¦with considerable earnestness, in both houses of parliament. With a view to
the, amusement of the American reader, and the more complete development of
my subject, I propose to insert here a collection of loose quotations from the
debates of that body, respecting this topic of cowardice, and the employment of
Indians and European foreigners in the British service.
Lord Chatham said (1777) — "Ministers have been in error; experience has
proved it ; but what is worse, they continue in it. They told you in the begin
ning that 15,000 men would traverse America without scarcely the appearance
of interruption; two campaigns have passed sinGe they gave us this assurance ;
treble that number has been employed ; and one of your armies, which com
posed two-thirds of the force by which America was to be subdued, has been
totally destroyed, and is now led captive through those provinces you call rebel
lious. Those men whom 'you call cowards, poltroons, runaways, and knaves,
are become victorious over your veteran troops ; and in the midst of victory,
and flush of conquest, have set ministers the example of moderation and of
magnanimityVorthy imitation.
" My lords, no time should be lost, which may promise to improve this dispo
sition in America ; unless, by an obstinacy founded in madness, we wish to stifle
those embers of affection, which, after all our savage treatment, do not seem
as yet to be entirely extinguished. While, on one side, we must lament the un
happy fate of that spirited officer, Mr. Burgoyne, and the gallant troops under
his command, who were sacrificed to the wanton temerity and ignorance of
ministers, we are as strongly impelled, on the other, to admire and applaud the
generous, magnanimous conduct, the noble friendship, brotherly affection, and
humanity of the victors, who, condescending to impute the horrid orders of
massacre and devastation to their true authors, supposed that, as soldiers and
» The Treaty of Alliance was signed a month previous— tlie 6th of February,
1788.

PART I.] NOTES. 455
Englishmen, those cruel excesses could not have originated with the general,
nor were consonant to the brave and humane spirit of a British soldier, if not
compelled to it as an act of duty. They traced the first cause of these diabo
lical orders to their source, and by that wise and generous interpretation,
granted their professed destroyers terms of capitulation, which they could only
be entitled to as the makers of fair and honourable war."
" His grace, the Duke of Richmond, turned bis attention (1775) to what a
noble earl (Sandwich), early in the debate, had said respecting the cowardice
of the Americans. He begged leave to remind his lordship, that he did not
speak conditionally ; there was no if at the time the charge was made, it was
a positive one, and could not now be explained away by conditions introducedfor '
the first time; yet, however positive the noble lord might have been then, or
guarded he might be now, he could inform his lordship that the New England
people were brave ; that they had proved it ; that the general who had com
manded at Bunker's Hill had confessed it; that another (General Bourgoyne),
no less celebrated for his talents than zeal for the cause, had confirmed it ; that
an officer, a particular friend of his, on the spot had united in the same
opinion." Col. Barre said — " The Americans have been branded in this house with
every opprobrious epithet that meanness could invent — termed cowardly and
inhuman. Let us mark the proof. They have obliged as brave a general as
ever commanded a bodv of British troops to surrender ; such is their cowar
dice ! And, instead of throwing chains upon these troops, they have nobly
given them their freedom ; such is their inhumanity I I only wish, from this
single circumstance, "to draw this fair conclusion, that, instead of a set of
lawless desperate adventurers, we find them, by experience, to be men of the
most exalted sentiments ; inspired by that genius of liberty which is the noblest
emotion of the heart, which it is impossible to conquer, impracticable to
dismiss.'' Mr. Burke observed — " The Americans had been always represented as
cowards; this was far from being true; and he appealed to the conduct of
Arnold and Gates towards General Burgoyne, as a striking proof of their
bravery. Our army was totally at their mercy. We had employed the savages
to butcher them, their wives, their aged parents, and tlieir children ; and yet,
generous to the last degree, they gave our men leave to depart on their parole,
never more to bear arms against North America. Bravery and cowardice
could never inhabit the same bosom; geneiosity, valour, and humanity are
evei inseparable. Poor indeed the Americans were, but in that consists their
greatest strength. Sixty thousand men had fallen at the feet of their magna
nimous, because voluntary poverty."
The Duke of Richmond said (1775)— "The transportation of 20,000 Rus-
sians would cost government 51)0,000/. An equal number of British troops
should be sent at the same period, or ministry might find, that the Russians,
instead of conquering America for England, would take possession of it
themselves, in virtue of that law of con(|iiest,acknowledged by all freebooters.
That the Russians would gladly emigrate to America, no person could doubt,
who was in the smallest degree acquainted with the dispositions of those people.
Shoals of Cossacks were continually deserting their country, to seek more
comfortable settlements in the north of China. Seventy thousand of these
Cossacks, proceeding on such a plan, had lately bidden adieu to the Russian
empire. It could not, therefore, be imagined that twenty thousand Russians
would have the least objection to be sent, free of expense, to America ; but
there was much reason to suspect, that, when there, they might think the
advantages resulting from submitting to the American congress preferable to
those they could derive from defending the measures of a Br.tish parliament.
The Earl of Shelbume, (1775)— With respect to the 20,000 Russians, his
lordship addressed the ministeis in the following terms: "There are powers in
Europe who will not suiter such a body of Russians to be transported to
America. I speak from information. The ministers know what I mean. Soma

456 NOTES. [PART 1.
power has already interfered to stop the success of the Russian negociation.
As for expecting neutrality from France, that was idle."
The Earl of Sandwich said (1775) — " If Russian auxiliaries were neces
sary in the former war, as he was convinced they were, they might be so now,
they might be so on any future occasion."
The Earl of Chatham said (1777) — " Your ministers have gone to Germany ;
they have sought the alliance and assistance of every pitiful, beggarly,
insignificant, paltry prince, to cut the throats of their legal, brave, and injured
brethren in America. They have entered into mercenary treaties with those
human butchers, for the purchase and sale of human blood. But, my lords,
this is not all ; they have entered into other treaties. They have let the
savages of America loose upon their innocent, unoffending brethren ; loose
upon the weak, the aged, and defenceless ; on old men, women, and children ;
on the very babes upon the breast ; to be cut, mangled, sacrificed, broiled,
roasted ; nay, to be literally eat. These, my lord, are the allies Great Britain
now has ; carnage, desolation, and destruction, wherever her arms are tarried,
is her newly adopted mode of making war. Our ministers have made alliances
at the German shambles ; and wilh the barbarians of America, with the mer
ciless torturers of their speeies; where they will next apply, I cannot tell.
Was it by setting loose the savages of America, to imbrue their hands in the
blood of our enemies, that the duties of the soldier, the citizen, and the man,
came to be united? Is this honourable warfare, my lords ? Does it correspond
with the language of the poet ? — ' The pride, pomp, and circumstance of glo
rious war, that make ambition virtue.' "
The Duke of Richmond said (Nov. 18, 1777) — " But, my lords, I wish you to
turn your eyes to another pan of this business. I mean the dreadful inhu
manity with which this war is carried on ;• shocking, beyond description, to
every feeling of a Christian, or of a man. When we have heard ofthe cruel
ties of other civil wars, we used to rejoice, not to have the age, or the country
we lived in, the scene of such misery ; but, to see England, formerly famous
for humanity, coolly suffering the worst of barbarities to be exercised on her
fellow subjects, and appearing untouched by the woes she causes, because
they are at a distance, aud she does not experience any of them herself, must
be truly mortifying to any man who is in the smallest degree possessed of na
tional pride. If ever any nation shall deserve to draw down on her the Divine
vengeance for her sins, it will be this, if she suffers such horrid war to continue.
To me', who think we have been originally in the wrong, it appears doubly un
pardonable : but even supposing we were right, it is certainly we who produce
the war ; and I do not think any consideration of dominion or empire sufficient
to warrant the sacrifices we make to it. The best rights may be bought too
dear : nor are all means justifiable in attaining them. To arm negro slaves
against their masters, to arm savages, who we know will put their prisoners to
death in the most cruel tortures, and literally eat them, is not, in my opinion,
a fair war against fellow subjects. When we are unfortunately obliged to war
with other nations, mutual esteem soon lakes place between the troops, and
reciprocal humanity prevails, which greatly alleviates the too many miseries of
all wars ; but, in the present contest, every mean artifice has been used, to en
courage the soldiery to act with asperitv, or alacrity, as it is now the fashion to
call it.
" Instead of taking prudent measures to restrain the military within the
closest bounds of discipline ; instead of making them sensible, that as, they
were to act against their countrymen, every possible means of saving their
lives, and sparing their property, should be used, and every degree of compas
sion shown to men who only erred from mistaken notions, and were still to be
considered as subjects of the same king, — they have been encouraged, by
authority, to look upon their opponents as cowards, traitors, rebels, and every
thing that is vile; and their property has been, by law, declared lawful
plunder. The natural effects have followed. A military thus let loose, or
rather thus set on, have given vent to that barbarity which degrades human
nature, and a total want of discipline and good order is said to prevail."

PART I.J NOTES. -457
. The Earl of Suffolk said (Nov. 18, 1777)— The noble earl, the Earl of
Chatham, with all that force of oratory for which ho is so conspicious, has
charged administration as if guilty of the most heinous crime, in employing
Indians, in General Burgoyne's army ; for my part, whether foreigners or
Indians, which the noble lord has described by the appellation of savages, I
shall ever think it justifiable to exert every means in our power to repel the
attempts of our rebellious subjects. The congress endeavoured to bring the
Indians over to their side ; and if we had not employed them, they would most
certainly have acted against us ; and I defreely confess, I think it was both a
wise and necessary measure, as I am clearly of opinion, that we are fully
justified in using every means which God and nature lias put into our hands. I think
it was a very wise and necessary step, on many accounts : nor can I ever be
persuaded, whoever was the adviser, but his conduct will stand the full test of
public enquiry.''
Lord Lyttleton said, (Dec. 5, 1777,) " he was much astonished at the great
parade the noble earl had made respecting the tomahawk and scalping knife ;
was an Indian's knife a more dreadful weapon than an Englishman's bayonet ?
In the present war, the chief of the blood that had been shed, was shed by the
point ofthe bayonet ; yet who talked ofthe bayonet as a savage instrument of
war ?"
The Earl of Dunmore, declared, (Dec 5. 1777,) that " the Virginians find
ing themselves disappointed in obtaining the aid ofthe, Indians, had dressed
up some qf their men people like the Indians, with a view to terrify the forces under him ;
and his lordship declared, he heartily wished more Indians were employed j
that they were by no means a cruel people ; that they never exercised the scalping
knife, or were guilty of a barbarity, but by way of striking terror into their ene
mies, and by that means putting an end to the further effusion of blood."
Mr. Burke said (1778) — " The savages were now only formidable from
their cruelty ; and to employ them was merely to be cruel ourselves in their
persons : and thus, without even the lure of any essential service, to become
chargeable with all the odious and impotent barbarities which they would
inevitably commit, whenever they were called into action.
" No proof whatever had been given of the Americans having attempted an
offensive alliance with any one tribe of savage Indians. Whereas the imperfect
papers already before the house demonstrated, that the king's ministers had
negociated and obtained such alliances from one end of the continent ot
America to the other. That the Americans had actually made a treaty on the
footing of neutrality with the famous Five Nations, which the ministers had
bribed them to violate, and to act offensively against the colonies. That no
attempt had been made in a single instance on the part of the king's ministers,
to procure a neutrality ; and, that if the fact had been, (what he denied it to be,)
that tlie Americans had'actually employed those savages, yet the difference of employing
them against armed and trained soldiers, embodied and encamped, and employing them
against the unarmed and defenceless men, women, and children, in the country, widely
dispersed in their habitations, was manifest ; and left those wlu> attempted to inhuman
anil unequal a retaliation, without a possibility of excuse."

(NOTE N. p; 211.)
Whoever has read the dissertation of Talleyrand, upon the advantage of
forming colonial establishments for the French, after tlieir late revolution, will
beat once aware ofthe acknowledgments which England owes to the first
emigrants, who prepared this continent for the reception of that portion of her
population, whom she could not retain with safety, or who could not exist with
Vol. I. -* M

458 NOTES. [PART 1.
comfort or freedom at home. The enlightened author of the European settle.
ments in America readily discerned and recognized the benefit. " In the
various changes which our religion and government have undergone, which
have in their turns rendered every sort of party or religion obnoxious to the
feigning powers, this American Asylum, open in the hottest times of our perse
cutions, has proved of infinite service, not only to the present peace of Eng
land, but to the prosperity of its commerce, and the establishment of its
power." Dr. Davenant had taken a similar view of the subject in his Tract on the
Plantation Trade.
" Such as found themselves disturbed and uneasy at home, if they Could have
found no other retreat, must have gone to the HansjTowns, Switzerland,
Denmark, Sweden, or Holland, as many did before the plantations flourished,
to our great detriment, and they who had thus retired to the European coun
tries, must have been for ever lost to England.
" But Providence, which contrives better for us than we can do for ourselves,
has offered in the new world , a place of refuge for these, peradventure, mis
taken and misled people where, (as shall be shown by and by,) their labour and
industry is more useful to their mother kingdom, than if they had continued
among us.
" And as to malcontents in the state, perhaps it is for the public safety,
that there should always be such an outlet or issue for the ill humours, which,
from time to time, are engendered in the body politic."

(NOTE O. p. 219.)
At the instigation of Franklin, a society was instituted in Philadelphia, in*
the year 1743, which took the name of The American Philosophical Society. It
pursued, modestly and privately, for the improvement ofthe members, of whom
Franklin and Rittenhouse were the most active and distinguished, enquiries
into most branches of physical science. In 1766, another society was formed in
the same city, with the title of The American Society for promoting and propagating
useful knowledge. It was composed of unpretending men of all professions,
anxious to increase the stock of their own information, and to be instrumental
in enlarging that of their country. The test which they established, does them
the highest honour, for the liberality and purity of the principles of which it
enacted the acknowledgment. They confined themselves to the discussion of
practical questions, and the investigation of matters of immediate utility. The
perusal of their Minutes must inspire every unprejudiced person with a high
idea of their intelligence and zeal ; I might say, with admiration, when the range
of their study and research, is considered in connection with the attention and
drudgery required by the active professions, in which they were universally
engaged. Points of social economy and general politics were often discussed
at their sittings, and determined upon the broadest principles of reason and
humanity. The following question, for example, was taken up by them on the
3d September, 1762. " Is it good policy to admit the importation of negroes
into America ?" Their views of the.subject were in conformity with the true
theory of national welfare and moral obligation.
They could show, in the list of their foreign correspondents, who did justice
to their enlightened character and benevolent aims, British philanthropists aid
statesmen of the first rank. I might name Sir George Saville, as one of the
several distinguished wbigs with whom they carried on a commerce of enquiry
and speculation, creditable to the sense, patriotism, and catholic spirit of both
parties.

PART I.] NOTES. 459
\
The two Philadelphia associations were amalgamated by common consent in
1769 : and, in 1780, incorporated, as the American Philosophical Society, by
an act ofthe Pennsylvania Legislature.
I have admitted by implication in the text, to give greater force to the charge
of illiberality against the Reviewers, that the Transactions of the present
institute are not of much intrinsic worth. They deserve, however, a higher
character ; and have never been decried any where but in Great Britain.
The astronomical papers of -the first volume drew lofty compliments and eager
enquiries, from several ofthe most celebrated savans of Europe. Dr. Maskelyne
bore, in letters preserved in the records of the society, the strongest testimony
to the genius of Rittenhouse, and to the merit of his Observations on the
Transit of Venus, which were republished in the Transactions of the Royal
Society. I happen now to have under my eyes, a communication to the
American Society, from Zach, Director of the Observatory of Saxe Gotha, and
an eminent astronomer ; in wbich compliments are paid to its labours, indicating
a sense of their value, somewhat different from that of the Edinburgh Review.
A short extract from Dr. Zach's communication may not be unacceptable here.
" Last year I received the 3d. vol. of the Transactions of the A, P. Sqc,
which I perused with great satisfaction. The observation ofthe annular eclipse
of the sun, April 3, 1791, made at Philadelphia by Dr. Rittenhouse, has given
me great pleasure, and was of very great use in ascertaining the true diameters
of the ©and the Moon ; and also ofthe inflexion and irradiation of light ; several
astronomers of Europe have inferred by it very satisfactory results ; so has the
celebrated French astronomer, M. de la Lande found, that the observed dura
tion of the ring 4' 17" agrees perfectly well with his diameter 0 d , assumed in
his Astronomical Tables, (iii. edit. 1792.)
The American Philosophical Society bas always been more studious of doing
good within itself, than ambitious of publishing volumes for the approbation of
the world. A much more favourable idea of its industry, learning, and useful
ness, is conveyed by the private records of its proceedings, than by the six
quartos of its Transactions, reputable as these are, and must be confessed to
be, when impartially considered. It was early marked by public spirited de
signs. Witness the appointment in 1763, of committees of its members to make,
in different places, observations on that rare phenomenon, the transit of Venus
over the Sun's Disk. The expense of this undertaking is defrayed, though
possessed, as at present, of no other regular funds than those arising from an
annual contribution of two dollars from each of its resident members. It has
given a particular and steady attention to the resources open to us in the three
kingdoms of nature, and to plans of improvement in our physical economy. Its
functions were suspended necessarily during the revolution, as all of its
members were more or less ardent in the cause of independence, and fitted to
act a serviceable part in the struggle. There has not been displayed since,
the degree of vivacity and earnestness in its proper career, which could have
been wished ; hut as much, perhaps, as was reasonably to be expected under
all the circumstances of the country, and in the absence of all pecuniary
patronage. The hopes to be entertained of it now, are considerable, from the
numbers, particularly among the rising generation, who have imbibed a relish
for scientific studies, and from the greater importance which it is likely to
acquire in the public estimation, as education and knowledge spread and
ripen over the land. Its library consists of about four thousand volumes, com
prising the best elementary treatises in science and the technical arts. It has
exchanged Transactions with most of the academies of Europe, and has been
enriched with many valuable works, bestowed spontaneously and with expres
sions of lively esteem, by their authors, such as the Buffons, the Lavoisiers, the
Hmnters,* whose vision was either less distinguishing, or less clouded, (I leave

* 1 might add the names of Ingenhauz, Hauy, Humboldt, De la.Lande, Cuvier;
Ebeling, Adelung, Maseres, Biot, Delambie, Campomanes, &c.

460 NOTE*. [PART I.
the world to decide, which,) than that of the BritUh reviewers. Its Museum of
.*tu,ra! History, though not extensive, contains a number of rare ipecimens,
chiefly in mineralogy. Its " meetinghouse" to use the language of the Edinburgh
Review, where, according to this liberal and courteous journal, its " transactions
are scraped together," is a commodious and handsome edifice, and the room in
which it assembles, is, certainly, styled " Philosophical Hall." The remark of
the K eview, that this denomination is in the genuine dialect qf tradesmen, bespeaks
as much of effrontery as ill nature ; since the Reviewers must have known, that
the place of assembling of most of the learned societies and professions of Great
Britain bears the same title of Hall ; and that a term exactly correspondent is
used respectively by almost every one of the Academies of Europe: Salle de
11nstitut,&c. The imagination of these critics might be supposed to be affected with re->
gard to "tradesmen." It will be recollected, that in their first review of Frank
lin's Works, they complained of his indulging, in his Memoirs, in too many de
tails and anecdotes concerning that class of persons — "obscure individuals." In
Zenophon's Memorabilia, we read the following as part of one of the dia
logues : " Critias, interrupting Socrates, said — ' And I, Socrates, I can inform
thee' of something more thou hast to refrain from ; keep henceforth at a proper
distance from the carpenters, smiths, and shoemakers, and let us have no more qf
your examples from them.' ' Must I likewise give iup > the consequences,' said So
crates, ' deducible from these examples, and concern myself no longer with jus-
ti'ce and piety, and the rules of right and wrong.' Thou must, by Jupiter, re
plied Cbaricles."' &c.

(NOTE P. p. 225.)

A just account of the character of General Marshall and of his work, is give"
in the letters of Inchiquin, (letter 8.) The following parts of it I could wish to
be read in connexion with my text.
" During the war of the revolution, the present chief justice accompanied the
American forces in the capacity of deputy judge advocate, which situation af
forded him the best means of becoming practially conversant with the details of
that contest, its difficulties and resources; the character and view? of those on
whom it mainly devolved ; and the construction, movements, and engagements of
the armies. In process of time he attained to situations of more importance, and
successively filled several of the first offices. Possessed with these advantages,
endowed with a masculine, versatile, and discriminating genius, and holding ii
place, calculated to give wek'htto whatever he should publish, he was selected
to compile from the manuscripts of Washington, and from the public records and
papers, the joint annals of Washington and his country.
"The objects ofthe work were to furnish a correct and honourable memorial
of natural events, and to immortalize Washington. His biography is therefore
prefaced with a full account of the discovery and advancement of North Ame
rica, down to the period when he appears upon the scene. After which period,
till his death, it is naturally interwoven with the transactions of the revolution,
which his achievements so largely contributed to effect, and with the formation of
tbe government, at the bead of which he was placed.
s " The public documents of which the chief justice had the disposition, would

PART I.J NOTES. 461
be inestimable, even if arranged by inferior hands, without any attempt at shap.
ing them into a connected narrative. But wrought as they have been by him,
into a clear, manly, systematic and philosophical history, without a grain of merit
on the score of composition, they would outweigh the most beautiful composition
thateverwas formed. There is not another national history extant, which is com
posed entirely of authentic, public materials, by a cotemporary and a partici
pator. " Nor is the composition so unworthy of the subject. The commentaries and
reflections are simple, natural and just. The style plain, nervous, unaffected:
perhaps too bare of ornament, and sometimes liable to the imputation of verbo
sity, but never rough, irksome or inelegant.
"As great expectations were entertained of this performance, considerable
disappointments has been expressed at some of its alleged defects : particularly
by those who, vitiated by the malevolent system of criticism that prevails in
England and this country, are never satisfied with nature and plain sense, but in
cessantly crave the amazing aud romantic. In every department of letters, stand
ards are erected, to which fresh publications are referred for their estimate. But
is it fair to condemn an American historian to oblivion, becausejie is less enter
taining than Hume or Gibbon, or an epic poet, because he falls short of Milton ?
" The American historian bad neither anomalies nor miracles to deal with.
The recent discovery of a new world , the still more recent struggles of an infant
people to shake off the trammels of colonization ; late events, of little except mo
ral interest ; partial, procrastinated, and seldom signalized warfare ; the adjust
ment of treaties and formation of republican institutions ; though highly interest
ing to modern contemplation, are much less malleable, than remote and doubtful
traditions of astonishing transactions, into the magazine of entertainment, which
aeems to be looked for in modern history. But whatever the present age may
desire, facts soon become vastly more important than dissertations ;nor can moral
results ever be fairly taken, unless readers may implicitly rely on the truth of
the details.
" The narrative ofthe Life of Washington might perhaps have been enlivened
with more biographical and characteristic sketches. But it must be remember
ed, that to draw living characters is an arduous and invidious tatk. And when
the whole subject matter is well considered, the author will be found well entitled
to our approbation for the caution he has exercised in this particular. As to
Washington himself, the uniformity of his life, and taciturnity of his nature, pre
cluded any sufficient funds for this minor scene : though I cannot refrain fiom
observing tbat his unaffected and warm piety, his belief in the christian religion,
and exemplary discharge of all its public and private duties, might have been
enlarged upon with more emphasis and advantage.
"At such a period as the present, when the press is converted into a
powerful engine of falsehood, proscription and confusion; when letters are per
verted to the most treacherous aud unworthy purposes, it behoves every Ame
rican, who admires the history of his country, it behoves, indeed, every man who
loves truth, to uphold an authentic national work, like Marshall's, against its
malign enemies and lukewarm friends, and to cherish it as a performance whose
subject and authenticity alone, independent of any other merits, should preserve
and magnify it for ever."

(NOTE Q. p. 228.)
It is curious to find a journal published in Scotland, complaining ofthe Ame
ricans as a "scattered, migfatory, and speculating people," and attributing to
them as such, a system of manners and morality below the European standard.
Mr. Brougham lately asked in Parliament a question which we may repeat— In

462 NOTES. [PART I.
what part ofthe world is it in which Scotchmen are not to be found in numbers?
and, we may add, in which they do not appear as adventurers and speculators'.'
We do not, however, tax them on this account, with having great and pecu
liar faults," but on the contrary, we respect in them that spirit of enterprise, and
pride of independence, which prompt them to incur all the hazards and hard
ships of distant emigration, rather than groan in proverty, and crouch
under hereditary superiors, at home. I think it would be difficult to
show the process by which the sense of honour improves, as " the spirit of ad
venture is deprived of its object, and as population thickens and becomes
crowded." It is in this state of things that poverty and servility are engen
dered ; that crimes multiply from the impulses of desperation ; tbat turpitude
and brutality are kept in countenance by the multitude of examples. The opera
tion of hope upon the mind ; the very career itself of seeking and compassing a
more comfortable independent condition, are favourable to the manners and
morals. The sense of honour improves with the sense of personal importance
which grows out of self-reliance, and equality of rank.
The second number of " The Old Batchelor," a work which, in general, is
creditable to our literature, contains a keen retort for the paragraphs ofthe Edin
burgh Review, to which this note refers. " They exhibit/' says the Virginian
essayist, " a palpable and ludicrous struggle between the object and the con
science of the critic ; between the conflicting purposes of lashing Mr. Ashe,
for lampooning the Americans, and at the same time of inflicting the lash on
them himself." See No. 2, 1st volume of Old Batchelor, for a full exposition of
the absurdity of those paragraphs.

NOTE R. p. 251.)

The whole concentrated reproach of this and the succeeding page ofthe text
is capable of being fully refuted, and will be so, I trust, by the simple annucia-
tion of facts, in my intended exposition of the actual state of this country. It
may be also retorted, and this is a proper mode of dealing with It at present.
We shall convict the English writer of the most hardy disingenuousness, in de
scribing, as peculiar to the United States, dispositions and practices which no
toriously prevail around him, in England, to an unparalleled extent; which had
their orgin there ; and are almost daily aggravated in amount and malignity.
The determination on the part of the Reviewer to caluminate the Americans,
is immediately betrayed by the preposterous and arbitrary refinement of distin
guishing between their feeling in getting drunk and that ofthe European. The
pleasure of the one is sensual and brutal, while that of the other is liberal-
minded and somewhat sentimental ! And hence it is, according to the critic, that
the Americans decide their quarrels in ways which, we are given to understand,
are unknown in Europe, — rough and tumbling ; biting and lacerating, &c.
I will not refer to the Parliamentary statements respecting the quantity of
whiskey, licensed and unlicensed, consumed in Ireland, and the prevalence of
intoxication in that unhappy country. The vice there is not merely " special
hilarity betrayed into excess," but the desperation of want and abjection, spring
ing from (elfish misgovernment by the ruling kingdom. We will confine our
selves to England, and leave it to the common sense of the reader to determine
whether she is entitled to boast of her superior sobriety ; and whether there is
much that is sentimental and generous in the process of intoxication with the
topers mentioned in the extracts, which I am about to offer. I take the following
from the late Reports of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Po
lice of the Metropolis.

PART I.] NOTES. 463
" Questions put to one of the most respectable witnesses —
" Bo you think there has been an increased consumption of gin within these few
years ? I have no doubt of it, as the increase of beggars is visible : almost all these
persons about the streets drink, and they train up their children in drinking. I have
seen them at the door of the gin shops, giving their children in arms the draining of
a glass. There are five large gin shops, or wine vaults, as they are called, close to the
Seven Dials, which are constantly frequented. There is one Where they go in at one
door and out at another, to prevent the inconvenience of their returning the same
way, where there are so many. A friend of mine, who lived opposite,N had the cu
riosity to count how many went in in the course of one Sunday morning, before he
went to church, and it was 320."
Statement of another respectable witness.
" On a Sunday morning, from April to Michaelmas, on Holborh Hill, there is no
thing but riot and Confusion, from Hatton Garden to the Market, from four o'clock in
the morning till eight ; the gin shops opeu so early that they get drunk, and are
rioting and fighting about. I should think that there must be two, or three, or four
hundred — it is quite like a market — loose, disorderly people of both sexes — I have
seen as much as three or four fights on a Sunday morning. Thompson's gin-shop is
what they call the best. I should not wonder if there were a thousand customers on
a Sunday morning, before the time of service — the place is full from four in the morn
ing till eleven."
These are simple specimens, which do not, by any means, convey an adequate
idea of the enormity and diffusiveness of the evil. It is to Colquhoun's Treatises on
the Police of the Metropolis, and on Indigence, that I would refer on this head.
His statements, in those works, are made for 1806; and the late Parliamentary re
ports do not merely confirm them, but show an increase in the vice of tippling in a
ratio far greater than that of the population. He bears the following testimony.
" The quantity of beer, porter, gin, and compounds, sold in public houses in
the metropolis and its environs, has been estimated, after bestowing considerable
pains in forming a calculation, at nearly 3,300,000 pounds sterling a year, a sum
equal to double the revenue of some of the kingdoms and states of Europe.
" In the year ending July 1st, 1806, tlie quantity of porter, strong ale, and small
beer brewed in London by 20 principal, ahd 126 lesser brewers, amounted to
68,228,432 gallons, valued, at the sale price, at 4,440,384£. The annual consump
tion of this beverage must now exceed 12,000,000/. and of home-made spirits about
5,000,000/. There are about fifty thousand licensed ale-houses in England and
Wales, furnishing facilities not only for intoxication, but every other kind of brutal
excess. In the whole of the metropolis and its environs, it is calculated that there
is about one public house to every thirty-seven families. The prevailing habit
among tlie labouring people, in every district in England and Wales, is to spend
the chief part of their leisure time in ale-houses. In vulgar life, it is tlie first ambi
tion of the youth, when approaching towards an adult state, to learn to smoke to
bacco. When this accomplishment is acquired, he finds himself qualified to waste
his time in the tap-room. But the evil does not rest here. Numerous families of
labourers lodge with their wives and children in common ale-houses, in the metro
polis, aud probably in most of the large cities and towns in different parts of the
kingdom ; while, of late years, the females indiscriminately mix with the males,
and unblushingly listen to all the lewd, and often obscene discourse which circulates
freely in these haunts of vice and idleness."
The duties upon the liquor brewed by the eleven principal porter breweries of Lon
don, amounted, in 1818, to 900,000/. sterling. The excise upon malt, beer, and
British spirits, throughout Great Britain, to nine millions sterling; to which two
millions have been added in the late addition to the general taxation.
Mr. Bennet, in asking leave, at the beginning of the last year (1818), in the
House of Commons, to bring in a bill for the better regulation of ale-houses, made
the following statement. " A large proportion of the vice and immorality which
prevails may be traced to the bad system acted upon at present in licensing and re
gulating public houses. It would be seen by the evidence in the report of the com
mittee on the subject, not only that houses of the most nefarious kind were permit
ted to exist, but that they existed with the full countenance and concurrence of some

464 NOTES. [PART I,
of the police officers, who frequented them, and who had a fellow feeling with tlie
persons assembled in them. There were above two hundred houses of that descrip
tion iu London, in which a nightly and promiscuous assemblage took place, not only
of men and women, but of boys and girls of eight, nine, ten, and eleven years of
age. In some Of them there was established a sort of regular court of justice, at the
head of which a Jew presided ; before whom was brought all the pillage and profits
of the day and night, and who superintended their regular distribution. He knew
one instance of a boy, not thirteen years old, who, in the course of one night, dis
posed of property to the amount of 100/."
Lest it should be still supposed that London has a monopoly of the gentry whom
" social hilarity betrays into excess" of potation, or that the race may be extinct, I
will quote a passage on the subject from a very recent work of unquestionable au
thority— -the " Observations of William Roscoe, Esq. of Liverpool, on Penal Ju
risprudence." " In taking a survey of society around us," says this eye witness,
and zealous patriot, " one of the most striking objects which attracts our attention;
and which particularly excites the observation and surprise of every stranger, is the
shocking habit of intoxication, which is exhibited, not only in tbe metropolis, but
in most other parts qf the kingdom, and which, if not actually encouraged, is openly
permitted to the most alarming and incredible extent. Let the reader who doubts
this assertion examine the reports of the committee of the House of Commons, ap
pointed to inquire into the police of the metropolis ; he will there find such a repre
sentation of the dreadful effects of this vice, as cannot fail to call the public atten
tion to a subject, in which, not only the interests of morality and religion, but the
personal and individual safety of every member of the community is in some degree
involved. It is principally to this source that the committee have traced up the in
creased depravity of the present times ; and they have shown; by the most authentic
evidence, that most of the honible crimes which have of late been committed, in
and about the metropolis, have been occasioned by the * brutalizing effect of spi
rituous liquors ; by which the criminal is rendered insensible to the milder feelings
of bis nature, and regardless of all consequences, whether as affecting this world or
another.' To the same cause a very respectable witness attributes the spirit of in
subordination and sedition, which has manifested itself in some districts, and tbe
murders to which it has given rise."
As for the practice of gambling, which the Quarterly Review, with monstrous in
justice, charges upon " all orders of men, clergy as well as laity," in the United
States, I will again refer to Colquhoun's book,* for a sketch of the sins of the Bri
tish metropolis on this score. The details are such, both in that work and in the Par
liamentary Reports, as I do not wish to repeat ; but no one who has read them, and
who knows America, will deem me extravagant, when I assert, that the gambling
of London alone far exceeds that of the whole United States, whether as to the va
riety and odiousness of its forms ; the depravity of spirit with which it is pursued;
the knavery with which it is accompanied ; the crimes and miseries to which it
leads ; or the amount of the sums staked within the year. Colquhoun estimated
this amount at 7,225,000/. sterling, besides 3,135,000/ for fraudulent insurances in
the lottery. f M. Roscoe, in the work of his Which I have just quoted, alledges that
one of the principal causes of the unexampled frequency of crimes in the present
day, in England, is the open arid Unrestrained practice of gambling, which, origin
ating in the higher classes, has infected the lower, till it has become the habitual
occupation even of children of the lowest ranks, who are seen in the streets of the
metropolis, on the Sunday particularly, in gaming parties, fifty or sixty in a gang." J
Let us now attend to the pretended effects of the anomalous inebriation of the
Americans ; — their rough and tumbling ; their biting and lacerating each other, and

* P. 142. 3d sec. Police of the Metropolis.
t In his Treatise on Indigence, Colquhoun estimates at 10,000 the class of persons
whom he calls lottery vagrants, employed in London in procuring insurances during
the lottery drawings.
J Page 30.

PART I.] NOTES. 4>65
their gouging. The. last-named practice is the thrusting out of the antagonist's eye
in a pugilistic combat. No instance of it has ever been known in the states north of
Maryland ; it has occurred in some of the southern ; but is now rare, and become
dishonourable even among that class of persons, the vulgarest and most licentious,
to which it was confined. But, admitting it to be a ground of national reproach, is
it in itself more savage or disgraceful than the knobbing, fibbing, milling, and- all
the other modes of injury in fight, for which the English have invented a technical
vocabulary ? Is there any thing worse in it, than what we read in almost all the
accounts of the set and mercenary battles, at which the English of all ranks attend
in thousands with the keenness of passion— to wit ; tliay such a one, and such a one,
" the champion of England," " the cock of the nation,' after having demolished one
of his antagonist's eyes, "made continual play at the other!" Is the spectacle
which the gouged combatant may be supposed to offer, indicative of more ferocity in
the combat, or more shocking to the memory, or more offensive to the sight, than that
of the vanquished party in the affair described in the following extract from Bell's
Weekly Messenger, of Dec. 7, 1818.
" The great battle between Turner and Randall, at Copthorn, on Saturday.
" This match for one hundred guineas a side was fought ou Saturday at the above
spot, amidst thousands of spectators.
" Turner from the seventh round exhibited a head like a red night cap, not a slice
of flesh, (for it was hit in all directions) but what was covered with blood. There
was no knock down till the fourteenth round, when Randall, after a hit in every
round, to keep the blood in motion, floored him with a clean right-handed body hit."
Gouging is abhorred by every man of this country who pretends to character ;
seeking to witness it as an entertainment is not imaginable in the habits or tastes of
any such person. But the head like a red nightcap, the fainting pugilist covered
with blood, blinded and mangled, and finally, when incapable of all further offence
or resistance, deliberately laid senseless, perhaps lifeless, with " a clean right-
handed body hit." — This is the exhibition in which men of rank and fashion in Eng
land delight, over which they preside, and which can draw together twenty thousand
spectators of all classes, as to a festival not only yielding gratification, but furnishing
an opportunity for gambling speculations.* Horrible as these prize-fights are, they
are thought worthy of encouragement as a substitute for the modes in which the
English peasantry aud populace were and are wont " to decide their quarrels." In
the volume for 1806, of Nicholson's Philosophical Magazine, there is a dissertation
written by Dr. Bardsley, of Manchester, " On the use and Abuse of popular Sports
aud Exercises ;" which discloses to us what, doubtless, the Quarterly Review must
have considered as a secret, that those modes are precisely the rough and tumbling,
biting and lacerating, which it would represent as peculiar to the Americans. Even
the gouging is included, virtually, if not by name, and very frequently manslaughter,
a term sufficiently familiar in England. We are outdone by the very models of civi
lization, as will appear by the following statement of the Manchester writer.
" Even in France, and most parts of Germany, the quarrels of the people are de
termined by a brutal appeal to force, directed in any manner, however perilous, to
the annoyance or destruction of the adversary. Sticks, stones, and every dangerous
kind of weapon, are resorted to for the gratification of passion or revenge. But the
most common and savage method of settling quarrels upon the continent is the adop
tion of the Roman pancratium. The parties close, and struggle to throw each other

* (Boxing) Bell's Weekly Messenger, May 10th, 1819.
" The match between Randall and Martin, took place on Tuesday, on Crawley
Downs, more than thirty miles from London, and the spectators were at least twenty
thousand in number; they fought nineteen rounds in about fifty minutes, when
Martin resigned the contest. Randall was matched ,150/ to 100/., betting was seven
to four upon him. Spring and Carter next entered the ring. A worse fight has not
been seen for many years, Spring won it in an hour and three quarters. There was
very little money betted on this fight in London. Many were of opinion that the
whole was a trick upon the knowing ones."
Vol. I.— 3 N

466 NOTES. [part I.
down ; at the same time the teeth and nails are not unemployed. In short, they tear
each other like wild beasts, and never desist from the conflict till their strength is
completely exhausted; and thus, regardless of any established laws of honour
which teach forbearance to a prostrate foe, their cruelty is only terminated by their
inability to inflict more mischief."
" The mode of fighting in Holland, among the seamen and others, is well known
by tlie appellation of snicker-snee. In this contest sbaip knives are used ; and the
parties frequently maim, and sometimes destroy each other. The government deems
it necessary to tolerate this savage practice.
" It is a singular though striking fact, that in those parts ofthe kingdom of England
where the generous and manly system of pugilism is least practised, and where, for
the most part, all personal disputes are decided by tbe exertion of savage strength and
ferocity-i — a fondness for barbarous and bloody sports is found to prevail. In some
parts of Lancashire, bull-baiting and man-slaying are common practices. The know
ledge of pugilism as an ait is, in these places, neither understood nor practised.
There is no established rule of honour to save the weak from the strong, but every
man's life is at the mercy of bis successful antagonist. The object of each combatant
in these disgraceful contests, is, to thiow each other 'prostrate on the ground, and
then with hands and feet, teeth and nails, to inflict, at random, every possible de
gree of injury and torment. This is not an exaggerated statement of tbe barbarism
still prevailing in many parts of this kingdom. The countiy assizes for Lancashire
afford too many convincing proofs of the increasing mischiefs arising from these and
other disgraceful combats.
" A disgusting instance of this ferocious mode of deciding quairels, was not long
since brought forward at the Manchester sessions. It appeared in evidence, that two
persons, upon some trifling dispute, at a public house, agreed to lock themselves up
in a room with the landlord and ' fight it out' according to the Bolton method. This
contest lasted a long time, and was only terminated by the loss of the greatest part
of the nose and a part of the ear, belonging to one of the parties, which were ac
tually bitten off by the other, during the fight. The sufferer exhibited at the trial
part of the ear so torn off ; and upon being asked by the counsel what had become of
that part of his nose which was missing — he replied with perfect naivete — ' that he
believed his antagonist had swallowed it ? It has happened to the writer of these re
marks to witness, in more than one instance, the picking up in the streets, lacerated
portions of ears and fingers, after these detestable and savage broils.
" The judges, on the occasion above mentioned, have frequently declared in the
most solemn and impressive charges to the grand jury, that the number of persons
indicted for murder, or manslaughter, in consequence of the bestial mode of fighting
practised in this county, far exceed that of the whole northern circuit; and tbat, in
future, they were determined to punish with the utmost rigour of the law, offenders of
this description — But alas ! these just denunciations have little availed — at one
assize, no less than nine persons were convicted of manslaughter, originating from
these disgraceful encounters."
The reader would fain believe, I presume, that these " diabolical practices," re
cited from Bardsley, have ceased; but I cannot give him this consolation, or in any
way disguise the truth, as long as the principal London Journals present paragraphs
like the following : Courier, Jan. 18th, 1819.
"MIDDLESEX SESSIONS.
" D. Donovan was found guilty of biting off the nose of M. Donovan, in a fight
which they had. J. J. Wakeman was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, hav
ing been found guilty of seizing R .Cotton by the throat, and forcing out his tongue,
lmlf of which he bit off, and the next day bragged of having eaten.
Bell's Weekly Messenger, May 31, 1819.
« EPSOM RACES, Friday, May 28, 1819.
" Several races of minor importance took place this day, and afforded considerable
amusement and interest lo the sporting gentry. When the races were concluded,

PART I.] NOTES. 467
they endeavoured to amuse themselves by a view of a ruffianly sort of fight between
Oliver, and a black by the name of Kenrich, in which the former obtained the
victory." Sporting Magazine, April, 1819.
" A pugilistic combat for 100 guineas a side, and 10 guineas, took place on Forest
Heath, a few miles from Stony Stratford, on Wednesday, April 7th, between George
Dunkeley, a giant of 17 stone, and 6 feet 4 inches in height, and Hany Foreman, a
miner from Oxfordshire, of nearly equal weight. Many thousand spectators wore
present. They fought nine rounds in the most slaughtering and ferocious manner,
and in the latter Dunkeley bioke his adversary's left jaw, and was declared the
victor. Dunkeley was so much injured by body hits, that he was carried off the
ground in a dangerous state." Sporting Mazazine, May, 1819.
« PUGILISM.
" Battle between Carter and Spring, on Crawley Downs, 30 miles from London,
on Tuesday, May 4.
" It is supposed if the carriages had all been placed in one line, they would have
reached from London to Crawley. The amateurs were of the highest distinction ;
and several noblemen and foreigners of rank were upon the ground.
"The signal was given for stripping, and a most extensive ring was immediately
beat out ; aud amontj the crov/d numbers of females were to be Seen, anxious to get
a peep at these famous heroes ," &c. Sporting Magazine, May, 1819.
" COCKING— CHESTER.
" During the races, a main of cocks was fought between the gentlemen of Che
shire, (Gillivei, feeder,) and the gentlemen of Lancashire, (Partridge, feeder,) for ten
guineas a battle, and two hundred guineas the main."
"The great main of cocks, between the gentlemen of Norwich and Cambridge,
was fought this month, at the Swan Inn, in Norwich, and was won by the former-
one battle a-head."
" On Monday, May 3, and two following days, the match of cocks between the
gentlemen of Gloucesteishire and Oxfordshire, took place at the cockpit, Holywell,
in Oxford, when the former were victors, three in the main, and six in the bye
battles," &c.
" Pugilistic contest, near Barnesley, Yorkshire. — This battle was for sixty guineas
a side, between John Wike, the champion of the litter place, and an amateur of the
name of Green, a pupil of the scientific George Head, on Wednesday, April 14. This
contest excited considerable inteiest for miles round Barnesley, and the battle took
place at the Full-dews, about four miles from Barnesley, in the presence of some
thousands of spectators. For one hour and fifty-two minutes the heat of the battle
raged, and during which period 94 rounds were severely contested.
" Wike's head was materially changed, one of his ogles was closed, and the other
fast verging to darkness. In the 94tb and last round, Wike was floored from a tre
mendous hit upon his throat," &c. The Sporting Magazine, April, 1819.
« PUGILISM.
" Between Purcell and Warkley, for a purse of 50/. given by tlie amateurs of Nor
wich, on Thursday, April 1 .
" The above contest excited considerable interest among the provincial fancy, and
no less than 10,000 persons assembled on the above spot to witness the battle.
ROUNDS.
" 7. Warkley got Purcell's head under the rope, and made some heavy hits with
bis right hand. Purcell's head appeared truly terrific, being one mass of blood.

468

NOTES. [PART

" Purcell showed a severe cut under the before contused eye which appeared closed,
and bled profusely.
" 17. After retreating to his old corner, he fought most dreadfully, and no feature
of Purcell's face, could be distinguished from the flowing of blood," &c.
I have had Occasion to remark, in the second Section of this volume, that the legis
lators of New England prohibited the vulgar sports common in the .mother country.
Bull and bear-baiting, horse-racing, and cock-fighting, have never been practised in
our northern States; in tlie middle they have not with the exception of horse-racing,
often occurred ; and it is only in the south that bull and bear-baiting is now known ;
even there it occurs but very seldom. The baiting of horses, of whicli I have quoted
an instance, in the text, from the memoirs of Evelyn, appeals to have been a fa
vourite sport in the mother country. Strutt has recorded it in his amusing volume
on " the Diversions and Pastimes of the people of England," and given a plate of
the manner in which it was performed. Asses were treated with the same inhuma
nity. With respect to this useful animal, and the more noble one the horse, the
Americans are altogether free from the reproach of having followed the ignominious
example of torturing and destroying them at the stake. Nor do our annals afford an
instance ofthe British refinement of whipping a blinded bear. This popular practice
consisted, to use the language of Strutt and Bardsley! "in several persons at the same
time scourging with whips, a blind-folded bear round the ring, whose sufferings and
awkward attempts at revenge highly gratified the noble as well as ignoble specta
tors." , The duck-hunting described by Strutt, is equally without example in this
country, and so I believe to be the favourite English amusement of throwing at cocks, of
which he treats in his third book. But the English traveller, Fearon, has discovered
that the Kentuckians have a pastime called gander pulling, that is, twisting off at
full gallop the head of a gander tied to a tree. Fearon does not allege that he saw it
himself. There are, certainly, very few Kentuckians who have even heard of it. It is
however, eagerly seized upon by the Quarterly Reviewers, who affect to shudder, and
to be scandalized infinitely, as if the feelings of an Englishman at home were virginal
in respect to acts of brutality towards animals. Dr. Bardsley shall inform us speci
fically whether this be the fact. The following passages of his Dissertations might
have taught the Reviewers a little caution.
" If the Romans set us the example in devising these sports, (the baiting and tor
turing of animals,) it must be confessed, wehave ' bettered the instructions.' For to
English refinement and ingenuity, may be ascribed the noble invention of the gaffle
or spur ; by the aid of which, the gallant combatants of the cockpit mangle, torture,
and destroy each other; no doubt to the great satisfaction and delight of admiring-
spectators. Another instance of our barbarous ingenuity must not be omitted. No
other nation but the British has contrived to put in practice the battle-royal and the
Welch-main. In the former, the spectator may be gratified with the display of num
bers of game-cocks destroying each other at the same moment, without order or dis
tinction. In the latter, these courageous birds are doomed to destruction in a more
regular, but not less certain manner. They fight in pairs, (suppose sixteen in num
ber,) and the two last survivors are then matched against each other; so that out of
thirty-two birds, thirty-one must be necessarily slaughtered.
" Throwing at cocks, is another specimen of unmeaning brutality, confined solely
to our own country. After being familiarized to the barbarous destruction of this
courageous bird in the cockpit, it was only advancing one step further in the pro
gress of cruelty, to fasten this most gallant animal to a stake, in order to murder him
piece-meal. " Bull-baiting, during the 16th and early part of the 17 th century, was not con
fined within the limits of a bear garden, but was universally practised ori various
occasions, in all the towns and villages throughout the kingdom. In many places
the practice was sanctioned by law, and the bull-rings, affixed to large stones
driven into the earth, remain' to this day, as memorials of this legalized species of
barbarity. " Numbers of bulls were, and still continue to be, regularly trained and carried
about from village to village, to enter the lists against dogs bred for the purpose of
the combut. To detail all the barbarities eommitted-in these encounters, would be a

PART. I.] NOTES. 469
disgusting and tedious task. All the bad passions which spring upon ignorant and
depraved minds, are here set afloat.
" At a bull baiting in Staffordshire, in 1799, after the animal had been baited by
single dogs, he was attacked by numbers, let loose upon him at once. Having
escaped from his tormentors, they again fastened him to the ring; and with a view
either of gratifying their savage revenge, or of better securing their victim, they ac
tually cut off his hoofs, and enjoyed the spectacle of his being worried to death on his
bloody and mangled stumps."
" The practice of bull-baiting," says the author of Espriella's Letters, " is not
merely permitted, it is even enjoined by the municipal law in some places. Attempts
hive twice been made in the legislature to suppress this barbarous custom : they
were baffled and ridiculed; and some ofthe most distinguished members were absurd
enough, and hard-hearted enough to assert, that if such sports were abolished, there
would be an end of the national courage. The bear and the badger are baited with
the same barbarity ; and, if the rabble can get nothing else, they will divert them
selves by worrying cats to death."
The boldness of the traveller Fearon, and of the Quarterly Review, in attempts to
degrade the American character, by stories of gander pulling in Kentucky, and bear-
baiting in New Orleans, must be apparent from the quotations I have just made ; but
I wish to show further, to what they expose the British nation by authorizing re
quital. In opening by accident, the English Monthly Magazine, for Sept. 1803, I
fell upon the article which I am about to transcribe. The character of the author is
unknown to me; but he is not a foreign witness, and cannot be suspected of a wish
to disparage his own country.
" To the Editor ofthe Monthly Magazine.
" SIR, " It has been remarked by some author, that the English nation is more addicted
to cruelty than ariy other enlightened people of Europe, and though we must natu
rally be reluctant in admitting a charge of so disgraceful a nature, yet a little atten
tion to what is passing around us, particularly in respect to our own indifference to
the sufferings ofthe brute creation, will, I fear, rather corroborate than refute the as
sertion, I shall confine my remarks to two instant es of diabolical cruelty.
" A gentleman of my acquaintance was eye witness to an instance of this horrid
propensity, near Buxton ; a fellow exhibited a bear which was tied to a stake, with
a small length of chain allowed ; the bear was not, however, attacked by dogs, as
usual, but by monsters in human shape, who diverted themselves by trundling a
wheel-harrow at it — if this machine struck the animal, the beaiyward paid 6d. to him
who twirled the barrow, and if it missed, (which was oftener the case, as the poor
bear, from woeful expreience, had acquired considerable dexterity in avoiding the
blow,) then the bear-ward received 6d.
" The other instance, which fell within my own observation, seems to me to com
bine more associations of a kind disgraceful to human nature, than any other I re-
memember ever to have heard of
" As I passed through a lane, a few days before last Shrove Tuesday, I observed a
considerable crowd in an adjoining field, enjoying some game, in which a number of
boys were busily engaged ; on a nearer approach, I saw ten or twelve boys, with
their hands tied, pursuing a cock, tlie wings of which had been previously clipped, to
retard its escape ; on enquiry, I learnt this poor creature was to be the prize of him
who could carry it off to a certain part of the field, in his teeth, this, unfortunately
for the object of their pursuit, wus no easy task, and the scene I witnessed in its pro
secution was such, as surely was nevr equalled in the annals of brutality.
" The cock, as in most such sports, had a little start allowed, when on a signal,
all its pursuers gave chace ; the first who came ppcwith it, endeavoured to stun it
with his foot, and if that failed, his next resource was to fall upon it with his body,
full length, in which position he contrived to fix his teeth in some part, but the head
was usually preferred, as the animal could not easily retaliate in this situation!
sometimes all these bloodhounds were down upon or near the poor cock at the same
time, one pulling it by, the feet, another by the wings, and a third tugging at its
head, till the weakest pari gave way, and the strongest teeth bore away the prize in

470 NOTES. [PART I.
triumph; whilst the poor creature struggled so viol»ntly, as at times, by its con
vulsions, to escape for a moment, the monster's jaws ; but if the conqueror proved too
strong to prevent this momentary escape, his triumph was of very short duration, for
by the rules of this game, the unsuccessful followers were permitted to trip tbe heels
of the hero who was thus bearing away the prize, which they generally contrived to
do, and before he could arrive at the goal, he was usually overthrown by his pur
suers, who, falling upon bim and each other, with the wretched animal in the midst
of them, resumed this inhuman struggle.
" To the disgrace of human nature, most of the less cruel diversions which I have
mentioned, are conducted by men ; but in tlieir refinements upon all former species of
cruelty, boys are selected, and encouraged by the men, and taught to make use of
their teeth like cannibals." (Signed,) « EGERTON SMITH,
" of Liverpool."
We may suppose Mr- Fearon, but not the Quarterly Review, to be ignorant of the
speech of Lord Erskine, on the bill wbich he introduced into the House of Lords in
1809, respecting cruelty to animals. The Reviewers ought to have recollected also,
the fate of that bill in the House of Commons, wheie, notwithstanding the dis
closure of the most hoirid barbarities, a quorum could not be kept to seem* a decent
rejection in the forms. The speech of Lord Erskine to the Peers, furnishes a kind of
evidence which cannot be got over : for the facts adduced to demonstrate the ne
cessity of his bill, are vouched upon the highest responsibility. The humane mover
said, " He could bring the most unexceptionable testimony to their lordship's bar, to
prove the existences of such practices as were a disgrace to humantity, to a civilized
nation ; one barbarous practice was, the cutting and tearing out the tongue of so
noble an animal as the horse."*
I will confine myself to an extiaetin addition, from this speech, in relation to the
treatment of that " noble animal, the horse," which treatment, generally, I believe
to be more savage in England, than in any oiher countiy on earth. Tne following
statement of Lord Erskine, will illustrate also, what kind of meat it is such of the
poor of England as aspire to that luxuiy, usually obtain.
" A veiy general practice prevails of buying up horses still alive, but not ca
pable of being further abused by any kind of labour. These horses, it appeared, were
carried in great numbers to slaughter bouses, but not killed at once for their flesh
and skins, but left without sustenance, and literally starved to death, that tlie
market might be gradually fed. The poor animals in the mean time, being induced '
to eat their own dung, and frequently knawing one another's manes in the agonies of
hunger."!-

* See the number ofthe English Sporting Magazine, for June, 1819, for an atroci
ous instance of this practice.
-j- Some humane person has returned to this subject, in the Sporting Magazine, for
April, 1819, and given the following account of the same hideous abomination :
" Let me most earnestly, and with a heart affected by sadness and melancholy, and
indignant with sensations of shame, call the attention of men to the last and dreadful
stage of tlie life ofthe laborious horse, which has spent the whole of his strength, and
wasted his spirits and his blood in the most painful, perhaps fhe most excruciating
services. He is, in the metropolis more especially, sold in his aged, worn out, and
unpHied state, to a set of brutal, unfeeling — infernal savages! as any that disgrace
and shame the bosom of their mother earth — the nackers, oi horse butchers : men
whose fierce and hardened features, and blood-stained hands and bodies, are an ap
palling representation of their horrid calling. Their places are dens of famine, animal
misery, and torture, which might make humanity weep tears of blood! Here are
seen horses worn out with age and labour, in every possible state if decrepitude and
disease, kept alive as long as possible for tlie convenience of market, lingering under
all the horrors of famine, to the degree of devouring each other's mants, from excet-

PART. I.] NOTES. 471
I cannot refrain from noting here a circumstance connected with the treatment of
horses in England, which I find stated thus in one of the principal newspapers of
" December 29th, 1818. This day were shot at the Queen's stables, five horses
belonging to her late majesty. They had been in the queen's service between thirty
and forty years, and were now despatched (being no longer able to do hard work) to
prevent their falling to the work of dust carts, &c. &c."
Among the ancients (barbarians and pagans !) the beasts that had been employed
in the building of certain temples, were ever afterwards released from drudgery, and
delicately fed. They were not " despatched to prevent their falling to the work of
dust cails." When Julius Cassar, in passing the Rubicon, devoted a number of
horses to the divirity of that river, he set them free to rove in the abundant pastures
in its neighbourhood. — Was there no field at Fiogmore, in which the five horses
which had served her majesty for thirty or forty years, could have been permitted to
enjoy the remnant of their existence ; if not as a debt of humanity to them, at least as
a mark of respect to the memory of their mistress > The lines of old Ennius furnish a
lesson to her majesty's executors.
Sicut fortis equus, spatio qui saepe supremo
Vieit Olympia, nunc senio confectu quiescit.

(NOTE S. p. 25S.)
Ds. Mitchell, of New York, has made the following mention of Governor Colden,
in his Anniversary Discourse of 1813, befoie the New York Historical Society.
" Cadwallader Colden bad a share in the provincial administration of New York.
He sent to Sweden, for his correspondent, the distinguished professor at Upsal, a
collection ofthe plants growing at Ulster county of New Yoik, and accompanied the
herbarium with descriptions. The great author of the sexual system caused the de
scriptions to be printed, and in his seveial publications referred to them as authori
ties. Colden's Catalogue may be seen in the Upsal Transactions for 1743. This
performance displays gieat industry and skill, and justly places the author among the
botanical worthies of North America."
Linnaeus named a plant ofthe tetrandous class, Coldenia, in honour of the daugh
ter of Colden. The historian cultivated mathematics with distinguished success, and
maintained a correspondence on various branches of science with several of the most
eminent seavans of Europe. In the year 1 743, he suggested and explained in detail, in
a letter to Dr. Franklin,* the sleryotype method of printing. The process which he re
commended, is the same as that practised, and said to have been invented by Mr.
Herhan, at Paris.

sive hunger, and at last sinking to the earth, one after the other, from emptiness and
weakness! Some of them may have been purchased in the country, and driven long
journies, with barely food enough, and that of the most sordid and worthless kind,
to enable them to stand upon their legs."
* See the letter in the 1st vol. ofthe New York Medical Register.

472 NOTES. [part I.

(NOTE T. p. 266.)
The first steam boat launched in the Hudson was at once crowded with passengers,
and in no part of the United States where the same mode of conveyance appeared,
did the inhabitants manifest the least hesitation about making immediate use of it.
Not so in Great Britain. We read in an article on steam boats, in the 45th volume
of Tillock's Philosophical Magazine, the following statement :
" At first, owing to the novelty and apparent danger of the conveyance, when the
first steam boat appeared in the Clyde, in 1 8 1 2, the number of passengers was so very
small, that the only steam boat on the river could hardly clear her expenses ; but the
degree of success which attended that attempt soon commanded public confidence."
I take the following additional illustrations of this subject from a masterly review
of Colden's Life Of Fulton, published in the Analectic Magazine for Sept. 1817.
" To show how little pretensions the English have to this discovery, we lay before
our readers the following extracts from the best and most popular of the monthly pub
lications in thai country.
In the London Monthly M gazine for October, 1813, p. 244, it is said, " We have
made it our special business to lay before the public, all the particulars we have been
able to collect relative to the invention of steam passage boats in America, and their
introduction into Great Britain ; because we consider this invention as worth to man
kind more than a hundred battles gained, or towns taken, even if the victors were
engaged in a war, which might have some pretence to be called defensive and
necessaiy. It affords us great satisfaction to be able to lay before our readers a Correct
description of the Clyde steam boat, obligingly communicated to us by Messrs. Woods,
shipbuilders in Port Glasgow. It is but justice, however, to those gentlemen, to
state, that they candidly consider the steam boats, as they are at present constructed,
(that is, on the Clyde) to be in a very rude state, and capable of great improvement.
"The boat runs in calm weather four or four and a half miles per hour; but
against a considerable breeze, not more than three."
In the Monthly Magazine for November 1813, vol. 36, p. 3S5, an account is given
of the New York steam boats running on an average, with or against the tide, at the
rate " of six miles an hour, with the smoothness of a Dutch Streckshute."
In the same page is a wooden cut of the Clyde boat ; and a note of the editors,
stating, " That the inhabitants of the populous banks of the Thames are not at pre
sent acquainted with steam boats, only through our descriptions of them."
In the same Magazine for January 1814, p. 529, is a proposal to erect a company
for the purpose of building steam boats to navigate the Thames.
In the Magazine for February 1814, p. 29, is a further description ofthe American
steam boats, as an interesting article of information.
In the same Magazine for April 1814, a further account of American steam boats
is given by Mr. Ra,ph Dodd, engineer, who had visited them in this country. He
states that there were then two places in Great Britain where steam boats had been
employed, to wit, on the river Braydon, between Yarmouth and Norwich, and on
tlie river Clyde, between Glasgow and Greenock : and at the close of his account, he
mentions that he had been urging the use of this mode of conveyance for two years
past, and was happy to find his recommendations realized.
By the Monthly Magazine for 1814, p. 358, it appears, that the above named Ralph
Dodd had succeeded in forming a company to build steam boats to be used on the
Thames ; and in the same page it is stated, that the Clyde steam boat had run for
eighteen months past -. that is, the first steam boat began to ran in America under.
Fulton's direction in 1807, and the first. steam boat began to run in Great Britain in
or about the month of May 1813, six years after they had been in full operation in
this country; in all probability, if it had not been for Fulton's enterprise and inge-.
nuity, Great Britain would not have had a steam boat for these twenty years to come.
He showed them how to succeed. Yet is the account in Rees's Encyclopaedia so
drawn up,- as if the whole ofthe invention was owing to English skill and enterprise.

PART I.] NQTES. 473
" We hear much (say the editors ofthe Monthly Magazine for April 1813, vol. 35,
p. 243) of tlie proven success ofthe steam passage boats against the rapid streams of
the great rivers in America : yet nothing of the kind has yet been adopted in Great
Britain. Are we to succumb to America in the mechanic arts >' This was true -, for
the Clyde boat had not begun to run when that paragraph was written, nor, we be
lieve, till at least a month after it was published.
« The general index to the first twenty volumes of the Edinburgh Review, com
prehending the month of October 1812, has not an article relating to steam boats.
Yet no one can complain that the editors of that work are not sufficiently alive to
their national claims."

(NOTE U. p. 275.)
In the Discourse of Dr. Mitchell, of New York, to whicli I have referred in Note S.,
there is the following notice of James Logan.
" I have a copy of James Logan's ' Experiments, et Meletemata circagenerationem
plantarum.' They were printed at London in Latin and English. He relates experi
ments made on Indian corn, to prove the prolific nature of staminal dust. He quotes
Dr. Grew, as ascribing to Mr. Thomas Millington the original idea, as long ago as.
1676, that plants have sexes. It is not a little remarkable, that this small tract is
more likely to perpetuate the author's fame, than allthe udicial acts of his life."
I would observe, on the last phrase of this quotation, that, if the learned author of
the discourse meant to disparage the judicial acts of Logan, he has committed a signal
injustice, or spoken without due knowledge. Logan's judicial career was one of great
integrity, and utility to the state. As Pennsylvania was divided into parties for and
against the Proprietary, and as this early friend of Penn took the lead on the side of
his family, he became obnoxious to keen enmities, and unsparing detraction. This
accounts for the angry proceedings of the House of Assembly towards him from
time to time, and for the colouis in which he is painted in the Historical Review of
Pennsylvania, published in London to counteract the Proprietary interest there. I
am well informed that Franklin, the author of the Review, acknowledged, at a distant
period, that Logan had been represented in the work pursuant to party feeling and
aims, and not in conformity with his real character andservices. The charges which
Logan delivered, as chief justice of Pennsylvania, to grand juries, are of singular ex
cellence. He appears in them not only as a watchful guardian of the domestic weal,
and as a sagacious director, but as a profound moralist, and beautiful writer. Such
subtile disquisition, and lofty speculation, such variety of knowledge, and richness
of diction, are seldom found in compositions of any kind. Of the practical lessons
which he inculcated, I am induced to quote the following, from a charge dated April .
13, 1736, because it has a curious appositeness to the present times in this country,
and contains maxiins of universal and perpetual validity.
" As poverty, and the want of money, has of late been the great cry in this place
(Philadelphia) ; and riches have been shown to be the natural effects of sobriety, in
dustry, and frugality ; the true causes of this poverty may justly deserve a more near
and strict inquiry : upon which, the case, if I mistake not, will appear as follows. It
is certainly with a state, as with a private family ; if the disbursements or expenses
are greater than the income, that family will undoubtedly become poorer. And, in
the same manner, if our importations are greater than our exports, the country in
general will sink by it. Thfehas been our case for some years past, owing, in a great
measure, not only to the badn ess of tbe commodity we exported, to the great injury of
our credit, (which, notwithstanding, is now in some degree retrieved, by the diligence
Vol. I— 3 O

474 NOTES. [PART I.
of one officer, and the country will undoubtedly reap the advantages of it,) but also
to our using more European and other goods than we can pay for by our produce, or
perhaps really want ; and then the balance must be paid (if 'tis ever done) in
money. * These are the open and avowed reasons, that may be given, for our scarcity of
coin : but as to our poverty, it may be inquired, whether there be not yet a cause ?
And every man who complains, may ask himself, whether he has been as industrious
and frugal, in the management of his affairs, as his circumstances required ? whether
credit has not hurt him, by venturing into debt, before he knew how to pay ? and
whether the attractions of pleasure and ease have not been stronger than those of
business ? but Solomon says, He that loveth pleasure, shall be a poor man : and he
that loveth wine and oil, (that is, high living,) shall not be rich, Prov. 21, 17. He
tells us also, elsewhere, who they are that shall come to poverty, and what it is that
clothes a man with rags, Prov. 23, 21 : and shows, very clearly, that the ways to get
wealth were the very same, near three thousand years ago, that they are at this day,
and, probably, they may continue the same to the end of the world.
" If people of substance cannot employ men to build, or by other means to improve
the country, but at higher rates than the work will be worth to them when finished,
whether 'tis to be let or sold, such workmen cannot expect employment, but poverty
must come as one that travelleth, and want as an armed man. And if the same love
of pleasure, wine, and oil, still continue under these circumstances, it will not be
difficult to find a cause why such are not rich. It is not to be doubted, but that young
beginners in the world have mistaken their own condition ; have valued an appear
ance, and run too easily into debt ; and that workmen declining labour on practicable
terms, to put it in the power of others to employ them, and yet continuing their usual
expense ; it is not to be doubted, I say, but that great numbers, by these measures,
though they may not be the only cause, have been plunged into distressed circum
stances, of which they themselves will not see the reason : but being uneasy under
them, they repine, and grow envious against those who, by greater diligence and cir
cumspection, have preserved themselves in a more easy and safe condition of life.
Such people run into complaints of grievances ; ciy out against the oppression of the
poor, though perhaps no country in the world is more free from it than ours : they
giow factious and turbulent in the state; are for trying new politics, and like persons
afflicted with distempers, contracted through vicious habits, who are calling for leni
tives to their pains, but will not part with the beloved but destructive cause ; they
are for inventing new and extraordinary measures for their relief and ease ; when it is
certain, that nothing can prove truly effectual to them, but a change of their own
measures, in the exercise of those wholesome and healing virtues I have mentioned,
viz. sobriety, industry, and frugality : not by contracting new debts, for this is a con
stant snare, and a pit, in which the unwary are caught ; for the borrower, we are told,
is a servant to the lender, and the man who gives surety worketh his own destruction,
for why (it is said) should he (thy creditor) take thy bed from under thee ? or, which
amounts to the same, why should he take that from thee, from which thou must gain
thy bread, or the place on which thy bed stands ? such relief is but a snare : and I will
be here bold to say, that it is not even the greatest quantities of coin that can be im
ported into this province, (unless it were to be distributed for nothing,) nor of any
other specie, that can relieve the man who has nothing to purchase it with ; but it is
bis industry, with frugality, that must ease him, and entitle him to a share of it.

PART I.] NOTES. 475

(NOTE V. p. 396.)
The petition which Lord Nugent presented to the House of Commons, during its
last session (1819), on the part of the English Roman Catholics, was signed by
10,300 persons, among whom were eleven peers, thirteen baronets, and three hundred
gentlemen of landed property. To make the American reader acquainted with the
intent of their dlifranchisemeut, I offer the following extracts from some of their late
petitions and addresses, as preserved in a valuable work published the present year in
London, and entitled, " Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, by Charles
Butler, Esq."
" Several disabling and penal laws still remain in force against English Catholics.
Still are civil and military offices denied them ; still are they excluded from many
lines in the profession of the law and medicine ; still are some avenues to commercial
wealth shut against them ; still is entrance into corporations prohibited to them ; still
the provisions for their schools and places of religious worship are without legal se
curity; still they are disabled from voting at elections; still they are deprived of
eligibility to a seat in the House of Commons ; still Roman Catholic peers are ex
cluded from their hereditary seats in the House of Lords ; and still Roman Catholic
soldiers and sailors are legally subject to heavy penalties, and even to capital punish
ment, for refusing to conform to the religious rites of the established church. Each of
these penal laws has a painful operation : their united effects Is very serious. It
meets the Catholics in every path of life ; makes their general body a depressed and
insulated cast ; and forces every individual of it below the rank in society which he
would otherwise hold. Seldom, indeed, does it happen, that a Roman Catholic closes
his life, without haviug more than once experienced, that his pursuits have failed of
success, or that, if they have succeeded, the success of them has been greatly lessened
or greatly retarded, or that his children have lost provision or preferment, in conse
quence of his having been a Roman Catholic.
" How injurious the test acts ate, both to the public and to the individuals on
whom they operate, appeared in 1795 ; in which year, during the then great national
alarm of invasion, Lord Petre, tlie grandfather of the present lord, having, with the
express leave and encouragement of government, raised, equipped, and trained, at his
own expense, a corps of two hundred and fifty men for his majesty's service, requested
that his son might be appointed to the command of them. His son's religion was
objected, his appointment refused, and another person was appointed to the command
of the corps. You cannot but feel how much such a conduct tended to discourage
the Catholics from exertions of zeal and loyalty: — but, the noble family had too much
real love of their country to resign from her service, even under these circumstances.
His lordship delivered over the corps, completely equipped, and completely trained,
into the hands of government, and his son served in the ranks.
" In the last Parliament, (1816) it was shown, that a meritorious private, for re
fusing, (wbich he did in a most respectful manner), to attend divine service and
sermon according to the rights ofthe established church, was confined nine days in a
dungeon, on bread and water.
" Thus the English Catholic soldiers are incessantly exposed to the cruel alterna
tive of either making a sacrifice of their religion, or incurring the extreme of legal
punishment ; than which, your petitioners humbly conceive, there never has been,
and cannot be, a more direct religious persecution. To an alternative, equally op
pressive, the English Roman Catholics are exposed on their marriages ; the law re
quires, for the legal validity of a marriage in England, that it should be celebrated in
a parish church; as Roman Catholics naturally feel great repugnance to a celebration
of their marriages in other churches than their own."
With regard to the Irish Roman Catholics, their situation is worse. Their disfran
chisement is as entire in substance, and much more galling in its operation, than that
ofthe American negroes. In 1812, tlie number of the Irish Catholics was estimated
at 4,200,000; making five-sixths ofthe whole population of Ireland, and being as 10

476 NOTES. [part I.
to 1, in the proportion ofthe Protestants. Their clergy amounted to upwards of two
thousand. The following representations are copied from a very able and full exposi
tion of their grievances published at the period just mentioned*.
If a Catholic clergyman happens, though inadvertently, to celebrate marriage be
tween two Protestants, or between a Protestant and a Catholic, (unless ahead married
by a Protestant minister) he is liable by law to suffer death.
The CathoUc clergy are unprotected by any law, prohibiting the disturbance of
Divine service, whilst celebrated by them,
The Catholic clergyman, bound by his vows to ft life of celibacy, and generally in
narrow circumstances, feels tlie harshness of being held liable to the payment of a
modern tax, called bacltelor's tax.
The Catholic clergy are interdicted from receiving any endowment, or permanent
provision, either for their own support, or for that of their houses of worship, &c.
Whilst the memhers of all other religious persuasions in Ireland are permitted ta
provide for the permanent maintenance of their respective ministers of worship, and of
the establishments connected with their respective tenets, the Catholics alone are de
nied this permission. Reproached, as they frequently are, with the poverty of their
clergy, the misery of their people, and the supposed ignorance of their poor, they are
forbidden by law, to resort to the necessary measures for supplying these deficiencies.
In Ireland, the Protestant parishioners actually enjoy the privilege of assembling
. together, under the name of Parish Vestries, to the exclusion of the Catholics, of'legis-
lating and of imposing such yearly land tax upon the Catholics, as they may think
proper, for the alleged purposes of building, repairing, refitting, ;&c. Protestant houses
.of worship — and of providing lucrative occupation for each other.
The people of Ireland already pay (as a plain calculation will show) an average sum,
not less than 200/. for every family, that frequents the public service of the established
church : or in other words, each of these families now costs to the people an average
sum of 200/. yearly, for its rejigious worship.
" The Irish parliament, hi the last year of its existence, solemnly organized a pow
erful inquisition, the Commission of Charitable Bequests, vigilant and eager in the
pursuit of its prey, and armed with every necessary authority for discovering and
seizing the funds destined by dying Catholics for the maintenance of the pious and
the poor of their own communion, and appropriating them, when seized, to the bet
ter maintenance ofthe Protestant institutions."
" Suffice it to say, respecting the general conduct of this board, that their zeal and
activity in the discharge of their ungracious functions, have completely succeeded in
frustrating every attempt of the Irish Catholics to provide any permanent maintenance
for tlie ministers of their worship, their places of education, or other pious or charit
able foundations."
" No Catholic can be a guardian to a Protestant ; and no Catholic priest can be
a guardian at all. Catholics are only allowed to have arms under certain restric
tions ; and no Catholic can be employed as a fowler, or have for sale, or otherwise,
any arms or warlike stores. No Catholic can present to an ecclesiastical living,—
although dissenters, and even Jews, have been found entitled to this privilege. The
pecuniary qualification of Catholic jurors is made higher than that of Protestants."
" The number of Catholics qualified for seats in the legislature, (if learning, talents,
landed estates, or commercial wealth be admitted as a qualification) probably exceeds
thirty thousand persons. These men stand personally proscribed by the existing ex
clusion, whilst their Protestant neighbours find every facility for ready admission."
" Hence, every Protestant feels himself, and really is, more firm and secure in the
favour ofthe laws, more powerful in society, more free in his energies, more elevated
in life, than his Catholic neighbour of equal merit, property, talents, and education.
He alone feels and possesses the right and tho legal capacity to be a legislator, and
this consciousness is actual power."
" Whatever may be the wealth of the Catholic, his talent, or his services, be is

* Statement of the Penal laws, which aggrieve the Catholics of Ireland. 2d. Edit.
Dublin.

PART. I.] NOTES. 477
uniformly refused a place upon grand juries within the corporate towns ; and even
upon petty juries, unless when the duty is arduous, and unconnected with party in
terests. He more than doubts of obtaining the same measure of justice, of favour or
respect, from the mayor, recorder, alderman, tax gatherer, public boards, &c. that
is accorded to his Protestant neighbour. He lives in continual' apprehension, lest he
or his family may become objects of some pecuniary extortion, or victims of some
malicious accusation. Hence1 he is cringing, dependant, and almost a suppliant, for
common justice."
" Thus, the Catholic leads a life resembling that of tlie condemned Jew; of no ac
count personally ; but partially tolerated for the sake of outward show ; trampled
upon individually ; preserved collectively — for the uses of others ; permitted to prac
tise commerce and agriculture for the benefit of public revenue ; gleaning, by con
nivance, a little money from arduous enterprises and intense labours, whicli the hap
pier lot ofthe privileged class enables them to decline; but never to be received cordi
ally as a citizen ofthe town, which he enriches, and perhaps maintains."
" It will appear, that the gross number of officers and situations, from which the
class of penal laws, concerning corporate offices, excludes the Catholics, rmiy be con
sidered as amounting —
" Directly, and by express enactment, to about 2548
" Consequentially, to about 1200
"Total - - 3748."
" The judicial situations, controlling the entire administration of justice in Ireland,
are at present monopolized by the Protestants; and, under the existing laws and
system, they must continue to be occupied by Protestants alone."
" There appears to be a total number of nearly 1500 offices connected with the pro
fession and administration of the laws, which are interdicted to the Catholics, either
by the express letter, or by the necessary operation, ofthe present penal code."
" One hundred and sixty legal offices, of honour and of emolument, are inacces
sible to Catholic barristers, and open to Protestants. Thirteen hundred other offices
are reserved solely for the ruling class, to the exclusion of Catholic students, solicitors,
attorneys, clerks, &c. &c."
"Throughout the entire post office, established in Ireland, for instance, consisting
of several hundred persons, there is scarcely a single Catholic to be found in a higher
situation than that of a common letter-carrier; and few of even this class. The like
may be affirmed of the stamp-office, bank of Ireland, and the other public boards and
establishments of Ireland." :
" Although not disqualified by an express statute, yet the Catholic physicians,
surgeons, apothecaries — not inferior in learning, skill, experience or character, to
those of any other persuasion — are practically excluded from medical honours and
public situations — and especially from medical appointments of emolument or 'credit,
within the influence ofthe crown, or ofthe numerous departments connected with the
state." " We do not read the name of any Catholic amongst the physicians, surgeons,
druggists, or apothecaries, attached to the military or naval departments."
" The law presumes every Catholic to he faithless, disloyal, unprincipled, and dis
posed to equivocate upon his oath — until he shall have repelled this presumption by his
sworn exculpation— in public court."
"That there exist in Ireland numerous splendid establishments, bearing the plau
sible profession of public education, is sufficiently known. From tlie extensive scale
and pompous exterior ofthe buildings, from the numerous train of officers and heavy
annual charge — a stranger might infer the existence of ample and liberal public in
struction in Ireland — but, upon a nearer view, he will be quickly undeceived.
" These seminaries are closed, by law or by usage, against the Catholics. They
are founded, generally speaking, upon strict and exclusive Protestantism — upon ab
horrence of Popery — and upon the inculcation of doctrines, breathing personal impu
tation and indirect hostility against the Catholic population."
" Protestant families will not, in general, take Catholic servants. Every news
paper contains advertisements for servants, signifying that they must not be Catho
lics."

478 NOTES. [PART I.
" In yeoman corps, (armed,) with very few exceptions, no Catholics are ad
mitted." " In the country corps, the bigotry of the captains generally excludes Catholics ;
and, even when the captains would wish, for the appearance of these corps, to mix
a few stout comely Catholics in it, the bigotry of the privates interferes to prevent it —
as, in most instances, they would resign, if such a measure were persisted in."
" In many towns in Ireland, there are convivial societies, amongst whom it is a
rule to exclude Catholics."
"In many counties, Protestants will not visit a Catholic ; and it is the fashion to
speak of them in the most injurious and degrading terms."
" The Catholics can feel, and do suffer."
" The very peasantry acutely feel the stigma cast by government upon their sect
and their religion. The lowest order even suffer most. The wealthy Catholics ac
quire a degree of consideration and legal security from their property; but the pea
santry are left naked to the pelting of the storm, to all the jibes and jobs of Protestant
ascendancy." " Not only a Protestant looks down upon a Catholic lord, and a Protestant gentle
man looks down upon a Catholic gentleman, but a Protestant peasant on a Catholic
peasant,; and, in proportion as the degrading scale descends, the expression of con
tempt becomes more marked, and gross."

(NOTE W. p. 397.)
Mb. Fearon relates a story of negro flagellation, which he pretends to have wit
nessed in Kentucky, and from which it might be inferred, that the general treatment
ofthe slaves in that state is barbarous. Theinference would involve a great injustice;.
for their condition is eminently good in Kentucky, as I myself know from personal
observation, and as every candid traveller who has had the same opportunity of
judging, will acknowledge. They have there an abundant provision of excellent
food ; their labour is light ; and the recreations in which they are indulged, give a
particular hilarity to their carriage. We have another English writer of travels,
Lieutenant Hall, who has assigned a chapter especially to the negro slavery of the
United States, and passed general sentence, confessing at the same time, that " in
formation as to the condition of the negroes, in point of fact, is little attainable by a
cursory traveller." He, it would seem, only traversed Virginia, North Carolina, and
a part of South Carolina, rapidly, in the stage coach, and by tlie main road. As he
passed along, in the night, he saw the " fire-light shining through some of the aegro
huts," from which he inferred, that they were universally without sufficient shelter
from the inclemency of the season. Wood, he acknowledges, they might have in
plenty ; but then " they must have their night's rest perpetually broken by the obli
gation of keeping up their fires." How happy would be the poor in England, if they
were subjected to the same obligation !
This traveller moans, too, over the diet of the negroes in the lower parts of South
Carolina — rice, Indian meal, and dried fish ! He does not deny, that they are
amply supplied with the two first articles. Poultry, he says, they may raise; but
we know that they do raise it in abundance, and either consume it themselves, or by
the sale of it, procure gratifications untasted by the British labourer. If the sub
sistence upon rice be so calamitous a lot, there is enough to engross the compassion
of an Englishman, in the fate of the vast majority of the population subject to the
British power in India. It is only on the rice lands, and generally near the coast, that

part T.] NOTES. 479
the negroes of Carolina are stinted as to animal food : in what is called the upper
country, it is given them in sufficient quantity for a daily ;md plentiful meal.
Throughout the slave-holding states, there are differences in the living of the blacks,
according to the greater or less productiveness of the soil, the nature of the staple
product, &c. But no where are they without wholesome victuals, adequate to the
demands of the appetite, and the support of the frame in its full vigour. Lieutenant
Hall remained a few weeks at Charleston, and there picked up some stale anecdotes
about the oppression of the negroes. He found a Socrates in the black cook of a
vessel, condemned to death for poisoning the crew ; and has made a most ridiculous
romance of the affair. Of the kidnapping of free negroes, he heard something, and
is moved, of course, to high indignation aud rebuke. I do not deny the atrocity of
the crime, as odious to Americans in general as it can be to foreigners ; but it has
more than one direct parallel in England, to divert the anger and denunciations of her
sons from this unlucky country. Possibly, our traveller may have heard of a practice,
which Sir James Mackintosh has described as " a flourishing though accursed
trade,"* false accusation — the swearing away the life or liberty of an innocent per
son, for the sake of the reward called blood-money. I will make the reader further
acquainted with it by a few extracts from the debates ofthe House of Commons.
" Mr. Bennet said, (March 2, 1818,) that he was convinced he was not exaggerat
ing, when he averred, that it had been a long established practice in this country,
(England,) for individuals, day after day, year after year, to stimulate others to the
commission of crime, for the purpose of putting money in their pockets by their con
viction." " Mr. Bennet said, (April 13, 1818,) that in many cases, false evidence was given
by police officers, in order to bring the offence within the reach of the remuneration.
Mr. Shelton, the clerk of the reigns at the Old Bailey, stated, that too frequently
these officers endeavoured to stretch the point, with the view of sharing in the price
of blood. The calendars ofthe criminal courts established the same conclusion.
" Fixed rewards had long been the great blot in our system of criminal procedure.
" All the persons who were connected with the police acknowledged, that the
principle of the present system was bad, and that, from the beginning of it to the
end, instead of cheeking or controlling crime, it operated as a bounty to base and
designing men, who went about, not merely to tempt adults to the commission of
crime, but (which was the most lamentable fact,) to train up children to be criminals.
Children of nine or ten years of age, instead of being indicted, as they ought to be,
for picking pockets, were frequently, in hopes of the reward, indicted for highway
robberies. Not many months ago, two children, one thirteen, the other nine years qf
age, were convicted of highway robbery, one of the witnesses being a child of six
years of age ; although he was as sure as he stood there, that, were it not for the
system of rewards, their offence would never have been ranked so high.
" The Bank was known to give a reward of 7/. on the conviction of persons for
passing bad money; and this very circumstance was the cause of a great number of
the convictions which took place for that offence. A great many poor Germans,
Swedes, and Irishmen, who were ignorant of the English language, were entrapped
into the passing of bad coin, by persons whose only object was, tlie getting of the re
ward offered in consequence."
" Mr. Alderman Wood expressed his conviction, (April 21, 1818,) that nine out of
ten ofthe prosecutions for forgery in London, originated with persons who were paid
for exciting others to commit the crime. This he was enabled to sUte, from official
experience and authentic information."
The kidnapping of children for the purpose of converting them into beggars and
thieves, ov of selling them to those who are engaged in the lowest and most disgust
ing callings of civilized life, is of more frequent occurrence in England, than the kid
napping of free negroes in the United States. Cases of child stealing, accompanied
with circumstances of monstrous barbarity, are daily announced in the English

House of Commons, May 4, 1818.

4S0- NOTES. [PART t.
gazettes. I will illustrate the fact and the process, by Some quotations from the Re
port of the Committee ofthe House of Commons, concerning chimney sweepers.
" Children are sometimes sold by their parents to master chimney sweepers, and
oftentimes they are stolen. These children are very liable to cough and inflammation
of the chest, from their being out at all hours, and in all weathers : these are gene
rally increased by the wretchedness of their habitations, as they too frequently have
to sleep in a shed exposed to the changes of the weather, their only bed a soot bag,
and another to cover them, independent of their tattered garments.
" They are very subject to burns, from their being forced up chimneys while on
fire, or soon after they have been on fire, and while overheated ; and, however they
may cry out, their inhuman masters pay not the least attention, but compel them,
too often with horrid imprecations, to proceed. They are sometimes sent up chimneys
on fire. '
" It is in evidence before your committee, that at Hadleigb, Barnet, Uxbridge,
and Windsor, female children have been employed.
"It is also in evidence, that they ure stolen from their parents, and inveigled out
of workhouses ; tiiat, in order to conquer the natural repugnance of the infants to
ascend the narrow and dangerous chimneys, to clean which their labour is required,
blows are used ; that pins are forced into their feet by the boy that follows them up
the chimney, in order to compel them to ascend it ; and that lighted straw has been
applied for that purpose ; that the children are subject to sores and braises, and
wounds and burns on tlieir thighs, knees, and elbows ; and that it will require
many months before the extremities of the elbows and knees become sufficiently
hard to resist the excoriations to which they are at first subject.
" But it is not only the early and hard labour, the spare diet, wretched lodging,
and harsh treatment, which is the lot of these children, but, in general, they are
kept almost entirely destitute of education, and moral or religious instruction ; they
form a sort of class by themselves, and from their work being done early in the day,
they are tui ned into the streets to pass their time in idleness and depravity : thus they
become an easy prey to those whose occupation it is to delude the ignorant and en
trap the unwary ; and if their constitution is strong enough to resist the diseases and
deformities which are the consequences of their trade, and that they should grow so
much in stature as no longer to be useful in it, tliey are cast upon the world at the
age of aliout sixteen, without any means of obtaining a livelihood, with no habits of
industry, or rather, what too frequently happens, with confirmed habits of idleness
and vice."
The strong nerves of the English travellers would not tremble at these things.
It is the kidnapping of the negro that makes their flesh creep, and disturbs their re
pose- So too, they are in transports of philanthropic rage, with the negro driving;
an abominable trade and spectacle, no doubt, but whicli has its counterpart in Eng
land, to be witnessed at all times throughout that land of freedom. "The Eng
lish," says Mr. Southey, (Espriella's Letters, letter 26) " boast of their liberty, but
there is no liberty in England for the poor. They are no longer sold with the soil, it
is true ; but they cannot quit the soil if there be any probability or suspicion that
age. or infirmity may disable them. If, in such a case, they endeavour 'to remove to
some situation where they hope more easily to maintain, themselves, where work is
more plentiful, or provisions cheaper, the overseers are alarmed, the intruder is ap
prehended, as if he were a criminal, and sent back to his own parish. Whenever a
pauper dies, that parish must be at the cost of his funeral : instances therefore, have
not been wanting, qf icretehes in the last stage of disease, having been hurried away
in an open cart, upon straw, and dying upon the road. Nay, even women in the very
pains of labour, have been driven out, and have perished by the way side, because the
birth-place. of the child would be its parish."
I can furnish more recent, though certainly not more authentic testimony. Mr.
Simon, in his " Journal of a Tour jn Great Britain," (1815) speaking of the Poor
Laws, proceeds thus : " Among- the necessary consequences of this system, is a mul
tiplicity of vexatious laws respecting settlements, by which the right of removing at
pleasure, from one part of the country to another, is so abridged, as to attach, in a
gieat degree, the labouring class to the glebe, as the Russian peasant is. Perhaps,

PART I.] NOTES. 481
being bound each to provide for their own poor, it becomes a matter of importance to
prevent new comers from acquiring a settlement by removal to a new parish ; and
the poor are repulsed from one to tlie other like infected persons. They are sent back
from one end of the kingdom to the other, as criminals formerly in France, de brigade
en brigade. You meet on the high road's, I will not say often, but too often, an old
man on foot, with his Uttle bundle, — a helpless widow, pregnant perhaps, and two
or three barefooted children following her, become paupers in a place where they
had not yet acquired a legal right to assistance, and sent away on that account, to
their original place of settlement, in the mean time, by the overseers of the parishes
in the way." (Vol. I. p. 224.)
Mr. Sturges Bourne, in proposing to the House of Commons, (March 25, 1819) his
bill to regulate tbe settlement of the poor, pointed out emphatically, the notorious
practice of " sending back old paupers to their original parish, after they had spent
their youth and labour elsewhere ; tearing them from their friends and neighbours."
He dwelt upon K the extreme hardship upon the paupers, who, having resided many
years, and formed connexions, were sent home to their parishes, and separated from
all their friends and consolations to die in a remote poor-house."*
The American negro may, for aught I know, have much more sensibility than the
English pauper ; but I should, at first view, think the fate of the latter, thus torn
up by the roots, as it were, and transplanted to " a hot bed of vice and wretched
ness," as the poor-house is styled in the Parliamentary Reports, quite as severe and
barbarous, and as disgraceful to the country in which it is undergone, as that of the
" driven" slave. In the history of civilized life, there is nothing more abominable
than the warfare carried on by the parishes in England against the poor. (See the en
suing Note.)

(NOTE X. p. 411.)
I wish the American reader to be able to make an immediate comparison between
the condition, physical and moral, of our negroes, and that of the labounng poor
of England. I will, therefore, place before him a number of paragraphs concerning
the latter, drawn from the Treatise of Colquhoun on Indigence, EsprieUa s Letters,
by Mr. Southey, and the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the
Poor Laws of the year 1817. ' I should premise, that the statements of Colquhoun
and Southey were made in 1806 and 1807, and that a great aggravation of all the
evils of which they complain is admitted, on all hands, to have taken place within
the few years past. COLQUHOUN.
« It has been shown that above one million of individuals (1,234,768) in a country
containing less than nine millions of inhabitants, have descended into a state of in
digence, requiring either total or partial support from the public.
« A very large proportion of this mass of indigence is to be traced to the bad edu
cation, and particularly to the vicious and immoral habits of the inferior ranks ot
the people."

* In 1905, the number of vagrants rmoved vas H9fy>5t
Vot, I.— 3 P

4&2 ,-notes. [parti.
" A prodigious number among the labouring classes cohabit together without mar
riage, and stgain separate when a difference ensues ; and their miserable offspring,
from neglect, are rarely reared to maturity.
"The rnorals ofthe inferior classes of society have been greatly neglected. Vicious
habits, idleness, improvidence, and sottishness, prevail in so great a degree, that until
a right bias shall have been given to the minds of the vulgar, joined to a greater por
tion of intelligence in respect to the economy qf the poor, one million of indigent will
be added to another, requiring permanent or partial relief, producing ultimately such
a gangrene in the body politic as to threaten its total dissolution.
" It will be seen also from late publications, that, after making very large allow
ances, at least 1,750,000 of the population of the country, at an age to be instructed,
grow up to an adult state without any instruction at all, in the grossest ignorance, and
without any useful impression of religion or morality.
" Innocent and culpable vagrancy are confounded together, and the virtuous and
vieions mendicant are subject to the same punishment. Persons wandering abroad-
and begging are by law to be whipped or imprisoned.
" In many places, the workhouses on a small scale wiil be found to be abodes
of misery, which defy all comparison in human wretchedness.
" To innocent indigence, they are all gaols without guilt — punishment without
crime. " A working man may now go where he pleases with his family, and exert his
, labour where it may be most advantageous to him as long as he can avoid asking
parish relief; but if, from sickness, accident, or any affliction, depriving him, even ,
for a short period, of the power of supporting his family, he is compelled to solicit aid
from the parish, he is from that moment in a situation to be legally remoyed, to that
from which he came originally ; and when so removed, he must never again return
to the parish where he was in a situation to gain a subsistence, on pain of being
treated as a rogue and a vagabond."
" The constant interferences respecting settlements have unquestionably given a
most injurious bias to tlie minds of the labouring people. In the various disputes
about who shall afford them an asylum, they have" been led to conceive that exertion
and industry become less necessary, since the parish to which they belong is, under
every circumstance, compelled to maintain them.
" The frequency of these interferences on the part of the parish officers, and the
multitudes who have been carted from place to place, with their children, have tended
in no small degree to generate vagrancy, since they are always unwelcome guests in
the receiving parishes. With characters thus degraded and rendered doubtful and
often without a single relation or acquaintance in the place which has, through the
refinements upon the law, been deemed their settlement, what are they to do i, The
parish officers have. provided no-means of employing them ; and for their labour,. their
only means of subsistence, they can find no purchaser, and yet they dare not return
to the :pdrish where they could be useful, to. themselves and their country."
" In this situation, unable to exist on the scanty pittance afforded by the parish,
and without the means of filling up the chasm by their own industry, their characters ,
assume a new and degawied form, and where not immured in a workhouse, they have-
no resource but to resort to the miserable, alternative of hazarding a more degrading ,
punishment by asking alms, where absolute infirmity does not establish a claim txp:
Sail subsistence.

SOUTHEY.
" Thedvvellirigsof the labouring manufacturers are in narrow streets and lanes,
blocked uptfrom light and air, and crowded together because every inch of land is of
such value , that room for light and air cannot be afforded them . Here, in Manchester,
a great proportion of the poor lodge in cellars, damp and dark, where every kind of
fiWhiy-su'ffiered -to accumulate, because no exertionsot domestic care can everjnake.
such homes decent These placet are so many hot-beds of infection ; and the poor

PART I.J NOTES. 483
in large towns are rarely br never without au infectious fever among them, a plague
of their own, which leaves the habitations of the rich, like a Goshen of cleanliness and
comfort, unvisited.
" When the poor are incapable of contributing any longer to their own support,
they are removed to what is called the workhouse. I cannot express to you the feel
ing of hopelessness and dread with which all the decent poor look to this wretche'd
termination of a life of labour. To this place all vagrants are sent for punishment ; un
married women with child go here to be delivered^ and poor orphans and base-born
children are brought up here till they are of age to be apprenticed off ; the other in
mates are those unhappy people who are utterly helpless, parish idiots and madmen,
tbe blind and the palsied, and the old Who are fairly worn out. It is not in the nature
of things that the superintendants of such institutions as these should be gentle-
hearted, when the superintendance is undertaken merely for the sake ofthe salary.
"To this society of wretchedness the 'labouring' poor of England look as their last
resting, place on this side of the grave, and rather than enter abodes so miserable, they
endure the severest privations as long as it is possible to exist. A feeling of honest
pride makes them shrink from a place where guilt and poverty are confounded ; and
it is heart breaking for those who have reared a family of their own to be subjected,
in their old age, to the harsh and unfeeling authority of persons younger than them
selves, neither better bom nor better bred.
" Perhaps the pain — the positive bodily pain which the poor of Britain endure
from cold, may be esteemed the worst evil of their poverty. Coal is every where
dear except in the neighbourhood of the collieries ; and especially so in London,
where the number of the poor is of course greatest. You see women raking the ashes
in the streets, for the sake of the half-burnt cinders. What a picture does one of their
houses present in the depth of winter ! the old cowering over a few embers — the
Children shivering in rags, pale and livid — all the activity and joyousness natural to
their time of life chilled within them. The numbers who perish from diseases pro
duced by exposure to cold and rain, by unwholesome food, and by the want of enough
even of that, would startle as well as shock you. Of the children of the poor, hardly
one-third are reared.
" To talk of English happiness is like talking of Spartan freedom : the helots are
overlooked. In no country can such riches be acquired by commerce, but it is
the one who grows rich by the labour of the hundred. The hundred human beings
like himself, as wonderfully fashioned by Nature, gifted with the like capacities, and
equally made for immortality, are sacrificed body and soul. Horrible as it must
needs appear, the assertion is true to the very letter. They are deprived in child
hood of all instruction and all enjoyment; of the sports in which childhood in
stinctively indulges ; of fresh air by day and of, natural sleep by night. Their
health physical and moral, is alike destroyed ; they die of diseases induced by unre
mitting task-work, by confinement in the impure atmosphere of crowded rooms, by
the particles of metallic or vegetable dust which they are continually inhaling 5 or
they live to grow up without decency, without comfort, and without hope ; without
morals, without religion, and without shame; and bring forth. slaves Uke themselves
to tread in the same path of misery." -
"Let us leave to England the boast of supplying all Europe -with her wares. The
poor must be kept miserably poor, or such a state of things could not continue ; there
must be laws to regulate their wages, not by the value of their work but by the
pleasure of their masters ; laws to prevent their removal from one place to another
within the kingdom, and to prohibit their emigration out of it
"The e-entryof the land are better lodged, better accommodated, better educated
than their ancestors; the poor man lives in as poor a dwelling as his forefathers,
when they were slaves of the soil, works as hard, is worse fed, and not better taught.
His situation, therefore, is relatively worse."
There is nothing in the foregoing statements which is not fully confirmed in the
. . „ rt Qf tjje select committee of the House of Commons on the Poor Laws.
me KeP° e(J Jul 18i7j makes with the minutes of evidence taken before the
Ihe rep ^ ^ ^^ ^ lgg pages- It unf0ids a state of society extraordinary and
d^orable'beyoad tbe utmost stretch of the imagination, -in reference to a country,

484 NOTES. [PART 1.
wearing, externally, an aspect of the highest general vigour and prosperity.
The passages which I am about to extract, can convey no idea of the impression
left by the whole.
" Your committee cannot but fear, from a reference to the increased numbers
of the poor, and increased and increasing amount of the sums raised for
their relief, that this system of poor laws is perpetually increasing the amount
of misery it was designed to alleviate.
" The result appears to have been highly prejudicial to the moral habits,
and consequent happiness, of a great body of the people, who have been
reduced to the degradation of a dependence upon parochial support."
" In 1803, the sum raised, as poor rates, was, 5,848,205/. in 1815, 7,068,999/.
It is apparent, that both the number of paupers, and the amount of money
levied by assessment, are progressively increasing, while the situation of the
poor appears n»t to have been improved. In practice, the burden has been
imposed almost exclusively on land and houses.''
" Of the cultivator of a small farm, it has been said forcibly and truly, that
' he rises early, and it is late before he can retire to rest ; he works hard and
fares hard ; yet with all his labour and his care, he can scarcely provide
subsistence for his numerous family ; he would feed them better, but the
prodigal must first be fed; he would purchase Warmer cloathing for his chil
dren, but tha children of the prostitute must first be cloathed.' "
" The independent spirit of mind which induced individuals in the labouring
classes to exert themselves fo the utmost, before they submitted to become
paupers, is much impaired ; this order of persons are every day becoming less
and less unwilling to add themselves to the list of paupers."
¦' In the petition from the parish of Wombridge, in Salop, the petitioners
state, ' that the annual value of land, mines, and houses in this parish is not
sufficient to maintain the numerous and increasing poor, even if the same
were to be set free of rent ; and that these circumstances will inevitably
compel the occupiers of lands and mines to relinquish them, and the poor will
be without relief, or any known mode of obtaining it, unless some assistance be
speedily afforded them.' And your committee apprehend, from the petitions
before them, that this is one only of many parishes which are fast approaehing
to a state of dereliction."
" In proportion to the aggregate number of persons who are reduced to
this unfortunate dependence on parish relief, must be not only the increase of
misery to each individual, but also the moral deterioration of the people."
" The casualties of sickness and old age do not constitute the greater pro
portion of the demands upon the poor's rate which have raised it to its present
high amount ; a much greater proportion consists of allowances distributed in
most parts of England to the labouring poor, in addition to their wages, by
reason of the number of their children."
"Not only the labourers who have hitherto maintained themselves are reduced
to seek assistance from the rate, but the smaller capitalists themselves are
gradually reduced, by the burden of the assessments, to take refuge ia the
same resource."
" A practice has long prevailed in agricultural parishes, of sending men,
out of work, to work for the inhabitants of the parish, according to their share
of the rate."
" In 1815, the sums expended in litigation on account of paupers, and in
their removal, amounted to 287,000/. The appeals against orders of removal,
entered at the four last quarter sessions, amounted to 4,700. Great, however,
as the inconvenience confessedly is, of this constant and increasing litigation ,
there are still other effects of the law of settlement, which it is yet more im
portant to correct; such are the frauds so frequently committed by those who
are intrusted to prevent even the probability of a burden being brought on
their parish ; and such are the measures, justifiable undoubtedly in point of
law, which are adopted very generally in many parts of the kingdom, to defeat
the obtaining a settlement ; the most common of these latter practices is that
ef hiring labourers for the less period- than a year ; from whence it naturally

pART I.] NOTES. 485
and necessarily follows, that a labourer, may spend tbe season of his health
and Industry in one parish, and be transferred in the decline of his life to a
distant part of the kingdom.''
Minutes of Evidence — Extracts from the Examinations of different wit
nesses, overseers of the poor, &c.
" What do you consider the capacity for accommodation of the workhouse
in your parish ; what number ought to bo accomodated ? — It will not accom
modate more than 400 well ; there are many of them now three and four in
a bed, and I believe the boys are six ; the master told me so. If the house
was spacious enough, I think I could write in a hundred families to-morrow.''
" Joseph Fletcher, Esq. The poor-house-, you say, is overflowing; what is
the capacity ofthe accommodation in tbat poor-house? — I think the poor-
house never was intended to accommodate more than 180, or 200 the outside,
and we have in it, I believe, 200 or 270, if not more.
" How many sleep in a bed?— -Two or three grown persons ; grown persons
two in all beds, and some three, and some four.
" Have you any means of separating the profligate from those well ordered
and well behaved ? — Not sufficient means ; it is difficult matter to-»ay which
are very bad, and which a little better.
" Joseph Sabine, Esq — You live in Hertfordshire? — Yes. At one time
your poor were farmed? Only those in the workhouse; we now pay our
workhouse man five shillings per head per week ; he maintains the paupers and
has the benefit of their labour.
" From your extensive knowledge of the labouring classes, what do you
suppose has been the cause of the general increase of poor's rates, and the
decrease of happiness among them ? Loosing the feeling of independence
they had, and their indifference about taking relief."
" The Rev. Richard Vernon. — You are rector of the parish of Bush ? Yes.
Is your's purely agricultural parish ? Yes. Would a man with twelve shillings
a week maintain four in a family ? That must be calculated on the price of
bread, or potatoes rather, for they are cheap.
" What are the weekly earnings of your labourers in general? Twelve
shillings they call it. We have many families who do not belong to us, and
we keep them in the parish for fear of what a pauper will swear for to belong to a
parish he likes, he will swear any thing.
" What is your opinion of the workhouses ? That they act two ways, one a
little [good, and a very great evil ; the little good is, that they act as gaols to
terrify people from coming to the parish ; the evil is, that when they are in,
however loath they were to get there, they soon become used to it, and never
get out again.
" You conceive it corrupts the morals of the people ? Completely I believe
it impossible to mix the lower orders of mankind without doing mischief.''
" Should you not think workhouses, which should be considered as hospitals
for the aged, and schools for the young, as beneficial to the individuals, and
economical to the parish ? Certainly not ; as for schools for the young, nothing
can be more shocking, except a gaol; and as for the old, they are more com
fortable a hundred times in private houses with their relations and friends."
" Do you see any disposition in the young persons to help their parents, by
giving them any of their earnings? No; the poor rate prevents that; they
must go to the parish."
"John Bennet, Esq.— In what parish do yon live?— In Tisbury; a large
parish about three miles from Hindon.
" Have you any persons whose wages will not maintain them and their fami
lies, to whom you give relief from the poor rates ? A vast number, I think
three parts out qf four of our labouring population.
" Do you think the morals of the lower classes have been much deteriorated
of late years? — Very much.
" Is the custom altered in your county of hiring tlieir labourers short of the
year ? Ye§, we never hire by the year now j weliire to evade the settlement qf
the labourer, for six, nine month*, &c.

486 NOTES. [PART I.
" I am perfectly convinced the prioe of labour at present, and for the last
three years (7s. a week) has never been repaid to the farmer, including all other
things; the farmer has never received a remuneration for the labour, generally
including poor rates, taxes, and all other things."
" Mr. William Rankin — You reside at Booking ? Yes. You say the amount
of the poor rates during the last year, in your parish, is about 5,000/. Yes.
The rate last year was nearly 18s. in the pound ; this year it is 23s."
" Mr. Thomas Lacoast, of the parish of Chetsey. — Do yon not conceive the
labourers, if they were provided for in the house of a farmer, and, under the
superintendance of a master and mistress, would be more capable of doing
work, and at the same time live cheaper than if they provided for themselves ?
— I certainly think it would be better for the labourers ; I am sure tnat a man
who does not live well cannot do tbe work so well as a man who does. I have
a man who is very honest and works very hard, and I pay him long wages for
doing it, and he has been at my house not less than nineteen hours out of the
twenty-four; and I found he complained that he was not able to do the work,
and I gave him his dinner afterwards every day, and since that he has been able
to do the work."
" Rev. J. W. Cunningham. — You are vicar of Harrow ? Yes. Have you any
communication to make respecting ' Friendly Benefit Societies for the Poor.*
I have had an opportunity of knowing perhaps sixty or seventy Friendly So
cieties, pretty accurately, and the general state of those I have observed is of
this kind; they are all held at public houses; their principle universally is,
either to forfeit one-eighth of the whole savings for the benefit of the public-
house, to spend in beer, or else one-fourth. Among these sixty or seventy, I
do not know a single exception to that case ; they drink for the benefit of the
house, a pot or a pint of beer each person. This morning I was examining into
the case of two, in which there were sixty members ; a member told me there
were very rarely twenty who attended , therefore, in eaeh of those cases they
drank sixty pots, of beer, and of course got to a state in which, if they could, they
would drink sixty more ; and that principle I believe to be almost universal-;
it certainly is in my own neighbourhood ; in a large number of those 'societies
now, I need hardly say, that the demoralizing effects if Beneficiul Societies, under
their present constitution, is perfectly enormous.''

(NOTE Y. p 413.)
The state of religion in America has been at all times a theme of invective
and affected lamentation, in England. As the majority of the American popu
lation was composed, from tbe outset, of dissenters, the established church na
turally found them horribly delinquent in respect to Christianity. We have
English sermons of an early date, particularly one of the celebrated Arch
bishop Seeker, when Bishop of Oxford, delivered in 1740, before the British
Society for the Propagation ofthe Gospel in Foreign Parts, in which New En
gland is represented as being without the knowledge of God, and about to re'-
turn to " entire barbarism.'* His lordship particularly complained that there
were several districts in America of sixty or seventy miles long, having but
one minister to officiate in them. The case was undoubtedly the same in some
parts of England aud Scotland, when the reproof was uttered, and it is so still
in the latter country. We read in the history of the proceedings of the House
of Commons upon the proposition of Mr. Vansittart, (May 18, 1818,) to appro
priate money to tbe building of new churches, what follows.
" Mr. C. Grant said, that he hoped the House would seethe necessity of ex'-
tending tbe benefits of the grant for the erection of new churches to Scotland.
To his own knowledge, theie were several districts jn the northern part of the
kingdom, some of sixty miles in length and twenty in breadth, without a church
sufficient to contain tlie one-twentieth part of tbe population."

PART I.] NOTES. 487
The Quarterly Review has acknowledged, within the last three years, that
the populace of England are " more ignorant of their religious duties than they
are in any other Christian country ;" and that " two-thirds of the lower order
of English are errant and unconverted Pagans. Nevertheless, it holds itself
entitled lo commisserate our unhappy lot, in being without an established church.
We may fairly, therefore, enqnii e by what traits this institution is distinguished
in England, apart from the circumstance of its having left so large a portion of
her population in the darkness of Gentilism.
Before I adduce the extracts which I propose to make from British state
ments, for the illustration of the point, I ought to remind my reader, that the
English hierarchy has an immense revenue; but that those who di-charge the
common parochial duties of the church are miserably provided. In the year
1810, it was proposed by the British ministry to appropriate 100,000/. as a tem
porary relief for the poorerclergy. Some members ofthe Opposition suggested
tbat instead of laying an additional burden on the people, the higher benefices,
and the livings in the gift of the Crown should be taxed in favour of those real
and almost starving labourers in the vineyard of the Gospel. This plan was
contested and rejected. The Report of the Debate in Hansard's volume (xvii-)
furnishes the following matter, part ofthe speech of the Earl of Harrowby (the
mover of the grant.)
" About three-fifths of the livings in England are in lay patronage, and the
advowsons are a part of the estates of the proprietors, bought and sold like other
estates, for a valuable consideration.
" Livings in- private patronage are usually disposed of to the friends, rela
tions, or private connections of the patron.
"The whole number of livings under 150/. a year did not seem to exceed 4000.
" But it had been generally supposed that the poor livings were chiefly con
fined to the parishes in which the population was inconsiderable, and the duty
light ; remote villages, where we wished certainly to give the clergyman a better
income, because it was not fittiug that he should receive less than a day la
bourer, but where his poverty was out of sight, and did not affect the interests
of any considerable portion of the community. If such a supposition had been
entertained, the accounts, now open upon the table, would prove its error. Of
the whole number of livings under 150/. per annum, there were above 600
which (in 1810) had a population of between f>00 and 1000 persons, and near
50O livings, with a population of above 1000. Of these 79 had between 2 and
3000 — 35 between 3 and 4000— 17 between 4 and 5000—10 between 5 and
6000 — and a considerable number much more ; jierhaps the strongest instance
was in the diocese of Chester. In 15 parishes, of which six were in Liverpool,
four in, M-aachester, three in Whitehaven, two in Oldham, one in Warrington,
one in Blackburn, and one in Preston, there was a population of above 208,000
persons. The revenue ofthe church in these three parishes, was 1,315/. amount
ing to about ljd. per annum per souh In Wolverhampton, Coventry, Sunder
land, and Newcastle, there were case.* fully as strong. Taking 492 as the
number of parishes, of which the population exceeded 1000, and the income
did not exceed 150/. per annum (exclusive of Birmingham and Halifax, in which
the population of the different parishes was not distinguished,) these 492 livings
comprehended 1,200,000 persons, and the aggregate revenue of the church was
only 42,046/.
" In stating the whole income ofthe church, in these 492 parishes,, to amount
to only 42J9601. their lordships must be aware, that he had far overstated the
aqtual incomes of those who performed these labours, because half at least of
these.parishes might be supposed to be held by non-resUknt incumbents, who
woulcfof course leave to their Curates only a part of the profits qf their livings. The
number of livings, under 1501. was 3997, and the resident incumbents wer»
1494." " Of incumbents, legally resident, in 11,164 parishes, there were, according to
the bishop's returns in 1807, only 4112. If you added lo these, 152 persons, who
lived in their own or their relatives houses, within the parish, and 176 who
lived near, and did duty, the number of incumbant) legally or virtually resident

488 NOTES. PART I.
would amount to 5040. There were 340 other persons letnrnrd as exempt, on
account of cathedral or college offices, mauy of whom might piobably be
resident part of the year, although they did not fulfil the conditions of legal
residence, and the same observation might apply to many other persons under
different classes of non-residents. The number of 5040 was however, all
that appeared upon the returns ; of these resident incumbents, those who
possessed incomes under 1 501. per annum, were, 1214 : adding those of this
class who might be considered virtually resident, the number would be 1494.
It was, however, too large an allowance to include as virtual residents, all those
who resided near, and did the duty, for many cases must occur in which the
parish saw nothing of its pnstor, except when he performed the service of
church once a week, or once a month, in the course of his morning or evening
ride. Of the remaining 2503 parishesjof which the income was not 1501. a-year,
and where the incumbent neither actually nor virtually resided, the income of
the officiating clergyman could ony be what the incumbent was able to spare
out of his own pittance, or rather, generally, it must be the lowest price at
which it was possible to get the labour performed. The power of the bishop
to raise the salaries of the curates was rarely exerted, and its effect might be
defeated by private agreement between the parties.
" This was therefore the state of the church, as it appeared upon the returns ;
on 11,164 parishes, there were 3856 legally, or actually resident incumbents,
with incomes of 1502. per annum, and 1494 with incomes below that sum. The
remaining 6124 parishes were left (subject to the preceeding observations)
chiefly to the charge of curates. That the non-residence of incumbents existing
to so enormous an extent, was a serious evil, he would not stop to argue ; the
main question was, whether it was an evil which the liberality of parliament,
without a revision ofthe existing laws, respecting non-residence, and pluralties,
could alone remedy.
" The present practice, according to which, the non-resident incumbents of
of livings of 50/., 60., or 70/. a-year, put into their own poekets a portion of this
wretched pittance, and left much lest than the wages of a day labourer for the
subsistence of their curates, appeared to him far from creditable to the parties
concerned, and calculated to degrade the character of tho church. Many
instances came within his own knowledge, in which parishes were served for
20/., or even for 10/. per annum, and in which of course, all they knew of their
clergyman was the sound of his voice, in the reading desk or pulpit, once a
week, or a fortnight, or a month. This mutt also be the case where curates are
permitted to serve more than two churches.
" In the present state of the law, or at least, according to the present mode of
executing it, there was a great difficulty in obtaining permission to erect an
additional place of worship, according to the church of England, withiu the
limits of an existing parish. The inhabitants, therefore, had no choice. They
might prefer the church of England, but that church shut her doors against
them ; they had, therefore, no option, but either to neglect divine worship en
tirely, or to attend it in a form which they did not so well approve.''
After Lord Harrowby had finished his statements,- — of which that part relating
to the non-residence of the reverend usufructaries of no less than six thousand
one hundred and twenty-four livings out of eleven thousand one hundred and
sixty four, is so instructive and extraordinary — the Earl of Stanhope proceeded
in this strain.
_ " However he might in general differ from the noble earl, he had always-
listened to him with a certain degree of satisfaction, because that noble earl
always appeared as contradistinguished to many of his colleagues, to speak
really what he meant.
" In this present speech there was much to approve, and he had only to ob
serve, that if from his lips similar observations had fallen, he would be charged
as the libeller of the church, as tlie enemy of our religious interests, and the
plague knew what.
" He would venture to predict, that, whether you voted six millions, or sixty
millions, whether yon built churches or no churches, whether you calumniated

PART I.] NOTES. 489
Dissenters or otherwise, tbe number of communicants ofthe establishment would
decrease, and that of Dissenters increase, as long as they saw the church of
England made the engine of state policy ; as long as they saw its prelates trans
lated and preferred, not for their religious merits, but their slavish support to
the ministers of the day. For he would ask the noble earl fairly to answer, if
he knew of no preferments in the higher ranks of the clergy conferred upon
such pretensions ? When he saw the bishops, according to the injunctions of
their religion, voting against wars, when he saw them voting for the liberties of
the people, then he would pronounce that the church of England had no reason
to fear."
With the established religion, there exists, strange as it may appear, a vast
deficiency of places of worship, so that a great proportion ofthe British popula
tion, greater, I will venture to assert, than the proportion of our own so situated,
has no access to public worship. I will offer in proof, the statements made the
last year in the House of Commons, on the occasion already mentioned, of a
grant for the erection of new churches.
" The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed, (March 16, 1818) that for more
than a century, the want of accommodation for publie worship had been felt by
the members of the established church as a most serious evil ; and an attempt
had been made so long ago by parliament to remedy it, so far as respected the
metropolis and its immediate vicinity. This attempt, however, though attended
with considerable expense, had been very imperfect in its execution, only eleven
churches having been built out of fifty, which it was proposed to erect. Since that
time no farther steps had been taken by public authority, though the evil had
been perpetually increasing with the growing population of the country. He
had extracted from parliamentary accounts a list of twenty-seven parishes, in
which the deficiency of churches was most enormous. The excess of the
inhabitants beyond the means of accommodation in the churches exceeds
20,000 in each. Of these, sixteen were in or about London, and eleven in great
provincial towns. In three of them the excess in each was above 50,000 souls : —
in four more from 40 to 50,000 ;— in eight from 30 to 40,000 :— and in the
remaining twelve, from 20 to 30,000. In Liverpool, out of 94,376 inhabitants,
21,000 only could be accommodated in the churches, leaving a deficiency of
73.376 ;— in Manchester, of 79,459, only 10,950, leaving 68,509 ; and in Mary-
le-bone, of 75,624, no more than 8700, leaving 66,924 without the means of
accommodation. It thus appeared, that in three parishes only, there were near
210,000 inhabitants who could not obtain access to their churches.
" The Chancellor ofthe Exchequer stated, (March 18, 1818,) that the popula
tion of London and its vicinity, was 1,129,551; of whom the churches and
episcopal chapels can only contain 151,536, leaving an excess of 977,915.
" In the dioceses of York aud Chester, the disproportion of population to the
capacity of churches, was little less than in tbe district of the metropolis. In
the diocese of York there were ninety-six churches, which afford room for
139,163 inhabitants — the whole population amounted to 720,091, so that there
was a deficiency of accommodation for 580,928. In that of Chester, there was
one hundred and sixty-seven parishes, the churches in which would contain
228,696 ; but the actual population was no less than 1,286,702, leaving a de
ficiency of 1,040,006.
" In cases sucb as these, the impossibility in which the far greater part of the
inhabitants were placed, of attendiug divine service even once a day, was,
however, by no means the only evil. There were many other most important
functions of his sacred office, which it was impossible for any clergyman, how
ever zealous and laborious, adequately to discharge towards a population of
40 or 50,000 souls, or even a much smaller number.
With respect to the deficiency in the number of places for public worship,
Lord Selsey remarked, " the fact was too notorious to require explanation. —
Many parts of the kingdom, he lamented to say, were utterly destitute of any
means of acquiring moral instruction."
The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed, on the same occasion on which
we made the statements quoted from him above, that the church of Scotland
Vol. I.— 3 Q

490 NOTES. [PART I.
stood equally in need of assistence. The committee of the church of Scotland
has, in fact, lately represented, that, in that country, there are forty-seven
parishes in need of churches or chapels, and eighty-eiglit other parishes but ill
supplied with religious instruction.
During the discussion, in the House of Commons, of the question of erecting
new places of worship, the following, among many representations of like im
port, were made by members of the highest distinction.
Lord Milton said, " that there was hardly a parish church in the kingdom, in
which great encroachments had not been made, by -persons of wealth, on that
part ofthe church which was the property bf the population ofthe parish."
" Where tithes exist," said Mr. Brougham, " the pastor is seen in the light of
a tax-gatherer. Among the causes of irreligion or lukewarmness, and ecclesias
tical feuds and schisms, he believed none to be so prominent as the disputes
which arose out of tithes.''
" A large proportion," says Sir Charles Monck, " ofthe present endowments of
the chureh are employed in a manner not at all calculated to promote the
interests of religion."
The mere fact of non-residence, that is to say, the total personal dereliction
of their parishes, by so large a proportion of the holders of benefices, ministers
of the Gospel, who had solemnly declared, on entering into holy orders, that
they verily believed themselves moved by the Holy Ghost,— the mere fact
bespeaks a great perversion of character and functions among the clergy of the
established church. It is in a British publication of no inconsiderable note and
authority, the Christian Observer, for Nov. 181 1 , that I find the following details,
which coud not have been hazarded, if not in great part i ndisputably true.
" Christianity forms little or no part in the regular plan of instruction at our
universities. Contrary to our experience in every other profession, candidates
for our ministry are taught every branch of science but that in which they are
to practise. Chapel is not attended till it is half over. Many go lhere iutoxi-
cated, as to a kind of roll call : and though the assumption of the Lord's sup
per is perremptory upon the students, no care is taken to teach them its impor
tance." " So very lax has become the examination for orders, that there is no man,
who has taken a degree at the university, who cannot reckon on ordination as a
certainty, whatever his attainmens in learning, morals, or religion."
" A great proportion of our clergy are a set of men, wrapt up in seculiar pur
suits, with a total indifference to the spiritual duties of their calling. Many of
them seem to consider, that they are appointed to a life of sloth and inactivity,
or merely to feed upon the fat of the land ; and tbat, in return for immense and
growing revenues, they only to gabble through a few formal offices."
"Many of the higher offices of the church are distinguished for learning and
piety, but, for ail this, we may fear that a great proportion of the clergy are the
very reverse of these high examples — and betray an indifference of conduct, and
dissoluteness of manners, which, whilst it is most shameful to them, would not be
borne with in any other state of life."
"A horse race, a fox chase, or a boxing match, is never without its reverend
attendants ; aud the man, who, in the house of God, hurries over tbe offices of
devotion, as beneath his attention, will be seen, the next day, the noisy toast-
master, or songster, of a club. Their professional indolence, but one degree re
moved fron positive misconduct ; their occasional activity, at a county election,
in a cathedral county town. You have the honour of finding yourself, in such
contests, acting in concert with deans, chancellors, archdeacons, pre bendaries,
and minor canons, without number. On such occasions grave, very grave
persons are to be seen, shouting the chorus of some election, ribaldry, whose
zeal, or even common industiy, upon important topics, had never been wit
nessed,'' We are not at a loss for still higher authority on this subject. The late Bishop
Watson, of Landaff, wrote thus in his " Memoirs" recently given to the
world. " It lias been said (I believe by D'Alembert,) that the highest offices in.

PART I.J NOTES. 491
church and state resemble a pyramid whose top is accessible fo only two sorts
of animals, eagles and reptiles. My pinions were not strong enough to pounce?
upon its top, and I scorned by creeping to ascend its summit. Not that a
bishoprick was then, or ever, an object of my ambition ; for I considered the ac
quisition of it as no proof of personal merit, inasmuch as bishopricks are as of ten
given to the flattering dependants, or to the unlearned younger branches of noble
families, as ^to men of the greatest erudition ; and 1 considered the possession of
it as a frequent occasion of personal demerit ; for I saw the generality qf the bi
shops bartering their independence and the dignity qf their order for the chance of a
translation ; and polluting gospel-humility by the pride of prelacy. I used then
to say, and I say so still, render the office of a bishop respectable, by giving
some civil distinction to its possessor, in order that his example may have more
weight with both the laity and the clergy. Annex to each bishopric some por
tion ofthe royal ecclesiastical patronage which is now prostituted by the chancellor
and the minster of the day to the purpose of parliamentary corruption."
In a remarkable work, entitled, " The State of the Established Church, in a
series of Letters to the Right Honourable Spencer Percival," it is said, that the
London clergy afford a faint, though laudable exception to the above general
description. I am not disposed to question the fact, but I lay before the
American reader, that he may judge for himself, the following extract from the
proceedings ofthe British House of Commons, on the 21lh March, 1819.
" Sir James Graham called the attention of the house to the situation of the
clergy of fifty ofthe parishes in the city of London. In thirty out of the fifty
parishes, the petitioners pei formed the duty in person."
" Mr. Harvey said, he was of opinion that the petitioners were endeavouring,
by slow, but sure degrees, to accomplish designs which they dared not unfold
at once, as they knew the rapacity which was their characteristic, would not fail to
cause the house to repel them with indignatiou if those designs were fully
known. The Hon. Baronet had endeavoured to awaken the sympathy ofthe
house for these gentlemen, but he (Mr. Harvey) stated almost all of them tohave
400/. per annum, and some had 600/. or more. Above twenty were pluralist",
and if they had no residences in the city, it was because they were the best cal
culators in it, and preferred letting their houses for the sake of the piofit that
might be thus obtained. Not one of them dared to call on the house to take
his individual case into consideration. The value they themselves attached to
their own labours, might be collected from the sums they paid to tbe curates
who officiated for them, and who received 50/.. 60/., or 70/. per annumfrom those
who were in the yearly receipt of lOOOf. 15001., or 20!j02."
Now what are the character and situation of the episcopal clergy throughout
this country, where the church is divorced from the state ? As a body they are
unimpeachable in all respects ; of the best morals and most regular habits ; in
defatigable in discharging the most solemn of trusts ; ever at the post of duty.
One small part of them is not endowed with princely revenues, while the ma
jority drag on a life of indigence and abjection. The provision for each mem
ber is not ample, but for the most part enough to assure a decent, comfortable,
and independent existence. The same remarks may be extended to our regu
lar clergy of every description, among whom non-residence and pluralities are
unknown, and whose stipend arises directly as it were, from the esteem and
confidence of their parishioners.
The detections lately made in England, respecting the abuse ol the public
charities, with which the established clergy are so largely connected, furnish
additional proof of the state of things implied by the circumstance of" three-
fifths of the livings being in lay patronage, and being usually disposed of to the
private connexions of the patron." The Bill for enquiring into the malversation
ofthe charities, which Mr. Brougham, as the chairman of the education com-
mittee introduced info the House of Commons, was vehemently opposed in the
upper 'house by the prelates, and destroyed through their influence. There are,
it would seem, tive hundred free schools iu England and Wales, all of which
are grossly perverted from their purpose. " It is absolutely necessary," said
Lord Eldon, speaking as chancellor, (C. IS. V. 580,) " that it should be per.

492 NOTES. [PART I.
fectly known that charity estates all over the kingdom are dealt with in a man
ner most grossly improvident, amounting to the most direct breach of trust."
The Report of the committee of Parliament on the education of the lower
orders, (May 1818,) is still stronger on this head. " It appears clearly from the
returns," says the committee, " as well as from other sources, that a very great
deficiency exists in the means of educating the poor, wherever the population is
thin and scattered over the county districts. The efforts of individuals com
bined in societies are almost wholly confined to populous places."
" In the course of their enquiries your committee have incidentally observed
that charitable funds, connected with education, are not alone liable to great
abuses. Equal negligence and malversation appear to have prevailed in all other cha
rities." Mr. Brougham, the chairman of the committee, said (June 3d, 1818,) "that
it had been generally granted, indeed nothing was more manifest to the com
mittee of that house, that abuses prevailed, not alone in the charities connected
with education, butin all other public charities, of what desrciption soever. He
would pledge himself to prove that of all the charities in which abuses exist,
none were greater or grosser than in those where special visitors (to charitable
institutions) were appointed. A variety of causes concurred to produce this
evil. In some instances these visitors resided at a distance, and never exer
cised their powers ; in olhers the visitor was the patron ofthe school, and did not
correct abuses to which his system led ; in others the visitor was the heir at law
ofthe endower, and had rather pocket the funds than apply them to the proper
purpose ; and of course he did not visit his own sins very heavily on his own
head. Indeed he could say positively that the grossest case of abuse that came
before the committee, was of a charity where special visitors havebeen ap
pointed, but who had never attended to their duties for twenty years."
Asa specimen of these abuses, I take tbe following instance related in Mr.
Brougham's admirable pamphlet— The "Letter to Sir Samuel Romilly, le-
specting the Charities."
" The Dean and Chapter of Lincoln have the patronage as well as the super
intendence of Spital charity ; yet they allow the warden, son of their Diocesan, to
enjoy the produce of large estates, devised to him in trust for thepoor of two pa
rishes, as well as of the hospital,v/hiie he only pays a few pounds to four or .five
ofthe latter. The Bishop himself is patron and visitor of Mere, and permits
the warden, bis nephew (for whom he made the vacancy by promotiug his pre
decessor,) to enjoy and underlet a considerable trust estate, paying only 24/.
a year to the poor.' (P. 25.)
" The statutes of Winchester College require, in the most express terms,
that only " the poor and indigent" shall be admitted upon the foundation. They
are, in fact, all children of persons in easy circumstances; many of opulent pa
rents. Boys, when they attain the age of fifteen, solemnly swear that they
have not 31. 6s. a year to spend ; yet as a practical commentary on this oath,
they pay ten guineas a year to the masters, and the average of their expenses
exceed 50/. It is ordered that if any boy comes into the possession of pro
perty to the amount of il. a year, he shall be expelled; and this is construed
66/. 13s. id. regard being had to the diminished value of money, although the
wardens, fellows and scholars all swear to observe the statutes " according
to their plain, literal, and grammatical sense and understanding." The infrac
tions of the original statutes are sought to be justified by the connivance of
successive visitors, and it is alledged that they have even authorized them
by positive orders (injunctions). But the statutes appointing the visitor,
expressly prohibit him from altering them in any manner or way directly
or indirectly, and declare all acts in contravention of them absolutely null.
I must add, that notwithstanding the disregard shown to some statutes and
some oaths, there was a strong disposition manifested in the members of the
college to respect those which they imagined bound them to keep their founda-
tion and their concerns secret."* * P. 51, 2. ~~

PART I.J NOTES. 493
In his speech of May 1818, on this subject, Mr. Brougham stated," that the
whole income actually received by charities of all descriptions, might be be
tween 7 or 800,000/.; but the sum which ought to be received by charities was
nearer two millions sterling than fifteen hundred thousand;" and his account of
the formation of this immense fund, so infamously plundered and dilapidated,
is not a little remarkable.
" It is impossible,'' said the orator, " for me to close these remarks without
expressing the extraordinary gratification which I feel, in observing how
amply the poor of this country have in all ages been endowed by the pious
munificence of individuals. It is with unspeakable delight that I contem
plate the rich gifts that have been bestowed — the honest zeal displayed by
private persons for the benefit of their fellow creatures. When we inquire
from whence proceeded those magnificent endowments, we generally find
that it is not from the pubUc policy, nor the bounty of those who in their day
possessing princely revenues, were anxious to devote a portion of them for
the benefit of mankind — not from those, who having amassed vast fortunes
by public employment, were desirous to repay in charity a little of what they
had thus levied upon the state. It is far more frequently some obscure
personage — some tradesman of humble birth, who, grateful for the education
which had enabled him to acquire his wealth through honest industry, turned
a portion of it from the claims of nearer connexions ta enable other helpless
creatures in circumstauces like his own, to meet the struggles he himself had
undergone." The guardianship of what the honest tradesman had thus nobly appro
priated, fell in a great measure to the established church as such, and the con
sequence is the -waste of nearly two-thirds by embezzlement and neglect !
It is incredible what opposition was made both in and out of parliament to
the idea of a parliamentary commission for enquiring into charities having
special " visitors, governors and overseers !" " Almost every considerable
charity," says Mr. Brougham, " is subject to special visitation. We (the
education committee) were severely reproved for pushing our inquiries into
establishments destined it was said for the education ot the upper classes,
while our instructions confined us to schools for the lower orders. Unfor
tunately, we no sooner looked into any of these institutions, than we found
that this objection to our jurisdiction rested upon the very abuses, which
we were investigating, and not upon the real nature of the foundation. For
as often as we examined any establishment, the production of the charter or
statutes proved that it was originally destined for the education of the
poor.* The alarms conceived by the members and friends ofthe church at the
prospect of a thorough investigation, and their strenuous, and in part success
ful, efforts to avert that calamity, are strikingly contrasted, as they are related
by Mr. Brougham in bis pamphlet, with the fact announced in the following
statement. " The Chancellor of the Exchequer said (House of Commons, June 3d,
1818,) that the bill (on the subject of the charitable institution enquiry)
exempted the schools of Quakers, and yet he was authorized to say from that
respectable body of men, that they had not only no objection to the examina
tion of their few charitable schools, but that they should rejoice at finding them
made the subject of Parliamentary inquiry.''
The advantage of an established church, as regards the cause of Christians,
if not imaginary, would be shewn, at least in the greater morality and de
corum ofthe lives of its professors and constitutional supporters. If it failed
to make real Christians and exemplary citizens of its immediate allies, its
superior influence in this respect with the mass of a nation might well be ques
tioned. We have seen how the case stands as to the Episcopal clergy, in
England. Now what is it as to the royal family, the peers, and gentry ? Have
the princes set a Christian example ? In the scandalous debate of the House
* Letter to Sir Samuel Romilly, p. 481.

494 NOTES. [part I.
of Commons (April 13th, 1818,) respecting the marriage Of the royal family,
Lord Castlereagh remarked, that " of the seven sons of his Majesty, not one,
although the youngest was forty-five years of age, bad any lawful issue' To
excite some of the members of the royal family to marriage was now an object
of consequence. The Prince Regent, sensible of this, had made offers to such
of his royal brothers as could reconcile marriage to their feelings."
The open concubinage in which they have lived, without being pro
scribed by tbe established church, is sufficiently notorious. On the sub
ject of these misogamists, I need only repeat the phrase of Mr. Wilber
force, uttered in the House of Commons on the day after the debate just
mentioned. " As to the allusion made to the character of the- princes, he agreed
that we had no right to enter into the discussion of any man's private cha
racter. But yet it was impossible to suppress what we saw, and felt, and
thought.'' To what class of persons belong those flagrant cases of adultery with which
the English newspapers are filled? To the nobility and gentry, the hereditary
pillars of the establishment. Who give the grand dinner parties and concerts,
which distinguish the Sabbath in London ? Who make a gala-day of it in the
Park, and in fact take the lead iri its desecration ? How is it spent by the high
officers of state, the cabinet-ministers, &c?
The spirit of toleration is not, indeed, the distinguishing trait in the history
of the Christian world, but this spirit is, doubtless, one ofthe ends of Chris
tianity. How far it has been displayed and cultivated by the established
church of England, is seen from the contents of a preceding note (V). I will
make the case somewhat more plain by a few additional facts stated upon Par
liamentary authority. Theie are very near one hundred and fifty acts on the
British statute-book, relative to test oaths, of supremacy, allegiance, abjuration,
&c. (Mr. Croker, May 3d, 1819, House of Commons.) Catholic emancipation
has been now agitated in Parliament since forty years. (Mr. Grattan, May 3d,
1819.) The principal teents of the Catholic religion — transubstantiation, the
sacrifice ofthe mass, the invocation of saints, are still declared idolatrous on the
British statute-book. Thus, near five millions of the inhabitants ofthe British
Isles, are held and stigmatized by law as idolaters. Earl Grey in the House of
Lords, (May 17th, 1819,) and General Thornton in the House of Commons,
(May 7th, 1818,) moved to expunge from the British code, this insult and injus
tice to so large a portion of his Majesty's subjects ; but they could make no
impression upon the majority of Parliament. The Earl of Donoughmore, in
supporting the Catholic petition, in the House of Peers, in 1818, related the
following anecdote :
The Earl of Donoughmore said, " a circumstance had happened in the metro
polis itself, which he would state. It was a toast given in a large society of gen
tlemen, and which is resorted to by none, but persons who, in point of situation
and prosperity, are entitled to that denomination. But what was this toast? it
was so nauseous and disgusting, that it was with difficulty that he could prevail
upon himself to pollute their Lordships House by the mere repetition of it.
" The Pope in the pillory, the pillory in hell — pelted with priests by the
devil !"
" But this was not a mean drunken folly ;— it was tbe sober malignity of the
bigot which the unguarded sincei ity of beastly debauch had indiscreetly brought
into open day. And all this took place in the metropolis, as he had already
stated, which was the station of a Parliament, and is still the residence ofthe
king's representative."
Thus, in whatever point of view we look at the established church in Eng
land, we do not find it accomplishing any thing for Christianity beyond what is
effected elsewhere under a different system. It has not produced a better
clergy ; nor a more moral gentry ; nor a more educated and christianized peo
ple ; it has left a great part ofthe nation without instruction ; without temples
of worship ; it has tended to degrade the clerical character by the intrigue and
competition to which its large livings have given rise; and by the abject

PART I.J NOTES. 495
poverty and disparity of rank to which those of its professors not so fortunate
as to gain the prizes in the lottery, have been condemned. It may be au excel
lent engine of state ; but, as our civil institutions, with which we are perfectly
content, do not stand in need of such aid, we cheerfully leave the honor and
profit of it to England.

(NOTE Z. p. 424.)
In addition to the facts respecting the condition and character of the British
population and institutions, which I have scattered through the preceding
notes ; I will present the reader, here, with a miscellany of a similar purport,
vouched by Parliamentary and other unquestionable evidence. It cannot be
thought harsh, if, too, I subjoin a few extracts from British newspapers and
journals, in the manner of the English travellers and critics, when they treat of
our affairs. The Quarterly Review lays great stress upon scraps picked out of
American gazettes, as illustrations ofthe state and morals of the whole Ameri
can people. Nee lex ulla sequior est, &c.
HOSPITALS, PRISONS, IMPRISONMENTS, &g.
In 1814, says the Parliamentary Report on the Police of the Metropolis,
ninety-eight boys under sixteen were committed to Newgate; four of them of
nine.years, eight of them of ten years, and twelve of them of eleven years of
age. In 1815, ninety-eight boys under sixteen were committed ; and in 1816,
146 of the same age were committed. In 1816, there were committed 1683
persons under twenty, of these 1281 were of seventeen and under, and 957 of
these of seventeen years of age and under, were committed for felonies. From
the 25th of August, 1814, to October, 1816, 200 boys had been in custody. Of
these, twenty-three had been in custody fbr the first offence ; one aged sixteen
had been forty times in custody, and another had been eighty times in custody ;
and 170 of them had been from three to four times in custody, for different
offences. Of these 200 there were convicted 141; 26 of them capitally, the
youngest of these was nine and a half years old ; 42 were transported, the
yon n "est of them was eleven; and 73 were imprisoned for different terms.
Of these 200 two-thirds were under fourteen, and down to eight years of age.
The remainder one-third were from fourteen to seventeen years of age. Of
these 2Q0 miserable beiugs, two-thirds could neither read nor write.
" On the subject of transportation^ appeared, that since 1812, 4659 persons
had been transported to Botany Bay, of whom 3978 were males, and 681
females. Of these, 1116 were under twenty-one; of whom, 5 were of eleven
years ; 7 of twelve years ; 17 of thirteen years; 32. of fourteen years; and 65
of fifteen years of age, Of these 4659 persons, 2055 were transported for life,
726 for fourteen years, and 1916 for seven years. Of 2038 who were on board
the hulks in 1815, there were 111 under twenty years of age, amongst whom
one was of eleven, two of twelve, and four of fourteen years of age. The num
ber of boys of seventeen and under, confined in Newgate, in 1817, was 359,
and in 1818, of persons under twenty:one years of age, six hundred, including
males and females,"
" On the first day of January, 1817, there we e on board the different hulks,
two thousand and forty-one prisoners ; from which time to the first of January,

496 notes. [part i.
1818, two thousand three hundred and sixty-four were received on board from
the different gaols ; one thousand seven hundred and ninety have actually been
transported to New South Wales, (being an excess of tbe preceding year of
seven hundred and eighty-two prisoners) forty-five have died ; and four huu-
dred and thirty-seven have been discharged, or removed to other places of con
finement ; leaving on board the respective ships on the first of January, 1818,
two thousand one hundred and thirty-two prisoners." (Official Report to Lord
Sidmouth.) The third Report on the Prisons ofthe Metropolis, states, that through three
of the prisons " there passed in 1819, 10,371 persons, all of whom must have
gone away more corrupt than they came.''
In the Report on Mendicity and Vagrancy, of the House of Commons, it is
stated, that in one half of the cases of those who beg, beggary is the effect of
real distress.
The number of street mendicants in London,- was returned at 15,288, of
whom 9218 were children.
Mr. Bennet said, June 5, 1818," the House of Commons was probably not
aware, that, from the year 1816 to 1818, no less than 3600 had been sent to
Botany Bay ; and that from the year 1798, it had cost the country no less than
four millions to defray the expense of transportation.''
In the three first months ofthe year 1818 — 118 persons were tried for forgery
of Bank of England Notes — the expenses for which were 19,982/. 5*. 6d.
Lord Castlereagh (March 1, 1819,) admitted, that it appeared by the returns,
that within the last three or four years, crime had increased to an alarming ex
tent, almost in the proportion of two to one ; and comparing the commitments of
the last year with those ten years ago, in some classes of crime they were in the
ratio of nearly three to one. Such a view was in some respects appalling.
The punishment of death, certainly had increased in frequency in these king
doms. At the close of the year 1805, the number of capital convictions was
3£0, and at the termination of the last year 1250."
Alderman Wood observed, (March 1, 1819,) " the great increase of crimes
was to be ascribed to the promiscuous congregation of prisoners left without
employment. He had, by virtue of an authority from Lord Sidmouth, visited
all the goals in the country, and was convinced that it would take six or seven
years to make an efficient parliamentary inquiry."
Mr. W. Wynne, (March 11, 1819,) " He was shocked to find, and every man
of humanity would shudder at the idea, that the lunatic seldom or ever obtained
his release."
Mr. Bennet, (May 20,1818,) presented the Report ofthe Committee ap-
pointed-to inquire into the state of Fever in the metropolis. In moving that
the report be printed, the honorable member said, "the medical institutions of
t his city were very defective. In all the Hospitals it was the practice to mix cases
of contagious fevers with common instances of indisposition, and the conse
quence was, that not only patients, but nurses and medical persons fell victims
to this want of arrangement. And such was the deficiency of supply of assis
tance for tbe sick and diseased poor, that at the principal hospitals four out of
five cases were weekly refused." The committee recommend these circumstances,
and the evidence contained in the Report, to the consideration of his majesty's
ministers. The Marquis of Lansdowne said, (June 26, 1819.) "Their lordships on
enquiry would find that deaths had occurred in lunatic establishments, and
that it had been impossible for the magistrates after the strictest investigations,
to discover in what manner the unfortunate beings had been disposed of.
These facts offered strong grounds for their lordships adopting some
system of regulation ; but another powerful reason in favour of the bill was
the situation of pauper lunatics. These unfortunate persons were left too
much at the mercy of parish officers. Let their lordships read the evidence of
a noble lord, a member of the other House of Parliament, he meant lord R.
Seymour, and they would be convinced of the necessity of a remedy for

part i.J notes. 497
the great abuses in the management of the insane poor. They were often kept
in the workhouses till they became furious, and there were instances of their
being bled until they became, from weakness, more manageable."
" An official return, printed by order of the House of Commons, presents in
one view an accurate representation of the state of crimes made capital by
the law, in the several years, from the year 1805 to the year 1818, inclusive.
From this it appears, that the total number of persons convicted of burglary in
said interval, was 1874, of whom, 199 were executed ; of larceny in dwelling
houses to the value of 40s. 1119, of whom 17 were executed; of forgery
501, of whom 207 were executed ; horse stealing 852, of whom 35 were
executed ; house breaking in the day time, and larceny, 761, of whom 17 were
executed ; of murder 229, of whom 202 were executed ; robbery on the per
son, the highway, and other places, 848, of whom ll8 were executed; sheep
stealing 896, of whom 43 were executed ; making, with various other offences
of a capital nature within said interval a gross total of convicted, 8430, of
whom 1035 were executed." (Bell's Weekly Messenger, March 29, 1819.)
Sir James Macintosh said, (March 3, 1819.) " The greatest change pro
duced by the revolution of 1688, was what might be termed the establishment
of parliamentary government. (Hear, hear.) Yet it bad been attended with
one important inconvenience — the unhappy facility afforded to legislation ; the
case with which every member of Parliament could indulge his whims and
caprices ; the little difficulty he found in obtaining measures to augment the
number of capital felonies. [Hear.'] An anecdote, confirmatory of this state
ment, was told by Mr. Burke, in the early part of his public career. He was
about to leave the bouse, when he was detained by a gentleman who wished
him to remain. Mr. Burke pleaded urgent business; and the reply of the in
dividual who held him Was, that the subject on which the house was engaged
would very soon be dismissed, as it was only upon the subject of a capital
feloriy, without benefit of clergy. [Laughter.'] Mr. Burke had afterwards
stated, that he had no doubt tha!t he could, without difficulty, have obtained the
assent of the house to any bill he brought in for capital punishment."
" Mr. BesHjet observed, (June 26, 1816,) that the abuse of the system of
solitary confinement had exceeded anything that could havebeen imagined,
For the crime of vagrancy a person had been subject to this terrible punish
ment for thirteen months, one for seven months, and one for four months."
" Among the cases mentioned in the return was that of a man who had been
kept in solitary confinement three months, for destroying a pheasant's egg!
That was to say the miserable being who fell under the sentence was kept
twenty-three hours out of twenty-four within four small walls, without any
kind of employment, either entirely open to the air, or quite excluded from
light; and the crime for which this punishment was inflicted was the breaking
of a pheasant's egg."
" Mr. Western said, (April 2, 1819,) that in looking at the returns already
prepared for the years 1817 and 1818, it would appear that there were two
.thousand persons in each year, against whom either no bills were found, or
¦tvho were not prosecuted, and two thousaud six hundred who were acquitted.
In the period which elapsed between July and the Lent assizes, many persons
had been confined; who had remained in prison perhaps fourteen or fifteen
months, before they had been tried— an enormous evil."
" Mr. M. A. Taylor asked, (May 26, 1818,) did the house consider it fit and
proper that this state of things should continue ; that in four counties there
should be but one assize in a year; and that prisoners should, notwithstanding
all the exertions of magistrates, in disposing of minor offences, lie for so many
months in confinement, before they were brought to trial. A man taken up
on suspicion, and sent to the county gaol, must in such a case be ruined, bow -
ever innocent of the crime imputed to him. AVe might boast as much as we
pleased of our superior laws, and practice of administering them, but there
was no countiy in Europe where so monstrous a Refect existed in tbe judiciary
system— a defect equally injurious to individuals and disgraceful to the .cha
racter of justice. A case of manslaughter had recently occurred, in which tin*
Vol. I.— 3 R

498 notes. [part i.
prisoner was acquitted, after lying eleven months in confinement ; the whole
punishment annexed by law to the conviction of that offence being but twelve
month's imprisonment. One man he had known indicted for stealing a game
cock, who was closely confined for nine months ; and when he was at length
brought to trial, there was not a shadow of evidence to prove his guilt."
" Mr. W. Smith said, (May 26, 1818,) that he had been informed by the town
clerk of Norwich, that instances had occured of persons being confined nine or
ten months previously to their trial; and a navy surgeon had been confined for
twelve months, and then acquitted. By so long an imprisonment, individuals
sometimes suffered more than they would have done, if convicted, from the
sentence of the law."
" Mr. Bennet said, (May 6, 1817,) that last year there was a wretched indi
vidual in the Fleet, who had been confined there, under an order of the court
of chancery, for contempt of court, for no less a time than thirty-one years.
The Jname of that man was Thomos Williams. He had visited him in his
wretched house of bondage, where he found him sinking under all the miseries
that can afflict humanity ; and on the following day he died. There werejat this
moment within the walls of the same prison, besides the petitioner, a woman
who had been in confinement twenty-eight years, and two others who had been
there seventeen years."
" It was worthy Of remark that eight hundred persons were committed to
Clerkenwell prison, in one year, chiefly for assaults."
" The following is an authentic list of persons who, in October, 1817, were
confined in the Fleet prison alone, for contempt qf court, no other charges being
alledged againsr. them : viz. Hannah Baker, confined twenty-seven years ;
Charles Bulmer, eighteen" years ; Ann] Britner, ten years ; Richard Bell, five
years; Matthew "Bland, five years; Jeremiah Board, three years; Elizabeth
Dawson, seven years ; David William, six years ; Mary Tinch, three years ;
Samuel Mansell, four years ; John Melson, three years ; George Picked, fifteen
years ; Thomas Pale, three years ; Peter Rigby, four years ; I. Scribner, eight
years ; John Watts, four years ; John Somax, seven years ; William Smith,
eighteen years.
" Mr. Bennet said, (March 28, 1817,) that the situation of the prisons in
Dublin was miserable in the extreme, and certainly it could not be too much
lamented that any human beings should be confined in them."
" Mr. Peele entirely coincided in the opinion of the honourable gentleman,
as to the miserable state of the prisons in Ireland, and should be happy to find
that any measures could be taken, which would lead to the amelioration of the
condition of the wretched inmates."
" The Marquis of Lansdowne said, (June 3, 1818,) from the information con
tained in the report of the House of Commons on the state of the prisons of the
kingdom, it appeared that, in the course of ten years, such had been the progress
of crimes, that they had increased [to three times their former amount. It was
not improbable that, out of the number annually consigned to the prisons,
thirteen thousand were permitted to return to society, either by being acquitted,
or after having undergone the sentence of imprisonment. In what a state of
degradation must they, under their present system, return to the duties, or, he
"was afraid, rather to the vices of civilized men."
" Mr. Buxton said, that from parliamentary documents it could be seen, that
it was ten to one that an offender was not taken, fifty to one that he was not
prosecuted, a hundred to one that he was not convicted, and more than a thou
sand to one that he was not executed."
"Alderman Wood rose (House of Commons, March 12,1819). He said, that'the
petition which he had to present did not complain of the heavy burdens which
the lord mayor and corporation had to bear, in supporting the various persons
confined in the different prisons of the metropolis, but of the crowded state of
the gaols at the present moment. They were so full, that it was totally impos
sible to attempt any reformation in their inmates, byjdassifying them, accord
ing to the crimes of which they had been guilty. Newgate was filled to reple-
tioh with criminals, under different sentences; there were now in it

PART I.J NOTES.
forty-seven individuals condemned to death, besides sixteen individuals for
lesser offences, who had been sent there by the magistates from the Clerken well
sessions. Of these sixteen he was sorry to observe that fifteen were for abomi
nable and infamous offences, and that from want of space they had all been
placed in one room. This was au evil which ought, by all means, to be re
medied. There was another, also, which he wished to press upon the atten
tion of the house. There was no accommodation, in any of the prisons, for
state prisoners ; and he thought it rather hard that an individual of respectable
rank and character should be compelled to herd with common felons, as he
now was obliged to do, if committed by that house. Latterly, Newgate had
been so crowded, that in the fifteen condemned cells they had been obliged to
place the forty-seven men now under sentence of death, thus giving a propor
tion of more than three inmates to each cell; which was much greater than
it ought to be."
" Men who see their lives respected and thought of value by others, come to
respect that gift of God themselves. Before he sat down, he begged leave to
say a few words on a public spectacle,. which bad been made at Newgate, of a
Wretched man, who, being accused of murder, had destroyed himself. It was
stated in the newspapers of that day, that the mangled aud bloody corps
bad been exhibited in an elevated situation, with a small gallows erected over it
to which was appened the fatal instrument of destruction. Such a horrid ex
position, he was pursuaded, was calculated to produce the most mischievous
consequences on fthe men, women and children by whom it was beheld." (Sir
Samuel Romilly, ib. Feb. 25, 1818.)
" Mr. Buxton said, (March 3, 1819 ) with respect to the effect which an
execution was supposed ta haye upon the minds of the criminals, he could
assure the house that it was next to nothing; and if any gentleman would
expose his feelings- to the pain of seeing one of these dreadful exhibitions, the
truth of his assertion would immediately appear.
" He believed there was not a single instance of an execution having taken
place, (without some robbery being committed at the same time, under the
gallows. Indeed, it had been admitted by one of the light-fingered gang, that
an execution was their harvest, as, while people's eyes were open above, their
pockets were loose below."
" There was a fact within his recollection, which, if possible, would place
the matter in a stronger light. A man was executed in this metropolis for sell
ing forged bank notes : his body was given over to his family, and it was taken
home. The first feeling would be that of compassion towards his afflicted
children, and a disconsolate widow; but the house would be shocked to hear
that this unhappy family and mourning friends were actually seized by the
police officers, in the act of selling forged notes, over the dead body. It was
evident, therefore, that something ought to be done."
" From the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Police
of the Metropolis, it appears that many thousands of boys are daily engaged in
the commission of crime : that in one prison only (Clerkenwell), where young
and old are all mixed indiscriminately together, three hundred and ninety-nine
boys, under twenty, were confieud for felonies in -the last year; of whom was
one of nine, two were of ten, seven of eleven, fourteen of twelve, and thirty-
two of thirteen years of age !
" Nor is it possible to pass over, in this inquiry, the dreadful state of our in
fant population, and the alarming increase of juvenile delinquency. To no cause
whatever can this be attributed to with so much certainty as to the depraved
and hardened disposition ofthe parents, the result of that habit of intoxication,
which induces them either to abandon their offspring altogether, or, in order to
supply the cravings of their depraved appetites, to incite them to, and instruct
them in, every species of theft and depredation. The .extent to which this has
been carried, not only in the metropolis, but in Some of the principal towns in
the kingdom, would be as incredible as it is disgraceful, were it not, from its
almost daily exposure in our judicial proceedings."
Roscoe's Observations on Penal Jurisprudence, 1819.

500 NOTES. (PART I.
COURTS OF LAW AND CHANCERY.

[Mr. Brougham, June 3d, 1818.] A number of the objections which had
been made to the bill (for a committee to enquire into the education of the poor)
were grounded on the confidence which those who made them reposed in courts
of law, as affording the means of correcting abuses. He confessed that he him
self had not any reliance on courts of law in that respect, especially with refe
rence to expedition and cheapness. He allowed those courts the possession of
learning without stint. He allowed them great copiousness, great power of
di awing out written argument. The faculty of caring nothing for the time and
patience of suitors, and the hundreds of thousands of their clients' money they
enjoyed in a perfection which the wildest sallies of imagination could not go
beyond. But as to expedition and cheapness, and attention to the comfort of
those who were involved in the business of those courts, they were qualities by
Which they were certainly not distinguished.
Notwithstanding all the good qualities on the part of the noble and learned
ford (Chancellor,) it was his (Mr. Brougham's) duty to say,that there was some
thing in the court of chancery that set at defiance all calculations of cost and
time, and rendered the celebrated irony of Swift, when he made Gulliver tell
the worthy Hynynhmn, his master, (what he says, his honour found it hard to
conceive,) that his father had been wholly ruined by the misfortune of having
gained a chancery suit, with full costs, not only not an exaggeration, but a
strictly correct description of the fact.
Sir John Newport stated (June 2d, 1818,) " To show the enormous nature of
the fees in the Court of Chancery, he might mention that in one case, the fees
for docketing, enrolling, exemplifying, and registering a decree, amounted to
upwards of 800/.
The Marquis of Lansdowne observed (March 6th, 1818,) " That no source of
revenue operated to produce greater mischief to the poorer classes, than the
stamps on law proceedings. The expense they occasioned was an obstacle to .
the attainment of justice.
" As to the present measure, he continued, it went merely to relieve unfor
tunate poor persons from paying the fees on pardons, which amounted on each
to about 60/., and therefore it could operate in a very slight degree towards the
reduction of the revenue."
" The bill of the solicitor of the excise, in the prosecution of Weaver, for the
offence of selling a certain drug to a brewer, amounted to nearly 250/. In this
case, there were five counsel employed for the Crown, and the penalty ulti
mately recovered from the delinquent was 206/."
The following return has been laid before the House of Commons, of the
amount of property locked up in the Court of Chancery in England, viz. in
1796, upwards of fourteen millions of pounds sterling; in 1806, upwards of
twenty-one millions : in 1816, upwards of thirty-one millions; in 1818, upwards
of thirty-three millions.
Mr. Hume i March, 1814,) begged to call the attention of the House of Com
mons particularly to the police in India. Persons were frequently taken up,
and months elapsed before any information was exhibited against them. In the
interval, they were confined in crowded and unhealthy prisons, where death
not unfrequeutly overtook them, or after enduring the aggravated misery of
imprisonment, nothing whatever appeared against them, and they were
liberated. The whole system of police at Bengal was conducted by a set of
spies, who where generally composed of bands of robbers ; these, when once
discharged, were^let loose to ravage the surrounding country. By a minute
of the Bengal government, dated the 24th of November, 1810, it appeared
that the profession of a spy, in India, took its rise upon the order issued in
J792, for the encouragement of head money. Every police-office had its
regular and organized set of spies, who shared the reward or head money with

PART I.J NOTES. 501
the chief of the decoits (a species of robbers.) Much had been said by an
honourable member (sir W. Burroughs) as to the economy observed in the
appointment of legal men in India, affecting the administration of justice. So
far from there being anything like economy in this respect; the whole of
Europe, put together, was at less expense for war officers than India alone —
(Hear.) The whole revenue of India was estimated at 11,000,000/,; the
charges of the law altogether were no less than 1,785,000/. sterling, above one-
eleventh of that revenue.

BANKRUPTCY.
" In Scotland,'' (said Lord Archibald Hamilton, 1818,) " the burgh of Aber
deen had been declared bankrupt for 230,000/. sterling, attended with exten
sive ruin. It had dissolved in its rottenness."
" Sir William Curtis Jremarked, (Feb. 24th, 1818,) that rich men can go to
the King's-bench prison, and drink their burgundy. They first rob their
neighbours and then get whitewashed."
" Up to the 1st of March, 1817, (said Mr. Waithman, Feb. 12th, 1819,) 9000
persons were discharged under the debtors' insolvent act, whose united debts
amounted to nine millions sterling ; whilst the property which they had given
up to their creditors would not, on the average, pay a dividend of one half a
farthing in the pound."
" Sir $. Romilly observed, that every man conversant with the bankrupt
laws must know, that not a year passed without the occurence of a great num
ber of fraudulent bankruptcies." (lb. Feb. 25th, 1816.)
Mr. Lockart rose (Feb. 17th, 1817,) according to notice, to move for tbe
introduction of a bill to amend the bankrupt laws.
The evil of which he complained was the multiplication of fraudulent bank
ruptcies to an extent which threatened the most frightful consequences to the
commerce and morals of the country.
By late returns to Parliament it appears, that the aggregate number of
insolvent debtors discharged since the last return in 1815, up to 1st of
February, 1819, was 13,291 ; the amount of their debts 9,506,837/. 16*. 11§</.;
and the amount of dividends but sixty thousand pounds.
" Every one who heard him," said Mr. Buxton, (House of Commons, March
3d, 1819,) " certainly must know how many fraudulent circumstances were
connected wilh almost all the bankruptcies that now take place ; and after a more
careful examination, it had been declared, on the .highest authority, that of
the bankruptcies which occurred, by far the greater number were of a frau
dulent description."

FINANCIAL MATTERS.
Mr. Baring said, (1817,) " there could be no doubt, notwithstanding the
delicacy which had been professed on the subject of touching the sinking fund,
that to all practical purposes, it was completely swept away.'"
Mr. Ricardo (June 10, 1819,) had already opposed the grant of three
millions towards a sinking fund, because he did not wish to place such a
fund at the mercy of ministers, who would take it whenever they
thought urgent necessity required it. He did not mean to say that it
would be better with one set of ministers than another, for he looked upon'itT"
that all ministers would be anxious, on cases of what they conceived emergency,
to appropriate it to the public use. He thought, therefore, the whole thing a
delusion upon the public, and on that account .he would never support a tax to
maintain it.

302 NOTES. [PART I.
The evil of the national debt ought to be met. It was an evil which almost any
sacrifice would not be too great to get rid of. It destroyed the equilibrium of prices,
occasioned many persons to emigrate to other countries, in order to avoid the burden
of taxation which it. entailed, and hung like a millstone round the exertion and in
dustry of the country. He, therefore, never would give a vote in support of any tax
which went to contiuue a sinking fund ; for if that fund were to amount to eight mil
lions, ministers would on any emergency give the same account of it as they did at
present. The delusion of it was seen long ago by all those who were acquainted with
the subject; aud it would have been but fair and sound policy to have exposed
it long ago.
Mr. Brougham said (June 8, 1819) " How stood the circumstances with respect to
this fund? In 1786, it amounted to one million, and an addition of 200,000/. was
made soon after. In 1792, it was increased by so much of each loan, as gave assu
rance that at the end of 45 years such loan would be expunged by the gradual opera
tion of the sinking fund. This pledge continued to 1 802, when new arrangements
were made by Lord Sidmouth, that did not much postpone the term of payment. The
operation of 1813, was to accelerate the liquidation of the debt, towards the close of
the period pledged for that purpose, and the fund was then reduced to 15,000,000/.
instead of 21,000,000/. to which it had accumulated. The fundholder was then told
that repayment would go on at an accelerated rate from a certain term, aud now came
the plan by which all this was bid adieu to, and the sinking fund reduced to 5,000,000/.
Did not this place the public credit on a different footing ? and was it not, to all in
tents and purposes, a breach of faith?
" Lord Holland stated, in a speech sometime since, that the royal family of En
gland, that is to say, the maintenance of the mere state of the crown, cost the country
one million two hundred thousand pounds .' or nearly one-fourth of the whole assessed
taxes ofthe kingdom." (Bell's Weekly Messenger, May 18, 1819.)
" Mr. Tierney stated, (April 5, 1818,) that his majesty's privy purse amounted to
sixty thousand pounds. A privy purse of sixty thousand pounds, in the present state
of his majesty ! [Hear, hear.] Out of this sum he admitted that the allowance to the
physicians had to be paid ; but on the most liberal allowance to them, this would not
amount to eighteen thousand pounds a year. There was also received out of the
dutchy of Lancaster ten thousand pounds. So that here was seventy thousand
pounds that her majesty had, without there being a necessity of rendering an account
for any part of it. With the deduction of an allowance to the physicians, and a few
pensions, this was a fund for accumulation for somebody. Her majesty's establish
ment amounted to one hundred thousand pounds a year. These two sums together
made one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. But besides this, her majesty was
allowed for her Windsor establishment fifty-eight thousand pounds, and an additional
allowance of one thousand pounds a year for what was called travelling expenses ;
and the allowance for the two princesses was twenty-six thousand pounds, making
the total of the Windsor establishments amount to no less a sum than two hundred
and sixty-four thousand pounds per annum." [Hear, hear /]
" Mr. Brougham considered, (1817,) that the amount of the pension list in 1809, a
year when the four and a half per cent, fell extremely short, was two hundred and
twenty thousand pounds. Upon that list were to be found the names of those who
had rendered no service ; persons who belonged to families not "more distinquished for
their antiquity and rank than for their wealth and splendour, and whose only title to
their pensions, he presumed, was their invariable support of the ministers of the
crown, whoever those ministers might be."
" The sinecure vacated by the death of the Earl of Buckinghamshire had been
worse than useless ; it had served as a screen to the most shocking abuses, and the
most abominable frauds." (Lord Lansdowne, May, 1816).
" Sir H. Pamell said, (July 13, 1819,) in stating the increase ofthe civil list, it
ought to have been stated to have increased from 900,000/. to 1,330,000/."
" Mr. Calcraft expressed his obligations to the honourable baronet for bringing
forward his resolutions, and trusted that he would not be deterred from future inqui
ries by the criticisms which every man who talked of economy was exposed to, from
the bench opposite him. The main resolutions had not been grappled with by the

PART I.] NOTES. 503
right honourable gentleman, (Mr. Long,) that the revenue was collected -at the enor
mous expense of 5,500,000/. Had he shown that it was collected at less ? This was
the key to the popularity and consequence of the present administration. So long as
tliey had these 5,500,000/. to distribute, so long would they hear, from those who
received it, of their popularity."
« The credit ofthe custom house tables," said Mr. Brougham, in his speech of June
16, 1812, "would be but small, after the account of them which appears in evidence.
But the evidence sufficiently explains on which side of the scale the error is likely to
lie. There is, it would seem, a fellow feeling between the gentlemen at the custom
house, and their honoured masters at the board of trade ; so that when the latter wish
to make blazing statements of national prosperity, the former are ready to find the fact.
The managing clerk of one of the greatest mercantile houses in the city, tells you that
he has known packages entered at 500/. which were not worth 50/. — that those sums
are entered at random, and cannot be at all relied upon. Other witnesses particularly
from Liverpool, confirm the same fact ; aud I know, as does my right hon. friend, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was present, that the head of the same respectable
house, a few days ago mentioned at an official conference with him, an instance of his
own clerks being desired, at the custom house, to make a double entry of an article
for export. After such facts as these, I say it is in vain to talk of custom house re
turns, even if they were contradicted in no respect by other evidence."
The consumers of tea, said Mr. Ellice, (June 18, 1819,) paid not only 3,500,000/. to
government, but 2,000,000/. to the monopoly ofthe East India Company.
Civil Contingencies Bill. — March 19, 1819.— 3191/. for expense of furnitiire for one
room in the Royal Yatcht. — 13,800/. expenses of grand Duke Nicholas. — 22,500/. for
snuff-boxes to foreignministers. — 10,397/. for fees and presents to German Barons, &c.
Mr. Tierney said, (1819,) that the amount of pensions for England and Scotland, in
dependently of those' founded on parliamentary grants, was 250,000/.

LOOSE EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISH JOURNALS.
« After the bodies of the criminals, Chennel and Chalcraft, had been cut down, they
were received into the waggon, which conveyed them to the place of execution, and
extended on the elevated stage which had been constructed in the vehicle. The pro
cession of officers, constables, &c. was then re-formed, and the remains ofthe murder
ers were conveyed in slow and awful silence through the town of Godalming, until
tliey arrived at the house of the late Mr.Chennel. Here the procession halted, and
the bodies of Chennel and Chalcraft were removed from the waggon into the kitchen
ofthe house, one of them being placed on the very spot where the housekeeper, Eliza ¦
beth Wilson, was found murdered. After this the surgeon proceeded to perform the
first offices of dissection, and the bodies, in this state, were left to the gaze ef thou
sands, who, throughout the day, eagerly rushed in to view them. (Bell's Weekly
Messenger, 1818.)
" The country assizes," said the London Courier of April 4, 1817, " now just ter
minated, have presented a list of criminals quite unparalleled for magnitude in the
history of this country. At no former period have they amounted to more than a
fourth or a third part of their present number. Fromfifteen to fifty capital convictions
have taken place in almost every county. At Lancaster Assizes forty-six persons re
ceived sentence of death. In October last, it was proved in a court of law, tbat a club
of conspirators, (Halters,) at Manchester, perjured themselves by wholesale, to the
amount of one hundred and thirty at a time ; and now it is just proved that a knot of
assassins can be as easily hired in England as in Italy. Three hundred of Messrs.
Bodin's workmen, at Loughborough, having conspired against their employers about
wages, subscribed a fund, and hired, at five pounds each man, a squad of assassins
well skilled in the art of house burning, and murder, who destroyed their master's
premises in revenge."
Revolt in Winchester College.— « We are hajpy to state, that tranquillity has been

504 NOTES. [PART I.
restored at Winchester College, tbat the business of the school has been resumed with
order, and that the young gentlemen have since shown perfect resignation to the will
of their able teachers. About ten of the gentlemen commoners have been allowed to
resign. There were only six, (out of 230,) who did not join in the revolt, the two se
nior and four other college prefects. (Bell's Weekly Messenger, May 18, 1818.)
We are happy to announce that prosecutions have been brought against a number
of grocers for the manufacture and sale of a pernicious substitute for tea, composed
of the leaves of the black and whitethorn, boiled, dried on copperplates, and coloured
with logwood, verdigrease, and Dutch pink. The facts were proved at great length,
and verdicts found in the Court of Exchequer, on Saturday, against no fewer than
ten dealers in the metropolis, for this fraud. Several of them submitted to convic
tion without resistance, and thus the important fact is established, that this deleterious
mixture is imposed on the fair trader.
There are other articles of human consumption, equally exposed to similar frauds.
Porter and ale, it has frequently been proved, have been mixed with drugs of the
most pernicious quality. Port wine, as it is called, and especially that sold at very
low prices, it is known, has been manufactured from sloe juice, British brandy,
and logwood. Gin, in order that it may have the grip, or have the appearance of
being particularly strong,' is known to be adulterated with a decoction of long pepper
or a small quantity of aquafortis. Bread, from common convictions, is known to
have been made of a mixture of flour, ground stone, chalk, and pulverized bones.
Milk to have been adulterated with whitening and water. Sugar to have been mixed
with sand. Pepper with fuller's earth and other earths. Mustard with cheap pun
gent seeds. Tobacco with various common British herbs. There is scarce an article
of ordinary consumption, which is not rendered destructive by the infamous and
fradulent practices of interested persons. (Bell's Weekly Messenger, May 13, 1818.)
"The practice of adulterating flour with bones becomes more common. The price
of pulverized bones, has accordingly, advanced within these few years from ten pence
abushel, to eighteen pence to the first purchasers. The collection of bones, is, in fact,
pursued as a regular trade in the metropolis. Fine pulverized clay is also mixed with
the prime necessary of life. (Literary Panorama, July 19, 1819.)
" The contraband trade of Great Britain is estimated at about "fifteen millions
sterling a year, by which the revenue is annually defrauded of about two millions."
" December 1, 1818. Lord Ranelagh indicted, convicted, and fined fifty pounds
for extorting money (for the use of his servants) from three young men who took
shelter on his grounds onthe banks ofthe Thames in a thunder storm." _
" Dec. 3, 1818. A British naval officer connected with the dock yard at Chatham,
is condemned (at St. Omer's) to five years labour in chains for uttering forged bank of
England notes in the neighbourhood of St. Omer, Dunkirk and Calais."
" Feb. 26, 1819* Bartholomew Broughtbri, an officer in His Majesty's navy, was
brought before Mr. Alderman: Cox, as sitting alderman, charged with felony in
stealing' bank notes and other property at the White Horse, Fetter Lahe, and the
Swan- with two necks, Lad Lane, where be had at different times slept."
"Old Bailey, 26th Feb. 1819. Edward Lawrence Colman, late purser in His
Majesty's navy, was convicted on an indictment for embezzling his employer's money
— Messrs. Lewis and Company, Oxenden street."
« March 18, 1S19. A naval court martial was held a few days ago on board His
Majesty's ship Northumberland, at Chatham, for the trial of Capt W.E. Wright, of
fh€ rtavyt for smuggling1. Be was convicted ahd sentenced to bi dismissed the
service." (The foregoing cases, it will' be observed, occurred within a few months of each
other. They are collected by a casual reader, and are probably not all, of the same
nature, that took place during tbe same time.)
" June, 1819. The Eart of Morton having lately occasion to call on Mr- George
Monctfeff, rtiattager of the Union Canal Company in Edinburgh, gave' him the lie.
At boxing match ensued, and blue eyes and bloody nOs"es were" the' results on both
sides. Lord Morton was high commissioner Of tbe general assembly which sat only
a few -Weeks1 ago;
" Dec. 1818. It is a fact that Chief Justice Abbot, (the Lord. Chief' Justice of

PART I.] NOTES. 305
England) lately threatened to adjourn the court of King's Bench, because tallow
candles had been produced, instead of wax lights."
" It is also a fact, that the late Justice Gould; when on the circuit, once threatened
to remove the Essex Assizes from Chelmsford to Colchester, because no good small heer
could be found in the former town."
" In a debate which took place in the House of Commons, April 2, 1819, on the
circumstances attending the arrest of General Gourgaud, Sir George Cockburn threw
out an accusation, whilst speaking in his place, against Gourgaud, by relating what
he heard from him at St. Helena, in the hasty and unguarded moments qf private
conversation. " The general," said Sir George COckburn, " stated to me that he had
great reason to complain of that scoundrel Bertrand, for so these persons were in the
habit of speaking of each other."

FINIS.

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