The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume I Part 38
The answer of the a.s.sembly was very courteous, but equally decided with that of the Council. They congratulated his Excellency on his safe arrival, and declared that they "honoured him in the most exalted station of the province, and confided in him to make the known Const.i.tution and Charter the rule of his administration;" they "deprecated the removal of the Court to Salem," but expressed a hope that "the true state of the province, and the character of his Majesty's subjects in it, their loyalty to their Sovereign and their affection for the parent country,[337] as well as their invincible attachment to their just rights and liberties, would be laid before his Majesty, and that he would be the happy instrument of removing his Majesty's displeasure, and restoring harmony, which had been long interrupted by the artifices of interested and designing men."
The House of Representatives, after much private consultation among its leading members, proceeded with closed doors to the consideration and adoption, by a majority of 92 to 12, of resolutions declaring the necessity of a general meeting of all the colonies in Congress, "in order to consult together upon the present state of the colonies, and the miseries to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of certain Acts of Parliament respecting America; and to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures to be by them recommended to all the colonies for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently to be desired by all good men." They elected five gentlemen to represent Ma.s.sachusetts to the proposed Congress.
The House also proceeded with all expedition to draw up a declaration of their sentiments, to be published as a rule for the conduct of the people of Ma.s.sachusetts. "This declaration," says Dr. Andrews, "contained a repet.i.tion of grievances; the necessity they were now under of struggling against lawless power; the disregard of their pet.i.tions, though founded on the clearest and most equitable reasons; the evident intention of Great Britain to destroy the Const.i.tution transmitted to them from their ancestors, and to erect upon its ruins a system of absolute sway, incompatible with their disposition and subversive of the rights they had uninterruptedly enjoyed during the s.p.a.ce of more than a century and a half. Impelled by these motives, they thought it their duty to advise the inhabitants of Ma.s.sachusetts to throw every obstruction in their power in the way of such evil designs, and recommended as one of the most effectual, a total disuse of all importations from Great Britain until an entire redress had been obtained of every grievance.
"Notwithstanding the secrecy with which this business was carried on,"
continues Dr. Andrews, "the Governor was apprized of it; and on the very day it was completed, and the report of it made to the House (and adopted), he dissolved the a.s.sembly, which was the last that was held in that colony agreeably to the tenor of the Charter."[338]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 325: "The discontents and disorders continue to prevail in a greater or less degree through all the old colonies on the continent.
The same spirit pervades the whole. Even those colonies which depended most upon the mother country for the consumption of their productions entered into similar a.s.sociations with the others; and nothing was to be heard of but resolutions for the encouragement of their own manufactures, the consumption of home products, the discouragement of foreign articles, and the retrenchment of all superfluities." (English Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., p. 45.)]
[Footnote 326: Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. II., pp. 185, 186. These three Bills were followed by a fourth, legalizing the quartering of the troops on the inhabitants in the town of Boston.]
[Footnote 327: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VI., Chap.
lii, pp. 503-510. Mr. Bancroft says:
"The next day letters arrived from America, manifesting no change in the conduct of the colonies. Calumny, with its hundred tongues, exaggerated the turbulence of the people, and invented wild tales of violence. It was said at the palace, and the King believed, that there was in Boston a regular committee for tarring and feathering; and that they were next, to use the King's expression, 'to pitch and feather' Governor Hutchinson himself. The press was also employed to rouse the national pride, till the zeal of the English people for maintaining English supremacy became equal to the pa.s.sions of the Ministry. Even the merchants and manufacturers were made to believe that their command of the American market depended on the enforcement of the British claim of authority."--_Ib._, p. 511.]
[Footnote 328: Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., pp. 62, 63. "At the first introduction, the Bill was received with very general applause.
The cry raised against the Americans, partly the natural effect of their own acts, and partly of the operations of Government, was so strong as nearly to overbear the most resolute and determined in the opposition.
Several of those who had been the most sanguine favourers of the colonies now condemned their behaviour and applauded the measure as not only just but lenient (even Colonel Barre). He said: 'After having weighed the n.o.ble lord's proposition well, I cannot help giving it my hearty and determined approval.' Others, indeed (as Dowdeswill and Edmund Burke), stood firmly by their old ground. They contented themselves, in that stage of the business, with deprecating the Bill; predicting the most fatal consequences from it, and lamenting the spirit of the House, which drove on or was driving on to the most violent measures, by the mischiefs produced by injudicious counsels; one seeming to render the other necessary. They declared that they would enter little into a debate which they saw would be fruitless, and only spoke to clear themselves from having any share in such fatal proceedings."--_Ib._, pp. 164, 165.]
[Footnote 329: Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., p. 65, which adds: "This vote of rejection was heavily censured. The opposition cried out at the inconsistency of the House, who but a few days ago received a pet.i.tion from this very man, in this very character; and now, only because they chose to exert their power in acts of injustice and contradiction, totally refuse to receive anything from him, as not duly qualified. But what, they a.s.serted, made this conduct the more unnecessary and outrageous was, that at that time the House of Lords were actually hearing Mr. Bollan on his pet.i.tion, as a person duly qualified, at their bar. 'Thus,' said they, 'this House is at once in contradiction to the other and to itself.' As to the reasons given against his qualifications, they are equally applicable to all American agents; none of whom are appointed as the Minister now requires they should be, and thus this House cuts off communication between them and the colonies whom they are a.s.sisting by their acts."]
[Footnote 330: Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., pp. 65, 66.]
[Footnote 331: _Ib._, p. 67.
The Bill underwent a more full and fair discussion in the House of Lords than in the House of Commons. The amiable Lord Dartmouth, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, "a man that prayed," desired lenient measures, called what pa.s.sed in Boston "commotion," not open "rebellion." But Lord Mansfield said, "What pa.s.sed in Boston is the last overt act of high treason, proceeding from our own lenity and want of foresight. It is, however, the luckiest event that could befall this country, for all may now be recovered. Compensation to the East India Company I regard as no object of the Bill. The sword is drawn, and you must throw away the scabbard. Pa.s.s this Act, and you will be past the Rubicon. The Americans will then know that we shall not temporize any longer; if it pa.s.ses with a tolerable unanimity, Boston will submit, and all will end in victory without carnage." The Marquis of Rockingham and the Duke of Richmond warmly opposed the measure, as did Lords Camden and Shelburne, the latter of whom proved the tranquil and loyal condition in which he had left the colonies on giving up their administration.]
[Footnote 332: Colonial History, Vol. I., Chap. iv., p. 379.
"The inhabitants of Boston, distinguished for politeness and hospitality no less than for industry and opulence, were sentenced, on the short notice of twenty days, to a deprivation of the means of subsistence. The rents of landholders ceased, or were greatly diminished. The immense property in stores and wharves was rendered in a great measure useless.
Labourers and artificers, and many others employed in the numerous occupations created by an extensive trade, shared the general calamity.
Those of the people who depended on a regular income, and those who earned their subsistence by daily labour, were equally deprived of the means of support. Animated, however, by the spirit of freedom, they endured their privations with inflexible fort.i.tude. Their sufferings were soon mitigated by the sympathy and relieved by the charity of the other colonists. Contributions were everywhere raised for their relief.
Corporate bodies, town meetings, and provincial conventions sent them letters and addresses applauding their conduct and exhorting them to perseverance. The inhabitants of Marblehead (which was to be the seaport instead of Boston) generously offered the Boston merchants the use of their harbour, wharves, warehouses, and their personal attendance, on the lading or unlading of their goods, free of all expense. The inhabitants of Salem (the newly appointed capital) concluded an address to Governor Gage in a manner that reflected great honour on their virtue and patriotism. 'By shutting up the port of Boston,' they said, 'some imagine that the course of trade might be turned hither, and to our benefit; but nature, in the formation of our harbour, forbids our becoming rivals in commerce with that convenient mart; and were it otherwise, we must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity, could we indulge one thought to seize on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruins of our suffering neighbours.'"
(Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. II., pp. 187, 188.)]
[Footnote 333: History of the United States, Vol. VI., Chap. lii., pp.
525, 526.]
[Footnote 334: Marshall's Colonial History, Chap. xiv., p. 405.
"As soon as the Act was received, the Boston Committee of Correspondence, by the hand of Joseph Warren, invited eight neighbouring towns to a conference 'on the critical state of public affairs.' On the 12th, at noon, Metcalf Bowler, the Speaker of the a.s.sembly of Rhode Island, came before them with the cheering news that, in answer to a recent circular letter from the body over which he presided, all the thirteen Governments were pledged to union. Punctually at the hour of three in the afternoon of that day, the committees from the eight villages joined them in Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, where for ten years the freemen of the town had debated the great question of justifiable resistance. Placing Samuel Adams at their head, and guided by a report prepared by Joseph Warren of Boston, Gardener of Cambridge, and others, they agreed unanimously on the injustice and cruelty of the Act by which Parliament, without competent jurisdiction, and contrary as well to natural right as to the laws of all civilized states, had, without a hearing, set apart, accused, tried and condemmed the town of Boston." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol.
VII., Chap, i., pp. 35, 36.)]
[Footnote 335: History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap, x., pp.
38, 39.
Referring to General Gage's arrival at Boston, as Commander-in-Chief of the continent as well as successor to Hutchinson as Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, Mr. Bancroft says:
"On the 17th of May, Gage, who had remained four days with Hutchinson at Castle William, landed at Long Wharf amidst salutes from ships and batteries. Received by the Council and civil officers, he was escorted by the Boston cadets, under Hanc.o.c.k, to the State House, where the Council presented a loyal address, and his commission was proclaimed with three volleys of musketry and as many cheers. He then partook of a public dinner in Faneuil Hall. A hope still lingered that relief might come through his intercession. But Gage was neither fit to reconcile nor to subdue. By his mild temper and love of society, he gained the good-will of his boon companions, and escaped personal enmities; but in earnest business he inspired neither confidence nor fear. Though his disposition was far from being malignant, he was so poor in spirit and so weak of will, so dull in his perceptions and so unsettled in his opinions, that he was sure to follow the worst advice, and vacillate between smooth words of concession and merciless severity. He had promised the King that with four regiments he would play the lion, and troops beyond his requisition were hourly expected. His instructions enjoined upon him the seizure and condign punishment of Samuel Adams, Hanc.o.c.k, Joseph Warren, and other leading patriots; but he stood in such dread of them that he never so much as attempted their arrest."--_Ib._, pp. 37, 38.]
[Footnote 336: But before the prorogation, which took place the 28th of May, the a.s.sembly desired the Governor to appoint the 1st day of June as a day of fasting and prayer; but he refused, a.s.signing as a reason, in a letter to Lord Dartmouth, that "the request was only to give an opportunity for sedition to flow from the pulpit."]
[Footnote 337: "The people of Ma.s.sachusetts were almost exclusively of English origin. Beyond any other colony they loved the land of their ancestors; but their fond attachment made them only the more sensitive to its tyranny. To subject them to taxation without their consent was robbing them of their birthright; they scorned the British Parliament as a 'Junta of the servants of the Crown rather than the representatives of England.' Not disguising to themselves their danger, but confident of victory, they were resolved to stand together as brothers for a life of liberty." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap. i., p. 38).]
[Footnote 338: History of the War with America, France and Spain, and Holland, commencing in 1775, and ending in 1783. By John Andrews, LL.D., in four volumes, with Maps and Charts. London: Published by his Majesty's Royal Licence and Authority, 1788. Vol. I., pp. 137, 138.
A more minute and graphic account of the close of this session of the Ma.s.sachusetts Court or Legislature is as follows:
"On the appointed day the doors were closed and the subject was broached; but before any action could be taken in the premises, a loyalist member obtained leave of absence and immediately dispatched a messenger to Gage, to inform him of what was pa.s.sing. The Governor, in great haste, sent the Secretary to dissolve the Court. Finding the door locked, he knocked for admission, but was answered, that 'The House was upon very important business, which when they had finished, they would let him in.' Failing to obtain an entrance, he stood upon the steps and read the proclamation in the hearing of several members and others, and after reading it in the Council Chamber, returned. The House took no notice of this message, but proceeded with their business; and, by a vote of 117 to 12, having determined that a Committee should be appointed to meet, as soon as may be, the Committees that are or shall be appointed by the several colonies on this continent to consult together upon the present state of the colonies, James Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine were selected for that purpose, and funds were provided for defraying their expenses."
(Barry's History of Ma.s.sachusetts, Second Period, Chap. xiv., pp. 484, 485.)]
CHAPTER XIX.
1774, UNTIL THE MEETING OF THE FIRST GENERAL CONGRESS IN SEPTEMBER.
The responses to the appeals of Boston and the proposals of the a.s.sembly of Ma.s.sachusetts, for a meeting of Congress of all the colonies, were prompt and general and sympathetic beyond what had been antic.i.p.ated; and in some colonies the expressions of approval and offers of co-operation and a.s.sistance preceded any knowledge of what was doing, or had been done, in Ma.s.sachusetts.
In Virginia the House of Burgesses were in session when the news arrived from England announcing the pa.s.sing by the British Parliament of the Boston Port Bill; and on the 26th of May the House resolved that the 1st of June, the day on which that Bill was to go into effect, should be set apart by the members as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, "devoutly to implore the Divine interposition for averting the heavy calamities which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of a civil war, and to give them one heart and one mind to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights." On the publication of this resolution, the Governor (the Earl of Dunmore) dissolved the House. But the members, before separating, entered into an a.s.sociation and signed an agreement, to the number of 87, in which, among other things, they declared "that an attack made on one of their sister colonies, to compel submission to arbitrary taxes, was an attack made on all British America, and threatened ruin to the civil rights of all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be applied in prevention."
They therefore recommended to their Committee of Correspondence to communicate with the several Committees of the other provinces, on the expediency of appointing deputies from the different colonies, to meet annually in Congress, and to deliberate on the common interests of America. This measure had already been proposed in town meetings, both in New York and Boston. The colonies, from New Hampshire to South Carolina inclusive, adopted this measure; and where the Legislatures were not in session, elections were made by the people.[339]
While there was a general agreement of sentiment throughout the colonies in favour of a Congress or Convention of all the colonies to consult on common rights and interests, and to devise the best means of securing them, there was also a corresponding sympathy and liberality for the relief of the inhabitants of Boston, who were considered as suffering for the maintenance of rights sacred to the liberties of all the colonies, as all had resisted successfully the landing of the tea, the badge of their enslavement, though all had not been driven by the Governor, as in the case of Ma.s.sachusetts, to destroy it in order to prevent its being landed. Yet even this had been done to some extent both in South Carolina and New York.
The town of Boston became an object of interest, and its inhabitants subjects of sympathy throughout the colonies of America. All the histories of those times agree "that as soon as the true character of the Boston Port Act became known in America, every colony, every city, every village, and, as it were, the inmates of every farm-house, felt it as a wound of their affections. The towns of Ma.s.sachusetts abounded in kind offices. The colonies vied with each other in liberality. The record kept at Boston shows that 'the patriotic and generous people' of South Carolina were the first to minister to the sufferers, sending early in June two hundred barrels of rice, and promising eight hundred more. At Wilmington, North Carolina, the sum of two thousand pounds currency was raised in a few days; the women of the place gave liberally. Throughout all New England the towns sent rye, flour, peas, cattle, sheep, oil, fish; whatever the land or hook and line could furnish, and sometimes gifts of money. The French inhabitants of Quebec, joining with those of English origin, shipped a thousand and forty bushels of wheat. Delaware was so much in earnest that it devised plans for sending relief annually. All Maryland and all Virginia were contributing liberally and cheerfully, being resolved that the men of Boston, who were deprived of their daily labour, should not lose their daily bread, nor be compelled to change their residence for want. In Fairfax county, Washington presided at a spirited meeting, and headed a subscription paper with his own gift of fifty pounds. A special chronicle could hardly enumerate all the generous deeds. Cheered by the universal sympathy, the inhabitants of Boston 'were determined to hold out and appeal to the justice of the colonies and of the world;'
trusting in G.o.d that 'these things should be overruled for the establishment of liberty, virtue and happiness in America.'"[340]
It is worthy of inquiry, as to how information could be so rapidly circulated throughout colonies spa.r.s.ely settled over a territory larger than that of Europe, and expressions of sentiment and feeling elicited from their remotest settlements? For, as Dr. Ramsay says, "in the three first months which followed the shutting up of the port of Boston, the inhabitants of the colonies, in hundreds of small circles as well as in their Provincial a.s.semblies and Congresses, expressed their abhorrence of the late proceedings of the British Parliament against Ma.s.sachusetts; their concurrence in the proposed measure of appointing deputies for a _General_ Congress; and their willingness to do and suffer whatever should be judged conducive to the establishment of their liberties."[341] "In order to understand," says the same author, "the mode by which this flame was spread with such rapidity over so great an extent of country, it is necessary to observe that the several colonies were divided into counties, and these again subdivided into districts, distinguished by the names of towns, townships, precincts, hundreds, or parishes. In New England, the subdivisions which are called towns were, by law, bodies corporate; had their regular meetings, and might be occasionally convened by their officers. The advantages derived from these meetings, by uniting the whole body of the people in the measures taken to oppose the Stamp Act, induced other provinces to follow the example. Accordingly, under the a.s.sociation which was formed to oppose the Revenue Act of 1767, Committees were established, not only in the capital of every province, but in most of the subordinate districts.
Great Britain, without designing it, had, by her two preceding attempts at American revenue, taught her colonies not only the advantage but the means of union. The system of Committees which prevailed in 1765, and also in 1767, was revived in 1774. By them there was a quick transmission of intelligence from the capital towns through the subordinate districts to the whole body of the people; a union of counsels and measures was effected, among widely disseminated inhabitants."[342]
It will be observed that the three Acts pa.s.sed by Parliament in respect to Ma.s.sachusetts, and the fourth, for quartering soldiers in towns, changed the Charter of the province, and multiplied the causes of difference between Great Britain and the colonies. To the causes of dissatisfaction in the colonies arising from the taxing of them a.s.sumed by Parliament (now only threepence a pound on tea), the arrangement with the East India Company and the Courts of Admiralty, depriving the colonists of the right of trial by jury, were now added the Boston Port Bill, the Regulating Act, the Act which essentially changed the chartered Const.i.tution of Ma.s.sachusetts, and the Act which transferred Government officers accused of murder, to be removed to England. Mr.
Bancroft justly observes that "the Regulating Act complicated the question between America and Great Britain. The country, under the advice of Pennsylvania, might have indemnified the East India Company, might have obtained by importunity the repeal of the tax on tea, or might have borne the duty, as it had borne that on wine; but Parliament, after ten years of premeditation, had exercised the power to abrogate the laws and to change the Charter of a province without its consent; and on this arose the conflict of the American Revolution."[343]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 339: Marshall's History of the American Colonies, Chap. xiv., pp. 406, 407.
"Resolutions were pa.s.sed in every colony in which Legislatures were convened, or delegates a.s.sembled in Convention, manifesting different degrees of resentment, but concurring in the same great principles. All declared that the cause of Boston was the cause of British America; that the late Acts respecting that devoted town were tyrannical and unconst.i.tutional; that the opposition to this unministerial system of oppression ought to be universally and perseveringly maintained; that all intercourse with the parent country ought to be suspended, and domestic manufactures encouraged; and that a General Congress should be formed for the purpose of uniting and guiding the Councils and directing the efforts of North America.