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HBo-L^ P!

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

JOHN FISKE
in two VOLUMES
VOL. L

^^^^^S

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^p«life^^

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pfBitemafBwg;

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
1897

Copyright, 1891,
Bt JOHN FISKffi
AU rights reserved.

THIKTEENTH THOUSAND.

C%z.\\^s

]

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. , U. S. A.
EUectrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Ga

To
MRS. MAEY HEMENWAY
IN BBCOGNITION OF THE KAKE FOKESIGHT AND PUBLIC SPIBIT
WHICH SAVED FEOM DESTKUCTION ONE OF THE NOBLEST
HISTOBIC BUILDINGS IN AMEBICA, AND MADE IT A
CENTBE FOE THE TEACHING OF AMEKICAN
HISTOEY AND THE PEINCIPLES OF
GOOD CITIZENSHIP
2 DEDICATE THIS BOOK

PREFACE.

In the course of my work as assistant librarian
of Harvard University, about seventeen years ago,
I had occasion to overhaul what we used to call the
" American Eoom," and to superintend or revise
the cataloguing of some thousands of titles of vol
umes and pamphlets relating to America. In the
course of this work my attention was called more
and more to sundry problems and speculations
connected with the transplantation of European
communities to American soil, their development
under the new conditions, and the effect of all this
upon the general progress of civilization. The
study of aboriginal America itself presented many
other interesting problems. In 1879, 1881, and
1882, I gave courses of lectures at the Old South
Meeting-House in Boston, in aid of the fund for
the preservation of that venerable building, and in
pursuance of Mrs. Hemenway's scheme for making
it a place for the teaching of American history.
As to the success of that scheme we may now
speak with some satisfaction. The preservation of

VI PREFACE.
the noble old church may be regarded as assured ;
the courses of instruction there given in American
history and cognate subjects are attended by thou
sands, old and young, especially by school-teachers
and their pupils ; and similar courses of study
have already been inaugurated in several other
cities and towns. It is believed that the good
results of this work will be manifold.
As regards my lectures, just mentioned, they
dealt chiefly with the discovery and colonization of
America, and contained sundry generalizations
since embodied in " American Political Ideas "
and in the first chapter of " The Beginnings of
New England." Some further generalizations of
a similar sort will be worked out in my forthcom
ing book — now in press — " The Discovery of
America." While busy in this work, the plan occurred to
me in 1881 of writing a narrative history of the
United States, neither too long to be manageable
nor too brief to be interesting, something that
might comprise the whole story from 1492 to (say)
1865 within four octavos, like the book of my
lamented friend, the late John Richard Green.
Plans of this sort, to be properly carried out, re
quire muck time, and a concurrence of favourable
circumstances, as Mr. Cotter Morison has pointed
out in his sketch of Gibbon. If my plan is ever
fully realized, it can only be after many years.

PREFACE. vii
Meanwhile it has seemed to me that fragments of
the work might as well be published from time to
time as to be lying idle in manuscript in a cup
board. It was with this feeling that " The Criti
cal Period of American History " and " The Be
ginnings of New England " were brought out, and
it is with the same feeling that these volumes on
" The American Revolution " are now offered to
the public.
In writing the story of this period my design
was not so much to contribute new facts as to
shape the narrative in such a way as to emphasize
relations of cause and effect that are often buried
in the mass of details. One is constantly tempted,
in such a narrative, to pause for discussion, and to
add item upon item of circumstantial description
because it is interesting in itself ; but in conform
ity with the plan of the book of which this was to
have been a part, it was necessary to withstand
such temptations. I have not even undertaken to
mention all the events of the Revolutionary War.
For example, nothing is said about the Penobscot
expedition, which was a matter of interest to the
people of Massachusetts, but of no significance in
relation to the general history of the war.
The present work is in no sense " based upon "
lectures, but it has been used as a basis for lec
tures. When I had nearly finished writing it, in
1883, I happened to read a few passages to some

ViU PREFACE.
friends, and was thereupon urged to read the
whole work, or the greater part of it, as lec
tures. This was done in the Old South Meeting-House
early in 1884. The lectures were afterward given
in many towns and cities, from Maine to Oregon,
usually, to very large audiences. In Boston, New
York, and St. Louis the whole course was given
from two to five times; and single lectures were
repeated in many places. I was greatly surprised
at the interest thus shown in a plain narrative of
events already well known, and have never to this
day understood the secret of it.
On some accounts I should have been glad to
withhold this book some years longer, in the hope
of changing its plan somewhat and giving the sub
ject a fuller treatment, now that it is not to appear
as part of a larger work. But so many requests
have been made for the story in book form that it
has seemed best to yield to them. In relation to
these two volumes, " The Critical Period of Ameri
can History " now stands as a third volume. The
narrative is continuous from the one to the other.
I have not thought it worth while to add to the
present work a bibliographical note, because, in
view of the existence of Mr. Justin Winsor's
" Reader's Handbook of the American Revolu
tion," such a note would be quite superfluous. Mr.
.W^insor's book contains a vast amount of biblio-

PREFACE. IX
graphical Information, most lucidly arranged,
within a very small compass, and costs but a trifle.
From it the general reader can find out " where to
go " for further information concerning any and
all points that may come up in these volumes | and
if then he still wants more, he may consult the
sixth and seventh volumes of Winsor's " Narrative
and Critical History of America."
The portrait of Washington prefixed to this vol
ume is now engraved, I believe, for the first time.
It is from a miniature enamelled on copper by
Henry Bone, R. A., an artist preeminent for skill
in such work. Bone appears to have followed an
original crayon sketch of Washington made in
1796 by WiUiam Birch, to whom he has given
credit by putting his initials, W. B., on the minia
ture. This has given rise to an error ; the initials
have been mistaken for tkose of Bone himself,
who has thus been wrongly spoken of as " Wil
liam" Bone. The miniature was made for a
family in England. After some years this fam
ily became straitened in circumstances, and the
miniature was bought by George Peabody, who
gave it to a lady in London interested in such
things. By 1870 this lady in turn became desir
ous of obtaining its value, and a communication
upon the subject was published in the Proceedings
of the Massachusetts Historical Society for April

X PREFACE.
of that year. It has since then come into the
hands of Mrs. Hemenway of Boston, its present
owner. My thanks are due to Messrs. G. P. Putnam's
Sons for permission to use the map of the battle
of Monmouth.
St. Louis, April 14, 1891.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE BEGINJJINaS.

Relations between the American colonies and the Brit
ish government in the first half of the eighteenth cen
tury 
The Lords of Trade .....
The governors' salaries .....
Sir Robert Walpole 
Views of the Lords of Trade as to the need for
of the colonies ......
Weakness of the sentiment of union .
The Albany Congress 
Franklin's plan for a federal union (1754)
Rejection of Franklin's plan ....
Shirley recommends a stamp act
The writs of assistance 
The chief justice of New York .
Otis's " Vindication " 
Expenses of the French War
Grenville's resolves 
Reply of the colonies .....
Passage of the Stamp Act ....
Patrick Henry and the Parsons' Cause
Resolutions of Virginia concerning the Stamp Act
The Stamp Act Congress  21, 22
Declaration of the Massachusetts assembly . . .22
Resistance to the Stamp Act in Boston ... 23
Aud in New York  24
Debate in the House of Commons .... 25, 26

1
2
. 34
)n . 56
. 7
8,9
. 1011
. 1213
. 1415
. 16 17
17,18
18,19 . 20
21,

xn CONTENTS.
Repeal of the Stamp Act ...... 27
The Duke of Grafton's ministry .... 28
Charles Townshend and his revenue acts . . 29-31
Attack upon the New York assembly . . . 31, 32
Parliament did not properly represent the British peo
ple  32, 33
Difficulty of the problem  34
Representation of Americans in Parliament . . 35
Mr. Gladstone and the Boers .... 36, 37
Death of Townshend ....... 38
His political legacy to George III. . . . . 38
Character of George III  39, 40
English parties between 1760 and 1784 . . . .41
George III. as a politician  42
His chief reason for quarrelling with the Americans 43-45
CHAPTER IL
THE CRISIS.
Character of Lord North  46
John Dickinson and the " Farmer's Letters " . . 47
The Massachusetts circular letter  48
Lord Hillsborough's instructions to Bernard . . 49
The " Illustrious Ninety-Two "  50
Impressment of citizens ...... 51
AiPair of the sloop Liberty  51, 52
Statute of Henry VIII. concerning " treason committed
abroad"  53
Samuel Adams makes up his mind (1768) . . 54-57
Arrival of troops in Boston  58, 59
Letters of " Vindex "  60
Debate in Parliament ...... 60-62
All the Townshend acts, except the one imposing a duty
upon tea, to be repealed  62
Recall of Governor Bernard  62
Character of Thomas Hutchinson . . . .63
Resolutions of Virginia concerning the Townshend acts 64
Conduct of the troops in Boston  65

CONTENTS.

XlH

Assault on James Otis  65
The " Boston Massacre "  66-68
Some of its lessons  69-72
Lord North becomes prime minister . . . .71
Action of the New York merchants .... 73
Assemblies convened in strange places . . . .74
Taxes in Maryland  74
The " Regulators " in North Carolina .... 75
AfEair of the schooner Gaspee ..... 76
The salaries of the Massachusetts judges . . .77
Jonathan Mayhew's suggestion (1766) ... 78
The committees of correspondence in Massachusetts . 79
Intercolonial committees of correspondence . . 80
Revival of the question of taxation , . . .81
The king's ingenious scheme for tricking the Americans
into buying the East India Company's tea . . 82, 83
How Boston became the battle-ground . . . .84
Advice solemnly sought and given by the Massachusetts 84,85
. 85-87 . 8788
89,90 90
91,92
. 93, 94
. 95
. 95, 96
. 9697
. 97
. 97, 98

towns .......
Arrival of the tea ; meeting at the Old South
The tea-ships placed under guard .
Rotch's dilatory manoeuvres
Great town-meeting at the Old South .
The tea thrown into the harbour
Moral grandeur of the scene
How Parliament received the news .
The Boston Port BiU .
The Regulating Act ....
Act relating to the shooting of citizens .
The quartering of troops in towns
The Quebec Act 
General Gage sent to Boston

CHAPTER III.
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.
Protests of the Whig Lords . . . .
Belief that the Americans would not fight .

100101

xiv CONTENTS.
Belief that Massachusetts would not be supported by
the other colonies ....... 102
News of the Port Bill  102, 103
Samuel Adams at Salem  104, 105
Massachusetts nullifies the Regelating Act . . . 106
John Hancock and Joseph Warren .... 107
The Suffolk County Resolves  108
Provincial Congress in Massachusetts . . . 109
First meeting of the Continental Congress (September
5,1774)  110
Debates in Parliament ...... Ill, 112
William Howe appointed commander-in-chief of the
forces in America ....... 112
Richard, Lord Howe, appointed admiral of the fleet . 113
Franklin returns to America ...... 114
State of feeling in the middle colonies . . . 115
Lord North's mistaken hopes of securing New York . 116
Affairs in Massachusetts ...... 117
Dr. Warren's oration at the Old South .... 118
Attempt to corrupt Samuel Adams .... 119
Orders to arrest Adams and Hancock .... 120
Paul Revere's ride ....... 121
Pitcairn fires upon the yeomanry at Lexington . . 122
The troops repulsed at Concord ; their dangerous situa
tion  123
The retreatiag troops rescued by Lord Percy . . 124
Retreat continued from Lexington to Charlestown . 125
Rising of the country ; the British besieged in Boston 126
Effects of the news in England and in America . . 127
Mecklenburg County Resolves ..... 128
Legend of the Mecklenburg " Declaration of Indepen
dence "  129
Benedict Arnold and Ethan AUen . . . 129, 130
Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point . . . 131
Second meeting Ox the Continental Congress . . 132
Appointment of George Washington to command the
Continental army  133-136
The siege of Boston ....... 136
Gage's proclamation  137

CONTENTS. XV
The Americans occupy Bunker's and Breed's hills . 138
Arrival of Putnam, Stark, aud Warren . . .139
Gage decides to try an assault  140
First assault repulsed  . 140
Second assault repulsed ...... 141
Prescott's powder gives out  142
Third assault succeeds ; the British take the hUl . 142
British aud American losses  143
Excessive slaughter ; significance of the battle 144, 145
Its moral effects ........ 146

CHAPTER rV.

INDEPENDENCE.
Washington's arrival in Cambridge .... 147
Continental officers : Daniel Morgan . . . 148
Benedict Arnold, John Stark, John Sullivan . . . 149
Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox .... 150
Israel Putnam  151
Horatio Gates and Charles Lee  151
Lee's personal peculiarities  152, 153
Dr. Benjamin Church ...... 153
Difficult work for Washington .... 154-156
Absence of governmental organization . . . 156
New government of Massachusetts (July, 1775) . . 157
Congress sends a last petition to the king . . 158, 159
The king issues a proclamation, and tries to hire troops
from Russia ........ 160
Catherine refuses ; the king hires German troops . . 161
Indignation in Germany ...... 162
Burning of Falmouth (Portland) ..... 163
Effects of all this upon Congress .... 164
Montgomery's invasion of Canada and capture of Mon
treal . . . . . . ... • 165
Arnold's march through the wilderness of Maine . . 166
Assault upon Quebec (December 31, 1775) . . 167
Total failure of the attempt upon Canada . . . 168
The siege of Boston ....••• 169

xvi CONTENTS.
Washington seizes Dorchester Heights (March 4, 1776) 170
The British troops evacuate Boston (March 17) . 171
Movement toward independence ; a provisional flag
(January 1, 1776)  172
Effect of the hiring of " myrmidons " . . . . 172
Thomas Paine ....... . 173
His pamphlet entitled " Common Sense "... 174
Fnlminations and counter-fulminations . . . 175
The Scots in North Carolina ...... 176
Sir Henry Clinton sails for the Caroliuas . . . 176
The fight at Moore's Creek ; North Carolina declares
for independence . . . . . . .177
Action of South Carolina and Georgia .... 178
Affairs in Virginia ; Lord Dunmore's proclamation . 178
Skirmish at the Great Bridge, and burning of Norfolk . 179
Virginia declares for independence .... 180
Action of Rhode Island and Massachusetts . . . 181
Resolution adopted in Congress May 15 . . 181, 182
Instructions from the Boston town-meeting . . . 182
Richard Henry Lee's motion iu Congress . . . 183
Debate on Lee's motion ...... 184
Action of the other colonies ; Connecticut and New
Hampshire  185
New Jersey ........ 185
Pennsylvania and Delaware  185-187
Maryland  187, 188
The situation in New York  188-190
The Tryon plot  190
Final debate on Lee's motion ..... 191
Vote on Lee's motion ...... 192
Form of the Declaration of Independence . . . 193
Thomas Jefferson  193, 194
The declaration was a deliberate expression of the sober
thought of the American people . . . 196-197

CON TENETS. xvii
CHAPTER V.
FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE.
Lord Cornwallis arrives upon the scene . . . 198
Battle of Fort Moultrie (June 28, 1776) . . 199, 200
British plan for conquering the valley of the Hudson,
and cutting the United Colonies in twain . . 201
Lord Howe's futile attempt to negotiate with Washing
ton unofficially  202, 203
The military problem at New York . . . 204-206
Importance of Brooklyn Heights ..... 206
Battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776) . . 207-210
Howe prepares to besiege the Heights .... 210
But Washington slips away with his army . . 211
And robs the British of the most golden opportunity
ever offered them ....... 212
The conference at Staten Island ..... 213
General Howe takes the city of New York Septem
ber 15  214
But Mrs. Lindley Murray saves the garrison . . 215
Attack upon Harlem Heights  215
The new problem before Howe ..... 216
He moves upon Throg's Neck, but Washington changes
base  217
Baffled at White Plains, Howe tries a new plan . 217, 218
Washington's orders in view of the emergency - . 218
Congress meddles with the situation and muddles it . 219
Howe takes Fort Washington by storm (November 16) 220
Washington and Greene  221
Outrageous conduct of Charles Lee . . . 221, 222
Greene barely escapes from Fort Lee (November 20) . 223
Lee intrigues against Washington .... 224
Washington retreats into Pennsylvania . . 224, 225
Reinforcements come from Schuyler .... 226
Fortunately for the Americans, the British capture
Charles Lee (December 13) . . . . 226, 227
The times that tried men's souls  228
Washington prepares to strike back .... 229

xviil CONTENTS.
He crosses the Delaware, and pierces the British centre
at Trenton (December 26)  230
Cornwallis comes up to retrieve the disaster . . 231
Aud thinks he has run down the " old fox " at the As-
sunpink (January 2, 1777)  232
But Washington prepares a checkmate . . . 232
And again severs the British line at Princeton (Janu
ary 3) ...-..•. . 233
General retreat of the British upon New York . . 234
The tables completely turned .... 235, 236
Washington's superb generalship ..... 237
Effects in England  238
And in France ........ 239
Franklin's arrival in France  240
Secret aid from France ...... 241
Lafayette goes to America ..... 242
Efforts toward remodeUing the Continental army 243-248
CHAPTER VI.
SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE.
Invasion of New York by Sir Guy Carleton . . . 249
Arnold's preparations  250
Battle of Valcour Island (October 11, 1776) . . 251
Congress promotes five junior brigadiers over Arnold
(February 19, 1777)  252
Character of Philip Schuyler  253
Horatio Gates  254, 255
Gates intrigues against Schuyler .... 256
His unseemly behaviour before Congress . . . 257
Charges against Arnold  257, 258
Arnold defeats Tryon at Ridgefield (April 27, 1777) . 259
Preparations for the summer campaign . . . 260
The military centre of the United States was the state
of New York  . .261
A second blow was to be struck at the centre ; the plan
of campaign ........ 262
The plan was unsound ; it separated the British forces

CONTENTS.

XIX

too widely, and gave the Americans the advantage of
interior lines  263, 264
Germaine's fatal error ; he overestimated the strength
of the Tories  265
Too many unknown quantities .... 265, 266
Danger from New England ignored .... 266
Germaine's negligence ; the dispatch that was never
sent  267

Burgoyne advances upon Ticonderoga
Phillips seizes Mount Defiance
Evacuation of Ticonderoga
Battle of Hubbardton (July 7) . . .
One swallow does not make a summer
The king's glee ; wrath of John Adams
Gates was chiefly to blame
Burgoyne's difficulties beginning .
Schuyler wisely evacuates Fort Edward
Enemies gathering in Burgoyne's rear .
Use of Indian auxiliaries ....
Burgoyne's address to the chiefs .
Burke ridicules the address
The story of Jane McCrea ....
The Indians desert Burgoyne
Importance of Bennington ; Burgoyne sends a
force against it .... .
Stark prepares to receive the Germans .

. 268
. 269
269, 270
. 270271
271 272273273274275 275276
277-279 280
German 280, 281
. 282

Battle of Bennington (August 16) ; nearly the whole
German army captured on the field . . . 283, 284
Effect of the news ; Burgoyne's enemies multiply . 285
Advance of St. Leger upon Fort Stanwix . . . 286
Herkimer marches against him ; Herkimer's plan . 287
Failure of the plan  288
Thayendanegea prepares an ambuscade . . . 288
Battle of Oriskany (August 6) . . . . 289, 290
Retreat of the Tories  290
Retreat of the patriot army ...... 291
Colonel WUlett's sortie ; first hoisting of the stars and
stripes ......... 291
Death of Herkimer .  292

XX CONTENTS.
Arnold arrives at Schuyler's camp .... 293
And volunteers to retrieve Fort Stanwix . . . 294
Yan Yost Cuyler and his stratagem .... 295
Flight of St. Leger (August 22) .... 295
Burgoyne's dangerous situation ..... 296
Schuyler superseded by Gates .... 296, 297
Position of the two armies (August 19-September 12)
297, 298

CHAPTER VII.
SARATOGA.
Why Sir William Howe went to Chesapeake Bay . 299
Charles Lee in captivity  300
Treason of Charles Lee ..... 301-303
Folly of moving upon PhUadelphia as the " rebel capi
tal" .. .  303,304
Effect of Lee's advice  305
Washington's masterly campaign in New Jersey (June,
1777)  306
Uncertainty as to Howe's next movements . . . 307
Howe's letter to Burgoyne .... 308, 309
Comments of Washington and Greene .... 310
Howe's alleged reason trumped up and worthless . 310
Burgoyne's fate was practically decided when Howe
arrived at Elkton . . . . . . .311
Washington's reasons for offering battle . . . 312
He chooses a very strong position .... 313
Battle of the Brandywine (September 11) . . 313-316
Washington's skill in detaining the enemy . . 317
The British enter Philadelphia (September 26) . . 317
Significance of Forts Mercer and Mifflin . . . 318
The situation at Germantown .... 318, 319
Washington's audacious plan ..... 320
Battle of Germantown (October 4) . . . 321-323
Howe captures Forts Mercer aud Mifflin . . . 324
Burgoyne recognizes the fatal error of Germain . . 325
Nevertheless he crosses the Hudson River . . 326

CONTENTS. XXI
First battle at Freeman's Farm (September 19) . 326, 327
Quarrel between Gates and Arnold .... 328
Burgoyne's supplies cut off . . . . . . 329
Second battle at Freeman's Farm (October 7) ; the
British totaUy defeated by Arnold . . . 330-332
The British army is surrounded .... 333
Sir Henry Clinton comes up the river, but it is too late 334
The sUver buUet  335
Burgoyne surrenders (October 17) . . . 335-338
Schuyler's magnanimity ...... 338
Bad faith of Congress  339-342
The behaviour of Congress was simply inexcusable . 342
What became of the captured army .... 343
PORTRAIT AND MAPS.
George Washington, from a miniature enamelled cm cap
per by Henry Bone, R. A., after a crayon portrait
made in 1796 by William Birch . . . Frontispiece
Battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776, from Stedman's
American War, wiih some additions . . . 208
Operations in New York and New Jersey, 1776-1777,
from a sketch by the author ...... 218
Burgoyne's campaign, July-October, 1777, ditto . 262
Battle of the Brandywine, September 11, 1777, ditto . 314
Battle of Germantown, October 4, 1777, ditto . . 320
First battle at Freeman's Farm, September 19, 1777,
ditto  326
Second battle at Freeman's Farm, October 7, 1777, also
called battle of Bemis Heights, or of Stillwater, ditto 332
Surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, October 17, 1777,
ditto  336

THE AMEKICAN REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNINGS.
During the seventy years which elapsed between
the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty and the vic
tory of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, the
relations between the American colonies and the
British government were, on the whole, peaceful ;
and the history of the colonies, except for the great
and romantic struggle with New France, would
have been almost destitute of striking incidents. In
view of the perpetual menace from France, it was
manifestly unwise for the British government to
irritate the colonies, or do anything to weaken their
loyalty ; and they were accordingly left very much
to themselves. Still, they were not likely to be
treated with any great liberality, — for such was not
then, as it is hardly even yet, the way of govern
ments, — and if their attachment to England still
continued strong, it was in spite of the general
demeanour of the mother - country. Since 1675
the general supervision of the colonies had been
in the hands of a standing committee of the
Privy Council, styled the " Lords of the Com
mittee of Trade and Plantations," and familiarly

2 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
known as the " Lords of Trade." To this board
The Lords of ^^^ govcrnors sent frequent and full
Trade. rcports of the proceedings in the colonial
legislatures, of the state of agriculture and trade,
of the revenues of the colonies, and of the way in
which the public money was spent. In private let
ters, too, the governors poured forth their com
plaints into the ears of the Lords of Trade, and these
complaints were many and loud. Except in Penn
sylvania and Maryland, which were like hereditary
monarchies, and in Connecticut and Rhode Island,
where the governors were elected by the people,
the colonial governors were now invariably ap
pointed by the Crown. In most cases they were
inclined to take high views regarding the royal
prerogative, and in nearly all cases they were un
able to understand the political attitude of the col
onists, who on the one hand gloried in their connec
tion with England, and on the other hand, precisely
because they were Englishmen, were unwilling to
yield on any occasion whatsoever one jot or tittle
of their ancient liberties. Moreover, through the
ubiquity of the popular assemblies and the direct
ness of their control over the administration of
public affairs, the political life of America was both
really and ostensibly freer than that of England
was at that time ; and the ancient liberties of Eng
lishmen, if not better preserved, were at least more
conspicuously asserted. As a natural consequence,
the royal governors were continually trying to do
things which the people would not let them do, they
were in a chronic state of angry warfare with their
assemblies, and they were incessant in their com-

THE BEGINNINGS. 3
plaints to the Lords of Trade. They represented
the Americans as factious and turbulent people,
with their heads turned by queer political crotchets,
unwilling to obey the laws, and eager to break off
their connection with the British Empire. In this
way they did much to arouse an unfriendly feeling
toward the colonies, although eminent Englishmen
were not wanting who understood American affairs
too well to let their opinions be thus lightly influ
enced. Upon the Lords of Trade these misrepre
sentations wrought with so much effect that now
and then they would send out instructions to sus
pend the writ of habeas corpus, or to abridge the
the freedom of the press. Sometimes their acts
were absurdly arbitrary. In New Hampshire, the
people maintained that as free-born Englishmen
they had the right to choose their representatives ;
but the governor held, on the contrary, that this
was no right, but only a privilege, which the Crown
might withhold, or grant, or revoke, all at its own
good pleasure. To uphold the royal prerogative,
the governor was instructed to issue writs for elec
tions to some of the towns, while withholding them
from others ; but the resistance of the people to this
piece of tyranny was so determined that the Lords
of Trade thought it best to yield. In Massachu-
setts, for more than thirty years, there went on an
unceasing controversy between the General Court
and the successive royal governors, Shute, Burnet,
and Belcher, with reference to the gov- The govemor'a
ernor's salary. The Lords of Trade in- ^^^^^'
sisted that the governor should be paid a fixed
salary ; but lest this should make the governor too

4 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
independent, the General Court obstinately refused
to establish a salary, but made grants to the gov
ernor from year to year, in imitation of the time-
honoured usage of Parliament. This method was,
no doubt, inconvenient for the governors ; but the
colonists rightly valued it as one of the safeguards
of popular liberty, and to their persistent refusal
the Crown was obliged to give way. SimUar con
troversies, in New York and South Carolina, were
attended with similar results ; while in Virginia the
assembly more than once refused to vote supplies,
on the ground that the liberties of the colony were
in danger.
Such grievances as these, reported year by year
to the Lords of Trade, and losing nothing in the
manner in which they were told, went far to create
in England an opinion that America was a lawless
country, and sorely in need of a strong govern
ment. From time to time various schemes were
proposed for limiting the powers of the colonial
assemblies, for increasing the power of the gov
ernors, for introducing a titled nobility, for taxing
the colonists by act of Parliament, or for weakening
the feeling of local independence by uniting several
colonies into one. Until after the French troubles
had been disposed of, little came of any of these
Sir Robert schcmes. A plan for taxing the colonies
Walpole. ^^^ ^^^g proposed to Sir Robert Wal
pole, but the sagacious old statesman dismissed it
with a laugh. " What ! " said he. " I have half of
Old England set against me already, and do you
think I wiU have aU New England likewise?"
From time to time the liberal charters of Rhode

THE BEGINNINGS. 5
Island and Connecticut were threatened, but noth
ing came of this. But in oue direction the Lords of
Trade were more active. One of their most cher
ished plans was to bring about a union of all the
colonies under a single head ; but this was not to be
a union of the kind which the Americans, with con
summate statesmanship, afterward wrought out for
themselves. It was not to be a union based upon
the idea of the sacredness of local self-government,
but it was a union to be achieved, as far as possible,
at the expense of local self-government. To bring
aU the colonies together under a single viceroy
would, it was thought, diminish seriously the power
of each local assembly, while at the same time such
a union would no doubt make the military strength
of the colonies much more available in case of war.
In 1764, Francis Bernard, governor of Massachu
setts, wrote that " to settle the American govern
ments to the greatest possible advantage, it will be
necessary to reduce the number of them ; in some
places to unite and consolidate ; in others to sep
arate and transfer ; and in general to divide by
natural boundaries instead of imaginary lines. If
there should be but one form of government estab
lished for the North American provinces, it would
greatly facilitate the reformation of them." As
long ago as 1701, Robert Livingston of New York
had made similar suggestions ; and in 1752, Din
widdle of Virginia recommended that the Northern
and Southern colonies be united respectively into
two great confederacies.
The desirableness of bringing about a union of
the colonies was also recognized by aU the most

6 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
liberal-minded American statesmen, though from a
very different point of view. They agreed with the
royal governors and with the Lords of Trade as to
the urgent need for concentrating the military
strength of the colonies, and they thought that this
end could best be subserved by some kind of federal
union. But at the same time they held that the
integrity of the local self-government of each col
ony was of the first importance, and that no system
of federation would be practicable which should in
any degree essentially impair that integrity. To
bring about a federal union on such terms was no
easy matter ; it was a task fitted to tax the great
est of statesmen at any time. At that time it was
undoubtedly a hopeless task. The need
the sentiment for uuiou was not generally felt by the
of union. , ,_,, , , , -
people, ihe sympathies between the
different colonies were weak and liable to be over
borne by prejudices arising from rivalry or from
differences in social structure. To the merchant
of Boston, the Virginian planter was stlU almost a
foreigner, though both the one and the other were
pure-blooded Englishmen. Commercial jealousies
were very keen. Disputes about boundaries were
not uncommon. In 1756, Georgia and South Car
olina actually came to blows over the navigation of
the Savannah river. Jeremiah Dummer, in his
famous " Defence of the New Charters," said that
it was impossible that the colonies should ever be
brought to unite •, and Burnaby thought that if the
hand of Great Britain were once taken off, there
would be chronic civi\ war all the way from Maine
to Georgia.

THE BEGINNINGS. 7
In 1754, the prospect of immediate war with the
French led several of the royal governors to call for
a congress of all the colonies, to be held at Albany.
The primary purpose of the meeting was The Albany
to make sure of the friendship of the °'"'^"''^'
Six Nations, and to organize a general scheme of
operations against the French. The secondary
purpose was to prepare some plan of confederation
which all the colonies might be persuaded to adopt.
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Mary
land — only seven colonies of the thirteen — sent
commissioners to. this congress. The people showed
little interest in the movement. It does not ap
pear that any public meetings were held in favour
of it. Among the newspapers, the only one which
warmly approved of it seems to have been the
" Pennsylvania Gazette," edited by Benjamin
Franklin, which appeared with a union device
and the motto " Unite or Die ! "
The circumstances of Franklin's life, no less than
the vast sweep of his intelligence, had fitted him for
sounder and wider views of the political needs of
the time than were taken by most of his contempo
raries. In a certain sense he may be said to have
belonged to two very different colonies ; nor was he
unfamiliar with ideas current in the mother-coun
try. During the session of the Albany Congress,
a first attempt was made to establish a permanent
union of the thirteen colonies. It was „ ,,. ,
Franldin'g
to Franklin that the plan was chiefly pi^ of union,
due. The legislative assembly of each
colony was to choose, once in three years, rep-

8 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION-
resentatives to attend a federal Grand Council;
which was to meet every year at Philadelphia, a
town which could be reached by a twenty days'
journey either from South Carolina or from New
Hampshire. This Grand Council was to choose
its own speaker, and could neither be dissolved nor
prorogued, nor kept sitting longer than six weeks
at any one time, except by its own consent or by
especial order of the Crown. The Grand Council
was to make treaties with the Indians and to reg
ulate the Indian trade ; and it was to have sole
power of legislation on all matters concerning the
colonies as a whole. To these ends, it could levy
taxes, enlist soldiers, build forts, and nominate all
civil officers. Its laws were to be submitted to the
king for approval, and the royal veto, in order to
be of effect, must be exercised within three years.
To this Grand Council each colony was to send
a number of representatives, proportioned to its
contributions to the continental military service ;
yet no colony was to send less than two or more
than seven representatives. With the exception
of such matters of general concern as were to be
managed by the Grand Council, each colony was
to retain its powers of legislation intact. On an
emergency, any colony might singly defend itself
against foreign attack, and the federal government
was prohibited from impressing soldiers or seamen
without the consent of tlie local legislature.
The supreme executive power was to be vested
in a president or governor-general, appointed and
paid by the Crown. He was to nominate all mili
tary officers, subject to the approval of the Grand

THE BEGINNINGS. 9
Council, and was to have a veto on all the acts of
the Grand Council. No money could be issued
save by joint order of the governor-general and
the council.
This plan, said Franklin, " is not altogether to
my mind, but it is as I could get it." It should
be observed, to the credit of its great author, that
this scheme, long afterward known as the " Albany
Plan," contemplated the formation of a self-sus
taining federal government, and not of a mere
league. As Frothingham well says, " It designed
to confer on the representatives of the people the
power of making laws acting directly on individu
als, and appointing officers to execute them, and
yet not to interfere with the execution of the laws
operating on the same individuals by the local of
ficers." It would have erected " a public authority
as obligatory in its sphere as the local governments
were in their spheres." In this respect it was
much more complete than the scheme of confeder
ation agreed on in Congress in 1777, and it af
forded a valuable precedent for the much more
elaborate and perfect Federal Constitution of 1787.
It was in its main features a noble scheme, and
the great statesman who devised it was already
looking forward to the immense growth of the
American Union, though he had not yet foreseen
the separation of the colonies from the mother-
country. In less than a century, he said, the
great country behind the Alleghanies must become
" a populous and powerful dominion ; " and he
recommended that two new colonies should at once
be founded in the West, — the one on Lake Erie,

10 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
the other in the valley of the Ohio, — with free
chartered governments like those of Rhode Island
and Connecticut.
But public opinion was not yet ripe for the
adoption of Franklin's bold and comprehensive
ideas. Of the royal governors who were anxious
to see the colonies united on any terms, none op
posed the plan except Delancey of New York,
who wished to reserve to the governors a veto
upon all elections of representatives to the Grand
Rejection of Couucil. To this it was rightly objected
the plan. ^^^ such a vcto powcr would virtually
destroy the freedom of elections, and make the
Grand Council an assembly of creatures of the
governors. On the popular side the objections
were many. The New England delegates, on
the whole, were the least disinclined to union ;
yet Connecticut urged that the veto power of
the governor-general might prove ruinous to the
whole scheme ; that the concentration of all the
military forces in his hands would be fraught
v/ith dangers to liberty; and that even the power
of taxation, lodged in the hands of an assembly
so remote from local interests, was hardly compat
ible with the preservation of the ancient rights
of Englishmen. After long debate, the assembly
at Albany decided to adopt Franklin's plan, and
copies of it were sent to all the colonies for their
consideration. But nowhere did it meet with ap
proval. The mere fact that the royal governors
were all in favour of it — though their advocacy was
at present, no doubt, determined mainly by military
reasons — was quite enough to create an insuper-

THE BEGINNINGS. 11
able prejudice against it on the part of the people.
The Massachusetts legislature seems to have been
the only one which gave it a respectful considera
tion, albeit a large town meeting in Boston de
nounced it as subversive of liberty. Pennsylvania
rejected it without a word of discussion. None
of the assemblies favoured it. On the other hand,
when sent over to England to be inspected by the
Lords of Trade, it only irritated and disgusted
them. As they truly said, it was a scheme of
union " complete in itself ; " and ever since the
days of the New England confederacy the Crown
had looked with extreme jealousy upon all at
tempts at concerted action among the colonies
which did not originate with itself. Besides this,
the Lords of Trade were now considering a plan
of their own for remodelling the governments of
the colonies, establishing a standing army, enfor
cing the navigation acts, and levying taxes by au
thority of Parliament. Accordingly little heed
was paid to Franklin's ideas. Though the royal
governors had approved the Albany plan, in de
fault of any scheme of union more to their minds,
they had no real sympathy with it. In 1756, Shir-
lev wrote to the Lords of Trade, urging
-^ . „ Shirley recom-
upon them the paramount necessity ior mends a stamp
a union of the American colonies, in
order to withstand the French ; while at the same
time he disparaged Franklin's scheme, as contain
ing principles of government unfit even for a sin
gle colony like Rhode Island, and much more unfit
for a great American confederacy. The union, he
urged, should be effected by act of Parliament, and

12 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
by the same authority a general fund should be
raised to meet the expenses of the war, — an end
which Shirley thought might be most speedily and
quietly attained by means of a " stamp duty." As
Shirley had been for fifteen years governor of Mas=
sachusetts, and was now commander-in-chief of all
the troops in America, his opinion had great weight
with the Lords of Trade ; and the same views be
ing reiterated by Dinwiddie of Virginia, Sharpe
of Maryland, Hardy of New York, and other gov
ernors, the notion that Parliament must tax the
Americans became deeply rooted in the British
official mind.
Nothing was done, however, until the work of
the French war had been accomplished. In 1761,
it was decided to enforce the Navigation Act, and
one of the revenue officers at Boston applied to
the superior court for a "writ of assistance," or
Writs of assist- general search-warrant, to enable him
™°'- to enter private houses and search for
smuggled goods, but without specifying either
houses or goods. Such general warrants had been
allowed by a statute of the bad reign of Charles
II., and a statute of William III., in general
terms, had granted to revenue officers in America
like powers to those they possessed in England.
But James Otis showed that the issue of such
writs was contrary to the whole spirit of the Brit
ish constitution. To issue such universal warrants
allowing the menials of the custom-house, on mere
suspicion, and perhaps from motives of personal
enmity, to invade the home of any citizen, without
being held responsible for any rudeness they

THE BEGINNINGS. 13
might commit there, — such, he said, was " a kind
of power, the exercise of which cost one king of
England his head and another his throne ; " and
he plainly declared that even an act of Parliament
which should sanction so gross an infringement of
the immemorial rights of Englishmen would be
treated as null and void. Chief Justice Hutchin
son granted the writs of assistance, and as an in
terpreter of the law he was doubtless right in so
doing ; but Otis's argument suggested the question
whether Americans were bound to obey laws which
they had no share in making, and his passionate
eloquence made so great an impression upon the
people that this scene in the court-room has been
since remembered — and not unjustly — as the
opening scene of the American Revolution.
In the same year the arbitrary temper of the
government was exhibited in New York. Down
to this time the chief justice of the col-
¦' . The chief jua-
ony had held office only during good tice of New
behaviour, and had been liable to dis
missal at the hands of the colonial assembly. The
chief justice was now made removable only by the
Crown, a measure which struck directly at the in
dependent administration of justice in the colony.
The assembly tried to protect itself by refusing to
assign a fixed salary to the chief justice, where
upon the king ordered that the salary should be
paid out of the quit-rents for the public lands. At
the same time instructions were sent to all the
royal governors to grant no judicial commissions
for any other period than " during the king's
pleasure ; " and to show that this was meant in

14 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
earnest, the governor of New Jersey was next year
peremptorily dismissed for commissioning a judge
" during good behaviour."
In 1762, a question distinctly involving the right
of the people to control the expenditure of their
own money came up in Massachusetts. Governor
Bernard, without authority from the assembly, had
sent a couple of ships to the northward, to protect
the fisheries against French privateers, and an ex
pense of some j£400 had been thus incurred. The
assembly was now ordered to pay this sum, but it
otis's" vindi- Tcfuscd to do SO. " It would be of little
cation." consequence to the people," said Otis,
in the debate on the question, " 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." A cry of " Treason ! " from one of
the less clear-headed members greeted this bold
statement ; and Otis, being afterward taken to task
for his language, published a " Vindication," in
which he maintained that the rights of a colonial
assembly, as regarded the expenditure of public
money, were as sacred as the rights of the House
of Commons.
In April, 1763, just three years after the ac
cession of George III., George Grenville became
Prime Minister of England, while at the same time
Charles Townshend was First Lord of Trade.
Townshend had paid considerable attention to
American affairs, and was supposed to know more
about them than any other man in England. But
his studies had led him to the conclusion that the

THE BEGINNINGS. 15
colonies ought to be deprived of their self-govern
ment, and that a standing army ought to be main
tained in America by means of taxes arbitrarily
assessed upon the people by Parliament. Gren
ville was far from approving of such extreme meas
ures as these, but he thought that a tax ought to be
imposed upon the colonies, in order to
help defray the expenses of the French tii'^French
war. Yet in point of fact, as Franklin
truly said, the colonies had "raised, paid, and
clothed nearly twenty-five thousand men during
the last war, — a number equal to those sent from
Great Britain, and far beyond their proportion.
They went deeply into debt in doing this ; and all
their estates and taxes are mortgaged for many
years to come for discharging that debt." That
the colonies had contributed more than an equi
table share toward the expenses of the war, that
their contributions had even been in excess of
their abiHty, had been freely acknowledged by Par
liament, which, on several occasions between 1756
and 1763, had voted large sums to be paid over to
the colonies, in partial compensation for their ex
cessive outlay. Parliament was therefore clearly
estopped from making the defrayal of the war
debt the occasion for imposing upon the colonies a
tax of a new and strange character, and under cir
cumstances which made the payment of such a tax
seem equivalent to a surrender of their rights as
free English communities. In March, orenviUe's
1764, Grenville introduced in the House «^=°'™=-
of Commons a series of Declaratory Resolves, an
nouncing the intention of the government to raise

16 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
a revenue in America by requiring all legal docu
ments to bear stamps, varying in price from three
pence to ten pounds. A year was to elapse, how
ever, before these resolutions should take effect in
a formal enactment.
It marks the inferiority of the mother-country to
the colonies in political development, at that time,
that the only solicitude as yet entertained by the
British official mind, with regard to this measure,
seems to have been concerned with the question
how far the Americans would be willing to part
with their money. With the Americans it was as
far as possible from being a question of pounds,
shilHngs, and pence ; but this was by no means cor
rectly understood in England. The good Shirley,
although he had lived so long in Massachusetts,
had thought that a revenue might be most easily
and quietly raised by means of a stamp duty. Of
all kinds of direct tax, none, perhaps, is less an
noying. But the position taken by the Americans
had little to do with mere convenience ; it rested
from the outset upon the deepest foundations of
political justice, and from this foothold neither
threatening nor coaxing could stir it.
The first dehberate action with reference to the
proposed Stamp Act was taken in the Boston town
meeting in May, 1764. In this memorable town
meeting Samuel Adams drew up a series of resolu
tions, which contained the first formal and public
denial of the right of Parliament to tax the colo
nies without their consent ; and while these resolu
tions were adopted by the Massachusetts assembly,
a circular letter was at the same time sent to all

THE BEGINNINGS. 17
the other colonies, setting forth the need for con
certed and harmonious action in respect j^^pj^ ^j ^.^^^
of so grave a matter. In response, the '^°'°™»-
assemblies of Connecticut, New York, Pennsylva
nia, Virginia, and South Carolina joined with
Massachusetts in remonstrating against the pro
posed Stamp Act. All these memorials were re
markable for clearness of argument and simple
dignity of language. They all took their stand on
the principle that, as free-born Englishmen, they
could not rightfully be taxed by the House of Com
mons unless they were represented in that body.
But the proviso was added, that if a letter from
the secretary of state, coming in the king's name,
should be presented to the colonial assemblies, ask
ing them to contribute something from their gen
eral resources to the needs of the British Empire,
they would cheerfully, as heretofore, grant liberal
sums of money, in token of their loyalty and of
their interest in all that concerned the welfare of
the mighty empire to which they belonged. These
able and temperate memorials were sent to Eng
land ; and in order to reinforce them by personal
tact and address, Franklin went over to London as
agent for the colony of Pennsylvania.
The remonstrances of the colonies were of no
avail. Early in 1765 the Stamp Act The stamp
was passed. It is worthy of remark that, ¦*-°''
now that the obnoxious law was fairly enacted, the
idea that the Americans would resist its execution
did not at once occur to Franklin. Acquiescence
seemed to him, for the present, the only safe pol
icy. In writing to his friend Charles Thomson,

18 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
he said that he could no more have hindered the
passing of the Stamp Act than he could have
hindered the sun's setting. " That," he says,
" we could not do. But since it is down, my
friend, and it may be long before it rises again,
let us make as good a night of it as we can. We
may still light candles. Frugality and industry
will go a great way towards indemnifying us."
But Thomson, in his answer, with truer foresight,
observed, " I much fear, instead of the candles
you mentioned being lighted, you will hear of the
works of darkness ! " The news of the passage
of the Stamp Act was greeted in America with a
burst of indignation. In New York, the act was
reprinted with a death's-head upon it in place of
the royal arms, and it was hawked about the
streets under the title of " The Folly of England
and the Ruin of America." In Boston, the church-
bells were tolled, and the flags on the shipping put
at half-mast.
But formal defiance came first from Virginia.
The Parsons' ^ J^^^ ^^^ ^ ^^^^ bcf OrC, a famoUS law-
Cause, g^j^;^ known as the " Parsons' Cause,"
had brought into public notice a yoiing man who
was destined to take rank as one of the greatest
of modern orators. The lawsuit which made Pat
rick Henry's reputation was one of the straws
which showed how the stream of tendency in
America was then strongly setting toward inde
pendence. Tobacco had not yet ceased to be a
legal currency in Virginia, and by virtue of an
old statute each clergyman of the Established
Church was entitled to sixteen thousand pounds

THE BEGINNINGS. 19
of tobacco as his yearly salary. In 1755 and
1758, under the severe jsressure of the French
war, the assembly had passed relief acts, allowing
all public dues, including the salaries of the clergy,
to be paid either in kind or in money, at a fixed
rate of twopence for a pound of tobacco. The
policy of these acts was thoroughly unsound, as
they involved a partial repudiation of debts ; but
the extreme distress of the community was pleaded
in excuse, and every one, clergy as well as laymen,
at first acquiesced in them. But in 1759, tobacco
was worth sixpence per pound, and the clergy
became dissatisfied. Their complaints reached the
ears of Sherlock, the Bishop of London, and the
act of 1758 was summarily vetoed by the king in
council. The clergy brought suits to recover the
unpaid portions of their salaries ; in the test case
of Rev. James Maury, the court decided the point
of the law in their favour, on the ground of the
royal veto, and nothing remained but to settle be
fore a jury the amount of the damages. On this
occasion, Henry appeared for the first time in
court, and after a few timid and awkward sen
tences burst forth with an eloquent speech, in
which he asserted the indefeasible right of Vir
ginia to make laws for herself, and declared that
in annulling a salutary ordinance at the request
of a favoured class in the community " a king,
from being the father of his people, degenerates
into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to obedience."
Cries of " Treason ! " were heard in the court
room, but the jury immediately returned a verdict
of one penny in damages, and Henry became the

20 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
popular idol of Virginia. The clergy tried in vain
to have him indicted for treason, alleging that his
crime was hardly less heinous than that which had
brought old Lord Lovat to the block. But the
people of Louisa county replied, in 1765, by
choosing him to represent them in the colonial as
sembly. Hardly had Henry taken his seat in the as
sembly when the news of the Stamp Act
Patrick Hen- . n t • ii. J! ^.1 11
ry's resoiu- amvcd. in a committee ot tne whole
tions. .11 .pi
house, he drew up a series ot resolu
tions, declaring that the colonists were entitled to
all the liberties and privileges of natural-born sub
jects, and that " the taxation of the people by
themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to
represent them, ... is the distinguishing charac
teristic of British freedom, without which the
ancient constitution cannot exist." It was further
declared that any attempt to vest the power of
taxation in any other body than the colonial as
sembly was a menace to British no less than to
American freedom ; that the people of Virginia
were not bound to obey any law enacted in dis
regard of these fundamental principles ; and that
any one who should maintain the contrary should
be regarded as a public enemy. It was in the
lively debate which ensued upon these resolu
tions, that Henry uttered those memorable words
commending the example of Tarquin and Caesar
and Charles I. to the attention of George III.
Before the vote had been taken upon all the
resolutions, Governor Fauquier dissolved the as
sembly ; but the resolutions were printed in the

THE BEGINNINGS. 21
newspapers, and hailed with approval all over the
country. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts legislature, at
the suggestion of Otis, had issued a circular letter
to all the colonies, calling for a general congress,
in order to concert measures of resist- ™ „..
The stamp
ance to the Stamp Act. The first cor- ^"^ congress.
dial response came from South Carolina, at the
instance of Christopher Gadsden, a wealthy mer
chant of Charleston and a scholar learned in
Oriental languages, a man of rare sagacity and
most liberal spirit. On the 7th of October, the
proposed congress assembled at New York, com
prising delegates from Massachusetts, South Caro
lina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York,
in all nine colonies, which are here mentioned in
the order of the dates at which they chose their
delegates. In Virginia, the governor succeeded
in preventing the meeting of the legislature, so
that this great colony did not send delegates ; and
for various reasons. New Hampshire, North Caro
lina, and Georgia were likewise unrepresented at
the congi-ess. But the sentiment of all the thirteen
colonies was none the less unanimous, and those
which did not attend lost no time in declaring
their full concurrence with what was done at New
York. At this memorable meeting, held under
the very guns of the British fleet and hard by the
headquarters of General Gage, the commander-
in-chief of the regular forces in America, a series
of resolutions were adopted, echoing the spirit of
Patrick Henry's resolves, though couched in lan-

22 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
guage somewhat more conciliatory, and memorials
were addressed to the king and to both Houses of
Parliament. Of all the delegates present, Gadsden
took the broadest ground, in behalf both of liberty
and of united action among the colonies. He ob
jected to sending petitions to Parliament, lest
thereby its paramount authority should implicitly
and unwittingly be acknowledged. " A confirma
tion of our essential and common rights as Eng
lishmen," said he, " may be pleaded from charters
safely enough ; but any further dependence on them
may be fatal. We should stand upon the broad
common ground of those natural rights that we
all feel and know as men and as descendants of
Englishmen. I wish the charters may not ensnare
us at last, by drawing different colonies to act
differently in this great cause. Whenever that is
the case, aU will be over with tlie whole. There
ought to be no New England man, no New Yorker,
known on the continent ; but all of us Americans."
So thought and said this broad-minded South
Carolinian. While these things were going on at New York,
Declaration of ^^ Massachusetts assembly, under the
Betts^ssem-"" lead of Samuel Adams, who had just
'''^" taken his seat in it, drew up a very able
state paper, in which it was declared, among other
things, that " the Stamp Act wholly cancels the
very conditions upon which our ancestors, with
much toil and blood and at their sole expense, set
tled this country and enlarged his majesty's domin
ions. It tends to destroy that mutual confidence
and affection, as well as that equality, which ought

THE BEGINNINGS. 23
ever to subsist among all his majesty's subjects in
this wide and extended empire ; and what is the
worst of all evils, if his majesty's American subjects
are not to be governed according to the known and
stated rules of the constitution, their minds may
in time become disaffected." This moderate and
dignified statement was derided in England as the
" raving of a parcel of wild enthusiasts," but from
the position here taken Massachusetts never after
ward receded.
But it was not only in these formal and decorous
proceedings that the spirit of resistance was exhib
ited. The first announcement of the Resistance to
Stamp Act had called into existence a Ac^t^^os-
group of secret societies of workingmen '""'
known as " Sons of Liberty," in allusion to a fa
mous phrase in one of Colonel Barre's speeches.
These societies were solemnly pledged to resist the
execution of the obnoxious law. On the 14th of
August, the quiet town of Boston witnessed some
extraordinary proceedings. At daybreak, the ef
figy of the stamp officer, Oliver, was seen hanging
from a great elm-tree, while near it was suspended
a boot, to represent the late prime minister. Lord
Bute ; and from the top of the boot-leg there is
sued a grotesque head, garnished with horns, to
represent the devil. At nightfall the Sons of Lib
erty cut down these figures, and bore them on a
bier through the streets until they reached King
Street, where they demolished the frame of a house
which was supposed to be erecting for a stamp of
fice. Thence, carrying the beams of this frame to
Fort Hill, where Oliver lived, they made a bonfire

24 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
of them in front of his house, and in the bonfire
they burned up the effigies. Twelve days after, a
mob sacked the splendid house of Chief Justice
Hutchinson, threw his plate into the street, and
destroyed the valuable library which he had been
thirty years in collecting, and which contained
many manuscripts, the loss of which was quite ir
reparable. As usual with mobs, the vengeance fell
in the wrong place, for Hutchinson had done his
best to prevent the passage of the Stamp Act. In
most of the colonies, the stamp officers were com
pelled to resign their posts. Boxes of stamps ar
riving by ship were burned or thrown into the sea.
Leading merchants agreed to import no more goods
from England, and wealthy citizens set the example
of dressing in homespun garments. Lawyers agreed
to overlook the absence of the stamp on legal doc
uments, while editors derisively issued their news
papers with a death's-head in the place where the
stamp was required to be put. In New York, the
and in New prcseucc of the troops for a moment en-
Tork. couraged the lieutenant-governor. Col-
den, to take a bold stand in behalf of the law. He
talked of firing upon the people, but was warned
that if he did so he would be speedily hanged on
a lamp-post, like Captain Porteous of Edinburgh.
A torchlight procession, carrying images of Colden
and of the devil, broke into the governor's coach
house, and, seizing his best chariot, paraded it
about town with the images upon it, and finally
burned up chariot and images on the Bowling
Green, in full sight of Colden and the garrison,
who looked on from the Battery, speechless with

THE BEGINNINGS. 25
rage, but afraid to interfere. Gage did not dare
to have the troops used, for fear of bringing on a
civil war ; and the next day the discomfited Colden
was obliged to surrender all the stamps to the com
mon council of New York, by whom they were at
once locked up in the City HaU.
Nothing more was needed to prove the impossi
bility of carrying the Stamp Act into effect. An
act which could be thus rudely defied under the very
eyes of the commander-in-chief plainly could never
be enforced without a war. But nobody wanted a
war, and the matter began to be reconsidered in
England. In July, the Grenville ministry had
gone out of office, and the Marquis of Rockingham
was now prime minister, while Conway, who had
been one of the most energetic opponents of the
Stamp Act, was secretary of state for the colonies.
The new ministry would perhaps have been glad to
let the question of taxing America remain in abey
ance, but that was no longer possible. The debate
on the proposed repeal of the Stamp
n , r. Debate in the
Act was one or the fiercest that has ever House of com-
been heard in the House of Commons.
Grenville and his friends, now in opposition, main
tained in all sincerity that no demand could ever
be more just, or more honourably intended, than
that which had lately been made upon the Ameri
cans. Of the honest conviction of Grenville and
his supporters that they were entirely in the right,
and that the Americans were governed by purely
sordid and vulgar motives in resisting the Stamp
Act, there cannot be the slightest doubt. To re
fute this gross misconception of the American po-

26 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
sition, Pitt hastened from a sick-bed to the House
of Commons, and delivered those speeches, in
which he avowed that he rejoiced in the resistance
of the Americans, and declared that, had they
submitted tamely to the measures of GrenvUle,
they would have shown themselves only fit to be
slaves. He pointed out distinctly that the Ameri
cans were upholding those eternal principles of
political justice which should be to aU Englishmen
most dear, and that a victory over the colonies
would be of iU-omen for English liberty, whether
in the Old World or in the New. Beware, he
said, how you persist in this ill-considered pohcy.
" In such a cause your success would be hazard
ous. America, if she fell, would faU like the
strong man with his arms around the pillars of the
Constitution." There could be no sounder politi
cal philosophy than was contained in these burn
ing sentences of Pitt. From all the history of the
European world since the later days of the Roman
Republic, there is no more important lesson to be
learned than this, — that it is impossible for a free
people to govern a dependent people despotically
without endangering its own freedom. Pitt there
fore urged that the Stamp Act should instantly
be repealed, and that the reason for the repeal
should be explicitly stated to be because the act
" was founded on an erroneous principle." At the
same time he recommended the passage of a De
claratory Act, in which the sovereign authority of
Parliament over the colonies should be strongly
asserted with respect to everything except direct
taxation. Similar views were set forth in the

THE BEGINNINGS. 27
House of Lords, with great learning and ability,
by Lord Camden ; but he was vehemently opposed
by Lord Mansfield, and when the question came
to a decision the only peers who supported Cam
den were Lords Shelburne, Cornwalhs, Paulet, and
Torrington. The result finaUy reached was the
unconditional repeal of the Stamp Act, jj ^ ^j ^j^^
and the simultaneous passage of a De- ^'''^p '*-°*'
claratory Act, in which the views of Pitt and Cam
den were ignored, and Parliament asserted its
right to make laws binding on the colonies "in aU
cases whatsoever." By the people of London the
repeal was received with enthusiastic delight, and
Pitt and Conway, as they appeared on the street,
were loudly cheered, while Grenville was greeted
with a storm of hisses. In America the effect of
the news was electric. There were bonfires in
every town, while addresses of thanks to the king
were voted in all the legislatures. Little heed was
paid to the Declaratory Act, which was regarded
merely as an artifice for saving the pride of the
British government. There was a unanimous out
burst of loyalty all over the country, and never
did the people seem less in a mood for rebeUion
than now.
The quarrel had now been made up. On the
question of principle, the British had the last
word. The government had got out of its di
lemma remarkably well, and the plain and obvious
course for British statesmanship was not to aUow
another such direct issue to come up between the
colonies and the mother-country. To force on
another such issue while the memory of this one

28 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
was fresh in everybody's mind was sheer madness.
To raise the question wantonly, as Charles Towns
hend did in the course of the very next year,
was one of those blunders that are worse than
crimes. In July, 1766, — less than six months after the
repeal of the Stamp Act, — the Rockingham min
istry fell, and the formation of a new ministry
was entrusted to Pitt, the man who best appre
ciated the value of the American colonies. But
the state of Pitt's health was not such as to war
rant his taking upon himself the ar-
Grafton's duous dutics of prime minister. He
Ministry. , ,
took the great seal, and, accepting the
earldom of Chatham, passed into the House of
Lords. The Duke of Grafton became prime
minister, under Pitt's guidance ; Conway and
Lord Shelburne were secretaries of state, and
Camden became Lord Chancellor, — all three of
them warm friends of America, and adopting
the extreme American view of the constitutional
questions lately at issue ; and along with these was
Charles Townshend, the evil spirit of the admin
istration, as chancellor of the exchequer. From
such a ministry, it might at first sight seem
strange that a fresh quarrel with America should
have proceeded. But Chatham's illness soon over
powered him, so that he was kept at home suf
fering excruciating pain, and could neither guide
nor even pay due attention to the proceedings
of his colleagues. Of the rest of the ministry,
only Conway and Townshend were in the House
of Commons, where the real direction of affairs

THE BEGINNINGS. 29
rested ; and when Lord Chatham was out of the
way, as the Duke of Grafton counted for nothing,
the strongest man in the cabinet was unquestion-
ably Townshend. Now when an act for raising
an American revenue was projjosed by Townshend,
a prejudice against it was sure to be excited at
once, simply because every American knew well
what Townshend's views were. It would have
been difficult for such a man even to assume a
concihatory attitude without having his motives
suspected ; and if the question with Great Britain
had been simply that of raising a revenue on
statesmanlike principles, it would have been well
to entrust the business to some one like Lord
Shelburne, in whom the Americans had confi
dence. In 1767, Townshend ventured to do what
in any English ministry of the present day would
be impossible. In flat opposition to the policy
of Chatham and the rest of his colleagues, trust
ing in the favour of the king and in his own abil
ity to coax or browbeat the House of Commons,
he brought in a series of new measures for tax
ing America. " I expect to be dismissed for my
pains," he said in the House, with flippant de
fiance ; and indeed he came very near it. As
soon as he heard what was going on, Chatham
mustered up strength enough to go to London and
insist upon Townshend's dismissal. But Lord
North was the only person that could be thought
of to take Townshend's place, and Lord North,
who never could bear to offend the king, declined
the appointment. Before Chatham could devise
a way out of his quandary, his malady again laid

30 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
him prostrate, and Townshend was not only not
turned out, but was left practically supreme in the
cabinet. The new measures for taxing America
were soon passed. In the debates on the Stamp
Act, it had been argued that while Parliament had
no right to impose a direct tax upon the Amer
icans, it might still properly regulate American
trade by port duties. The distinction had been
insisted upon by Pitt, and had been virtually ac
knowledged by the Americans, who had from
time to time submitted to acts of Parliament im
posing duties upon merchandise imported into the
colonies. Nay, more, when charged with inconsis
tency for submitting to such acts while resisting
the Stamp Act, several leading Americans had
The Towns- explicitly adopted the distinction be-
hendActs. tween internal and external taxation,
and declared themselves ready to submit to the lat
ter while determined to resist the former. Towns
hend was now ready, as he declared, to take them
at their word. By way of doing so, he began by
laughing to scorn the distinction between internal
and external taxation, and declaring that Par
liament possessed the undoubted right of taxing
the Americans without their own consent; but
since objections had been raised to a direct tax,
he was wiUing to resort to port duties, — a meas
ure to which the Americans were logicaUy bound
to assent. Duties were accordingly imposed on
wine, oil, and fruits, if carried directly to America
from Spain or Portugal ; on glass, paper, lead,
and painters' colours ; and lastly on tea. The rev
enue to be derived from these duties was to be

THE BEGINNINGS. 31
devoted to paying a fixed salary to the royal gov
ernors and to the justices appointed at the king's
pleasure. The Crown was also empowered to
create a general civil list in every colony, and to
grant salaries and pensions at its arbitrary wiU.
A board of revenue commissioners for the whole
country was to be established at Boston, armed
with extraordinary powers; and general writs of
assistance were expressly legalized and permitted.
Such was the way in which Townshend pro
ceeded to take the Americans at their word. His
course was a distinct warning to the Americans
that, if they yielded now, they might expect
some new Stamp Act or other measures of direct
taxation to f oUow ; and so it simply invited re
sistance. That no doubt might be left on this
point, the purpose for which the revenue was to
be used showed clearly that the object of this
legislation was not to regulate trade, but to as
sert British supremacy over the colonies at the
expense of their political freedom. By provid
ing for a civil list in each colony, to be respon
sible only to the Crown, it aimed at American
self-government even a more deadly blo,w than
had been aimed at it by the Stamp Act. It med
dled with the "internal police" of every colony,
and would thus have introduced a most
. „ „ Attack on the
vexatious lorm ot tyranny as soon as New York as-
it had taken effect. A special act by
which the Townshend revenue acts were accom
panied still further revealed the temper and pur
poses of the British government. The colony of
New York had been required to provide certain

32 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
supplies for the regular troops quartered in the
city, under command of General Gage ; and the
colonial assembly had insisted upon providing
these supplies in its own way, and in disregard
of special instructions from England. For this
offence. Parliament now passed an act suspending
the New York assembly from its legislative func
tions until it should have complied with the in
structions regarding the supplies to the army. It
need not be said that the precedent involved in
this act, if once admitted, would have virtually
annuUed the legislative independence of every one
of the colonial assemblies.
We may perhaps wonder that an English Par
liament should have been prevaUed on to pass such
audacious acts as these, and by large majorities.
But we must remember that in those days the Eng
lish system of representation was so imperfect, and
had come to be so overgrown with abuses,
ParUament c -r> t
did not prop- that an act ot Parliament was by no
erly represent
the British mcaus surc to represent the average
people. ....
judgment of the English people. The
House of Commons was so far under the corrupt
influence of the aristocracy, and was so inade
quately controUed by popular opinion, that at al
most any time it was possible for an eloquent,
determined, and unscrupulous minister to carry
measures through it such as could never have been
carried through any of the reformed Parliaments
since 1832. It is not easy, perhaps, to say with
confidence what the popular feeling in England
was in 1767 with reference to the pohcy of Charles
Townshend. The rural population was much more

THE BEGINNINGS. 33
ignorant than it is to-day, and its political opinions
were strongly influenced by the country squires, —
a worthy set of men, but not generally distinguished
for the flexibility of their minds or the breadth of
their views. But as a sample of the most inteUi
gent popular feeling in England at that time, it
wiU probably not be unfair to cite that of the
city of London, which was usuaUy found arrayed
on the side of free government. No wiser advice
was heard in Parliament, on the subject of the New
York dispute, than was given by alderman Beck-
ford, father of the illustrious author of Vathek,
when he said, " Do like the best of physicians, and
heal the disease by doing nothing." On many
other important occasions in the course of this un
fortunate quarrel, the city of London gave expres
sion to opinions which the king and Parliament
would have done well to heed. But even if the
House of Commons had reflected popular feeling
in 1767 as clearly as it has done since 1832, it is
by no means sure that it would have known how
to deal successfuUy with the American question.
The problem was reaUy a new one in political his
tory ; and there was no adequate precedent to
guide the statesmen in dealing with the peculiar
combination of considerations it involved. As far
as concerned the relations of Englishmed in Eng
land to the Crown and to Parliament, the British
Constitution had at last reached a point where it
worked quite smoothly. All contingencies likely
to arise seemed to have been provided for. But
when it came to the relations of Englishmen in
America to the Crown and to Parliament, the case

34 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
was very different. The case had its peculiar con
ditions, which the British Constitution in skilful
hands would no doubt have proved elastic enough
to satisfy ; but just at this time the British Consti
tution happened to be in very unskilful hands, and
wholly failed to meet the exigencies of the occa^
Difficulty of sion. The chief difficulty lay in the
the problem. f^^j^ ^]^^^ ^j^^^g ^^ ^j^g ^^g j^^^^j ^j^^
American principle of no taxation without repre
sentation was unquestionably sound and just, on
the other hand the exemption of any part of the
British Empire from the jurisdiction of Parliament
seemed equivalent to destroying the political unity
of the empire. This coidd not but seem to any
English statesman a most lamentable result, and
no English statesman felt this more strongly than
Lord Chatham.
There were only two possible ways in which the
difference could be accommodated. Either the
American colonies must elect representatives to the
Parliament at Westminster; or else the right of
levying taxes must be left where it already resided,
in their own legislative bodies. The first alter
native was seriously considered by eminent politi
cal thinkers, both in England and America. In
England it was favourably regarded by Adam
Smith, and in America by Benjamin Franklin and
James Otis. In 1774, some of the loyalists in the
first Continental Congress recommended such a
scheme. In 1778, after the overthrow of Bur
goyne, the king himself began to think favourably
of such a way out of the quarrel. But this alter
native was doubtless from the first quite visionary

THE BEGINNINGS. 35
and unpractical. The difficulties in the way of
securing anything like equality of representation
would probably have been insuperable ; Represent:.^
and the difficulty in dividing jurisdiction 'j^^^?^ ^^^^
fairly between the local colonial legisla- "°''*'
tiire and the American contingent in the Parliament
at Westminster would far have exceeded any of
the difficulties that have arisen in the attempt to
adjust the relations of the several States to the
general government in our Federal Union. Mere
distance, too, which even to-day would go far to
ward rendering such a scheme impracticable,
would have been a still more fatal obstacle in the
days of Chatham and Townshend. If, even with
the vast enlargement of the political horizon which
our hundred years' experience of federalism has ef
fected, the difficulty of such a union still seems so
great, we may be sure it would have proved quite
insuperable then. The only practicable solution
would have been the frank and cordial admission,
by the British government, of the essential sound
ness of the American position, that, in accordance
with the entire spirit of the English Constitution,
the right of levying taxes in America resided only
in the colonial legislatures, in which alone could
American freemen be adequately represented.
Nor was there really any reason to fear that such
a step would imperil the unity of the empire. How
mistaken this fear was, on the part of English
statesmen, is best shown by the fact that, in her
liberal and enlightened dealings with her colo
nies at the present day, England has consistently
adopted the very course of action which alone

36 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
would have conciliated such men as Samuel Adams
in the days of the Stamp Act. By pursuing such
a policy, the British government has to-day a gen
uine hold upon the affections of its pioneers in
Australia and New Zealand and Africa. If such
a statesman as Gladstone could have dealt freely
with the American question during the twelve
years following the Peace of Paris, the history of
that time need not have been the pitiable story of
a blind and obstinate effort to enforce submission
to an iU-considered and arbitrary policy on the
part of the king and his ministers. The feeling by
which the king's party was guided, in the treat
ment of the American question, was very much the
same as the feeling which lately inspired the Tory
criticisms upon Gladstone's policy in South Africa.
Lord Beaconsfield, a man in some respects not un
like Charles Townshend, bequeathed to his succes
sor a miserable quarrel with the Dutch farmers
Mr. Gladstone of the Transvaal ; and Mr. Gladstone,
and the Boers, ^^f^.^^, examining the case on its merits,
had the moral courage to acknowledge that Eng
land was wrong, and to concede the demands of
the Boers, even after serious military defeat at
their hands. Perhaps no other public act of Eng
land in the nineteenth century has done her greater
honour than this. But said the Jingoes, All the
world will now laugh at Englishmen, and call them
cowards. In order to vindicate the military pres
tige of England, the true policy would be, for
sooth, to prolong the war until the Boers had been
once thoroughly defeated, and then acknowledge
the soundness of their position. Just as if the

THE BEGINNINGS. 37
whole world did not know, as well as it can pos
sibly know anything, that whatever qualities the
English nation may lack, it certainly does not
lack courage, or the ability to win victories in a
good cause ! All honour to the Christian statesman
who dares to leave England's military prestige to
be vindicated by the glorious records of a thousand
years, and even in the hour of weU-merited defeat
sets a higher value on political justice than on a
reputation for dealing hard blows ! Such inci
dents as this are big with hope for the future.
They show us what sort of political morality our
children's children may expect to see, when man
kind shall have come somewhat nearer toward be
ing truly civilized.
In the eighteenth century, no such exhibition of
good sense and good feeling, in the interest of po
litical justice, could have been expected from any
European statesman, unless from a Turgot or a
Chatham. But Charles Townshend was not even
called upon to exercise any such self-control. Had
he simply taken Alderman Beckford's advice, and
done nothing, aU would have been well ; but his
meddling had now put the government into a posi
tion which it was ruinous to maintain, but from
which it was difficult to retreat. American tradi
tion rightly lays the chief blame for the troubles
which brought on the Revolutionary War to
George III. ; but, in fairness, it is well to remem
ber that he did not suggest Townshend's measures,
though he zealously adopted and cherished them
when once propounded. The blame for wantonly
throwing the apple of discord belongs to Towns-

38 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
hend more than to any one else. After doing this,
within three months from the time his biU had
Death of passed the House of Commons, Towns-
Townshend. j^^^^^ ^^^ g^j^^^ ^J^J^ ^ f^^^j. ^^.^^ ^-^^
at the age of forty-one. A man of extraordinary
gifts, but without a trace of earnest moral convic
tion, he had entered upon a splendid career ; but his
insincere nature, which turned everything into jest,
had stamped itself upon his work. He bequeathed
to his country nothing but the quarrel which was
soon to deprive her of the grandest part of that
empire upon which the sun shall never set.
If Townshend's immediate object in originating
these measures was to curry favour with George III.,
and get the lion's share in the disposal of the
king's ample corruption-fund, he had doubtless
gone to work in the right way. The king was de
lighted with Townshend's measures, and after the
sudden death of his minister he made
His political
legacy to them his own, and staked his whole po-
George IU. . . ' ¦'^ .
litical career as a monarch upon their
success. These measures were the fatal legacy
which the brighter political charlatan left to the
duller political fanatic. The fierce persistency
with which George now sought to force Towns
hend's measures upon the Americans partook of the
nature of fanaticism, and we shall not understand
it unless we bear in mind the state of political par
ties in England between 1760 and 1784. When
George III. came to the throne, in 1760, England
had been governed for more than half a century by
the great Whig families which had been brought
into the foreground by the revolution of 1688.

THE BEGINNINGS. 39
The Tories had been utterly discredited and cast
out of political life by reason of their willingness to
conspire with the Stuart pretenders in disturbing
the peace of the country. Cabinet government, in
its modern form, had begun to grow up during the
long and prosperous administration of Sir Robert
Walpole, who was the first English j)rime minister
in the full sense. Under Walpole's wise and
powerful sway, the first two Georges had possessed
scarcely more than the shadow of sovereignty. It
was the third George's ambition to become a real
king, like the king of France or the king of Spain.
From earliest babyhood, his mother had forever been
impressing upon him the precept, " George, be
king ! " and this simple lesson had constituted
pretty much the whole of his education. Popular
tradition regards him as the most ignorant king that
ever sat upon the English throne ; and so far as
general culture is concerned, this opinion is un
doubtedly correct. He used to wonder what people
could find to admire in such a wretched driveller as
Shakespeare, and he never was capable of under
standing any problem which required the slightest
trace, of imagination or of generalizing power.
Nevertheless, the popular American tra- character of
dition undoubtedly errs in exaggerating *°'''°
his stupidity and laying too little stress upon the
worst side of his character. George III. was not
destitute of a certain kind of ability, which often
gets highly rated in this not too clear-sighted world.
He could see an immediate end very distinctly, and
acquired considerable power from the dogged in
dustry with which he pursued it. In an age where

40 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
some of the noblest English statesmen drank their
gallon of strong wine daily, or sat late at the gam
bling-table, or lived in scarcely hidden concubinage,
George III. was decorous in personal habits and
pure in domestic relations, and no banker's clerk
in London applied himself to the detaUs of business
more industriously than he-. He had a genuine
talent for administration, and he devoted this talent
most assiduously to selfish ends. Scantily en
dowed with human sympathy, and almost boorishly
stiff in his ordinary unstudied manner, he could be
smooth as oil whenever he liked. He was an adept
in gaining men's confidence by a show of interest,
and securing their aid by dint of fair promises ; and
when he found them of no further use, he could
turn them adrift with wanton insult. Any one who
dared to disagree with him upon even the slightest
point of policy he straightway regarded as a nat
ural enemy, and pursued him ever afterward with
vmdictive hatred. As a natural consequence, he
surrounded himself with weak and short-sighted
advisers, and toward all statesmen of broad views
and independent character he nursed the bitterest
rancour. He had little faith in human honour or
rectitude, and in pursuing an end he was seldom
deterred by scruples.
Such was the man who, on coming to the throne
in 1760, had it for his first and chiefest thought to
break down the growing system of cabinet gov
ernment in England. For the moment circum
stances seemed to favour him. The ascendancy of
the great Whig famUies was endangered on two
sides. On the one hand, the Tory party had out-

THE BEGINNINGS. 41
lived that idle, romantic love for the Stuarts upon
which it found it impossible to thrive. The Tories
began coming to court again, and they gave the
new king all the benefit of their superstitious
theories of high prerogative and divine
r\ T 1 English par-
right. On the other hand, a strongf ties between
° . . / ^ 1760 and 1784.
popular feeling was beginning to grow
up against parliamentary government as conducted
by the old Whig families. The House of Com
mons no longer fairly represented the people. An
cient boroughs, which possessed but a handful of
population, or, like Old Sarum, had no inhabitants
at all, stiU sent their representatives to Parliament,
while great cities of recent growth, such as Bir
mingham and Leeds, were unrepresented. To a
great extent, it was the most progressive parts of
the kingdom which were thus excluded from a
share in the government, while the rotten boroughs
were disposed of by secret lobbying, or" even by
open bargain and sale. A few Whig families, the
heads of which sat in the House of Lords, thus vir
tually owned a considerable part of the House of
Commons ; and, under such circumstances, it was
not at all strange that Parliament should some
times, as in the Wilkes case, array itself in flat
opposition to the wiU of the people. The only
wonder is that there were not more such scandals.
The party of "Old Whigs," numbering in its
ranks some of the ablest and most patriotic men in
England, was contented with this state of things,
upon which it had thrived for two generations, and
could not be made to understand the iniquity of it,
— any more than an old cut-and-dried American

42 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
politician in our time can be made to understand
the iniquity of the " spoils system." Of this party
the Marquis of Rockingham was the political
leader, and Edmund Burke was the great represen
tative statesman. In strong opposition to the Old
Whig policy there had grown up the party of New
Whigs, bent upon bringing about some measure of
parliamentary reform, whereby the House of Com
mons might truly represent the people of Great
Britain. In Parliament this party was smaU in
numbers, but weighty in character, and at its head
was the greatest Englishman of the eighteenth
century, the elder William Pitt, under whose guid
ance England had won her Indian empire and
established her dominion over the seas, while she
had driven the French from America, and enabled
Frederick the Great to lay the foundations of mod
ern Germany.
Now when George III. came to the throne, he
George IU. as took advantage of this division in the
a po ician. ^^^ parties in order to break down the
power of the Old Whig families, which so long
had ruled the country. To this end he used the
revived Tory party with great effect, and bid
against the Old Whigs for the rotten boroughs ;
and in playing off one set of prejudices and inter
ests against another, he displayed in the highest
degree the cunning and craft of a self-seeking pol
itician. His ordinary methods would have aroused
the envy of Tammany. While engaged in such
work, he had sense enough to see that the party
from which he had most to fear was that of the
New Whigs, whose scheme of parliamentary reform,

THE BEGINNINGS. 43
if ever successful, would deprive him of the ma
chinery of corruption upon which he relied. Much
as he hated the Old Whig families, he hated Pitt
and his followers still more heartily. He was per
petually denouncing Pitt as a " trumpeter of sedi
tion," and often vehemently declared in public,
and in the most offensive manner, that he wished
that great man were dead. Such had been his
eagerness to cast discredit upon Pitt's policy that
he had utterly lost sight of the imperial interests
of England, which indeed his narrow intelligence
was incapable of comprehending. One of the first
acts of his reign had been to throw away Cuba
and the Philippine Islands, which Pitt had just
conquered from Spain ; while at the same time,
by leaving Prussia in the lurch before the Seven
Years' War had fairly closed, he converted the
great Frederick from one of England's warmest
friends into one of her bitterest enemies.
This political attitude of George III. toward the
Whigs in general, and toward Pitt in
.... , n , . His chief rea-
particular, explains the fierce obsti- ^o" 'or <iuar-
. , , . reling with
nacy with which he took up and carried t^e Ameri-
X-. . cans.
on Townshend's quarrel with the Amer
ican colonies. For if the American position, that
there should be no taxation without representation,
were once to be granted, then it would straightway
become necessary to admit the principles of parlia
mentary reform. The same principle that applied
to such commonwealths as Massachusetts and Vir
ginia would be forthwith applied to such towns as
Birmingham and Leeds. The system of rotten
boroughs would be swept away ; the chief engine

44 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
of kingly corruption would thus be destroyed ; a
reformed House of Commons, with the people at
its back, would curb forever the pretensions of the
Crown ; and the detested Lord Chatham would
become the real ruler of a renovated England, in
which George III. would be a personage of very
little political importance.
In these considerations we find the explanation
of the acts of George III. which brought on the
American Revolution, and we see why it is histor
icaUy correct to regard him as the person chiefly
responsible for the quarrel. The obstinacy with
which he refused to listen to a word of reason
from America was largely due to the exigencies of
the political situation in which he found himself.
For him, as weU as for the colonies, it was a des
perate struggle for pohtical existence. He was
glad to force on the issue in America rather than
in England, because it would be comparatively
easy to enUst British local feehng against tbe
Americans as a remote set of " rebels," with whom
Englishmen had no interests in common, and thus
obscure the real nature of the issue. Herein he
showed himself a cunning politician, though an
ignoble statesman. By playing off against each
other the two sections of the Whig party, he con
tinued for a while to carry his point ; and had he
succeeded in overcoming the American resistance
and calling into England a well-trained army
of victorious mercenaries, the political quarrel
there could harcUy have failed to develop into
a civil war. A new rebeUion would perhaps
have overthrown George III. as James II. had

THE BEGINNINGS. 45
been overthrown a century before. As it was,
the victory of the Americans put an end to the
personal government of the king in 1784, so quietly
that the people scarcely realized the change.^ A
peaceful election accomplished what otherwise
could hardly have been effected without bloodshed.
So while George III. lost the fairest portion of the
British Empire, it was the sturdy Americans who,
fighting the battle of freedom at once for the Old
World and for the New, ended by overwhelming
his paltry schemes for personal aggrandizement in
hopeless ruin, leaving him for posterity to con
template as one of the most instructive examples
of short-sighted folly that modern history affords.
' See my Critical Period of American History, chap. i.

CHAPTER II.
THE CRISIS.
Townshend was succeeded in the exchequer
by Lord North, eldest son of the Earl
of Guildford, a young man of sound
judgijient, wide knowledge, and rare sweetness of
temper, but whoUy lacking in sympathy with pop
ular government. As leader of the House of Com
mons, he was sufficiently able in debate to hold
his ground against the fiercest attacks of Burke
and Fox, but he had no strength of wiU. His
lazy good-nature and his Tory principles made
him a great favourite with the king, who, through
his influence over Lord North, began now to ex
ercise the power of a cabinet minister, and to take
a more important part than hitherto in the direc
tion of affairs. Soon after North entered the cab
inet, colonial affairs were taken from Lord Shel
burne and put in charge of Lord Hillsborough,
a man after the king's own heart. Conway was
dismissed from the cabinet, and his place was
taken by Lord Weymouth, who had voted against
the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Earl of Sand
wich, who never spoke of the Americans but in
terms of abuse, was at the same time made post
master-general ; and in the following year Lord
Chatham resigned the privy seal.

THE CRISIS. 47
While the ministry, by these important changes,
was becoming more and more hostile to the just
claims of the Americans, those claims ^ ,. t.- t •
' John Dickrn-
were powerfully urged in America, both =™-
in popular literature and in weU-considered state
papers. John Dickinson, at once a devoted friend
of England and an ardent American patriot, pub
lished his celebrated Farmer's Letters, which were
greatly admired in both countries for their tem-
perateness of tone and elegance of expression. In
these letters, Dickinson held a position quite sim
ilar to that occupied by Burke. Recognizing that
the constitutional relations of the colonies to the
mother country had always been extremely vague
and ill-defined, he urged that the same state of
things should be kept up forever through a genu
ine English feeling of compromise, which should
refrain from pushing any abstract theory of sov
ereignty to its extreme logical conclusions. At
the same time, he declared that the Townshend
revenue acts were " a most dangerous innovation "
upon the liberties of the people, and significantly
hinted that, should the ministry persevere in its
tyrannical policy, "English history affords ex
amples of resistance by force."
While Dickinson was publishing these letters,
Samuel Adams wrote for the Massachu- The Massa-
setts assembly a series of addresses to chusetts dr-
the ministry, a petition to the king, and
a circular letter to the assemblies of the other
colonies. In these very able state papers, Adams
declared that a proper representation of American
interests in the British Parliament was imprac-

48 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
ticable, and that, in accordance with the spirit of
the English Constitution, no taxes could be levied
in America except by the colonial legislatures. He
argued that the Townshend acts were unconstitu
tional, and asked that they should be repealed,
and that the colonies should resume the position
which they had occupied before the beginning
of the present troubles. The petition to the king
was couched in beautiful and touching language,
but the author seems to have understood very
weU how little effect it was likely to produce.
His daughter, Mrs. WeUs, used to teU how one
evening, as her father had just finished writing
this petition, and had taken up his hat to go out,
she observed that the paper would soon be touched
by the royal hand. " More likely, my dear," he
replied, " it wiU be spurned by the royal foot ! "
Adams rightly expected much more from the cir
cular letter to the other colonies, in which he in
vited them to cooperate with Massachusetts in
resisting the Townshend acts, and in petitioning
for their repeal. The assembly, having adopted
all these papers by a large majority, was forth
with prorogued by Governor Bernard, who, in a
violent speech, called them demagogues to whose
happiness " everlasting contention was necessary."
But the work was done. The circular letter
brought encouraging repHes from the other col
onies. The condemnation of the Townshend acts
was unanimous, and leading merchants in most of
the towns entered into agreements not to import
any more Enghsh goods until the acts should be
repealed. Ladies formed associations, under the

THE CRISIS. 49
name of Daughters of Liberty, pledging them
selves to wear homespun clothes and to abstain
from drinking tea. The feeling of the country
was thus plainly enough expressed, but nowhere
as yet was there any riot or disorder, and no one
as yet, except, perhaps, Samuel Adams, had begun
to think of a pohtical separation from England.
Even he did not look upon such a course as desir
able, but the treatment of his remonstrances by
the king and the ministry soon led him to change
his opinion.
The petition of the Massachusetts assembly was
received by the king with silent contempt, but the
circular letter threw him into a rage. In cabinet
meeting, it was pronounced to be little better
than an overt act of rebeUion, and the ministers
were encouraged in this opinion by letters from
Bernard, who represented the whole affair as the
wicked attempt of a few vile demagogues to sow
the seeds of dissension broadcast over the con
tinent. We have before had occasion to observe
the extreme jealousy with which the Crown had
always regarded any attempt at con- ^^^^^ .^^^^_
certed action among the colonies which 3 "^""tf ons to"
did not originate with itself. But here b«">*"J-
was an attempt at concerted action in flagrant
opposition to the royal will. Lord HiUsborough
instructed Bernard to command the assembly to
rescind their circular letter, and, in case of their
refusal, to send them home about their business.
This was to be repeated year after year, so that,
until Massachusetts should see fit to declare her
self humbled and penitent, she must go without

50 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
a legislature. At the same time, HiUsborough
ordered the assemblies in all the other colonies to
treat the Massachusetts circular with contempt, —
and this, too, under penalty of instant dissolution.
From a constitutional point of view, these arro
gant orders deserve to be ranked among the curi
osities of political history. They serve to mark
the rapid progress the ministry was making in
the art of misgovernment. A year before, Towns
hend had suspended the New York legislature by
an act of ParUament. Now, a secretary of state,
by a simple royal order, threatened to suspend all
the legislative bodies of America unless they should
vote according to his dictation.
When HiUsborough's orders were laid before
the Massachusetts assembly, they were greeted
with scorn. " We are asked to rescind," said Otis.
" Let Britain rescind her measures, or
The " Illustri- .
ous Ninety- tlic colouics are lost to her forever.
Two." Nevertheless, it was only after nine
days of discussion that the question was put, when
the assembly decided, by a vote of ninety-two to
seventeen, that it would not rescind its circular let
ter. Bernard immediately dissolved the assembly,
but its vote was hailed with delight throughout
the country, and the " Illustrious Ninety-Two " be
came the favourite toast on aU convivial occasions.
Nor were the other colonial assemblies at all readier
than that of Massachusetts to yield to the secre
tary's dictation. They aU expressed the most cor
dial sympathy with the recommendations of the
circular letter ; and in several instances they were
dissolved by the governors, according to HiUsbor
ough's instructions.

THE CRISIS. 51
While these fruitless remonstrances against the""
Townshend acts had been preparing, the commis
sioners of the customs, in enforcing the acts, had
not taken sufficient pains to avoid irritating the
people. In the spring of 1768, the fifty-gun frigate
Romney had been sent to mount guard in the har
bour of Bostpn, and while she lay there several of
the citizens were seized and impressed as seamen, —
a lawless practice long afterward com- j^ ^^^^^
mon in the British navy, but already stig- °^ citizens.
matized as barbarous by public opinion in America.
As long ago as 1747, when the relations between
the colonies and the home government were quite
harmonious, resistance to the press-gang had re
sulted in a riot in the streets of Boston. Now while
the town was very indignant over this lawless
kidnapping of its citizens, on the 10th of June,
1768, John Hancock's sloop Liberty was seized at
the wharf by a boat's crew from the Romney, for
an alleged violation of the revenue laws, though
without official warrant. Insults and recrimina
tions ensued between the officers and the citizens
assembled on the wharf, until after a while the
excitement grew into a mild form of riot, in which
a few windows were broken, some of the officers
were pelted, and finally a pleasure-boat, belonging
to the collector, was pulled up out of the water,
carried to the Common, and burned there, when
Hancock and Adams, arriving upon the scene, put
a stop to the commotion. A few days afterward,
a town meeting was held in Faneuil Hall ; but
as the crowd was too great to be contained in the
building, it was adjourned to the Old South

52 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Meeting-House, where Otis addressed the people
from the pulpit. A petition to the governor was
prepared, in which it was set forth that the
impressment of peaceful citizens was an iUegal
act, and that the state of the town was as if
war had been declared against it ; and the gov
ernor was requested to order the instant removal
of the frigate from the harbour. A committee
of twenty-one leading citizens was appointed to
deliver this petition to the governor at his house
in Jamaica Plain. In his letters to the secretary
of state, Bernard professed to live in constant
fear of assassination, and was always begging for
troops to protect him against the incendiary and
blackguard mob of Boston. Yet as he looked
down the beautiful road from his open window,
that summer afternoon, what he saw was not a
ragged mob, armed with knives and bludgeons,
shouting " Liberty, or death ! " and bearing the
head of a revenue coUector aloft on the point of a
pike, but a quiet procession of eleven chaises, from
which there alighted at his door twenty-one gentle
men, as sedate and stately in demeanour as those
old Roman senators at whom the Gaulish chief so
marveled. There followed a very affable inter
view, during which wine was passed around. The
next day the governor's answer was read in town
meeting, declining to remove the frigate, but prom
ising that in future there should be no impress
ment of Massachusetts citizens ; and with this com
promise the wrath of the people was for a moment
assuaged. Affairs of this sort, reported with gross exagger-

THE CRISIS. 53
ation by the governor and revenue commissioners
to the ministry, produced in England the impres
sion that Boston was a lawless and riotous town,
fuU of cutthroats and blacklegs, whose violence
could be held in check only by martial law. Of
all the misconceptions of America by England
which brought about the American Revolution,
perhaps this notion of the turbulence of Boston
was the most ludicrous. During the ten years of
excitement which preceded the War of Indepen
dence there was one disgraceful riot in Boston, —
that in which Hutchinson's house was sacked ; but
in all this time not a drop of blood was shed by
the people, nor was anybody's life for a moment in
danger at their hands. The episode of the sloop
Liberty, as here described, was a fair sample of
the disorders which occurred at Boston at periods
of extreme excitement ; and in any European town
in the eighteenth century it would hardly have
been deemed worthy of mention.
Even before the affair of the Liberty, the gov
ernment had made up its mind to send troops to
Boston, in order to overawe the popular party and
show them that the king and Lord HiUsborough
were in earnest. The news of the Liberty affair,
however, served to remove any hesitation that might
hitherto have been felt. Vengeance was denounced
asainst the insolent town of Boston. The most
seditious spirits, such as Otis and Ad- statute of
ams, must be made an example of, and coMemng '
thus the others might be frightened into commitSd
submission. With such intent. Lord
Hillsborough sent over to inquire " if any person

54 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
had committed any acts which, under the statutes
of Henry VIII. against treason committed abroad,
might justify their being brought to England for
trial." This raking-up of an obsolete statute, en
acted at one of the worst periods of English his
tory, and before England had any colonies at all,
was extremely injudicious. But besides aU this,
continued Hillsborough, the town meeting, that
nursery of sedition, must be put down or overawed ;
and in pursuance of this scheme, two regiments of
soldiers and a frigate were to be sent over to Boston
at the ministry's earliest convenience. To make an
example of Boston, it was thought, would have a
wholesome effect upon the temper of the Americans.
It was now, in the summer of 1768, that Samuel
Adams made up his mind that there was no hope
of redress from the British government, and that
the only remedy was to be found in the assertion
, . , of political independence by the Ameri-
SamueJ Adams ¦*¦ .
™?'^?'.JiP '"" can colonies. The courteous petitions
mind, 17C8. '¦
and temperate remonstrances of the
American assemblies had been met, not by rational
arguments, but by insulting and iUegal royal or
ders ; and now at last an army was on the way
from England to enforce the tyrannical measures
of government, and to terrify the people into sub
mission. Accordingly, Adams came to the con
clusion that the only proper course for the colonies
was to declare themselves independent of Great
Britain, to unite together in a permanent confeder
ation, and to invite European alliances. We have
his own word for the fact that from this moment
until the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, he

THE CRISIS. 55
consecrated all his energies, with burning enthusi
asm, upon the attainment of that great object.
Yet in 1768 no one knew better than Samuel
Adams that the time had not yet come when his
bold policy could be safely adopted, and that any
premature attempt at armed resistance on the part
of Massachusetts might prove fatal. At this time,
probably no other American statesman had thought
the matter out so far as to reach Adams's conclu
sions. No American had as yet felt any desire to
terminate the political connection with England.
Even those who most thoroughly condemned the
measures of the government did not consider the
case hopeless, but believed that in one way or an
other a peaceful solution was still attainable. For
a long time this attitude was sincerely and patiently
maintained. Even Washington, when he came to
take command of the army at Cambridge, after the
battle of Bunker Hill, had not made up his mind
that the object of the war was to be the indepen
dence of the colonies. In the same month of July,
1775, Jefferson said expressly, " We have not raised
armies with designs of separating from Great Brit
ain and establishing independent states. Necessity
has not yet driven us into that desperate meas
ure." The Declaration of Independence was at last
brought about only with difficulty and after pro
longed discussion. Our great-great-grandfathers
looked upon themselves as Englishmen, and felt
proud of their connection with England. Their
determination to resist arbitrary measures was at
first in no way associated in their minds with disaf
fection toward the mother-country. Besides this,

56 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
the task of effecting a separation by military meas
ures seemed to most persons quite hopeless. It
was not until after Bunker Hill had shown that
American soldiers were a match for British sol
diers in the field, and after Washington's capture
of Boston had shown that the enemy really could
be dislodged from a whole sei^tion of the country,
that the more hopeful patriots began to feel confi
dent of the ultimate success of a war for indepen
dence. It is hard for us nov/ to realize how terrible
the difficulties seemed to the men who surmounted
them. Throughout the war, beside the Tories who
openly sympathized with the enemy, there were
many worthy people who thought we were " going
too far," and who magnified our losses and depre
ciated our gains, — quite like the people who, in
the War of Secession, used to be caUed " croalc-
ers." The depression of even the boldest, after
such defeats as that of Long Island, was dreadful.
How inadequate was the general sense of our real
strength, how dim the general comprehension of
the great events that were happening, may best be
seen in the satirical writings of some of the loyal
ists. At the time of the French alliance, there
were many who predicted that the result of this
step would be to undo the work of the Seven Years'
War, to reinstate the French in America with full
control over the thirteen colonies, and to establish
despotism and popery all over the continent. A
satirical pamphlet, published in 1779, just ten
years before the Bastille was torn down in Paris,
drew an imaginary picture of a Bastille which ten
. years later was to stand in New York, and, with

THE CRISIS. ,57
StiU further license of fantasy, portrayed Samuel
Adams in the garb of a Dominican friar. Such
nonsense is of course no index to the sentiments or
the beliefs of the patriotic American people, but
the mere fact that it could occur to anybody shows
how hard it was for people to realize how com
petent America was to take care of herself. The
more we reflect upon the slowness with 'which
the country came to the full consciousness of its
power and importance, the more fuUy we bring
ourselves to realize how unwilling America was to
tear herself asunder from England, and how the
Declaration of Independence was only at last re
sorted to when it had become evident that no other
course was compatible with the preservation of
our self-respect; the more thoroughly we realize
all this, the nearer we shall come toward duly esti-
niating the fact that in 1768, seven years before
the battle of Lexington, the master mind of Sam
uel Adams had fuUy grasped the conception of a
confederation of American states independent of
British control. The clearness with which he saw
this, as the inevitable outcome of the pohtical con
ditions of the time, gave to his views and his acts,
in every emergency that arose, a commanding in
fluence throughout the land that was simply incal
culable. In September, 1768, it was announced in Boston
that the troops were on their way, and would soon
be landed. There happened to be a legal obstacle,
unforeseen by the ministry, to their being quartered
in the town. In accordance with the general act of
Parliament for quartering troops, the regular bar-

58 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
racks at Castle WiUiam in the harbour would have
to be filled before the town could be required to
find quarters for any troops. Another clause of
the act provided that if any military officer should
take upon himself to quarter soldiers in any of his
Majesty's dominions otherwise than as aUowed by
the act, he should be straightway dismissed the
service. At the news that the troops
troops in wcTC about to arrive, the governor was
asked to convene the assembly, that it
might be decided how to receive them. On Ber
nard's refusal, the selectmen of Boston issued a
circular, inviting all the towns of Massachusetts to
send delegates to a general convention, in order
that deliberate action might be taken upon this
important matter. In answer to the circular, dele
gates from ninety-six towns assembled in Faneuil
Hall, and, laughing at the governor's order to " dis-'
perse," proceeded to show how, in the exercise of
the undoubted right of public meeting, the colony
could virtually legislate for itself, in the absence
of its regular legislature. The convention, finding
that nothings was necessary for Boston to do but
insist upon strict compliance with the letter of the
law, adjourned. In October, two regiments ar
rived, and were aUowed to land without opposition,
but no lodging was provided for them. Bernard,
in fear of an affray, had gone out into the country ;
but nothing could have been farther from the
thoughts of the people. The commander. Colonel
Dalrynq^le, requested shelter for his men, but was
told that he must quarter them in the barracks at
Castle William. Ab the night was frosty, how-

THE CRISIS. 59
ever, the Sons of Liberty allowed them to sleep
in Faneuil Hall. Next day, the governor, finding
everything quiet, came back, and heard Dalrym-
ple's complaint. But in vain did he apply in turn
to the council, to the selectmen, and to the justices
of the peace, to grant quarters for the troops ; he
was told that the law was plain, and that the Castle
must first be occupied. The governor then tried
to get possession of an old dilapidated building
which belonged to the colony ; but the tenants had
taken legal advice, and told him to turn them out
if he dared. Nothing could be more provoking.
General Gage was obliged to come on from his
headquarters at New York ; but not even he, the
commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces in
America, could quarter the troops in violation of
the statute without running the risk of being cash
iered, on conviction before two justices of the peace.
So the soldiers stayed at night in tents on the
Common, until the weather grew so cold that
Dalrymple was obliged to hire some buildings for
them at exorbitant rates, and at the expense of the
Crown. By way of insult to the people, two can
non were planted on King Street, with their muz
zles pointing toward the Town House. But as the
troops could do nothing without a requisition from
a civil magistrate, and as the usual strict decorum
was preserved throughout the town, there was
nothing in the world for them to do. In case of
an insurrection, the force was too smaU to be of
any use ; and so far as the policy of overawing the
town was concerned, no doubt the soldiers were
more afraid of the people than the people of the
soldiers.

60 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
No sooner were the soldiers thus established in
Boston than Samuel Adams published a series of
Letters of letters signed " Vindex," in which he
" ^™*^''- argued that to keep up " a standing
army within the kingdom in time of peace, without
the consent of Parliament, was against the law ;
that the consent of Parliament necessarily implied
the consent of the people, who were always present
in Parliament, either by themselves or by their
representatives ; and that the Americans, as they
were not and could not be represented in Parlia
ment, were therefore suffering under military
tyranny over which they were allowed to exercise
no control." The only notice taken of this argu
ment by Bernard and Hillsborough was an attempt
to collect evidence upon the strength of which its
author might be indicted for treason, and sent over
to London to be tried; but Adams had been so
wary in all his proceedings that it was impossible
to charge him with any technical offence, and to
have seized him otherwise than by due process of
law would have been to precipitate rebeUion in
Massachusetts. In Parliament, the proposal to extend the act of
Henry VIII. to America was bitterly opposed by
Burke, Barr^, Pownall, and DowdesweU, and even
by Grenville, who characterized it as sheer mad
ness ; but the measure was carried, nevertheless.
Burke further maintained, in an eloquent speech.
Debate in that the royal order requiring Massachu-
ar lament. ggtts to rcsciud her circular letter was
unconstitutional ; and here again Grenville agreed
with him. The attention of Parliament, during the

THE CRISIS. 61
spring of 1769, was occupied chiefly with Amer
ican affairs. Pownall moved that the Townshend
acts should be repealed, and in this he was ear
nestly seconded by a petition of the London mer
chants ; for the non-importation policy of Ameri
cans had begun to bear hard upon business in
London. After much debate. Lord North pro
posed a compromise, repealing all the Townshend
acts except that which laid duty on tea. The more
clearheaded members saw that such a compromise,
which yielded nothing in the matter of principle,
would do no good. Beckford pointed out the fact
that the tea-duty did not bring in £300 to the gov
ernment ; and Lord Beauchamp pertinently asked
whether it were worth while, for such a paltry
revenue, to make enemies of three millions of peo
ple. Grafton, Camden, Conway, Burke, Barre, and
DowdesweU wished to have the tea-duty repealed
also, and the whole principle of parliamentary tax
ation given up ; and Lord North agreed with them
in his secret heart, but could not bring himself to
act contrary to the king's wishes. " America must
fear you before she can love you," said Lord North.
..." I am against repealing the last act of Parlia
ment, securing to us a revenue out of America ; I
wiU never think of repealing it until I see America
prostrate at my feet." " To effect this," said Barre,
" is not so easy as some imagine ; the Americans are
a numerous, a respectable, a hardy, a free people.
But were it ever so easy, does any friend to his
country really wish to see America thus coionei Bar-
humbled ? In such a situation, she would "^'' '"^^^'''^¦
serve only as a monument of your arrogance and

62 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
your foUy. For my part, the America I wish to
see is America increasing and prosperous, raising
her head in graceful dignity, with freedom and
firmness asserting her rights at your bar, vindicat
ing her liberties, pleading her services, and con
scious of her merit. This is the America that wiU
have spirit to fight your battles, to sustain you
when hard pushed by some prevailing foe, and by
her industry will be able to consume your man
ufactures, support your trade, and pour wealth
and splendour into your towns and cities. If we do
not change our conduct towards her, America wiU
be torn from our side. . . . Unless you repeal this
law, you run the risk of losing America." But'
the ministers were deaf to Barre's sweet reason
ableness. " We shall grant nothing to the Ameri
cans," said Lord Hillsborough, " except what they
may ask with a halter round their necks." " They
are a race of convicted felons," echoed poor old
Dr. Johnson, — who had probably been reading
MoU Flanders, — " and they ought to be thankful
for anything we aUow them short of hanging."
As the result of the discussion. Lord North's so-
called compromise was adopted, and a circular was
sent to America, promising that all the obnoxious
acts, except the tea-duty, should be repealed. At
the same time, Bernard was recalled from Massa
chusetts to appease the indignation of the people,
and made a baronet to show that the ministry
Thomas approved of his conduct as governor.
Hutchinson, jjis placc was filled by the lieutenant-
governor, Thomas Hutchinson a man of great
learning and briUiant talent, whose "History of

THE CRISIS. 63
Massachusetts Bay " entitles him to a high rank
among the worthies of early American literature.
The next year Hutchinson was appointed governor.
As a native of Massachusetts, it was supposed by
Lord North that he would be less likely to irritate
the people than his somewhat arrogant predeces
sor. But in this the government turned out to be
mistaken. As to Hutchinson's sincere patriotism
there can now be no doubt whatever. There was
something pathetic in the intensity of his love for
New England, which to him was the goodliest of
all lands, the paradise of this world. He had been
greatly admired for his learning and accomplish
ments, and the people of Massachusetts had elected
him to one office after another, and shown him
every mark of esteem until the evil days of the
Stamp Act. It theu appeared that he was a Tory
on principle, and a thorough believer in the Brit
ish doctrine of the absolute supremacy of Parlia
ment, and popular feeling instantly turned against
him. He was called a turncoat and traitor, and
a thankless dog withal, whose ruling passion was
avarice. His conduct and his motives were alike
misjudged. He had tried to dissuade the Gren
ville ministry from passing the Stamp Act ; but
when once the obnoxious measure had become law,
he thought it his duty to enforce it like other laws.
For this he was charged with being recreant to his
own convictions, and in the shameful riot of Au
gust, 1765, he was the worst sufferer. No public
man in America has ever been the object of more
virulent hatred. None has been more grossly mis
represented by historians. His appointment as

64 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
governor, however well meant, turned out to be
anything but a wise measure.
While these, things were going on, a strong word
of sympathy came from Virginia. When HiUs
borough made up his mind to browbeat Boston, he
thought it worth while to cajole the Virginians, and
try to win them from the cause which Massachu
setts was so boldly defending. So Lord Botetourt,
a most genial and concihatory man, was sent over
to be governor of Virginia, to beguile the people
with his affable manner and sweet discourse. But
between a quarrelsome Bernard and a gracious
Botetourt the practical difference was little, where
grave questions of constitutional right were in-
virginiareso- volvcd. In May, 1769, the Virginia
lutions, 1769. legislature assembled at WiUiamsburgh.
Among its members were Patrick Henry, Wash
ington, and Jefferson. The assembly condemned
the Townshend acts, asserted that the people of
Virginia could be taxed only by their own repre
sentatives, declared that it was both lawful and
expedient for aU the colonies to join in a protest
against any violation of the rights of Americans,
and especially warned the king of the dangers
that might ensue if any American citizen were to
be carried beyond sea for trial. Finally, it sent
copies of these resolutions to all the other colonial
assemblies, inviting their concurrence. At this
point Lord Botetourt dissolved the assembly; but
the members straightway met again in convention
at the famous Apollo room of the Raleigh tavern,
and adopted a series of resolutions prepared by
Washington, in which they pledged themselves to

THE CRISIS. 65
continue the policy of non-importation until all the
obnoxious acts of 1767 should be repealed. These
resolutions were adopted by aU the southern colo
nies. AU through the year 1769, the British troops
remained quartered in Boston at the king's ex=
pense. According to Samuel Adams, their princi
pal employment seemed to be to parade in the
streets, and by their merry-andrew tricks to excite
the contempt of women and children. But the
soldiers did much to annoy the people, to whom
their very presence was an insult. They led
brawling, riotous lives, and made the quiet streets
hideous by night with their drunken shouts.
Scores of loose women, who had followed the regi
ments across the ocean, came to scandalize the
town for a while, and then to encumber the alms
house. On Sundays the soldiers would race horses
on the Common, or play Yankee Doodle just out
side the church-doors during the services. Now
and then oaths, or fisticuffs, or blows with sticks,
were exchanged between soldiers and citizens, and
once or twice a more serious affair occurred. One
evening in September, a dastardly as- Assault on
sault was made upon James Otis, in the ''™*^ °"*
British Coffee House, by one Robinson, a commis
sioner of customs, assisted by half a dozen army
officers. It reminds one of the assault upon
Charles Sumner by Brooks of South Carolina,
shortly before the War of Secession. Otis was
savagely beaten, and received a blow on the head
with a sword, from the effects of which he never re
covered, but finaUy lost his reason. The popular

66 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
wrath at this outrage was intense, but there was no
disturbance. Otis brought suit against Robinson,
and recovered a£2,000 in damages, but refused to
accept a penny of it when Robinson confessed
himself in the wrong, and humbly asked pardon
for his irreparable offence.
On the 22d of February, 1770, an informer
named Richardson, being pelted by a party of
school-boys, withdrew into his house, opened a
window, and fired at random into the crowd, kiU-
ing one little boy and severely wounding another.
He was found guilty of murder, but was pardoned.
At last, on the 2d of March, an angry quarrel oc
curred between a party of soldiers and some of the
workmen at a ropewalk, and for two or three days
there was considerable excitement in the town, and
people talked together, standing about the streets
in groups ; but Hutchinson did not even take the
precaution of ordering the soldiers to be kept
within their barracks, for he did not believe that
the people intended a riot, nor that the troops
would dare to fire on the citizens without express
permission from himself. On the evening of
March 5th, at about eight o'clock, a large crowd
coUected near the barracks, on Brattle Street, and
from bandying abusive epithets with the soldiers
began pelting them with snow-balls and striking
at them with sticks, while the soldiers now and
then dealt blows with their muskets. Presently
The "Boston Captain Goldfinch, coming along, or-
Massacre." (Jered the men into their barracks for
the night, and thus stopped the affray. But
meanwhile some one had got into the Old Brick

THE CRISIS. 67
Meeting-House, opposite the head of King Street,
and rung the beU ; and this, being interpreted as
an alarm of fire, brought out many people into the
moonlit streets. It was now a little past nine.
The sentinel who was pacing in front of the Cus
tom House had a few minutes before knocked
down a barber's boy for caUing names at the cap
tain, as he went up to stop the affray on Brattle
Street. The crowd in King Street now began to
pelt the sentinel, and some shouted, " Kill him ! "
when Captain Preston and seven privates from the
twenty-ninth regiment crossed the street to his aid :
and thus the file of nine soldiers confronted an
angry crowd of fifty or sixty unarmed men, who
pressed up to the very muzzles of their guns, threw
snow at their faces, and dared them to fire. All
at once, but quite unexpectedly and probably with
out orders from Preston, seven of the levelled
pieces were discharged, instantly killing four men
and wounding seven others, of whom two after
wards died. Immediately the alarm was spread
through the town, and it might have gone hard
with the soldiery, had not Hutchinson presently
arrived on the scene, and quieted the people by
ordering the arrest of Preston and his men. Next
morning the council advised the removal of one of
the regiments, but in the afternoon an immense
town meeting, caUed at Faneuil Hall, adjourned
to the Old South Meeting-House ; and as they
passed by the Town House, the lieutenant-govern
or, looking out upon their march, judged " their
spirit to be as high as was the spirit of their
ancestors when they imprisoned Andros, while

68 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
they were four times as numerous." All the way
from the church to the Town House the street was
crowded with the people, while a committee, headed
by Samuel Adams, waited upon the governor, and
received his assurance that one regiment should
be removed. As the committee came out from the
Town House, to carry the governor's reply to the
meeting in the church, the people pressed back on
either side to let them pass ; and Adams, leading
the way with uncovered head through the lane thus
formed, and bowing first to one side and then to
the other, passed along the watchword, " Both regi
ments, or none ! " When, in the church, the ques
tion was put to vote, three thousand voices shouted,
" Both regiments, or none ! " and armed with this
ultimatum the committee returned to the Town
House, where the governor was seated with Colo
nel Dalrymple and the members of the council.
Then Adams, in quiet but earnest tones, stretch
ing forth his arm and pointing his finger at Hutch
inson, said that if as acting governor of the prov
ince he had the power to remove one regiment he
had equally the power to remove both, that the
voice of three thousand freemen demanded that
all soldiery be forthwith removed from the town,
and that if he failed to heed their just demand, he
did so at his peril. " I observed his knees to trem
ble," said the old hero afterward, " I saw his face
grow pale, — and I enjoyed the sight!" Before
sundown the order had gone forth for the removal
of both regiments to Castle William, and not
until then did the meeting in the church break up.
From that day forth the fourteenth and twenty-

THE CRISIS. 69
ninth regiments were known in Parliament as
" the Sam Adams regiments."
Such was the famous Boston Massacre. AU the
mildness of New England civilization is brought
most strikingly before us in that truculent phrase.
The careless shooting of half a dozen townsmen
is described by a word which historians apply to
such events as Cawnpore or the Sicilian Vespers.
Lord Sherbrooke, better known as Robert Lowe,
declared a few years ago, in a speech on the uses
of a classical education, that the battle of Mara
thon was really of less account than a modern
colliery explosion, because only one
1 IT 1 • , , I* I , r^ 1 Some lessons
hundred and ninety-two ot the Greek of the "Mas-
army lost their lives ! From such a
point of view, one might argue that the Boston
Massacre was an event of far less importance
than an ordinary free fight among Colorado gam
blers. It is needless to say that this is not the his
torical point of view. Historical events are not to
be measured with a foot-rule. This story of the
Boston Massacre is a very trite one, but it has its
lessons. It furnishes an instructive illustration of
the high state of civilization reached by the people
among whom it happened, — by the oppressors as
weU as those whom it was sought to oppress. The
quartering of troops in a peaceful town is something
that has in most ages been regarded with horror.
Under the* senatorial government of Rome, it used
to be said that the quartering of troops, even upon
a friendly province and for the purpose of pro
tecting it, was a visitation only less to be dreaded
than an inroad of hostile barbarians. When we

70 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
reflect that the British regiments were encamped
in Boston during seventeen months, among a popu
lation to whom they were thoroughly odious, the
fact that only half a dozen persons lost their lives,
while otherwise no really grave crimes seem to
have been committed, is a fact quite as creditable
to the discipline of the soldiers as to the mod
eration of the people. In most ages and coun
tries, the shooting of half a dozen citizens under
such circumstances would either have produced
but a slight impression, or, on the other hand,
would perhaps have resulted on the spot in a
wholesale slaughter of the offending soldiers. The
fact that so profound an impression was made
in Boston and throughout the country, while at
the same time the guilty parties were left to be
dealt with in the ordinary course of law, is a strik
ing commentary upon the general peacef ulness and
decorum of American life, and it shows how high
and severe was the standard by which our fore
fathers judged all lawless proceedings. Aud here
it may not be irrelevant to add that, throughout
the constitutional struggles which led to the Rev
olution, the American standard of political right
and wrong was so high that contemporary Euro
pean politicians found it sometimes difficult to un
derstand it. And for a like reason, even the most
fair-minded English historians sometimes fail to
see why the Americans should have been so quick
to take offence at acts of the British government
which doubtless were not meant to be oppressive.
If George III. had been a blood-thirsty despot,
like Philip II. of Spain ; if General Gage had

THE CRISIS. 71
been another Duke of Alva ; if American citizens
by the hundred had been burned alive or broken
on the wheel in New York and Boston ; if whole
towns had been given up to the cruelty and lust
of a beastly soldiery, then no one — not even Dr.
Johnson — would have found it hard to under
stand why the Americans should have exhibited a
rebellious temper. But it is one signal character
istic of the progress of political civilization that
the part played by sheer brute force in a barbarous
age is fuUy equalled by the part played by a mere
covert threat of injustice in a more advanced age.
The effect which a blow in the face would produce
upon a barbarian will be wrought upon a civilized
man by an assertion of some far-reaching legal
principle, which only in a subtle and ultimate
analysis includes the possibility of a blow in the
face. From this point of view, the quickness with
which such acts as those of Charles Townshend
were comprehended in their remotest bearings is
the most striking proof one could wish of the high
grade of political culture which our forefathers
had reached through their system of perpetual
free discussion in town meeting. They had, more
over, reached a point where any manifestation of
brute force in the course of a political dispute was
exceedingly disgusting and shocking to them. To
their minds, the careless slaughter of six citizens
conveyed as much meaning as a St. Bartholomew
massacre would have conveyed to the minds of
men in a lower stage of political development. It
was not strange, therefore, that Samuel Adams and
his friends should have been ready to make the

72 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Boston Massacre the. occasion of a moral lesson
to their contemporaries. As far as the poor sol
diers were concerned, the most significant fact is
that there was no attempt to wreak a paltry ven
geance on them. Brought to trial on a charge
of murder, after a judicious delay of seven months,
they were ably defended by John Adams and
Josiah Quincy, and all were acquitted save two,
who were convicted of manslaughter, and let off
with slight punishment. There were some hot
heads who grumbled at the verdict, but the people
of Boston generaUy acquiesced in it, as they showed
by immediately choosing John Adams for their
representative in the assembly, — a fact which Mr.
Lecky calls very remarkable. Such an event as
the Boston Massacre could not fail for a long time
to point a moral among a people so unused to vio
lence and bloodshed. One of the earliest of Amer
ican engravers, Paul Revere, published a quaint
coloured engraving of the scene in King Street,
which for a long time was widely circulated, though
it has now become very scarce. At the same time,
it was decided that the fatal Fifth of March should
be solemnly commemorated each year by an ora
tion to be delivered in the Old South Meeting-
House ; and this custom was kept up until the
recognition of American independence in 1783,
when the day for the oration was changed to the
Fourth of July.
Five weeks before the Boston Massacre the
Lord North's Dukc of Grafton had resigned, and
mmis ry. Jjord North had become prime minister
of England. The colonies were kept under HiUs-

THE CRISIS. 73
borough, and that great friend of arbitrary gov
ernment, Lord Thurlow, as solicitor-general, be
came the king's chief legal adviser. George III.
was now, to all intents and purposes, his own
prime minister, and remained so until after the
overthrow at Yorktown. The colonial policy of
the government soon became more vexatious than
ever. The promised repeal of all the Townshend
acts, except the act imposing the tea-duty, was
carried through Parliament in April, and its first
effect in America, as Lord North had foreseen, was
to weaken the spirit of opposition, and to divide
the more complaisant colonies from those that were
most staunch. The policy of non-importation had
pressed with special severity upon the commerce of
New York, and the merchants there complained
that these fire - eating planters of Virginia and
farmers of Massachusetts were growing rich at the
expense of their neighbours. In July, The merchants
the New York merchants broke the non- "'New York.
importation agreement, and sent orders to England
for all sorts of merchandise except tea. Such a
measure, on the part of so great a seaport, virtually
overthrew the non-importation policy, upon which
the patriots mainly relied to force the repeal of the
Tea Act. The wrath of the other colonies was in
tense. At the Boston town meeting the letter of
the New York merchants was torn in pieces. In
New Jersey, the students of Princeton College,
James Madison being one of the number, assembled
on the green in their black gowns and solemnly
burned the letter, whUe the church-beUs were tolled.
The offending merchants were stigmatized as

74 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
" Revolters," and in Charleston their conduct was
vehemently denounced. " You had better send us
your old liberty-pole," said Philadelphia to New
York, with bitter sarcasm, " for you clearly have
no further use for it."
This breaking of the non-importation agreement
by New York left no general issue upon which the
colonies could be sure to unite unless the ministry
should proceed to force an issue upon the Tea Act.
For the present. Lord North saw the advantage he
had gained, and was not inclined to take any such
step. Nevertheless, as just observed, the policy of
the government soon became more vexatious than
ever. In the summer of 1770, the king entered
upon a series of local quarrels with the different
colonies, taking care not to raise any general issue.
Royal instructions were sent over to the different
governments, enjoining courses of action which
were unconstitutional and sure to offend the people.
The assemblies were either dissolved, or
Assemblies i t-»
convened in couveucd at straugc placcs, as at Beau
fort in South Carolina, more than sev
enty miles from the capital, or at Cambridge in
Massachusetts. The local governments were as far
as possible ignored, and local officers were ap
pointed, with salaries to be paid by the Crown.
In Massachusetts, these officers were iUegally ex-
Taxes in empted from the payment of taxes. In
aryian . Maryland, where the charter had ex
pressly provided that no taxes could ever be levied
by the British Crown, the governor was ordered to
levy taxes indirectly by reviving a law regulat
ing officers' fees, which had expired by lapse of

THE CRISIS. 75
time. In North Carolina, excessive fees were ex
torted, and the sheriffs in many cases coUected
taxes of which they rendered no account. The
upper counties of both the Caroliuas were peopled
by a hardy set of small farmers and herdsmen,
Presbyterians, of Scotch-Irish pedigree, who were
known by the name of " Regulators," because,
under the exigencies of their rough frontier life,
they formed voluntary associations for the regula
tion of their own police and the condign punish
ment of horse-thieves and other criminals. In
1771, the North Carolina Regulators,
, . ° The North
goaded by repeated acts of extortion and Carolina
J. , J, -.. . , . "Regulators."
ot unlawiul imprisonment, rose m re
bellion. A fierce battle was fought at Alamance,
near the headwaters of the Cape Fear river, in
which the Regulators were totally defeated by
Governor Tryon, leaving two hundred of their
number dead and wounded upon the field : and six
of their leaders, taken prisoners, were summarily
hanged for treason. For this achievement Tryon
was pronounced the ablest of the colonial gov
ernors, and was soon promoted to the governor
ship of New York, where he left his name for a
time upon the vaguely defined wilderness beyond
Schenectady, known in the literature of the Rev-.
olutionary War as Tryon County. The barbarous
condition of the frontier where these scenes oc
curred, and the fact that the mihtia of the lower
counties voluntarily assisted the governor in his
campaign against the Regulators, deprived these
events of much of the influence they might other
wise have had upon the country ; so that it is not

76 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
the Cape Fear but the Concord river that ordi-
' narily occurs to us, when we think of the first blood
shed in the Revolutionary War.
In Rhode Island, the eight-gun schooner Gaspee,
commanded by Lieutenant Duddington, was com
missioned to enforce the revenue acts along the
coasts of Narragansett Bay, and she set about the
Affair of the work with reckless and indiscriminating
•^""P'"- zeal. "Thorough" was Duddington's
motto, as it was Lord Strafford's. He not only
stopped and searched every vessel that entered the
bay, and seized whatever goods he pleased, whether
there was any evidence of their being contraband
or not, but, besides this, he stole the sheep and
hogs of the farmers near the coast, cut down their
trees, fired upon market-boats, and behaved in gen
eral with unbearable insolence. In March, 1772,
the people of Rhode Island complained of these out
rages. The matter was referred to Rear-Admiral
Montagu, commanding the little fleet in Boston
harbour. Montagu declared that the lieutenant
was only doing his duty, and threatened the Rhode
Island people in case they should presume to inter
fere. For three months longer the Gaspee kept
up her irritating behaviour, untU one evening in
June, while chasing a swift American ship, she ran
aground. The foUowing night she was attacked by
a party of men in eight boats, and captured after a
short skirmish, in which Duddington was severely
wounded. The crew was set on shore, and the
schooner was burned to the water's edge. This
act of reprisal was not relished by the govern
ment, and large rewards were offered for the arrest

THE CRISIS. 11
of the men concerned in it ; but although probably
everybody knew who they were, it was impossible
to obtain any evidence against them. By a royal
order in council, the Rhode Island government
was commanded to arrest the offenders and de
liver them to Rear-Admiral Montagu, to be taken
over to England for trial ; but Stephen Hopkins,
the venerable chief justice of Rhode Island, flatly
refused to take cognizance of any such arrest if
made within the colony.
The black thunder-clouds of war now gathered
quickly. In August, 1772, the king ventured
upon an act which went further than anything
that had yet occurred toward hastenina: a,^ , • «
.J o The salaries of
on the crisis. It was ordered that all tiie judges.
the Massachusetts judges, holding their places
during the king's pleasure, should henceforth have
their salaries paid by the Crown, and not by the
colony. This act, which aimed directly at the in
dependence of the judiciary, aroused intense in
dignation. The people of Massachusetts were
furious, and Samuel Adams now took a step which
contributed more than anything that had yet been
done toward organizing the opposition to the king
throughout the whole country. The idea of es
tablishing committees of correspondence was not
wholly new. The great preacher Jonathan Mayhew
had recommended such a step to James Otis in
1766, and he was led to it through his experience
of church matters. Writing in haste, on a Sunday
morning, he said, " To a good man all time is holy
enough ; and nofte is too holy to do good, or to
think upon it. Cultivating a good understanding

78 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
and hearty friendship between these colonies ap
pears to me so necessarv a part of pru-
JonathanMay- -^ i t . ^
hew'a Bugges- dcuce and good pohcy that no favoura^
ble opportunity for that purpose should
be omitted. . . . You have heard of the commun
ion of churches : . . . while I was thinking of
this in my bed, the great use and importance of
a communion of colonies aj)peared to me in a
strong light, which led me immediately to set down
these hints to transmit to you." The plan which
Mayhew had in mind was the establishment of a
regular system of correspondence whereby the colo
nies could take combined action in defence of their
liberties. In the grand crisis of 1772, Samuel
Adams saw how much might be effected through
committees of correspondence that could not weU
be effected through the ordinary governmental ma
chinery of the colonies. At the October town
meeting in Boston, a committee was appointed to
ask the governor whether the judges' salaries were
to be paid in conformity to the royal order ; and
he was furthermore requested to convoke the as
sembly, in order that the people might have a
chance to express their views on so important a
matter. But Hutchinson told the committee to
mind its own business : he refused to say what
would be done about the salaries, and denied the
right of the town to petition for a meeting of the ,
assembly. Massachusetts was thus virtuaUy with
out a general government at a moment when the
public mind was agitated by a question of supreme
importance. Samuel Adams tlifereupon in town
meeting moved the appointment of a committee of

THE CRISIS. 79
correspondence, " to consist of twenty-one persons,
to state the rights of the colonists and of this prov
ince in particular, as men and Christians and as sub
jects ; and to communicate and publish
the same to the several towns and to the tees of corre-
1 1 . . (. , . . . spondence in
world, as the sense or this town, with Massaohu-
the infringements and violations thereof
that have been, or from time to time may be,
made." The adoption of this measure at first ex
cited the scorn of Hutchinson, who described the
committee as composed of " deacons," " atheists,"
and " black-hearted feUows," whom one would not
care to meet in the dark. He predicted that they
would only make themselves ridiculous, but he
soon found reason to change his mind. The re
sponse to the statements of the Boston committee
was prompt and unanimous, and before the end of
the year more than eighty towns had already or
ganized their committees of correspondence. Here
was a new legislative body, springing directly from
the people, and competent, as events soon showed,
to manage great affairs. Its influence reached
into every remotest corner of Massachusetts, it
was always virtually in session, and no governor
could dissolve or prorogue it. Though unknown
to the law, the creation of it involved no violation
of law. The right of the towns of Massachusetts
to ask one another's advice could no more be dis
puted than the right of the freemen of any single
town to hold a town meeting. The power thus
created was omnipresent, but intangible. " This,"
said Daniel Leonard, the great Tory pamphleteer,
two years afterwards, " is the foulest, subtlest, and

80 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
most venomous serpent ever issued from the egg of
sedition. It is the source of the rebeUion. I saw
the small seed when it was planted : it was a grain
of mustard. I have watched the plant until it
has become a great tree. The vilest reptiles that
crawl upon the earth are concealed at the root ;
the foulest birds of the air rest upon its branches.
I would now induce you to go to work immediately
with axes and hatchets and cut it down, for a
twofold reason, — because it is a pest to society,
and lest it be felled suddenly by a stronger arm,
and crush its thousands in its fall."
The system of committees of correspondence
did indeed grow into a mighty tree ; for it was
Intercolonial nothing Icss than the beginning of the
committees of American Union. Adams himself bv
correspon- J
dence. jjq mcaus intended to confine his plan
to Massachusetts, for in the foUowing April he
wrote to Richard Henry Lee of Virginia urging
tbe establishment of similar committees in every
colony. But Virginia had already acted in the
matter. When its assembly met in March, 1773,
the news of the refusal of Hopkins to obey the
royal order, of the attack upon the Massachusetts
judiciary, and of the organization of the com
mittees of correspondence was the aU-exciting sub
jects of conversation. The motion to establish a
system of intercolonial committees of correspon
dence was made by the youthful Dabney Carr,
and eloquently supported by Patrick Henry and
Richard Henry Lee. It was unanimously adopted,
and very soon several other colonies elected com
mittees, in response to the invitation from Vir
ginia.

THE CRISIS. 81
This was the most decided step toward revolu
tion that had yet been taken by the Americans.
It only remained for the various intercolonial com
mittees to assemble together, and there would be
a Congress speaking in the name of the continent.
To bring about such an act of union, nothing more
was needed than some fresh course of aa'srression
on the part of the British government which
should raise a general issue in all the colonies ;
and, with the rare genius for blundering which had
possessed it ever since the accession of George III.,
the government now went on to provide such an
issue. It was 'preeminently a moment when the
question of taxation should have been let alone.
Throughout the American world there was a strong-
feeling of irritation, which might stiU have been
aUayed had the ministry shown a yielding temper.
The grounds of complaint had come to be different
in the different colonies, and in some cases, in
which we can clearly see the good sense of Lord
North prevailing over the obstinacy of the king,
the ministry had gained a point by yielding. In
the Rhode Island case, they had seized a con
venient opportunity and let the matter drop, to
the manifest advantage of their position. _
^ ^ * The question
In Massachusetts, the discontent had of taxation
revived.
come to be alarming, and it was skil
fully organized. The assembly had offered the
judges their salaries in the usual form, and had
threatened to impeach them if they should dare
to accept a penny from the Crown. The recent
action of Virginia had shown that these two most
powerful of the colonies were in strong sympathy

82 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
with one another. It was just this moment that
George III. chose for reviving the question of
taxation, upon which aU the colonies would be
sure to act as a unit, and sure to withstand him
to his face. The duty on tea had been retained
simply as a matter of principle. It did not bring
three hundred pounds a year into the British ex
chequer. But the king thought this a favourable
time for asserting the obnoxious principle which
the tax involved.
Thus, as in Mrs. Gamp's case, a teapot became
the cause or occasion of a division between friends.
The measures now taken by the government
brought matters at once to a crisis. None of the
colonies would take tea on its terms. Lord Hills
borough had lately been superseded as colonial sec
retary by Lord Dartmouth, an amiable man like
the prime minister, but like him whoUy under the
influence of the king. Lord Dartmouth's appoint
ment was made the occasion of introducing a series
of new measures. The affairs of the East India
Company were in a bad condition, and it was
thought that the trouble was partly due to. the loss
of the American trade in tea. The Americans
would not buy tea shipped from England, but they
smuggled it freely from Holland, and the smug
gling could not be stopped by mere force. The
best way to obviate the difficulty, it was thought,
would be to make English tea cheaper in America
than foreign tea, while still retaining the duty of
threepence on a pound. If this could be achieved,
it was supposed that the Americans would be sure
to buy English tea by reason of its cheapness, and

THE CRISIS. 83
would thus be ensnared into admitting the princi
ple involved in the duty. This ingenious scheme
shows how unable the king and his min
isters were to imagine that the Ameri- ingenious
cans could take a higher view of the
matter than that of pounds, shillings, and pence.
In order to enable the East India Company to sell
its tea cheap in America, a drawback was allowed
of aU the duties which such tea had been wont to
pay on entering England on its way from China.
In this way, the Americans would now find it ac
tually cheaper to buy the English tea with the
duty on it than to smuggle their tea from HoUand.
To this scheme. Lord North said, it was of no use
for any one to offer objections, for the king would
have it so. " The king meant to try the question
with America." In accordance with this policy,
several ships loaded with tea set sail in the autumn
of 1773 for the four principal ports, Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Agents or
consignees of the East India Company were ap
pointed by letter to receive the tea in these four
towns. As soon as the details of this scheme were known
in America, the popular wrath was even greater
than that which had been stirred up by the Stamp
Act, and the whole country was at once in a blaze,
from Maine to Georgia. Nevertheless, only legal
measures of resistance were contemplated. In
Philadelphia, a great meeting was held in October
at the State House, and it was voted that who
soever should lend countenance to the receiving
or unloading of the tea would be regarded as an

84 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
enemy to his country. The consignees were then
requested to resign their commissions, and did so.
In New York and Charleston, also, the consignees
threw up their commissions. In Boston,
How Boston , ., .. ,
became the a Similar demand was made, but the
battle-ground. . i- n ,
consignees doggedly refused to resign ;
and thus the eyes of the whole country were di
rected toward Boston as the battlefield on which
the great issue was to be tried.
During the month of November many town
meetings were held in Faneuil Hall. On the 17th,
authentic intelligence was brought that the tea-
ships would soon arrive. The next day, a com
mittee, headed by Samuel Adams, waited upon the
consignees, and again asked them to resign. Upon
their refusal, the town meeting instantly dissolved
itself, without a word of comment or debate ; and
at this ominous silence the consignees and the gov
ernor were filled with a vague sense of alarm, as
if some storm were brewing whereof none could
foresee the results. All felt that the decision now
rested with the committees of correspondence.
Four days afterward, the committees of Cambridge,
Brookline, Roxbury, and Dorchester met the Bos
ton committee at Faneuil Hall, and it was unani-
Thefivetowns mously rcsolvcd that on no account
ask advice. gj^^^j^j ^-^^ ^^^ ^^ landed. The five
towns also sent a letter to aU the other towns in
the colony, saying, " Brethren, we are reduced to
this dilemma : either to sit down quiet under this
and every other burden that our enemies shall see
fit to lay upon us, or to rise up and resist this and
every plan laid for our destruction, as becomes

THE CRISIS. 85
wise freemen. In this extremity we earnestly re
quest your advice." There was nothing weak or
doubtful in the response. From Petersham and
Lenox perched on their lofty hilltops, from the
valleys of the Connecticut and the Merrimack,
from Chatham on the bleak peninsula of Cape
Cod, there came but one message, — to give up
life and all that makes life dear, rather than sub
mit like slaves to this great wrong. Similar words
of encouragement came from other colonies. In
Philadelphia, at the news of the bold stand Mas
sachusetts was about to take, the church-bells were
rung, and there was general rejoicing about the
streets. A letter from the men of Philadelphia to
the men of Boston said, " Our only fear is lest you
may shrink. May God give you virtue enough to
save the liberties of your country."
On Sunday, the 28th, the Dartmouth, first of the
tea-ships, arrived in the harbour. The urgency
of the business in hand overcame the Sabbatarian
scruples of the people. The committee of corre
spondence met at once, and obtained from Rotch,
the owner of the vessel, a promise that Arrival of the
the ship should not be entered before afth"oid°^
Tuesday. Samuel Adams then invited ^°"*'^"
the committees of the five towns, to which Charles
town was now added, to hold a mass-meeting the
next morning: at Faneuil HaU. More than five
thousand people assembled, but as the Cradle of
Liberty could not hold so many, the meeting was
adjourned to the Old South Meeting-House. It
was voted, without a single dissenting voice, that
the tea should be sent back to England in the

86 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
ship which had brought it. Rotch was forbidden
to enter the ship at the Custom House, and Cap
tain Hall, the ship's master, was notified that " it
was at his jjeril if he suffered any of the tea
brought by him to be landed." A night-watch of
twenty-five citizens was= set to guard the vessel,
and so the meeting adjourned tiU next day, when
it was understood that the consignees would be
ready to make some proposals in the matter.
Next day, the message was brought from the con
signees that it was out of their power to send back
the tea ; but if it should be landed, they declared
themselves willing to store it, and not expose any
of it for sale until word could be had from Eng
land. Before action could be taken upon this
message, the sheriff of Suffolk county entered the
church and read a proclamation from the governor,
warning the people to disperse and " surcease all
further unlawful proceedings at their utmost peril."
A storm of hisses was the only reply, and the busi
ness of the meeting went on. The proposal of the
consignees was rejected, and Rotch and Hall, being
present, were made to promise that the tea should
go back to England in the Dartmouth, without be
ing landed or paying duty. Resolutions were then
passed, forbidding all owners or masters of ships
to bring any tea from Great Britain to any part of
Massachusetts, so long as the act imposing a duty
on it remained unrepealed. Whoever should dis
regard this injunction would be treated as an en
emy to his country, his ships would be prevented
from landing — by force, if necessary — and his
tea would be sent back to the place whence it

THE CRISIS. 87
came. It was further voted that the citizens of
Boston and the other towns here assembled would
see that these resolutions were carried into effect,
" at the risk of their lives and property." No
tice of these resolutions was sent to the owners
of the other ships, now daily expected. And,
to crown all, a committee, of which Adams was
chairman, was appointed to send a printed copy
of these proceedings to New York and Philadel
phia, to every seaport in Massachusetts, and to the
British government.
Two or three days after this meeting, the other
two ships arrived, and, under orders from the com
mittee of correspondence, were anchored by the
side of the Dartmouth, at Griffin's Wharf, near
the foot of Pearl Street. A military watch was
kept at the wharf day and night, sentinels were
placed in the church belfries, chosen post-riders,
with horses saddled and bridled, were ready to
alarm the neisrhbouring towns, beaeon-
_ => * ' , . The tea-ships
fires were piled all ready for lighting puced under
upon every hilltop, and any attempt to
land the tea forcibly would have been the signal
for an instant uprising throughout at least four
counties. Now, in accordance with the laws pro
viding for the entry and clearance of shipping at
custom houses, it was necessary that every ship
should land its cargo within twenty days from its
arrival. In case this was not done, the revenue
officers were authorized to seize the ship and land
its cargo themselves. In the case of the Dartmouth,
the captain had promised to take her back to Eng
land without unloading ; but stiU, before she could

88 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
legally start, she must obtain a clearance from the
collector of customs, or, in default of this, a pass
from the governor. At sunrise of Friday, the 17th
of December, the twenty days would have expired.
On Saturday, the 11th, Rotch was summoned be
fore the committee of correspondence, and Samuel
Adams asked him why he had not kept his j)romise,
and started his ship off for England. He sought
to excuse himself on the ground that he had not
the power to do so, whereupon he was told that he
must apply to the collector for a clearance. Hear
ing of these things, the governor gave strict orders
at the Castle to fire upon any vessel trying to get
out to sea without a proper permit ; and two
ships from Montagu's fleet, which had been laid
up for the winter, were stationed at the entrance
of the harbour, to make sure against the Dart
mouth's going out. Tuesday dairie, and Rotch, hav
ing done nothing, was summoned before the town
meeting, and peremptorily ordered to apply for a
clearance. Samuel Adams and nine other gentle
men accompanied him to the Custom House to wit
ness the proceedings, but the collector refused to
give an answer until the next day. The meeting
then adjourned tiU Thursday, the last of the twenty
days. On Wednesday morning, Rotch was again
escorted to the Custom House, and the coUector
refused to give a clearance unless the tea should
first be landed.
On the morning of Thursday, December 16th,
the assembly which was gathered in the Old South
Meeting-House, and in the streets about it, num
bered more than seven thousand people. It was

THE CRISIS. 89
to be one of the most momentous days in the his
tory of the world. The clearance having been re
fused, nothing now remained but to order Rotch
to request a T)ass for his ship from the
-r» 1 TT 1 ¦ To\vn meeting
governor. But the wary Hutchinson, attheoid
11 1 • 1 1 1 S""*'!-
well knowing what was about to be re
quired of him, had gone out to his country house
at Milton, so as to foil the proceedings by his
absence. But the meeting was not to be so trifled
with. Rotch was enjoined, on his peril, to repair
to the governor at Milton, and ask for his pass ;
and while he was gone, the meeting considered
what was to be done in case of a refusal. With
out a pass it would be impossible for the ship to
clear the harbour under the guns of the Castle ;
and by sunrise, next morning, the revenue officers
v/ould be empowered to seize the ship, and save by
a violent assault upon them it would be impossible
to prevent the landing of the tea. " Who knows,"
said John Rowe, " how tea will mingle with salt
water?" And great applause followed the sug
gestion. Yet the plan which was to serve as a last
resort had unquestionably been adopted in secret
committee long before this. It appears to have
been worked out in detail in a little back room at
the office of the " Boston Gazette," and there is no
doubt that Samuel Adams, with some others of the
popular leaders, had a share in devising it. But
among the thousands present at the town meeting,
it is probable that very few knew just what it was
designed to do. At five in the afternoon, it was
unanimously voted that, come what would, the tea
should not be landed. It had now grown dark.

90 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
and the church was dimly lighted with candles.
Determined not to act until the last legal method
of relief should have been tried and found wanting,
the great assembly was stiU waiting quietly in and
about the church when, an hour after nightfall,
Rotch returned from Milton with the governor's
refusal. Then, amid profound stillness, Samuel
Adams arose and said, quietly but distinctly,
" This meeting can do nothing more to save the
country." It was the declaration of war ; the law
had shown itself unequal to the occasion, and noth
ing now remained but a direct appeal to force.
Scarcely had the watchword left his mouth when
a war-whoop answered from outside the door, and
fifty men in the guise of Mohawk Indians passed
quickly by the entrance, and hastened to Griffin's
Wharf. Before the nine o'clock bell
thrown into rang:, thc three hundred and fortv-two
the harbour. , „ , t i .
chests of tea laden upon the three ships
had been cut open, and their contents emptied into
the sea. Not a person was harmed ; no other prop
erty was injured ; and the vast crowd, looking upon
the scene from the wharf in the clear frosty moon^
light, was so still that the click of the hatchets
could be distinctly heard. Next morning, the
salted tea, as driven by wind and wave, lay in long
rows on Dorchester beach, while Paul Revere,
booted and spurred, was riding post-haste to Phil-
adelpliia, with the glorious news that Boston had
at last thrown down the gauntlet for the king of
England to pick up.
This heroic action of Boston was greeted with
public rejoicing throughout aU the thirteen col-

THE CRISIS. 91
onies, and the other principal seaports were not
slow to follow the example. A ship laden with
two hundred and fifty-seven chests of tea had ar
rived at Charleston on the 2d of December ; but
the consignees had resigned, and after twenty days
the ship's cargo was seized and landed ; and so, as
there was no one to receive it, or pay the duty, it
was thrown into a damp cellar, where it spoiled.
In Philadelphia, on the 25th, a ship arrived with
tea; but a meeting of five thousand men forced
the consignees to resign, and the captain straight
way set sail for England, the ship having been
stopped before it had come within the jurisdiction
of the custom house.
In Massachusetts, the exultation knew no bounds.
" This," said John Adams, " is the most magnifi
cent movement of all. There is a dignity, a ma
jesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots
that I greatly admire." Indeed, often as it has
been cited and described, the Boston Tea Party
was an event so great that even Ameri
can historians have generaUy failed to the Boston
rrn • • Tea Party.
do it justice. This supreme assertion
by a New England town meeting of the most fun
damental principle of political freedom has been
curiously misunderstood by British writers, of
whatever party. The most recent Tory historian,
Mr. Lecky,! speaks of " the Tea-riot at Boston,"
and characterizes it as an " outrage." The most
recent Liberal historian, Mr. Green, alludes to it
as " a trivial riot." Such expressions betray most
1 In his account of the American Revolution Mr. Lecky in
clines to the Tory side, but he is eminently fair and candid.

92 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
profound misapprehension alike of the significance
of this noble scene and of the political conditions
in which it originated. There is no difficulty in
defining a riot. The pages of history teem with
accounts of popular tumults, wherein passion
breaks loose and wreaks its feU purpose, unguided
and unrestrained by reason. No definition could
be further from describing the colossal event which
occurred in Boston on the 16th of December, 1773.
Here passion was guided and curbed by sound rea
son at every step, down to the last moment, in the
dim candle-hght of the old church, when the noble
Puritan statesman quietly told his hearers that the
moment for using force had at last, and through
no fault of theirs, arrived. They had reached a
point where the written law had failed them ; and
in their effort to defend the eternal principles of
natural justice, they were now most reluctantly
compeUed to fall back upon the paramount law of
self-preservation. It was the one supreme moment
in a controversy supremely important to mankind,
and in which the common sense of the world has
since acknowledged that they were whoUy in the
right. It was the one moment of all that troubled
time in which no compromise was possible. " Had
the tea been landed," says the contemporary histo
rian Gordon, " the union of the colonies in oppos
ing the ministerial scheme would have been dis
solved ; and it would have been extremely difficult
ever after t6 have restored it." In view of the
stupendous issues at stake, the patience of the
men of Boston was far more remarkable than their
boldness. For the quiet sublimity of reasonable

THE CRISIS. 93
but dauntless moral purpose, the heroic annals of
Greece and Rome can show us no greater scene
than that which the Old South Meeting-House
witnessed on the day when the tea was destroyed.
When the news of this affair reached England,
it was quite naturally pronounced by
Lord North a fitting culmination to ment received
years of riot and lawlessness. This,
said Lord George Germain, is what comes of their
wretched old town meetings. The Americans have
reaUy no government. These " are the proceed
ings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble, who ought,
if they had the least prudence, to foUow their mer
cantile employments, and not trouble themselves
with politics and government, which they do not
understand. Some gentlemen say, ' Oh, don't
break their charter ; don't take away rights granted
them by the predecessors of the Crown.' Who
ever wishes to preserve such charters, I wish him
no worse than to govern such subjects." " These
remarks," said Lord North, " are worthy of a great
mind." " If we take a determined stand now,"
said Lord Mansfield, " Boston will submit, and aU
will end in victory without carnage." " The town
of Boston," said Mr. Venn, " ought to be knocked
about their ears and destroyed. You will never
meet with proper obedience to the laws of this
country until you have destroyed that nest of lo
custs." General Gage, who had just come home
on a visit, assured the king that the other colonies
might speak fair words to- Massachusetts, but
would do nothing to help her ; and he offered with
four regiments to make a speedy end of the whole

94 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
matter. " They wiU be lions," said Gage, " whUe
we are lambs ; but if we take the resolute part,
they wiU prove very meek, I promise you." It
was in this spirit and under the influence of these
ideas that the ministry took up the business of
dealing with the refractory colony of Massachu
setts. Lord North proposed a series of five meas
ures, which, from the king's point of view, would
serve, not only to heal the wounded pride of Great
Britain, but also to prevent any more riotous out
breaks among this lawless American people. Just
at this moment, the opposition ventured upon a
bold stroke. Fox said truly that no plan for paci
fying the colonies would be worth a rush unless
the unconditional repeal of the Tea Act should
form part of it. A biU for the repealing of the
Tea Act was brought in by Fuller, and a lively
debate ensued, in the course of which Edmund
Burke made one of the weightiest speeches ever
heard in the House of Commons ; setting forth in
aU the wealth of his knowledge the extreme danger
of the course upon which the ministry had entered,
and showing how little good fruit was to be ex
pected from a coercive policy, even if successful.
Burke was ably supported by Fox, Conway, Barre,
Savile, DowdesweU, PownaU, and Dunning. But
the current had set too strongly against concilia
tion. Lord North sounded the keynote of the
whole British policy when he said, " To repeal the
tea-duty would stamp us with timidity." Come
what might, it would never do for the Americans
to get it into their heads that the government was
not aU-powerful. They must be humbled first,

THE CRISIS. 95
that they might be reasoned with afterwards. The
tea-duty, accordingly, was not repealed, but Lord
North's five acts for the better regulation of Amer
ican affairs were aU passed by Parliament.
By the first act, known as the Boston Port BiU,
no ships were to be allowed to enter or j-iie Boston
clear the port of Boston untU the rebel- ^°'^^^-
lious town should have indemnified the East India
Company for the loss of its tea, and should other
wise have made it appear to the king that it would
hereafter show a spirit of submission. Marble-
head was made a port of entry instead of Boston,
and Salem was made the seat of government.
By the second act, known as the Regulating Act,
the charter of Massachusetts was an- iheReguiat-
nuUed without preliminary notice, and '"k^"*-
her free government was destroyed. Under the
charter, the members of the council for each year
were chosen in a convention consisting of the coun
cil of the preceding year and the assembly. Each
counciUor held office for a year, and was paid out
of an appropriation made by the assembly. Now,
hereafter, the members of the council were to be
appointed by the governor on a royal writ of maw-
damus, their salaries were to be paid by the Crown,
and they could be removed from office at the king's
pleasure. The governor was empowered to appoint
aU judges and officers of courts, and, aU such offi
cers were to be paid by the king and to hold office
during his pleasure. The governor and his depen
dent council could appoint sheriffs and remove
them without assigning any reason, and these
dependent sheriffs were to have the sole right of

96 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
returning juries. But, worse than aU, the town-
meeting system of local seK-government was ruth
lessly swept away. Town meetings could indeed
be held twice a year for the election of town offi
cers, but no other business could be transacted in
them. The effect of aU these changes would, of
course, be to concentrate all power in the hands of
the governor, leaving no check whatever upon his
arbitrary wiU. It would, in short, transform the
free commonwealth of Massachusetts into an abso
lute despotism, such as no Englishman had ever
Hved under in any age. And this tremendous act
was to go into operation on the first day of the fol
lowing June.
By the third act — a pet measure of George III.,
to which Lord North assented with great reluc
tance — it was provided that if any magistrate,
soldier, or revenue officer in Massachusetts should
be indicted for murder, he should be tried, not in
Massachusetts, but in Great Britain. This meas
ure — though doubtless unintentionally — served
Tlie shooting to cncourage the soldiery in shooting
down peaceful citizens, and it led by a
natural sequence to the bloodshed on Lexington
green. It was defended on the ground that in case
of any chance affray between soldiers and citizens,
it would not be possible for the soldiers to obtain a
fair trial in Massachusetts. Less than four years
had elapsed since Preston's men had been so read
ily acquitted of murder after the shooting in King
Street, but such facts were of no avail now. The
momentous biU passed in the House of Commons
by a vote of more than four to one, in spite of Colo
nel Barre's ominous warning's.

THE CRISIS. 97
By the fourth act aU legal obstacles to the quar
tering of troops in Boston or any other town in
Massachusetts were swept away.
By the fifth act, known as the Quebec Act, the
free "exercise of the Catholic religion was sanc
tioned throughout Canada, — a very ii,e Quebec
judicious measure of religious toleration, ¦*^°*'
which concerned the other colonies but little, how
ever it might in some cases offend their prejudices.
But this act went on to extend the boundaries of
Canada southward to the Ohio river, in defiance
of the territorial claims of Massachusetts, Connect
icut, New York, and Virginia. This extensive re
gion, the part of North America which was next
to be colonized by men of English race, was to be
governed by a viceroy, with despotic powers ; and
such people as should come to live there were to
have neither popular meetings, nor habeas corpus,
nor freedom of the press. " This," said Lord
Thurlow, " is the only sort of constitution fit for a
colony," — and all the American colonies, he sig
nificantly added, had better be reduced to this
condition as soon as possible.
When all these acts had been passed, in April,
1774, General Gage was commissioned to supersede
Hutchinson temporarily as governor of Massachu
setts, and was sent over with as little Gage sent to
delay as possible, together with the four
regiments which were to scare the people into sub
mission. On the first day of June, he was to close
the port of Boston and begin starving the town
into good behaviour ; he was to arrest the leading
patriots and send thein to England for trial ; and

98 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
he was expressly authorized to use his own discre
tion as to aUowing the soldiers to fire upon the
people. All these measures for enslaving peaceful
and law-abiding Englishmen the king of England
now contemplated, as he himself declared, "with
supreme satisfaction."
In recounting such measures as these, the histo
rian is tempted to pause for a moment, and ask
whether it could really have been an English gov
ernment that planned and decreed such things.
From the autocratic mouth of an Artaxerxes or
an Abderrahman one would naturaUy expect such
edicts to issue. From the misguided cabinets of
Spain and France, in evil times, measures in spirit
like these had been Imown to proceed. But Eng
land had for ages stood before the world as the
staunch defender of personal liberty and of local
self-government ; and through the mighty strength
which this spirit of freedom, and nothing else, had
given her, she had won the high privilege of
spreading her noble and beneficent political ideas
over the best part of the habitable globe. Yet in
the five acts of this political tragedy of 1774 we
find England arrayed in hostility to every princi
ple of public justice which Englishmen had from
time immemorial held sacred. Upon the great
continent which she had so lately won from the
French champions of despotism, we see her, in a
fit of obstinate anger, vainly seeking to establish a
tyrannicah repfme no better than that which but
yesterday it had been her glory to overthrow.
Such was the strange, the humiliating, the self-
contradictory attitude into which England had at

I THE CRISIS. 99
length been brought by the short-sighted Tory pol
icy of George III. !
But this policy was no less futile than it was
unworthy of the noble, freedom - loving English
people. For after that fated 1st of June, the sov
ereign authority of Great Britain, whether exerted
through king or through Parliament, was never
more to be recognized by the men of Massachu
setts.

CHAPTER III.
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.
The unfortunate measures of April, 1774, were
Jiot carried through Parliament without earnest
opposition. Lord Rockingham and his friends
entered a protest on the journal of the House of
Lords, on the grounds that the people of Massa^
chusetts had not been heard in their own defence,
Protests of the ^^^ ^^^* *^e lives and liberties of the
Whigs. citizens were put absolutely into the
hands of the governor and council, who were thus
invested with greater powers than it had ever been
thought wise to entrust to the king and his privy
council in Great Britain. They concluded, there
fore, that the acts were unconstitutional. The
Duke of Richmond could not restrain his burning
indignation. " I wish," said he in the House of
Lords, — "I wish from the bottom of my heart
that the Americans may resist, and get the better
of the forces sent against them." But that the
Americans really would resist, very few people in
England believed. The conduct of the ministry
was based throughout upon the absurd idea that
the-Americans could be frightened into submis
sion. General Gage, as we have seen, thought
that four regiments would be enough to settle
the whole business. Lord Sandwich said that

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 101
the Americans were a set of undisciplined cow
ards, who would take to their heels at the 3^,13, ^^^^ ^^^
first sound of a cannon. Even Hutch- wS'nT
inson, who went over to England about ^^'''¦
this time, and who ought to have known of what
stuff the men of Massachusetts were made, assured
the king that they never would resist a regular
army. Such- blunders, however, need not surprise
us when we recollect how, just before the war of
secession, the people of the southern and of the
northern states made similar mistakes with regard
to each other. In 1860, it was commonly said by
Southern people that Northern people would sub
mit to anything rather than fight ; and in support
of this opinion, it, was sometimes asked, " If the
Northern people are not arrant cowards, why do
they never have duels?" On the other hand, it
was commonly said at the North that the Southern
people, however bravely they might bluster, would
never enter upon a war of secession, because it
was reaUy much more for their interest to remain
in the Federal Union than to secede from it, — an
argument which lost sight of one of the commonest
facts in human life, that under the influence of
strong passion men are unable to take just views
of what concerns their own interests. Such ex
amples show how hard it often is for one group of
men to understand another group, even when they
are aU of the same blood and speech, and think
alike about most matters that do not touch the
particular subject in dispute. Nothing could have
been surer, either in 1860 or 1774, than that the
one party to the quarrel was as bold and brave as
the other.

102 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Another fatal error under which the ministry
laboured was the belief that Massachusetts would
B li f that "°* ^® supported by the other colonies.
Massachusetts Their mistakc was not unlike that which
would not be
the other'^c^ol ^uined the plans of Napoleon III., when
onies. jjQ declared war upon Prussia in 1870.
There was no denying the fact of strong jealousies
among the American colonies in 1774, as there was
no denying the fact of strong jealousies between
the northern and southern German states in 1870.
But the circumstances under which Napoleon III.
made war on Prussia happened to be such as to
enlist all the German states in the common cause
with her. And so it was with the war of George
III. against Massachusetts. As soon as the char
ter of that colony was annulled, aU the other colo
nies felt ihat their liberties were in jeopardy ; and
thence, as Fox truly said, " all were taught to con
sider the town of Boston as suffering in the com
mon cause."
News of the Boston Port Bill was received in
America on the 10th of May. On the 12th the
committees of several Massachusetts towns held a
convention at Faneuil Hall, and adopted a circular
letter, prepared by Samuel Adams, to be sent to
all the other colonies, asking for their sympathy
and cooperation. The response was prompt and
emphatic. In the course of the summer, conven
tions were held in nearly aU the colonies, declar-
News of the "^S *^^* Bostou should be regarded as
Port Bill. ii suffering in the common cause." The
obnoxious acts of Parliament were printed on
paper with deep black borders, and in some towns

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 103
were publicly burned by the common hangman.
Droves of cattle and flocks of sheep, cartloads of
wheat and maize, kitchen vegetables and fruit,
barrels of sugar, quintals of dried fish, provisions
of every sort, were sent overland as free gifts to
the people of the devoted city, even the distant
rice-swamps of South Carolina contributing their
share. The over - cautious Franklin had written
from London, suggesting that perhaps it might
be best, after all, for Massachusetts to indemnify
the East India Company; but Gadsden, with a
sounder sense of the political position, sent word,
" Don't pay for an ounce of the damned tea."
Throughout the greater part of the country the
1st of June was kept as a day of fasting and
prayer ; bells were muffled and tolled in the prin
cipal churches ; ships in the harbours put their
flags at half-mast. Marblehead, which was ap
pointed to supersede Boston as port of entry, im
mediately invited the merchants of Boston to use
its wharfs and warehouses free of charge in ship
ping and unshipping their goods. A policy of
absolute non-importation was advocated by many
of the colonies, though Pennsylvania, under the
influence of Dickinson, still vainly cherishing
hopes of reconciliation, hung back, and advised
that the tea should be paid for. As usual, the
warmest sympathy with New England came from
Virginia. "If need be," said Washington, "I
wiU raise one thousand men, subsist them at my
own expense, and march myself at their head for
the relief of Boston."
To insure concerted action on the part of the

104 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
whole country, something more was required than
these general expressions and acts of sympathy.
The proposal for a Continental Congress came
first from the Sons of Liberty in New York ; it
was immediately taken up by the members of the
Virginia legislature, sitting in convention at the
Raleigh tavern, after the governor had dissolved
them as a legislature, and Massachusetts was in
vited to appoint the time and place for the meet
ing of the Congress. Oil the 7th of June the
Samuel Adams Massachusctts assembly was convened
at saiein. ^^ Salcm by General Gage, in conform
ity with the provisions of the Port Bill. Samuel
Adams always preferred to use the ordinary means
of transacting public business so long as they
were of avail, and he naturaUy wished to have the
act appointing a Continental Congress passed by
the assembly. But this was not easy to bring
about, for upon the first hint that any such busi
ness was to come up the governor would instantly
dissolve the assembly. In such case it would be
necessary for the committees of correspondence
throughout Massachusetts to hold a convention
for the purpose of appointing the time and place
for the Congress and of electing delegates to at
tend it. But Adams preferred to have these mat
ters decided in regular legislative session, and he
carried his point. Having talked privately with
several of the members, at last on the 17th of June
— a day which a twelvemonth hence was to be
come so famous — the favourable moment came.
Having had the door locked, he introduced his
resolves, appointing five delegates to confer with

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 105
duly appointed delegates from the other colonies,
in a Continental Congress at Philadelphia on the
1st of September next. Some of the members,
astonished and frightened, sought to pass out ;
and as the doorkeeper seemed uneasy at assuming
so much responsibility, Samuel Adams relieved
him of it by taking the key from the door and
putting it into his own pocket, whereupon the busi
ness of the assembly went on. Soon one of the
Tory members pretended to be very sick, and be
ing allowed to go out, made aU haste to Governor
Gage, who instantly drew up his writ dissolving
the assembly, and sent his secretary with it. When
the secretary got there, he found the door locked,
¦ and as nobody would let him in or pay any atten
tion to him, he was obliged to content himself with
reading the writ, in a loud voice, to the crowd
which had assembled on the stairs. The assembly
meanwhile passed the resolves by 117 to 12,
elected Samuel and John Adams, Thomas Cush
ing, and Robert Treat Paine as delegates, assessed
the towns in the commonwealth for the necessary
expenses, passed measures for the relief of Boston,
and adjourned sine die. All the other colonies
except Georgia, in the course of the summer, ac
cepted the invitation, and chose delegates, either
through their assemblies or through special con
ventions. Georgia sent no delegates, but promised
to adopt any course of action that should be de
termined upon.
Before the time appointed for the Congress,
Massachusetts had set the Regulating Act at de
fiance. On the 16th of August, when the court

106 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
assembled at Great Barrington, a vast multitude
of farmers surrounded the court-house and for
bade the judges to transact any business. Two or
three of the councillors newly appointed on the
Massachusetts king's Writ of mandamus yielded in ad-
Keg!jating° vance to public opinion, and refused to
¦*^°'' take their places. Those who accepted
were forced to resign. At Worcester 2,000 men
assembled on the common, and compeUed Timothy
Paine to make his resignation in writing. The
councillor appointed from Bridgewater was a dea
con ; when he read the psalm the congregation
refused to sing. In Plymouth one of the most
honoured citizens, George Watson, accepted a place
on the council ; as he took his seat in church on
the following Sunday, the people got up and began
to walk out of the house. Overcome with shame,
for a moment his venerable gray head sank upon
the pew before him; then he rose up and vowed
that he would resign. In Boston the justices and
barristers took their accustomed places in the
court-house, but no one could be found to serve
as juror in a court that was iUegally constituted.
Gage issued a proclamation warning all persons
against attending town-meeting, but no one heeded
him, and town-meetings were more fully attended
than ever. He threatened to send an armed force
against Worcester, but the people there replied
that he would do so at his peril, and forthwith
began to coUect powder and ball. At Salem
the people walked to the town-house under the
governor's nose and in the very presence of a line
of soldiers. On the 1st of September a party

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 107
of soldiers seized two hundred kegs of powder at
Charlestown and two field-pieces at Cambridge,
and carried them to Castle WiUiam. As the news
spread about the country, rumour added that the
troops had fired upon the people, and within forty-
eight hours at least 20,000 men were marching on
Boston ; but they turned back to their homes on
receiving word from the Boston committee that
their aid was not yet needed.
During these stirring events, in the absence of
Samuel Adams, who had gone to attend the Con
gress at Philadelphia, the most active part in the
direction of affairs at Boston was taken by Dr.
Joseph Warren. This gentleman —
J. J. ., 1.11 1 1 John Hancock
one OI a lamily which has produced and Joseph
three very eminent physicians — was
graduated at Harvard CoUege in 1759. He had
early attracted the attention of Samuel Adams,
had come to be one of his dearest friends, and had
been concerned with him in nearly aU of his public
acts of the past seven years. Pie was a man of
knightly bravery and courtesy, and his energy and
fertility of mind were equalled only by his rare
sweetness and modesty. With Adams and Han
cock, he was one of the great Massachusetts trium
virate of Revolutionary leaders. The accession
of Hancock to the Revolutionary cause at an early
period had been of great help, by reason of his
wealth and social influence. Hancock was grad
uated at Harvard College in 1754. He was a
gentleman of refinement and grace, but neither for
grasp of inteUigence nor for strength of character
can he be compared with Adams or with Warren.

108 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
His chief weakness was personal vanity, but he
was generous and loyal, and under the influence
of the iron-willed Adams was capable of good
things. Upon Warren, riiore than any one else,
however, Adams relied as lieutenant, who, under
any circumstances whatever, would be sure to
prove equal to the occasion.
On the 5th of September Gage began fortifying
Boston Neck, so as to close the only approach to
the city by land. Next day the county assize was
to be held at Worcester ; but 5,000 armed men,
drawn up in regular mihtary array, lined each side
of the main street, and the unconstitutionally ap
pointed judges were forbidden to take their seats.
On the same day a convention of the towns of
The Suffolk Suffolk County was held at Milton, and
^oivesf £pt. ^ series of resolutions, drawn up by Dr.
6, 1774. Warren, were adopted unanimously.
The resolutions declared that a king who violates
the chartered rights of his people forfeits their
allegiance ; they declared the Regulating Act null
and void, and ordered all the officers appointed
under it to resign their offices at once ; they di
rected the coUectors of taxes to refuse to pay over
money to Gage's treasurer ; they advised the towns
to choose their own militia officers ; and they
threatened the governor that, should he venture to
arrest any one for political reasons, they would
retaliate by seizing upon the Crown officers as
hostages. A copy of these resolutions, which vir
tually placed Massachusetts in an attitude of re
bellion, was forwarded to the Continental Congress,
which enthusiastically indorsed them, and pledged

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 109
the faith of all the other colonies that they would
aid Massachusetts in case armed resistance should
become inevitable, while at the same time they
urged that a policy of moderation should be pre
served, and that Great Britain should be left to
fire the first shot.
On receiving these instructions from the Con
gress, the people of Massachusetts at once pro
ceeded to organize a provisional government in
accordance with the spirit of the Suffolk resolves.
Gage had issued a writ convening the assembly at
Salem for the 1st of October, but before the day
arrived he changed his mind, and prorogued it.
In disregard of this order, however, the represen
tatives met at Salem a week later, organized them
selves into a provincial congress, with Provincial
John Hancock for president, and ad- mSSu-"
journed to Concord. On the 27th they ''"'•
chose a committee of safety, with Warren for
chairman, and charged it with the duty of collect
ing military stores. In December this Congress
dissolved itself, but a new one assembled at Cam
bridge on the 1st of February, and proceeded to
organize the militia and appoint general officers.
A special portion of the militia, known as " minute-
men," were set apart, under orders to be ready to
assemble at a moment's warning ; and the commit
tee of safety were directed to call out this guard
as soon as Gage should venture to enforce the Reg
ulating Act. Under these instructions every vil
lage green in Massachusetts at once became the
scene of active drill. Nor was it a population un
used to arms that thus began to marshal itself into

110 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
companies and regiments. During the French
war one fifth of all the able-bodied men of Massa^
chusetts had been in the field, and in 1757 the pro
portion had risen to one third. There were plenty
of men who had learned how to stand under fire,
and officers who had held command on hard-fought
fields; and all were practised marksmen. It is
quite incorrect to' suppose that the men who first
repulsed the British regulars in 1775 were a band
of farmers, utterly unused to fighting. Their lit
tle army was indeed a militia, but it was made up
of warlike material.
While these preparations were going on in Mas-
Meetingof the sachusctts, the Continental Congress had
CongrTsr' assembled at Philadelphia on the 5th
Sept. 5, 1774. ^f September. Peyton Randolph, of'
Virginia, was chosen president ; and the Adamses,
the Livingston^, /the Rutledges, Dickinson, Chase,
Pendleton, Lee, Henry, and Washington took
part in the debates. One of their first acts was
to dispatch Paul Revere to Boston with their for
mal apj)roval of the action of the Suffolk Conven
tion. After four weeks of careful deliberation
they agreed upon a declaration of rights, claiming
for the American people " a free and exclusive
power of legislation in their provincial legislatures,
where their rights of legislation could alone be
preserved in all cases of taxation and internal pol
ity." This paper also specified the rights of which
they would not suffer themselves to be deprived,
and called for the repeal of eleven acts of Parlia
ment by which these rights had been infringed.
Besides this, they formed an association for insur-

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. Ill .
ing commercial non-intercourse with Great Britain,
and charged the committees of correspondence
with the duty of inspecting the entries at aU cus
tom-houses. Addresses were also prepared, to be
sent to the king, to the people of Great Britain,
and to the inhabitants of British America. The
10th of May was appointed for a second Congress,
in which the Canadian colonies and the Floridas
were invited to join ; and on the 26th of October
the Congress dissolved itself.
The ability of the papers prepared by the first
Continental Congress has long been f uUy admitted
in England as well as in America. Chatham de
clared them unsurpassed by any state papers ever
composed in any age or country. But Parliament
was not now in the mood for listening to reason.
Chatham, Shelburne, and Camden urged in vain
that the vindictive measures of the last April
should be repealed and the troops withdrawn from
Boston. On the 1st of February, Chatham intro
duced a bill which, could it have passed, would no
doubt have averted war, even at the eleventh hour.
Besides repealing its vindictive meas- Debates in
ures, ParUament was to renounce for- p=""^«°*-
ever the right of taxing the colonies, while retain
ing the right of regulating the commerce of the
whole empire ; and the Americans were to defray
the expenses of their own governments by taxes
voted in their colonial assemblies. A few weeks
later, in the House of Commons, Burke argued
that the abstract right of Parliament to tax the col
onies was not worth contending for, and he urged
that on large grounds of expediency it should be

112 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
abandoned, and that the vindictive acts should be
repealed. But both Houses, by large majorities,
refused to adopt any measures of conciliation, and
in a solemn joint address to the king declared
themselves ready to support him to the end in the
policy upon which he had entered. Massachusetts
was declared to be in a state of rebellion, and acts
were passed closing all the ports of New England,
and prohibiting its fishermen from access to the
Newfoundland fisheries. At the same time it was
voted to increase the army at Boston to 10,000
men, and to supersede Gage, who had in all these
months accomplished so little with his four regi
ments. As people in England had utterly failed
to comprehend the magnitude of the task assigned
to Gage, it was not strange that they should seek
to account for his inaction by doubting his zeal
and ability. No less a person than David Hume
saw fit CO speak of him as a " lukewarm coward."
WiUiam Howe, member of Parliament for the
liberal constituency of Nottingham, was chosen to
supersede him. In his speeches as candidate for
William election only four months ago, Howe
^°™" had declared himself opposed to the
king's policy, had asserted that no army that Eng
land could raise would be able to subdue the
Americans, and, in reply to a question, had prom
ised that if -offered a command in America he
would refuse it. When he now consented to take
Gage's place as commander-in-chief, the people of
Nottingham scolded him roundly for breaking his
word. It would be unfair, however, to charge Howe

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 113
with conscious breach of faith in this matter. His
appointment was itself a curious symptom of the
element of vaciUation that was apparent in the
whole conduct of the ministry, even when its atti
tude professed to be most obstinate and deter
mined. With aU his obstinacy, the king did not
really wish for war, — much less did Lord North ;
and the reason for Howe's appointment was simply
that he was the brother to the Lord Howe who
had fallen at Ticonderoga, and whose memory was
idolized by the men of New England. Lord North
announced that, in dealing with his misguided
American brethren, his policy would be always to
send the olive branch in company with the sword ;
and no doubt Howe really felt that, by accepting a
command offered in such a spirit, he might more
efficiently serve the interests of humanity and jus
tice than by leaving it open for some one of cruel
and despotic temper, whose zeal might outrun even
the wishes of the obdurate king. At the same
time, his brother Richard, Lord Howe, Richard,
J. J. 1 'Tj. ' j. j Lord Howe.
a seaman ot great ability, was appointed
admiral of the fleet for America, and was expressly
entrusted with the power of offering terms to the
colonies. Sir Henry Clinton and John Burgoyne,
both of them in sympathy with the king's policy,
were appointed to accompany Howe as lieutenant-
generals. The conduct of the ministry, during this most
critical and trying time, showed great uneasiness.
When leave was asked for Franklin to present the
case for the Continental Congress, and to defend it
before the House of Commons, it was refused. Yet

114 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
all through the winter the ministry were continu
ally appealing to Franklin, unofficiaUy and in pri
vate, in order to find out how the Americans might
be appeased without making any such concessions
as would hurt the pride of England. Lord Howe
was the most conspicuous agent in these negotia
tions, which only served to show, over and over
again, how the main root of the trouble was the in
capacity of the British official mind to understand
the character of the American people and the new
political situation created by the enormous growth
of the colonies. How to conciliate the Americans
without giving up a single one of the false posi
tions which the king had taken was the problem,
and no wonder that Franklin soon perceived it to
be insolvable, and made up his mind to go home.
He had now stayed in England for sev-
Franklin re- , , i* -r. i .
turns to eral years, as agent tor Pennsylvania
and for Massachusetts. He had shown
himself a consummate diplomatist, of that rare
school which deceives by teUing unwelcome truths,
and he had some unpleasant encounters with the
king and the king's friends. Now in March, 1 775,
seeing clearly that he could be of no further use in
averting an armed struggle, he returned to Amer
ica. Franklin's return was not, in form, like that
customary withdrawal of an ambassador which her
alds and proclaims a state of war. But practi
cally it was the snapping of the last diplomatic
link between the colonies and the mother-country.
Still the ministry, with aU its uneasiness, did
not believe that war was close at hand. It was
thought that the middle colonies, and especiaUy

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 115
New York, might be persuaded to support the gov
ernment, and that New England, thus isolated,
would not venture upon armed resistance to the
overwhelming power of Great Britain. The hope
was not wholly unreasonable ; for the great middle
colonies, though conspicuous for material prosper
ity, were somewhat lacking in force of political
ideas. In New York and Pennsylvania the non-
English population was relatively far more con
siderable than in the Southern or the The middle
New England colonies. A considerable ™'''°'''«-
proportion of the population had come from the
continent of Europe, and the principles of con
stitutional government were not so thoroughly
inwrought into the innermost minds and hearts
of the people, the pulse of liberty did not beat so
quickly here, as in the purely English common
wealths of Virginia and Massachusetts. In Penn
sylvania and New Jersey the Quakers were natu
rally opposed to a course of action that must end in
war; and these very honourable motives certainly
contributed to weaken the resistance of these colo
nies to the measures of the government. In New
York there were further special reasons for the ex
istence of a strong loyalist feeling. The city of
New York had for many years been the headquar
ters of the army and the seat of the principal royal
government in America. It was not a town, like
Boston, governing itself in town-meeting, but its
municipal affairs were administered by a mayor,
appointed by the king. Unlike Boston and Phila
delphia, the interests of the city of New York were
almost purely commercial, and there was nothing

116 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
to prevent the little court circle there from giving
the tone to public opinion. The Episcopal Church,
too, was in the ascendant, and there was a not un
reasonable prejudice against the Puritans of New
England for their grim intolerance of Episcopa
lians and their alleged antipathy to Dutchmen.
The province- of New York, moreover, had a stand
ing dispute with its eastern neighbours over the
ownership of the Green Mountain region. This
beautiful country had been settled by New England
men, under grants from the royal governors of New
Hampshire ; but it was claimed by the people of
New York, and the controversy sometimes waxed
hot and gave rise to very hard feelings. Under
these circumstances, the labours of the ministry to
Lord North's sccure this Central colony seemed at
hop'es'oTsecur- times likely to be crowned with success.
ing New York, rpj^^ asscmbly of Ncw York refused to
adofit the non-importation policy enjoined by the
Continental Congress, it refused to print letters of
the committee of correspondence, and it refused
to choose delegates to the second Congress which
was to be held in May. The ministry, in return,
sought to corrupt New York by exempting it from
the commercial restrictions placed upon the neigh
bouring colonies, and by promising to confirm its
alleged title to the territory of Vermont. All these
hopes proved fallacious, however. In spite of ap
pearances, the majority of the people of New York
were thoroughly patriotic, and needed only an op
portunity for organization. In April, under the
powerful leadership of Philip Schuyler and the
Livingstons, a convention was held, delegates were

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 117
chosen to attend the Congress, and New York fell
into line with the other colonies. As for Pennsyl
vania, in spite of its peaceful and moderate tem
per, it had never shown any signs of wiUingness to
detach itself from the nascent union.
News travelled with slow pace in those days, and
as late as the middle of May, Lord North, confident
of the success of his schemes in New York, and
unable to believe that the yeomanry of Massachu
setts would fight against regular troops, declared
cheerfully that this American business was not so
alarming as it seemed, and everything would no
doubt be speedily settled without bloodshed !
Great events had meanwhile happened in Mas
sachusetts. All through the winter the resistance
to General Gage had been passive, for the lesson
had been thoroughly impressed upon the mind of
every man, woman, and child in the ^^^,^.3;^
province that, in order to make sure of Massachu-
the entire sympathy of the other colo
nies. Great Britain must be allowed to fire the first
shot. The Regulating Act had none the less been
silently defied, and neither councillors nor judges,
neither sheriffs nor jurymen, could be found to
serve under the royal commission. It is striking
proof of the high state of civilization attained by
this commonwealth that although for nine months
the ordinary functions of government had been
suspended, yet the affairs of every-day life had
gone on without friction or disturbance. Not a
drop of blood had been shed, nor had any one's
property been injured. The companies of yeomen
meeting at eventide to driU on the viUage green,

118 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
and now and then the cart laden with powder and
ball that dragged slowly over the steep roads on its
way to Concord, were the only outward signs of
an unwonted state of things. Not so, however, in
Boston. There the blockade of the harbour had
wrought great hardship for the poorer people.
Business was seriously interfered with, many per
sons were thrown out of employment, and in spite
of the generous promptness with which provisions
had been poured in from all parts of the country,
there was great suffering through scarcity of fuel
and food. Still there was but little complaint and
no disorder. The leaders were as resolute as ever,
and the people were as resolute as their leaders.
As the 5th of March drew near, several British
officers were heard to declare that any one who
should dare to address the people in the Old South
Church on this occasion would surely lose his life.
As soon as he heard of these threats, Joseph War
ren solicited for himself the dangerous honour, and
„ at the usual hour delivered a stirring
warren s ora- ^ ^ ^
tion at the Old oratiou upon " the baleful influence of.
South. . ...
standing armies in time of peace." The
concourse in the church was so great that when the
orator arrived every approach to the pulpit was
blocked up ; and rather than elbow his way
through the crowd, which might lead to some dis
turbance, he procured a ladder, and climbed in
through a large window at the back of the pulpit.
About forty British officers were present, some of
whom sat on the pulpit steps, and sought to annoy
the speaker with groans and hisses, but everything
passed off quietly.

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 119
The boldness of Adams and Hancock in attend
ing this meeting was hardly less admirable than
that of Warren in delivering the address. It was
no secret that Gage had been instructed to watch
his opportunity to arrest Samuel Adams and " his
wiUing and ready tool," that " terrible desperado,"
John Hancock, and send them over to England to
be tried for treason. Here was an exceUent oppor
tunity for seizing all the patriot leaders at once ;
and the meeting itself, moreover, was a town-meet
ing, such as Gage had come to Boston expressly to
put down. Nothing more calmly defiant can be
imagined than the conduct of people and leaders
under these circumstances. But Gage had long
since learned the temper of the people so well that
he was afraid to proceed too violently.
* f> 1 1 1 • 1 o 1 -^-ttemptto
At farst he had tried to corrupt Samuel corrupt sam-
^ uel Adams.
Adams with offers of place or pelf ; but
he found, as Hutchinson had already declared, that
such was " the obstinate and inflexible disposition
of this man that he never would be conciliated by
any office or gift whatsoever." The dissolution of
the assembly, of which Adams was clerk, had put
a stop to his salary, -and he had so little property
laid by as hardly to be able to buy bread for his
family. Under these circumstances, it occurred to
Gage that perhaps a judicious mixture of threat
with persuasion might prove effectual. So he sent
Colonel Fenton with a confidential message to
Adams. The officer, with great politeness, began
by saying that " an adjustment of the existing dis
putes was very desirable ; that he was authorized
by Governor Gage to assure him that he had been

120 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
empowered to confer upon him such benefits as
would be satisfactory, upon the condition that he
would engage to cease in his opposition to the
measures of government, and that it was the advice
of Governor Gage to him not to incur the further
disj)leasure of his Majesty ; that his conduct had
been such as made him liable to the penalties of
an act of Henry VIIL, by which persons could be
sent to England for trial, and, by changing his
course, he would not only receive great personal
advantages, but would thereby make his peace with
the king." Adams listened with apparent interest
to this recital until the messenger had concluded.
Then rising, he replied, glowing with indignation :
" Sir, I trust I have long since made my peace
with the King of kings. No personal considera
tion shaU induce me to abandon the righteous
cause of my country. TeU Governor Gage it is
the advice of Samuel Adams to him no longer to
insult the feelings of an exasperated peoj)le."
Toward the end of the winter Gage received
peremptory orders to arrest Adams and
Orders to ar- z. ii ii -riii
rest Adams Haucock, and send them to England
and Hancock. . r\ p t
for trial. One of the London papers
gayly observed that in all probability Temple Bar
" will soon be decorated with some of the patriotic
noddles of the Boston saints." The provincial
congTess met at Concord on the 22d of March, and
after its adjournment, on the 15th of April, Adams
and Hancock stayed a few days at Lexington, at
the house of their friend, the Rev. Jonas Clark.
It would doubtless be easier to seize them there
than in Boston, and, accordingly, on the night of

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 121
the 18th Gage dispatched a force of 800 troops,
under Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, to march to Lex
ington, and, after seizing the patriot leaders, to
proceed to Concord, and capture or destroy the
military stores which had for some time been col
lecting there. At ten in the evening the troops
were rowed across Charles river, and proceeded
by a difficult and unfrequented route through the
marshes of East Cambridge, until, after four miles,
they struck into the highroad for Lexington. The
greatest possible secrecy was observed, and strin
gent orders were given that no one should be al
lowed to leave Boston that night. But Warren
divined the purpose of the movement, paui Revere's
and sent out Paul Revere by way of "'^^•
Charlestown, and WiUiam Dawes by way of Rox
bury, to give the alarm. At that time there was
no bridge across Charles river lower than the one
which now connects Cambridge with AUston.
Crossing the broad river in a little boat, under the
very guns of the Somerset man-of-war, and waiting
on the farther bank until he learned, from a lan
tern suspended in the belfry of the North Church,
which way the troops had gone. Revere -took horse
and galloped over the Medford road to Lexington,
shouting the news at the door of every house that
he passed. Reaching Mr. Clark's a little after
midnight, he found the house guarded by eight
minute-men, and the sergeant warned him not to
make a noise and disturb the inmates. " Noise ! "
cried Revere. " You '11 soon have noise enough ;
the regulars are coming ! " Hancock, recognizing
the voice, threw up the window, and ordered the

122 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
guard to let him in. On learning the news, Han
cock's first impulse was to stay and take command
of the mihtia ; but it was presently agreed that
there was no good reason for his doing so, and
shortly before daybreak, in company with Adams,
he left the village.
Meanwhile, the troops were marching along the
main road ; but swift and silent as was their ad
vance, frequent alarm-bells and signal-guns, and
lights twinkling on distant hill-tops, showed but
too plainly that the secret was out. Colonel Smith
then sent Major Pitcairn forward with six com
panies of light infantry to make aU possible haste
in securing the bridges over Concord river, whUe
at the same time he prudently sent back to Boston
for reinforcements. When Pitcairn reached Lex
ington, just as the rising sun was casting long
shadows across the village green, he found himseK
confronted by some fifty minute-men under com
mand of Captain John Parker, — grandfather of
Theodore Parker, — a hardy veteran, who, fifteen
Pitcairn flres ycars bef OTC, had climbcd the heights of
mTryfirru Abraham by the side of Wolfe. " Don't
' ^' ¦ fire unless you are fired on," said Par
ker ; " but if they want a war, it may as weU begin
here." " Disperse, ye viUains ! " shouted Pitcairn.
" Damn you, why don't you disperse ? " And as
they stood motionless he gave the order to fire. As
the soldiers hesitated to obey, he discharged his
own pistol and repeated the order, whereupon a
deadly volley slew eight of the minute-men and
wounded ten. At this moment the head of Smith's
own column seemed to have come into sight, far

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 123
down the road. The minute-men had begun to
return the fire, when Parker, seeing the folly of
resistance, ordered them to retire. While this was
going on, Adams and Hancock were walking across
the fields toward Woburn ; and as the crackle of
distant musketry reached their ears, the eager
Adams — his soul aglow with the prophecy of the
coming deUverance of his country — exclaimed,
" Oh, what a glorious morning is this ! " From
Woburn the two friends went on their way to Phila
delphia, where the second Continental Congress
was about to assemble.
Some precious minutes had been lost by the
British at Lexington, and it soon became clear
that the day was to be one in which minutes could
ill be spared. By the time they reached Concord,
about seven o'clock, the greater part of the stores
had been effectually hidden, and minute-men were
rapidly gathering from all quarters. After post
ing smaU forces to guard the bridges, the troops
set fire to the court-house, cut down the liberty-
pole, disabled a few cannon, staved in a few bar^
rels of flour, and hunted unsuccessfully for arms
and ammunition, until an unexpected incident put
a stop to their proceedings. When the
¦*- , ¦*¦ ° The troops re-
f orce of mmute-men, watching events pulsed at con-
111 cord.
from the hill beyond the river, had be
come increased to more than 400, they suddenly
advanced upon the North Bridge, which was held
by 200 regulars. After receiving and returning
the British fire, the militia, led by Major But-
trick, charged across the narrow bridge, overcame
the regulars through weight and numbers, and

124 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
drove them back into the viUage. They did not
follow up the attack, but rested on their arms,
wondering, perhaps, at what they had already ac
complished, while their numbers were from mo
ment to moment increased by the minute-men from
neighbouring viUages. A little before noon, though
none of the objects of the expedition had been ac
complished. Colonel Smith began to realize the
danger of his position, and started on his retreat
to Boston. His men were in no mood for fight.
They had marched eighteen miles, and had eaten
little or nothing for fourteen hours. But now,
while companies of militia hovered upon both their
flanks, every clump of trees and every bit of rising
ground by the roadside gave shelter to hostile yeo
men, whose aim was true and deadly. Straggling
combats ensued from time to time, and the retreat
ing British left nothing undone which brave men
Retreating could do ; but the iuccssaut, gaUing fire
cueTbrLord ^t length thrcw them into hopeless con-
^'^''^' fusion. Leaving their wounded scattered
along the road, they had already passed by the vil
lage green of Lexington in disorderly flight, when
they were saved by Lord Percy, who had marched
out through Brookline and Cambridge to their
assistance, with 1,200 men and two field - pieces.
Forming his men in a hollow square, Percy in
closed the fugitives, who, in dire exhaustion, threw
themselves upon the ground, — " their tongues
hanging out of their mouths," says Colonel Sted-
man, " hke those of dogs after a chase." Many
had thrown away their muskets, and Pitcairn had
lost his horse, with the elegant pistols which fired

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 125
the first shots of the War of Independence, and
which may be seen to-day, along with other tro
phies, in the town library of Lexington.
Percy's timely arrival checked the pursuit for
an hour, and gave the starved and weary men a
chance for food and rest. A few houses were pil
laged and set on fire, but at three o'clock General
Heath and Dr. Warren arrived on the scene and
took command of the militia,, and the irregular
fight was renewed. When Percy reached Me-
notomy (now Arlington), seven miles from Boston,
his passage was disputed by a fresh force of militia,
while pursuers pressed hard on his rear. Retreat con-
and it was only after an obstinate fight Lexbfgton™o
that he succeeded in forcing his way. t"'^"'^^*".""'-
The roadside now fairly swarmed with marksmen,
insomuch that, as one of the British officers ob
served, " they seemed to have dropped from the
clouds." It became impossible to keep order or
to carry away the wounded ; and when, at sunset,
the troops entered Charlestown, under the welcome
shelter of the fleet, it was upon the full run. They
were not a moment too soon, for Colonel Picker
ing, with 700 Essex militia, on the way to inter
cept them, had already reached Winter Hill ; and
had their road been blocked by this fresh force
they must in aU probability have surrendered.
On this eventful day the British lost 273 of
their number, while the Americans lost 93. The
expedition had been a failure, the whole British
force had barely escaped capture, and it had been
shown that the people could not be frightened into
submission. It had been shown, too, how efficient

126 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
the town system of organized militia might prove
on a sudden emergency. The most interesting
feature of the day is the rapidity and
country; the sklU with which the different bodies of
British be- , i • c i i .
sieged in miuute-mcn, marching trom long dis-
Boston. tances, were massed at those points on
the road where they might most effectually impede
the British retreat. The Danvers company marched
sixteen miles in four hours to strike Lord Percy at
Menotomy. The list of killed and wounded shows
that contingents from at least twenty-three towns
had joined in the fight before sundown. But
though the pursuit was then ended, these men did
not return to their homes, but hour by hour their
numbers increased. At noon of that day the
alarm had reached Worcester. Early next morn
ing, Israel Putnam was ploughing a field at Pom-
fret, in Connecticut, when the news arrived.
Leaving orders for the militia companies to follow,
he jumped on his horse, and, riding a hundred
miles in eighteen hours, arrived in Cambridge on
the morning of the 21st, just in time to meet John
Stark with the first company from New Hamp
shire. At midday of the 20th the college green
at New Haven swarmed with eager students and
citizens, and Captain Benedict Arnold, gathering
sixty volunteers from among them, placed himself
at their head and marched for Cambridge, pick
ing up recruits and allies at all the viUages on
the way. And thus, from every hill and valley in
New England, on they came, till, by Saturday
night. Gage found himself besieged in Boston by
a rustic army of 16,000 men.

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 127
When the news of this affair reached England,
five weeks later, it was received at first with in
credulity, then with astonishment and regret.
Slight as the contest had been, it remained unde
niable that British troops had been defeated by
what in England was regarded as a crowd of
" peasants ; " and it was felt besides that the
chances for conciliation had now been seriously
diminished. Burke said that now that the Ameri
cans had once gone so far as this, they could hardly
help going farther ; and in spite of the condemnar
tion that had been lavished upon Gage for his in
activity, many people were now inclined to find
fault with him for having precipitated Effects of the
a conflict just at the time when it was ^™^-
hoped that, with the aid of the New York loyalists,
some sort of accommodation might be effected.
There is no doubt that the news from Lexington
thoroughly disconcerted the loyalists of New York
for the moment, and greatly strengthened the pop
ular party there. In a manifesto addressed to the
city of London, the New York committee of corre
spondence deplored the conduct of Gage as rash
and violent, and declared that aU the horrors of
civil war would never bring the Americans to sub
mit to the unjust acts of Parliament. When Han
cock and Adams arrived, on their way to the Con
gress, they were escorted through the city with
triumphal honours. In Pennsylvania steps were
immediately taken for the enlistment and training
of a colonial militia, and every colony to the south
of it followed the example. The Scotch -Irish
patriots of Mecldenburg county, in North Caro-

128 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Una, ventured upon a measure more decided than
any that had yet been taken in any part of the
Mecklenburg countiy. Ou May 31st, the county
S^sfMaySi, Committee of Mecklenburg affirmed that
^^^'^^ the joint address of the two Houses of
Parliament to the king, in February, had virtuaUy
" annulled and vacated all civil and military com
missions granted by the Crown, and suspended the
constitutions of the colonies ; " and that conse
quently " the provincial congress of each province,
under the direction of the great Continental Con
gress, is invested with aU the legislative and exec
utive powers within their respective provinces, and
that no other legislative or executive power does or
can exist at this time in any of these colonies." In
accordance with this state of things, rules were
adopted " for the choice of county officers, to exer
cise authority by virtue of this choice and inde
pendently of the British Crown, until Parliament
should resign its arbitrary pretensions." These
bold resolves were entrusted to the North Carolina
delegates to the Continental Congress, but were
not formally brought before that body, as the dele
gates thought it best to wait for a while longer the
course of events.
Some twenty years later they gave rise to the
Legend of the legend of the Mecklenburg Declaration
" Decura'tion of Independence. The early wiiters of
dence." United States history passed over the
proceedings of May 31st in silence, and presently
the North Carolina patriots tried to supply an ac
count of them from memory. Their traditional
account was not published untU 1819, when it was

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 129
found to contain a spurious document, giving the
substance of some of the foregoing resolves, dec
orated with phrases borrowed from the great Dec
laration of Independence of 1776. This document
purported to have been drawn up and signed at
a county meeting on the 20th of May. A fierce
controversy sprang up over the genuineness of the
document, which was promptly called in question.
For a long time many people believed in, it, and
were inclined to charge Jefferson with having
plagiarized from it in writing the Declaration of
Independence. But a minute investigation of all
the newspapers of May, 1775, has shown that no
such meeting was held on the 20th, and that no
such document was made public. The story of the
Mecklenburg Declaration is simply a legend based
upon the distorted recoUection of the real proceed
ings of May 31st.
Meanwhile, in New England, the warlike feeling
had become too strong to be contented merely with
defensive measures. No sooner had Benedict Ar
nold reached Cambridge than he suggested to Dr.
Warren that an expedition ought to be sent with
out delay to capture Ticonderoga and Crown Point.
These fortresses commanded the northern ap
proaches to the Hudson river, the strategic centre
of the whole country, and would be of supreme im
portance either in preparing an invasion of Canada
or in warding off an invasion of New York. Be
sides this, they contained a vast quan- Benedict
*' , .^ Arnold and
tity of military stores, of which the Ethan Alien.
newly gathered army stood in sore need. The idea
found favour at once. Arnold received a colonel's

130 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
commission from the Massachusetts Congress, and
was instructed to raise 400 men among the Berk
shire HiUs, capture the fortresses, and superintend
the transfer of part of their armament to Cam
bridge. When Arnold reached the wild hiUsides
of the Hoosac range, he found that he had a rival
in the enterprise. The capture of Ticonderoga had
also been secretly planned in Connecticut, and was
entrusted to Ethan Allen, the eccentric but saga
cious author of that now-forgotten deistical book,
" The Oracles of Reason." Allen was a leading
spirit among the " Green Mountain Boys," an as
sociation of Vermont settlers formed for the pur
pose of resisting the jurisdiction of New York, and
his personal popularity was great. On the 9th of
May Arnold overtook Allen and his men on their
march toward Lake Champlain, and claimed the
command of the expedition on the strength of his
commission from Massachusetts; but the Green
Mountain Boys were acting partly on their own
account, partly under the direction of Connecticut.
They cared nothing for the authority of Massachu
setts, and knew nothing of Arnold ; they had come
out to fight under their own trusted leader. But
few of Arnold's own men had as yet assembled,
and his commission could not give him command
of Vermonters, so he joined the expedition as a
volunteer. On reaching the lake that night, they
found there were not nearly enough row-boats to
convey the men across. But delay was not to be
thought of. The garrison must not be put on its
guard. Accordingly, with only eighty-three men,
Allen and Arnold crossed the lake at daybreak of

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 131
the 10th, and entered Ticonderoga side by side.
The little garrison, less than half as many in num
ber, as it turned out, was completely surprised, and
the stronghold was taken without a blow. As the
commandant jumped out of bed, half awake, he
confusedly inquired of AUen by whose capture of
-, . , . -, , Ticonderoga
authority he was acting. " in the name and crown
c 1 /-I T 1 ? 1 1 /-I . Point, May 10,
of the Great Jehovah and the Conti- i775.
nental Congress ! " roared the bellicose philosopher,
and the commandant, seeing the fort already taken,
was fain to acquiesce. At the same time Crown
Point surrendered to another famous Green Moun
tain Boy, Seth Warner, and thus more than two
hundred cannon, with a large supply of powder and
baU, were obtained for the New England army. A
few days later, as some of Arnold's own men ar
rived from Berkshire, he sailed down Lake Cham
plain, and captured St. John's with its garrison ;
but the British recovered it in the course of the
summer, and planted such a force there that in the
autumn we shaU see it able to sustain a siege of
fifty days.
Neither Connecticut nor Massachusetts had any
authority over these posts save through right of
conquest. As it was Connecticut that had set
Allen's expedition on foot, Massachusetts yielded
the point as to the disposal of the fortresses and
their garrisons. Dr. Warren urged the Connec
ticut government to appoint Arnold to the com
mand, so that his commission might be held of
both colonies ; but Connecticut preferred to retain
AUen, and in July Arnold returned to Cambridge
to mature his remarkable plan for invading Can-

132 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
ada through the trackless wilderness of Maine.
His slight disagreement with Allen bore evil fruit.
As is often the case in such affairs, the men were
more zealous than their commanders ; there were
those who denounced Arnold as an interloper, and
he was destined to hear from them again and
again. On the same day on which Ticonderoga sur
rendered, the Contineiital Congress met at Phil
adelphia. The Adamses and the Liv-
Second meet- , ^ .|-_- ._-,_,. , -
ingoftheoon- lugstous. Jay, Hcury, W ashmgton, and
tinental Con- *= ' /' ¦" ii. .
gress, May 10, Ijec wcTC tucrc, as also r ranklin, lust
1775. . . . •"
back from his long service in England.
Of all the number, John Adams and Franklin
had now, probably, come to agree with Samuel
Adams that a political separation from Great Brit
ain was inevitable ; but all were fully agreed that
any consideration of such a question was at present
premature and uncalled for. The Congress was
a body which wielded no technical legal author
ity ; it was but a group of committees, assembled
for the purpose of advising with each other regard
ing the public weal. Yet something very like a
state of war existed in a part of the country,
under conditions which intimately concerned the
whole, and in the absence of any formally con
stituted government something must be done to
provide for such a crisis. The spirit of the as
sembly was well shown in its choice of a president.
Peyton Randolph being called back to Virginia to
preside over the colonial assembly, Thomas Jeffer
son was sent to the Congress in his stead ; and it
also became necessary for Congress to choose a

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 133
president to succeed him. The proscribed John
Hancock was at once chosen, and Benjamin Harri
son, in conducting him to the chair, said, " We
wiU show Great Britain how much we value her
proscriptions." To the garrisoning of Ticonderoga
and Crown Point by Connecticut, the Congress
consented only after much hesitation, since the
capture of these posts had been an act of offensive
warfare. But without any serious opposition, in
the name of the " United Colonies," the Congress
adopted the army of New England men besieging
Boston as the " dontinental Army," and proceeded
to appoint a commander-in-chief to direct its opera
tions. PracticaUy, this was the most important
step taken in the whole course of the War of Inde
pendence, and the wisdom shown in the appoint
ment was consummate. Nothing less, indeed, than
the whole issue of the struggle, for ultimate defeat
or for ultimate victory, turned upon the
selection to be made at this crisis. For of''washi^g"on
,-,. -, 1 ,. ,1,. to command
nothing can be clearer than that in any the contmen-
other hands than those of George Wash
ington the military result of the war must have
been speedily disastrous to the Americans. In ap
pointing a Virginian to the command of a New
England army, the Congress showed rare wisdom.
It would well have accorded with local prejudices
had a New England general been appointed.
John Hancock greatly desired the appointment,
and seems to have been chagrined at not receiving
it. But it was wisely decided that the common
interest of aU Americans could iu no way be more
thoroughly engaged in the war than by putting

134 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
the New England army in charge of a general
who represented in his own person the greatest of
the Southern colonies. Washington was now com
mander of the local militia of Virginia, and sat in
Congress in his colonel's uniform. His services
in saving the remnant of Braddock's ill-fated
army, and afterwards in the capture of Fort
Duquesne, had won for him a mihtary reputation
greater than that of any other American. Besides
this, there was that which, from his early youth,
had made it seem right to entrust him with com
missions of extraordinary importance. Nothing
in Washington's whole career is more remarkable
than the fact that when a mere boy of twenty-one
he should have been selected by the governor of
Virginia to take charge of that most delicate and
dangerous diplomatic mission to the Indian chiefs
and the French commander at Venango. Con
summate knowledge of human nature as well as of
wood-craft, a courage that no threats could daunt
and a clear inteUigence that no treachery could
hoodwink, were the qualities absolutely demanded
by such an undertaking; yet the young man ac
quitted himself of his perilous task not merely
with credit, but with splendour. As regards book-
lore, his education had been but meagre, yet he
possessed in the very highest degree the rare fac
ulty of always discerning the essential facts in
every case, and interpreting them correctly. In
the Continental Congress there sat many who were
superior to him in learning aud eloquence ; but
" if," said Patrick Henry, " you speak of solid in
formation and sound judgment. Colonel Washing-

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 135
ton is unquestionably the greatest man upon that
floor." Thus did that wonderful balance of mind
— so great that in his whole career it would be
hard to point out a single mistake — ¦ already im
press his ablest contemporaries. Hand in hand
with this rare soundness of judgment there went
a completeness of moral self-control, which was
all the more impressive inasmuch as Washington's
was by no means a tame or commonplace nature,
such as ordinary power of wiU would suffice to
guide. He was a man of intense and. fiery pas
sions. His anger, when once aroused, had in it
something so terrible that strong men were cowed
by it like frightened children. This prodigious
animal nature was habitually curbed by a will of
iron, and held in the service of a sweet and tender
soul, into which no mean or unworthy thought
had ever entered. Whole-souled devotion to pub
lic duty, an incorruptible integrity which no ap
peal to ambition or vanity could for a moment
solicit, — these were attributes of Washington, as
well marked as his clearness of mind and his
strength of purpose. And it was in no unworthy
temple that Nature had enshrined this great spirit.
His lofty stature (exceeding six feet), his grave
and handsome face, his noble bearing and courtly
grace of manner, all proclaimed in Washington a
king of men.
The choice of Washington for commander-in-
chief was suggested and strongly urged by John
Adams, and when, on the 15th of June, the nomi
nation was formally made by Thomas Johnson of
Maryland, it was unanimously confirmed. Then

136 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Washington, rising, said with great earnestness :
" Since the Congress desire, I will enter upon the
momentous duty, and exert every power I possess
in their service and for the sujDport of the glorious
cause. But I beg it may be remembered by every
gentleman in the room that I this day declare,
with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself
equal to the command I am honoured with." He
refused to take any pay for his services, but said
he would keep an accurate account of his personal
expenses, which Congress might reimburse, should
it see fit, after the close of the war.
While these things were going on at Philadel
phia, the army of New England men about Boston
Siege of Bos- ^as busily pressing, to the best of its
'""^ limited ability, the siege of that town.
The army extended in a great semicircle of sixteen
miles, — averaging about a thousand men to the
mile, — all the way from Jamaica Plain to Charles
town Neck. The headquarters were at Cambridge,
where some of the university buildings were used
for barracks, and the chief command had been
entrusted to General Artemas Ward, under the
direction of the committee of safety. Dr. Warren
had succeeded Hancock as president of the provin
cial congress, which was in session at Watertown.
The army was excellent in spirit, but poorly
equipped and extremely deficient in discipline.
Its military object was to compel the British troops
to evacuate Boston and take to their ships ; for as
there was no American fleet, anything like the de
struction or capture of the British force was mani
festly impossible. The only way in which Boston

THE CONTINENTAL, CONGRESS. 137
could be made untenable for the British was by
seizing and fortifying some of the neighbouring
hills which commanded the town, of which the
most important were those in Charlestown on the
north and in Dorchester on the southeast. To
secure these hiUs was indispensable to Gage, if he
was to keep his foothold in Boston ; and as soon
as Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne arrived, on the
25th of May, with reinforcements which raised the
British force to 10,000 men, a plan was laid for
extending the lines so as to cover both Charles
town and Dorchester. Feeling now confident of
victory. Gage issued a proclamation on q^^^,^ ^^^^j^
June 12th, offering free pardon to aU "^"™'
rebels who should lay down their arms and return
to their allegiance, saving only those ringleaders,
John Hancock and Samuel Adams, whose crimes
had been " too flagitious to be condoned." At the
same time, aU who should be taken in arms were
threatened with the gallows. In reply to this
manifesto, the committee of safety, having re
ceived intelligence of Gage's scheme, ordered out
a force of 1,200 men, to forestall the governor, and
take possession of Bunker Hill in Charlestown.
At sunset of the 16th this brigade was paraded on
Cambridge Common, and after prayer had been
offered by Dr. Langdon, president of the univer
sity, they set out on their enterprise, under com
mand of Colonel Prescott of PeppereU, a veteran
of the French war, grandfather of one of the most
eminent of American historians. On reaching
the grounds, a consultation was held, and it was
decided, in accordance with the general purpose.

138 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
if not in strict conformity to the letter of the or
der, to push on farther and fortify the eminence
known as Breed's HiU, which was connected by a
ridge with Bunker Hill, and might be
Americans oc- /• i i i •
cupy Bunker regarded as part ot the same locality.
The position of Breed's HiU was admi
rably fitted for annoying the town and the ships in
the harbour, and it was believed that, should the
Americans succeed in planting batteries there, the
British would be obliged to retire from Boston.
There can be little doubt, however, that in thus
departing from the strict letter of his orders Pres
cott made a mistake, which might have proved
fatal, had not the enemy blundered still more seri
ously. The advanced position on Breed's Hill
was not only exposed to attacks in the rear from
an enemy who commanded the water, but the line
of retreat was ill secured, and, by seizing upon
Charlestown Neck, it would have been easy for the
British, with little or no loss, to have compeUed
Prescott to surrender. From such a disaster the
Americans were saved by the stupid contempt
which the enemy felt for them.
Reaching Breed's HiU about midnight. Colonel
Prescott's men began throwing up intrenchments.
At daybreak they were discovered by the sailors
in the harbour, and a lively cannonade was kept up
through the forenoon by the enemy's ships ; but
it produced little effect, and the strength of the
American works increased visibly hour by hour.
It was a beautiful summer day, bathed in bright
est sunshine, and through the clear dry air every
movement of the spadesmen on the hiU-top and

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 139
the sailors on their decks could be distinctly seen
from a great distance. The roar of the cannon
had called out everybody, far and near, to see
what was going on, and the windows and house
tops in Boston were crowded with anxious specta-
tors. During the night General Put-
T , ° ° , ., Arrival of
nam had come upon the scene, and Putnam,
. . stark, and
turned his attention to fortifying the warren, june
crest of Bunker Hill, in order to secure
the line of retreat across Charlestown Neck. In
the course of the forenoon Colonel Stark arrived
with reinforcements, which were posted behind
the rail fence on the extreme left, to ward off any
attempt of the British to turn their fiank by a di
rect attack. At the same time. Dr. Warren, now
chief executive officer of Massachusetts, and just
appointed major-general, hastened to the battle
field ; replying to the prudent and affectionate
remonstrance of his friend Elbridge Gerry, " Dulce
et decorum est pro patria mori." Arriving at the
redoubt, he refused the command expressly ten
dered him, saying that he should be only too glad
to serve as volunteer aid, and learn his first lesson
under so weU tried a soldier as Prescott. This
modest heroism was typical of that memorable day,
to the events of which one may weU apply the
Frenchman's dictum, " C'est magnifique, mais ce
n'est pas la guerre ! " A glorious day it was in
history, but characterized, on both the British and
the American sides, by heroism rather than by
military skill or prudence.
During the forenoon Gage was earnestly dis
cussing with the three new generals the best means

140 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
of ousting the Americans from their position on
Breed's HiU. There was one sure and obvious
method, — to go around by sea and take posses
sion of Charlestown Neck, thereby cutting off the
Americans from the mainland and starving them
out. But it was thought that time was too pre
cious to admit of so slow a method. Should the
Americans succeed, in the course of the afternoon,
in planting a battery of siege guns on Breed's
HUl, the British position in Boston would be en-
, ., dangered. A direct assault was pre-
Gage decides o r
*" 'jy *° ^ ferred, as likely to be more speedily ef
fective. It was unanimously agreed
that these " peasants " could not withstand the
charge of 3,000 veteran soldiers, and it was gravely
doubted if they would stay and fight at aU. Gage
accordingly watched the proceedings, buoyant
with hope. In a few hours the disgrace of Lex
ington would be wiped out, and this wicked rebel-
hon would be ended. At noonday the troops be
gan crossing the river in boats, and at three o'clock
they prepared to storm the intrenchments. They
advanced in two parties, General Howe toward
the raU-fence, and General Pigott toward the re
doubt, and the same fate awaited both. The
Americans reserved fire until the enemy had come
within fifty yards, when aU at once they poured
forth such a deadly voUey that the whole front
rank of the British was mowed as if by the sud-
First assault dcn swccp of a scythc. For a few min-
"^ ° ¦ utes the gaUant veterans held their
ground and returned the fire; but presently an
indescribable shudder ran through the line, and

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 141
they gave way and retreated down the hillside in
disorder, while the Americans raised an exultant
shout, and were with difficulty restrained by their
officers from leaping over the breastworks and
pursuing. A pause now ensued, during which the village
of Charlestown was set on fire by sheUs from the
fleet, and soon its four hundred wooden houses
were in a roaring blaze, while charred timbers
strewed the lawns and flower-beds, and the sky was
blackened with huge clouds of smoke. If the pur
pose of this wholesale destruction of property was,
as some have thought, to screen the sec- second assault
ond British advance, the object was not '¦^p"'^"^'^-
attained, for a light breeze drove the smoke the
wrong way. As the bright red coats, such excel
lent targets for trained marksmen, were seen the
second time coming up the slope, the Americans,
now cool and confident, withheld their fire until
the distance was less than thirty yards. Then,
with a quick succession of murderous discharges,
such havoc was wrought in the British lines as
soon to prove unendurable. After a short but ob
stinate struggle the lines were broken, and the gal
lant troops retreated hastily, leaving the hillside
covered with their dead and wounded. All this
time the Americans, in their sheltered position,
had suffered but little.
So long a time now elapsed that many persons
began to doubt if the British would renew the as
sault. Had the organization of the American
army been better, such reinforcements of men and
ammunition might by this time have arrived from

142 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Cambridge that any further attack upon the hiU
would be sure to prove fruitless. But aU was con
fusion at headquarters. General Ward was ill
furnished with staff officers, and wrong information
was brought, while orders were misunderstood.
And besides, in his ignorance of the extent of
Gage's plans. General Ward was nervously afraid
of weakening his centre at Cambridge. Three
regiments were sent over too late to be of any use,
and meanwhile Prescott, to his dismay,
Prescott's -, \ -,
powder gives fouud that his stock of powdcT was
out. . ^
nearly exhausted. While he was mak
ing ready for a hand-to-hand fight, the British offi
cers were holding a council of war, and many de
clared that to renew the attack would be simply
useless butchery. On the other hand. General
Howe observed, "To be forced to give up Boston
would, gentlemen, be very disagreeable to us all."
The case was not really so desperate as this, for
the alternative of an attack upon Charlestown
Neck still remained open, and every consideration
of sound generalship now prescribed that it should
be tried. But Howe could not bear to acknow
ledge the defeat of his attempts to storm, and ac-
Third assault cordlugly, at five o'clock, with genuine
British takf^ British persistency, a third attack was
the hill. ordered. For a moment the advancing
columns were again shaken by the American fire,
but the last cartridges were soon spent, and by
resolute bayonet charges and irregular volleys that
could not be returned the Americans were slowly
driven from their works and forced to retreat over
Charlestown Neck, while the whole disputed

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 143
ground, including the summit of Bunker Hill,
passed into the hands of the British.
In this battle, in which not more than one hour
was spent in actual fighting, the British loss in
killed and wounded was 1,054, or more than one
third of the whole force engaged, including an un
usually large proportion of officers. The Ameri
can loss, mainly incurred at the rail-fence and dur
ing the final hand-to-hand struggle at
1 ^ .. rv 111 British and
the redoubt, was 449, probably about American
one fourth of the whole force engaged.
On the British side, one company of grenadiers
came out of the battle with only five of its number
left unhurt. Every officer on General Howe's
staff was cut down, and only one survived his
wounds. The gallant Pitcairn, who had fired the
first shot of the war, feU while entering the re
doubt, and a few moments later the Americans met
with an irreparable loss in the death of General
Warren, who was shot in the forehead as he lin
gered with rash obstinacy on the scene, loath to
join in the inevitable retreat. Another volunteer
aid, not less illustrious than Warren, fought on
Bunker HiU that day, and came away scatheless.
Since the brutal beating which he had received at
the coffee-house nearly six years before, the great
intellect of James Otis had suffered well-nigh total
wreck. He was living, harmlessly insane, at the
house of his sister, Mercy Warren, at Watertown,
when he witnessed the excitement and listened to
the rumour of battle on the morning of the 17th of
June. With touching eagerness to strike a blow
for the cause in which he had already suffered so

144 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
dreadful a martyrdom, Otis stole away from home,
borrowed a musket at some roadside farmhouse,
and hastened to the battlefield, where he fought
manfully, and after aU was over made his way
home, weary and faint, a little before midnight.
Though small in its dimensions, if compared
with great European battles, or with the giant con-
Excessive tcsts of OUT owu civil war, the struggle
Snmcanceof ^t Buukcr HUl is memorable and in-
the battle. structivc, evcu from a purely military
point of view. Considering the numbers engaged
and the short duration of the fight, the destruction
of life was enormous. Of aU the hardest-fought
fields of modern times, there have been very few
indeed in which the number of killed and wounded
has exceeded one fourth of the whole force en
gaged. In its bloodiness and in the physical con
ditions of the struggle, the battle of Bunker Hill
resembles in miniature the tremendous battles of
Fredericksburg and Cold Harbor. To ascend a
rising ground and storm weU-manned intrench
ments has in aU ages been a difficult task ; at the
present day, with the range and precision of our
modern weapons, it has come to be almost impossi
ble. It has become a maxim of modern warfare
that only the most extraordinary necessity can jus
tify a commander in resorting to so desperate a
measure. Pie must manoeuvre against such posi
tions, cut them off by the rear, or deprive them of
their value by some flanking march ; but he must
not, save as a forlorn hope, waste precious human
lives in an effort to storm them that is almost sure
to prove fruitless. For our means of destroying

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 145
life have become so powerful and so accurate that,
when skilfully wielded from commanding posi
tions, no human gallantry can hope to withstand
them. As civilization advances, warfare becomes
less and less a question of mere personal bravery,
and more and more a question of the application
of resistless physical forces at the proper points ;
that is to say, it becomes more and more a purely
scientific problem of dynamics. Now at Bunker
Hill, though the Americans had not our modern
weapons of precision, yet a similar effect was
wrought by the remarkable accuracy of their aim,
due to the fact that they were all trained marks
men, who waited coolly till they could fire at short
range, and then wasted no shots in random firing.
Most of the British soldiers who feU in the two
disastrous charges of that day were doubtless
picked off as partridges are picked off by old
sportsmen, and thus is explained the unprecedented
slaughter of officers. Probably nothing quite like
this had yet been seen in the history of war, though
the principle had been similar in those wonderful
trials of the long-bow in such mediaeval battles as
Crecy and Dupplin Moor. Against such odds even
British pluck and endurance could not possibly pre
vail. Under these circumstances, had the Ameri
cans been properly supplied with powder, Howe
could no more have taken Bunker Hill by storm
than Burnside could take the heights of Freder
icksburg. The moral effect of the battle of Bunker Hill,
both in America and Europe, was remarkable. It
was for tbe British & decided and important vie-

146 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
tory, inasmuch as they not only gained the ground
for which the battle was fought, but by so doing
Its moral they succeeded in keeping their hold
effect. upon Boston for nine months longer.
Nevertheless, the moral advantage was felt to be
entirely on the side of the Americans. It was they
who were elated by the day's work, while it was
the British who were dispirited. The belief that
Americans could not fight was that day dispelled
forever. British officers who remembered Fonte-
noy and Minden declared that the firing at Bunker
HiU was the hottest they had ever known, and,
with an exaggeration which was pardonable as a
reaction from their former ill-judged contempt, it
was asserted that the regulars of France were less
formidable foes than the militia of New England.
It was keenly felt that if a conquest of a single
strategic position had encountered such stubborn
resistance, the task of subjugating the United Col
onies was likely to prove a hard one. " I wish we
could sell them another hiU at the same price,"
said General Greene. Vergennes, the French min
ister of foreign affairs, exclaimed that with two
more such victories England would have no army
left in America. Washington said there could
now be no doubt that the liberties of the people
were secure. While Franklin, taking extreme
ground, declared that England had lost her colo
nies forever.

CHAPTER IV.
INDEPENDENCE.
On the 2d of July, 1775, after a journey of
eleven days, General Washington arrived in Bos
ton from Philadelphia, and on the foUowing day,
under the shade of the great elm -tree ^ ,. _
° _ Washin^on
which still stands hard by Cambridge arrivesin
.' ^ Cambridge.
Common, he took command of the Con
tinental army, which as yet was composed entirely
of New Englanders. Of the 16,000 men engaged
in the siege of Boston, Massachusetts furnished
11,500, Connecticut 2,300, New Hampshire 1,200,
Rhode Island 1,000. These contingents were
arrayed under their local commanders, and under
the local flags of their respective commonwealths,
though Artemas Ward of Massachusetts had by
courtesy exercised the chief command until the ar
rival of Washington. During the month of July,
Congress gave a more continental complexion to
the army by sending a reinforcement of 3,000 men
from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, in
cluding the famous Daniel Morgan, with his sturdy
band of sharpshooters, each man of whom, it was
said, while marching at double-quick, could cleave
with his rifle-ball a squirrel at a distance of three
hundred yards. The summer of 1775 thus brought
together in Cambridge many officers whose names

148 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
were soon to become household words throughout
the length and breadth of the land, and a moment
may be fitly spent in introducing them before we
proceed with the narrative of events.
Daniel Morgan, who had just arrived from Vir
ginia with his riflemen, was a native of New Jersey,
Daniel of Wclsh dcsccut. Movlug to Virginia
Morgan. ^.^ ^.^ early age, he had won a great
reputation for bravery and readiness of resource
in the wild campaigns of the Seven Years' War.
He was a man of gigantic stature and strength,
and incredible powers of endurance. In his youth,
it is said, he had received five hundred lashes by
order of a tyrannical British officer, and had come
away alive and defiant. On another occasion, in a
fierce woodland fight with the Indians, in which
nearly all his comrades were slain, Morgan was
shot through the neck by a musket-ball. Almost
fainting from the wound, which he believed to be
fatal, Morgan was resolved, nevertheless, not to leave
his scalp in the hands of a dirty Indian ; and fall
ing forward, with his arms tightly clasped about
the neck of his stalwart horse, though mists were
gathering before his eyes, he spurred away through
the forest paths, until his foremost Indian pursuer,
unable to come up with him, hurled his tomahawk
after him with a yell of baffled rage, and gave up
the chase. With this unconquerable tenacity, Mor
gan was a man of gentle and unselfish nature ; a
genuine diamond, though a rough one ; uneducated,
but clear and strong in intelligence and faithful in
every fibre. At Cambridge began his long com
radeship with a very different character, Benedict

INDEPENDENCE. 149
Arnold, a young man of romantic and generous im
pulses, and for personal bravery unsur- Benedict
passed, but vain and self-seeking, and ^™°^^'
lacking in moral robustness; in some respects a
more polished man than Morgan, but of a nature
at once coarser and weaker. We shall see these
two men associated in some of the most brilliant
achievements of the war ; and we shaU see them
persecuted and insulted by political enemies, until
the weaker nature sinks and is ruined, whUe the
stronger endures to the end.
Along with Morgan and Arnold there might
have been seen on Cambridge Common a man who
was destined to play no less conspicuous a part in
the great campaign which was to end in the
first decisive overthrow of the British. For native
shrewdness, rough simpUcity, and daunt
less courage, John Stark was much like
Morgan. What the one name was in the great
woods of the Virginia frontier, that was the other
among the rugged hills of northern New England,
— a symbol of patriotism and a guarantee of vic
tory. Great as was Stark's personal foUowing in
New Hampshire, he had not, however, the chief
command of the troops of that colony. The com
mander of the New Hampshire contin-
-^ 111 John SuUivau.
gent was John Sullivan, a wealthy law
yer of Durham, who had sat in the first Conti
nental Congress. Sullivan was a gentleman of
wide culture and fair ability as a statesman. As
a general, he was brave, intelligent, and faithful,
but in no wise briUiant. Closely associated with
Sullivan for the next three years we shall find

150 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Nathanael Greene, now in command of the Rhode
Island contingent. For inteUectual calibre the
other officers here mentioned are dwarfed at once
in comparison with Greene, who comes out at the
end of the war with a military reputation scarcely,
if at all, inferior to that of Washington. Nor was
Nathanael Greene less notable for the sweetness
Greene. ^^^ purity of his character than for the
scope of his intelligence. From lowly beginnings
he had come to be, though still a young man, the
most admired and respected citizen of Rhode
Island. He had begun life as a blacksmith, but,
inspired by an intense thirst for knowledge, he
had soon become a learned blacksmith, weU versed
in history, philosophy, and general literature. He
had that rare genius which readily assimilates all
kinds of knowledge through an inborn correctness
of method. Whatever he touched, it was with a
master hand, and his weight of sense soon won
general recognition. Such a man was not unnat
urally an eager book-buyer, and in this
way he had some time ago been brought
into pleasant relations with the genial and intel
ligent Henry Knox, who from his bookshop in
Boston had come to join the army as a colonel of
artillery, and soon became oue of Washington's
most trusty followers.
Of this group of officers, none have as yet
reached very high rank in the Continental army.
SuUivan and Greene stand at the end of the list
of brigadier-generals ; the rest are colo-
Older officers. -, >ri • .
nels. The senior major-general, Arte
mas Ward, and the senior brigadiers, Pomeroy

INDEPENDENCE. 151
Heath, Thomas, Wooster, and Spencer, will pres
ently pass into the background, to make way for
these younger or more vigorous men. Major-
General Israel Putnam, the picturesque
.« , - - ,, . Israel Putnam.
wolt-siayer, a brave and sterling patriot,
but of slender military capacity, will remain in the
foreground for another year, and wiU then become
relegated mainly to garrison duty.
With the exception of Morgan, aU the officers
here noticed are New England men, as is natural,
since the seat of war is in Massachusetts, and an
army really continental in complexion is still to be
formed. The Southern colonies have as yet con
tributed only Morgan and the commander-in-chief.
New York is represented, in the Continental army,
by two of the noblest of American heroes, — Major-
General Philip Schuyler and Brigadier-General
Richard Montgomery ; but these able men are now
watching over Ticonderoga and the Indian frontier
of New York. But among the group which in
1775 met for consultation on Cambridge Common,
or in the noble Tory mansion now haUowed alike
by memories of Washington and of LongfeUow,
there were yet two other generals, closely
. - 1 ,. • • Horatio Gates
associated with each other for a time in and charies
Lee.
ephemeral reputation won by false pre
tences, and afterwards in lasting ignominy. It is
with pleasure that one recalls the fact that these
men were not Americans, though both possessed
estates in Virginia ; it is with regret that one is
forced to own them as Englishmen. Of Horatio
Gates and his career of imbecility and intrigue,
we shall by and by see more than enough. At

152 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
-this time he was present in Cambridge as adjutants
general of the army. But his friend, Charles Lee,
was for the moment a far more conspicuous per
sonage ; and this eccentric creature, whose career
was for a long time one of the difficult problems
in American history, needs something more than a
passing word of introduction.
Although Major-General Charles Lee happened
to have acquired an estate in Virginia, he had
nothing in common with the illustrious family of
Virginian Lees beyond the accidental identity of
name. He was born in England, and had risen in
the British army to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
Lee's personal Hc had scrvcd lu America in the Seven
pecuUarities. years' War, and afterward, as a soldier
of fortune, he had wandered about Europe, obtain
ing at one time a place on the staff of the king of
Poland. A restless adventurer, he had come over
again to America as soon as he saw that a war was
brewing here. There is nothing to show that he
cared a rush for the Americans, or for the cause
in which they were fighting, but he sought the
opportunity of making a name for himself. He
was received with enthusiasm by the Americans.
His loud, pompous manner and enormous self-con
fidence at first imposed upon everybody. He was
taU, lank, and hoUow-cheeked, with a discontented
expression of face. In dress he was extremely
slovenly. He was fond of dogs, and always had
three or four at his heels, but toward men and
women his demeanour was morose and insulting.
He had a sharp, cynical wit, and was always mak
ing severe remarks in a harsh, rough voice. But

INDEPENDENCE. 153
disagreeable as he was, the trustful American
imagination endowed him with the qualities of a
great soldier. His reputation was part of the un
conscious tribute which the provincial mind of our
countrymen was long wont to pay to the men and
things of Europe ; and for some time his worst
actions found a lenient interpretation as the mere
eccentricities of a wayward genius. He had hoped
to be made commander-in-chief of the army, and
had already begun to nourish a bitter grudge
against Washington, by whom he regarded himself
as supplanted. In the following year we shall see
him endeavouring to thwart the plans of Washing
ton at the most critical moment of the war, but for
the present he showed no signs of insincerity, ex
cept perhaps in an undue readiness to parley with
the British commanders. As soon as it became
clear that a war was beginning, the hope of win
ning glory by effecting an accommodation with the
enemy offered a dangerous temptation to men of
weak virtue in eminent positions. In October,
1775, the American camp was thrown into great
consternation by the discovery that Dr. Benja
Benjamin Church, one of the most con
spicuous of the Boston leaders, had engaged in a
secret correspondence with the enemy. Dr. Church
was thrown into jail, but as the evidence of treason
able intent was not absolutely complete, he was set
free in the following spring, and aUowed to visit
the West Indies for his health. The ship in which
he sailed was never heard from again. This kind
of temptation, to which Church succumbed at the
first outbreak of the war, beset Lee with fatal

ijamin
Church.

154 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
effect after the Declaration of Independence, and
wrought the ruin of Arnold after the conclusion of
the French alliance.
To such a man as Charles Lee, destitute of faith
in the loftier human virtues or in the strength of
political ideas, it might easily have seemed that
more was to be hoped from negotiation than from
an attempt to resist Great Britain with such an
army as that of which he now came to command
the left wing. It was fortunate that the British
generals were ignorant of the real state of things.
Among the moral effects of the battle of Bunker
Hill there was one which proved for the moment
to be of inestimable value. It impressed upon
General Howe, who now succeeded to the chief
command, the feeling that the Americans were
more formidable than had been supposed, and that
much care and forethought would be required for
a successful attack upon them. In a man of his
easy-going disposition, such a feeling was enough
to prevent decisive action. It served to keep the
British force idle in Boston for months, and was
thus of great service to the American cause.
For in spite of the zeal and valour it had shown,
this army of New England minute-men was by no
means in a fit condition for carrying on such an
arduous enterprise as the siege of Boston. When
Washington took command of the army on Cam
bridge Common, he found that the first and most
trying task before him was out of this excellent
but very raw material to create an army upon
which he could depend. The battle of Bunker
HiU had just been lost, under circumstances which

INDEPENDENCE. 155
were calculated to cheer the Americans and
make them hopeful of the future ; but
. , > , , 1 Difficult work
it would not do to risk another battle, for washing-
, ^ ton.
with an untrained staff and a scant
supply of powder. All the work of organizing an
army was still to be done, and the circumstances
were not such as to make it an easy work. It was
not merely that the men, who were much better
trained in the discipline of the town-meeting than
in that of the camp, needed to be taught the aU-
important lesson of miUtary subordination : it was
at first a serious question how they were to be
kept together at all. That the enthusiasm kindled
on the day of Lexington should have sufficed to
bring together 16,000 men, and to keep them for
three months at their posts, was already remark
able ; but no army, however patriotic and self-sac
rificing, can be supported on enthusiasm alone.
The army of which Washington took command
was a motley crowd, clad in every variety of rustic
attire, armed with trusty muskets and rifles, as their
recent exploit had shown, but destitute of almost
everything else that belongs to a soldier's outfit.
From the Common down to the river, their rude
tents were dotted about here and there, some made
of sail-cloth stretched over poles, some piled up of
stones and turf, some oddly wrought of twisted
gTeen boughs ; while the more fortunate ones found
comparatively luxurious quarters In Massachusetts
Hall, or in the little Episcopal church, or in the
houses of patriotic citizens. These volunteers had
enlisted for various periods, under various con
tracts with various town cr provincial govern-

156 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
ments. Their terms of service had naturally been
conceived to be short, and it was not only not alto
gether clear how they were going to be paid, but
it was not easy to see how they were going to be
fed. That this army should have been already
subsisted for three months, without any commis
sariat, was in itself an extraordinary fact. Day
by day the heavy carts had rumbled into Cam
bridge, bringing from the highlands of Berkshire
. and Worcester, and from the Merrlmac and Con
necticut valleys, whatever could in any wise be
spared of food, or clothing, or medicines, for the
patriot army ; and the pleasant fields of Cambridge
were a busy scene of kindness and sympathy.
Such means as these, however, could not long
be efficient. If war was to be successfully con
ducted, there must be a commissariat, there must
be ammunition, and there must be money. And
here Washington found himself confronted with
the difficulty which never ceased to vex his noble
soul and disturb his best laid schemes until the
day when he swooped down upon CornwaUis at
Yorktown. He had to keep making
governmental thc army, with whlch he was too often
expected to fight battles ere it was half
made ; and in this arduous work he could get but
little systematic help from any quarter. At pres
ent the difficulty was that there was nowhere any
organized government competent to support an
army. On Washington's arrival, the force sur
rounding Boston owed allegiance, as we have seen,
to four distinct commonwealths, of which two,
indeed, — Connecticut and Rhode Island, — pre-

INDEPENDENCE. 157
serving their ancient charters, with governors
elected by themselves, were still in their normal
condition. In New Hampshire, on the other hand,
the royal governor, Wentworth, whose personal
popularity was deservedly great, still kept his
place, while Stark and his men had gone to Cam
bridge in spite of him. In Massachusetts the rev
olutionary Provincial Congress stiU survived, but
with uncertain powers ; even the Continental Con
gress which adopted the Cambridge army in the
name of the United Colonies was simply an ad
visory body, without the power to raise taxes or
to beat up recruits. From this administrative
chaos, through which all the colonies, save Con
necticut and Rhode Island, were forced to pass in
these trying times, Massachusetts was the first to
emerge, in July, 1775, by reverting to Newgove™-
the provisions of its old charter, and ™^t*°e'ttY*^'
forming a government in which the ¦'"'^'i i^^s.
king's authority was virtually disallowed. A rep
resentative assembly was chosen by the people
in their town-meetings, according to time-honoured
precedent ; and this new legislature Itself elected
an annual council of twenty-eight members, to sit
as an upper house. James Bowdoin, as president
of the council, became chief executive officer of
the commonwealth, and John Adams was made
chief-justice. Forty thousand pounds were raised
by a direct tax on polls and on real estate, and
bills of credit were issued for 1,000 more. The
commonwealth adopted a new seal, and a proc
lamation, issued somewhat later by Chief-Justice
Adams, enjoining it upon aU people to give loyal

158 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
obedience to the new government, closed with the
significant invocation " God save the people," in
stead of the customary " God save the king."
In taking this decisive step, Massachusetts was
simply the first to act upon the general recommen
dation of the Continental Congress, that the sev
eral colonies should forthwith proceed to frame
governments for themselves, based upon the suf
frages of the people. From such a recommenda
tion as this to a formal declaration of indepen
dence, the distance to be traversed was not great.
Samuel Adams urged that in declaring the colonies
independent Congress would be simply recognizing
a fact which in reality already existed, and that
by thus looking facts squarely in the face the
inevitable war might be conducted with far greater
efficiency. But he was earnestly and ably opposed
by Dickinson of Pennsylvania, whose arguments
for the present prevailed in the Congress. It was
felt that the Congress, as a mere advisory body,
had no right to take a step of such supreme im
portance without first receiving explicit instruc
tions from every one of the colonies. Besides
this, the thought of separation was still a pain
ful thought to most of the delegates, and it
was deemed well worth while to try the effect of
one more candid statement of grievances, to be
set forth in a petition to his majesty. For like
reasons, the Congress did not venture to take
measures to increase its own authority ;
Congress sends _ , ---, , ,. -ii i • i ¦ >
a petition to aud wlicu r raukliu, still thinking of
the king. . . .
union as he had been thinking for more
than twenty years, now brought forward a new

INDEPENDENCE. 159
scheme, somewhat similar to the Articles of Con
federation afterwards adopted, it was set aside as
premature. The king was known to be fiercely
opposed to any dealings with the colonies as a
united body, and so considerate of his feelings
were these honest and peace-loving delegates that,
after much discussion, they signed their carefully
worded petition severally, and not jointly. They
signed it as individuals speaking for the people
of the American colonies, not as members of an
organic body representing the American people.
To emphasize still further their conciliatory mood,
the delivery of the petition was entrusted to Rich
ard Penn, a descendant of the great Quaker and
joint-proprietary in the government of Pennsyl
vania, an exceUent man and an ardent loyalist.
At the same time that this was done, an issue of
paper money was made, to be severaUy guaranteed
by the thirteen colonies, and half a million doUars
were sent to Cambridge to be used for the army.
Military operations, however, came for the time
to a stand - stiU. W^hile Washington's energies
were fully occupied in organizing and drilling his
troops, in providing them with powder and ball, in
raising lines of fortification, in making good the
troublesome vacancies due to short terms of enlist
ment, and above aU in presenting unfailingly a
bold front to the enemy ; while the encampments
about Boston were the daily scene of tedious work,
without any immediate prospect of brilliant achieve
ment, the Congress and the people were patiently
waiting to hear the result of the last petition that
was ever to be sent from these colonies to the king
of Great Britain.

160 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Penn made all possible haste, and arrived in Lon
don on the 14th of August ; but when he got there
the king would neither see him, nor receive the
petition in any way, directly or indirectly. The
Congress was an illegal assembly which had no
business to send letters to him : if any one of the
colonies wanted to make terms for itself separately,
he might be willing to listen to it. But this idea
of a united America was something unknown
either to law or to reason, something that could
not be too summarUy frowned down. So whUe
The kin.' is- Feuu Waited about London, the king
mation''a°nd^ issucd a proclamation; setting forth
troop8°£TOm that uiauy of his subjects in the colonies
Russia. were in open and armed rebellion, and
calling upon all loyal subjects of the realm to assist
in bringing to condign punishment the authors and
abettors of this foul treason. Having launched
this thunderbolt, George sent at once to Russia to
see if he could hire 20,000 men to aid in giving it
effect, for the " loyal subjects of the realm " were
slow in coming forward. A war against the
Americans was not yet popular in England. Lord
Chatham withdrew his eldest son. Lord Pitt, from
the army, lest he should be caUed upon to serve
against the men who were defending the common
Uberties of Englishmen. There was, moreover, in
England as well as in America, a distrust of regular
armies. Recruiting was difficult, and conscription
was something that the people would not endure
unless England should actually be threatened with
invasion. The king had already been obliged to
raise a- force of his Hanoverian subjects to garrison

INDEPENDENCE. 161
Minorca and Gibraltar, thus setting free the Brit
ish defenders of these strongholds for service in
America. He had no further resource except in
hiring troops from abroad. But his attempt ia
Russia was not successful, for the Em- Catherine
press Catherine, with aU her faults, was '''=*"^^^-
not disposed to sell the blood of her subjects. She
improved the occasion — as sovereigns and others
will sometimes do — by asking George, sarcasti
cally, if he thought it quite compatible with his
dignity to employ foreign troops against his own
subjects ; as for Russian soldiers, she had none to
spare for such a purpose. Foiled in this quarter,
the king applied to the Duke of Brunswick, the
Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the princes of Wal-
deck and Anhalt - Zerbst, the Margrave of Ans-
pach - Bayreuth, and the Count of Hesse -Hanau,
and succeeded in making a bargain for
20,000 of the finest infantry in Europe, hires German
with four good generals, — Riedesel of ™''^''
Brunswick, and Knyphausen, Von Heister, and
Donop of Hesse. The hiring of these troops was
bitterly condemned by Lord John Cavendish in
the House of Commons, and by Lords Camden
and Shelburne and the Duke of Richmond in the
House of Lords ; and Chatham's indignant invec
tives at a somewhat later date are familiar to every
one. It is proper, however, that in such an affair
as this we should take care to affix our blame in
the right place. The king might well argue that
in carrying on a war for what the majority of Par
liament regarded as a righteous object, it was no
worse for him to hire men than to buy cannon

162 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
and ships. The German troops, on their part,
might justly complain of Lord Camden for stig
matizing them as " mercenaries," inasmuch as they
did not come to America for pay, but because there
was no help for it. It was indeed with a heavy
heart that these honest men took up their arms to
go beyond sea and fight for a cause in which they
felt no sort of interest, and great was the mourn
ing over their departure. The persons who really
deserved to bear the odium of this transaction
were the mercenary princes who thus shamelessly
sold their subjects into slavery. It was a striking
instance of the demoralization which had been
wrought among the petty courts of Germany in
the last days of the old empire, and among the
Indignation in German people it excited profound in-
Germany. dlguation. The popular feeling was
well expressed by Schiller, in his " Cabale und
Liebe." Frederick the Great, in a letter to Vol
taire, declared himself beyond measure disgusted,
and by way of publicly expressing his contempt
for the transaction he gave orders to his custom
house officers that upon aU such of these soldiers
as should pass through Prussian territory a toll
should be levied, as upon " cattle exported for for
eign shambles."
When the American question was brought up in
the autumn session of Parliament, it was treated in
the manner with which the Americans had by this
time become familiar. A few far-sighted men still
urged the reasonableness of the American claims,
but there was now a great majority against them.
In spite of grave warning voices, both houses de-

INDEPENDENCE. 163
cided to support the king ; and in this they were
upheld by the university of Oxford, which a cen
tury ago had burned the works of John Milton
as " blasphemous," and which now, with equal
felicity, in a formal address to the king, described
the Americans as " a people who had forfeited their
lives and their fortunes to the justice of the state."
At the same time the department of American
affairs was taken from the amiable Lord Dart
mouth, and given to the truculent Lord George
Germain. Those things were done in November,
1775, and in the preceding month they had been
heralded by an act of wanton barbarity on the part
of a British naval officer, albeit an unwarranted
act, which the British government as promptly as
possible disowned. On the 16th of Oc
tober, Captain Mowatt had sailed with Portland,
four small vessels into the harbour of
Portland (then called Falmouth), and with shells
and grenades set fire to the Uttle town. St. Paul's
Church, all the public buildings, and three fourths
of all the dwellings were burned to the ground, and
a thousand unoffending men, women, and children
were thus turned out-of-doors just as the sharp
Maine winter was coming on to starve and freeze
them. The news of the burning of Portland reached
Philadelphia on the same day (October 31) with
the news that George III. was about to send for
eign mercenaries to fight against his American
subjects ; and now the wrath of Congress was
thoroughly kindled, and the party which advised
further temporizing was thrown into helpless mi
nority.

164 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
" Well, brother rebel," said a Southern member
to Samuel Ward of Rhode Island, " we have now
got a sufficient answer to our petition : I want
nothing more, but am ready to declare ourselves
Effects upon independent." Congress now advised
Congress. -^^^ Hampshire, Virginia, and South
Carolina to frame for themselves new republi
can governments, as Massachusetts had already
done ; it urged South Carolina to seize the British
vessels in her waters ; it appointed a committee to
correspond with foreign powers ; and above all,
it adopted unreservedly the scheme, already par
tially carried out, for the expulsion of the British
from Canada.
At once upon the outbreak of hostihtles at Lex
ington, the conquest of Canada had been contem
plated by the Northern patriots, who well remem
bered how, in days gone by, the vaUey of the St.
Lawrence had furnished a base for attacks upon
the province of New York, which was then the
strategic centre of the American world. It was
deemed an act of military prudence to secure this
region at the outset. But so long as the least
hope of conciliation remained. Congress was unwil
ling to adopt any measures save such as were purely
„. . . defensive in character. As we have seen,
Ihe Amen-
c^adTsl^t it was only with reluctance that it had
"''^- sanctioned the garrisoning of Ticonder
oga by the Connecticut troops. But In the course
of the summer it was learned that the governor
of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, was about to take
steps to recover Ticonderoga ; and it was credibly
reported that intrigues were going on with the Iro-

INDEPENDENCE. 165
quois tribes, to induce them to harry the New Eng
land frontier and the pleasant farms on the Hud
son : so that, under these circumstances, the inva
sion of Canada was now authorized by Congress
as a measure of self-defence. An expedition down
Lake Champlain, against Montreal, was at once
set on foot. As Schuyler, the commander of the
northern department, was disabled by ill health,
the enterprise was confided to Richard Montgom
ery, and it could not have been put in better
hands. Late in August, Montgomery started
from Ticonderoga, and on the 12th of September,
with a force of two thousand men, he laid siege to
the fortress of St. John's, which commanded the
approach to Montreal. Carleton, whose utmost
exertions could bring together only some nine hun
dred men, made heroic but fruitless efforts to stop
his progress. After a siege of fifty days, St.
John's surrendered on the 3d of November, and
on the 12th Montgomery entered Montreal in tri
umph. The people of Canada had thus far seemed
favourably disposed toward the American invaders,
and Montgomery issued a proclamation urging
them to lose no time in choosing delegates to at
tend the Continental Congress.
Meanwhile, in September, Washington had de
tached from the army at Cambridge one thousand
New England infantry, with two companies of
Pennsylvania riflemen and Morgan's famous Vir
ginia sharpshooters, and ordered them to advance
upon Quebec through the forests of Maine and by
way of the rivers Kennebec and Chaudiere. The
expedition was commanded by Colonel Benedict

166 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Arnold, who seems to have been one of the first,
if not the first, to suggest it. The en-
march terprise was one to call for aU his per-
throughthe . , . i p •, t
wilderness of sistcut daring and fertile resource. It
Maine. , ., . .
was an amphibious journey, as they
now rowed their boats with difficulty against the
strong, swift current of the Kennebec, and now,
carrying boats and oars on their shoulders, forced
their way through the tangled undergrowth of the
primeval forests. Often they had to wade across
perilous bogs, and presently their shoes were cut
to pieces by sharp stones, and their clothes torn
to shreds by thorns and briers. Their food gave
out, and though some small game was shot, their
hunger became such that they devoured their dogs.
When they reached the head of the Chaudiere,
after this terrible march of thirty-three days, two
hundred of their number had succumbed to starva
tion, cold, and fatigue, while two hundred more
had given out and returned to Massachusetts, car
rying with them such of the sick and disabled as
they could save. The descent of the Chaudiere in
their boats afforded some chance for rest, and
presently they began to find cattle for food. At
last, on the 13th of November, the next day after
Montgomery's capture of Montreal, they crossed
the broad St. Lawrence, and climbed the Heights
of Abraham at the very place where Wolfe had
climbed to victory sixteen years ago. There was
splendid bravado in Arnold's advancing to the
very gates with his little, worn-out army, now re
duced to seven hundred men, and summoning the
garrison either to come out and fight, or to surren-

INDEPENDENCE. 167
der the town. But the garrison very properly
would neither surrender nor fight. The town had
been warned in time, and Arnold had no alterna
tive but to wait for Montgomery to join him.
Six days afterward, Carleton, disguised as a
farmer, and ferried down stream in a little boat,
found his way into Quebec ; and on the 3d of De
cember, Montgomery made his appearance with a
small force, which raised the number of the Amer
icans to twelve hundred men. As Carleton persist
ently refused to come out of his defences, it was
resolved to carry the works by storm, — a chival
rous, nay, one might almost say, a foolhardy deci
sion, had it not been so neailj'' justified by the
event. On the last day of 1775, Eng-
-, T . , 1 . f. 1 • /-v Assault upon
land came witnm an ace ot losing Oue- Quebec, Dec.
1 A i .. , 1 1 • , 1 r . 31, 1775.
bee. At two o clock in the morning, m
a blinding snowstorm, Montgomery and Arnold
began each a furious attack, at opposite sides of
the town ; and aided by the surprise, each came
near carrying his point. Montgomery had almost
forced his way in when he fell dead, pierced by
three buUets ; and this so chilled the enthusiasm
of his men that they flagged, until reinforcements
drove them back. Arnold, on his side, was se
verely wounded and carried from the field ; but
the indomitable Morgan took his place, and his
Virginia company stormed the battery opposed to
them, and fought their way far into the town. Had
the attack on the other side been kept up with
equal vigour, as it might have been but for Mont
gomery's death, Quebec must have fallen. As it
was, Morgan's triumphant advance only served to

168 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
isolate him, and presently he and his gallant com
pany were surrounded and captured.
With the failure of this desperate attack passed
away the golden opportunity for taking
of the attempt the cltadcl of Canada. Arnold remained
upon Canada. throughout the winter in the neighbour
hood of Quebec, and in the spring the enterprise
was taken up by Wooster and Sullivan with fresh
forces. But by this time many Hessians had come
over, and Carleton, reinforced until his army num
bered 13,000, was enabled to recapture Montreal
and push back the Americans, until in June, after
a hazardous retreat, well conducted by Sullivan,
the remnant of their invading army found shelter
at Crown Point. Such was the disastrous ending
of a campaign which at the outset had promised
a briUiant success, and which is deservedly famous
for the heroism and skill with which it was con
ducted. The generalship of Montgomery received
the warm approval of no less a critic than Freder
ick the Great ; and the chivalrous bravery of Ar
nold, both in his march through the wilderness and
in the military operations which foUowed, was such
that if a kind fate could then and there have cut
the thread of his life, he would have left behind
him a sweet aud shining memory. As for the at
tempt to bring Canada into the American union, it
was one which had no hope of success save through
a strong display of military force. The sixteen
years which had elapsed since the victory of Wolfe
had not transformed the Canadian of the old regime
into a free-born Englishman. The question at
present for him was only that of a choice of alle-

INDEPENDENCE. 169
giance ; and while at first the invaders were favour
ably received, it soon became apparent that be
tween the Catholic and the Puritan there could be
but little real sympathy. The Quebec Act, which
legalized Catholic worship in Canada, had done
much toward securing England's hold upon this
part of her American possessions. And although,
in the colourless political condition of this northern
province, the capture of Quebec might well have
brought it into the American union, where it would
graduaUy have taken on a fresh life, as surely as
it has done under British guidance, yet nothing
short of such a military occupation could have had
any effect in determining its languid preferences.
While Canada was thus freed from the presence
of the Continental troops, the British army, on the
other hand, was driven from Boston, and New
England was cleared of the enemy. During the
autumn and winter, Washington had drawn his
lines as closely as possible about the town, while
engaged in the work of organizing and equipping
his army. The hardest task was to collect a suf
ficient quantity of powder and baU, and to bring
together siege-guns. As the season wore on, the
country grew impatient, and Washing- xhe siege of
ton sometimes had to listen to criticisms ^°='™-
like those that were directed against McCleUan
in Virginia, at the beginning of 1862, or against
Grant before Vicksburg, in the spring of 1863.
President Hancock, who owned a great deal of
property in Boston, urged him to set fire to the
town and destroy it, if by so doing he could drive
the British to their ships. But Washington had

170 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
planned much more wisely. By the 1st of March
a great quantity of cannon had been brought in by
Henry Knox, some of them dragged on sledges aU
the way from Ticonderoga, and so at last Wash
ington felt himself prepared to seize upon Dorches
ter Heights. This position commanded the town
and harbour even more effectuaUy than Bunker
Hill, and why in aU these months General Howe
had not occupied it one would find it hard to say.
He was bitterly attacked for his remissness by the
British newspapers, as was quite natural.
Washington chose for his decisive movement the
night of the 4th of March. Eight hundred men
led the way, escorting the wagons la-
Washington . -,
seizes Dor- ^Qn with spadcs aud CTOwbars, hatchets,
Chester -^ ^
Heights, hammers, and nails ; and after them fol-
Maroh 4, 1776. ' '
lowed twelve hundred men, with three
hundred ox-carts, carrying timbers and bales of
hay ; whUe the rear was brought up by the heavy
siege-guns. From Somerville, East Cambridge,
and Roxbury, a furious cannonade was begun soon
after sunset and kept up through the night, com
pletely absorbing the attention of the British, who
kept up a lively fire in return. The roar of the
cannon drowned every other sound for mUes
around, while all night long the two thousand
Americans, having done their short march in per
fect secrecy, were busily digging and building on
Dorchester Heights, and dragging their siege-guns
into position. Early next morning, Howe saw
with astonishment what had been done, and began
to realize his perilous situation. The commander
of the fleet sent word that unless the Americans

INDEPENDENCE. 171
could be forthwith dislodged, he coulcf not venture
to keep his ships in the harbour. Most of the day
was consumed in deciding what should be done,
until at last Lord Percy was told to take three
thousand men and storm the works. But the
slaughter of Bunker HiU had taught its lesson so
weU that neither Percy nor his men had any stom
ach for such an enterprise. A violent storm, com
ing up toward nightfall, persuaded them to delay
the attack tiU next day, and by that time it had
become apparent to aU that the American works,
continually growing, had become impregnable.
Percy's orders were accordingly countermanded,
and it was decided to abandon the town immedi
ately. It was the sixth anniversary of the day on
which Samuel Adams had overawed Hutchinson,
and forced him to withdraw his two British regi
ments from Boston. The work then begun was
now consummated by Washington, and from that
time forth the deUverance of Massachusetts was
complete. Howe caused it at once to be known
among the citizens that he was about to
•n 1 The British
evacuate Boston, but he threatened to troops evacu-
. ..»-,. ate Boston,
lay the town in ashes if his troops should Ma'ch n,
be fired on. The selectmen conveyed
due information of all this to Washington, who
accordingly, secure in the achievement of his pur
pose, aUowed the enemy to depart in peace. By
the ITth, the eight thousand troops were all on
board their ships, and, taking with them all the
Tory citizens, some nine hundred in number, they
sailed away for Halifax. Their space did not
permit them to carry away their heavy arms, and

172 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
their retreat, slow as it was, bore marks of hurry
and confusion. In taking possession of the town,
Washington captured more than two hundred ser
viceable cannon, ten times more powder and ball
than his army had ever seen before, and an im
mense quantity of muskets, gun-carriages, and mil
itary stores of every sort. Thus was New England
set free by a single brilliant stroke, with very
slight injury to private property, and with a total
loss of not more than twenty lives.
The time was now fairly ripe for the colonies to
declare themselves independent of Great Britain.
The idea of a separation from the mother-country,
which in the autumn had found but few supporters,
grew in favour day by day through the winter and
spring. The incongruousness of the present situa-
A provisional tlon was wcU typified by the flag which
^^^' Washington flung to the breeze on New
Year's Day at Cambridge, which was made up of
thirteen stripes, to represent the United Colonies,
but which retained the cross of St. George in the
corner. Thus far, said Benjamin Harrison, they
had contrived to " hobble along under a fatal at
tachment to Great Britain," but the time had come
when one must consider the welfare of one's owu
country first of aU. As Samuel Adams said, their
petitions had not been heard, and yet had been
Effect of the auswered by armies and fleets, and by
"my?mi'- myrmldous hired from abroad. Noth-
dons." jjjg, j^g^^ made a greater impression upon
the American people than this hiring of German
troops. It went farther than any other single
cause to ripen their minds for the declaration of

INDEPENDENCE. 173
independence. Many now began to agree with
the Massachusetts statesman ; and while public
opinion was in this malleable condition, there ap
peared a pamphlet which wrought a prodigious ef
fect upon the people, mainly because it gave terse
and vigorous expression to views which every oue
had already more than half formed for himself.
Thomas Paine had come over to America in De
cember, 1774, and through the favour of Frankhn
had secured employment as editor of the " Pennsyl
vania Magazine." He was by nature a dissenter
and a revolutionist to the marrow of his bones.
FuU of the generous though often blind enthu
siasm of the eighteenth century for the Thomas
" rights of man," he was no respecter of ^'"°°'
the established order, whether in church or state.
To him the church and its doctrines meant slavish
superstition, and the state meant tyranny. Of crude
and undisciplined mind, and quite devoid of schol
arship, yet endowed with native acuteness and sa
gacity, and with no mean power of expressing
himself, Paine succeeded in making everybody
read what he wrote, and achieved a popular repu
tation out of aU proportion to his real merit.
-Anong devout American families his name is stiU
a name of horror and opprobrium, and uneducated
freethinkers still build lecture-halls in honour of his
memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birth
day, with speeches full of dismal platitudes. The
" Age of Reason," which was the cause of all this
singular blessing and banning, contains, amid much
crude argument, some sound and sensible criticism,
such as is often far exceeded in boldness in the

174 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
books and sermons of Unitarian and Episcopalian
divines of the present day ; but its tone is coarse
and dull, and with the improvement of popular
education it is fast sinking into complete and de
served oblivion. There are times, however, when
such caustic pamphleteers as Thomas Paine have
their uses. There are times when they can bring
about results which are not so easily achieved by
men of finer mould and more subtle intelligence.
It was at just such a time, in January, 1776, that
"Common Paiuc published his pamphlet, "Com-
Sense." jjjqjj gensc," OU the suggestion of Ben
jamin Rush, and with the approval of Franklin
and of Samuel Adams. The pamphlet is full of
scurrilous abuse of the English people, aud resorts
to such stupid arguments as the denial of the Eng
lish origin of the Americans. Not one third of
the people, even of Pennsylvania, are of English
descent, argues Paine, as if Pennsylvania had
been preeminent among the colonies for its
English blood, and not, as in reality, perhaps the
least English of aU the thirteen save New York.
But along with all this stuff there was a sensible
and striking statement of the practical state of the
case between England and the colonies. The rea
sons were shrewdly and vividly set forth for
looking upon reconciliation as hopeless, and for
seizing the present moment to declare to the world
what the logic of events was already fast making
an accomplished fact. Only thus, it was urged,
could the States of America pursue a coherent and
weU-defined policy, and preserve their dignity in
the eyes of the world.

INDEPENDENCE. 175
It was difficult for the printers, with the clumsy
presses of that day, to bring out copies of " Common
Sense " fast enough to meet the demand for it.
More than a hundred thousand copies were speedily
sold, and it carried conviction wherever it went.
At the same time. Parliament did its best to rein
force the argument by passing an act to close all
American ports, and authorize the confiscation of
all American ships and cargoes, as well as of such
neutral vessels as might dare to trade with this
proscribed people. And, as if this were not quite
enough, a clause was added by which British com
manders on the high seas were directed to impress
the crews of such American ships as
they might meet, and to compel them, ami"oSite^
under penalty of death, to enter the ser- *"i'"™''*'°'^-
vice against their fellow-countrymen. In reply to
this edict. Congress, in March, ordered the ports
of America to be thrown open to aU nations ; it
issued letters of marque, and it advised aU the col
onies to disarm such Tories as should refuse to con
tribute to the common defence. These measures,
as Franklin said, were virtually a declaration of
war against Great Britain. But before taking the
last irrevocable step, the prudent Congress waited
for instructions from every one of the colonies.
The first colony to take decisive action in behalf
of independence was North Carolina, a common
wealth in whieh the king had supposed the outlook
to be especially favourable for the loyalist party.
Recovered in some measure from the turbulence
of its earlier days. North Carolina was fast becom
ing a prosperous community of small planters,

176 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
and its population had increased so rapidly that
it now ranked fourth among the colonies, imme
diately after Pennsylvania. Since the overthrow
of the Pretender at CuUoden there had been a
great immigration of sturdy Scots from
in North the wcstcrn Highlands, in which the
clans of Macdonald and Macleod were
especiaUy represented. The celebrated Flora Mac
donald herself, the romantic woman who saved
Charles Edward in 1746, had lately come over here
and settled at Kingsborough with AUan Macdon
ald, her husband. These Scottish immigrants also
helped to colonize the upland regions of South
CaroUna and Georgia, and they have powerfuUy
affected the race composition of the Southern peo
ple, forming an ancestry of which their descendants
may weU be proud. Though these Highland clans
men had taken part in the Stuart insurrection, they
had become loyal enough to the government of
George III., and it was now hoped that with their
aid the colonies might be firmly secured, and its
neighbours on either side overawed. To this end,
in January, Sir Henry Chnton, taking
for the with him 2,000 troops, left Boston and
sailed for the Cape Fear river, while a
force of seven regiments and ten ships-of-war, un
der Sir Peter Parker, was ordered from Ireland to
cooperate with him. At the same time, Martin,
the royal governor, who for safety had retired on
board a British ship, carried on negotiations with
the Highlanders, until a force of 1,600 men was
raised, and, under command of Donald Macdonald,
marched down toward the coast to welcome the

INDEPENDENCE. Ill
arrival of Clinton. But North Carohna had its
minute-men as weU as Massachusetts, and no
sooner was this movement perceived than Colonel
Richard CasweU, with 1,000 militia. The fight at
took up a strong position at the bridge crTek,'^
over Moore's Creek, which Macdonald f^". 27, 1776.
was about to pass on his way to the coast. After
a sharp fight of a half hour's duration the Scots
were seized with panic, and were utterly routed.
Nine hundred prisoners, 2,000 stand of arms,
and £15,000 in gold were the trophies of Cas
well's victory. The Scottish commander and his
kinsman, the husband of Flora Macdonald, were
taken and lodged in jail, and thus ended the sway
of George III. over North Carolina. The effect
01 the victory was as contagious as that of Lexing
ton had been in New England. Within ten days
10,000 militia were ready to withstand the enemy,
so that Clinton, on his arrival, decided not to land,
and stayed cruising about Albemarle Sound, wait
ing for the fleet under Parker, which did not ap
pear on the seene until May. A provincial con
gress was forthwith assembled, and instructions
were sent to the North Carohna delegates in the
Continental Congress, empowering them "to con
cur with the delegates in the other col- „ ^^ „ ,.
^ ^ ^ North Carolina
onies in declaring independency and deciaresfor
01. ./ mdependeuce.
forming foreign alliances, reserving to
the colony the sole and exclusive right of forming
a constitution and laws for it."
At the same time that these things were taking
place, the colony of South Carolina was framing
for itself a new government, and on the 23d of

178 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
March, without directly alluding to independence,
it empowered its delegates to concur in
Action of ^ 1 . 1 • 1 1 1 1
South Carolina any mcasure which might be deemed
and Georgia. , ,
essential to the welfare of America. In
Georgia the provincial congress, in choosing a new
set of delegates to Philadelphia, authorized them
to " join in any measure which they might think
calculated for the common good."
In Virginia the party in favour of independence
had been in the minority, until, in November,
1775, the royal governor. Lord Dunmore, had is
sued a proclamation, offering freedotn to all such
negroes and indented white servants as might enlist
for the purpose of " reducing the colony
Virginia : Lord -*¦-*¦ , *^ /
Dunmore's to a pToper scusc of Its duty." This
proclamation. -*¦ -^ '^
measure Lord Dunmore hoped would
" oblige the rebels to disperse, in order to take
care of their families and property." But the
object was not attained. The relations between
master and slave in Virginia were so pleasant that
the offer of freedom feU upon dull, uninterested
ears. With light work and generous fare, the
condition of the Virginia negro was a happy one.
The time had not yet come when he was liable to
be torn from wife and children, to die of hardship
in the cotton-fields and rice-swamps of the far
South. He was proud of his connection with his
master's estate and family, and had nothing to
gain by rebeUion. As for the indented white ser
vants, the governor's proposal to them was of
about as much consequence as a proclamation of
Napoleon's would have been if, in 1805, he had
offered to set free the prisoners in Newgate on

INDEPENDENCE. 179
condition of their helping him to invade England.
But, impotent as this measure of Lord Dunmore's
was, it served to enrage the people of Virginia,
setting their minds irretrievably against the king
and his cause. During the month of November,
hearing that a party of " rebels " were on their
way from North Carolina to take possession of
Norfolk, Lord Dunmore built a rude fort at the
Great Bridge over Elizabeth river, which com
manded the southern approach to the town. At
that time, Norfolk, with about 9,000 inhabitants,
was the principal town in Virginia, and the com
mercial centre of the , colony. The loyalist party,
represented chiefly by Scottish merchants, was so
strong there and so violent that many of the native
Virginia famUies, finding it uncomfortable to stay
in their homes, had gone away into the
country. The patriots, roused to anger the Great
1 T^ , 1 J . Bridge ; and
by JJunmore s proclamation, now re- burning of
solved to capture Norfolk, and a party
of sharpshooters, with whom the illustrious John
MarshaU served as lieutenant, occupied the bank
of Elizabeth river, opposite Dunmore's fort. On
the 9th of December, after a sharp fight of fifteen
minutes, in which Dunmore's regulars lost sixty-
one men, while not a single Virginian was slain,
the fort was hastily abandoned, and the road to
Norfolk was laid open for the patriots. A few
days later the Virginians took possession of their
town, while Dunmore sought refuge in the Liver
pool, ship-of-the-llne, which had just sailed into
the harbour. On New Year's Day the governor vin
dictively set fire to the town, which he had been

180 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
unable to hold against its rightful owners. The
conflagration, kindled by sheUs from the harbour,
raged for three days and nights, until the whole
town was laid in ashes, and the people were driven
to seek such sorry shelter as might save them from
the frosts of midwinter.
This event went far toward determining the at
titude of Virginia. In November the colony had
not felt ready to comply with the recommendation
of Congress, and frame for herself a new govern
ment. The people were not yet ready to sever the
links which bound them to Great Brit-
Virginia de- , -r> i i i i i* , .
Clares for inde- aiu. But the bombardment ot their
pendence. ...
principal town was an argument of
which every one could appreciate the force and
the meaning. During the winter and spring the
revolutionary feeling waxed in strength daily. On
the 6th of May, 1776, a convention was chosen to
consider the question of independence. Mason,
Henry, Pendleton, and the illustrious Madison
took part in the discussion, and on the 14th it was
unanimously voted to instruct the Virginia del
egates in Congress "to propose to that respecta
ble body to declare the United Colonies free and
independent States," and to " give the assent of
the colony to measures to form foreign alliances
and a confederation, provided the power of form
ing government for the internal regulations of
each colony be left to the colonial legislatures."
At the same time, it was voted that the people of
Virginia should establish a new government for
their commonwealth. In the evening, when these
decisions had been made known to the people of

INDEPENDENCE. 181
WiUiamsburgh, their exultation knew no bounds.
While the air was musical with the ringing of
church-bells, guns were fired, and the British flag
was hauled down at the State House, and the thir
teen stripes hoisted in its place.
This decisive movement of the largest of the
colonies was hailed throughout the country with
eager delight ; and from other colonies which had
not yet committed themselves responses ^^.y^^ „j
came quickly. Rhode Island, which had f^^Ma^/^-'^ify.
never parted with its original charter, ^'^*'^-
did not need to form a new government, but it had
already, on the 4th of May, omitted the king's
name from its public documents and sheriff's writs,
and had agreed to concur with any measures which
Congress might see fit to adopt regarding the re
lations between England and America. In the
course of the month of May town-meetings were
held throughout Massachusetts and it was every
where unanimously voted to uphold Congress in
the declaration of independence which it was now
expected to make.
On the 15th of May, Congress adopted a resolu
tion recommending to all the colonies to form for
themselves independent governments, and in a
preamble, written by John Adams, it was de
clared that the American people could no longer
conscientiously take oath to support any govern
ment deriving its authority from the Resolution of
Crown ; aU such governments must now '^''¦^ '^-
be suppressed, since the king had withdrawn his
protection from the inhabitants of the United
Colonies. Like the famous preamble to Towns-

182 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
hend's blU of 1767, this Adams preamble con
tained within itself the gist of the whole matter.
To adopt it was virtually to cross the Rubicon,
and it gave rise to a hot debate. James Duane
of New York admitted that if the facts stated in
the preamble should turn out to be true, there
would not be a single voice against independence ;
but he could not yet believe that the American
petitions were not destined to receive a favour
able answer. " Why," therefore, " aU this haste ?
Why this urging ? Why this driving ? " James
Wilson of Pennsylvania, one of the ablest of all
the delegates in that revolutionary body, urged
that Congress had not yet received sufficient au
thority from the people to justify it in taking so
bold a step. The resolution was adopted, how
ever, preamble and aU ; and now the affair came
quickly to maturity. " The Gordian knot is cut
at last ! " exclaimed John Adams. In town-meet
ing the people of Boston thus instructed their
delegates : " The whole United Colonies are upon
the verge of a glorious revolution. We have seen
the petitions to the king rejected with disdain.
For the prayer of peace he has tendered the
sword ; for liberty, chains ; for safety, death.
Loyalty to him is now treason to our country. We
. . .. think it absolutely impracticable for
Instructions .J ^
from Boston, thcsc coloules to bc cvcr again subject
to or dependent upon Great Britain, without en
dangering the very existence of the state. Pla
cing, however, unbounded confidence in the su
preme council of the Congress, we are determined
to wait, most patiently wait, tiU their wisdom shaU

INDEPENDENCE. 183
dictate the necessity of making a declaration of
independence. In case the Congress should think
it necessary for the safety of the United Colonies
to declare them independent of Great Britain, the
inhabitants, with their Uves and the remnant of
their fortunes, will most cheerfuUy support them
in the measure."
This dignified and temperate expression of pub
lic opinion was published in a Philadelphia even
ing paper, on the 8th of June. On the preceding
day, in accordance with the instructions Lee's motion
which had come from Virginia, the fol- ™ Congress.
lowing motion had been submitted to Congress by
Richard Henry Lee : —
" That these United Colonies are, and of right
ought to be, free and independent States ; that
they are absolved from all allegiance to the British
Crown; and that aU political connection between
them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought
to be, totaUy dissolved.
" That it is expedient forthwith to take the most
effectual measures for forming foreign alliances.
" That a plan of confederation be prepared and
transmitted to the respective colonies, for their
consideration and approbation."
In these trying tiines the two greatest colonies,
Virginia and Massachusetts, had been wont to go
hand in hand ; and the motion of Richard Henry
Lee was now promptly seconded by John Adams.
It was resisted by Dickinson and Wilson of Penn
sylvania, and by Robert Livingston of New York,
on the ground that public opinion in the middle
colonies was not yet ripe for supporting such a

184 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
measure ; at the same time these cautious members
freely acknowledged that the lingering hope of an
amicable settlement with Great Britain had come
to be quite chimerical. The prospect of securing
European aUiances was freely discussed. The
Debate on supportcrs of the motiou urged that a
Lee's motion, (jgclaratlou of independence would be
nothing more than the acknowledgment of a fact
which existed already ; and until this fact should
be formally acknowledged, it was not to be sup
posed that diplomatic courtesy would aUow such
powers as France or Spain to treat with the Amer
icans. On the other hand, the opponents of the
motion argued that France and Spain were not
likely to look with favour upon the rise of a great
Protestant power in the western hemisphere, and
that nothing would be easier than for these nations
to make a bargain with England, whereby Canada
might be restored to France and Florida to Spain,
in return for military aid in putting down the re
bellious colonies. The result of the whole discus
sion was decidedly in favour of a declaration of in
dependence ; but to avoid aU appearance of undue
haste, it was decided, on the motion of Edward
Rutledge of South Carolina, to postpone the ques
tion for three weeks, and invite the judgment of
those colonies which had not yet declared them
selves. Under these circumstances, the several colonies
acted with a promptness that outstripped
Connecticut /¦ ^ /-, .
aiid New the expectations of Congress. Connecti-
Hampshire. ^
cut had no need of a new government,
for, like Rhode Island, she had always kept the

INDEPENDENCE. 185
charter obtained from Lord Clarendon in 1662,
she had always chosen her own governor, and had
always been virtually independent of Great Brit
ain. Nothing now was necessary but to omit the
king's name from legal documents and commercial
papers, and to instruct her delegates in Congress
to support Lee's motion ; and these things were
done by the Connecticut legislature on the 14th of
June. The very next day. New Hampshire, which
had formed a new government as long ago as Jan
uary, joined Connecticut in declaring for indepen
dence. In New Jersey there was a sharp dispute. The
royal governor, WiUiam Franklin, had ^ewJer-
a strong party in the colony ; and the ^°^'
assembly had lately instructed its delegates to
vote against independence, and had resolved to
send a separate petition to the king. Against so
rash and dangerous a step, Dickinson, Jay, and
Wythe were sent by Congress to remonstrate ; and
as the result of their intercession, the assembly,
which yielded, was summarily prorogued by the
governor. A provincial congress was at once
chosen in its stead. On the 16th of June, the
governor was arrested and sent to Connecticut for
safe-keeping ; on the 21st, it was voted to frame
a new government ; and on the 22d, a new set of
delegates were elected to Congress, with instruc
tions to support the declaration of independence.
In Pennsylvania there was hot discussion, for the
whole strength of the proprietary govern- Pennsylvania
ment was thrown into the scale against ^""^ Delaware.
independence. Among the Quakers, too, there

186 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
was a strong disposition to avoid an armed conflict,
on- any terms. A little while before, they had held
a convention, in which it was resolved that " the
setting up and putting down kings and govern
ments is God's peculiar prerogative, for causes
best known to himself, and that it is not our busi
ness to have any hand or contrivance therein ; nor
to be busybodies above our station, much less to
plot and contrive the ruin or overturn of any of
them, but to pray for the king and safety of our
nation and good of all men ; that we may lead a
peaceable and quiet life in all goodness and hon
esty, under the government which God is pleased
to set over us. May we, therefore, firmly unite
in the abhorrence of all such writings and meas
ures as evidence a desire and design to break off
a happy connection we have hitherto enjoyed with
the kingdom of Great Britain, and our just and
necessary subordination to the king and those who
are lawfully placed in authority under him." This
view of the case soon met with a pithy rejoinder
from Samuel Adams, who, with a quaint use of
historical examples, proved that, as the rise of
kings and empires is part of God's special pre
rogative, the time had now come, in the course of
divine providence, for the setting up of an inde
pendent empire in the western hemisphere. Six
months ago, the provincial assembly had instructed
its delegates to oppose independence ; but on the
20th of May a great meeting was held at the State
House, at which more than seven thousand people
were present, and it was unanimously resolved
that this act of the assembly " had the dangerous

INDEPENDENCE. 187
tendency to withdraw this province from that
happy union with the other colonies which we
consider both our glory and our protection." The
effect of this resolution was so great that on the
18th of June a convention was held to decide on
the question of independence ; and after six days
of discussion, it was voted that a separation from
Great Britain was desirable, provided only that,
under the new federal government, each state
should be left to regulate its own internal affairs.
On the 14th of June, a similar action had been
taken by Delaware.
In Maryland there was little reason why the
people should wish for a change of government,
save through their honourable sympathy with the
general interests of the United Colonies. Not
only was the proprietary government deeply rooted
in the affections of the people, but Robert Eden,
the governor holding office at this particular time,
was greatly loved and respected. Maryland had
not been insulted by the presence of
mil 1 . . Maryland.
troops. She had not seen her citizens
shot down in cold blood like Massachusetts, or her
chief city laid in ashes like Virginia ; nor had she
been threatened with invasion and forced to fight
in her own defence like North Carolina. Her di
rect grievances were few and light, and even so
late as the 21st of May, she had protested against
any action which might lead to the separation of
the colonies from England. But when, in June,
her great leaders, Samuel Chase and Charles Car
roll of CarroUton, determined to "take the sense
of the people," a series of county meetings were

188 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
held, and it was unanimously voted that " the true
interests and substantial happiness of the United
Colonies in general, and this in particular, are
inseparably interwoven and linked together." As
soon as the colony had taken its stand upon this
broad and generous principle, the governor em
barked on a British man-of-war before Annapolis,
bearing with him the kindly regrets and adieus of
the people, and on the 28th of June the delegates
in Congress were duly authorized to concur in a
declaration of independence.
Peaceful Maryland was thus the twelfth colony
which formaUy committed itseK to the cause of in
dependence, as turbulent North Carolina, under
the stimulus of civil war and threatened invasion,
had been the first. Accordingly on the 1st of
July, the day when the motion of Richard Henry
Lee was to be taken up in Congress, unanimous
instructions in favour of independence had been re
ceived from every one of the colonies, except New
The situation York., lu approacMug this momentous
m New York, q^gg^j^jj "Seyf York was beset by peculiar
difficulties. Not only was the Tory party unusuaUy
strong there, for reasons already stated, but the
risks involved in a revolutionary policy were greater
than anywhere else. From its commanding mil
itary position, it was clear that the British would
direct their main efforts toward the conquest of this
central colony ; and while on the one hand the
broad, deep waters about Manhattan Island
afforded an easy entrance for their resistless fleet,
on the other hand the faUure of the Canadian ex
pedition had laid the whole country open to inva-

INDEPENDENCE. 189
sion from the north, and the bloodthirsty warriors
of the Long House were not likely to let slip
so exceUent an opportunity for gathering scalps
from the exposed settlements on the frontier. Not
only was it probable, for these reasons, that New
York would suffer more than any other colony
from the worst horrors of war, but as a commercial
state with only a single seaport, the very sources
of her life would be threatened should the British
once gain a foothold upon Manhattan Island. The
fleet of Lord Howe was daily expected in the har
bour, and it was known that the army which had
been ousted from Boston, now largely reinforced,
was on its way from Halifax to undertake the cap
ture of the city of New York. To guard against
this expected danger, Washington had some weeks
since moved his army thither from Boston ; but
his whole effective force did not exceed eight thou
sand men, and with these he was obliged to garri
son points so far apart as King's Bridge, Paulus
Hook, Governor's Island, and Brooklyn Heights.
The position was far less secure than it had been
about Boston, for British ships could here come up
the Hudson and East rivers, and interpose between
these isolated detachments. As for Staten Island,
Washington had not troops enough to occupy it
at aU, so that when General Howe arrived, on the
28th of June, he was allowed to land there without
opposition. It was a bitter thing for Washington
to be obliged to permit this, but there was no help
for it. Not only in numbers, but in equipment,
Washington's force was utterly inadequate to the
important task assigned it, and Congress had done

190 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
nothing to increase its efficiency beyond ordering
a levy of twenty-five thousand militia from New
England and the middle colonies, to serve for six
months only.
Under these circumstances, the military outlook,
in case the war were to go on, was certainly not
encouraging, and the people of New York might
weU be excused for some tardiness in committing
themselves irrevocably on the question of indepen
dence, especially as it was generaUy understood that
Lord Howe was coming armed with plenary au
thority to negotiate with the American people. To
all the other dangers of the situation
The Tryon °
plot, June, there was added that of treachery in the
1776. T,
camp. Governor Tryon, like so many
of the royal governors that year, had taken refuge
on shipboard, whence he schemed and plotted with
his friends on shore. A plan was devised for blow
ing up the magazines and seizing Washington, who
was either to be murdered or carried on board ship
to be tried for treason, according as the occasion
might suggest. The conspiracy was discovered in
good time ; the mayor of New York, convicted of
correspondence with Tryon, was thrown into jail,
and one of Washington's own guard, who had
been bribed to aid the nefarious scheme, was sum
marily hanged in a field near the Bowery. Such
a discovery as this served to throw discredit upon
the Tory party. The patriots took a bolder stand
than ever, but when the 1st of July came it found
the discussion still going on, and the New York
delegates in Congress were still without instruc
tions.

INDEPENDENCE. 191
On the 1st of July Congress resolved itself into
a committee of the whole, to " take Into considera
tion the resolution respecting independency." As
Richard Henry Lee was absent, John Adams, who
had seconded the motion, was caUed upon to de
fend it, which he did in a powerful speech. He
was ably opposed by John Dickinson, who urged
that the country ought not to be rashly committed
to a position, to recede from which would be infa
mous, while to persist in it might entail
. . A -1 1 . |. . 1 Final debate
certain rum. A declaration ot indepen- on Lee's
dence would not strengthen the resources
of the country by a single regiment or a single cask
of powder, while it would shut the door upon all
hope of accommodation with Great Britain. And
as to the prospect of an aUiance with France and
Spain, would it not be well to obtain some definite
assurances from these powers before proceeding to
extremities? Besides aU this, argued Dickinson,
the terms of confederation among the colonies were
still unsettled, and any declaration of indepen
dence, to have due weight with the world, ought to
be preceded by the establishment of a federal gov
ernment. The boundaries of the several colonies
ought first to be fixed, and their respective rights
mutually guaranteed ; and the public lands ought
also to be solemnly appropriated for the common
benefit. Then, the orator concluded, " when things
shaU have been thus deliberately rendered firm at
home and favourable abroad, — then let America,
attollens humerisfamam etfata nepotum, bearing
up her glory and the destiny of her descendants,
advance with majestic steps, and assume her station
atnong the sovereigns of the world."

192 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
That there was great weight in some of these
considerations was shown only too plainly by sub
sequent events. But the argument as a whole was
open to the fatal objection that if the American
people were to wait for aU these great questions to
be settled before taking a decisive step, they would
never be able to take a decisive step at aU. The
wise statesman regards half a loaf as better than
no bread. Independent action on the part of aU
the colonies except New York had now become an
accomplished fact. All were reaUy in rebeUion,
and their cause could not fail to gain in dignity
and strength by announcing itself to the world in
its true character. Such was now the general feel
ing of the committee. When the question was
put to vote, the New York delegates were excused,
as they had no sufficient instructions. Of the three
delegates from Delaware, one was absent, one voted
yea, and one nay, so that the vote of the colony
VoteonLee'a was lost. Pennsylvania declared lu the
motion. negative by four votes against three.
South Carolina also declared in the negative, but
with the intimation from Edward Rutledge that it
might not unlikely reverse its vote, in deference to
the majority. The other nine colonies all voted in
the affirmative, and the resolution was reported as
agreed to by a two thirds vote. On the next day,
when the vote was formally taken in regular ses
sion of Congress, the Delaware members were all
present, and the affirmative vote of that colony was
secured ; Dickinson and Morris stayed away, thus
reversing the vote of Pennsylvania ; and the South
Carolina members changed for the sake of unan-
imity.

INDEPENDENCE. 193
Thus was the Declaration of Independence at
last resolved upon, by the unanimous vote of
twelve colonies, on the 2d of July, 1776 ; and this
work having been done. Congress at once went
into committee of the whole, to consider the form
of declaration which should be adopted. That no
time might be lost in disposing of this important
matter, a committee had already been selected
three weeks before, at the time of Lee's motion,
to draw up a paper which might be worthy of this
great and solemn occasion. Thomas Jefferson,
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sher
man, and Robert Livingston were the members of
the committee, and Jefferson, as representing the
colony which had introduced the resolution of in
dependence, was chosen to be the author of the
Declaration. Jefferson, then but thirty-three years
of age, was one of the youngest delegates in Con
gress ; but of all the men of that time, there was,
perhaps, none of wider culture or keener political
instincts. Inheriting a comfortable for- ^j^^^ s j a -
tune, he had chosen the law as his pro- ^°°-
fession, but he had always been passionately fond
of study for its own sake, and to a very wide read
ing in history and in ancient and modern literature
he added no mean proficiency in mathematics and in
physical science. He was skiUed in horsemanship
and other manlv exercises, and in the management
of rural affairs ; while at the same time he was
very sensitively and delicately organized, playing
the violin like a master, and giving other evidences
of rare musical talent. His temper was exceed
ingly placid, and his disposition was sweet and

194 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
sympathetic. He was deeply interested in aU the
generous theories of the eighteenth century con
cerning the rights of man and the perfectibility
of human nature ; and, like most of the contem
porary philosophers whom he admired, he was a
sturdy foe to intolerance and priestcraft. He was
in his way a much more profound thinker than
Hamilton, though he had not such a constructive
genius as the latter ; as a political leader he was
superior to any other man of his age ; and his warm
sympathies, his almost feminine tact, his mastery
of the dominant political ideas of the time, and,
above all, his unbounded faith in the common sense
of the people and in their essential rectitude of
purpose served to give him one of the greatest and
most commanding positions ever held by any per
sonage in American history.
On the evening of the 4th of July, 1776, the
Declaration of Independence was unanimously
adopted by twelve colonies, the delegation from
New York stiU remaining unable to act. But
the acquiescence of that colony was so generaUy
counted upon that there was no drawback to the
exultation of the people. All over the
Independence i t-v i • . -i
declared, July couutry the Declaration was received
with bonfires, with the ringing of bells
and the firing of guns, and with torchlight pro
cessions. Now that the great question was settled
there was a general feeling of relief. " The
people," said Samuel Adams, " seem to recognize
this resolution as though it were a decree pro
mulgated from heaven." On the 9th of July it
was formally adopted by New York, and the sol-

INDEPENDENCE. 195
diers there celebrated the occasion by throwing
down the leaden statue of George III. on the Bowl
ing Green, and casting it into buUets.
Thus, after eleven years of irritation, and after
such temperate discussion as befitted a free people,
the Americans had at last entered upon the only
course that could preserve their self-respect, and
guarantee them in the great part which they had to
play in the drama of civilization. For
,,-,... ,. -, 1 ,. The Declara-
the dignity, patience, and moderation tion was a de-
with which they had borne themselves pression of the
, I . . 1 , . . . . sober thought
throughout these trying times, history oitheAmeri-
had as yet scarcely afforded a parallel.
So extreme had been their forbearance, so great
their unwillingness to appeal to brute force whUe
there yet remained the slightest hope of a peaceful
solution, that some British historians have gone
quite astray in interpreting their conduct. Be
cause statesmen like Dickinson and communities
like Maryland were slow in believing that the right
moment for a declaration of independence had
come, the preposterous theory has been suggested
that the American Revolution was the work of
an unscrupulous and desperate minority, which,
through intrigue mingled with violence, succeeded
in forcing the reluctant majority to sanction its
measures. Such a misconception has its root in
an utter failure to comprehend the peculiar char
acter of American political life, like the kindred
misconception which ascribes the rebellion of the
colonies to a sordid unwiUingness to bear their
due share of the expenses of the British Empire.
It is like the misunderstanding which saw an an-

196 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
gry mob in every town-meeting of the people of
Boston, and characterized as a " riot " every de
liberate expression of public ojDinion. No one who
is familiar with the essential features of American
political life can for a moment suppose that the
Declaration of Independence was brought about
by any less weighty force than the settled convic
tion of the people that the priceless treasure of
self-government could be preserved by no other
means. It was but slowly that this unwelcome
conviction grew upon the people ; and owing to
local differences of circumstances it grew more
slowly in some places than in others. Prescient
leaders, too, like the Adamses and Franldin and
Lee, made up their minds sooner than other peo
ple. Even those conservatives who resisted to
the last, even such men as John Dickinson and
Robert Morris, were fully agreed with their op
ponents as to the principle at issue between Great
Britain and America, and nothing would have
satisfied them short of the total abandonment by
Great Britain of her pretensions to impose taxes
and revoke charters. Upon this fundamental point
there was very little difference of opinion in
America. As to the related question of indepen
dence, the decision, when once reached, was every
where alike the reasonable residt of free and open
discussion ; and the best possible illustration of this
is the fact that not even in the darkest days of the
war already begun did any state deliberately pro
pose to reconsider Its action in the matter. The
hand once put to the plough, there was no turning
back. As Judge Drayton of South Carolina said

INDEPENDENCE. 197
from the bench, " A decree is now gone forth not
to be recaUed, and thus has suddenly risen in the
world a new empire, styled the United States of
America."

CHAPTER V.
FIEST BLOW AT THE CENTRE.
Throughout a considerable portion of the
country the news of the Declaration of Indepen
dence was accompanied by the news of a briUiant
success at the South. After the defeat of Mac
donald at Moore's Creek, and the sudden arming
of North Carolina, Clinton did not venture to
land, but cruised about in the neighbourhood, await
ing the arrival of Sir Peter Parker's squadron
from Ireland. Harassed by violent and contrary
winds, P.irker was three months in making the
voyage, and it was not until May that he arrived,
Lordcomwai- hriuglng with him Lord CornwaUis.
upoTthr -^^ North Carolina had given such un-
Boene. mistakable evidence of its real temper,
it was decided not to land upon that coast for the
present, but to go South and capture Charleston
and Savannah. Lord William Campbell, refugee
governor of South Carolina, urged that there was
a great loyalist party in that colony, which would
declare itself as soon as the chief city should be
in the hands of the king's troops. That there
would be any serious difficulty in taking Charles
ton occurred to no one. But Colonel Moultrie
had thrown up on SuUivan's Island, commanding
the harbour, a fortress of palmetto logs strength-

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 199
ened by heavy banks of sand, and now held it with
a force of twelve hundred men, while five thousand
militia were gathered about the town, under com
mand of General Charles Lee, who had been sent
down to meet the emergency, but did little more
than to meddle and hinder. In his character of
trained European officer, Lee laughed to scorn
Moultrie's palmetto stronghold, and would have
ordered him to abandon it, but that he was posi
tively overruled by Rutledge, president of the pro
vincial congress, who knew Moultrie and relied
upon his sound judgment. The British command
ers, Clinton and Parker, wasted three weeks in
discussing various plans of attack, while the Amer
icans, with spade and hatchet, were rapidly barring
every approach to Charleston, and fresh regiments
came pouring in to man the new-built intrench
ments. At last Clinton landed three
. , -t 11111 Battle of Fort
thousand men on a naked sand-bank, Mouitrie,
divided from Sullivan's Island by a ' '
short space of shallow sea, which he thought could
be forded at low tide. At the proper time Sir
Peter Parker was to open a lively fire from the
fleet, which it was expected would knock down
the fort in a few minutes, while • Clinton, fording
the shoals, would drive out the Americans at the
point of the bayonet. The shoals, however, turned
out to be seven feet deep at low water, and the
task of the infantry was reduced to a desperate con
flict with the swarms of mosquitoes, which nearly
drove them frantic. The battle thus became a
mere artillery duel between the fort and the fleet.
The British fire was rapid and furious, but inef-

200 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
fective. Most of the shot passed harmlessly over
the low fortress, and those which struck did no
harm to its elastic structure. The American fire
was very slow, and few shots were wasted. The
cable of Parker's flagship was cut by a weU-aimed
baU, and the ship, swinging around, received a
raking fire which s\yept her deck with terrible
slaughter. After the fight had lasted ten hours,
the British retreated out of range. The palmetto
fort had suffered no serious injury, and only one
gun had been silenced. The American loss in
kiUed and wounded was thirty-seven. On the
other hand. Sir Peter's flagship had lost her main
mast and mizzen-mast, and had some twenty shots
in her huU, so that she was little better than a
wreck. The British loss in killed and wounded
was two hundred and five. Of their ten saU, only
one frigate remained seaworthy at the close of the
action. After waiting three weeks to refit, the
whole expedition sailed away for New York to
cooperate with the Howes. Charleston was saved,
and for more than two years the southern states
were freed from the invader. In commemoration
of this brilliant victory, and of the novel strong
hold which had so roused the mirth of the Euro
pean soldier of fortune, the outpost on SuUivan's
Island has ever since been known by the name of
Fort Moultrie.
It was with such tidings of good omen that the
Declaration' of Independence was sent forth to the
world. But It was the last news of victory that
for the next six months was to cheer the anxious
statesmen assembled at Philadelphia. During the

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 201
rest of the summer and the autumn, disaster fol-
lowed upon disaster, until it might well seem as if
fickle fortune had ceased to smile upon the cause
of liberty. The issue of the contest was now cen
tred in New York. By conquering
1 1 11- 1 1- / 1 TT 1 British plan
and holding the line ot the Hudson for conquering
1 Ti . . 1 1 1 the Hudson,
river, the British hoped to cut the and cutting
¦ . . ^ 1 . 1 . tbe United
United Colonies m two, after which it colonies in
. . twain.
was thought that Virginia and New
England, isolated from each other, might be in
duced to consider the error of their ways and re
pent. Accordingly, General Howe was to capture
the city of New York, while General Carleton was
to descend from Canada, recapture Ticonderoga,
and take possession of the upper waters of the
Hudson, together with the Mohawk valley. Great
hopes were buUt upon the cooperation of the loyal
ists, of whom there was a greater number in New
York than in any other state, except perhaps
South Carolina. It was partly for this reason, as
we shall hereafter see, that these two states suf
fered more actual misery from the war than all
the others put together. The horrors of civil war
were to be added to the attack of the invader.
Throughout the Mohawk vaUey the influence of
Sir John Johnson, the Tory son of the famous
baronet of the Seven Years' War, was thought to
be supreme ; and it turned out to be very power
ful both with the white population and with the
Indians. At the other end of the line, in New
York city, the Tory element was strong, for rea
sons already set forth. On Long Island, the
people of Kings and Queens counties, of Dutch

202 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
descent, were Tories almost to a man, while the
English population of Suffolk was solidly in fa
vour of independence. And this instance of Long
Island was typical. From one end of the United
States to the other, as might have been expected,
the Tory sentiment was strongest with the non-
English element in the population.
Before beginning his attack on New York, Gen
eral Howe had to await the arrival of his brother ;
for the ministry had resolved to try the effect of
what seemed to them a " conciliatory policy." On
the 12th of July Lord Howe arrived at Staten Is
land, bringing with him the " olive-branch " which
Lord North had promised to send along with the
sword. This curious specimen of political botany
turned out to consist of a gracious declaration that
all persons who should desist from rebellion and
lend their " aid in restoring tranquillity " would
receive full and free pardon from their sovereign
Lord Howe's -"^'''^ the king. As it would not do to
tone^gottato''' recognize the existence of Congress,
ton^u^offl""^" I^o^'d Howe inclosed this declaration in
cially. ^ letter addressed to " George Washing
ton, Esq.," and sent it up the harbour with a flag
of truce. But as George Washington, in his ca
pacity of Virginian landholder and American citi
zen, had no authority for dealing with a royal
commissioner, he refused to receive the letter.
Colonel Reed informed Lord Howe's messenger
that, there was no person in the army with that ad
dress. The British officer reluctantly rowed away
but suddenly, putting his barge about, he came back
and inquired by what title Washington should be

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 203
properly addressed. Colonel Reed replied, " You
are aware, sir, of the rank of General Washington
in our army ? " " Yes, sir, we are," answered the
officer ; " I am sure my Lord Howe will lament
exceedingly this affair, as the letter is of a civil,
and not of a military nature. He greatly laments
that he was not here a little sooner." This re
mark was understood by Colonel Reed to refer to
the Declaration of Independence, which was then
but eight days old. A week later Lord Howe
sent Colonel Patterson, the British adjutant-gen
eral, with a document now addressed to " George
Washington, Esq., etc., etc." Colonel Patterson
begged for a personal interview, which was granted.
He was introduced to Washington, whom he de
scribes as a gentleman of magnificent presence and
very handsomely dressed. Somewhat overawed,
and beginning his remarks with " May it please
your ExceUency," Patterson explained that the
etceteras on the letter meant everything. " In
deed," said Washington, with a pleasant smile,
" they might mean anything." He declined to
take the letter, but listened to Patterson's expla
nations, and then replied that he was not author
ized to deal with the matter, and could not give
his lordship any encouragement, as he seemed
empowered only to grant pardons, whereas those
who had committed no fault needed no pardons.
As Patterson got up to go, he asked if his Excel
lency had no message to send to Lord Howe.
" Nothing," answered Washington, " but my par
ticular compliments." Thus foiled in his attempt
to negotiate with the American commander. Lord

204 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Howe next inclosed his declaration in a circular
letter addressed to the royal governors of the mid
dle and southern colonies ; but as most of these
dignitaries were either in jail or on board the Brit
ish fleet, not much was to be expected from such
a mode of publication. The precious document
was captured and sent to Congress, which deri
sively published it for the amusement and instruc
tion of the people. It was everywhere greeted
with jeers. " No doubt we aU need pardon from
Heayen," said Governor TrumbuU of Connecticut,
" for our manifold sins and transgressions ; but
the American who needs the pardon of his Britan
nic Majesty is yet to be found." The only serious
effect produced was the weakening of the loyalist
party. Many who had thus far been held back
by the hope that Lord Howe's intercession might
settle all the difficulties now came forward as
warm supporters of independence as soon as it
became apparent that the king had really nothing
to offer.
The olive-branch having proved ineffectual,
nothing was left but to unsheathe the sword, and
an interesting campaign now began, of which the
primary object was to capture the city
problem at of Ncw York and compel Washing-
New York. .*¦ ci
ton's army to surrender. The British
army was heavily reinforced by the return of Clin
ton's expedition and the arrival of 11,000 fresh
troops from England and Germany. General
Howe had now more than 25,000 men at his dis
posal, fully equipped and disciplined ; while to
oppose him Washington had but 18,000, many of

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 205
them raw levies which had just come in. If the
American army had consisted of such veterans as
Washington afterwards led at Monmouth, the dis
parity of numbers would still have told powerfuUy
in favour of the British. As it was, in view of
the crudeness of his material, Washington could
hardly hope to do more with bis army than to
make it play the part of a detaining force. To
keep the field in the face of overwhelming odds is
one of the most arduous of military problems, and
often caUs for a higher order of inteUigence than
that which is displayed in the mere winning of bat
tles. Upon this problem Washington was now to
be employed for six months without respite, and it
was not long before he gave evidence of military
genius such as has seldom been surpassed in the
history of modern warfare. At the outset the city
of New York furnished the kernel of the problem.
Without control of the water it would be weU-nigh
impossible to hold the city. StUl there was a
chance, and it was the part of a good general to
take this chance, and cut out as much work as
possible for the enemy. The shore of Manhattan
Island was girded with smaU forts and redoubts,
which Lee had erected in the spring before his de
parture for South Carolina. The lower end of the
island, along the line of Wall Street, was then but
little more than half its present width, as several
lines of street have since been added upon both
sides. From Cortlandt Street across to Paulus
Hook, the width of the Hudson river was not less
than two miles, while the East river near Fulton
Ferry was nearly a mile in width. The city

206 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
reached only from the Battery as far as Chatham
Street, whence the Bowery Lane ran northwest
wardly to Bloomingdale through a country smiling
with orchards and gardens. Many of the streets
were now barricaded, and a strong line of redoubts
ran across from river to river below the side of
Canal Street. At the upper end of the island,
and on the Jersey shore, were other fortresses,
with which we shall shortly have to deal, and out
in the harbour, as a sort of watch-tower from which
to inspect the enemy's fleet, a redoubt had been
raised on Governor's Island, and was commanded
by Colonel Prescott, with a party of the men of
Bunker HiU.
In order to garrison such various positions, it
was necessary for Washington to scatter his 18,000
men ; and this added much to the difficulty of his
task, for Howe could at any moment strike at al
most any one of these points with his whole force.
From the nature of the case the immense advan
tage of the initiative belonged entirely to Howe.
But in one quarter, the most important of aU,
Washington had effected as much concentration of
^ his troops as was possible. The position
Importance of -r» i i tt . i
Brooklyn on Brooklyu Heights was dangerously
exposed, but it was absolutely necessary
for the Americans to occupy it if they were to keep
their hold upon New York. This eminence com
manded New York exactly as Bunker HiU and
Dorchester Heights commanded Boston. Greene
had, accordingly, spent the summer in fortifyino'
it, and there 9,000 men — one half of the army 
were now concentrated under command of Putnam.

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 207
Upon this exposed position General Howe deter
mined to throw nearly the whole of his force. He
felt confident that the capture or destruction of
half the American army would so discourage the
rebels as to make them lend a readier ear to the
overtures of that excellent peacemaker, his brother.
Accordingly, on the 22d of August, General Howe
landed 20,000 men at Gravesend Bay. From this
point the American position was approachable by
four roads, two of which crossed a range of densely
wooded hills, and continued through the viUages
of Bedford and Flatbush. To the left of these the
Gowanus road followed the shore about the west
ern base of the hills, while on the right the Ja
maica road curved inland and turned their eastern
base. The elaborate caution with which the British
commander now proceeded stands out in striking
contrast with the temerity of his advance upon
Bunker HiU in the preceding year. He spent four
days in reconnoitring, and then he sent his brother,
with part of the fleet, to make a feint upon New
York, and occupy Washington's attention. Be
fore daybreak of the 27th, under the cover of this
feint, the British advance had been nearly com
pleted. General Grant, with the Highland regi
ments, advanced along the coast road, where the
American outposts were held by WiUiam Alexan
der of New Jersey, commonly known as
-r 1 r. • 1- c 1 1 o Battle of Long
Lord Stirling, from a lapsed Scotch island, Aug.
" . '- , 27, 1776.
earldom to which he had claimed the
title. The Hessians, under General von Heister,
proceeded along the Bedford and Flatbush roads.

208 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
which were defended by Sullivan ; while more than
half of the army, under Howe in person, accompa
nied by Clinton, Percy, and CornwaUis, accom
plished a long night march by the Jamaica road,
in order to take the Americans in flank. This
long flanking march was completed in perfect se
crecy because the people of the neighbourhood were
in sympathy with the British, and it encountered
no obstacles because the American force was sim
ply incapable of covering so much territory. The
divisions of Stirling and SuUivan contained the
5,000 men which were all that Putnam could af
ford to send forward from his works. A patrol
which watched the Jamaica road was captured
early in the morning, but it would not in any ease
have been possible to send any force there which
could materiaUy have hindered the British ad
vance. Overwhelming superiority in numbers en
abled the British to go where they pleased, and
the battle was already virtuaUy won when they ap
peared on the Jamaica road in the rear of the vil
lage of Bedford. Scarcely had the fight begun on
the crest of the hill between Sullivan and the Hes
sians in his front when he found himself assaulted
in the rear. Thrown into confusion, and driven
back and forth through the woods between two
galling fires, his division was quickly routed, and
nearly aU were taken prisoners, including the gen
eral himself. On the coast road the fight between
Stirling and Grant was the first in which Ameri
cans had ever met British troops in open field and
in regular line of battle. Against the sturdy High
land regiments Stirling held his ground gallantly

BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND
AUGL'ST 27, 1776

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 209
for four hours, until he was in turn assaulted in
the rear by Lord CornwaUis, after the rout of Sul
livan. It now became, with Stirling, simply a
question of saving his division from" capture, and
after a desperate fight this end was accomplished,
and the men got back to Brooldyn Heights, though
the brave Stirling himself was taken prisoner. In
this noble struggle the highest honours were won
by the brigade of Maryland men commanded by
Smallwood, and throughout the war we shall find
this honourable distinction of Maryland for the
personal gallantry of her troops fully maintained,
until in the last pitched battle, at Eutaw Springs,
we see them driving the finest infantry of England
at the point of the bayonet.
The defeat of Sullivan and Stirling enabled
Howe to bring up his whole army in front of the
works at Brooklyn Heights toward the close of the
day. To complete the victory it would be neces
sary to storm these works, but Howe's men were
tired with marching, if not with fighting, and so
the incident known as the battle of Long Island
came to an end. A swift ship was at once dis
patched to England with the news of the victory,
which were somewhat highly coloured. It was for
a while supposed that there had been a terrible
slaughter, but careful research has shown that this
was not the case. About 400 had been killed and
wounded on each side, and this loss had been incurred
mainly in the fight between Stirling and Grant.
On other parts of the field the British triumph had
consisted chiefly in the scooping up of prisoners,
of whom at least 1,000 were taken. The stories of

210 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
a wholesale butchery by the Hessians which once
were current have been completely disproved.
Washington gave a detailed account of the affair a
few days afterward, and the most careful investi
gation has shown that he was correct in every par
ticular. But to the American public the blow was
none the less terrible, while in England the exul
tation served as an offset to the chagrin felt after
the loss of Boston and the defeat at Fort Moultrie,
and it was naturally long before facts could be seen
in their true proportions.
Heavy as was the blow, however. General Howe's
object was still but half attained. He had neither
captured nor destroyed the American forces ou
Long Island, but had only driven them into their
works. He was stiU confronted by 8,000 men on
Brooklyn Heights, and the problem was how to
dislodge them. In the evening Washington came
over from New York, and made everything ready
to resist a storm. To this end, on the next day, he
brought over reinforcements, raising his total force
within the works to 10,000 men. Under such cir
cumstances, if the British had attempted a storm
they would probably have been repulsed with great
slaughter. But Howe had not forgot-
to besiege the ten Bunker Hill, and he thought it best
to proceed by way of siege. As soon as
Washington perceived this intention of his adver
sary, he saw that he must withdraw his army. He
would have courted a storm, in which he was al
most sure to be victorious, but he shrank from a
siege, in which he was quite sure to lose his whole
force. The British troops now invested him in a

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 211
semicircle, and their ships might at any moment
close in behind and cut off his only retreat. Ac
cordingly, sending trusty messengers across the
river, Washington coUected every sloop, yacht,
fishing-smack, yawl, scow, or row-boat that could
be found in either water from the Battery to
King's Bridge or Hell-Gate ; and after nightfaU of
the 29th, these craft were all assembled at the
Brooklyn ferry, and wisely manned by the fisher
men of Marblehead and Gloucester
„ „. , „ . butWashing-
irom Glover s Essex regiment, experts, tonsiipaaway
with his army.
every one ot them, whether at oar or
sail. All through the night the American troops
were ferried across the broad river, as quietly as
possible and in exceUent order, while Washington
superintended the details of the embarkation, and
was himself the last man to leave the ground. At
seven o'clock in the morning the whole American
army had landed on the New York side, and had
brought with them all their cannon, smaU arms,
ammunition, tools, and horses, and aU their larder
besides, so that when the bewildered British
climbed into the empty works they did not find so
much as a biscuit or a glass of rum wherewith to
console themselves.
This retreat has always been regarded as one of
the most brilliant incidents in Washington's career,
and it would certainly be hard to find „. . .
¦^ , ^ His vigilance
a more striking example of vigilance. g^?.'?'jf^
Had Washington allowed himself to be most golden
^ opportunity
cooped up on Brooklyn Heights he ^™^''*°''^^'*
would have been forced to surrender;
and whatever was left of the war would have been

212 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
a game played without queen, rook, or bishop. For
this very reason it is hardly creditable to Howe that
he should have let his adversary get away so easily.
At daybreak, indeed, the Americans had been re
markably favoured by the sudden rise of a fog which
covered the East river, but during the night the
moon had shone brightly, and one can only won
der that the multitudinous plash of oars and the
unavoidable murmur of ten thousand men embark
ing, with their heavy guns and stores, should not
have attracted the attention of some wakeful senti
nel, either on shore or on the fleet. A storming
party of British, at the right moment, would at
least have disturbed the proceedings. So rare a
chance of ending the war at a blow was never
again to be offered to the British commanders.
Washington now stationed the bulk of his army
along the line of the Harlem river, leaving a
strong detachment in the city under Putnam ; and
presently, with the same extraordinary skill which
he had just displayed in sending boats under the
very eyes of the fleet, he withdrew Colonel Pres
cott and his troops from their exposed position on
Governor's Island, which there was no longer any
reason for holding.
Hoping that the stroke just given by the British
sword might have weakened the obstinacy of the
Americans, Lord Howe again had recourse to the
olive-branch. The captured General Sullivan was
sent to Congress to hold out hopes that Lord Howe
would use his influence to get aU the obnoxious
acts of Parliament repealed, only he would first like
to confer with some of the members of Congress

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 213
informaUy and as with mere private gentlemen. A
lively debate ensued upon this proposal, in which
some saw an insult to Congress, while all quite
needlessly suspected treachery. John Adams,
about whom there was so much less of the suaviter
in mode than of the fortiter in re, alluded to Sul
livan, quite unjustly, as a " decoy duck," who had
better have been shot in the battle than „,The confer-
employed on such a business. It was gjand'se't^"
finaUy voted that no proposals of peace ^^•
from Great Britain should receive notice, unless
they should be conveyed in writing, and should ex
plicitly recognize Congress as the legal representa
tive of the American States. For this once, how
ever, out of personal regard for Lord Howe, and
that nothing might be disdained which really
looked toward a peaceful settlement, they would
send a committee to Staten Island to confer with
his lordship, who might regard this committee in
whatever light he pleased. In this shrewd, half-
humorous method of getting rid of the diplomatic
difficulty, one is forcibly reminded of President
Lincoln's famous proclamation addressed "To
whom it may concern." The committee, consisting
of Franklin, Rutledge, and John Adams, were
hospitably entertained by Lord Howe, but their
conference came to nothing, because the Americans
now demanded a recognition of their independence
as a condition which must precede all negotiation.
There is no doubt that Lord Howe, who was a
warm friend to the Americans aud an energetic
opponent of the king's policy, was bitterly grieved
at this result. As a last resort he published a

214 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
proclamation announcing the intention of the Brit
ish government to reconsider the various acts and
instructions by which the Americans had been an
noyed, and appealing to all right-minded people
to decide for themselves whether it were not wise
to rely on a' solemn promise like this, rather than
commit themselves to the dangerous chances of an
unequal and unrighteous war.
Four days after this futile interview General
Howe took possession of New York. After the
loss of Brooklyn Heights, Washington and Greene
Howe takes wcre already aware that the city could
ToA'*se't*'™ "°* ^® held. Its capture was very
15 ! easily effected. Several ships-of-the-line
ascended the Hudson as far as Bloomingdale, and
the East river as far as Blackwell's Island ; and
while thus from either side these vessels swept
the northern part of Manhattan with a searching
fire, General Howe brought his army across from
Brooklyn in boats and landed at Kipp's Bay, near
the present site of East Thirty-Fourth Street.
Washington came promptly down, with two New
England brigades, to reinforce the men whom he
had stationed at that point, and to hinder the land
ing of the enemy until Putnam should have time
to evacuate the city. To Washington's wrath and
disgust, these men were seized with panic, and sud
denly turned and fied without firing a shot. Had
Howe now thrown his men promptly forward across
the lliie of Thirty-Fourth Street, he would have
cut off Putnam's retreat from the city. But what
the New England brigades failed to do a bright
woman succeeded in accomplishing. When Howe

FIRST BLO W AT THE CENTRE. 215
had reached the spot known as Murray HiU, — ¦
now the centre of much brownstone magnificence
in Park and Madison and Fifth avenues, at that
time a noble country farmstead, — Mrs. Lindley
Murray, mother of the famous grammarian, weM
knowing the easy temper of the British comman
der, sent out a servant to invite him to . . „ ...
' but Mrs. Lmd-
stop and take luncheon. A general halt gt^e^th^V
was ordered ; and while Howe and his ™°''-
officers were gracefuUy entertained for more than
two hours by their accomplished and subtle hostess,
Putnam hastily marched his 4,000 men up the
shore of the Hudson, until, passing Bloomingdale,
he touched the right wing of the main army, and
was safe, though his tents, blankets, attack upon
and heavy guns had been left behind. ^J^^^ ge-^
The American lines now extended from ^^-
the mouth of Harlem river across the island, and
on the following day the British attempted to
break through their centre at Harlem Heights ;
but the attack was repulsed, with a loss of sixty
Americans and three hundred British, and the
lines just formed remained, with very little change,
for nearly four weeks.
General Howe had thus got possession of the
city of New York, but the conquest availed him
little so long as the American army stood across
the island, in the attitude of blockading him. If
this campaign was to decide the war, as the min-
istry hoped, nothing short of the cap- ^^ ^^^ ^^^
ture or dispersal of Washington's, army ^^^^«*'"'<'
would suffice. But the problem was
now much harder than it had been at Brooklyn.

216 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
For as the land above Manhattan Island widens
rapidly to the north and east, it would not be easy
to hem Washington in by sending forces to his
rear. As soon as he should find his position im
periUed, he would possess the shorter line by which
to draw his battalions together and force an es
cape, and so the event proved. Still, with Howe's
superior force and with his fleet, if he could get
up the Hudson to the rear of the American right,
and at the same time land troops from the Sound
in the rear of the American left, it was possible
that Washington might be compelled to surrender.
There was nothing to bar Howe's passage up the
East river to the Sound ; but at the northern ex
tremity of Manhattan Island the ascent of the
Hudson was guarded on the east by Fort Washing
ton, under command of Putnam, and on the west
by Fort Lee, standing on the summit of the lofty
cliffs known as the Palisades, and commanded by
Greene. It was stUl doubtful, however, whether
these two strongholds could effectuaUy bar the as
cent of so broad a river, and for further security
Putnam undertook to place obstructions in the
bed of the stream itself. Both the Continental
Congress and the State Convention of New York
were extremely unwiUing that these two fortresses
should in any event be given up, for in no case
must the Hudson river be abandoned. Putnam
and Greene thought that the forts could be held,
but by the 9th of October it was proved that they
could not bar the passage of the river, for on that
day two frigates ran safely between them, and
captured some small American craft a short dis
tance above.

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 217
This point having been ascertained. General
Howe, on the 12th, leaving Percy in command be
fore Harlem Heights, moved the greater part of
his army nine miles up the East river
mi ) -VT 1 .1.1 Howe moves
to ihrog s JNeck, a peninsula in the upon Throg's
c, 1 1 I- 1 . Ti&ck, but
Sound, separated from the mainland by Washington
^ changes base.
a narrow creek and a marsh that was
overflowed at high tide. By landing here sud
denly, Howe hoped to get in Washington's rear
and cut him off from his base of supply in Con
necticut. But Washington had foreseen the move
and forestaUed it. When Howe arrived at Throg's
Neck, he found the bridge over the creek de
stroyed, and the main shore occupied by a force
which it would be dangerous to try to dislodge by
wading across the marsh. WhUe Howe was thus
detained six days on the peninsula Washington
moved his base to White Plains, and concentrated
his whole army at that point, abandoning every
thing on Manhattan Island except Fort Washing
ton. SuUivan, Stirling, and Morgan, who had just
been exchanged, now rejoined the army, and Lee
also arrived from South Carolina.
By this movement to White Plains, Washing
ton had foiled Howe's attempt to get in his rear,
and the British general decided to try g^^g^ ^^
the effect of an attack iu front. On ^Jlj^'^Sl^^-
the 28th of October he succeeded in "^wpian.
storming an outpost at Chatterton HiU, losing
229 lives, while the Ameftcans lost 140. But this
affair, which is sometimes known as the battle of
White Plains, seems to have discouraged Howe.
Before renewing the attack he waited three days,

218 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
thinking perhaps of Bunker HiU ; and on the
last night of October, Washington feU back upon
North Castle, where he took a position so strong
that it was useless to think of assailing him.
Howe then changed his plans entirely, and moved
down the east bank of the Hudson to Dobb's
Ferry, whence he could either attack Fort Wash
ington or cross into New Jersey and advance upon
Philadelphia, the " rebel capital." The purpose
of this change was to entice Washington from his
unassailable position.
To meet this new movement, Washington threw
his advance of 5,000 men, under Putnam, into New
Jersey, where they encamped near Hackensack ;
he sent Heath up to PeekskiU, with 3,000 men, to
guard the entrance to the Highlands ; and he left
Lee at North Castle, with 7,000 men, and ordered
him to cooperate with him promptly in whatever
direction, as soon as the nature of Howe's plans
should become apparent. As Forts Washington
and Lee detained a large force in garrison, while
Washin ton's they had shown themselves unable to
ot'tiwemer!'' prevent ships from passing up the river,
gency. there was no longer any use in holding
them. Nay, they had now become dangerous, as
traps in which the garrisons and stores might be
suddenly surrounded and captured. Washington
accordingly resolved to evacuate them both, while,
to allay the fears of Congress in the event of a
descent from Canada, he' ordered Heath to fortify
the much more important position at West Point.
Had Washington's orders been obeyed and his
plans carried out, history might still have recorded

Compton] White RlAinBo

/fludkemin,

Mdrr stqwn
BAaKtNGRlDGEl^

Newark\) Jl^ \y

BsDOF<i.yii

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¦\GeRMAti.Tawrj^ Burlington
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/^-'i

OPERATIONS IN NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY
1776-77

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 219

a retreat through " the Jerseys," but how different
a retreat from that which was now congress med-
about to take place ! The officious in- ^i'^'^^j^^^^^
terference of Congress, a venial error """^dies it.
of judgment on the part of Greene, and gross in
subordination on the part of Lee, occurring all to
gether at this critical moment, brought about the
greatest disaster of the war, and came within an
ace of overwhelming the American cause in total
and irretrievable ruin. Washington instructed
Greene, who now commanded both fortresses, to
withdraw the garrison and stores from Fort Wash
ington, and to make arrangements for evacuating
Fort Lee also. At the same time he did not give
a positive order, but left the matter somewhat
within Greene's discretion, in case military cir
cumstances of an unforeseen kind should arise.
Then, while Washington had gone up to recon
noitre the site for the new fortress at West Point,
there came a special order from Congress that
Fort Washington should not be abandoned save
under direst extremity. If Greene had thoroughly
grasped Washington's view of the case, he would
have disregarded this conditional order, for there
could hardly be a worse extremity than that
which the sudden capture of the fortress would
entail. But Greene's mind was not quite clear ;
he believed that the fort could be held, and he did
not like to take the responsibility of disregarding
a message from Congress. In this dilemma he did
the worst thing possible : he reinforced the doomed
garrison, and awaited Washington's return.

220 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
When the commander-in-chief returned, on the
14th, he learned with dismay that nothing had
been done. But it was now too late to mend mat
ters, for that very night several British vessels
passed up between the forts, and the next day
Howe appeared before Fort Washington with an
overwhelming force, and told Colonel Magaw, the
officer in charge, that if he did not immediately
surrender the whole garrison would be put to the
sword. Magaw replied that if Howe wanted his
fort he must come and take it. On the 16th,
Howe takes ^^^^"^ ^ ^^^^T struggle, lu which the
fon'b^sTom^ Americans fought with desperate gal-
Noy. 16. lantry, though they were outnumbered
more than five to one, the works were carried, and
the whole garrison was captured. The victory cost
the British more than 500 men in killed and
wounded. The Americans, fighting behind their
works, lost but 150 ; but they surrendered 3,000 of
the best troops in their half-trained army, together
with an immense quantity of artillery and small
arms. It was not in General Howe's kindly nature
to carry out his savage threat of the day before ;
but some of the Hessians, maddened with the stub
born resistance they had encountered, began mur
dering their prisoners in cold blood, until they were
sharply caUed to order. From Fort Lee, on the
opposite bank of the river, Washington surveyed
this woful surrender with his usual iron composure ;
but when it came to seeing his brave men thrown
down and stabbed to death by the Hessian bay
onets, his overwrought heart could bear it no
longer, and he cried and sobbed like a child.

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 221
This capture of the garrison of Fort Washing
ton was one of the most crushing blows that be-
feU the American arms during the whole course of
the war. Washington's campaign seemed now likely
to -be converted into a mere flight, and a terrible
gloom overspread the whole country. The disas
ter was primarily due to the interference oi Con
gress. It might have been averted by xp^gj^j^^
prompt and decisive action on the part '""^ Greene.
of Greene. But Washington, whose clear judg
ment made due allowance for all the circumstances,
never for a moment cast any blame upon his sub
ordinate. The lesson was never forgotten by
Greene, whose intelligence was of that high order
which may indeed make a first mistake, but never
makes a second. The friendship between the two
generals became warmer than ever. Washington,
by a sympathetic instinct, had divined from tho
outset the military genius that was by and by to
prove scarcely inferior to his own.
Yet worse remained behind. Washington had
but 6,000 men on the Jersey side of the river, and
it was now high time for Lee to come over from
North Castle and jojn him, with the force of 7,000
that had been left under his command. On the
17th, Washington sent a positive order for him to
cross the river at once; but Lee dis
sembled, pretended to regard the order conduct of
, ,. , . -, . , ., CharlesLee.
in the light ot mere advice, and stayed
where he was. He occupied an impregnable posi
tion : why should he leave it, and imperil a force
with which he might accomplish something memo
rable on his own account ? By the resignation of

222 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
General Ward, Lee had become the senior major-
general of the Continental army, and In the event
of disaster to Washington he would almost cer
tainly become commander-in-chief. He had re
turned from South Carolina more arrogant and
loud-voiced than ever. The northern people knew
little of Moultrie, whUe they supposed Lee to be a
great military light ; and the charlatan accordingly
got the whole credit of the victory, which, if his
precious advice had been taken, would never have
been won. Lee was caUed the hero of Charleston)
and people began to contrast the victory of SuUi"
van's Island with the recent defeats, and to draw
conclusions very disparaging to Washington. From
the beginning Lee had felt personally aggrieved at
not being appointed to the chief command, and
now he seemed to see a fair chance of ruining his
hated rival. Should he come to the head of the
army in a moment of dire disaster to the Ameri
cans, it would be so much the better, for it would
be likely to open negotiations with Lord Howe,
and Lee loved to chaffer and intrigue much better
than to fight. So he spent his time in endeavour
ing, by insidious letters and lying whispers, to
nourish the feeling of disaffection toward Wash
ington, while he refused to send a single regiment
to his assistance. Thus, through the villainy of
this traitor in the camp, Washington actuaUy lost
more men, so far as their present use was con
cerned at this most critical moment, than he had
been deprived of by all the blows which the en
emy had dealt him since the beginning of the cam
paign.

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 223
On the night of the 19th, Howe threw 5,000 men
across the river, about five miles above Fort Lee,
and with this force Lord Cornwallis marched rap
idly down upon that stronghold. The place had
become untenable, and it was with some difficulty
that a repetition of the catastrophe of Fort Wash
ington was avoided. Greene had barely areene barely
time, with his 2,000 men, to gain the FortTe?"""
bridge over the Hackensack and join '''°''-^*'-
the main army, leaving behind aU his cannon,
tents, blankets, and eatables. The position now
occupied by the main army, between the Hacken
sack and Passaic rivers, was an unsafe one, in view
of the great superiority of the enemy in numbers.
A strong British force, coming down upon Wash
ington from the north, might compel him to sur
render or to fight at a great disadvantage. To
avoid this danger, on the 21st, he crossed the Pas
saic and marched southwestward to Newark, where
he stayed five days ; and every day he sent a mes
senger to Lee, urging him to make all possible
haste in bringing over his half of the army, that
they might be able to confront the enemy on some
thing like equal terms. Nothing could have been
more explicit or more peremptory than Washing
ton's orders ; but Lee affected to misunderstand
them, sent excuses, raised objections, paltered,
argued, prevaricated, and lied, and so contrived to
stay where he was until the first of December. To
Washington he pretended that his moving was be
set by "obstacles," the nature of which he would
explain as soon as they should meet. But to
James Bowdoin, president of the executive council

224 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
of Massachusetts, he wrote at the same time declar
ing that his own army and that under
against Wash- Washington " must rest each on its own
bottom." He assumed command over
Heath, who had been left to guard the Highlands,
and ordered him to send 2,000 troops to reinforce
the main army ; but that officer very properly re
fused to depart from the instructions which the
commander-in-chief had left with him. To various
members of Congress Lee told the falsehood that if
his advice had only been heeded. Fort Washington
would have been evacuated ere it was too late •
and he wrote to Dr. Rush, wondering whether any
of the members of Congress had ever studied Ro
man history, and suggesting that he might do great
things if he could only be made Dictator for one
week. Meanwhile Washington, unable to risk a battle,
was rapidly retreating through New Jersey. On
the 28th of November Cornwallis advanced upon
Newark, and Washington feU back upon New
Brunswick. On the first of December, as Corn
waUis reached the latter place, Washington broke
down the bridge over the Raritan, and continued
his retreat to Princeton. The terms of
retreats into scrvIcc for whlch Ms troops had been
PennsylTania. ... ., -, . . .
enlisted were now beginning to expire,
and so great was the discouragement wrought by
the accumulation of disasters which had befallen
the army since the battle of Long Island that
many of the soldiers lost heart in their work.
Homesickness began to prevail, especially among
the New England troops, and as their terms ex-

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 225
pired it was difficult to persuade them to reenlist.
Under these circumstances the army dwindled fast,
until, by the time he reached Princeton, Washing
ton had but 3,000 men remaining at his disposal.
The only thing to be done was to put the broad
stream of the Delaware between himself and the
enemy, and this he accomplished by the 8th, car
rying over aU his guns and stores,, and seizing or
destroying every boat that could be found on that
great river for many miles in either direction.
When the British arrived, on the evening of the
same day, they found it impossible to cross. Corn
wallis was eager to collect a flotiUa of boats as soon
as practicable, and push on to Philadelphia, but
Howe, who had just joined him, thought it hardly
worth whUe to take so much trouble, as the river
would be sure to freeze over before many days.
So the army was posted — with front somewhat too
far extended — along the east bank, with its centre
at Trenton, under Colonel Rail ; and while they
waited for that " snap " of intensely cold weather,
which in this climate seldom fails to come on within
a few days of Christmas, Howe and CornwaUis
both went back to New York.
Meanwhile, on the 2d of December, Lee had at
last crossed the Hudson with a force diminished
to 4,000 men, and had proceeded by slow marches
as far as Morristown. Further reinforcements
were at hand. General Schuyler, in command of
the army which had retreated the last summer
from Canada, was guarding the forts on Lake
Champlain ; and as these appeared to be safe for
the present, he detached seven regiments to go

226 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
to the aid of Washington. As soon as Lee heard
of the arrival of three of these regi-
Reinforcements -r-.ii.ni i lii
come from mcnts at Peckskiii, he ordered them to
Schuyler. . -, . n r . a i i
join him at Morristown. As the other
four, under General Gates, were making their way
through northern New Jersey, doubts arose as to
where they should find Washington in the course
of his swift retreat. Gates sent his aid. Major
Wilkinson, forward for instructions, and he, learn
ing that Washington had withdrawn into Pennsyl
vania, reported to Lee at Morristown, as second in
command. Lee had left his army in charge of Sullivan,
and had foolishly taken up his quarters at an un
guarded tavern about four miles from the town,
where Wilkinson found him in bed on the morn
ing of the 13th. After breakfast Lee wrote a
confidential letter to Gates, as to a kindred spirit
Fortunately ^"^^^ "^^^^ ^^ ^^8'^* ^xpCCt to gCt Sym-
cans''tht'Brit- P^thy. Tcrrlblc had been the conse-
charies iTe qucuces of the disaster at Fort Wash-
Dec. 13. ington. " There never was so damned
a stroke," said the letter. " Entre nous, a certain
great man is most damnably deficient. He has
thrown me into a situation where I have my choice
of difficulties. If I stay in this province I risk
myself and army, and if I do not stay the province
is lost forever. . . . Our counsels have been weak
to the last degree. As to yourself, if you think
you can be in time to aid the general, I would have
you by all means go. You will at least save your
army. . . . Adieu, my dear friend. God bless
you." Hardly had he signed his name to this scan-

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 227
dalous document when Wilkinson, who was stand
ing at the window, exclaimed that the British were
upon them. Sure enough. A Tory in the neigh
bourhood, discerning the golden opportunity, had
galloped eighteen mUes to the British lines, and
returned with a party of thirty dragoons, who sur=
rounded the house and captured the vainglorious
schemer before he had time to collect his senses.
Bareheaded, and dressed only in a flannel gown and
slippers, he was mounted on Wilkinson's horse,
which stood waiting at the door, and was carried
off, amid much mirth and exultation, to the British
camp. Crest-faUen and bewildered, he expressed
a craven hope that his life might be spared, but
was playfully reminded that he would very likely
be summarily dealt with as a deserter from the
British army ; and with this scant comfort he was
fain to content himself for some weeks to come.
The capture of General Lee was reckoned by
the people as one more in the list of dire catas
trophes which made the present season the dark
est moment in the whole course of the war. Had
they known all that we know now, they would have
seen that the army was well rid of a worthless
mischief-maker, while the history of the war had
gained a curiously picturesque episode. Apart
from this incident there was cause enough for the
gloom which now overspread the whole country.
Washington had been forced to seek shelter be
hind the Delaware with a handful of men, whose
terms of service were soon to expire, and another
fortnight might easily witness the utter dispersal
of this poor little army. At Philadelphia, where

228 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Putnam was now in command, there was a general
panic, and people began hiding their valuables and
moving their wives and children out into
The times ° i n . i
that tried the couutry. Cougress took fright, and
men's souls. , xii. a ii**
retired to Baltimore. At the beginning
of December, Lord Howe and his brother had is
sued a proclamation offering pardon and protection
to aU citizens who within sixty days should take the
oath of allegiance to the British Crown ; and in the
course of ten days nearly three thousand persons,
many of them wealthy and of high standing in so
ciety, had availed themselves of this promise. The
British soldiers and the Tories considered the con
test virtually ended. General Howe was compared
with Caesar, who came, and saw, and conquered. For
his briUiant successes he had been made a Knight
Commander of the Bath, and New York was to
become the scene of merry Christmas festivities on
the occasion of his receiving the famous red rib
bon. In his confidence that Washington's strength
was quite exhausted, he detached a considerable
force from the army in New Jersey, and sent it,
under Lord Percy, to take possession of Newport
as a convenient station for British ships entering
the Sound. Donop and Rail with their Hessians
and Grant with his hardy Scotchmen would now
quite suffice to destroy the remnant of Washing
ton's army ; and Cornwallis accordingly packed his
portmanteaus and sent them aboard ship, intending
to sail for England as soon as the fumes of the
Christmas punch should be duly slept off.
WeU might Thomas Paine declare, in the first
of the series of pamphlets entitled " The Crisis,"

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 229
which he now began to publish, that " these are the
times that try men's souls." But in the midst of
the general despondency there were a few brave
hearts that had not yet begun to despair, and the
bravest of these was Washington's. At this awful
moment the whole future of America,
-I /.-,¦, . 1 . . . rt 1 Washington
and or all that America signifies to the prepares to
1 . rri- Strike back.
world, rested upon that single Titanic
will. Cruel defeat and yet more cruel treachery,
enough to have crushed the strongest, could not
crush Washington. AU the lion in him was
aroused, and his powerful nature was aglow with
passionate resolve. His keen eye already saw the
elements of weakness in Howe's too careless dispo
sition of his forces on the east bank of the Dela
ware, and he had planned for his antagonist such
a Christmas greeting as he little expected. Just
at this moment Washington was opportunely rein
forced by SuUivan and Gates, with the troops
lately under Lee's command ; and with his little
army thus raised to 6,000 men, he meditated such
a stroke as might revive the drooping spirits of
his countrymen, and confound the enemy in the
very moment of his fancied triumph.
Washington's plan was, by a sudden attack, to
overwhelm the British centre at Trenton, and thus
force the army to retreat upon New York. The
Delaware was to be crossed in three divisions. The
right wing, of 2,000 men, under Gates, was to
attack Count Donop at Burlington; Ewing, with
the centre, was to cross directly opposite Trenton ;
whUe Washington himself, with the left wing, was
to cross nine miles above, and march down upon

He crosses
the Delaware

230 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Trenton from the north. On Christmas Day aU
was ready, but the beginnings of the enterprise
were not auspicious. Gates, who preferred to go
and intrigue in Congress, Succeeded in begging off,
and started for Baltimore. Cadwalader, who took
his place, tried hard to get his men and artiUery
across the river, but was baffled by the huge masses
of floating ice, and reluctantly gave up the attempt.
Ewing was so discouraged that he did not even try
to cross, and both officers took it for granted that
Washington must be foiled in like man
ner. But Washington was desperately
in earnest ; and although at sunset, just as he had
reached his crossing-place, he was informed by
special messenger of the failure of Ewing and
Cadwalader, he determined to go on and make the
attack with the 2,500 men whom he had with him.
The great blocks of ice, borne swiftly along by the
powerful current, made the passage extremely dan
gerous, but Glover, with his skilful fishermen of
Marblehead, succeeded in ferrying the little army
across without the loss of a man or a gun. More
than ten hours were consumed in the passage, and
then there was a march of nine miles to be made
in a blinding storm of snow and sleet. They
pushed rapidly on ih two columns, led by Greene
and pierces the ^nd SuUivan respectively, drove in the
at'xrenton''™ eucmy's plckcts at the point of the bay-
Dec. 26. onet, and entered the town by different
roads soon after sunrise. Washington's guns were
at once planted so as to sweep the streets, and after
Colonel Rail and seventeen of his men had been
slain, the whole body of Hessians, 1,000 in num-

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 231
ber, surrendered at discretion. Of the Americans,
two were frozen to death on the march, and two
were killed in the action. By noon of the next
day Cadwalader had crossed the river to Burling
ton, but no sooner had Donop heard what had hap
pened at Trenton than he retreated by a circuitous
route to Princeton, leaving behind all his sick and
wounded soldiers, and all his heavy arms and bag
gage. Washington recrossed into Pennsylvania
with his prisoners, but again advanced, and occu
pied Trenton on the 29th.
When the news of the catastrophe reached New
York, the hoUday feasting was rudely comwaiiis
disturbed. Instead of embarking for "etrievethe
England, Cornwallis rode post-haste to '^'^^'s'"'' !
Princeton, where he found Donop throwing up
earthworks. On the morning of January 2d
Cornwallis advanced, with 8,000 men, upon Tren
ton, but his march was slow and painful. He was
exposed during most of the day to a galling fire
from, parties of riflemen hidden in the woods by
the roadside, and Greene, with a force of 600 men
and two field-pieces, contrived so to harass and
delay him that he did not reach Trenton till late
in the afternoon. By that time Washington had
withdrawn his whole force beyond the Assunpink,
a smaU river which flows into the Delaware just
south of Trenton, and had guarded the bridge and
the fords by batteries admirably placed. The
British made several attempts to cross, but were
repulsed with some slaughter ; and as their day's
work had sorely fatigued them, CornwaUis thought
best to wait until to-morrow, while he sent his

232 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
messenger post-haste back to Princeton to bring up
a force of nearly 2,000 men which he had left be
hind there. With this added strength he felt sure
that he could force the passage of the
and thinks he , j i a ¦ • j •
has run down strcam abovc the American position,
the "old fox." , , . ,-,,- , . , . -
when by turning W ashmgton s right
flank he could fold him back against the Delaware,
and thus compel him to surrender. Cornwallis
accordingly went to bed in high spirits. " At last
we have run down the old fox," said he, " and we
wIU bag him in the morning."
The situation was indeed a very dangerous one ;
but when the British general called his antagonist
an old fox, he did him no more than justice. In
its union of slyness with audacity, the
But Washing- . •' ''
ton prepares a movement which Washington now exe-
checkmate ; . i c n
cuted strongly reminds one of " Stone
wall " Jackson. He understood perfectly weU
what CornwaUis intended to do ; but he knew at
the same time that detachments of the British
army must have been left behind at Princeton and
New Brunswick to guard the stores. From the
size of the army before him he rightly judged that
these rear detachments must be too small to with
stand his own force. By overwhelming one or
both of them, he could compel Cornwallis to re
treat upon New York, while he himself might take
up an impregnable position on the heights about
Morristown, from which he might threaten the
British line and hold their whole army in check,
— a most brilliant and daring scheme for a com
mander to entertain while in such a perilous position
as Washington was that night ! But the manner

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 233
in which he began by extricating himself was not
the least brilliant part of the manoeuvre. AU night
long the American camp-fires were kept burning
brightly, and small parties were busily engaged in
throwing up intrenchments so near the Assunpink
that the British sentinels could plainly hear the
murmur of their voices and the thud of the spade
and pickaxe. While this was going on, the whole
American army marched swiftly up the south bank
of the little stream, passed around Cornwallis's
left wing to his rear, and gained the road to
Princeton. Toward sunrise, as the British detach
ment was coming down the road from Princeton
to Trenton, in obedience to CornwaUis's order, its
van, under Colonel Mawhood, met the foremost
column of Americans approaching, under General
Mercer. As he caught sight of the Americans,
Mawhood thought that they must be a party of
fugitives, and hastened to intercept them ; but he
was soon undeceived. The Americans attacked
with vigour, and a sharp fight was sustained, with
varying fortunes, until Mercer was pierced by a
bayonet, and his men began to fall back in some
confusion. Just at this critical moment ,
and again sev-
Washington came gaUoping upon the ^^e'at^PrinS
field and rallied the troops, and as the *™' ''™- ^•
entire forces on both sides had now come up the
fight became general. In a few minutes the Brit
ish were routed and their line was cut in two ;
one half fleeing toward Trenton, the other half
toward New Brunswick. There was little slaugh
ter, as the whole fight did not occupy more than
twenty minutes. The British lost about 200 in

234 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
killed and wounded, with 300 prisoners and theii
cannon ; the American loss was less than 100.
Shortly before sunrise, the men who had been
left in the camp on the Assunpink to feed the fires
and make a noise beat a hasty retreat, and found
their way to Princeton by circuitous paths. When
CornwaUis got up, he could hardly believe his eyes.
Here was nothing before him but an empty camp :
the American army had vanished, and whither it
had gone he could not imagine. But his perplexity
was soon relieved by the booming of distant can
non on the Princeton road, and the game which the
" old fox " had played him all at once became ap-
Generai re- pareut. Nothlug was to be done but to
British' tlw^rd retreat upon New Brunswick with aU
New York. possible haste, and save the stores there.
His road led back through Princeton, and from
Mawhood's fugitives he soon heard the story of
the morning's disaster. His march was hindered
by various impediments. A thaw had set in, so
that the little streams had swelled into roaring tor
rents, difficult to ford, and the American army,
which had passed over the road before daybreak,
had not forgotten to destroy the bridges. By the
time that Cornwallis and his men reached Prince
ton, wet and weary, the Americans had already
left it, but they had not gone on to New Bruns
wick. Washington had hoped to seize the stores
there, hut the distance was eighteen miles, his men
were wretchedly shod and too tired to march rap
idly, and it would not be prudent to risk a general
engagement when his main purpose could be se
cured without one. For these reasons. Washing-

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 235
ton turned northward to the heights of Morris
town, while CornwaUis continued his retreat to
New Brunswick. A few days later, Putnam ad
vanced from Philadelphia and occupied Princeton,
thus forming the right wing of the American army,
of which the main body lay at Morristown, while
Heath's division on the Hudson constituted the left
wing. Various cantonments were estabhshed along
this long line. On the 5th, George Clinton, com
ing down from PeekskiU, drove the British out of
Hackensack and occupied it, while on the same day
a detachment of German mercenaries at Spring
field was routed by a body of militia. Elizabeth-
town was then taken by General MaxweU, where
upon the British retired from Newark.
Thus in a brief campaign of three weeks Wash
ington had rallied the fragments of a defeated and
broken army, fought two successful battles, taken
nearly 2,000 prisoners, and recovered the state of
New Jersey. He had canceUed the disastrous effects
of Lee's treachery, and replaced things apparently
in the condition in which the faU of Fort Wash
ington had left them. Really he had done much
more than this, for by assuming the of-
fensive and winning victories through completely
• 1 1 1 11 turned.
sheer force of genius, he had completely
turned the tide of popular feeling. The British
generals began to be afraid of him, whUe on the
other hand his army began to grow by the accession
of fresh recruits. In New Jersey, the enemy re
tained nothing but New Brunswick, Amboy, and
Paulus Hook.
On the 25th of January Washington issued a

236 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
proclamation declaring that aU persons who had
accepted Lord Howe's offer of protection must
either retire within the British lines, or come for
ward and take the oath of allegiance to the United
States. Many narrow-minded people, who did not
look with favour upon a close federation of the
states, commented severely upon the form of this
proclamation : it was too national, they said. But
it proved effective. However lukewarm may have
been the interest which many of the Jersey peo
ple felt in the war when their soil was first in
vaded, the conduct of the British troops had been
such that every one now looked upon them as
foreign enemies. They had not only foraged in
discriminately upon friend and foe, but they had
set fire to farmhouses, murdered peaceful citizens,
and violated women. The wrath of the people,
kindled by such outrages, had waxed so hot that
it was not safe for the British to stir beyond their
narrow lines except in considerable force. Their
foraging parties were waylaid and cut off by bands
of indignant yeomanry, and so sorely were they
harassed in their advanced position at New Bruns
wick that they often suffered from want of food.
Many of the German mercenaries, caring nothing
for the cause in which they had been forcibly en
listed, began deserting ; and in this they were en
couraged by Congress, which issued a manifesto in
German, making a hberal offer of land to any for
eign soldier who should leave the British service.
This little document was inclosed in the wrappers
in which packages of tobacco were sold, and every
now and then some canny smoker accepted the
offer.

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 237
Washington's position at Morristown was so
strong that there was no hope of dislodging him,
and the snow-blocked roads made the difficulties
of a winter campaign so great that Howe thought
best to wait for warm weather before doing any
thing more. While the British arms were thus
held in check, the friends of America, both in
England and on the continent of Europe, were
greatly encouraged. From this moment Wash
ington was regarded in Europe as a firstrate gen
eral. Military critics who were capable
. Washington's
ot understanding his movements com- superb gen-
pared his brilliant achievements with
his slender resources, and discovered in him genius
of a high order. Men began to call him " the
American Fabius ; " and this epithet was so pleas
ing to his fellow-countrymen, in that pedantic age,
that it clung to him for the rest of his life, and was
repeated in newspapers and speeches and pamphlets
with wearisome iteration. Yet there was some
thing more than Fabian in Washington's general
ship. For wariness he has never been surpassed ;
yet, as Colonel Stedman observed, in his excellent
contemporary history of the war, the most remark
able thing about Washington was his courage. It
would be hard indeed to find more striking exam
ples of audacity than he exhibited at Trenton and
Princeton. Lord Cornwallis was no mean antag
onist, and no one was a better judge of what a
commander might be expected to do with a given
stock of resources. His surprise at the Assunpink
was so great that he never got over it. After
the surrender at Yorktown, it is said that his lord-

238 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
ship expressed to Washington his generous admira
tion for the wonderful skiU which had suddenly
hurled an army four hundred miles, from the Hud
son river to the James, with such precision and
such deadly effect. " But after all," he added,
"your excellency's achievements in New Jersey
were such that nothing could surpass them." The
man who had turned the tables on him at the As
sunpink he could weU believe to be capable of any
thing. In England the effect of the campaign was very
serious. Not long before, Edmund Burke had
despondingly remarked that an army which was
always obliged to refuse battle could never expel
the invaders ; but now the case wore a different
aspect. Sir William Howe had not so much to
show for his red ribbon, after all. He had taken
New York, and dealt many heavy blows with his
overwhelming force, unexpectedly aided by foul
play on the American side ; but as for crushing
Washington and ending the war, he seemed farther
from it than ever. It would take another cam
paign to do this, — perhaps many. Lord North,
who had little heart for the war at any time, was
discouraged, while the king and Lord George Ger
main were furious with disappointment. " It was
that unhappy affair of Trenton," observed the lat
ter, " that blasted our hopes."
In France the interest in American affairs grew
rapidly. Louis XVI. had no love for Americans
or for rebels, but revenge for the awful disasters
of 1758 and 1759 was dear to the French heart.
France felt toward England then as she feels

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 239
toward Germany now, and so long ago as the time
of the Stamp Act, Baron Kalb had been sent on
a secret mission to America, to find out how the
people regarded the British government. The pol
icy of the French ministry was aided by the ro
mantic sympathy for America which was felt in
polite society. Never perhaps have the opinions
current among fashionable ladies and gentlemen
been so directly controUed by philosophers and
scholars as in France during the latter half of the
eighteenth century. Never perhaps have men of
letters exercised such mighty influence over their
contemporaries as Voltaire, with his noble enthusi
asm for humanity, and Rousseau, with his startling
political paradoxes, and the writers of the " Eney-
clopedie," with their revelations of new points of
view in science and in history. To such men as these,
and to such profound political thinkers as Montes
quieu and Turgot, the preservation and extension
of English liberty was the hope of the world; but
they took little interest in the British crown or in
the imperial sujDremacy of Parliament. AU there
fore sympathized with the Americans and urged on
the policy which the court for selfish reasons was
inclined to pursue. Vergennes, the astute minister
of foreign affairs, had for some time been waiting
for a convenient opportunity to take part in the
struggle, but as yet he had contented himself with
furnishing secret assistance. For more than a
year he had been intriguing, through Beaumar-
chais, the famous author of " Figaro," with Arthur
Lee (a brother of Richard Henry Lee), who had
long served in London as agent for Virginia. Just

240 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
before the Declaration of Independence Vergennes
sent over a miUion dollars to aid the American
cause. Soon afterwards Congress sent Silas Deane
to Paris, and presently ordered Arthur Lee to join
him there. In October Franklin was also sent
over, and the three were appointed commissioners
for making a treaty of aUiance with the French
court. The arrival of Franklin was the occasion of
great excitement in the fashionable world of Paris.
By thinkers like Diderot and D'.AJembert he was
regarded as the embodiment of practical wisdom.
To many he seemed to sum up in himself the ex-
ceUences of the American cause, — justice, good
sense, and moderation. Voltaire spoke quite un
consciously of the American army as " Franklin's
troops." It was Turgot who said of him, in a line
which is one of the finest modern specimens of
epigrammatic Latin, " Eripuit coelo fulmen, scep-
trumque tyrannis." As symbohzing the liberty
for which all France was yearning, he was greeted
with a popular enthusiasm such as perhaps no
Frenchman except Voltaire has ever caUed forth.
As he passed along the streets, the shopkeepers
rushed to their doors to catch a glimpse of him,
whUe curious idlers crowded the sidewalk. The
charm of his majestic and venerable figure seemed
heightened by the republican simplicity of his
plain brown coat, over the shoulders of which his
long gray hair feU carelessly, innocent of queue or
powder. His portrait was hung in the shop-win
dows and painted in miniature on the covers of
snuff-boxes. Gentlemen wore " Franklin " hats,

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 241
ladies' kid gloves were dyed of a " Franklin "
hue, and cotelettes a la Franklin were served at
fashionable dinners.
As the first fruits of Franklin's negotiations, the
French government agreed to furnish two million
livres a year, in quarterly instalments, to assist
the American cause. Three ships, laden with mil
itary stores, were sent over to America : one was
captured by a British cruiser, but the other two ar
rived safely. The Americans were aUowed to fit
out privateers in French ports, and even to bring
in and seU their prizes there. Besides this a mil-
Uon livres were advanced to the commissioners on
account of a quantity of tobacco which they agreed
to send in exchange. Further than this France
was not yet ready to go. The British ambassador
had already begun to protest against the violation
of neutrality involved in the departure of priva
teers, and France was not willing to run the risk
of open war with England until it should become
clear that the Americans would prove efficient
allies. The king, moreover, sympathized with
George III., and hated the philosophers whose
opinions swayed the French people ; and in order
to accomplish anything in behalf of the Americans
he had to be coaxed or bullied at every step.
But though the French government was not yet
ready to send troops to America, volunteers were
not wanting who cast in their lot with us through
a purely disinterested enthusiasm. At a dinner
party in Metz, the Marquis de Lafayette, then a
boy of nineteen, heard the news from America,
and instantly resolved to leave his pleasant home

242 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
and offer his services to Washington. He fitted
up a ship at his own expense, loaded it with mili
tary stores furnished by Beaumarchais, and set
sail from Bordeaux on the 26th of April, taking
with him Kalb aud eleven other officers. While
Marie Antoinette applauded his generous self-de
votion, the king forbade him to go, but he disre
garded the order. His young wife, whom he
deemed it prudent to leave behind, he consoled
with the thought that the future welfare of all
mankind was at stake in the struggle for constitu
tional liberty which was going on in America, and
that where he saw a chance to be useful it was his
duty to go. The able Polish officers, Pulaski and
Kosciusko had come some time before.
During the winter season at Morristown, Wash
ington was busy in endeavouring to recruit and re
organize the army. Up to this time the military
preparations of Congress had been made upon a
ludicrously inadequate scale. There had been no
serious attempt to create a regular army, but
squads of militia had been enlisted for terms of
three or six months, as if there were any likehhood
of the war being ended within such a period. The
rumour of Lord Howe's olive-branch policy may at
first have had something to do with this, and even
after the Declaration of Independence had made
further temporizing impossible, there were many
who expected Washington to perform miracles and
thought that by some crushing blow the invaders
might soon be brought to terms. But the events
of the autumn had shown that the struggle was
likely to prove long and desperate, and there could

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 243
be no doubt as to the imperative need of a regular
army. To provide such an army was, however, no
easy task. The Continental Congress was little
more than an advisory body of delegates, and it
was questionable how far it could exercise author
ity except as regarded the specific points which the
constituents of these delegates had in view when
they chose them. Congress could only recommend
to the different states to raise their respective quo
tas of men, and each state gave heed to such a re
quest according to its ability or its inclination.
All over the country there was then, as always,
a deep-rooted prejudice against standing armies.
Even to-day, with our population of sixty-five mil
lions, a proposal to increase our regular army to
fifty thousand men, for the more efficient police of
the Indian districts in Arizona and Montana, has
been greeted by the press with tirades about mili
tary despotism. A century ago this feeling was
naturaUy much stronger than it is to-day. The
presence of standing armies in this country had
done much toward bringing on the Revolution ;
and it was not until it had become evident that
we must either endure the king's regulars or have
regulars of our own that the people could be made
to adopt the latter alternative. Under the influ
ence of these feelings, the state militias were en=
listed for very short terms, each under its local
officers, so that they resembled a group of httle
allied armies. Such methods were fatal to military
discipline. Such soldiers as had remained in the
army ever since it first gathered itself together
on the day of Lexington had now begun to learn

244 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
something of military discipline ; but it was impos
sible to maintain it in the face of the much greater
number who kept coming and going at intervals of
three months. With such fluctuations in strength,
moreover, it was difficult to carry out any series of
military operations. The Christmas night when
Washington crossed the Delaware was the most
critical moment of his career ; for the terms of ser
vice of the greater part of his litfle army expired
on New Year's Day, and but for the success at
Trenton, they would almost certainly have dis
banded. But in the exultant mood begotten of
this victory, they were persuaded to remain for
some weeks longer, thus enabling Washington to
recover the state of New Jersey. So low had the
public credit sunk, at this season of disaster, that
Washington pledged his private fortune for the
payment of these men, in case Congress should be
found wanting ; and his example was followed by
the gallant John Stark and other officers. Except
for the sums raised by Robert Morris of Philadel
phia, even Washington could not have saved the
country. Another source of weakness was the intense dis
like and jealousy with which the militia of the dif
ferent states regarded each other. Their alliance
against the common enemy had hitherto done little
more toward awakening a cordial sympathy between
the states than the alliance of Athenians with Lace-
dsemonians against the Great King accomplished
toward ensuring peace and good-will throughout
the Hellenic world. Politically the men of Vir
ginia had thus far acted in remarkable harmony

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 245
with the men of New England, but socially there
was but little fellowship between them. In those
days of slow travel the plantations of Virginia
were much more remote from Boston than they
now are from London, and the generalizations
which the one people used to make about the
other were, if possible, even more crude than those
which Englishmen and Americans are apt to make
about each other at the present day. To the
stately elegance of the Virginian country mansion
it seemed right to sneer at New England mer
chants and farmers as " shopkeepers " and " peas
ants," while many people in Boston regarded
Virginian planters as mere Squire Westerns. Be
tween the eastern and the middle states, too, there
was much iU-will, because of theological differences
and boundary disputes. The Puritan of New
Hampshire had not yet made up his quarrel with
the Churchman of New York concerning the own
ership of the Green Mountains ; and the wrath of
the Pennsylvania Quaker waxed hot against the
Puritan of Connecticut who dared claim jurisdic
tion over the vaUey of Wyoming. We shall find
such animosities bearing bitter fruit in personal
squabbles among soldiers and officers, as weU as in
removals and appointments of officers for reasons
which had nothing to do with their mihtary com
petence. Even in the highest ranks of the army
and in Congress these local prejudices played their
part and did no end of mischief.
From the outset Washington had laboured with
Congress to take measures to obviate these alarm
ing difficulties. In the midst of his retreat through

246 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
the Jerseys he declared that " short enlistments
and a mistaken dependence upon militia have been
the origin of aU our misfortunes," and at the same
time he recommended that a certain number of
battalions should be raised directly by the United
States, comprising volunteers drawn indiscrimi
nately from the several states. These measures
were adopted by Congress, and at the same time
Washington was clothed with almost dictatorial
powers. It was decided that the army of state
troops should be increased to 66,000 men, divided
into eighty-eight battalions, of which Massachusetts
and Virginia were each to contribute fifteen, "Penn
sylvania twelve. North Carolina nine, Connecticut
eight. South Carolina six. New York and New Jer
sey four each. New Hampshire and Maryland three
each, Rhode Island two, Delaware and Georgia
each one." The actual enlistments fell very far
short of this number of men, and the proportions
assigned by Congress, based upon the population of
the several states, were never heeded. The men
now enlisted were to serve during the war, and
were to receive at the end a hundred acres of land
each as bounty. Colonels were to have a bounty
of five hundred acres, and inferior officers were to
receive an intermediate quantity. Even with
these offers it was found hard to persuade men to
enlist for the war, so that it was judged best to
allow the recruit his choice of serving for three
years and going home empty-handed, or staying
tiU the war should end in the hope of getting a
new farm for one of his children. All this enlist
ing was to be done by the several states, which

FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 247
were also to clothe and arm their recruits, but the
money for their equipments, as weU as for the
payment and support of the troops, was to be fur
nished by Congress. Officers were to be selected
by the states, but formally commissioned by Con
gress. At the same time Washington was author
ized to raise sixteen battalions of infantry, contain
ing 12,000 men, three regiments of artillery, 3,000
hght cavalry, and a corps of engineers. These
forces were to be enlisted under Washington's di
rection, in the name of the United States, and
were to be taken indiscriminately from all parts of
the country. Their officers were to be appointed
by Washington, who was furthermore empowered
to fill all vacancies and remove any officer below
the rank of brigadier-general in any department
of the army. Washington was also authorized to
take whatever private property might anywhere be
needed for the army, aUowing a fair compensation
to the owners ; and he was instructed to arrest at
his own discretion, and hold for trial by the civil
courts, any person who should refuse to take the
continental paper money, or otherwise manifest a
want of sympathy with the American cause.
These extraordinary powers, which at the dark
est moment of the war were conferred upon Wash
ington for a period of six months, occasioned much
grumbling, but it does not appear that any specific
difficulty ever arose through the way in which they
were exercised. It would be as hard, perhaps, to
find any strictly legal justification for the creation
of a Continental army as it would be to tell just
where the central government of the United States

248 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
was to be found at that time. Strictly speaking,
no central government had as yet been formed.
No articles of confederation had yet been adopted
by the states, and the authority of the Continental
Congress had been in nowise defined. It was gen
erally felt, however, that the Congress now sitting
had been chosen for the purpose of representing
the states in their relations to the British crown.
This Congress had been expressly empowered to
declare the states independent of Great Britain,
and to wage war for the purpose of making good
its declaration. And it was accordingly felt that
Congress was tacitly authorized to take such meas
ures as were absolutely needfid for the mainte
nance of the struggle. The enlistment of a Conti
nental force was therefore an act done under an
implied " war power," something like the power
invoked at a later day to justify the edict by which
President Lincoln emancipated the slaves. The
thoroughly English political genius of the Ameri
can people teaches them when and how to tolerate
such anomalies, and has more than once enabled
them safely to cut the Gordian knot which mere
logic could not untie if it were to fumble tiU
doomsday. In the second year after Lexington
the American commonwealths had already entered
upon the path of their " manifest destiny," and
were becoming united into one political body
faster than the people could distinctly realize.

CHAPTER VI.
SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE.
EvEE since the failure of the American invasion
of Canada, it had been the intention of Sir Guy
Carleton, in accordance with the wishes of the min-
istrj;-, to invade New York by way of Lake Cham
plain, and to secure the Mohawk vaUey and the
upper waters of the Hudson. The summer of
1776 had been employed by Carleton in getting
together a fleet with which to obtain
control of the lake. It was an arduous vadesNew
task. Three large vessels were sent
over from England, and proceeded up the St. Law
rence as far as the rapids, where they were taken
to pieces, carried overland to St. John's, and there
put together again. Twenty gunboats and more
than two hundred flat-bottomed transports were
built at Montreal, and manned with 700 picked
seamen and gunners ; and upon this flotiUa Carle
ton embarked his army of 12,000 men.
To oppose the threatened invasion, Benedict
Arnold had been working all the summer with
desperate energy. In June the materials for his
navy were growing in the forests of Vermont,
while his carpenters with their tools, his sailmakers
with their canvas, and his gunners with their guns
had mostly to be brought from the coast towns of

250 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Connecticut and Massachusetts. By the end of
September he had built a Uttle fleet of three
schooners, two sloops, three galleys, and eight gon
dolas, and fitted it out with seventy guns and such
seamen and gunners as he could get together.
With this fiotiUa he could not hope to prevent the
advance of such an overwhelming force as that of
the enemy. The most he could do would be to
Arnold's worry and delay it, besides raising the
preparations, spirits of thc pcoplc by the example of
an obstinate and furious resistance. To allow
Carleton to reach Ticonderoga without opposition
would be disheartening, whereas by delay and vex
ation he might hope to dampen the enthusiasm of
the invader. With this end in view, Arnold pro
ceeded down the lake far to the north of Crown
Point, and taking up a strong position between
Valcour Island and the western shore, so that
both his wings were covered and he could be at
tacked only in front, he lay in wait for the enemy.
James Wilkinson, who twenty years afterward be
came commander-in-chief of the American army,
and survived the second war with England, was
then at Ticonderoga, on Gates's staff. Though
personaUy hostile to Arnold, he calls attention in
his Memoirs to the remarkable skill exhibited in
the disposition of the little fleet at Valcour Island,
which was the same in principle as that by which
Macdonough won his briUiant victory, not far from
the same spot, in 1814.
On the 11th of October, Sir Guy Carleton's
squadron approached, and there ensued the first
battle fought between an American and a British

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 251
fleet. At sundown, after a desperate fight of seven
hours' duration, the British withdrew
. . -, . Battle of Val-
out 01 range, intending to renew the cour island,
. ° ° Oct. 11, 1776.
struggle in the morning. Both fleets
had suffered severely, but the Americans were so
badly cut up that Carleton expected to force their
rear the next day, and capture them. But Arnold,
during the hazy night, by a feat scarcely less
remarkable than Washington's retreat from Long
Island, contrived to shp through the British line
with all that was left of his crippled flotilla, and
made away for Crown Point with aU possible speed.
Though he once had to stop to mend leaks, and
once to take off the men and guns from two gon
dolas which were sinking, he nevertheless, by dint
of saUing and hedging, got such a start that the
enemy did not overtake him untU the next day
but one, when he was nearing Crown Point. While
the rest of the fleet, by Arnold's orders, now
crowded saU for their haven, he in his schooner
sustained an ugly fight for four hours with the
three largest British vessels, one of which mounted
eighteen twelve-pounders. His vessel was wofuUy
cut up, and her deck covered with dead and dying
men, when, having sufficiently delayed the enemy,
he succeeded in running her aground in a small
creek, where he set her on fire, and she perished
gloriously, with her flag flying till the flames
brought it down. Then marching through wood
land paths to Crown Point, where his other vessels
had now disembarked their men, he brought away
his whole force in safety to Ticonderoga. When
Carleton appeared before that celebrated fortress,

252 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
finding it strongly defended, and doubting his
ability to reduce it before the setting in of cold
weather, he decided to take his army back to Can
ada, satisfied for the present with having gained
control of Lake Champlain. This sudden retreat
of Carleton astonished both friend and foe. He
was blamed for it by his generals, Burgoyne, Phil
lips, and Riedesel, as well as by the king ; and
when we see how easily the fortress was seized by
PhiUips in the following summer, we can hardly
doubt that it was a grave mistake.
Arnold had now won an enviable reputation as
the " bravest of the brave." In his terrible march
through the wilderness of Maine, in the assaidt upon
Quebec, and in the defence of Lake Champlain,
he had shown rare heroism and skill. The whole
country rang with his praises, and Washington
regarded him as one of the ablest officers in the
army. Yet when Congress now pro-
Congress pro- . r» •
motes flve ju- cecdcd to appoint five new maior-gen-
nior brigadiers '- ^ io-t Tifl-*m*ci
over Arnold, erals, they selected Stirling, Mifflin, St.
Feb. 19, 1777. . . .
Clair, Stephen, and Lincoln, passing
over Arnold, who was the senior brigadier. None
of the generals named could for a moment be com
pared with Arnold for ability, and this strange
action of Congress, coming soon after such a bril
liant exploit, naturally hurt his feelings and greatly
incensed him. Arnold was proud and irascible in
temjDer, but on this occasion he controlled himself
manfully, and listened to Washington, who en
treated him not to resign. So astonished was
Washington at the action of Congress that at first
he could not believe it. He thought either that

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 253
Arnold must reaUy have received a prior appoint
ment, which for some reason had not yet been
made public, or else that his name must have been
omitted through some unaccountable oversight. It
turned out, however, on further inquiry, that state
jealousies had been the cause of the mischief.
The reason assigned for ignoring Arnold's services
was that Connecticut had already two major-gen
erals, and was not in fairness entitled to any more !
But beneath this alleged reason there lurked a
deeper reason, likewise founded in jealousies be
tween the states. The intrigues which soon after
disgraced the northern army and imperiUed the
safety of the country had already begun to bear
bitter fruit. Since the beginning of the war, Ma
jor-General Philip Schuyler had been in command
of the northern department, with his headquarters
at Albany, whence his ancestors had a century
before hurled defiance at Frontenac. phiup geimy.
His family was one of the most distin- ^^'^^
guished in New York, and an inherited zeal for the
public service thriUed in every drop of his blood.
No more upright or disinterested man could be
found in America, and for bravery and generosity
he was like the paladin of some mediaeval romance.
In spite of these fine qualities, he was bitterly
hated by the New England men, who formed a
considerable portion of his army. Beside the
general stupid dislike which the people of New
York aud of New England then felt for each other,
echoes of which are still sometimes heard nowa
days, there was a special reason for the odium
which was heaped upon Schuyler. The dispute over

254 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
the possession of Vermont had now raged fiercely
for thirteen years, and Schuyler, as a member of
the New York legislature, had naturally been zeal
ous in urging the claims of his own state. For
this crime the men of New England were never
able to forgive him, and he was pursued with vin
dictive hatred until his career as a general was
ruined. His orders were obeyed with suUenness,
the worst interpretation was put upon every one
of his acts, and evil-minded busybodies were con
tinuaUy pouring into the ears of Congress a stream
of tattle, which gradually wore out their trust in
him. The evil was greatly enhanced by the fact that
among the generals of the northern army there
was one envious creature who was likely to take
Schuyler's place in case he should be ousted from
it, and who for so desirable an object was ready to
do any amount of intriguing. The part sustained by
Charles Lee with reference to Washington was to
Horatio some cxtcut paraUeled here by the part
sustained toward Schuyler by Horatio
Gates. There is indeed no reason for supposing
that Gates was capable of such baseness as Lee
exhibited in his wilhngness to play into the hands
of the enemy ; nor had he the nerve for such pro
digious treason as that in which Arnold engaged
after his sympathies had become alienated from
the American cause. With aU his faults. Gates
never incurred the odium which belongs to a pub
lic traitor. But his nature was thoroughly weak
and petty, and he never shrank from falsehood
when it seemed to serve his purpose. Unlike Lee,

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 255
he was comely in person, mild in disposition, and
courteous in manner, except when roused to anger or
influenced by spite, when he sometimes became very
violent. He never gave evidence either of skiU or
of bravery ; and in taking part in the war his only
solicitude seems to have been for his own personal
advancement. In the course of his campaigning
with the northern army, he seems never once to
have been under fire, but he would incur no end of
fatigue to get a private talk with a delegate in
Congress. Like many others, he took a high posi
tion at the beginning of the struggle simply be
cause he was a veteran of the Seven Years' War,
having been one of the officers who were brought
off in safety from the wreck of Braddock's army
by the youthful skiU and prowess of Washington.
At present, and until after the end of the Saratoga
campaign, such reputation as he had was won by
appropriating the fame which was earned by his
feUow-generals. He was in command at Ticonder
oga when Arnold performed his venturesome feat
on Lake Champlain, and when Carleton made his
blunder in not attacking the stronghold ; and aU
this story Gates told to Congress as the story of
an advantage which he had somehow gained over
Carleton, at the same time anxiously inquiring if
Congress regarded him, in his remote position at
Ticonderoga, as subject to the orders of Schuyler
at Albany. Finding that he was thus regarded as
subordinate, he became restive, and seized the ear
liest opportunity of making a visit to Congress.
The retreat of Carleton enabled Schuyler to send
seven regiments to the relief of Washington in

256 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
New Jersey, and we have already seen how Gates,
on arriving with this reinforcement, decUned to
assist personaUy in the Trenton campaign, and took
the occasion to foUow Congress in its retreat to
Baltimore. The winter seems to have been spent in intrigue.
Knowing the chief source of Schuyler's unpopu
larity, Gates made it a point to declare, as often
and as loudly as possible, his belief that
Gates intrigues •' ¦*
against the statc of Ncw lork had no title to
Schuyler. . t i .
the Green Mountain country. In this
way he won golden opinions from the people of
New England, and rose high in the good graces
of such members of Congress as Samuel Adams,
whose noble nature was slow to perceive his mean
ness and duplicity. The failure of the invasion of
Canada had caused much chagrin in Congress, and
it was sought to throw the whole blame of it upon
Schuyler for having, as it was aUeged, inadequately
supported Montgomery and Arnold. The unjust
charge served to arouse a prejudice in many minds,
and during the winter some irritated letters passed
between Schuyler and Congress, until late in
March, 1777, he obtained permission to visit Phil
adelphia and vindicate himself. On the 22d of
May, after a thorough investigation, Schuyler's
conduct received the full approval of Congress,
and he was confirmed in his command of the north
ern department, which was expressly defined as
including Lakes George and Champlain, as weU as
the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk.
The sensitive soul of Gates now took fresh of
fence. He had been sent back in March to his post

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 257
at Ticonderoga, just as Schuyler was starting for
Philadelphia, and he flattered himself with the hope
that he would soon be chosen to supersede his gal
lant commander. Accordingly when he found that
Schuyler had been reinstated in all his old com
mand and honours, he flew into a rage, refused to
serve in a subordinate capacity, wrote an impu
dent letter to Washington, and at last Q^teg^^it,
got permission to visit Congress again, Congress.
while General St. Clair was appointed in his stead
to the command of the great northern fortress.
On the 19th of June, Gates obtained a hearing
before Congress, and behaved with such unseemly
violence that after being repeatedly called to order,
he was turned out of the room, amid a scene of
angry confusion. Such conduct should naturally
have ruined his cause, but he had made so many
powerful friends that by dint of more or less
apologetic talk the offence was condoned.
Throughout these bickerings Arnold had been
the steadfast friend of Schuyler ; and although his
brilliant exploits had won general admiration he did
not fail to catch some of the odium so plentifuUy
bestowed upon the New York commander. In the
chaos of disappointment and wrath which ensued
upon the disastrous retreat from Canada in 1776,
when everybody was eager to punish somebody else
for the ill fortune which was solely due to the su
perior resources of the enemy, Arnold ^^^^ ^^
came in for his share of blame. No one against Ar-
could find any fault with his military con
duct, but charges were brought against him on the
ground of some exactions of private property at

258 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Montreal which had been made for the support of
the army. A thorough investigation of the case
demonstrated Arnold's entire uprightness in the
matter, and the verdict of Congress, which declared
the charges to be " cruel and unjust," was heartUy
indorsed by Washington. Nevertheless, in the
manifold complications of feeling which surrounded
the Schuyler trouble, these unjust charges suc
ceeded in arousing a prejudice which may have had
something to do with the slight cast upon Arnold
in the appointment of the new major-generals. In
the whole course of American history there are few
sadder chapters than this. Among the scandals of
this eventful winter we can trace the beginnings of
the melancholy chain of events which by and by
resulted in making the once heroic name of Bene
dict Arnold a name of opprobrium throughout the
world. We already begin to see, too, originating
in Lee's intrigues of the preceding autumn, and
nourished by the troubles growing out of the Ver
mont quarrel and the ambitious schemes of Gates,
the earliest germs of that faction which erelong was
to seek to compass the overthrow of Washington
himself. For the present the injustice suffered by Arnold
had not wrought its darksome change in him. A
long and complicated series of influences was re
quired to produce that result. To the earnest ap-
l^eal of Washington that he should not resign he
responded cordiaUy, declaring that no personal con
siderations should induce him to stay at home while
the interests of his country were at stake. He would
zealously serve even under his juniors, who had

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 259
lately been raised above him, so long as the com
mon welfare was in danger. An oppor-
,.,(.,. . , Tryon's expe-
tunity tor active service soon presented aition against
itself. Among the preparations for the " "'^'
coming summer campaign. Sir WiUiam Howe
thought it desirable to cripple the Americans by
seizing a large quantity of military stores which
had been accumulated at Danbury in Connecticut.
An expedition was sent out, very much like that
which at Lexington and Concord had ushered in
the war, and it met with a similar reception. A
force of 2,000 men, led by the royal governor,
Tryon, of North Carolina fame, landed at Fair
field, and marched to Danbury, where they de
stroyed the stores and burned a large part of the
town. The militia turned out, as on the day of
Lexington, led by General Wooster, who was slain
in the first skirmish. By this time Arnold, who
happened to be visiting his chUdren in Arnold defeats
New Haven, had heard of the affair, and BX°flei<i
came upon the scene with 600 men. At ^^'^ ^' ^"^'
Ridgefield a desperate fight ensued, in which Ar
nold had two horses killed under him. The British
were defeated. By the time they reached their
ships, 200 of their number had been killed or
wounded, and, with the yeomanry swarming on
every side, they narrowly escaped capture. For
his share in this action Arnold was now made a
major-general, and was presented by Congress with
a fine horse ; but nothing was done towards restor
ing him to his relative rank, nor was any explar
nation vouchsafed. Washington offered him the
command of the Hudson at PeekskiU, which was

260 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
liable to prove one of the important points in the
ensuing campaign ; but Arnold for the moment
declined to take any such position until he should
have conferred with Congress, and fathomed the
nature of the difficulties by which he had been be
set ; and so the command of this important position
was given to the veteran Putnam.
The time for the summer campaign was now
at hand. The first year of the independence of
the United States was nearly completed, and up
to this time the British had nothing to show for
their work except the capture of the city of New
York and the occupation of Newport. The army
of Washington, which six months ago they had
regarded as conquered and dispersed, stiU balked
and threatened them from its inexpugnable posi
tion on the heights of Morristown. It was high
time that something more solid should be accom
plished, for every month of adverse possession
added fresh weight to the American cause, and in
creased the probability that France would interfere.
A decisive blow was accordingly about to be
struck. After careful study by Lord George Ger
main, and much consultation with General Bur
goyne, who had returned to England for the win
ter, it was decided to adhere to the plan of the
preceding year, with slight modifications. The
great object was to secure firm possession of the
entire valley of the Hudson, together with that of
the Mohawk. It must be borne in mind that at
this time the inhabited part of the state of New
York consisted almost entirely of the Mohawk and
Hudson valleys. AU the rest was unbroken wU-

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 261
derness, save for an occasional fortified trading-
post. With a total population of about
170,000, New York ranked seventh centre of the
, , . United States
among the thirteen states ; lust after was the state
TIT 11 1 /-I . . of New York.
Maryland and Connecticut, just before
South Carolina. At the same time, the geograph
ical position of New York, whether from a com
mercial or from a military point of view, was as
commanding then as it has ever been. It was
thought that so small a population, among which
there were known to be many Tories, might easily
be conquered and the country firmly held. The
people of New Jersey and Pennsylvania were re
garded as lukewarm supporters of the Declaration
of Independence, and it was supposed that the
conquest of New York might soon be followed by
the subjection of these two provinces. With the
British power thus thrust, like a vast wedge,
through the centre of the confederacy, it would be
impossible for New England to cooperate with the
southern states, and it was hoped that the union
of the colonies against the Crown would thus be
effectually broken.
With this object of conquering New York, we
have seen Carleton, in 1776, approaching through
Lake Champlain, while Howe was wresting Man
hattan Island from Washington. But the plan
was imperfectly conceived, and the cooperation
was feeble. How feeble it was is weU shown by
the fact that Carleton's ill-judged retreat from
Crown Point enabled Schuyler to , send reinforce
ments to Washington in time to take part in the
great strokes at Trenton and Princeton. Some-

262 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
thing, however, had been accomplished. In spite
of Arnold's desperate resistance and Washington's
consummate skUl, the enemy had gained a hold
upon both the northern and the southern ends of
the long line. But this obstinate resistance served
to some extent to awaken the enemy to the arduous
character of the problem. The plan
A second blow (. n i. i i .
to be struck at was more carefuUy studied, and it was
the centre. , ^ '^ ^
The plan of intended that this time the cooperation
campaign. -*¦
should be more effectual. In order to
take possession of the whole state by one grand
system of operations, it was decided that the inva
sion should be conducted by three distinct armies
operating upon converging lines. A strong force
from Canada was to take Ticonderoga, and pro
ceed down the line of the Hudson to Albany.
This force was now to be commanded by General
Burgoyne, while his superior officer. General Carle
ton, remained at Quebec. A second and much
smaller force, under Colonel St. Leger, was to go
up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, land at Os
wego, and, with the aid of Sir John Johnson and
the Indians, reduce Fort Stanwix ; after which he
was to come down the Mohawk vaUey and unite
his forces with those of Burgoyne. At the same
time. Sir WUliam Howe was to ascend the Hud
son with the main army, force the passes of the
Highlands at PeekskiU, and effect a junction with
Burgoyne at Albany. The junction of the three
armies was expected to complete the conquest of
New York, and to insure the overthrow of Ameri
can independence.
Such was the plan of campaign prepared by the

BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN
July-October, 1777

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 263
ministry. There can be no doubt that it was care
fuUy studied, or that, if successful, it would have
proved very disastrous to the Americans. There
is room for very grave doubt, however, as to
whether it was the most judicious plan to adopt.
The method of invading any country by distinct
forces operating upon converging lines is open to
the objection that either force is liable to be sepa
rately overwhelmed without the possibility of rein
forcement from the other. Such a plan ^he plan was
is prudent only when the invaded conn- ™=''™<i-
try has good roads, and when the invaders have a
great superiority in force, as was the case when
the aUIed armies advanced upon Paris in 1814.
In northern and central New York, in 1777, the
conditions were very unfavourable to such a plan.
The distances to be traversed were long, and the
roads were few and bad. Except in the immediate
neighbourhood of Albany and Saratoga, the coun
try was covered with the primeval forest, through
which only the trapper and the savage could make
their way with speed. The Americans, too, had
the great advantage of operating upon interior
lines. It was difficult for Burgoyne at Fort Ed
ward, St. Leger before Fort Stanwix, and Howe in
the city of New York to communicate with each
other at all ; it was impossible for them to do so
promptly ; whereas nothing could be easier than
for Washington at Morristown to reach Putnam at
PeekskiU, or for Putnam to forward troops to
Schuyler at Albany, or for Schuyler to send out a
force to raise the siege of Fort Stanwix. In view
of these considerations, it seems probable that

264 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Lord George Germain would have acted more
wisely if he had sent Burgoyne with his army di
rectly by sea to reinforce Sir William Howe.
The army thus united, and numbering more than
30,000 men, would have been really formidable.
If they had undertaken to go up the river to Al
bany, it would have been hard to prevent them.
If their united presence at Albany was the great
object of the campaign, there was no advantage in
sending one commander to reach it by a difficiUt
and dangerous overland march. The Hudson is
navigable by large vessels all the way to Albany,
and by advancing in this way the army might have
preserved its connections ; and whatever disaster
might have befallen, it would have been difficidt
for the Americans to surround and capture so
large a force. Once arrived at Albany, the expe
dition of St. Leger might have set out from that
point as a matter of subsequent detaU, and would
have had a base within easj' distance upon which
to fall back in case of defeat.
It does not appear, therefore, that there were
any advantages to be gained by Burgoyne's ad
vance from the north which can be regarded as
commensurate with the risk which he incurred.
To have transferred the northern army from the
St. Lawrence to the Hudson by sea would have
been far easier and safer than to send it through
a hundred miles of wilderness in northern New
York ; and whatever it could have effected in the
interior of the state could have been done as well
in the former case as in the latter. But these con
siderations do not seem to have occurred to Lord

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 265
George Germain. In the wars with the French,
the invading armies from Canada had always come
by way of Lake Champlain, so that this route was
accepted without question, as if consecrated by
long usage. Through a similar association of ideas
an exaggerated importance was attached to the
possession of Ticonderoga. The risks Germaine's
of the enterprise, moreover, were greatly '°'*^^ '''¦'"^¦
underestimated. In imagining that the routes of
Burgoyne and St. Leger would lie through a
friendly country, the ministry fatally misconceived
the whole case. There was, indeed, a powerful
Tory party in the country, just as in the days of
Robert Bruce there was an English party in Scot
land, just as in the days of Miltiades there was a
Persian party in Attika. But no one has ever
doubted that the victors at Marathon and at Ban-
nockburn went forth with a hearty godspeed from
their fellow-countrymen ; and the obstinate resist
ance encountered by St. Leger, within a short dis
tance of Johnson's Tory stronghold, is an eloquent
commentary upon the error of the ministry in the
estimate of the actual significance of the loyalist
element on the New York frontier.
It thus appears that in the plan of a triple inva
sion upon converging lines the ministry were deal
ing with too many unknown quantities.
rr\, . 1 • • * 1 ^<^o many
Ihey were running a prodigious risk unknown
for the sake of an advantage which in
itself was extremely open to question ; for should
it turn out that the strength of the Tory party was
not sufficiently great to make the junction of the
three armies at Albany at once equivalent to the

266 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
complete conquest of the state, then the end for
which the campaign was undertaken could not be
secured without supplementary campaigns. Neither
a successful march up and down the Hudson river
nor the erection of a chain of British fortresses
on that river could effectually cut off the southern
communications of New England, unless aU mili
tary resistance were finally crushed in the state
of New York. The surest course for the British,
therefore, would have been to concentrate aU their
available force at the mouth of the Hudson, and
continue to make the destruction of Washington's
army the chief object of their exertions. In view
of the subtle genius which he had shown during
the last campaign, that woidd have been an ardu
ous task ; but, as events showed, they had to deal
with his genius all the same on the plan which they
adopted, and at a great disadvantage.
Another point which the ministry overlooked
was the effect of Burgoyne's advance upon the peo
ple of New England. They could reasonably count
upon alarming the yeomanry of New Hampshire
and Massachusetts by a bold stroke
Danger from "^
New England uuon the Hudson, but they failed to see
ignored. ^ ^ '^ ^
that this alarm would naturally bring
about a rising that would be very dangerous to
the British cause. Difficult as it was at that time
to keep the Continental army properly recruited,
it was not at all difficult to arouse the yeomanry
in the presence of an immediate danger. In the
western parts of New England there were scarcely
any Tories to complicate the matter ; and the flank
movement by the New England militia became one
of the most formidable features in the case.

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 267
But whatever may be thought of the merits of
Lord George's plan, there can be no doubt that its
success was absolutely dependent upon the har
monious coijperation of all the forces involved in
it. The ascent of the Hudson by Sir WiUiam
Howe, with the main army, was as essential a part
of the scheme as the descent of Burgoyne from
the north ; and as the two commanders could not
easily communicate with each other, it was neces
sary that both should be strictly bound by their
instructions. At this point a fatal blunder was
made. Burgoyne was expressly directed to follow
the prescribed line down the Hudson, whatever
might happen, until he should effect his junction
with the main army. On the other hand, no such
unconditional orders were received by Howe. He
understood the plan of campaign, and knew that
he was expected to ascend the river in force ; but
he was left with the usual discretionary power, and
we shaU presently see what an impru-
., , , 1 p . , rry. The dispatch
dent use he made ot it. Ihe reasons that was
for this inconsistency on the part of the
ministry were for a long tune unintelligible ; but
a memorandum of Lord Shelburne, lately brought
to light by Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, has solved
the mystery. It seems that a dispatch, containing
positive and explicit orders for Howe to ascend
the Hudson, was duly drafted, and, with many
other papers, awaited the minister's signature.
Lord George Germain, being on his way to the
country, called at his office to sign the dispatches ;
but when he came to the letter addressed to Gen
eral Howe, he found it had not been " fair copied."

268 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Lord George, hke the old gentleman who kiUed
himself in defence of the great principle that crum
pets are wholesome, never would be put out of
his way by anything. UnwiUing to lose his holi
day he hurried off to the green meadows of Kent,
intending to sign the letter on his return. But
when he came back the matter had slipped from
his mind. The document on which hung the for
tunes of an army, and perhaps of a nation, got
thrust unsigned into a pigeon-hole, where it was
duly discovered some time after the disaster at
Saratoga had become part of history.
Happy in his ignorance of the risks he was
assuming, Burgoyne took the field about the 1st
of June, with an army of 7,902 men, of whom
4,135 were British regulars. His German troops
from Brunswick, 3,116 in number, were com
manded by Baron Riedesel, an able general, whose
accomplished wife has left us such a picturesque
and charming description of the scenes of this ad
venturous campaign. Of Canadian militia there
were 118, and of Indians 503. The regular troops,
both German and English, were superbly trained
and equipped, and their officers were selected with
especial care. Generals Phillips and Eraser were
regarded as among the best officers in the British
service. On the second anniversary of
vances upon Buiikcr HIU thls army began crossing
Ticonderoga. i , , /-, -r> . i ,
the lake to Crown Point ; and on the
1st of July it appeared before Ticonderoga, where
St. Clair was posted with a garrison of 3,000 men.
Since its capture by Allen, the fortress had been

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 269
carefuUy strengthened, until it was now believed to
be impregnable. But while no end of time and ex
pense had been devoted to the fortifications, a neigh
bouring point which commands the whole position
had been strangely neglected. A little less than
a mile south of Ticonderoga, the narrow mountain
ridge between the two lakes ends abruptly in a
bold crag, which rises 600 feet sheer over the blue
water. Practised eyes In the American fort had
already seen that a hostile battery planted on this
eminence would render their stronghold untenable ;
but it was not believed that siege-guns could be
dragged up the steep ascent, and so, in
., (. 1 . ji 11, Phillips seizes
spite ot due warning, the crag had not Mount Dca-
been secured when the British army ar
rived. General PhiUips at once saw the value of
the position, and, approaching it by a defile that
was screened from the view of the fort, worked
night and day in breaking out a pathway and drag
ging up cannon. " Where a goat can go, a man
may go ; and where a man can go, he can haul up
a gun," argued the gallant general. Great was
the astonishment of the garrison when, on the
morning of July 5th, they saw red coats swarming
on the top of the hiU, which the British, rejoicing
in their exploit, now named Mount Defiance. There
were not only red coats there, but brass cannon,
which by the next day would be ready for work.
Ticonderoga had become a trap, from which the
garrison could not escape too quickly, st. ciairaban-
A council of war was held, and under derogljjSyS,
cover of night St. Clair took his little ^''"•
army across the lake and retreated upon Castleton

270 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
in the Green Mountains. Such guns and stores
as could be saved, with the women and wounded
men, were embarked in 200 boats, and sent, under
a strong escort, to the head of the lake, whence
they continued their retreat to Fort Edward on
the Hudson. About three o'clock in the morning
a house accidentaUy took fire, and in the glare of
the flames the British sentinels caught a glimpse of
the American rear-guard just as it was vanishing
in the sombre depths of the forest. Alarm guns
were fired, and in less than an hour the British
flag was hoisted over the empty fortress, while
General Eraser, with 900 men, had started in hot
pursuit of the retreating Americans. Riedesel was
soon sent to support him, while Burgoyne, leav
ing nearly 1,000 men to garrison the fort, started
up the lake with the main body of the army.
„ On the morning of the 7th, General
Battle of Hub- *' _ '
bardton, Frascr ovcrtook the American rear-
July 7. guard of 1,000 men, under Colonels
Warner and Francis, at the village of Hubbard
ton, about six miles behind the main army. A
fierce fight ensued, in which Eraser was worsted,
and had begun to fall back, with the loss of one
fifth of his men, when Riedesel came up with his
Germans, and the Americans were put to flight,
leaving one third of their number killed or wounded.
This obstinate resistance at Hubbardton served to
check the pursuit, and five days later St. Clair
succeeded, without further loss, in reaching Fort
Edward, where he joined the main army under
Schuyler. Up to this moment, considering the amount of

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 271
work done and the extent of country traversed, the
loss of the British had been very small. They be
gan to speak contemptuously of their antagonists,
and the officers amused themselves by
1 . , , 1 . , One swallow
laying wagers as to the precise number does not make
of days it would take them to reach Al
bany. In commenting on the failure to occupy
Mount Defiance, Burgoyne made a general state
ment on the strength of a single instance, — which
is the besetting sin of human reasoning. " It con
vinces me," said he, " that the Americans have no
men of military science." Yet General Howe at
Boston, in neglectingto occupy Dorchester Heights,
had made just the same blunder, and with less ex
cuse ; for no one had ever doubted that batteries
might be placed there by somebody.
In England the faU of Ticonderoga was greeted
with exultation, as the death-blow to the American
cause. Horace Walpole tells how the The king's
king rushed into the queen's apartment, ^'^®-
clapping his hands and shouting, "I have beat
them ! I have beat aU the Americans ! " People
began to discuss the best method of reestablishing
the royal governments in the " colonies." In
America there was general consternation. St.
Clair was greeted with a storm of abuse. John
Adams, then president of the Board of -^^t^oijoim
War, wrote, in the first white heat of ^^^'¦
indignation, " We shaU never be able to defend a
post till we shoot a general ! " Schuyler, too, as
commander of the department, was ignorantly and
wildly blamed, and his political enemies seized
upon the occasion to circulate fresh stories to his

272 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
discredit. A court-martial In the following year
vindicated St. Clair's prudence in giving up an un
tenable position and saving his army from capture.
The verdict was just, but there is no doubt that
the failure to fortify Mount Defiance was a grave
error of judgment, for which the historian may
fairly apportion the blame between St. Clair and
Gates. It was Gates who had been in command
of Ticonderoga in the autumn of 1776, when an
attack by Carleton was expected, and his attention
had been caUed to this weak point by Colonel
TrumbuU, whom he laughed to scorn. Gates had
again been in command from March to June. St.
Clair had taken command about three weeks be
fore Burgoyne's approach ; he had seriously con.-
sidered the question of fortifying Mount Defiance,
but had not been sufficiently prompt. In no case
Gates chiefly could any blame attach to Schuyler.
to blame. Gatcs was morc at fault than any one
else, but he did not happen to be at hand when the
catastrophe occurred, and accordingly people did
not associate him with it. On the contrary, amid
the general wrath, the loss of the northern citadel
was alleged as a reason for superseding Schuyler
by Gates ; for if he had been there, it was thought
that the disaster would have been prevented.
The irony of events, however, alike ignoring
American consternation and British glee, showed
that the capture of Ticonderoga was not to help
the invaders in the least. On the contrary, it
straightway became a burden, for it detained an
eighth part of Burgoyne's force in garrison at a
time when he could ill spare it. Indeed, alarming

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 21 S
as his swift advance had seemed at first, Burgoyne's
serious difficulties were now just begin
ning, and the harder he laboured to sur- difficulties be-
gin.
mount them the more completely did
he work himself into a position from which it was
impossible either to advance or to recede. On the
10th of July his whole army had reached Skenes-
borough (now Whitehall), at the head of Lake
Champlain. From this point to Fort Edward,
where the American army was encamped, the dis
tance was twenty miles as the crow flies ; but
Schuyler had been industriously at work with
those humble weapons the axe and the crowbar,
which in warfare sometimes prove mightier than
the sword. The roads, bad enough at their best,
were obstructed every few yards by huge trunks of
fallen trees, that lay with their boughs interwoven.
Wherever the little streams could serve as aids to
the march, they were choked up with stumps and
stones; wherever they served as obstacles which
needed to be crossed, the bridges were broken
down. The country was such an intricate laby
rinth of creeks and swamps that more than forty
bridges had to be rebuilt in the course of the
march. Under these circumstances, Burgoyne's
advance must be regarded as a marvel of celerity.
He accomplished a mile a day, and reached Fort
Edward on the 30th of July.
In the mean time Schuyler had crossed the
Hudson, and slowly faUen back to Still- gchuyier
water, about thirty mUes above Albany. Ttes Fori Ed-
For this retrograde movement fresh ""'^'
blame was visited upon him by the general public,

274 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
which at aU times is apt to suppose that a war
should mainly consist of bloody battles, and which
can seldom be made to understand the strategic
value of a retreat. The facts of the case were also
misunderstood. Fort Edward was supposed to be
an impregnable stronghold, whereas it was really
commanded by highlands. The Marquis de Chas-
teUux, who visited it somewhat later, declared that
it could be taken at any time by 500 men with four
siege-guns. Now for fighting purposes an open
field is much better than an untenable fortress. If
Schuyler had stayed in Fort Edward, he would
probably have been forced to surrender ; and his
wisdom in retreating is further showTi by the fact
that every moment of delay counted in his favour.
The militia of New York and New England were
already beating to arms. Some of those yeomen
who were with the army were aUowed to go home
for the harvest ; but the loss was more than made
good by the numerous levies which, at Schuyler's
suggestion and by Washington's orders, were col
lecting under General Lincoln in Vermont, for the
purpose of threatening Burgoyne in the
ering in Bur- rcar. The pcoplc whosc territory was
goyne's rear. _ ^ '^ ^ ^
invaded grew daily more troublesome to
the enemy. Burgoyne had supposed that it would
be necessary only to show himself at the head of an
army, when the people would rush by hundreds to
offer support or seek protection. He now found
that the people withdrew from his line of advance,
driving their cattle before them, and seeking shel
ter, when possible, within the lines of the Ameri
can army. In his reliance upon the aid of New

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 275
York loyalists, he was utterly disappointed ; very
few Tories joined him, and these could offer neither
sound advice nor personal influence wherewith to
help him. When the yeomanry coUected by hun
dreds, it was only to vex him and retard his pro
gress. Even had the loyalist feeling on the Vermont
frontier of New York been far stronger than it
reaUy was, Burgoyne had done much to alienate or
stifle it by his iU-ad vised employment of ^j^g ^f Indian
Indian auxiUaries. For this blunder *°^'^™=-
the responsibility rests mainly with Lord North
and Lord George Germaine. Burgoyne had little
choice in the matter except to carry out his instruc
tions. Being a humane man, and sharing, per
haps, in that view of the " noble savage " which
was fashionable in Europe in the eighteenth cen
tury, he fancied he could prevail upon his tawny
allies to forego their cherished pastime of murder
ing and scalping. When, at the beginning of the
campaign, he was joined by a party of Wyandots
and Ottawas, under command of that same re
doubtable Charles de Langlade who, twenty-two
years before, had achieved the ruin of Braddock,
he explained his policy to them in an elaborate
speech, full of such sentimental phrases as the In
dian mind was supposed to delight in. The
slaughter of aged men, of women and children and
unresisting prisoners, was absolutely
c x Burgoyne's
prohibited ; and "on no account, or pre- address to the
tense, or subtlety, or prevarication,"
were scalps to be taken from wounded or dying
men. An order more likely to prove efficient was

276 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
one which provided a reward for every savage who
should bring his prisoners to camp in safety. To
these injunctions, which must have inspired them
with pitying contempt, the chiefs laconically re
plied that they had " sharpened their hatchets upon
their affections," and were ready to follow their
" great white father."
The employment of savage auxiliaries was in
dignantly denounced by the opposition in Parlia-
it is ridiculed ^^^ut, and wheu the news of this speech
by Burke. ^jf Burgoyuc's rcachcd England it was
angrily ridiculed by Burke, who took a sounder
view of the natural instincts of the red man.
" Suppose," said Burke, " that there was a riot on
Tower Hill. What would the keeper of his majes
ty's lions do ? Would he not fling open the dens
of the wild beasts, and then address them thus ?
' My gentle lions, my humane bears, my tender
hearted hyenas, go forth ! But I exhort you, as
you are Christians and members of civilized soci-
et}^, to take care not to hurt any man, woman, or
child ! ' " The House of Commons was convulsed
over this grotesque picture ; and Lord North, to
whom it seemed irresistibly funny to hear an ab
sent man thus denounced for measures which he
himself had originated, sat choking with laughter,
while tears roUed down his great fat cheeks.
It soon turned out, however, to be no laughing
matter. The cruelties inflicted indiscriminately
upon patriots and loyalists soon served to madden
the yeomanry, and array against the invaders
whatever wavering sentiment had hitherto re
mained in the country. One sad incident in par-

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 277
ticular has been treasured up in the memory of
the people, and celebrated in song and „, ,
story. Jenny McCrea, the beautiful J^ne McCrea.
daughter of a Scotch clergyman of Paulus Hook,
was at Fort Edward, visiting her friend Mrs. Mc
Neil, who was a loyalist and a cousin of General
Eraser. On the morning of July 27th, a maraud
ing party of Indians burst into the house, and car
ried away the two ladies. They were soon pursued
by some American soldiers, who exchanged a few
shots with them. In the confusion which ensued
the party was scattered, and Mrs. McNeU was
taken alone into the camp of the approaching Brit
ish army. Next day a savage of gigantic stature,
a famous sachem, known as the Wyandot Pan
ther, came into the camp with a scalp which Mrs.
McNeil at once recognized as Jenny's, from the
silky black tresses, more than a yard in length.
A search was made, and the body of the poor girl
was found hard by a spring in the forest, pierced
with three bullet wounds. How she came to her
cruel death was never known. The Panther plau
sibly declared that she had been accidentaUy shot
during the scuffle with the soldiers, but his vera
city was open to question, and the few facts that
were known left ample room for conjecture. The
popular imagination soon framed its story with a
romantic completeness that thrust aside even these
few facts. Miss McCrea was betrothed to David
Jones, a loyalist who was serving as lieutenant in
Burgoyne's army. In the legend which immedi
ately sprang up, Mr. Jones was said to have sent
a party of Indians, with a letter to his betrothed,

278 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
entreating her to come to him within the British
lines that they might be married. For bringing
her to him in safety the Indians were to receive a
barrel of rum. When she had entrusted herself
to their care, and the party had proceeded as far
as the spring, where the savages stopped to drink,
a dispute arose as to who was to have the custody
of the barrel of rum, and many high words ensued,
until one of the party settled the question offhand
by slaying the lady with his tomahawk. It would
be hard to find a more interesting example of the
mushroom-like growth and obstinate vitality of a
romantic legend. The story seems to have had
nothing in common with the observed facts, except
the existence of the two lovers and the Indians
and a spring in the forest.^ Yet it took possession
of the popular mind almost immediately after the
event, and it has ever since been repeated, with
endless variations in detaU, by American historians.
Mr. Jones himself — who lived, a broken-hearted
1 I leave this as I wrote it in June, 1883. Since then another
version of the facts has been suggested by W. L. Stone in Apple-
ton's Cyclopcedia of American Biography. In this version, Mr.
Jones sends a party of Indians under the half-breed Duluth to
escort Miss McCrea to the camp, where they are to be married
by Mr. Brudenell, the chaplain. It is to be quite a fine little
wedding, and the Baroness Riedesel and Lady Harriet Ackland
are to be among the spectators. Before Duluth reaches Mrs.
McNeil's house, the Wyandot Panther (here known by the name
of a different beast, Le Loup) with his party attacks the house
and carries o£E the two ladies. The Panther's party meets Dn-
luth's near the spring. Duluth insists upon taking Jenny with
hira, and high words ensue between him and the Panther, until
the latter, in a towering rage, draws his pistol and shoots the
girl. This version, if correct, goes some way toward reconciling
the legend with the observed facts.

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 279
man, for half a century after the tragedy — was
never weary of pointing out its falsehood and ab
surdity ; but all his testimony, together with that
of Mrs. McNeil and other witnesses, to the facts
that really happened was powerless to shake the
hold upon the popular fancy which the legend had
instantly gained. Such an instance, occurring in
a community of shrewd and well-educated people,
affords a suggestive commentary upon the origin
and growth of popular tales in earlier and more
ignorant ages.
But in whatever way poor Jenny may have come
to her death, there can be no doubt as to the mis
chief which it swiftly wrought for the invading
army. In the first place, it led to the desertion
of all the savage aUies. Burgoyne was a man of
quick and tender sympathy, and the fate of this
sweet young lady shocked him as it shocked the
American people. He would have had the Pan
ther promptly hanged, but that his guilt was not
clearly proved, and many of the officers argued
that the execution of a famous and popular sachem
would enrage all the other Indians, and might en
danger the lives of many of the soldiers. The
Panther's hfe was accordingly spared,
but Burgoyne made it a rule that hence- desert Bur-
forth no party of Indians should be
aUowed to go marauding save under the lead of
some British officer, who might watch and restrain
them. When this rule was put in force, the tawny
savages grunted and growled for two or three days,
and then, with hoarse yells and hoots, all the five
hundred broke loose from the camp, and scampered

280 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
off to the Adirondack wilderness. From a military
point of view, the loss was small, save in so far as
it deprived the army of valuable scouts and guides.
But the thirst for vengeance which was aroused
among the yeomanry of northern New York, of
Vermont, and of western Massachusetts was a
much more serious matter. The lamentable story
was told at every village fireside, and no detail of
pathos or of horror was forgotten. The name of
Jenny McCrea became a watchword, and a fort
night had not passed before General Lincoln had
gathered on the British flank an army of stout and
resolute farmers, inflamed with such wrath as had
not filled their bosoms since the day when all New
England had rushed to besiege the enemy in Boston.
Such a force of untrained yeomanry is of little
use in prolonged warfare, but on important occa
sions it is sometimes capable of dealing heavy
blows. We have seen what it could do on the
memorable day of Lexington. It was now about
to strike, at a critical moment, with stUl more
deadly effect. Burgoyne's advance, laborious as it
had been for the last three weeks, was now stopped
for want of horses to drag the cannon and carry
the provision bags ; and the army, moreover, was
already suffering from hunger. The little vlUage
.. , , of Bennington, at the foot of the Green
Importance of a '
Burgo"™™' Mountains, had been selected by the
manforS^' Ncw England militia as a centre of
against it. supplies. Many hundred horses had
been collected there, with ample stores of food and
ammunition. To capture this village would give
Burgoyne the warlike material he wanted, while at

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 281
the same time it would paralyze the movements of
Lincoln, and perhaps dispel the ominous cloud
that was gathering over the rear of the British
army. Accordingly, on the 13th of August, a
strong detachment of 500 of Riedesel's men, with
100 newly arrived Indians and a couple of cannon,
was sent out to seize the stores at Bennington,
Lieutenant-Colonel Baum commanded the expedi
tion, and he was accompanied by Major Skene, an
American loyalist, who assured Burgoyne on his
honour that the Green Mountains were swarming
with devoted subjects of King George, who would
flock by hundreds to his standard as soon as it
should be set up among them. That these loyal
recruits might be organized as quickly as possible,
Burgoyne sent along with the expedition a skele
ton regiment of loyalists, all duly officered, into
the ranks of which they might be mustered with
out delay. The loyal recruits, however, turned
out to be the phantom of a distempered imagina
tion : not one of them appeared in the flesh. On
the contrary, the demeanour of the people was so
threatening that Baum became convinced that hard
work was before him, and next day he sent back
for reinforcements. Lieutenant-Colonel Breymann
was accordingly sent to support him, with another
body of 500 Germans and two field-pieces.
Meanwhile Colonel Stark was preparing a warm
reception for the invaders. We have already seen
John Stark, a gallant veteran of the Seven Years'
War, serving with distinction at Bunker HiU and
at Trenton and Princeton. He was considered one
of the ablest officers in the army ; but he had

282 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
lately gone home in disgust, for, like Arnold, he had
been passed over by Congress in the list
to recelv^thr of promotlous. Tired of sulking in his
tent, no sooner did this rustic Achilles
hear of the invaders' presence in New England
than he forthwith sprang to arms, and in the twin
kling of an eye 800 stout yeomen were marching
under his orders. He refused to take instructions
from any superior officer, but declared that he was
acting under the sovereignty of New Hampshire
alone, and would proceed upon his own responsi
bility in defending the common cause. At the
same time he sent word to General Lincoln, at
Manchester in the Green Mountains, asking him
to lend him the services of Colonel Seth Warner,
with the gaUant regiment which had checked the
advance of Eraser at Hubbardton. Lincoln sent
the reinforcement without delay, and after march
ing all night in a drenching rain, the men reached
Bennington in the morning, wet to the skin. Telling
them to follow him as soon as they should have
dried and rested themselves. Stark pushed on, with
his main body, and found the enemy about six
miles distant. On meeting this large force, Baum
hastily took up a strong position on some rising
ground behind a small stream, everywhere forda-
ble, known as the Walloomsac river. All day long
the rain fell in torrents, and while the Germans
began to throw up intrenchments. Stark laid his
plans for storming their position on the morrow.
During the night a company of Berkshire militia
arrived, and with them the excellent Mr. AUen,
the warlike parson of Pittsfield, who went up to

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 283
Stark and said, "Colonel, our Berkshire people
have been often called out to no purpose, and if
you don't let them fight now they will never turn
out again." " Well," said Stark, " would you have
us turn out now, while it is pitch dark and rain
ing buckets?" "No, not just this minute," re
plied the minister. "Then," said the doughty
Stark, " as soon as the Lord shall once more send
us sunshine, if I don't give you fighting enough,
I'U never ask you to come out again ! "
Next morning the sun rose bright and clear, and
a steam came up from the sodden fields. It was a
true dog-day, sultry and scorching. The forenoon
was taken up in preparing the attack, while Baum
waited in his strong position. The New England
ers outnumbered the Germans two to
, . , . ¦ 1 . , . (.' Battle of Ben-
one, but they were a militia, unfur- nington, Aug.
nished with bayonets or cannon, while
Baum's soldiers were all regulars, picked from the
bravest of the troops which Ferdinand of Bruns
wick had led to victory at Creveld and Minden.
But the excellent German commander, in this
strange country, was no match for the astute Yan
kee on his own ground. Stealthily and leisurely,
during the whole forenoon, the New England farm
ers marched around into Baum's rear. They did
not march in military array, but in little squads,
half a dozen at a time, dressed in their rustic blue
frocks. There was nothing in their appearance
which to a European veteran like Baum could seem
at aU soldier-like, and he thought that here at last
were those blessed Tories, whom he had been
taught to look out for, coming to place themselves

284 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
behind him for protection. Early in the afternoon
he was crueUy undeceived. For while 500 of these
innocent creatures opened upon him a deadly fire in
the rear and on both flanks. Stark, with 500 more,
charged across the shaUow stream and assailed him
in front. The Indians instantly broke and fled
screeching to the woods, while yet there was time
for escape. The Germans stood their ground, and
fought desperately ; but thus attacked on aU sides
at once, they were soon thrown hi to disorder, and
after a two hours' struggle, in which Baum was
mortaUy wounded, they were all captured. At this
moment, as the New England men began to scat
ter to the plunder of the German camp, the re
lieving force of Breymann came upon the scene ;
and the fortunes of the day might have been
changed, had not Warner also arrived with his
600 fresh men in exceUent order. A furious
charge was made upon Breymann, who
Themvading "^ i i i c
force annihi- gavc way, and retreated slowly from hill
to hill, while parties of Americans kept
pushing on to his rear to cut him off. By eight
in the evening, when it had grown too dark to aim
a gun, this second German force was entirely dis
persed or captured. Breymann, with a mere cor
poral's guard of sixty or seventy men, escaped un
der cover of darkness, and reached the British
camp in safety. Of the whole German force of
1,000 men, 207 had been kiUed and wounded, and
more than 700 had been captured. Among the
spoUs of victory were 1,000 stand of arms, 1,D00
dragoon swords, and the four field-pieces. Of the
Americans 14 were killed and 42 wounded.

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 285
The news of this brilliant victory spread joy and
hope throughout the land. Insubordination which
had been crowned with such splendid success could
not but be overlooked, and the gaUant Stark was
at once taken back into the army, and made a
brigadier-general. Not least among the grounds
of exultation was the fact that an army of yeo
manry had not merely defeated, but annihilated, an
army of the Brunswick regulars, with whose Euro
pean reputation for bravery and discipline every
man in the country was familiar. The bolder
spirits began to ask the question why that which
had been done to Baum and Breymann might not
be done to Burgoyne's whole army; and Eiiectofthe
in the excitement of this rising hope, goyne's^ene-
reinf or cements began to pour in faster ™es multiply.
and faster, both to Schuyler at Stillwater and to
Lincoln at Manchester. On the other hand, Bur
goyne at Fort Edward was fast losing heart, as
dangers thickened around him. So far from se
curing his supplies of horses, wagons, and food by
this stroke at Bennington, he had simply lost one
seventh part of his available army, and he was now
clearly in need of reinforcements as well as sup
plies. But no word had yet come from Sir Wil
liam Howe, and the news from St. Leger was any
thing but encouraging. It is now time for us to
turn westward and foUow the wild fortunes of the
second invading column.
About the middle of July, St. Leger had landed
at Oswego, where he was joined by Sir John John
son with his famous Tory regiment known as the

286 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Royal Greens, and Colonel John Butler with his
company of Tory rangers. Great efforts had been
made by Johnson to secure the aid of
Advance of St. , t . -i i i •! -i
Leger upon the Iroquois triDcs, but only with partial
Fort stanwix. ^ it tt
success. ior once the Long House
was fairly divided against itself, and the result of
the present campaign did not redound to its future
prosperity. The Mohawks, under their great chief
Thayendanegea, better known as Joseph Brant,
entered heartily into the British cause, and they
were foUowed, though with less alacrity, by the
Cayugas and Senecas ; but the central tribe, the
Onondagas, remained neutral. Under the influ
ence of the missionary, Samuel Kirkland, the
Oneidas and Tuscaroras actively aided the Amer
icans, though they did not take the field. After
duly arranging his motley force, which amounted
to about 1,700 men, St. Leger advanced very cau
tiously through the woods, and sat down before
Fort Stanwix on the 3d of August. This strong
hold, which had been built in 1756, on the water
shed between the Hudson and Lake Ontario, com
manded the main line of traffic between New York
and Upper Canada. The place was then on the
very outskirts of civilization, and under the pow
erful influence of Johnson the Tory element was
stronger here than in any other part of the state.
Even here, however, the strength of the patriot
party turned out to be much greater than had been
supposed, and at the approach of the enemy the
people began to rise In arms. In this part of New
York there were many Germans, whose ancestors
had come over to America during the horrors of

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 287
the Thirty Years' War; and among these there
was one stout patriot whose name shines conspicu
ously in the picturesque annals of the Revolution.
General Nicholas Herkimer, commander
J? 1 •!• • p m /-I Herkimer
of the militia ot Iryon County, a vet- marches
-^ ^ against him.
eran over sixty years of age, no sooner
heard of St. Leger's approach than he started out
to the rescue of Fort Stanwix ; and by the 5th of
August he had reached Oriskany, about eight
miles distant, at the head of 800 men. The gar
rison of the fort, 600 in number, under Colonel
Peter Gansevoort, had already laughed to scorn
St. Leger's summons to surrender, when, on the
morning of the 6th, they heard a distant firing to
the eastward, which they could not account for.
The mystery was explained when three friendly
messengers floundered through a dangerous swamp
into the fort, and told them of Herkimer's ap
proach and of his purpose. The plan was to over
whelm St. Leger by a concerted attack in front
and rear. The garrison was to make a furious
sortie, while Herkimer, advancing through the for
est, was to faU suddenly upon the enemy from be
hind ; and thus it was hoped that his Herkimer's
army might be crushed or captured at a p'*°'
single blow. To insure completeness of cooperar
tion. Colonel Gansevoort was to fire three guns
immediately upon receiving the message, and upon
hearing this signal Herkimer would begin his march
from Oriskany. Gansevoort would then make
such demonstrations as to keep the whole attention
of the enemy concentrated upon the fort, and thus
guard Herkimer against a surprise by the way,

288 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
until, after the proper interval of time, the garrison
should sally forth in fuU force.
In this bold scheme everything depended upon
absolute coordination in time. Herkimer had dis
patched his messengers so early on the evening of
the 5th that they ought to have reached the fort
by three o'clock the next morning, and at about
that time he began listening for the signal-guns.
But through some unexplained delay it was nearly
eleven in the forenoon when the messengers
reached the fort, as just described. Meanwhile, as
hour after hour passed by, and no signal-guns
were heard by Herkimer's men, they grew impa
tient, and insisted upon going ahead, without re-
Faiiure of the g^rd to the prcconccrtcd plan. Much
^^^' unseemly wrangling ensued, in which
Herkimer was caUed a coward and accused of be
ing a Tory at heart, until, stung by these taunts,
the brave old man at length gave way, and at
about nine o'clock the forward march was resumed.
At this time his tardy messengers stUl lacked two
hours of reaching the fort, but St. Leger's Indian
scouts had already discovered and reported the ap
proach of the American force, and a strong detach
ment of Johnson's Greens under Major Watts, to
gether with Brant and his Mohawks, had been
sent out to intercept them.
About two miles west of Oriskany the road was
crossed by a deep semicircular ravine, concaye
„ ^ toward the east. The bottom of this
Thayendanegea prepares ravine was a swamp, across which the
an ambuscade. ^ '
road was carried by a causeway of logs,
and the steep banks on either side were thickly

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 289
covered with trees and underbrush. The prac
tised eye of Thayendanegea at once perceived the
rare advantage of such a position, and an am
buscade was soon prepared with a skill as deadly
as that which once had wrecked the proud army
of Braddock. But this time it was a meeting of
Greek with Greek, and the wiles of the savage
chief were foiled by a desperate valour which noth
ing could overcome. By ten o'clock the main body
of Herkimer's army had descended into the ravine,
foUowed by the wagons, while the rear-guard was
stUl on the rising ground behind. At this moment
they were greeted by a murderous voUey from
either side, while Johnson's Greens came charging
down upon them in front, and the Indians, with
frightful yells, swarmed in behind and
PP , 1 1 • 1 Battle of Oris-
cut off the rear-guard, which was thus kany, Aug. 6,
. 1777.
obliged to retreat to save itself. For a
moment the main body was thrown into confusion,
but it soon raUied and formed itself in a circle,
which neither bayonet charges nor musket fire
could break or penetrate. The scene which ensued
was one of the most infernal that the history of
savage warfare has ever witnessed. The dark ra-
vine was filled with a mass of fifteen hundred hu
man beings, screaming and cursing, slipping in the
mire, pushing and struggling, seizing each other's
throats, stabbing, shooting, and dashing out brains.
Bodies of neighbours were afterwards found lying
in the bog, where they had gone down in a death-
grapple, their cold hands still grasping the knives
plunged in each other's hearts.
Early in the fight a musket-ball slew Herkimer's

290 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
horse, and shattered his own leg just below the
knee ; but the old hero, nothing daunted, and bat
ing nothing of his coolness in the midst of the hor-
rid struggle, had the saddle taken from his dead
horse and placed at the foot of a great beech-tree,
where, taking his seat and lighting his pipe, he
continued shouting his orders in a stentorian voice
and directing the progress of the battle. Nature
presently enhanced the lurid horror of the scene.
The heat of the August morning had been intoler
able, and black thunder-clouds, overhanging the
deep ravine at the beginning of the action, had
enveloped it in a darkness like that of night.
Now the rain came pouring in torrents, while gusts
of wind howled through the tree-tops, and sheets
of lightning fiashed in quick succession, with a
continuous roar of thunder that drowned the noise
of the fray. The wet rifles could no longer be
fired, but hatchet, knife, and bayonet carried on
the work of butchery, untU, after more than five
hundred men had been killed or wounded, the In
dians gave way and fled in all directions, and the
Retreat of the Tory soldicrs, dlscoucerted, began to re-
Tones. treat up the western road, whUe the pa
triot army, remaining in possession of the hard-
won field, felt itself too weak to pursue them.
At this moment, as the storm cleared away and
long rays of sunshine began fiickering through the
wet leaves, the sound of the three signal-guns came
booming through the air, and presently a sharp
crackling of musketry was heard from the direc
tion of Fort Stanwix. Startled by this ominous
sound, the Tories made all possible haste to join

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 291
their own army, while the patriots, bearing their
wounded on litters of green boughs, returned in sad
procession to Oriskany. With their commander
helpless and more than one third of Retreat ot the
their number slain or disabled, they were '"""°' *™y-
in no condition to engage in a fresh conflict, and
unwillingly confessed that the garrison of Fort
Stanwix must be left to do its part of the work
alone. Upon the arrival of the messengers. Colo
nel Gansevoort had at once taken in the whole
situation. He understood the mysterious firing in
the forest, saw that Herkimer must have been pre
maturely attacked, and ordered his sortie instantly,
to serve as a diversion. The sortie was a brilliant
success. Sir John Johnson, with his Tories and
Indians, was completely routed and driven across
the river. Colonel Marinus Willett took _ , ,.„.,
Colonel Wil-
possession of his camp, and held it while ^*"'^ ^°'*'®'
seven wagons were three times loaded with spoil
and sent to be unloaded in the fort. Among aU
this spoil, together with abundance of food and
drink, blankets and clothes, tools and ammunition,
the victors captured five British standards, and aU
Johnson's papers, maps, and memoranda, contain
ing full instructions for the projected campaign.
After this useful exploit. Colonel Willett returned
to the fort and hoisted the captured British stand
ards, while over thein he raised an uncouth flag,
intended to represent the American . .
. -^ 1 . 1 /-I 11 rirsthoistmg
stars and stripes, which Congress had of the stars
*¦ .11 ^"^"^ stripes.
adopted in June as the national banner.
This rude flag, hastily extemporized out of a white
shirt, an old blue jacket, and some strips of red

292 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
cloth from the petticoat of a soldier's wife, was the
first American flag with stars and stripes that was
ever hoisted, and it was first fiung to the breeze on
the memorable day of Oriskany, August 6, 1777.
Of aU the battles of the Revolution, this was
perhaps the most obstinate and murderous. Each
side seems to have lost not less than one third of
its whole number ; and of those lost, nearly all
were killed, as it was largely a hand-to-hand strug
gle, like the battles of ancient times, and no quar
ter was given on either side. The number of
surviving wounded, who were carried back to
Oriskany, does not seem to have exceeded forty.
Death of Amoug thcse was the indomitable Her-
Herkimer. kimer, whosc shattered leg was so unskil
fully treated that he died a few days later, sitting
in bed propped by pillows, calmly smoking his
Dutch pipe and reading his Bible at the thirty-
eighth Psalm.
For some little time no one could tell exactly
how the results of this fierce and disorderly day
were to be regarded. Both sides claimed a victory,
and St. Leger vainly tried to scare the garrison by
the story that their comrades had been destroyed
in the forest. But iu its effects upon the cam
paign, Oriskany was for the Americans a success,
though an incomplete one. St. Leger was not
crushed, but he was badly crippled. The sacking
of Johnson's camp injured his prestige in the
neighbourhood, and the Indian allies, who had lost
more than a hundred of their best warriors on that
fatal morning, grew daily more sullen and refrac
tory, until their strange behaviour came to be a

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 293
fresh source of anxiety to the British commander.
While he was pushing on the siege as well as he
could, a force of 1,200 troops, under Arnold, was
marching up the Mohawk vaUey to complete his
discomfiture. As soon as he had heard the news of the faU of
Ticonderoga, Washington had dispatched Arnold
to render such assistance as he could to the north
ern army, and Arnold had accordingly arrived at
Schuyler's headquarters about three
weeks ago. Before leaving Philadel- at Schuyler's
camp,
phia, he had appealed to Congress to re
store him to his former rank relatively to the five
junior officers who had been promoted over him,
and he had just learned that Congress had refused
the request. At this moment. Colonel Willett and
another officer, after a perilous journey through
the wilderness, arrived at Schuyler's headquarters,
and, bringing the news of Oriskany, begged that a
force might be sent to raise the siege of Fort Stan
wix. Schuyler understood the importance of res
cuing the stronghold and its brave garrison, aud
caUed a council of war ; but he was bitterly op
posed by his officers, one of whom presently said
to another, in an audible whisper, " He only wants
to weaken the army ! " At this vile insinuation,
the indignant general set his teeth so hard as to
bite through the stem of the pipe he was smok
ing, which fell on the floor and was smashed.
" Enough ! " he cried. " I assume the whole re
sponsibility. Where is the brigadier who will
go ? " The brigadiers all sat in sullen silence ;
but Arnold, who had been brooding over his pri-

294 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
vate grievances, suddenly jumped up. " Here ! "
said he. " Washington sent me here to make my
self useful : I will go." The commander gratefully
seized him by the hand, and the drum
teers to relieve beat for voluntccrs. Aruold's unpopu
larity in New England was mainly with
the politicians. It did not extend to the common
soldiers, who admired his impulsive bravery and
had unbounded faith in his resources as a leader.
Accordingly, 1,200 Massachusetts men were easily
enlisted in the course of the next forenoon, and
the expedition started up the Mohawk valley. Ar
nold pushed on with characteristic energy, but the
natural difficulties of the road were such that after
a week of hard work he had only reached the Ger
man Flats, where he was still more than twenty
miles from Fort Stanwix. Believing that no time
should be lost, and that everything should be done
to encourage the garrison and dishearten the en
emy, he had recourse to a stratagem, which suc
ceeded beyond his utmost anticipation. A party
of Tory spies had just been arrested in the neigh
bourhood, and among them was a certain Yan Yost
Cuyler, a queer, half-witted feUow, not devoid of
cunning, whom the Indians regarded with that
mysterious awe with which fools and lunatics are
wont to inspire them, as creatures possessed with a
devil. Yan Yost was summarily condemned to
death, and his brother and gypsy-like mother, in
wild alarm, hastened to the camp, to plead for his
life. Arnold for a while was inexorable, but pres
ently offered to pardon the culprit on condition
that he should go and spread a panic in the camp

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 295
of St. Leger. Yan Yost joj^uUy consented, and
Yan Tost Cuy- Started off forthwith, while his brother
was detained as a hostage, to be hanged
in case of his failure. To make the matter still
surer, some friendly Oneidas were sent along to
keep an eye upon him and act in concert with him.
Next day, St. Leger's scouts, as they stole through
the forest, began to hear rumours that Burgoyne
had been totally defeated, and that a great Ameri
can army was coming up the vaUey of the Mohawk.
They carried back these rumours to the camp, and
toward evening, while officers and soldiers were
standing about in anxious consultation, Yan Yost
came running in, with a dozen bullet-holes in his
coat and terror in his face, and said that he had
barely escaped with his life from the resistless
American host which was close at hand. As many
knew him for a Tory, his tale found ready belief,
and when interrogated as to the numbers of the
advancing host he gave a warning frown, and
pointed significantly to the countless leaves that
fluttered on the branches overhead. Nothing
more was needed to complete the panic. It was in
vain that Johnson and St. Leger exhorted and
threatened the Indian allies. Already disaffected,
they now began to desert by scores, while some,
breaking open the camp chests, drank rum till they
were drunk, and began to assault the
soldiers. AU night long the camp was Leger, Aug.'
a perfect Pandemonium. The riot ex
tended to the Tories, and by noon of the next day
St. Leger took to flight and his whole army was dis
persed. All the tents, artillery, and stores feU into

296 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
the hands of the Americans. The garrison, sally
ing forth, pursued St. Leger for a while, but the
faithless Indians, enjoying his discomfiture, and
wiUing to curry favour with the stronger party,
kept up the chase nearly aU the way to Oswego;
laying ambushes every night, and diligently mur
dering the stragglers, until hardly a remnant of an
army was left to embark with its crest-fallen leader
for Montreal.
The news of this catastrophe reached Burgoyne
before he had had time to recover from the news
of the disaster at Bennington. Burgoyne's situa
tion was now becoming critical. Lin-
dangerous coin, with a strong force of mUitia, was
situation. , . . , . i -i i
hovering in his rear, while the main
army before him was gaining in numbers day by
day. Putnam had just sent up reinforcements from
the Highlands; Washington had sent Morgan
with 500 sharpshooters ; and Arnold was hurrying
back from Fort Stanwix. Not a word had come
from Sir William Howe, and it daily grew more
difficult to get provisions.
Just at this time, when everything was in readi
ness for the final catastrophe. General Gates ar
rived from Philadelphia, to take command of the
northern army, and reap the glory earned by
other men. On the first day of August, before
the first alarm occasioned by Burgoyne's advance
had subsided. Congress had yielded to
Schuyler su- p o i i
perseded by the prcssurc of Schuyler's enemies, and
removed him from his command ; and
on the following day Gates was appointed to take
his place. Congress was led to take this step

SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE. 297
through the belief that the personal hatred felt to
ward Schuyler by many of the New England peo
ple would prevent the enlisting of militia to sup
port him. The events of the next fortnight showed
that in this fear Congress was quite mistaken.
There can now be no doubt that the appointment
of the incompetent Gates was a serious blunder,
which might have ruined the campaign, and' did in
the end occasion much trouble, both for Congress
and for Washington. Schuyler received the un
welcome news with the noble unselfishness which
always characterized him. At no time did he show
more zeal and diligence than during his last week
of command ; and on turning over the army to
General Gates he cordially offered his aid, whether
by counsel or action, in whatever capacity his suc
cessor might see fit to suggest. But so far from
accepting this offer. Gates treated him with con
tumely, and would not even invite him to attend
his first council of war. Such sUly behaviour
called forth sharp criticisms from discerning people.
" The new commander-in-chief of the northern de
partment," said Gouverneur Morris, " may, if he
please, neglect to ask or disdain to receive advice ;
but those who know him will, I am sure, be con
vinced that he needs it."
When Gates thus took command of the north
ern army, it was stationed along the western bank
of the Hudson, from Stillwater down p„,iti<,noj
to Halfmoon, at the mouth of the ^fJ^X^^fig.
Mohawk, whUe Burgoyne's troops were ^^p'- ^'^¦
encamped along the eastern bank, some thirty
miles higher up, from Fort Edward down to the

298 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Battenkill. For the next three weeks no move
ments were made on either side ; and we must now
leave the two armies confronting each other in
these two positions, while we turn our attention
southward, and see what Sir William Howe was
doing, and how it happened that Burgoyne had as
yet heard nothing from him.

CHAPTER VII.
SARATOGA.
We have seen how, owing to the gross negli
gence of Lord George Germain, discretionary
power had been left to Howe, while entirely taken
away from Burgoyne. The latter had no choice
but to move down the Hudson. The former was
instructed to move up the Hudson, but at the same
time was left free to depart from the
strict letter of his instructions, should wenttoChes-
, , . . -, . apeake Bay.
there be any manitest advantage m so
doing. Nevertheless, the movement up the Hud
son was so clearly prescribed by aU sound military
considerations that everybody wondered why Howe
did not attempt it. Why he should have left his
brother general in the lurch, and gone sailing off to
Chesapeake Bay, was a mystery which no one was
able to unravel, until some thirty years ago a doc
ument was discovered which has thrown much light
upon the question. Here there steps again upon
the scene that miserable intriguer, whose presence
in the American army had so nearly wrecked the
fortunes of the patriot cause, and who chariesLeeio
now, in captivity, proceeded to act the <:aptmty.
part of a doubly-dyed traitor. A marplot and
mischief-maker from beginning to end, Charles
Lee never failed to work injury to whichever party

300 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
his selfish vanity or craven fear inclined him for
the moment to serve. We have seen how, on
the day when he was captured and taken to the
British camp, his first thought was for his personal
safety, which he might well suppose to be in some
jeopardy, since he had formerly held the rank of
lieutenant-colonel in the British army. He was
taken to New York and confined in the City Hall,
where he was treated with ordinary courtesy ; but
there is no doubt that Sir William Howe looked
upon him as a deserter, and was more than half
inclined to hang him without ceremony. Fearing,
however, as he said, that he might " fall into a law
scrape," should he act too hastily. Sir WiUiam
wrote home for instructions, and in reply was di
rected by Lord George Germain to send his pris
oner to England for trial. In pursuance of this
order, Lee had already been carried on board ship,
when a letter from Washington put a stop to these
proceedings. The letter informed General Howe
that Washington held five Hessian field-officers as
hostages for Lee's personal safety, and that all
exchange of prisoners would be suspended until due
assurance should be received that Lee was to be
recognized as a prisoner of war. After reading
this letter General Howe did not dare to send Lee
to England for trial, for fear of possible evil con
sequences to the five Hessian officers, which might
cause serious disaffection among the German troops.
The king approved of this cautious behaviour, and
so Lee was kept in New York, with his fate unde
cided, until it had become quite clear that neither
arguments nor threats could avail one jot to shake

SARATOGA. 301
Washington's determination. When Lord George
Germain had become convinced of this, he per
suaded the reluctant king to yield the point ; and
Howe was accordingly instructed that Lee, al
though worthy of condign punishment, should be
deemed a prisoner of war, and might be exchanged
as such, whenever convenient.
AU this discussion necessitated the exchange of
several letters between London and New York, so
that a whole year elapsed before the question was
settled. It was not until December 12, 1777, that
Howe received these final instructions. But Lee
had not been idle aU this time while his fate was
in suspense. Hardly had the key been turned
upon him in his rooms at the City Hall when he
began his intrigues. First, he assured Lord Howe
and his brother that he had always opposed the
declaration of independence, and even now cher
ished hopes that, by a judiciously arranged inter
view with some of the delegates in Congress, he
might persuade the misguided people of America
to return to their old allegiance. Lord Howe, who
always kept one hand on the olive-branch, eagerly
caught at the suggestion, and permitted Lee to
send a letter to Congress, urging that a ,^^^^„„ ^j
committee be sent to confer with him, chariesLee.
as he had " important communications to make."
Could such a conference be brought about, he
thbught, his zeal for effecting a reconciliation would
interest the Howes in his favour, aud might save
his precious neck. Congress, however, flatly re
fused to listen to the proposal, and then the wretch,
without further ado, went over to the enemy, and

302 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
began to counsel with the British commanders
how they might best subdue the Americans in the
summer campaign. He went so far as to write out
for the brothers Howe a plan of operations, giv
ing them the advantage of what was supposed to
be his intimate knowledge of the conditions of the
case. This document the Howes did not care to
show after the disastrous event of the campaign,
and it remained hidden for eighty years, until it
was found among the domestic archives of the
Strachey family, at Sutton Court, in Somerset.
The first Sir Henry Strachey was secretary to the
Howes from 1775 to 1778. The document is in
Lee's well-known handwriting, and is indorsed by
Strachey as "Mr. Lee's plan, March 29, 1777."
In this document Lee maintains that if the state
of Maryland could be overawed, and the people of
Virginia prevented from sending aid to Pennsyl
vania, then Philadelphia might be taken and held,
and the operations of the " rebel government " par
alyzed. The Tory party was known to be strong
in Pennsylvania, and the circumstances under
which Maryland had declared for independence,
last of aU the colonies save New York, were such
as to make it seem probable that there also the
loyalist feeling was very powerful. Lee did not
hesitate to assert, as of his own personal know
ledge, that the people of Maryland and Pennsylva
nia were nearly aU loyalists, who only awaited the
arrival of a British army in order to declare them
selves. He therefore recommended that 14,000
men should drive Washington out of New Jersey
and capture Philadelphia, while the remainder of

SARATOGA. 303
Howe's army, 4,000 in number, should go around
by sea to Chesapeake Bay, and occupy Alexandria
and Annapolis. From these points, if Lord Howe
were to issue a proclamation of amnesty, the pacifi
cation of the " central colonies " might be effected
in less than two months ; and so confident of aU
this did the writer feel that he declared himself
ready to "stake his life upon the issue," a remark
which betrays, perhaps, what was uppermost in his
mind throughout the whole proceeding. At the
same time, he argued that offensive operations to
ward the north could not " answer any sort of
purpose," since the northern provinces "are at
present neither the seat of government, strength,
nor politics ; and the apprehensions from General
Carleton's army wiU, I am confident, keep the
New Englanders at home, or at least confine 'em
to the east side the [Hudson] river."
It will be observed that this plan of Lee's was
similar to that of Lord George Germain, in so
far as it aimed at thrusting the British power like
a wedge into the centre of the confederacy, and thus
cutting asunder New England and Virginia, the
two chief centres of the rebeUion. But instead of
aiming his blow at the Hudson river, Lee aims it
at Philadelphia, as the " rebel capital ; " and his
reason for doing this shows how little he under
stood American affairs, and how strictly he viewed
them in the light of his military experience in
Europe. In European warfare it is cus- pouyof „,o.,.
ternary to strike at the enemy's capi- fefpZarS^l^
tal city, in order to get control of his "rebel capital."
whole system of administration ; but that the pos-

304 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
session of an enemy's capital is not always deci
sive the wars of Napoleon have most abundantly
proved. The battles of Austerlitz in 1805 and
Wagram in 1809 were fought by Napoleon after
he had entered Vienna; it was not his acquisition
of Berlin in 1806, but his victory at Friedland in
the foUowing summer, that completed the over
throw of Prussia ; and where he had to contend
against a strong and united national feeling, as in
Spain and Russia, the possession of the capital did
not help him in the least. Nevertheless, in Euro
pean countries, where the systems of administra
tion are highly centralized, it is usually advisable
to move upon the enemy's capital. But to apply
such a principle to Philadelphia in 1777 was the
height of absurdity. Philadelphia had been se
lected for the meetings of the Continental Con
gress because of its geographical position. It was
the most centrally situated of our large towns,
but it was in no sense the centre of a vast admin
istrative machinery. If taken by an enemy, it was
only necessary for Congress to move to any other
town, and everything would go on as before. As
it was not an administrative, so neither was it a
military centre. It commanded no great system of
interior highways, and it was comparatively diffi
cult to protect by the fleet. It might be argued,
on the other hand, that because Philadelphia was
the largest town in the United States, and pos
sessed of a certain preeminence as the seat of
Congress, the acquisition of it by the invaders
would give them a certain moral advantage. It
would help the Tory party, and discourage the

SARATOGA. 305
patriots. Such a gain, however, would be trifling
compared with the loss which might come trom
Howe's failure to cooperate with Burgoyne ; and
so the event most signaUy proved.
Just how far the Howes were persuaded by Lee's
arguments must be a matter of inference. The
course which they ultimately pursued, in close con
formity with the suggestions of this remarkable
document, was sb disastrous to the British cause that
the author might almost seem to have been inten
tionally luring them off on a false scent. ^^^^^ ^^ ^^,^
One would gladly take so charitable a ^ii^ice.
view of the matter, were it not both inconsistent
with what we have already seen of Lee, and utterly
negatived by his scandalous behaviour the following
year, after his restoration to his command in the
American army. We cannot doubt that Lee gave
his advice in sober earnest. That considerable
weight was attached to it is shown by a secret let
ter from Sir WiUiam Howe to Lord George Ger
main, dated the 2d of April, or four days after
the date of Lee's extraordinary document. In this
letter, Howe intimates for the first time that he
has an expedition in mind which may modify the
scheme for a joint campaign with the northern
army along the line of the Hudson. To this sug
gestion Lord George replied on the 18th of May :
" I trust that whatever you may meditate will be
executed in time for you to cooperate with the*
army to proceed from Canada." It was a few
days after this that Lord George, perhaps feehng
a little uneasy about the matter, wrote that imper
ative order which lay in its pigeon-hole in London
until aU the damage was done.

306 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
With these data at our command, it becomes
easy to comprehend General Howe's movements
during the spring and summer. His first inten
tion was to push across New Jersey with the great
body of his army, and occupy Philadelphia ; and
since he had twice as many men as Washington,
he might hope to do this in time to get back to the
Hudson as soon as he was hkely to be needed there.
He began his march on the 12th of June, five days
before Burgoyne's flotiUa started southward on
Lake Champlain. The enterprise did not seem
hazardous, but Howe was completely foiled by
„ . , Washington's superior strategy. Before
Washington's .° '^ °-'
masterly cam- thc British commaudcr had fairly be-
paignin New "^
Jersey, June, gun to movc, Washiugtou, from various
symptoms, divined his purpose, and
coming down from his lair at Morristown, planted
himself on the heights of Middlebrook, within ten
miles of New Brunswick, close upon the flank of
Howe's line of march. Such a position, occupied by
8,000 men under such a general, was equivalent to
a fortress which it would not do for Howe to pass
by and leave in his rear. But the position was so
strong that to try to storm it would be to invite
defeat. It remained to be seen what could be done
by manoeuvring. The British army of 18,000 men
was concentrated at New Brunswick, with plenty
of boats for crossing the Delaware river, when
•that obstacle should be reached. But the reaUy
insuperable obstacle was close at hand. A cam
paign of eighteen days ensued, consisting of wily
marches and counter-marches, the result of which
showed that Washington's advantage of position

SARATOGA. 307
could not be wrested from him. Howe could
neither get by him nor outwit him, and was too
prudent to attack him ; and accordingly, on the
last day of June, he abandoned his first plan, and
evacuated New Jersey, taking his whole army over
to Staten Island.
This campaign has attracted far less attention
than it deserves, mainly, no doubt, because it con
tained no battles or other striking incidents. It
was purely a series of strategic devices. But in
point of military skiU it was, perhaps, as remark
able as anything that Washington ever did, and it
certainly occupies a cardinal position in the history
of the overthrow of Burgoyne. For if Howe had
been able to take Philadelphia early in the sum
mer, it is difficult to see what could have prevented
him from returning and ascending the Hudson, in
accordance with the plan of the ministry. Now
the month of June was gone, and Burgoyne was
approaching Ticonderoga. Howe ought to have
held himself in readiness to aid him, but he could
not seem to get Philadelphia, the " rebel capital,"
out of his mind. His next plan coincided remark
ably with the other half of Lee's scheme. He de
cided to go around to Philadelphia by uncertainty
, , . 1 --Li-" 1 as to Howe's
sea, but he was slow in starting, and next move-
seems to have paused for a moment to "^ °'
watch the course of events at the north. He be
gan early in July to put his men on board ship,
but confided his plans to no one but CornwaUis
and Grant ; and his own army, as weU as the
Americans, believed that this show of going to sea
was only a feint to disguise his real intention.

308 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Every one supposed that he would go up the Hud
son. As soon as New Jersey was evacuated Wash
ington moved back to Morristown, and threw his
advance, under Sullivan, as far north as Pompton,
so as to be ready to cooperate with Putnam in the
Highlands, at a moment's notice. As soon as it
became known that Ticonderoga had fallen, Wash
ington, supposing that his adversary would do what
a good general ought to do, advanced into the
Ramapo Clove, a rugged defile in the Highlands,
near Haverstraw, and actually sent the divisions of
Sullivan and Stirhng across the river to Peeks
kiU. AU this while Howe kept moving some of his
ships, now up the Hudson, now into the Sound,
now off from Sandy Hook, so that people might
doubt whether his destination were the Highlands,
or Boston, or Philadelphia. Probably his owu mind
was not fuUy made up until after the news from
Ticonderoga. Theu, amid the general exultation,
he seems to have concluded that Burgoyne would
be able to take care of himself, at least with such
cooperation as he might get from Sir Henry Clin
ton. In this mood he wrote to Burgoyne as foUows :
" I have . . . heard from the rebel army of your
being in possession of Ticonderoga, which is a great
event, carried without loss. . . . Washington is
Howe's letter '"'alting our motlous here, and has de-
to Burgoyne. tached SuUIvau wlth about 2,500 men,
as I learn, to Albany. My intention is for Penn
sylvania, where I expect to meet Washhigton ; but
if he goes to the northward, contrary to my expec
tations, and you can keep him at bay, be assured I

SARATOGA. 309
shaU soon be after him to relieve you. After your
arrival at Albany, the movements of the enemy
will guide yours ; but my wishes are that the enemy
be drove [sic'] out of this province before any
operation takes place in Connecticut. Sir Henry
Clinton remains in the command here, and will act
as occurrences may direct. Putnam is in the High
lands with about 4,000 men. Success be ever with
you." This letter, which was written on very nar
row strips of thin paper, and conveyed in a quiU,
did not reach Burgoyne tiU the middle of Septem
ber, when things wore a very different aspect from
that which they wore in the middle of July. Noth
ing could better illustrate the rash, overconfident
spirit in which Howe proceeded to carry out his
southern scheme. A few days afterward he put to
sea with the fleet of 228 sail, carrying an army of
18,000 men, while 7,000 were left in New York,
under Sir Henry Clinton, to garrison the city and
act according to circumstances. Just before sailing
Howe wrote a letter to Burgoyne, stating that the
destination of his fleet was Boston, and he artfuUy
contrived that this letter should fall Into Washing
ton's hands. But Washington was a difficult per
son to hoodwink. On reading the letter he rightly
inferred that Howe had gone southward. Accord
ingly, recalling Sullivan and Stirling to the west
side of the Hudson, he set out for the Delaware,
but proceeded very cautiously, lest Howe should
suddenly retrace his course, and dart up the Hud
son. To guard against such an emergency, he let
Sullivan advance no farther than Morristown, and
kept everything in readiness for an instant counter-

310 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
march. In a letter of July 30th he writes, " Howe's
in a manner abandoning Burgoyne is so unaccount
able a matter that, till I am fully assured of it, /
cannot help casting my eyes continually behind
me." Next day, learning that the fleet had arrived
at the Capes of Delaware, he advanced to German-
town ; but on the day after, when he heard that
the fleet had put out to sea again, he suspected
that the whole movement had been a feint. He
believed that Howe would at once return to the
Hudson, and immediately ordered SuUivan to
counter-march, while he held himself ready to fol
low at a moment's notice. His best gen-
washington crals cutertaiued the same opinion. " I
and Greene. -, -ip,, 'i r-\
cannot persuade myselt, said (jrreene,
" that General Burgoyne would dare to push with
such rapidity towards Albany if he did not expect
support from General Howe." A similar view of
the military exigencies of the case was taken by
the British officers, who, almost to a man, disap
proved of the southward movement. They knew
as well as Greene that, however fine a city Phila
delphia might be, it was " an object of far less
military importance than the Hudson river."
No wonder that the American generals were
wide of the mark in their conjectures, for the foUy
of Howe's movements after reaching the mouth
of the Delaware was quite beyond credence, and
would be inexplicable to-day except as the result
Howe's al- of the wUd advIcc of the marplot Lee.
trumped™p Howc aUcgcd as his reason for turn-
and worthless. -^^^ ^,^^^ f^.^^^^ ^^^ Delaware that there
were obstructions in the river and forts to pass, and

SARATOGA. 311
accordingly he thought it best to go around by way
of Chesapeake Bay, and land his army at Elkton.
Now he might easily have gone a little way up the
Delaware river without encountering any obstruc
tions whatever, and landed his troops at a point
only thirteen miles east of Elkton. Instead of
attempting this, he wasted twenty-four days in a
voyage of four hundred miles, mostly against head
winds, in order to reach the same point ! No sen
sible antagonist could be expected to understand
such eccentric behaviour. No wonder that, after it
had become clear that the fleet had gone south
ward, Washington should have supposed an attack
on Charleston to be intended. A council of war
on the 21st decided that this must be the case, and
since an overland march of seven hundred mUes
could not be accomplished in time to prevent such
an attack, it was decided to go back to New York,
and operate against Sir Henry Clinton. But be
fore this decision was acted on Howe appeared at
the head of Chesapeake Bay, where he landed his
forces at Elkton. It was now the 25th of August,
— nine days after the battle of Bennington and
three days after the flight of St. Leger. Since
entering Chesapeake Bay, Howe had re- ^^^^^^^^,^
ceived Lord George Germain's letter *^P^ecided
of May 18th, teUing him that whatever
he had to do ought to be done in time for him to
cooperate with Burgoyne. Now Burgoyne's situa
tion had become dangerous, and here was Howe at
Elkton, fifty miles southwest of Philadelphia, with
Washing-ton's army in front of him, and more than
three hundred miles away from Burgoyne !

312 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
On hearing of Howe's arrival at the head of
Chesapeake Bay, Washington had advanced as far
as Wilmington to meet him. The first proceeding
of the British general, on landing at Elkton, was to
issue his proclamation of amnesty ; but it did not
bring him many recruits. A counter-proclamation,
drawn up by Luther Martin, sufficed to neutralize
it. Though there were many people in the neigh
bourhood who cared little for the cause of indepen
dence, there were but few who sympathized with
the invaders enough to render them any valuable
assistance. It was through a country indifferent,
perhaps, but not friendly in feehng, that the Brit
ish army cautiously pushed Its way northward for
a fortnight, until it reached the village of Kennett
Square, six miles west of the Brandywine Creek,
behind which Washington had planted himself to
oppose its progress.
The time had arrived when Washington felt it
necessary to offer battle, even though
Washington's •' . ¦ . ^
reasons for of- such a step might uot be justified from
fering battle. . .
purely military reasons. The people
were weary of a Fabian policy which they did not
comprehend, and Washington saw that even if he
were defeated, the moral effect upon the country
would not be so bad as if he were to abandon Phil
adelphia without a blow. A victory he was hardly
entitled to expect, since he had but 11,000 men
against Howe's 18,000, and" since the British were
still greatly superior in equipment and discipline.
Under these circumstances Washington chose his
ground with his usual sagacitjr, and took possession
of it by a swift and masterly movement. The

SARATOGA. 313
Brandywine Creek ran directly athwart Howe's
line of march to Philadelphia. Though large
enough to serve as a military obstacle, — in Eng
land it would be called a river, — it was crossed
by numerous fords, of which the principal one,
Chadd's Ford, lay in Howe's way. Washington
placed the centre of his army just be
hind Chadd's Ford and across the road, very strong
TT' 11. 11. p position.
ills centre was defended in front by a
corps of artillery under Wayne, while Greene, on
some high ground in the rear, was stationed as a
reserve. Below Chadd's Ford, the Brandywine
becomes a roaring torrent, shut in between steep,
high cliffs, so that the American left, resting upon
these natural defences, was sufficiently guarded by
the Pennsylvania militia under Armstrong. The
right wing, stretching two miles up the stream,
into an uneven and thickly wooded country, was
commanded by Sullivan.
This was a very strong position. On the left it
was practically inaccessible. To try storming it
in front would be a doubtful experiment, sure to
result in terrible loss of life. The only weak point
was the right, which could be taken in flank by a
long circuitous march through the woods. Accord-
ingly, on the morning of the 11th of ^^,„^„j,,^
September, the British right wing, un- ^l^^^J^'^.^j.j
der Knyphausen, began skirmishing and
occupying Washington's attention at Chadd's
Ford ; while the left column, under the energetic
CornwaUis, marched up the Lancaster road,
crossed the forks of the Brandywine, and turned
southward toward Birmingham church, with the

314 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
intention of striking the rear of the American
right wing. It was similar to the flanking move
ment which had been tried so successfuUy at the
battle of Long Island, a year before. It was quite
like the splendid movement of Stonewall Jackson
at ChanceUorsviUe, eighty-five years afterward.
In Howe's time such flanking marches were emi
nently fashionable. It was in this way that the
great Frederick had won some of his most aston
ishing victories. They were, nevertheless, then as
always, dangerous expedients, as the stupendous
overthrow of the Austro-Russian army at Auster
litz was by and by to show. There is always a se
rious chance that the tables may be turned. Such
flanking movements are comparatively safe, how
ever, when the attacking army greatly outnumbers
the army attacked, as at the Brandywine. But in
aU cases the chief element in their success is se
crecy ; above all things, the party attacked must be
kept in the dark.
These points are admirably illustrated in the
battle of the Brandywine. The danger of a flank
attack upon his right wing was weU understood by
Washington ; and as soon as he heard that Corn
waUis was marching up the Lancaster road, he
considered the feasibleness of doing what Freder
ick would probably have done^ — of crossing
quickly at Chadd's and Brinton's fords, in fuU
force, and crushing Knyphausen's division. This
he could doubtless have accomplished, had he been
so fortunate as to have inherited an army trained
by the father of Frederick the Great. But Wash-
ington's army was not yet weU trained, and its

T I

Chesteb //
yi

/ ^=fT'i'

¦TT

1 I

' /

w

Wilmington

BATTLE OF THE BRANDYWINE
September ii, 1777

SARATOGA. 315
numerical inferiority was such that Knyphausen's
division might of itself be regarded as a fair match
for it. The British movement was, therefore, well
considered, and it was doubtless right that Wash
ington did not return the offensive by crossing the
creek. Moreover, the organization of his staff was
far from complete. He was puzzled by conflicting
reports as to the enemy's movements. While con
sidering the question of throwing his whole force
against Knyphausen, he was stopped by a false re
port that Cornwallis was not moving upon his
flank. So great was the delay in getting intelli
gence that Cornwallis had accomplished his long
march of eighteen miles, and was approaching Bir
mingham church, before it was weU known where
he was. Nevertheless, his intention of dealing a
death-blow to the American army was forestaUed
and partiaUy checked. Before he had reached our
right wing, Washington had ordered SuUivan to
form a new front and advance toward Birmingham
church. Owing to the imperfect discipline of the
troops, SuUivan executed the movement rather
clumsily, but enough was accomplished to save the
army from rout. In the obstinate and murderous
fight which ensued near Birmingham church be
tween CornwaUis and Sullivan, the latter was at
length slowly pushed back in the direction of Dil-
worth. To save the army from being broken in
two, it was now necessary for the centre to retreat
upon Chester by way of Dilworth, and this move
ment was accomplished by Greene with consum
mate skill. It was now possible for Knyphausen
to advance across Chadd's Ford against Wayne's

316 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
position ; and he did so, aided by the right wing
of Cornwallis's division, which, instead of joining
in the oblique pursuit toward DUworth, kept
straight onward, and came down upon Wayne's
rear. Nothing was left for Wayne and Armstrong
but to retreat and join the rest of the army at
Chester, and so the battle of the Brandywine came
to an end.
This famous battle was admirably conducted on
both sides. The risk assumed in the long flanking
march of Cornwallis was f uUy justified. The poor
organization of the American army was of course
well known to the British commanders, and they
took advantage of the fact. Had they been deal
ing with an organization as efficient as their own,
their course would have been foolhardy. On the
other hand, when we consider the relative strength
of the two armies, it is clear that the bold move of
Cornwallis ought not simply to have won the field '
of battle. It ought to have annihilated the Amer
ican army, had not its worst consequences been
averted by Washington's promptness, aided by
Sullivan's obstinate bravery and Greene's masterly
conduct of the retreat upon Dilworth. As it was,
the American soldiers came out of the fight in
good order. Nothing could be more absurd than
the careless statement, so often made, that the
Americans were " routed " at the Brandywine.
Their organization was preserved, and at Chester,
next day, they were as ready for fight as ever.
They had exacted from the enemy a round price
for the victory. The American loss was a little
more than 1,000, incurred chiefly in Sulhvan's gal-

SARATOGA. 317
lant struggle ; rolls afterward captured at Ger
mantown showed that the British loss considerably
exceeded that figure.
So far as the possession of Philadelphia was
concerned, the British victory was decisive.
When the news came, next morning, that the army
had retreated upon Chester, there was great con
sternation in the "rebel capital." Some timid
people left their homes, and sought refuge in the
mountains. Congress fled to Lancaster, first
clothing Washington for sixty days with the same
extraordinary powers which had been granted him
the year before. Yet there was no need of such
unseemly haste, for Washington de-
, -, . . ^ . -, Washington's
tained the victorious enemy a fortnight skui in detain-
on the march of only twenty-six miles ;
a feat which not even Napoleon could have per
formed with an army that had just been " routed."
He had now heard of Stark's victory and St. Leg
er's flight, and his letters show how clearly he fore
saw Burgoyne's inevitable fate, provided Howe
could be kept away from him. To keep Howe's
whole force employed near PhUadelphia as long as
possible was of the utmost importance. Accord
ingly, during the fortnight foUowing the battle of
the Brandywine, every day saw manoeuvres or
skirmishes, in one of which General Wayne was
defeated by Sir Charles Grey, with a loss of three
hundred men. On the 26th, while ihe British
Howe established his headquarters at jeipM^'^Sept.
Germantown, CornwaUis entered Phlla- ^''"
delphia in triumph, marching with bands of music
and flying colours, and all the troops decked out
in their finest scarlet array.

318 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Having got possession of the " rebel capital,"
the question now arose whether it would be possi
ble to hold it through the winter. The Delaware
river, below the city, had been carefully ob
structed by chevaiix-de-frise, which were guarded
by two strong fortresses, — Fort Mifflin
Significance of *' . , ., . . - i T-i
Forts Mercer QU au isIaud in mid-strcam, and hort
and Mifflin. mi •
Mercer on the Jersey shore. The river
was here about two miles in width, but it was im
possible for ships to pass until the forts should
have been reduced. About the first of October,
after a rough return voyage of four hundred miles,
Lord Howe's fleet appeared at the mouth of the
Delaware. It was absolutely necessary to gain
control of the river, in order that the city might
get supplies by sea; for so long as Washington's
army remained unbroken, the Americans were
quite able to cut off all supplies by land. Sir
William Howe, therefore, threw a portion of his
forces across the river, to aid his brother in redu
cing the forts. The quick eye of Washington now
saw an opportunity for attacking the main British
army, while thus temporarily weakened ; and he
forthwith planned a brilliant battle, which was
fated to be lost, at the very moment of victory, by
an extraordinary accident.
The village of Germantown, by the bank of the
Schuylkill river, was then separated from Phila
delphia by about six miles of open country. The
village consisted chiefly of a single street.
The situation , .-, .
at German- about two milcs IU length, wlth stone
town. . .
houses on either side, standing about a
hundred yards apart from each other, and sur-

SARATOGA. 319
rounded by gardens and orchards. Near the upper
end of the street, in the midst of ornamental shrub
bery, vases, and statues, arranged in a French style
of landscape gardening, stood the massively built
house of Benjamin Chew, formerly Chief Justice
of Pennsylvania. About a mile below, at the
Market House, the main street was crossed at right
angles by the Old School Lane. Beside the main
street, running over Chestnut Hill, the viUage was
approached from the northward by three roads.
The Monatawny road ran down by the bank of
the SchuylkiU, and, crossing the Old School Lane,
bore on toward Philadelphia. The Limekiln road,
coming from the northeast, became continuous with
the Old School Lane. The Old York road, stiU
further eastward, joined the main street at the Ris
ing Sun tavern, about two miles below the Market
House. The British army lay encamped just behind the
Old School Lane, in the lower part of the village :
the left wing, under Knyphausen, to the west of
the main street ; the right, under Grant, to the
east. A strong detachment of chasseurs, under
Sir Charles Grey, covered the left wing. About
a mile in advance of the army. Colonel Musgrave's
regiment lay in a field opposite Judge Chew's
house ; and yet a mile farther forward a battalion
of light infantry was stationed on the slight emi
nence known as Mount Airy, whjere a smaU bat
tery commanded the road to the north.
Washington's plan of attack seems to have con
templated nothing less than the destruction or
capture of the British army. His forces were to ad-

320 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
vance from the north by all four roads at once, and
converge upon the British at the Mar-
Washington's ,,-,-," mi a • • l_i •
audacious kct Housc. Ine American right wmg,
under SuUivan, and consisting of Sul
livan's own brigade, with those of Conway, Wayne,
MaxweU, and Nash, was to march down the main
street, overwhelm the advanced parties of the Brit
ish, and engage their left wing in front; while
Armstrong, with the Pennsylvania militia, was to
move down the Monatawny road, and take the
same wing in flank. The American left wing, com
manded by Greene, was also to proceed in two col
umns. Greene, with his own brigade, supported
by Stephen and McDougal, was to march down
the Limekiln road, and assail the British right
wing in front and in flank ; whUe SmaUwood and
Forman, coming down the Old York road, were
to strike the same wing in the rear. The flank
attack upon the British left, entrusted as it was to
militia, was intended merely as a demonstration.
The attack upon their right, conducted by more
than half of the American army, including its best
troops, was intended to crush that wing, and fold
ing back the whole British army upon the Schuyl
kiU river, compel it to surrender.
Considering that the Americans had not even
yet a superiority in numbers, this was a most auda
cious plan. No better instance could be given of
the spirit of wil4 and venturous daring which was
as conspicuous in Washington as his cautious vigi
lance, whenever any fit occasion arose for display
ing it. The scheme came surprisingly near to
success ; so near as to redeem it from the imputa-

BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN
October 4, 1777

SARATOGA. 321
tion of foolhardiness, and to show that here, as in
all Washington's military movements, cool judg
ment went along with fiery dash. At seven in the
evening of the 3d of October, the night
march upon Germantown began. Wash- mantown,^""
ington accompanying SuUivan's column. °°'' ¦*'
At sunrise a heavy fog came up, and the darkness
went on increasing. Soon after, the hour of day
break the light infantry upon Mount Airy were
surprised and routed, and the battery was cap
tured. Musgrave was next overwhelmed by the
heavy American column ; but he, with a small
force, took refuge in Judge Chew's house, and set
up a brisk fire from the windows. The Americans
opened an artillery-fire upon the house, but its
stone walls were too solid to be beaten down by the
three-pound and six-pound field-pieces of that day ;
and so Maxwell's brigade was left behind to besiege
the house, while the rest of the column rushed on
down the street. The chief effect of this incident
was to warn the enemy, while retarding and some
what weakening the American charge. Neverthe
less, the fury of the attack was such as to discon
cert Knyphausen's veterans, and the British left
wing slowly gave way before Sulhvan. At this
moment, Greene, who had also been delayed, at
tacked the right wing with such vigour as presently
to force it back toward the Market House. The
British ranks were falling into confusion, and
SmaUwood's column had already arrived upon their
right flank, when the accident occurred which
changed the fortunes of the day. From the begin
ning the dense fog had been a source of confu-

322 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
sion to both armies, and had seriously interfered
with the solidity of the American advance. Now,
as Stephen's brigade, on the right of Greene's
column, came into the village, the heavy firing at
Judge Chew's seems to have caused him to di
verge more and more to the west, in the beUef
that there was the thick of the battle. At the
same time, Wayne, in driving the enemy before
him, had swayed somewhat to the east, so that his
brigade stood almost directly in the line of Ste
phen's progress. In this position he was attacked
by Stephen, who mistook him for ,the enemy. This
lamentable blunder instantly ruined the battle.
Wayne's men, thus fiercely attacked in the rear,
and struggling to extricate themselves, were thrown
upon the left fiank of Sullivan's brigade, and a
panic suddenly ran through the army. The con
fusion grew worse and worse, till a general retreat
began, and Grey, who had come up to support the
crumbling right wing of the British, was now able
to lead in the pursuit of the Americans. He was
joined by Cornwallis, who had sprung from his bed
in Philadelphia at the first sound of the cannon,
and had brought up two battalions with him at
double-quick. But the panic had subsided almost
as soon as the golden moment of victory was lost,
and the retreat was conducted in exceUent order.
One regiment in Greene's column was surrounded
and captured, but the army brought away aU its
cannon and wounded, with several cannon taken
from the enemy. The loss of the Americans in
kiUed and wounded was 673, and the loss of the
British was 535.

SARATOGA. 323
The fog which enshrouded the village of Ger
mantown on that eventful morning has been hardly
less confusing to historians than it was to the
armies engaged. The reports of different observers
conflicted in many details, and particularly as to
the immediate occasion of the fatal panic. The best
accounts agree, however, that the entanglement of
Stephen with Wayne was chiefly responsible for
the disaster. It was charged against Stephen that
he had taken too many puUs at his canteen on the
long, damp night march, and he was tried by court-
martial, and dismissed from the service. The
chagrin of the Americans at losing the prize so
nearly grasped was profound. The total rout of
Howe, coming at the same time with the surrender
of Burgoyne, would probably have been too much
for Lord North's ministry to bear, and might have
brought the war to a sudden close. As it was, the
British took an undue amount of comfort iu the
acquisition of Philadelphia, though so long as
Washington's army remained defiant it was of small
military value to them. On the other hand, the
genius and audacity shown by Washington, in
thus planning and so nearly accomplishing the
ruin of the British army only three weeks after
the defeat at the Brandywine, produced a profound
impression upon military critics iu Europe. Fred
erick of Prussia saw that presently, when Ameri-
can soldiers should come to be disciplined veterans,
they would become a very formidable instrument
in the hands of their great commander ; and the
French court, in making up its mind that the
Americans would prove efficient allies, is said to

324 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
have been influenced almost as much by the battle
of Germantown as by the surrender of Burgoyne.
Having thus escaped the catastrophe which
Washington had designed for him, the
Howe captures -r-, . , . , -, i i .l i.
Forts Mercer British commaudcr was now able to put
forth his utmost efforts for the capture
of the forts on the Delaware. His utmost efforts
were needed, for in the first attack on Fort Mercer,
October 22, the Hessians were totaUy defeated,
with the loss of Count Donop and 400 men, while
the Americans lost but 37. But after a month of
hard work, with the aid of 6,000 more men sent
from New York by Clinton, both forts were re
duced, and the command of the Delaware was
wrested from the Americans. Another month of
manoeuvring and skirmishing foUowed, and then
Washington took his army into winter-quarters at
Valley Forge. The events which attended his so
journ in that natural stronghold belong to a later
period of the war. We must now return to the
upper waters of the Hudson, and show how the
whole period, which may be most fitly described
as a struggle for the control of the great central
state of New York, was brought to an end by the
complete and overwhelming victory of the Ameri
cans. We have seen how it became impossible for
Howe to act upon Lord George Germain's order,
received in August, in Chesapeake Bay, and get
back to the Hudson in time to be of any use to
Burgoyne. We have also seen how critical was
the situation in which the northern general was

SARATOGA. 325
left, after the destruction of Baum and St. Leger,
and the accumulation of New England yeomanry
in his rear. Burgoyne now fully ac- ^^^ ^
kuowledged the terrible mistake of the recognizes the
'-' fatal error of
ministry in assuming that the resist- ^e™*™.
ance of the Americans was due to the machina
tions of a few wily demagogues, and that the peo
ple would hail the approach of the king's troops
as deliverers. " The great bulk of the country,"
said he, " is undoubtedly with the Congress in
principle and zeal, and their measures are exe
cuted with a secrecy and dispatch that are not to
be equaUed. . . . The Hampshire Grants, in par
ticular, a country unpeopled and almost unknown
last war, now abounds in the most active and most
rebeUious race on the continent, and hangs hke a
gathering storm upon my left." The situation
had, indeed, become so alarming that it is hard to
say what Burgoyne ought to have done. A retreat
upon Ticonderoga would have been fraught with
perU, while to cross the Hudson and advance upon
Albany would be doing like Cortes, when he scut
tled his ships. But Burgoyne was a man of chiv
alrous nature. He did not think it right or pru
dent to abandon Sir WiUiam Howe, whom he stiU
supposed to be coming up the river to meet him.
In a letter to Lord George Germain, written three
days after the surrender, he says, " The difficulty
of a retreat upon Canada was clearly foreseen, as
was the dilemma, should the retreat be effected, of
leaving at liberty such an army as General Gates's
to operate against Sir WiUiam Howe. This con
sideration operated forcibly to determine me to

326 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
abide events as long as possible, and I reasoned
thus : the expedition which I commanded was at
first evidently intended to be hazarded; circum
stances might require it should be devoted."
Influenced by these views, which were supported
by aU his generals except Riedesel, Burgoyne threw
a bridge of boats across the Hudson,
he° crossls^the aud passed over with his whole army on
°'"^"'"- the 13th of September. The Ameri
cans had taken a strong position on Bemis Heights,
where Kosciusko had skilfully fortified their camp
with batteries and redoubts. Burgoyne felt that
the time for desperate fighting had now come, and
it seemed to him that the American position might
be turned and carried by an attack upon its left
flank. On the morning of the 19th, he advanced
through the woods, with the centre of his army,
toward the point where the Quaker road passes
Bemis Heights. The right wing, under Eraser,
proceeded somewhat more circuitously toward the
same point, the plan being that they should join
forces and strike the rear of the American camp,
while Riedesel and PhUlips, with the left wing and
the artillery, marching down the river road, should
assail it in front. Three heavy guns, announcing
to the left wing the junction of Burgoyne and
Eraser, were to give the signal for a
First battle at i 7 .
Freeman's general assault. American scouts, lurk-
Farm, Sept. f
19; indecisive, ing among the upper branches of tall
trees that grew on steep hillsides, presently caught
glimpses of bright scarlet flitting through the
green depths of the forest, while the long sunbeams
that found their way through the foliage sent back

FIRST BATTLE AT FREEMAN'S FARM.
September 19, 1777

SARATOGA. 327
quick burning flashes from a thousand bayonets.
By noon the course of the British march and their
plan of attack had been fully deciphered, and the
inteUigence was carried to Arnold, who commanded
the left wing of the American army. Gates ap
pears to have been unwilling to let any of the
forces descend from their strong position ; but the
fiery Arnold urged and implored, until he got per
mission to take Morgan's riflemen and Dearborn's
infantry, and go forth to attack the enemy. Ar
nold's advance, under Morgan, first feU upon Bur
goyne's advance, at Freeman's Farm, and checked
its progress. Eraser then, hearing the musketry,
turned eastward to the rescue, while Arnold, mov
ing upon Eraser's left, sought to cut him asunder
from Burgoyne. He seemed to be winning the
day, when he was attacked in flank by Riedesel,
who had hurried up from the river road. Arnold
had already sent to Gates for reinforcements, which
w«re refused him. Arnold maintained that this
was a gross blunder on the part of the command
ing general, and that with 2,000 more men he
could now easily have crushed the British centre
and defeated their army. In this opinion he was
probably right, since even as it was he held his
own, in a desperate«fight, for two hours, until dark
ness put an end to the struggle. The losses on
each side are variously estimated at from 600 to
1,000, or from one fifth to one fourth of the forces
engaged, whieh indicates severe fighting. Arnold's
command had numbered about 3,000, and he had
been engaged, in the course of the afternoon, with
at least 4,000 of Burgoyne's army ; yet aU this

328 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
while some 11,000 Americans — most of the army
in short — had been kept idle on Bemis Heights
by the incompetent Gates. Burgoyne tried to
console himself with the idea that he had won a
victory, because his army slept that night at Free
man's Farm; but in his testimony given after
ward before the House of Commons, he rightly
maintained that his plan of attack had been utterly
defeated by the bold and skilful tactics of " Mr."
Arnold. In the dispatches which he now sent to Con
gress, Gates took to himself all the credit of this
affair, and did not even mention Arnold's name.
The army, however, rang with praise of the fight
ing general, until Gates, who never could bear to
hear any one but himself well spoken of, waxed
wroth and revengeful. Arnold, more-
Quarrel be- i. i i i i /-i
tween Gates ovcr, trccly blamed Gates for not sun-
and Arnold. ... - . . .
porting him, and for refusing to renew
the battle on the next morning, while the enemy
Were stiU disconcerted. Arnold's warm friendship
with Schuyler gave further offence to the com
mander ; and three days after the battle he sought
to wreak his spite by withdrawing Morgan's rifle
men and Dearborn's light infantry from Arnold's
division. A fierce quarrel endued ; and Gates told
Arnold that as soon as Lincoln should arrive he
would have no -further use for him, and he might
go back to Washington's camp as soon as he liked.
Arnold, in a white rage, said he would go, and
asked for a pass, which his enemy promptly gave
him ; but after receiving it, second thoughts pre
vented him from going. All the general officers

SARATOGA. 329
except Lincoln — who seems to have refrained
from uuwilhugness to give umbrage to a com
mander so high in the good graces of Massachu
setts as Gates — united in signing a letter en
treating Arnold to remain. He had been sent
here by Washington to aid the northern army
with all his might, and clearly it would be wrong
to leave it now, on the eve of a decisive battle.
So the proud, fiery soldier, smarting under an ac
cumulation of injuries, made up his mind once
more to swallow the affront, and wait for a chance
to make himself useful. He stayed in his quar
ters, awaiting the day of battle, though it was not
clear how far he was entitled, under the circum
stances, to exercise command, and Gates took no
more notice of him than if he had been a dog.
Nothing more was done for eighteen days. Just
before the crossing of the Hudson by the northern
army. Sir Henry Clinton, acting " as circumstances
may direct," had planned an expedition up the
river in aid of it ; and Burgoyne, hearing of this
the day after the battle at Freeman's Farm,
thought it best to wait a while before undertaking
another assault upon the American lines. But
things were swiftly coming to such a pass that it
would not do to wait. On the 21st, news came to
the British camp that a detachment of Lincoln's
troops had laid siege to Ticonderoga, and, while
holding the garrison in check, had captured sev
eral ships and taken 300 prisoners. A
, 1 1 -L -1-1 Burgoyne's
day or two later came the news that these supplies cut
New Englanders had embarked on Lake
George in the ships they had captured, and were

330 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
cutting off the last sources of supply. And now,
while even on shortest rations there was barely
three weeks' food for the army, Lincoln's main
force appeared in front, thus swelling the num
bers of the American army to more than 16,000.
The case had become as desperate as that of the
Athenians at Syracuse before their last dreadful
battle in the harbour. So, after eighteen weary
days, no word yet coming from Clinton, the gal
lant Burgoyne attempted, by a furious effort, to
break through the lines of an army that now out
numbered him more than three to one.
On the morning of October 7th, leaving the rest
of his army in camp, Burgoyne advanced with
1,500 picked men to turn the American left. SmaU
as the force was, its quality was superb, and with
it were the best commanders, — Phillips, Riedesel,
Eraser, Balcarras, and Ackland. Such a compact
force, so ably led, might manoeuvre quickly. If,
on sounding the American j)osition on the left,
they should find it too strong to be forced, they
might swiftly retreat. At all events, the move
ment would cover a foraging party which Bur
goyne had sent out, — and this was no small
matter. Arnold, too, the fighting general, it was
reported, held no command ; and Gates was known
to be a sluggard. Such thoughts may have helped
to shape the conduct of the British com-
Second battle ^ . . i . t-»
at Freeman's maudcr OU this Critical morning. But
Farm, Oct. 7 ; . °
the British the scheme was swiftly overturned. As
totally de- ^ ^ ^ ^
nold"* ^^ ^^' *^® British came on, their right was sud
denly attacked by Morgan, while the
New England regulars with 3,000 New York mili-

SARATOGA. 331
tia assailed them in front. After a short, sharp
fight against overwhelming numbers, their whole
line was broken, and Eraser sought to form a second
line a little farther back and on the west border
of Freeman's Farm, though the ranks were badly
disordered and all their cannon were lost. At this
moment, Arnold, who had been watching from the
heights, saw that a weU-directed blow might not
only ruin this retreating column, but also shatter
the whole British army. Quick as thought he
sprang upon his horse, and gaUoped to the scene
of action. He was greeted with deafening hur
rahs, and the men, leaping with exultation at sight
of their beloved commander, rushed upon Eraser's
half -formed line. At the same moment, whUe
Morgan was stiU pressing on the British right, one
of his marksmen shot General Eraser, who feU,
mortaUy wounded, just as Arnold charged with
mad fury upon his line. The British, thus assailed
in front and flank, were soon pushed off the field.
Arnold next attacked Lord Balcarras, who had re
tired behind intrenchments at the north of Free
man's Farm ; but finding the resistauce here too
strong, he swept by, and charged upon the Cana
dian auxiliaries, who occupied a position just north
of Balcarras, and covered the left wing of Brey-
mann's forces at the extreme right of the British
camp. The Canadians soon fled, leaving Breymann
uncovered ; and Arnold forthwith rushed against
Breymann on the left, just as Morgan, who had
prolonged his flanking march, assailed him on the
right. Breymann was slain and his force routed ;
the British right wing was crushed, and their whole

332 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
position taken in reverse and made untenable. Just
at this moment, a wounded German soldier, lying
on the ground, took aim at Arnold, and slew his
horse, while the ball passed through the general's
left leg, that had been wounded at Quebec, and
fractured the bone a little above the knee. As Ar=
nold fell, one of his men rushed up to bayonet the
wounded soldier who had shot him, when the pros
trate general cried, " For God's sake, don't hurt
him ; he 's a fine feUow ! " The poor German was
saved, and it has been weU said that this was the
¦ hour when Benedict Arnold should have died. His
fall and the gathering twilight stopped the progress
of the battle, but the American victory was com
plete and decisive. Nothing was left for Burgoyne
but to get the wreck of his army out of the way as
quickly as possible, and the next day he did so,
making a skilful retreat upon Saratoga, in the
course of which, during a skirmish, his soldiers
burned General Schuyler's princely country-house,
with its barns and granaries.
As the British retreated. General Gates steadily
closed in upon them with his overwhelming forces,
which now numbered nearly 20,000. Gates — to
give him due credit — knew how to be active
after the victory, although, when fighting was go
ing on, he was a general of sedentary habits.
When Arnold rushed down, at the critical mo
ment, to complete the victory of Saratoga, Gates
sent out Major Armstrong to stop him. " Call
back that feUow," said Gates, "or he wiU be
doing something rash ! " But the eager Arnold
had outgalloped the messenger, and came back

# Spot where Arnold fell
"fT Fraser

SECOND BATTLE AT FREEMAN'S FARM, CALLED BATTLE
OF BEMIS HEIGHTS, OR OF STILLWATER
October 7, 1777

SARATOGA. 333
only when his leg was broken and the victory won.
In the mean time Gates sat at his headquarters,
forgetful of the battle that was raging below, while
he argued the merits of the American Revolution
with a wounded British officer. Sir Francis Clarke,
who had been brought in and laid upon the com
mander's bed to die. Losing his temper in the
discussion, Gates called his adjutant, WUkinson,
out of the room, and asked him, " Did you ever
hear so impudent a son of a b — h ? " And this
seems to have been all that the commanding gen
eral contributed to the crowning victory of Sara
toga. When Burgoyne reached the place where he had
crossed the Hudson, he found a force of 3,000
Americans, with several batteries of cannon occu
pying the hills on the other side, so that it was now
impossible to cross. A council of war
1.11 11 n 1 -11 1 '^^^ British
decided to abandon all the artiUery and army is sur-
baggage, push through the woods by
night, and effect a crossing higher up, by Fort Ed
ward, where the great river begins to be fordable.
But no sooner had this plan been made than word
was brought that the Americans were guarding aU
the fords, and had also planted detachments in a
strong position to the northward, between Fort
Edward and Fort George. The British army, in
short, was surrounded. A brisk cannonade was
opened upon it from the east and south, while Mor
gan's sharpshooters kept up a gaUing fire in the
rear. Some of the women and wounded men were
sent for safety to a large house in the neighbour
hood, where they took refuge in the ceUar; and

334 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
there the Baroness Riedesel tells us how she passed
six dismal nights and days, crouching in a corner
near the doorway, with her three little children
clinging about her, while every now and then,
with hideous crashing, a heavy cannon-baU passed
through the room overhead. The ceUar became
crowded with crippled and dying men. But little
food could be obtained, and the suffering from
thirst was dreadful. It was only a few steps to
the river, but every man who ventured out with a
bucket was shot dead by Virginia rifles that never
missed their aim. At last the brave wife of a
British soldier volunteered to go; and thus the
water was brought again and again, for the Amer
icans would not fire at a woman.
And now, while Burgoyne's last ray of hope was
dying, and while the veteran Phillips declared him
self heartbroken at the misery which he could not
relieve, where was Sir Henry Clinton? He had
not thought it prudent to leave New York untU
after the arrival of 3,000 soldiers whom
Chnton comes '
son"buutta ^® cxpcctcd from England. These men
too late. arrived on the 29th of September, but
six days more elapsed before Sir Henry had taken
them up the river and landed them near Putnam's
headquarters at PeekskiU. In a campaign of
three days he outwitted that general, carried two
of the forts after obstinate resistance, and com
peUed the Americans to abandon the others ; and
thus laid open the river so that British ships might
go up to Albany. On the 8th of October, Sir
Henry wrote to Burgoyne from Fort Montgomery :
"JYous y void, and nothing between us and Gates.

SARATOGA. 335
I sincerely hope this little success of ours will
facilitate your operations." This dispatch was
written on a scrap of very thin paper, and encased
in an oval silver bullet, which opened with a tiny
screw in the middle. Sir Henry then sent Gen
eral Vaughan, with several frigates and the greater
part of his force, to make aU haste for Albany.
As they passed up the river, the next day, they
could not resist the temptation to land and set fire
to the pretty vUlage of Kingston, then the seat of
the state legislature. George Clinton, governor of
the state, just retreating from his able defence of
the captured forts, hastened to protect the viUage,
but came up only in time to see it in flames from
one end to the other. Just then Sir Henry's mes
senger, as he skulked by the roadside, was caught
and taken to the governor. He had been seen
swallowing something, so they gave him an emetic,
and obtained the silver buUet. The dispatch was
read ; the bearer was hanged to an apple-tree ; and
Burgoyne, weary with waiting for the news that
never came, at last sent a flag of truce to General
Gates, inquiring what terms of surrender would
be accepted.
Gates first demanded an unconditional surrender,
but on Burgoyne's indignant refusal he consented
to make terms, and the more readily, „
' ^ Burgoyne sur*
no doubt, since he knew what had just renders, Oct.
happened in the Highlands, though his
adversary did not. After three days of discussion
the terms of surrender were agreed upon. Just as
Burgoyne was about to sign the articles, a Tory
made his way into camp with hearsay news that

336 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
part of Clinton's army was approaching Albany.
The subject was then anxiously reconsidered by
the British officers, and an interesting discussion
ensued as to whether they had so far pledged their
faith to the surrender that they could not in honour
draw back. The majority of the council decided
that their faith was irrevocably pledged, and Bur
goyne yielded to this opinion, though he did not
share it, for he did not feel quite clear that the
rumoured advance of Clinton could now avail to
save him in any case. In this he was undoubtedly
right. The American army, with its daily accre
tions of militia, had now grown to more than
20,000, and armed yeomanry were stUl pouring in
by the hundred. A diversion threatened by less
than 3,000 men, who were still more than fifty
miles distant, could hardly have averted the doom
of the British army. The only effect which it did
produce was, perhaps, to work upon the timid
Gates, and induce him to offer easy terms In or
der to hasten the surrender. On the 17th of
October, accordingly, the articles were signed, ex
changed, and put into execution. It was agreed
that the British army should march out of camp
with the honours of war, and pile their arms at an
appointed place ; they should then march through
Massachusetts to Boston, from whieh port they
might sail for Europe, it being understood that none
of them should serve again in America during the
war ; all the officers might retain their small arms,
and no one's private luggage should be searched
or molested. At Burgoyne's earnest solicitation
the American general consented that these proceed-

SURRENDER of BURGOYNE
AT
SARATOGA OCT. 17. 1777

SARATOGA. 337
ings should be styled a " convention," instead of
a surrender, in imitation of the famous Conven
tion of Kloster-Seven, by which the Duke of Cum
berland, twenty years before, had sought to save
his feelings while losing his army, beleaguered by
the French in Hanover. The soothing phrase has
been well remembered by British historians, who
to this day continue to speak of Burgoyne's sur
render as the " Convention of Saratoga."
In carrying out the terms of the convention, both
Gates and his soldiers showed praiseworthy deli
cacy. As the British marched off to a meadow
by the river side and laid down their arms, the
Americans remained within their hues, refusing
to add to the humiliation of a gallant enemy by
standing and looking on. As the disarmed sol
diers then passed by the American lines, says
Lieutenant Anbury, one of the captured officers,
" I did not observe the least disrespect or even
a taunting look, but all was mute astonishment
and pity." Burgoyne stepped up and handed his
sword to Gates, simply saying, "The fortune of
war, General Gates, has made me your prisoner."
The American general instantly returned the
sword, replying, " I shall always be ready to tes
tify that it has not been through any fault of your
excellency." When Baron Riedesel had been pre
sented to Gates and the other generals, he sent
for his wife and children. Set free at last from
the dreadful cellar, the baroness came with some
trepidation into the enemy's camp; but the only
look she saw upon any face was one of sympathy.
" As I approached the tents," she says, " a noble-

338 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
looking gentleman came toward me, and took the
children out of the wagon ; embraced and kissed
them ; and then, with tears in his eyes, helped
me also to alight. . . . Presently he said, ' It may
be embarrassing to you to dine with so many gen
tlemen. If you wiU come with your children to
my tent, I will give you a frugal meal, but one
that will at least be seasoned with good wishes.'
' Oh, sir,' I cried, ' you must surely be a husband
and a father, since you show me so much kind
ness ! ' I then learned that it was General Schuy
ler." Schuyler had indeed come, with unruffled soul,
to look on while the fruit which he had sown, with
the gallant aid of Stark and Herkimer, Arnold
and Morgan, was plucked by an unworthy rival.
He now met Burgoyne, who was naturally pained
and embarrassed at the recollection of the beauti
ful house which his men had burned a few days
before. In a speech in the House of Commons,
some months later, Burgoyne told how Schuyler
Schuyler's rcccived him. " I expressed to General
magnanimity. Schuylcr," says Burgoyuc, " my rcgrct
at the event which had happened, and the reasons
which had occasioned it. He desired me to think
no more of it, saying that the occasion justified it,
according to the rules of war. . . . He did more :
he sent an aide-de-camp to conduct me to Albany,
in order, as he expressed it, to procure me better
quarters than a stranger might be able to find.
This gentleman conducted me to a very elegant
house, and, to my great surprise, presented me to
Mrs. Schuyler and her family; and in this gen-

SARATOGA. 339
eral's house I remained during my whole stay at
Albany, with a table of more than twenty covers
for me and my friends, and every other possible
demonstration of hospitality." Madame Riedesel
was also invited to stay with the Schuylers ; and
when first she arrived in the house, one of her little
girls exclaimed, " Oh, mamma I Is this the palace
that papa was to have when he came to America ? "
As the Schuylers understood German, the baroness
coloured, but all laughed pleasantly, and put her at
ease. With the generosity and delicacy thus shown
alike by generals and soldiers, it is painful, though
instructive, to contrast the coarseness and bad
faith with which Congress proceeded to treat the
captured army. The presence of the troops in and
about Boston was felt to be a hardship, and Gen
eral Heath, who commanded there, wrote to Wash
ington, saying that if they were to stay Bad faith of
tiU cold weather he hardly knew how to c^sress.
find shelter and fuel for them. Washington re
plied that they would not be likely to stay long,
since it was clearly for Howe's interest to send
them back to England as soon as possible, in order
that they might replace other soldiers who would
be sent over to America for the spring campaign.
Congress caught up this suggestion with avidity,
and put it to uses the furthest possible removed
from Washington's meaning. When Sir WUliam
Howe proposed Newport as a point from which
the soldiers might more speedily be shipped,
Washington, for sound and obvious reasons, urged

340 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
that there should be no departure from the strict
letter of the convention. Congress forthwith not
only acted upon this suggestion so far as to refuse
Sir WiUiam Howe's request, but it went on gra
tuitously and absurdly to charge the British gen
eral with bad faith. It was hinted that he secretly
intended to bring the troops to New York for im
mediate service, in defiance of the convention, and
Congress proceeded to make this imputed treach
ery the ground for really false dealing on its own
part. When Lord Howe's transports reached
Boston, it was not only ordered that no troops
should be allowed to embark until aU the accounts
for their subsistence should have been settled, but
it was also required that these accounts should be
liquidated in gold. In the instructions given to
General Washington a year before, a refusal on
the part of anybody to receive the Continental
paper money was to be treated as a high misde
meanour. Now Congress refused to take its own
money, which had depreciated till it was worth
barely thirty cents on a dollar. The captured
army was supplied with provisions and fuel that
were paid for bj' General Heath with Continental
paper, and now Congress insisted that General
Burgoyne should make his repayment dollar for
dollar in British gold, worth three times as much.
In fairness to the delegates, we may admit that in
all probability they did not realize the baseness of
this conduct. They were no doubt misled by one
of those wonderful bits of financial sophistry by
which the enacting mind of our countrymen has so
often been hopelessly confused. In an amusing

SARATOGA. 341
letter to Washington, honest General Heath
naively exclaims, " What an opinion must General
Burgoyne have of the authority of these states, to
suppose that his money would be received at any
higher rate than our own in public payment !
Such payment would at once be depreciating our
currency with a witness." Washington was se
riously annoyed and mortified by these vagaries,
-~ the more so that he was at this very time en
deavouring to arrange with Howe a general cartel
for the exchange of prisoners ; and he knew that
the attempt to make thirty cents equal to a doUar
would, as he said, " destroy the very idea of a car-
teL" While these discussions were going on. Congress,
like the wicked king in the fairy tale, anxious to
impose conditions unlikely to be fulfilled, de
manded that General Burgoyne should make out a
descriptive list of all the officers and soldiers in his
army, in order that if any of them should there
after be found serving against the United States
they might be punished accordingly. As no such
provision was contained in the convention, upon
the faith of which Burgoyne had surrendered, he
naturally regarded the demand as insidting, and
at first refused to comply with it. He afterwards
yielded the point, in his eagerness to liberate his
soldiers ; but meanwhile, in a letter to Gates, he
had incautiously let faU the expression, " The pub-
lick faith is broke ^sic^ ; " and this remark, com
ing to the ears of Congress, was immediately laid
hold of as a pretext for repudiating the convention
altogether. It was argued that Burgoyne had

342 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
charged the IJnited States with bad faith, in order
to have an excuse for repudiating the convention
on his own part ; and on the 8th of January, Con
gress accordingly resolved, " that the embarkation
of Lieutenant-General Burgoyne and the troops un
der his command be suspended till a distinct and
explicit ratification of the' Convention of Saratoga
shall be properly notified by the court of Great
Britain to Congress." Now as the British govern
ment could not give the required ratification with
out implicitly recognizing the independence of the
United States, no further steps were taken in the
matter, the " publick faith " was really broken,
and the captured army was never sent home.
In this wretched affair. Congress deliberately
sacrificed principle to policy. It refused, on paltry
pretexts, to carry out a solemn engagement which
had been made by its accredited agent ; and it did
so simply through the fear that the British army
might indirectly gain a possible reinforcement. Its
The behaviour couduct cau be justified upon no grounds
wa^°stapiy in- savc such as would equally justify firing
excusable. ^^^^ £^gg ^^ trucc. Nor Can it be pal
liated even upon the lowest grounds of expediency,
for, as it has been weU said, " to a people strug
gling for political life the moral support derivable
from the maintenance of honour and good faith was
worth a dozen material victories." This sacrifice
of principle to policy has served only to call down
the condemnation of impartial historians, and to
dim the lustre of the magnificent victory which the
valour of our soldiers and the self-devotion of our
people had won in the field. It was one out of

SARATOGA. 343
many instances which show that, under any form
of government, the moral sense of the governing
body is likely to fall far below the highest moral
standard recognized In the community.
The captured army was never sent home. The
officers were treated as prisoners of war, and from
time to time were exchanged. Burgoyne was al
lowed to go to England in the spring,
1 1-1 -n • 1 1 What became
and while stiil a prisoner on parole, he of the oap-
11. .TIT 11 tured army.
took his seat in Parliament, and became
conspicuous among the defenders of the American
cause. The troops were detained in the neighbour-
hood of Boston until the autumn of 1778, when
they were all transferred to CharlottesviUe in Vir
ginia. Here a rude viUage was built on the brow
of a pleasant ridge of hills, and gardens were laid
out and planted. Much kind assistance was ren
dered in all this work by Thomas Jefferson, who
was then living close by, on his estate at Monti-
cello, and did everything in his power to make
things comfortable for soldiers and officers. Two
years afterward, when Virginia became the seat
of war, some of them were removed to Winchester
in the Shenandoah valley, to Frederick in Mary
land, and to Lancaster in Pennsylvania. Those
who wished to return to Europe were exchanged
or allowed to escape. The greater number, espe
cially of the Germans, preferred to stay in this
country and become American citizens. Before
the end of 1783 they had dispersed in aU direc
tions. Such was the strange sequel of a campaign
which, whether we consider the picturesqueness of

344 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
its incidents or the magnitude of its results, was one
of the most memorable in the history of mankind.
Its varied scenes, framed in landscapes of grand
and stirring beauty, had brought together such
types of manhood as the feathered Mohawk sachem,
the helmeted Brunswick dragoon, and the blue-
f rocked yeoman of New England, — types of an
cient barbarism, of the militancy bequeathed from
the Middle Ages, and of the industrial democracy
that is to possess and control the future of the
world. These men had mingled In a deadly strug
gle for the strategic centre of the Atlantic coast
of North America, and now the fight had ended
in the complete and overwhelming defeat of the
forces of George III. Four years, indeed, — four
years of sore distress and hope deferred, — were
yet to pass before. the fruits of this great victory
could be gathered. The independence of the
United States was not yet won ; but the triumph
at Saratoga set in motion a train of events from
which the winning of independence was destined
surely to foUow.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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