The Political History of England - Vol. X.

ists were for the most part inclined to let it die out. Samuel Adams had no such inclination, and did all in his power to fan the smoulde

cause of liberty. In Boston the revenue officers were exposed to insult and violence. Hutchinson held the assembly of the province at Cambridge, and further disgusted his opponents by informing them that he was no longer dependent on their votes for his salary; it would thenceforward be paid by the king. The more peaceable Americans were gratified in 1772 by the appointment of the Earl of Dartmouth to succeed Hillsborough as secretary for the colonies, for Dartmout

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10th was boarded by eight boat-loads of men. Duddingston was treacherously shot at and wounded; he and his men were set on shore, and the schooner was burnt. This destruction of one of the king's ships, an act alike of rebellion and piracy, and, as Thurlow said, "an event five times the magnitude of the stamp act," was unpunished. A law, enacted in the previous April, and evoked by a fire in an English dockyard, provided that the setting on fire of a public dockyard or a king's ship should be felony, and that those accused of such an offence shou

man of honour, holding the opinions on which he had consistently acted. They were declared to be evidences of malice and bad faith; he and Oliver were, John Adams said, "cool-thinking, deliberate villains," and the assembly sent a petition to the king for their removal. The letters were industriously circulated throughout the province, and were denounced by preachers in their Sunday sermons. Such was the state of affairs when, in accordance with the act of parliament authorising the East India Company to export its surplus stock of tea direct to America, three ships laden with tea app

ent attack on Franklin; he described him as a thief and accused him of acting from the meanest motives. The temper of his audience was irritated by the news from Boston, and his speech was received with manifestations of delight, indecent on the part of men sitting as judges in that august court. The petition was rejected as groundless and scandalous, and men went away "almost ready to throw up their hats for joy," as though a lawyer's bitter tongue had given England a victory. Franklin was at once dismissed from his office of deputy postmaster. Wedderburn's speech and the spirit in which it was received were impolitic as well as discreditable. While strongly opposed to the ministerial

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f serving under a minister who was virtually the king's representative, though his actual revolt may have been an unpremeditated ebullition of youthful vanity. A libel on the speaker, of which the turbulent parson, Horne, was the author, gave him an opportunity for self-display; he usurped the functions of leader of the house, persuaded it to enter on proceedings which might have ended in another awkward quarrel with a printer, and placed North in a most embarrassing position. The king, whom he had already offended by his opposition to the royal marriage bill, heartily disliked him, and urged North to get rid of him. He was curtly dismissed from office on February 24. He at once went into opposition, and acted

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so different from that of their colleagues, that it indicated a division in the cabinet.[90] The bill met with little opposition in the commons, though Dowdeswell and Burke spoke against it. In the lords, Rockingham and Shelburne opposed it, Chatham was absent through ill-health, and Mansfield strongly advocated it, declaring that Boston had committed "the last overt act of treason," and that it was a lucky event, for if the bill passed we should have crossed the Rubicon, the Americans would see that we would temporise no longer, and if it passed unanimously, Boston would submit without bloodshed. The bil

to be content to bind the colonies by laws of trade, to disregard the question of its right, and to refrain from taxation. Only forty-nine voted for the motion. A third bill ordered that any one accused of a capital offence should, if the act was done in the execution of the law in Massachusetts, be tried in Nova Scotia or Great Britain; and a fourth provided for the quartering of troops. When the quartering bill was before the lords, Chatham returned to parliament. He opposed the bill, declared his dislike of the Boston port bill, which, he said, punished a whole town for the

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olonies, nor as to the vast tract between Lake Nipissing and the Mississippi, the boundary of the Spanish land. The government of Canada was in the hands of a military governor-general and a council. In 1764 the English-speaking and protestant population was a mere handful; in 1774 it numbered about 360, while the French Roman catholics were at the least 80,000. In accordance with the treaty of Paris the catholics had full liberty of worship. English was, however, the only official language, and all offices were held by men of British nationality. The administration of the law was confused, and, though the king's proclamation held out a pro

olics and secured to their priests, with the exception of the religious orders, their former tithes and dues, so far as concerned their own people only, for protestants were exempted from such payments. Civil cases were to be decided according to the French law, criminal cases according to the English law, by juries. It was declared inexpedient to call an assembly; a legislative council was nominated by the crown, and taxatio

y cries of "No popery". The agitation soon died out, for the government was popular. In America the act caused much irritation; New York, Virginia, and other colonies complained that it deprived them of the right to extend their territories; the revolutionary party saw with uneasiness the establishment of the power of the crown over a vast district on their borders, and religious prejudices were aroused by the favour shown to the catholics. Strong protestant as he was, the king was thoroughly in favour of the bill. It was a wise and a just measure. It gav

rted by the other colonies, and no special military preparation was thought necessary. On June 1, Boston harbour was closed. The busy little town lay desolate, its wharfs were deserted, its warehouses shut up, its streets silent; its merchants were threatened with ruin, its seamen, shipwrights, and labourers and their families with starvation. The act was enforced to the utmost, and small as Gage's force was, it was sufficient to keep the town in subjection. Its punishment was heavy, but surely not heavier than its offences. Be this as it may, it was worse than ineffe

, one-third tories (loyalists), and the rest mongrel. A proposal for a new constitution with a president over all the colonies to be appointed by the crown, and a grand council to be elected by the several assemblies and to act in connexion with parliament, was only negatived by the votes of six colonies to five. Yet the revolutionists gained a decided preponderance, largely through the skilful management of Samuel Adams, who persuaded the congress to approve the "resolves" passed at a meeting of Suffolk county, Massachusetts. These "resolves" rejected the act for the government of the province, required tax collectors not to pay money into the governor's trea

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ght, they failed to understand the situation. In the case of others, like Patrick Henry and the Adamses, it is useless to attach any weight to loyal expressions. Too much, indeed, has been made of the American professions of loyalty, for men's loyalty is better judged by their actions than by their words. Thousands of Americans proved their loyalty by tremendous sacrifices. Loyalism on its religious side was connected with the teaching of the English Church; politically it was the outcome of attachment to law, monarchy, and the unity of the empire as against revolution, democracy, and separation.[93] The loyalists, however, included men of various religious persuasi

ew Jersey contained a strong loyalist minority. In the southern colonies they were about as numerous as the whigs, and in South Carolina and Georgia perhaps outnumbered them. John Adams, who would be inclined to underestimate their number, thought that they were a third of the population of the thirteen colonies. The number on each side fluctuated from time to time; the loyalists claimed to be in a majority, and it is probable that at least half of the most respected part of the population were throughout the struggle either avowedly or secretly averse from revolution.[94] At the lowest computation 20,000 loyalists joined the British army, and some thirty regiments or battalions of them were regularly organised and paid. Most of them were peaceable men, not more inclined for fig

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ade perpetual during the last session. Its good effects were apparent in the election of 1774; it made the bribery of borough electors dangerous, and there was far less of it than before. Bargains, however, could still be made with the owners and patrons of boroughs, and the king made himself responsible for the money North expended. North offered Lord Falmouth ￡2,500 a piece for three Cornish seats and had "to make it guineas". Other bargains of the same kind were made. George, who was great at electioneering man?uvres, took much interest in the proceedings. He was unable to find a candidate to stand against Wilkes, then lord mayor elect, and Wilkes and Glynn were returned for Middlesex without oppo

and sentiments of his great days led him to foresee that, in case of war France and Spain would seize the opportunity of attacking England. Unfortunately his theory that the colonies owed only a limited obedience to the crown, that while parliament had a right to crush disobedience and to pass acts regulating trade, it had no right to impose taxes, his violence, his inveterate habit of "talking fustian,"[96] and his friendship with Franklin, who was commonly regarded as a rebel, deprived his warnings of the weight which they deserved. The Rockingham party did not act cordially with him. It was inspired by Burke who urged that parliament sho

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condemned by Burke and did not enter into practical politics. Meanwhile a pamphleteer of originality and genius, Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, maintained that separation was inevitable and advisable, that the Americans were a turbulent and ill-conditioned people, a source of expense to which they would not contribute, and that England would be better off without them. She would not, he contended, lose commerc

val establishment was reduced to a peace footing, and no extra soldiers were voted. Gage, however, who had only some 3,000 troops, asked for a large reinforcement, and wrote that, if matters came to an extremity, 20,000 men would be needed for the conquest of New England, a number which, Dartmouth said, "the nation would not be able to furnish in a twelvemonth".[97] The ministers resolved to send a small reinforcement from Ireland, they were encouraged to believe that the Americans would yield by tidings that the New York assembly had rejected the decisions of congress and by more hopeful news f

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national debt. Having obtained this grant, parliament was to reduce the power of the admiralty courts, which checked illicit trading, and to suspend all the acts, including the Quebec act, of which the Americans complained. The bill was not allowed a second reading. Soon after its ignominious rejection the gout laid hold on Chatham, and he did not appear in parliament again for two years. Franklin returned to America about this time; he disclaimed responsibility for Chatham's proposals, which, he considered, would only have been useful as a basis for

t last, and then Barré, Burke, and Dunning fell upon the bill, describing it as a mean attempt to divide the Americans, and a plan for coercing each province separately. The motion was, however, carried. As the opposition scorned North's plan, which Burke called "a project of ransom by auction," it behoved them to bring forward a plan of their own which would be acceptable to the Americans. Accordingly, on March 22, Burke propounded a series of conciliatory resolutions which he enforced in one of his most famous speeches. He urged the house to return to its old policy, to respect the A

rms and powder-mills were set up in different places. In February, 1775, the Massachusetts provincial congress met, and urged the militia, and specially the "minute-men"-militiamen ready to serve on the shortest notice-to perfect their discipline. Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas were astir with warlike preparations; in Massachusetts men were practising the use of arms on every village green, a number of Stockbridge Indians were enlisted as minut

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ldiers marched on. While the grenadiers were destroying the stores at Concord a sharp engagement took place with the militia, and several on both sides were killed and wounded. The troops, having accomplished their purpose as far as was possible, for part of the stores had already been removed, set out to return to Boston. As they marched back, tired and impeded by their wounded, militiamen and volunteers fired upon them from every hedge, and wall, and house, and the shots told heavily on their close ranks. Forced on by the ceaseless fire, like a driven flock of sheep, thick together and helpless, they staggered back to Lexington, where they arrived completely exhausted. There they were met by a large detachment under Lord Percy, which had been sent to their relief. After a rest t

imes are not to be condemned because they were men of their own days and lacked the experience of a future age. And it is to be remembered that England's colonial policy was then, as it is now, the most liberal in the world. American discontent existed before the reign of George III.; it was kept in check by the fear of French invasion. It was when that fear was removed that England began to enforce the restraints on commerce. This change in policy fell most heavily on the New England provinces, where whig tendencies were strongest, and specially on Massachusetts. A small and violent party in the province fanned the flame of discontent, and the attempts at taxation, which added to the grievances of the colonists, afforded a respectable cry to the fom

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, v., 189-90, 205-7,

ham Corr.

Hist., xv

, i., 34-35, 449, sq.; Flick, L

yalism in New

American Loyalist

with Nort

ood, May 18, 176

merica, Hist. MSS. Comm.

the Revolution, in Narr. an