Title: The War of Independence
Author: Fiske, John, 1842-1901
Language: English
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RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
BY JOHN FISKE

WITH MAPS, INDEX AND A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO

The Riverside Press Cambridge

Price, paper 30 cents; linen, 40 cents

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The Riverside Literature Series

THE
WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

BY
JOHN FISKE

WITH MAPS, INDEX, AND A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

[Decoration]

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 85 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

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COPYRIGHT, 1889
BY JOHN FISKE

COPYRIGHT, 1894
BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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PREFACE.

This little book does not contain the substance of the lectures on the
American Revolution which I have delivered in so many parts of the
United States since 1883. Those lectures, when completed and published,
will make quite a detailed narrative; this book is but a sketch. It is
hoped that it may prove useful to the higher classes in schools, as well
as to teachers. When I was a boy I should have been glad to get hold of
a brief account of the War for Independence that would have suggested
answers to some of the questions that used to vex me. Was the conduct of
the British government, in driving the Americans into rebellion, merely
wanton aggression, or was it not rather a bungling attempt to solve a
political problem which really needed to be solved? Why were New Jersey
and the Hudson river so important? Why did the British armies make South
Carolina their chief objective point after New York? Or how did
Cornwallis happen to be at Yorktown when Washington made such a long
leap and pounced upon him there? And so on. Such questions the
old-fashioned text-books not only did not try to answer, they did not
even recognize their existence. As to the large histories, they of
course include so many details that it requires maturity of judgment to
discriminate between the facts that are cardinal and those that are
merely incidental. When I give lectures to schoolboys and schoolgirls, I
observe that a reference to causes and effects always seems to heighten
the interest of the story. I therefore offer them this little book, not
as a rival but as an aid to the ordinary text-book. I am aware that a
narrative so condensed must necessarily suffer from the omission of many
picturesque and striking details. The world is so made that one often
has to lose a little in one direction in order to gain something in
another. This book is an experiment. If it seems to answer its purpose,
I may follow it with others, treating other portions of American history
in similar fashion.

CAMBRIDGE, _February 11, 1889_.

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CONTENTS.

CHAP.                                                PAGE

      BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JOHN FISKE               vii

   I. INTRODUCTION                                      1

  II. THE COLONIES IN 1750                              4

 III. THE FRENCH WARS, AND THE FIRST PLAN OF UNION     26

  IV. THE STAMP ACT, AND THE REVENUE LAWS              39

   V. THE CRISIS                                       78

  VI. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE                     104

 VII. THE FRENCH ALLIANCE                             144

VIII. BIRTH OF THE NATION                             182

      COLLATERAL READING                              195

      INDEX                                           197

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LIST OF MAPS.

                                            _Facing page_

INVASION OF CANADA                                     92

WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGNS IN NEW JERSEY AND PENNSYLVANIA 120

BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN                                   130

THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN                                 172

NOTE.--These maps are used by permission of, and by arrangement with,
Messrs. Ginn & Company.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

To relate, by way of leading up to this little book, all the previous
achievements of its author would--without disrespect to the greater or
the less--have somewhat the appearance of putting a very big cart in
front of a pony. But no idea could be more mistaken than that which
induces people to believe a small book the easiest to write. Easy
reading is hard writing; and a thoroughly good small book stands for so
much more than the mere process of putting it on paper, that its value
is not at all to be judged by its bulk. The offhand word of a man full
of knowledge is worth a great deal more than the carefully prepared
utterance of a person who having spoken once has nothing more to say. In
our introduction to this work, therefore, we propose to reverse the
common process of tracing the author's development upwards, and instead,
after stating the mere events of Mr. Fiske's life, to begin with "The
War of Independence" and to follow his work backwards, attempting very
briefly to show how each undertaking was built naturally upon something
before it, and that the original basis of the structure was uncommonly
broad and strong.

John Fiske was born in Hartford, Conn., 30th March, 1842, and spent
most of his life, before entering Harvard as a sophomore in 1860, with
his grandmother's family in Middletown, Conn. Two years after taking his
degree at Harvard, in 1863, he was graduated from the Harvard Law
School, but he cared so much more for writing than for the law that his
attempt to practice it in Boston was soon abandoned. In 1861 he made his
first important contribution to a magazine, and ever since has done much
work of the same sort. He has served Harvard College, as University
lecturer on philosophy, 1869-71, in 1870 as instructor in history, and
from 1872 to 1879 as assistant librarian. Since resigning from that
office he has been for two terms of six years each a member of the board
of overseers. In 1881 he began lecturing annually at Washington
University, St. Louis, on American history, and in 1884 was made a
professor of the institution. Since 1871 he has devoted much time to
lecturing at large. He has been heard in most of the principal cities of
America, and abroad, in London and Edinburgh. All this time his home has
been in Cambridge, Mass.

So much for the simple outward circumstances of Mr. Fiske's life.
Turning to his studies and writings, one finds them reaching out into
almost every direction of human thought; and this book, from which our
backward course is to be taken, is but a page from the great body of his
work. It is especially as a student of philosophy, science, and history
that Mr. Fiske is known to the world; and at the present it is
particularly as an historian of America that his name is spoken. In no
other way more satisfactorily than in tracing the growth of his own
nation has he found it possible to study the laws of progress of the
human race, and from the first, through all the time of his most active
philosophical and scientific work, this study of human progress has been
the true interest of his life. With his historical works, then, let us
begin.

In 1879 he delivered a course of six lectures on American history, at
the Old South Meeting House in Boston. In previous years he had written
occasional essays on historical subjects in general, but the impulse
towards American history in particular was given by the preparation for
these lectures, which were concerned especially with the colonial
period. Of his own treatment of an historical subject he is quoted as
saying: "I look it up or investigate it, and then write an essay or a
lecture on the subject. That serves as a preliminary statement, either
of a large subject or of special points. It is a help to me to make a
statement of the kind--I mean in the lecture or essay form. In fact it
always assists me to try to state the case. I never publish anything
after this first statement, but generally keep it with me for, it may
be, some years, and possibly return to it again several times." Thus it
may safely be assumed that these Old South Lectures and the many others
that have followed them have found or will find a permanent place in the
series of Mr. Fiske's historical volumes.

The succession of these books has not been in the order of the periods
of which they treat; but from the similarity of their method and the
fact that they cover a series of important periods in American history,
they go towards making a complete, consecutive history of the country.
The periods which are not yet covered Mr. Fiske proposes to deal with in
time. One who has talked with him on the subject of his works reports
the following statement as coming from Mr. Fiske's own lips: "I am now
at work on a general history of the United States. When John Richard
Green was planning his 'Short History of the English People,' and he and
I were friends in London, I heard him telling about his scheme. I
thought it would be a very nice thing to do something of the same sort
for American history. But when I took it up I found myself, instead of
carrying it out in that way, dwelling upon special points; and
insensibly, without any volition on my part, I suppose, it has been
rather taking the shape of separate monographs. But I hope to go on in
that way until I cover the ground with these separate books,--that is,
to cover as much ground as possible. But, of course, the scheme has
become much more extensive than it was when I started."

Taken in the order of their subjects, the five works already contributed
to this series are, "The Discovery of America, with some Account of
Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest" (two volumes); "Old Virginia
and her Neighbours" (two volumes); "The Beginnings of New England, or
the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty;"
"The American Revolution" (two volumes); and "The Critical Period of
American History, 1783-1789." Allied with these books, though hardly
taking a place in the series, is "Civil Government in the United States,
Considered with some Reference to its Origins," "The War of
Independence," it will thus be seen, is the least ambitious of all
these historical works. "A History of the United States for Schools" is
addressed to the same audience, and in so far may be considered a
companion volume.

What makes Mr. Fiske's histories just what they are? Another step
backward in the stages of his own development will enable us to see, and
the sub-title, "Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History," of one
of his earlier books, "American Political Ideas," will help towards an
understanding of his power. It is due to the fact that he brings to his
historical work on special subjects the broad philosophic and general
view of a man who is much more than a specialist,--the scientific habit
of mind which must look for causes when effects are seen, and must point
out the relations between them. There could be no better preparation for
the writing of history than the apparently alien study of the questions
with which the names of Darwin and Spencer are inseparably associated.
When Darwin's "Origin of Species" appeared, Mr. Fiske's own thought had
prepared him to take the place of an ardent apostle of Evolution, and it
is held that no man has done more than he in expounding the theory in
America. Standing permanently for his work in this field are his books,
"Excursions of an Evolutionist" and "Darwinism, and Other Essays." One
of his first important works was "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy" (1874),
and in more recent years "The Destiny of Man" and "The Idea of God"
speak forth very distinctly, not as interpretations, but as his own
contributions to the progress of philosophic thought. One other phase of
the use to which Mr. Fiske's mind has been put should surely be
mentioned in any summary of his qualifications for writing histories. He
is extremely fond of hearing and telling good stories. His book on
"Myths and Myth-makers" (1872) gave early evidence of this fondness, and
surely there is the very spirit of the lover of tales in the Dedication
of the book, "To my dear Friend, William D. Howells, in remembrance of
pleasant autumn evenings spent among were-wolves and trolls and nixies."
Thus, besides the ability to see a story in all its bearings, Mr. Fiske
has the gift of telling it effectively,--a golden power without which
all the learning in the world would serve an historian as but so much
lead.

But all of these works preceding Mr. Fiske's historical writings did not
come out of nothing. His mental acquirements as a young man and boy were
very extraordinary, and give to the last stage of his career at which we
shall look--the earliest--perhaps the greatest interest of all. A
description of it without a knowledge of what followed would be all too
apt to remind readers whose memories go back far enough of the
instances, all too common, of men whose early promise is not fulfilled.
_Summa cum laude_ graduates settle down into lives of timid routine that
leads to nothing, just as often as the idle dreamers who stay
consistently at the foot of their classes wake up when the vital contact
with the world takes place, and do something astonishingly good. These,
however, are the exceptions. A development like Mr. Fiske's follows the
lines of nature.

Happily, there were books in the house in which he was brought up. At
the age of seven he was reading Rollin, Josephus, and Goldsmith's
Greece. Much of Milton, Pope, and Bunyan, and nearly all of Shakespeare
he had read before he was nine; histories of many lands before eleven.
At this age he filled a quarto blank book of sixty pages with a
chronological table, written from memory, of events between 1000 B. C.
and 1820 A. D.

All this would seem enough for one boy, but there were the other worlds
of languages and science to conquer. It is almost discouraging merely to
write down the fact that at thirteen he had read a large part of Livy,
Cicero, Ovid, Catullus, and Juvenal, and all of Virgil, Horace, Tacitus,
Sallust, and Suetonius,--to say nothing of Cæsar, at seven. Greek was
disposed of in like manner; and then came the modern languages,
--German, Spanish,--in which he kept a diary,--French, Italian, and
Portuguese. Hebrew and Sanskrit were kept for the years of seventeen and
eighteen. In college, Icelandic, Gothic, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, and
Roumanian were added, with beginnings in Russian. The uses to which he
put these languages were not those to which the weary schoolboy puts his
few scraps of learning in foreign tongues, but the true uses of
literature,--reading for pleasure and mental stimulus.

It is needless to relate the rapid course of Mr. Fiske's first studies
in science; it is no whit less remarkable than that of his other
intellectual enterprises. As mathematics is akin to music, it will be
enough to say that when he was fifteen a friend's piano was left in his
grandmother's house, and, without a master, the boy soon learned its
secrets well enough to play such works as Mozart's Twelfth Mass. Later
in life Mr. Fiske studied the science of music. He has printed many
musical criticisms, and has himself composed a mass and songs.

Few boys can hope to take to college with them, or, for that matter,
even away from it, a mind so well equipped as Mr. Fiske's was when he
went to Cambridge. Three years of stimulating university atmosphere, and
of indefinitely wide opportunities for reading, left him prepared as few
men have been for just the work he has done. He has had the wisdom to
see what he could do, and being possessed of the qualities that lead to
accomplishment, he has done it; and any reader who understands more than
the mere words he reads will be very likely to discover in this small
volume, "The War of Independence," something of the spirit, and some
suggestions of the method which, in this sketch, we have endeavored to
point out as characteristic of one of the foremost living historians.



THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.



CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.


Since the year 1875 we have witnessed, in many parts of the United
States, public processions, meetings, and speeches in commemoration of
the hundredth anniversary of some important event in the course of our
struggle for national independence. This series of centennial
celebrations, which has been of great value in stimulating American
patriotism and awakening throughout the country a keen interest in
American history, will naturally come to an end in 1889. The close of
President Cleveland's term of office marks the close of the first
century of the government under which we live, which dates from the
inauguration of President Washington on the balcony of the Federal
building in Wall street, New York, on the 30th of April, 1789. It was on
that memorable day that the American Revolution may be said to have been
completed. The Declaration of Independence in 1776 detached the American
people from the supreme government to which they had hitherto owed
allegiance, and it was not until Washington's inauguration in 1789 that
the supreme government to which we owe allegiance to-day was actually
put in operation. The period of thirteen years included between these
two dates was strictly a revolutionary period, during which it was more
or less doubtful where the supreme authority over the United States
belonged. First, it took the fighting and the diplomacy of the
revolutionary war to decide that this supreme authority belonged in the
United States themselves, and not in the government of Great Britain;
and then after the war was ended, more than five years of sore distress
and anxious discussion had elapsed before the American people succeeded
in setting up a new government that was strong enough to make itself
obeyed at home and respected abroad.

It is the story of this revolutionary period, ending in 1789, that we
have here to relate in its principal outlines. When we stand upon the
crest of a lofty hill and look about in all directions over the
landscape, we can often detect relations between distant points which we
had not before thought of together. While we tarried in the lowland, we
could see blue peaks rising here and there against the sky, and follow
babbling brooks hither and thither through the forest. It was more
homelike down there than on the hilltop, for in each gnarled tree, in
every moss-grown boulder, in every wayside flower, we had a friend that
was near to us; but the general bearings of things may well have escaped
our notice. In climbing to our lonely vantage-ground, while the familiar
scenes fade from sight, there are gradually unfolded to us those
connections between crag and meadow and stream that make the life and
meaning of the whole. We learn the "lay of the land," and become, in a
humble way, geographers. So in the history of men and nations, while we
remain immersed in the study of personal incidents and details, as what
such a statesman said or how many men were killed in such a battle, we
may quite fail to understand what it was all about, and we shall be sure
often to misjudge men's characters and estimate wrongly the importance
of many events. For this reason we cannot clearly see the meaning of the
history of our own times. The facts are too near us; we are down among
them, like the man who could not see the forest because there were so
many trees. But when we look back over a long interval of years, we can
survey distant events and personages like points in a vast landscape and
begin to discern the meaning of it all. In this way we come to see that
history is full of lessons for us. Very few things have happened in past
ages with which our present welfare is not in one way or another
concerned. Few things have happened in any age more interesting or more
important than the American Revolution.



CHAPTER II.

THE COLONIES IN 1750.


It is always difficult in history to mark the beginning and end of a
period. Events keep rushing on and do not pause to be divided into
chapters; or, in other words, in the history which really takes place, a
new chapter is always beginning long before the old one is ended. The
divisions we make when we try to describe it are merely marks that we
make for our own convenience. In telling the story of the American
Revolution we must stop somewhere, and the inauguration of President
Washington is a very proper place. We must also begin somewhere, but it
is quite clear that it will not do to begin with the Declaration of
Independence in July, 1776, or even with the midnight ride of Paul
Revere in April, 1775. For if we ask what caused that "hurry of hoofs in
a village street," and what brought together those five-and-fifty
statesmen at Philadelphia, we are not simply led back to the Boston
Tea-Party, and still further to the Stamp Act, but we find it necessary
to refer to events that happened more than a century before the
Revolution can properly be said to have begun. Indeed, if we were going
to take a very wide view of the situation, and try to point out its
relations to the general history of mankind, we should have to go back
many hundreds of years and not only cross the ocean to the England of
King Alfred, but keep on still further to the ancient market-places of
Rome and Athens, and even to the pyramids of Egypt; and in all this long
journey through the ages we should not be merely gratifying an idle
curiosity, but at every step of the way could gather sound practical
lessons, useful in helping us to vote intelligently at the next election
for mayor of the city in which we live or for president of the United
States.

    [Sidenote: The half-way station in American History]

We are not now, however, about to start on any such long journey. It is
a much nearer and narrower view of the American Revolution that we wish
to get. There are many points from which we might start, but we must at
any rate choose a point several years earlier than the Declaration of
Independence. People are very apt to leave out of sight the "good old
colony times" and speak of our country as scarcely more than a hundred
years old. Sometimes we hear the presidency of George Washington spoken
of as part of "early American history;" but we ought not to forget that
when Washington was born the commonwealth of Virginia was already one
hundred and twenty-five years old. The first governor of Massachusetts
was born three centuries ago, in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada.
Suppose we take the period of 282 years between the English settlement
of Virginia and the inauguration of President Benjamin Harrison, and
divide it in the middle. That gives us the year 1748 as the half-way
station in the history of the American people. There were just as many
years of continuous American history before 1748 as there have been
since that date. That year was famous for the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,
which put an end to a war between England and France that had lasted
five years. That war had been waged in America as well as in Europe, and
American troops had played a brilliant part in it. There was now a brief
lull, soon to be followed by another and greater war between the two
mighty rivals, and it was in the course of this latter war that some of
the questions were raised which presently led to the American
Revolution. Let us take the occasion of this lull in the storm to look
over the American world and see what were the circumstances likely to
lead to the throwing off of the British government by the thirteen
colonies, and to their union under a federal government of their own
making.

    [Sidenote: The four New England colonies.]

In the middle of the eighteenth century there were four New England
colonies. Massachusetts extended her sway over Maine, and the Green
Mountain territory was an uninhabited wilderness, to which New York and
New Hampshire alike laid claim. The four commonwealths of New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island had all been in existence,
under one form or another, for more than a century. The men who were in
the prime of life there in 1750 were the great-grandsons and
great-great-grandsons of the men who crossed the ocean between 1620 and
1640 and settled New England. Scarcely two men in a hundred were of other
than English blood. About one in a hundred could say that his family
came from Scotland or the north of Ireland; one in five hundred may have
been the grandchild of a Huguenot. Upon religious and political
questions these people thought very much alike. Extreme poverty was
almost unknown, and there were but few who could not read and write. As
a rule every head of a family owned the house in which he lived and the
land which supported him. There were no cities; and from Boston, which
was a town with 16,000 inhabitants, down to the smallest settlement in
the White Mountains, the government was carried on by town-meetings at
which, almost any grown-up man could be present and speak and vote.
Except upon the sea-coast nearly all the people lived upon farms; but
all along the coast were many who lived by fishing and by building
ships, and in the towns dwelt many merchants grown rich by foreign
trade. In those days Massachusetts was the richest of the thirteen
colonies, and had a larger population than any other except Virginia.
Connecticut was then more populous than New York; and when the four New
England commonwealths acted together--as was likely to be the case in
time of danger--they formed the strongest military power on the American
continent.

    [Sidenote: Virginia and Maryland]

Among what we now call southern states there were two that in 1750 were
more than a hundred years old. These were Virginia and Maryland. The
people of these commonwealths, like those of New England, had lived
together in America long enough to become distinctively Americans. Both
New Englander and Virginian had had time to forget their family
relationships with the kindred left behind so long ago in England;
though there were many who did not forget it, and in our time scholars
have by research recovered many of the links that had been lost from
memory. The white people of Virginia were as purely English as those of
Connecticut or Massachusetts. But society in Virginia was very different
from society in New England. The wealth of Virginia consisted chiefly of
tobacco, which was raised by negro slaves. People lived far apart from
each other on great plantations, usually situated near the navigable
streams of which that country has so many. Most of the great planters
had easy access to private wharves, where their crops could be loaded on
ships and sent directly to England in exchange for all sorts of goods.
Accordingly it was but seldom that towns grew up as centres of trade.
Each plantation was a kind of little world in itself. There were no
town-meetings, as the smallest political division was the division into
counties; but there were county-meetings quite vigorous with
political life. Of the leading county families a great many were
descended from able and distinguished Cavaliers or King's-men who had
come over from England during the ascendency of Oliver Cromwell. Skill
in the management of public affairs was hereditary in such families, and
during our revolutionary period Virginia produced more great leaders
than any of the other colonies.

    [Sidenote: New York and Delaware]

There were yet two other American commonwealths that in 1750 were more
than a hundred years old. These were New York and little Delaware, which
for some time was a kind of appendage, first to New York, afterward to
Pennsylvania. But there was one important respect in which these two
colonies were different alike from New England and from Virginia. Their
population was far from being purely English. Delaware had been first
settled by Swedes, New York by Dutchmen; and the latter colony had drawn
its settlers from almost every part of western and central Europe. A man
might travel from Penobscot bay to the Harlem river without hearing a
syllable in any other tongue than English; but in crossing Manhattan
island he could listen, if he chose, to more than a dozen languages.
There was almost as much diversity in opinions about religious and
political matters as there was in the languages in which they were
expressed. New York was an English community in so far as it had been
for more than eighty years under an English government, but hardly in
any other sense. Accordingly we shall find New York in the revolutionary
period less prompt and decided in action than Massachusetts and
Virginia. In population New York ranked only seventh among the thirteen
colonies; but in its geographical position it was the most important of
all. It was important commercially because the Mohawk and Hudson rivers
formed a direct avenue for the fur-trade from the region of the great
lakes to the finest harbour on all the Atlantic coast. In a military
sense it was important for two reasons; _first_, because the Mohawk
valley was the home of the most powerful confederacy of Indians on the
continent, the steady allies of the English and deadly foes of the
French; _secondly_, because the centre of the French power was at
Montreal and Quebec, and from those points the route by which the
English colonies could be most easily invaded was formed by Lake
Champlain and the Hudson river. New York was completely interposed
between New England and the rest of the English colonies, so that an
enemy holding possession of it would virtually cut the Atlantic
sea-board in two. For these reasons the political action of New York
was of most critical importance.

    [Sidenote: The two Carolinas and Georgia; New Jersey and Pennsylvania]

Of the other colonies in 1750, the two Carolinas and New Jersey were
rather more than eighty years old, while Pennsylvania had been settled
scarcely seventy years. But the growth of these younger colonies had
been rapid, especially in the case of Pennsylvania and North Carolina,
which in populousness ranked third and fourth among the thirteen. This
rapid increase was mainly due to a large immigration from Europe kept up
during the first half of the eighteenth century, so that a large
proportion of the people had either been born in Europe, or were the
children of people born in Europe. In 1750 these colonies had not had
time enough to become so intensely American as Virginia and the New
England colonies. In Georgia, which had been settled only seventeen
years, people had had barely time to get used to this new home on the
wild frontier.

The population of these younger colonies was very much mixed. In South
Carolina, as in New York, probably less than half were English. In both
Carolinas there were a great many Huguenots from France, and immigrants
from Germany and Scotland and the north of Ireland were still pouring
in. Pennsylvania had many Germans and Irish, and settlers from other
parts of Europe, besides its English Quakers. With all this diversity of
race there was a great diversity of opinions about political questions,
as about other matters.

    [Sidenote: Why Massachusetts and Virginia took the lead.]

We are now beginning to see why it was that Massachusetts and Virginia
took the lead in bringing on the revolutionary war. Not only were these
two the largest colonies, but their people had become much more
thoroughly welded together in their thoughts and habits and associations
than was as yet possible with the people of the younger colonies. When
the revolutionary war came, there were very few Tories in the New
England colonies and very few in Virginia; but there were a great many
in New York and Pennsylvania and the two Carolinas, so that the action
of these commonwealths was often slow and undecided, and sometimes there
was bitter and bloody fighting between men of opposite opinions,
especially in New York and South Carolina.

    [Sidenote: The two republics; Connecticut and Rhode Island]

If we look at the governments of the thirteen colonies in the middle of
the eighteenth century, we shall observe some interesting facts. All the
colonies had legislative assemblies elected by the people, and these
assemblies levied the taxes and made the laws. So far as the
legislatures were concerned, therefore, all the colonies governed
themselves. But with regard to the executive department of the
government, there were very important differences. Only two of the
colonies, Connecticut and Rhode Island, had governors elected by the
people. These two colonies were completely self-governing. In almost
everything but name they were independent of Great Britain, and this was
so true that at the time of the revolutionary war they did not need to
make any new constitutions for themselves, but continued to live on
under their old charters for many years,--Connecticut until 1818, Rhode
Island until 1843. Before the revolution these two colonies had
comparatively few direct grievances to complain of at the hands of Great
Britain; but as they were next neighbours to Massachusetts and closely
connected with its history, they were likely to sympathize promptly with
the kind of grievances by which Massachusetts was disturbed.

    [Sidenote: The proprietary governments: Pennsylvania, Delaware,
    and Maryland]

Three of the colonies, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, had a
peculiar kind of government, known as _proprietary government_. Their
territories had originally been granted by the crown to a person known
as the Lord Proprietary, and the lord-proprietorship descended from
father to son like a kingdom. In Maryland it was the Calvert family that
reigned for six generations as lords proprietary. Pennsylvania and
Delaware had each its own separate legislature, but over both colonies
reigned the same lord proprietary, who was a member of the Penn family.
These colonies were thus like little hereditary monarchies, and they had
but few direct dealings with the British government. For them the lords
proprietary stood in the place of the king, and appointed the governors.
In Maryland this system ran smoothly. In Pennsylvania there was a good
deal of dissatisfaction, but it generally assumed the form of a wish to
get rid of the lords proprietary and have the governors appointed by the
king; for as this was something they had not tried they were not
prepared to appreciate its evils.

    [Sidenote: The crown colonies and their royal governors]

In the other eight colonies--New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New
Jersey, Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia--the governors were
appointed by the king, and were commonly known as "royal governors."
They were sometimes natives of the colonies over which they were
appointed, as Dudley and Hutchinson of Massachusetts, and others; but
were more often sent over from England. Some of them, as Pownall of
Massachusetts and Spotswood of Virginia, were men of marked ability.
Some were honest gentlemen, who felt a real interest in the welfare of
the people they came to help govern; some were unprincipled adventurers,
who came to make money by fair means or foul. Their position was one of
much dignity, and they behaved themselves like lesser kings. What with
their crimson velvets and fine laces and stately coaches, they made much
more of a show than any president of the United States would think of
making to-day. They had no fixed terms of office, but remained at their
posts as long as the king, or the king's colonial secretary, saw fit to
keep them there.

    [Sidenote: The question as to salaries]

Now it was generally true of the royal governors that, whether they were
natives of America or sent over from England, and whether they were good
men or bad, they were very apt to make themselves disliked by the
people, and they were almost always quarrelling with their legislative
assemblies. Questions were always coming up about which the governor and
the legislature could not agree, because the legislature represented the
views of the people who had chosen it, while the governor represented
his own views or the views which prevailed three thousand miles away
among the king's ministers, who very often knew little about America and
cared less. One of these disputed questions related to the governor's
salary. It was natural that the governor should wish to have a salary of
fixed amount, so that he might know from year to year what he was going
to receive. But the people were afraid that if this were to be done the
governor might become too independent. They preferred that the
legislature should each year make a grant of money such as it should
deem suitable for the governor's expenses, and this sum it might
increase or diminish according to its own good pleasure. This would keep
the governor properly subservient to the legislature. Before 1750 there
had been much bitter wrangling over this question in several of the
colonies, and the governors had one after another been obliged to
submit, though with very ill grace.

Sometimes the thoughts of the royal governors and their friends went
beyond this immediate question. Since the legislatures were so froward
and so niggardly, what an admirable plan it would be to have the
governors paid out of the royal treasury and thus made comparatively
independent of the legislatures! The judges, too, who were quite poorly
paid, might fare much better if remunerated by the crown, and the same
might be said of some other public officers. But if the British
government were to undertake to pay the salaries of its officials in
America, it must raise a revenue for the purpose; and it would naturally
raise such a revenue by levying taxes in America rather than in England.
People in England felt that they were already taxed as heavily as they
could bear, in order to pay the expenses of their own government. They
could not be expected to submit to further taxation for the sake of
paying the expenses of governing the American colonies. If further taxes
were to be laid for such a purpose, they must in fairness be laid upon
Americans, not upon Englishmen in the old country.

Such was the view which people in England would naturally be expected to
take, and such was the view which they generally did take. But there was
another side to the question which was very clearly seen by most people
in America. If the royal governors were to be paid by the crown and thus
made independent of their legislatures, there would be danger of their
becoming petty tyrants and interfering in many ways with the liberties
of the people. Still greater would be the danger if the judges were to
be paid by the crown, for then they would feel themselves responsible to
the king or to the royal governor, rather than to their fellow-citizens;
and it would be easy for the governors, by appointing corrupt men as
judges, to prevent the proper administration of justice by the courts,
and thus to make men's lives and property insecure. Most Americans in
1750 felt this danger very keenly. They had not forgotten how, in the
times of their grandfathers, two of the noblest of Englishmen, Lord
William Russell and Colonel Algernon Sidney, had been murdered by the
iniquitous sentence of time-serving judges. They had not forgotten the
ruffian George Jeffreys and his "bloody assizes" of 1685. They well
remembered how their kinsmen in England had driven into exile the Stuart
family of kings, who were even yet, in 1745, making efforts to recover
their lost throne. They remembered how the beginnings of New England had
been made by stout-hearted men who could not endure the tyranny of these
same Stuarts; and they knew well that one of the worst of the evils upon
which Stuart tyranny had fattened had been the corruption of the courts
of justice. The Americans believed with some reason, that even now, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, the administration of justice in
their own commonwealths was decidedly better than in Great Britain; and
they had no mind to have it disturbed.

    [Sidenote: "No taxation without representation."]

But worse than all, if the expenses of governing America were to be paid
by taxes levied upon Americans and collected from them by king or
parliament or any power whatsoever residing in Great Britain, then the
inhabitants of the thirteen American colonies would at once cease to be
free people. A free country is one in which the government cannot take
away people's money, in the shape of taxes, except for strictly public
purposes and with the consent of the people themselves, as expressed by
some body of representatives whom the people have chosen. If people's
money can be taken from them without their consent, no matter how small
the amount, even if it be less than one dollar out of every thousand,
then they are not politically free. They do not govern, but the power
that thus takes their money without their consent is the power that
governs; and there is nothing to prevent such a power from using the
money thus obtained to strengthen itself until it can trample upon
people's rights in every direction, and rob them of their homes and
lives as well as of their money. If the British government could tax the
Americans without their consent, it might use the money for supporting a
British army in America, and such an army might be employed in
intimidating the legislatures, in dispersing town-meetings, in
destroying newspaper-offices, or in other acts of tyranny.

    [Sidenote: It was the fundamental principle of English liberty.]

The Americans in the middle of the eighteenth century well understood
that the principle of "no taxation without representation" is the
fundamental principle of free government. It was the principle for which
their forefathers had contended again and again in England, and upon
which the noble edifice of English liberty had been raised and
consolidated since the grand struggle between king and barons in the
thirteenth century. It had passed into a tradition, both in England and
in America, that in order to prevent the crown from becoming despotic,
it was necessary that it should only wield such revenues as the
representatives of the people might be pleased to grant it. In England
the body which represented the people was the House of Commons, in each
of the American colonies it was the colonial legislature; and in
dealing with the royal governors, the legislatures acted upon the same
general principles as the House of Commons in dealing with the king.

    [Sidenote: Sometimes the royal governors were in the right, as to
    the particular question.]

It was not until some time after 1750 that any grand assault was made
upon the principle of "no taxation without representation," but the
frequent disputes with the royal governors were such as to keep people
from losing sight of this principle, and to make them sensitive about
acts that might lead to violations of it. In the particular disputes the
governors were sometimes clearly right and the people wrong. One of the
principal objects, as we shall presently see, for which the governors
wanted money, was to maintain troops for defence against the French and
the Indians; and the legislatures were apt to be short-sighted and
unreasonably stingy about such matters. Again, the people were sometimes
seized with a silly craze for "paper money" and "wild-cat
banks"--devices for making money out of nothing--and sometimes the
governors were sensible enough to oppose such delusions but not
altogether sensible in their manner of doing it. Thus in 1740 there was
fierce excitement in Massachusetts over a quarrel between the governor
and the legislature about the famous "silver bank" and "land bank."
These institutions were a public nuisance and deserved to be suppressed,
but the governor was obliged to appeal to parliament in order to
succeed in doing it. This led many people to ask, "What business has a
parliament sitting the other side of the ocean to be making laws for
us?" and the grumbling was loud and bitter enough to show that this was
a very dangerous question to raise.

    [Sidenote: Bitter memories; in Virginia.]

It was in the eight colonies which had royal governors that troubles of
a revolutionary character were more likely to arise than in the other
five, but there were special reasons, besides those already mentioned,
why Massachusetts and Virginia should prove more refractory than any of
the others. Both these great commonwealths had bitter memories. Things
had happened in both which might serve as a warning, and which some of
the old men still living in 1750 could distinctly remember. In Virginia
the misgovernment of the royal governor Sir William Berkeley had led in
1675 to the famous rebellion headed by Nathaniel Bacon, and this
rebellion had been suppressed with much harshness. Many leading citizens
had been sent to the gallows and their estates had been confiscated. In
Massachusetts, though there were no such scenes of cruelty to remember,
the grievance was much more deep-seated and enduring.

    [Sidenote: And in Massachusetts.]

Massachusetts had not been originally a royal province, with its
governors appointed by the king. At first it had been a republic, such
as Connecticut and Rhode Island now were, with governors chosen by the
people. From its foundation in 1629 down to 1684 the commonwealth of
Massachusetts had managed its own affairs at its own good pleasure.
Practically it had been not only self-governing but almost independent.
That was because affairs in England were in such confusion that until
after 1660 comparatively little attention was paid to what was going on
in America, and the liberties of Massachusetts prospered through the
neglect of what was then called the "home government." After Charles II.
came to the throne in 1660 he began to interfere with the affairs of
Massachusetts, and so the very first generation of men that had been
born on the soil of that commonwealth were engaged in a long struggle
against the British king for the right of managing their own affairs.
After more than twenty years of this struggle, which by 1675 had come to
be quite bitter, the charter of Massachusetts was annulled in 1684 and
its free government was for the moment destroyed. Presently a viceroy
was sent over from England, to govern Massachusetts (as well as several
other northern colonies) despotically. This viceroy, Sir Edmund Andros,
seems to have been a fairly well meaning man. He was not especially
harsh or cruel, but his rule was a despotism, because he was not
responsible to the people for what he did, but only to the king. In
point of fact the two-and-a-half years of his administration were
characterized by arbitrary arrests and by interference with private
property and with the freedom of the press. It was so vexatious that
early in 1689, taking advantage of the Revolution then going on in
England, the people of Boston rose in rebellion, seized Andros and threw
him into jail, and set up for themselves a provisional government. When
the affairs of New England were settled after the accession of William
and Mary to the throne, Connecticut and Rhode Island were allowed to
keep their old governments; but Massachusetts in 1693 was obliged to
take a new charter instead of her old one, and although this new charter
revived the election of legislatures by the people, it left the
governors henceforth to be appointed by the king.

In the political controversies of Massachusetts, therefore, in the
eighteenth century, the people were animated by the recollection of what
they had lost. They were somewhat less free and independent than their
grandfathers had been, and they had learned what it was to have an
irresponsible ruler sitting at his desk in Boston and signing warrants
for the arrest of loved and respected citizens who dared criticise his
sayings and doings. "Taxation without representation" was not for them a
mere abstract theory; they knew what it meant. It was as near to them as
the presidency of Andrew Jackson is to us; there had not been time
enough to forget it. In every contest between the popular legislature
and the royal governor there was some broad principle involved which
there were plenty of well-remembered facts to illustrate.

    [Sidenote: Grounds of sympathy between Massachusetts and Virginia.]

These contests also helped to arouse a strong sympathy between the
popular leaders in Massachusetts and in Virginia. Between the people of
the two colonies there was not much real sympathy, because there was a
good deal of difference between their ways of life and their opinions
about things; and people, unless they are unusually wise and generous of
nature, are apt to dislike and despise those who differ from them in
opinions and habits. So there was little cordiality of feeling between
the people of Massachusetts and the people of Virginia, but in spite of
this there was a great and growing political sympathy. This was because,
ever since 1693, they had been obliged to deal with the same kind of
political questions. It became intensely interesting to a Virginian to
watch the progress of a dispute between the governor and legislature of
Massachusetts, because whatever principle might be victorious in the
course of such a dispute, it was sure soon to find a practical
application in Virginia. Hence by the middle of the eighteenth century
the two colonies were keenly observant of each other, and either one was
exceedingly prompt in taking its cue from the other. It is worth while
to remember this fact, for without it there would doubtless have been
rebellions or revolutions of American colonies, but there would hardly
have been one American Revolution, ending in a grand American Union.



CHAPTER III

THE FRENCH WARS, AND THE FIRST PLAN OF UNION.


    [Sidenote: Disputed frontier between French and English colonies.]

It was said a moment ago that one of the chief objects for which the
governors wanted money was to maintain troops for defence against the
French and the Indians. This was a very serious matter indeed. To any
one who looked at a map of North America in 1750 it might well have
seemed as if the French had secured for themselves the greater part of
the continent. The western frontier of the English settlements was
generally within two hundred miles of the sea-coast. In New York it was
at Johnson Hall, not far from Schenectady; in Pennsylvania it was about
at Carlisle; in Virginia it was near Winchester, and the first explorers
were just making their way across the Alleghany mountains. Westward of
these frontier settlements lay endless stretches of forest inhabited by
warlike tribes of red men who, everywhere except in New York, were
hostile to the English and friendly to the French. Since the beginning
of the seventeenth century French towns and villages had been growing up
along the St. Lawrence, and French explorers had been pushing across
the Great Lakes and down the valley of the Mississippi river, near the
mouth of which the French town of New Orleans had been standing since
1718. It was the French doctrine that discovery and possession of a
river gave a claim to all the territory drained by that river. According
to this doctrine every acre of American soil from which water flowed
into the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi belonged to France. The claims
of the French thus came up to the very crest of the Alleghanies, and
they made no secret of their intention to shut up the English forever
between that chain of mountains and the sea-coast. There were times when
their aims were still more aggressive and dangerous, when they looked
with longing eyes upon the valley of the Hudson, and would fain have
broken through that military centre of the line of English commonwealths
and seized the keys of empire over the continent.

    [Sidenote: The Indian tribes.]

From this height of their ambition the French were kept aloof by the
deadly enmity of the most fierce and powerful savages in the New World.
The Indians of those days who came into contact with the white settlers
were divided into many tribes with different names, but they all
belonged to one or another of three great stocks or families. First,
there were the _Mobilians_, far down south; to this stock belonged the
Creeks, Cherokees, and others. Secondly, there were the _Algonquins_,
comprising the Delawares to the south of the Susquehanna; the Miamis,
Shawnees, and others in the western wilderness; the Ottawas in Canada;
and all the tribes still left to the northeast of New England. Thirdly,
there were the _Iroquois_, of whom the most famous were the Five Nations
of what is now central New York. These five great tribes--the Mohawks,
Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas--had for several generations
been united in a confederacy which they likened to a long wigwam with
its eastern door looking out upon the valley of the Hudson and its
western toward the falls of Niagara. It was known far and wide over the
continent as the Long House, and wherever it was known it was dreaded.
When Frenchmen and Englishmen first settled in America, this Iroquois
league was engaged in a long career of conquest. Algonquin tribes all
the way from the Connecticut to the Mississippi were treated as its
vassals and forced to pay tribute in weapons and wampum. This conquering
career extended through the seventeenth century, until it was brought to
an end by the French. When the latter began making settlements in
Canada, they courted the friendship of their Algonquin neighbours, and
thus, without dreaming what deadly seed they were sowing, they were led
to attack the terrible Long House. It was easy enough for Champlain in
1609 to win a victory over savages who had never before seen a white man
or heard the report of a musket; but the victory was a fatal one for the
French, for it made the Iroquois their eternal enemies. The Long House
allied itself first with the Dutch and afterwards with the English, and
thus checked the progress of the French toward the lower Hudson. We too
seldom think how much we owe to those formidable savages.

    [Sidenote: The French and the Iroquois.]

The Iroquois pressed the French with so much vigour that in 1689 they
even laid siege to Montreal. But by 1696 the French, assisted by all the
Algonquin tribes within reach, and led by their warlike viceroy, Count
Frontenac, one of the most picturesque figures in American history, at
length succeeded in getting the upperhand and dealing the Long House a
terrible blow, from the effects of which it never recovered. The league
remained formidable, however, until the time of the revolutionary war.
In 1715 its fighting strength was partially repaired by the adoption of
the kindred Iroquois tribe of Tuscaroras, who had just been expelled
from North Carolina by the English settlers, and migrated to New York.
After this accession the league, henceforth known as the Six Nations,
formed a power by no means to be despised, though much less bold and
aggressive than in the previous century.

After administering a check to the Iroquois, the French and Algonquins
kept up for more than sixty years a desultory warfare against the
English colonies. Whenever war broke out between England and France, it
meant war in America as well as in Europe. Indeed, one of the chief
objects of war, on the part of each of these two nations, was to extend
its colonial dominions at the expense of the other. France and England
were at war from 1689 to 1697; from 1702 to 1713; and from 1743 to 1748.
The men in New York or Boston in 1750, who could remember the past sixty
years, could thus look back over at least four-and-twenty years of open
war; and even in the intervals of professed peace there was a good deal
of disturbance on the frontiers. A most frightful sort of warfare it
was, ghastly with torture of prisoners and the ruthless murder of women
and children. The expense of raising and arming troops for defence was
great enough to subject several of the colonies to a heavy burden of
debt. In 1750 Massachusetts was just throwing off the load of debt under
which she had staggered since 1693; and most of this debt was incurred
for expeditions against the French and Algonquins.

    [Sidenote: Difficulty of getting the English colonies to act in
    concert.]

Under these circumstances it was natural that the colonial governments
should find it hard to raise enough money for war expenses, and that the
governors should think the legislatures too slow in acting. They were
slow; for, as is apt to be the case when money is to be borrowed without
the best security, there were a good many things to be considered. All
this was made worse by the fact that there were so many separate
governments, so that each one was inclined to hold back and wait for the
others. On the other hand, the French viceroy in Canada had despotic
power; the colony which he governed never pretended to be
self-supporting; and so, if he could not squeeze money enough out of the
people in Canada, he just sent to France for it and got it; for the
government of Louis XV. regarded Canada as one of the brightest jewels
in its crown, and was always ready to spend money for damaging the
English. Accordingly the Frenchman could plan his campaign, call his red
men together, and set the whole frontier in a blaze, while the
legislatures in Boston or New York were talking about what had better be
done in case of invasion. No wonder the royal governors fretted and
fumed, and sent home to England dismal accounts of the perverseness of
these Americans! Many people in England thought that the colonies were
allowed to govern themselves altogether too much, and that for their own
good the British government ought to tax them. Once while Sir Robert
Walpole was prime minister (1721-1742) some one is said to have advised
him to lay a direct tax upon the Americans; but that wise old statesman
shook his head. It was bad enough, he said, to be scolded and abused by
half the people in the old country; he did not wish to make enemies of
every man, woman, and child in the new.

    [Sidenote: Need of a union between the English colonies.]

But if the power to raise American armies for the common defence, and to
collect money in America for this purpose, was not to be assumed by the
British government, was there any way in which unity and promptness of
action in time of war could be secured? There was another way, if people
could be persuaded to adopt it. The thirteen colonies might be joined
together in a federal union; and the federal government, without
interfering in the local affairs of any single colony, might be clothed
with the power of levying taxes all over the country for purposes of
common defence. The royal governors were inclined to favour a union of
the colonies, no matter how it might be brought about. They thought it
necessary that some decisive step should be taken quickly, for it was
evident that the peace of 1748 was only an armed truce. Evidently a
great and decisive struggle was at hand. In 1750 the Ohio Company,
formed for the purpose of colonizing the valley drained by that river,
had surveyed the country as far as the present site of Louisville. In
1753 the French, taking the alarm, crossed Lake Erie, and began to
fortify themselves at Presque Isle, and at Venango on the Alleghany
river. They seized persons trading within the limits of the Ohio
Company, which lay within the territory of Virginia; and accordingly
Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, selected George Washington--a venturous
and hardy young land-surveyor, only twenty-one years old, but gifted
with a sagacity beyond his years--and sent him to Venango to warn off
the trespassers. It was an exceedingly delicate and dangerous mission,
and Washington showed rare skill and courage in this first act of his
public career, but the French commander made polite excuses and
remained. Next spring the French and English tried each to forestall the
other in fortifying the all-important place where the Alleghany and
Monongahela rivers unite to form the Ohio, the place long afterward
commonly known as the "Gateway of the West," the place where the city of
Pittsburgh now stands. In the course of these preliminary manoeuvres
Washington was besieged in Fort Necessity by overwhelming numbers, and
on July 4, 1754, was obliged to surrender the whole of his force, but
obtained leave to march away. So the French got possession of the
much-coveted situation, and erected there Fort Duquesne as a menace to
all future English intruders. As yet war had not been declared between
France and England, but these skirmishings indicated that war in earnest
was not far off.

    [Sidenote: The Congress at Albany, 1754.]

In view of the approaching war a meeting was arranged at Albany between
the principal chiefs of the Six Nations and commissioners from several
of the colonies, that the alliance between English and Iroquois might be
freshly cemented; and some of the royal governors improved the occasion
to call for a Congress of all the colonies, in order to prepare some
plan of confederation such as all the colonies might be willing to
adopt. At the time of Washington's surrender such a Congress was in
session at Albany, but Maryland was the most southerly colony
represented in it. The people nowhere showed any interest in it. No
public meetings were held in its favour. The only newspaper which warmly
approved it was the "Pennsylvania Gazette," which appeared with a union
device, a snake divided into thirteen segments, with the motto "Unite or
Die!"

    [Sidenote: Franklin's plan for a Federal Union.]

The editor of this paper was Benjamin Franklin, then eight-and-forty
years of age and already one of the most famous men in America. In the
preceding year he had been appointed by the crown postmaster-general for
the American colonies, and he had received from the Royal Society the
Copley medal for his brilliant discovery that lightning is a discharge
of electricity. Franklin was very anxious to see the colonies united in
a federal body, and he was now a delegate to the Congress. He drew up a
plan of union which the Congress adopted, after a very long debate; and
it has ever since been known as the Albany Plan. The federal government
was to consist, _first_, of a President or Governor-general, appointed
and paid by the crown, and holding office during its pleasure; and
_secondly_, of a Grand Council composed of representatives elected every
third year by the legislatures of the several colonies. This federal
government was not to meddle with the internal affairs of any colony,
but on questions of war and such other questions as concerned all the
colonies alike, it was to be supreme; and to this end it was to have the
power of levying taxes for federal purposes directly upon the people of
the several colonies. Philadelphia, as the most centrally situated of
the larger towns, was mentioned as a proper seat for the federal
government.

The end of our story will show the wonderful foresightedness of
Franklin's scheme. If the Revolution had never occurred, we might very
likely have sooner or later come to live under a constitution resembling
the Albany Plan. On the other hand, if the Albany Plan had been put into
operation, it might perhaps have so adjusted the relations of the
colonies to the British government that the Revolution would not have
occurred. Perhaps, however, it would only have reproduced, on a larger
scale, the irrepressible conflict between royal governor and popular
assembly. The scheme failed for want of support. The Congress
recommended it to the colonial legislatures, but not one of them voted
to adopt it. The difficulty was the same in 1754 that it was thirty
years later,--only much stronger. The people of one colony saw but
little of the people in another, had but few dealings with them, and
cared not much about them. They knew and trusted their own local
assemblies which sat and voted almost under their eyes; they were not
inclined to grant strange powers of taxation to a new assembly distant
by a week's journey. This was a point to which people could never have
been brought except as the alternative to something confessedly worse.

    [Sidenote: Its failure.]

The failure of the Albany Plan left the question of providing for
military defence just where it was before, and the great Seven Years'
War came on while governors and assemblies were wrangling to no purpose.
In 1755 Braddock's army was unable to get support except from the
steadfast personal exertions of Franklin, who used his great influence
with the farmers of Pennsylvania to obtain horses, wagons, and
provisions, pledging his own property for their payment. Nevertheless,
as the war went on and the people of the colonies became fully alive to
its importance, they did contribute liberally both in men and in money,
and at last it appeared that in proportion to their wealth and
population they had done even more than the regular army and the royal
exchequer toward overthrowing the common enemy.

    [Sidenote: Overthrow of the French power in America.]

When the war came to an end in 1763 the whole face of things in America
was changed. Seldom, if ever, had the world seen so complete a victory.
France no longer possessed so much as an acre of ground in all North
America. The unknown regions beyond the Mississippi river were handed
over to Spain in payment for bootless assistance rendered to France
toward the close of the war. Spain also received New Orleans, while
Florida, which then reached westward nearly to New Orleans, passed from
Spanish into British hands. The whole country north of Florida and east
of the Mississippi river, including Canada, was now English. A strong
combination of Indian tribes, chiefly Algonquin, under the lead of the
Ottawa sachem Pontiac, made a last desperate attempt, after the loss of
their French allies, to cripple the English; but by 1765, after many
harrowing scenes of bloodshed, these red men were crushed. There was no
power left that could threaten the peace of the thirteen colonies unless
it were the mother-country herself. "Well," said the French minister,
the Duke de Choiseul, as he signed the treaty that shut France out of
North America, "so we are gone; it will be England's turn next!" And
like a prudent seeker after knowledge, as he was, the Duke presently
bethought him of an able and high-minded man, the Baron de Kalb, and
sent him in 1767 to America, to look about and see if there were not
good grounds for his bold prophecy.



CHAPTER IV.

THE STAMP ACT, AND THE REVENUE LAWS.


It did not take four years after the peace of 1763 to show how rapidly
the new situation of affairs was bearing fruit in America. The war had
taught its lessons. Earlier wars had menaced portions of the frontier,
and had been fought by single colonies or alliances of two or three.
This war had menaced the whole frontier, and the colonies, acting for
the first time in general concert, had acquired some dim notion of their
united strength. Soldiers and officers by and by to be arrayed against
one another had here fought as allies,--John Stark and Israel Putnam by
the side of William Howe; Horatio Gates by the side of Thomas Gage,--and
it had not always been the regulars that bore off the palm for skill and
endurance. One young man, of immense energy and fiery temper, united to
rare prudence and fertility of resource, had already become famous
enough to be talked about in England; in George Washington the
Virginians recognized a tower of strength.

    [Sidenote: Consequences of the great French War.]

    [Sidenote: Need for a steady revenue.]

The overthrow of their ancient enemy, while further increasing the
self-confidence of the Americans, at the same time removed the
principal check which had hitherto kept their differences with the
British government from coming to an open rupture. Formerly the dread of
French attack had tended to make the Americans complaisant toward the
king's ministers, while at time it made the king's ministers unwilling
to lose the good will of the Americans. Now that the check was removed,
the continuance or revival of the old disputes at once foreboded
trouble; and the old occasions for dispute were far from having ceased.
On the contrary the war itself had given them fresh vitality. If money
had been needed before, it was still more needed now. The war had
entailed a heavy burden of expense upon the British government as well
as upon the colonies. The national debt of Great Britain was much
increased, and there were many who thought that, since the Americans
shared in the benefits of the war they ought also to share in the burden
which it left behind it. People in England who used this argument did
not realize that the Americans had really contributed as much as could
reasonably be expected to the support of the war, and that it had left
behind it debts to be paid in America as well as in England. But there
was another argument which made it seem reasonable to many Englishmen
that the colonists should be taxed. It seemed right that a small
military force should be kept up in America, for defence of the
frontiers against the Indians, even if there were no other enemies to be
dreaded. The events of Pontiac's war now showed that there was clearly
need of such a force; and the experience of the royal governors for half
a century had shown that it was very difficult to get the colonial
legislatures to vote money for any such purpose. Hence there grew up in
England a feeling that taxes ought to be raised in America as a
contribution to the war debt and to the military defence of the
colonies; and in order that such taxes should be fairly distributed and
promptly collected, it was felt that the whole business ought to be
placed under the direct supervision and control of parliament. In
accordance with this feeling the new prime minister, George Grenville in
1764 announced his intention of passing a Stamp Act for the easier
collection of revenue in America. Meanwhile things had happened in
America which had greatly irritated the people, especially in Boston, so
that they were in the mood for resisting anything that looked like
encroachment on the part of the British government. To understand this
other source of irritation, we must devote a few words to the laws by
which that government had for a long time undertaken to regulate the
commerce of the American colonies.

    [Sidenote: What European colonies were supposed to be founded for.]

When European nations began to plant colonies in America, they treated
them in accordance with a theory which prevailed until it was upset by
the American Revolution. According to this ignorant and barbarous
theory, a colony was a community which existed only for the purpose of
enriching the country which had founded it. At the outset, the Spanish
notion of a colony was that of a military station, which might plunder
the heathen for the benefit of the hungry treasury of the Most Catholic
monarch. But this theory was short-lived, like the enjoyment of the
plunder which it succeeded in extorting. According to the principles and
practice of France and England--and of Spain also, after the first
romantic fury of buccaneering had spent itself--the great object in
founding a colony, besides increasing one's general importance in the
world and the area of one's dominions on the map, was to create a
dependent community for the purpose of trading with it. People's ideas
about trade were very absurd. It was not understood that when two
parties trade with each other freely, both must be gainers, or else one
would soon stop trading. It was supposed that in trade, just as in
gambling or betting, what the one party gains the other loses.
Accordingly laws were made to regulate trade so that, as far as
possible, all the loss might fall upon the colonies and all the gain
accrue to the mother-country. In order to attain this object, the
colonies were required to confine their trade entirely to England. No
American colony could send its tobacco or its rice or its indigo to
France or to Holland, or to any other country than England; nor could it
buy a yard of French silk or a pound of Chinese tea except from English
merchants. In this way English merchants sought to secure for themselves
a monopoly of purchases and a monopoly of sales. By a further provision,
although American ships might take goods to England, the carrying-trade
between the different colonies was strictly confined to British ships.
Next, in order to protect British manufacturers from competition, it was
thought necessary to prohibit the colonists from manufacturing. They
might grow wool, but it must be carried to England to be woven into
cloth; they might smelt iron, but it must be carried to England to be
made into ploughshares. Finally, in order to protect British farmers and
their landlords, corn-laws were enacted, putting a prohibitory tariff on
all kinds of grain and other farm produce shipped from the colonies to
ports in Great Britain.

Such absurd and tyrannical laws had begun to be made in the reign of
Charles II., and by 1750 not less than twenty-nine acts of parliament
had been passed in this spirit. If these laws had been strictly
enforced, the American Revolution would probably have come sooner than
it did. In point of fact they were seldom strictly enforced, because so
long as the French were a power in America the British government felt
that it could not afford to irritate the colonists. In spite of laws to
the contrary, the carrying-trade between the different colonies was
almost monopolized by vessels owned, built, and manned in New England;
and the smuggling of foreign goods into Boston and New York and other
seaport towns was winked at.

    [Sidenote: Writs of assistance.]

It was in 1761, immediately after the overthrow of the French in Canada,
that attempts were made to enforce the revenue laws more strictly than
heretofore; and trouble was at once threatened. Charles Paxton, the
principal officer of the custom-house in Boston, applied to the Superior
Court to grant him the authority to use "writs of assistance" in
searching for smuggled goods. A writ of assistance was a general
search-warrant, empowering the officer armed with it to enter, by force
if necessary, any dwelling-house or warehouse where contraband goods
were supposed to be stored or hidden. A special search-warrant was one
in which the name of the suspected person, and the house which it was
proposed to search, were accurately specified, and the goods which it
was intended to seize were as far as possible described. In the use of
such special warrants there was not much danger of gross injustice or
oppression, because the court would not be likely to grant one unless
strong evidence could be brought against the person whom it named. But
the general search-warrant, or "writ of assistance," as it was called
because men try to cover up the ugliness of hateful things by giving
them innocent names, was quite a different affair. It was a blank form
upon which the custom-house officer might fill in the names of persons
and descriptions of houses and goods to suit himself. Then he could go
and break into the houses and seize the goods, and if need be summon the
sheriff and his _posse_ to help him in overcoming and browbeating the
owner. The writ of assistance was therefore an abominable instrument of
tyranny. Such writs had been allowed by a statute of the evil reign of
Charles II.; a statute of William III. had clothed custom-house officers
in the colonies with like powers to those which they possessed in
England; and neither of these statutes had been repealed. There can
therefore be little doubt that the issue of such search-warrants was
strictly legal, unless the authority of Parliament to make laws for the
colonies was to be denied.

    [Sidenote: James Otis.]

James Otis then held the crown office of advocate-general, with an ample
salary and prospects of high favour from government. When the revenue
officers called upon him, in view of his position, to defend their
cause, he resigned his office and at once undertook to act as counsel
for the merchants of Boston in their protest against the issue of the
writs. A large fee was offered him, but he refused it. "In such a
cause," said he, "I despise all fees." The case was tried in the
council-chamber at the east end of the old town-hall, or what is now
known as the "Old State-House," in Boston. Chief-justice Hutchinson
presided, and Jeremiah Gridley, one of the greatest lawyers of that day,
argued the case for the writs in a very powerful speech. The reply of
Otis, which took five hours in the delivery, was one of the greatest
speeches of modern times. It went beyond the particular legal question
at issue, and took up the whole question of the constitutional relations
between the colonies and the mother-country. At the bottom of this, as
of all the disputes that led to the Revolution, lay the ultimate
question whether Americans were bound to yield obedience to laws which
they had no share in making. This question, and the spirit that answered
it flatly and doggedly in the negative, were heard like an undertone
pervading all the arguments in Otis's wonderful speech, and it was
because of this that the young lawyer John Adams, who was present,
afterward declared that on that day "the child Independence was born."
Chief-justice Hutchinson was a man of great ability and as sincere a
patriot as any American of his time. He could feel the force of Otis's
argument, but he believed that Parliament was the supreme legislative
body for the whole British empire, and furthermore that it was the duty
of a judge to follow the law as it existed. He reserved his decision
until advice could be had from the law-officers of the crown in London;
and when next term he was instructed by them to grant the writs, this
result added fresh impetus to the spirit that Otis's eloquence had
aroused. The custom-house officers, armed with their writs, began
breaking into warehouses and seizing goods which were said to have been
smuggled. In this rough way they confiscated private property to the
value of many thousands of pounds; but sometimes the owners of
warehouses armed themselves and barricaded their doors and windows, and
thus the officers were often successfully defied, for the sheriff was
far from prompt in coming to aid them.

    [Sidenote: Patrick Henry, and the Parsons' Cause.]

While such things were going on in Boston, the people of Virginia were
wrought into fierce excitement by what was known as the "Parsons'
Cause." The Church of England was at that time established by law in
Virginia, and its clergymen, appointed by English bishops, were
unpopular. In 1758 the legislature, under the pressure of the French
war, had passed an act which affected all public dues and incidentally
diminished the salaries of the clergy. Complaints were made to the
Bishop of London, and the act of 1758 was vetoed by the king in
council. Several clergymen then brought suits to recover the unpaid
portions of their salaries. In the first test case there could be no
doubt that the royal veto was legal enough, and the court therefore
decided in favour of the plaintiff. But it now remained to settle before
a jury the amount of the damages. It was on this occasion, in December,
1763, that the great orator Patrick Henry made his first speech in the
court-room and at once became famous. He declared that no power on earth
could take away from Virginia the right to make laws for herself, and
that in annulling a wholesome law 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." This bold talk
aroused much excitement and some uproar, but the jury instantly
responded by assessing the parson's damages at one penny, and in 1765
Henry was elected a member of the colonial assembly.

Thus almost at the same time in Massachusetts and in Virginia the
preliminary scenes of the Revolution occurred in the court-room. In each
case the representatives of the crown had the letter of the law on their
side, but the principles of the only sound public policy, by which a
Revolution could be avoided, were those that were defended by the
advocates of the people. At each successive move on the part of the
British government which looked like an encroachment upon the rights of
Americans, the sympathy between these two leading colonies now grew
stronger and stronger.

It was in 1763 that George Grenville became prime minister, a man of
whom Macaulay says that he knew of "no national interests except those
which are expressed by pounds, shillings, and pence." Grenville
proceeded to introduce into Parliament two measures which had
consequences of which, he little dreamed. The first of these measures
was the Molasses Act, the second was the Stamp Act.

    [Sidenote: The Molasses Act.]

Properly speaking, the Molasses Act was an old law which Grenville now
made up his mind to revive and enforce. The commercial wealth of the New
England colonies depended largely upon their trade with the fish which
their fishermen caught along the coast and as far out as the banks of
Newfoundland. The finest fish could be sold in Europe, but the poorer
sort found their chief market in the French West Indies. The French
government, in order to ensure a market for the molasses raised in these
islands, would not allow the planters to give anything else in exchange
for fish. Great quantities of molasses were therefore carried to New
England, and what was not needed there for domestic use was distilled
into rum, part of which was consumed at home, and the rest carried
chiefly to Africa wherewith to buy slaves to be sold to the southern
colonies. All this trade required many ships, and thus kept up a lively
demand for New England lumber, besides finding employment for thousands
of sailors and shipwrights. Now in 1733 the British government took it
into its head to "protect" its sugar planters in the English West Indies
by compelling the New England merchants to buy all their molasses from
them; and with this end in view it forthwith laid upon all sugar and
molasses imported into North America from the French islands a duty so
heavy that, if it had been enforced, it would have stopped all such
importation. It is very doubtful if this measure would have attained the
end which the British government had in view. Probably it would not have
made much difference in the export of molasses from the English West
Indies to New England, because the islanders happened not to want the
fish which their French neighbours coveted. But the New Englanders could
see that the immediate result would be to close the market for their
cheaper kinds of fish, and thus ruin their trade in lumber and rum,
besides shutting up many a busy shipyard and turning more than 5000
sailors out of employment. It was estimated that the yearly loss to New
England would exceed £300,000. It was hardly wise in Great Britain to
entail such a loss upon some of her best customers; for with their
incomes thus cut down, it was not to be expected that the people of New
England would be able to buy as many farming tools, dishes, and pieces
of furniture, garments of silk or wool, and wines or other luxuries,
from British merchants as before. The government in passing its act of
1733 did not think of these consequences; but it proved to be impossible
to enforce the act without causing more disturbance than the government
felt prepared to encounter. Now in 1764 Grenville announced that the act
was to be enforced, and of course the machinery of writs of assistance
was to be employed for that purpose. Henceforth all molasses from the
French islands must either pay the prohibitory duty or be seized without
ceremony.

Loud and fierce was the indignation of New England over this revival of
the Molasses Act. Even without the Stamp Act, it might very likely have
led that part of the country to make armed resistance, but in such case
it is not so sure that the southern and middle colonies would have come
to the aid of New England. But in the Stamp Act Grenville provided the
colonies with an issue which concerned one as much as another, and upon
which they were accordingly sure to unite in resistance. It was also a
much better issue for the Americans to take up, for it was not a mere
revival of an old act; it was a new departure; it was an imposition of a
kind to which the Americans had never before been called upon to
submit, and in resisting it they were sure to enlist the sympathies of a
good many powerful people in England.

    [Sidenote: The Stamp Act.]

The Stamp Act was a direct tax laid upon the whole American people by
Parliament, a legislative body in which they were not represented. The
British government had no tyrannical purpose in devising this tax. A
stamp duty had already been suggested in 1755 by William Shirley, royal
governor of Massachusetts, a worthy man and much more of a favourite
with the people than most of his class. Shirley recommended it as the
least disagreeable kind of tax, and the easiest to collect. It did not
call for any hateful searching of people's houses and shops, or any
unpleasant questions about their incomes, or about their invested or
hoarded wealth. It only required that legal documents and commercial
instruments should be written, and newspapers printed, on stamped paper.
Of all kinds of direct tax none can be less annoying, except for one
reason; it is exceedingly difficult to evade such a tax; it enforces
itself. For these reasons Grenville decided to adopt it. He arranged it
so that all the officers charged with the business of selling the
stamped paper should be Americans; and he gave formal notice of the
measure in March, 1764, a year beforehand, in order to give the colonies
time to express their opinions about it.

    [Sidenote: Samuel Adams.]

In the Boston town-meeting in May, almost as soon as the news had
arrived, the American view of the case was very clearly set forth in a
series of resolutions drawn up by Samuel Adams. This was the first of
the remarkable state papers from the pen of that great man, who now, at
the age of forty-two, was just entering upon a glorious career. Samuel
Adams was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1740. He had
been reared in politics from boyhood, for his father, a deacon of the
Old South Church, had been chief spokesman of the popular party in its
disputes with the royal governors. Of all the agencies in organizing
resistance to Great Britain none were more powerful than the New England
town-meetings, among which that of the people of Boston stood
preëminent, and in the Boston town-meeting for more than thirty years no
other man exerted so much influence as Samuel Adams. This was because of
his keen intelligence and persuasive talk, his spotless integrity,
indomitable courage, unselfish and unwearying devotion to the public
good, and broad sympathy with all classes of people. He was a thorough
democrat. He respected the dignity of true manhood wherever he found it,
and could talk with sailors and shipwrights like one of themselves,
while at the same time in learned argument he had few superiors. He has
been called the "Father of the Revolution," and was no doubt its most
conspicuous figure before 1775, as Washington certainly was after that
date.

This earliest state paper of Samuel Adams contained the first formal and
public denial of the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, because it
was not a body in which their people were represented. The resolutions
were adopted by the Massachusetts assembly, and a similar action was
taken by Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South
Carolina. The colonies professed their willingness to raise money in
answer to requisitions upon their assemblies, which were the only bodies
competent to lay taxes in America. Memorials stating these views were
sent to England, and the colony of Pennsylvania sent Dr. Franklin to
represent its case at the British court. Franklin remained in London
until the spring of 1775 as agent first for Pennsylvania, afterward for
Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia,--a kind of diplomatic
representative of the views and claims of the Americans.

    [Sidenote: The Virginia Resolutions, 1765.]

Grenville told Franklin that he wished to do things as pleasantly as
possible, and was not disposed to insist upon the Stamp Act, if the
Americans could suggest anything better. But when it appeared that no
alternative was offered except to fall back upon the old clumsy system
of requisitions, Grenville naturally replied that there ought to be some
more efficient method of raising money for the defence of the frontier.
Accordingly in March, 1765, the Stamp Act was passed, with so little
debate that people hardly noticed what was going on. But when the news
reached America there was an outburst of wrath that was soon heard and
felt in London. In May the Virginia legislature was assembled. George
Washington was sitting there in his seat, and Thomas Jefferson, then a
law-student, was listening eagerly from outside the door, when Patrick
Henry introduced the famous resolutions in which he declared, among
other things, that an attempt to vest the power of taxation in any other
body than the colonial assembly was a menace to the common freedom of
Englishmen, whether in Britain or in America, and that the people of
Virginia were not bound to obey any law enacted in disregard of this
principle. The language of the resolutions was bold enough, but a keener
edge was put upon it by the defiant note which rang out from Henry in
the course of the debate, when he commended the example of Tarquin and
Cæsar and Charles I. to the attention of George III. "If this be
treason," he exclaimed, as the speaker tried to call him to order, "if
this be treason, make the most of it!"

The other colonies were not slow in acting. Massachusetts called for a
general congress, in order that all might discuss the situation and
agree upon some course to be pursued in common. South Carolina responded
most cordially, at the instance of her noble, learned, and far-sighted
patriot, Christopher Gadsden. On the 7th of October, delegates from nine
colonies met in a congress at New York, adopted resolutions like those
of Virginia, and sent a memorial to the king, whose sovereignty over
them they admitted, and a remonstrance to Parliament, whose authority to
tax them they denied. The meeting of this congress was in itself a
prophecy of what was to happen if the British government should persist
in the course upon which it had now entered.

    [Sidenote: Stamp Act riots.]

Meanwhile the summer had witnessed riots in many places, and one of
these was extremely disgraceful. Chief-justice Hutchinson had tried to
dissuade the ministry from passing the Stamp Act, but an impression had
got abroad among the wharves and waterside taverns of Boston that he had
not only favoured it but had gone out of his way to send information to
London, naming certain merchants as smugglers. Under the influence of
this mistaken notion, on the night of the 26th of August a drunken mob
plundered Hutchinson's house in Boston and destroyed his library, which
was probably the finest in America at that time. Here, as is apt to be
the case, the mob selected the wrong victim. Its shameful act was
denounced by the people of Massachusetts, and the chief-justice was
indemnified by the legislature. In the other instances the riots were of
an innocent sort. Stamp officers were forced to resign. Boxes of
stamped paper arriving by ship were burned or thrown into the sea, and
at length the governor of New York was compelled by a mob to surrender
all the stamps entrusted to his care. These things were done for the
most part under the direction of societies of workingmen known as "Sons
of Liberty," who were pledged to resist the execution of the Stamp Act.
At the same time associations of merchants declared that they would buy
no more goods from England until the act should be repealed, and lawyers
entered into agreements not to treat any document as invalidated by the
absence of the required stamp. As for the editors, they published their
newspapers decorated with a grinning skull and cross-bones instead of
the stamp.

    [Sidenote: Repeal of the Stamp Act.]

These demonstrations produced their effect in England. In July, 1765,
the Grenville ministry fell, and the new government, with Lord
Rockingham at its head, was more inclined to pay heed to the wishes and
views of the Americans. The debate over the repeal of the Stamp Act
lasted nearly three months and was one of the fiercest that had been
heard in Parliament for many a day. William Pitt declared that he
rejoiced in the resistance of the Americans, and urged that the act
should be repealed because Parliament ought never to have passed it; but
there were very few who took this view. As the result of the long
debate, at the end of March, 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed, and a
Declaratory Act was passed in which Parliament said in effect that it
had a right to make such laws for the Americans if it chose to do so.

The people of London, as well as the Americans, hailed with delight the
repeal of the Stamp Act; but the real trouble had now only begun. The
resolutions of Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry and their approval by the
Congress at New York had thrown the question of American taxation into
the whirlpool of British politics, and there it was to stay until it
worked a change for the better in England as well as in America.

    [Sidenote: How the question was affected by British politics.]

The principle that people must not be taxed except by their
representatives had been to some extent recognized in England for five
hundred years, and it was really the fundamental principle of English
liberty, but it was only very imperfectly that it had been put into
practice. In the eighteenth century the House of Commons was very far
from being a body that fairly represented the people of Great Britain.
For a long time there had been no change in the distribution of seats,
and meanwhile the population had been increasing very differently in
different parts of the kingdom. Thus great cities which had grown up in
recent times, such as Sheffield and Manchester, had no representatives
in Parliament, while many little boroughs with a handful of inhabitants
had their representatives. Some such boroughs had been granted
representation by Henry VIII. in order to create a majority for his
measures in the House of Commons. Others were simply petty towns that
had dwindled away, somewhat as the mountain villages of New England have
dwindled since the introduction of railroads. The famous Old Sarum had
members in Parliament long after it had ceased to have any inhabitants.
Seats for these rotten boroughs, as they were called, were simply bought
and sold. Political life in England was exceedingly corrupt; some of the
best statesmen indulged in wholesale bribery as if it were the most
innocent thing in the world. The country was really governed by a few
great families, some of whose members sat in the House of Lords and
others in the House of Commons. Their measures were often noble and
patriotic in the highest degree, but when bribery and corruption seemed
necessary for carrying them, such means were employed without scruple.

    [Sidenote: George III. and his political schemes.]

When George III. came to the throne in 1760, the great families which
had thus governed England for half a century belonged to the party known
as Old Whigs. Under their rule the power of the crown had been reduced
to insignificance, and the modern system of cabinet government by a
responsible ministry had begun to grow up. The Tory families during this
period had been very unpopular, because of their sympathy with the
Stuart pretenders who had twice attempted to seize the crown and given
the country a brief taste of civil war. By 1760 the Tories saw that the
cause of the Stuarts was hopeless, and so they were inclined to transfer
their affections to the new king. George III. was a young man of narrow
intelligence and poor education, but he entertained very strong opinions
as to the importance of his kingly office. He meant to make himself a
real king, like the king of France or the king of Spain. He was
determined to break down the power of the Old Whigs and the system of
cabinet government, and as the Old Whigs had been growing unpopular, it
seemed quite possible, with the aid of the Tories, to accomplish this.
George was quite decorous in behaviour, and, although subject to fits of
insanity which became more troublesome in his later years, he had a
fairly good head for business. Industrious as a beaver and obstinate as
a mule, he was an adept in political trickery. In the corrupt use of
patronage he showed himself able to beat the Old Whigs at their own
game, and with the aid of the Tories he might well believe himself
capable of reviving for his own benefit the lost power of the crown.

    [Sidenote: The "New Whigs" and parliamentary reform.]

Beside these two parties a third had been for some time growing up which
was in some essential points opposed to both of them. This third party
was that of the New Whigs. They wished to reform the representation in
Parliament in such wise as to disfranchise the rotten boroughs and give
representatives to great towns like Leeds and Manchester. They held that
it was contrary to the principles of English liberty that the
inhabitants of such great towns should be obliged to pay taxes in
pursuance of laws which they had no share in making. The leader of the
New Whigs was the greatest Englishman of the eighteenth century, the
elder William Pitt, now about to pass into the House of Lords as Earl of
Chatham. Their leader next in importance, William Petty, Earl of
Shelburne, was in 1765 a young man of eight-and-twenty, and afterward
came to be known as one of the most learned and sagacious statesmen of
his time. These men were the forerunners of the great liberal leaders of
the nineteenth century, such men as Russell and Cobden and Gladstone.
Their first decisive and overwhelming victory was the passage of Lord
John Russell's Reform Bill in 1832, but the agitation for reform was
begun by William Pitt in 1745, and his famous son came very near winning
the victory on that question in 1782.

Now this question of parliamentary reform was intimately related to the
question of taxing the American colonies. From some points of view they
might be considered one and the same question. At a meeting of
Presbyterian ministers in Philadelphia, it was pertinently asked, "Have
two men chosen to represent a poor English borough that has sold its
votes to the highest bidder any pretence to say that they represent
Virginia or Pennsylvania? And have four hundred such fellows a right to
take our liberties?" In Parliament, on the other hand, as well as at
London dinner tables, and in newspapers and pamphlets, it was repeatedly
urged that the Americans need not make so much fuss about being taxed
without being represented, for in that respect they were no worse off
than the people of Sheffield or Birmingham. To this James Otis replied,
"Don't talk to us any more about those towns, for we are tired of such a
flimsy argument. If they are not represented, they ought to be;" and by
the New Whigs this retort was greeted with applause.

The opinions and aims of the three different parties were reflected in
the long debate over the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Tories wanted to
have the act continued and enforced, and such was the wish of the king.
Both sections of Whigs were in favour of repeal, but for very different
reasons. Pitt and the New Whigs, being advocates of parliamentary
reform, came out flatly in support of the principle that there should be
no taxation without representation. Edmund Burke and the Old Whigs,
being opposed to parliamentary reform and in favour of keeping things
just as they were, could not adopt such an argument; and accordingly
they based their condemnation of the Stamp Act upon grounds of pure
expediency. They argued that it was not worth while, for the sake of a
little increase of revenue, to irritate three million people and run the
risk of getting drawn into a situation from which there would be no
escape except in either retreating or fighting. There was much practical
wisdom in this Old Whig argument, and it was the one which prevailed
when Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and expressly stated that it did
so only on grounds of expediency.

    [Sidenote: Why George III. was ready to pick a quarrel with the
    Americans.]

There was one person, however, who was far from satisfied with this
result, and that was George III. He was opposed to parliamentary reform
for much the same reason that the Old Whigs were opposed to it, because
he felt that it threatened him with political ruin. The Old Whigs needed
the rotten boroughs in order to maintain their own control over
Parliament and the country. The king needed them because he felt himself
able to wrest them from the Old Whigs by intrigue and corruption, and
thus hoped to build up his own power. He believed, with good reason,
that the suppression of the rotten boroughs and the granting of fair and
equal representation would soon put a stronger curb upon the crown than
ever. Accordingly there were no men whom he dreaded and wished to put
down so much as the New Whigs; and he felt that in the repeal of the
Stamp Act, no matter on what ground, they had come altogether too near
winning a victory. He felt that this outrageous doctrine that people
must not be taxed except by their representatives needed to be sternly
rebuked, and thus he found himself in the right sort of temper for
picking a fresh quarrel with the Americans.

    [Sidenote: Charles Townshend and his revenue acts, 1767.]

    [Sidenote: Lord North.]

An occasion soon presented itself. One of the king's devices for
breaking down the system of cabinet government was to select his
ministers from different parties, so that they might be unable to work
harmoniously together. Owing to the peculiar divisions of parties in
Parliament he was for some years able to carry out this policy, and
while his cabinets were thus weak and divided, he was able to use his
control of patronage with telling effect. In July, 1766, he got rid of
Lord Rockingham and his Old Whigs, and formed a new ministry made up
from all parties. It contained Pitt, who had now, as Earl of Chatham,
gone into the House of Lords, and at the same time Charles Townshend, as
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Townshend, a brilliant young man, without
any political principles worth mentioning, was the most conspicuous
among a group of wire-pullers who were coming to be known as "the king's
friends." Serious illness soon kept Chatham at home, and left Townshend
all-powerful in the cabinet, because he was bold and utterly
unscrupulous and had the king to back him. His audacity knew no limits,
and he made up his mind that the time had come for gathering all the
disputed American questions, as far as possible, into one bundle, and
disposing of them once for all. So in May, 1767, he brought forward in
Parliament a series of acts for raising and applying a revenue in
America. The colonists, he said, had objected to a direct tax, but they
had often submitted to port duties, and could not reasonably refuse to
do so again. Duties were accordingly to be laid on glass, paper, lead,
and painter's colours; on wine, oil, and fruits, if carried directly to
America from Spain and Portugal; and especially on tea. A board of
commissioners was to be established at Boston, to superintend the
collection of revenue throughout the colonies, and writs of assistance
were to be expressly legalized. The salaries of these commissioners were
to be paid out of the revenue thus collected. Governors, judges, and
crown-attorneys were to be made independent of the colonial legislatures
by having their salaries paid by the crown out of this same fund. A
small army was also to be kept up; and if after providing for these
various expenses, any surplus remained, it could be used by the crown in
giving pensions to Americans and thus be made to serve as a
corruption-fund. These measures were adopted on the 29th of June, and as
if to refute anybody who might be inclined to think that rashness could
no further go, Townshend accompanied them with a special act directed
against the New York legislature, which had refused to obey an order
concerning the quartering of troops. By way of punishment, Townshend now
suspended the legislature. A few weeks after carrying these measures
Townshend died of a fever, and his place was taken by Lord North, eldest
son of the Earl of Guilford. North was thirty-five years of age. He was
amiable and witty, and an excellent debater, but without force of will.
He let the king rule him, and was at the same time able to show a strong
hand in the House of Commons, so that the king soon came to regard him
as a real treasure. Soon after North's appointment, Lord Chatham and
other friends of America in the cabinet resigned their places and were
succeeded by friends of the king. From 1768 to 1782 George III. was to
all intents and purposes his own prime minister, and contrived to keep a
majority in Parliament. During those fourteen years the American
question was uppermost, and his policy was at all hazards to force the
colonists to abandon their position that taxation must go hand in hand
with representation.

    [Sidenote: What the Townshend acts really meant.]

This purpose was already apparent in Charles Townshend's acts. They were
not at all like previous acts imposing port duties to which the
Americans had submitted. British historians sometimes speak of the
American Revolution as an affair which grew out of a mere dispute about
money; and even among Americans, in ordinary conversation and sometimes
in current literature, the unwillingness of our forefathers to pay a tax
of threepence a pound on tea is mentioned without due reference to the
attendant circumstances which made them refuse to pay such a tax. We
cannot hope to understand the fierce wrath by which they were animated
unless we bear in mind not only the simple fact of the tax, but also the
spirit in which it was levied and the purpose for which the revenue was
to be used. The Molasses Act threatening the ruin of New England
commerce was still on the statute-book, and commissioners, armed with
odious search-warrants for enforcing this and other tyrannical laws,
were on their way to America. For more than half a century the people
had jealously guarded against the abuse of power by the royal governors
by making them dependent upon the legislatures for their salaries. Now
they were all at once to be made independent, so that they might even
dismiss the legislatures, and if need be call for troops to help them.
The judges, moreover, with their power over men's lives and property,
were no longer to be responsible to the people. If these changes were to
be effected, it would be nothing less than a revolution by which the
Americans would be deprived of their liberty. And, to crown all, the
money by which this revolution was to be brought about was to be
contributed in the shape of port duties by the Americans themselves! To
expect our forefathers to submit to such legislation as this was about
as sensible as it would have been to expect them to obey an order to buy
halters and hang themselves.

When the news of the Townshend acts reached Massachusetts, the assembly
at its next session took a decided stand. Besides a petition to the king
and letters to several leading British statesmen, it issued a circular
letter addressed to the other twelve colonies, asking for their friendly
advice and coöperation with reference to the Townshend measures. These
papers were written by Samuel Adams. The circular letter was really an
invitation to the other colonies to concert measures of resistance if it
should be found necessary. It enraged the king, and presently an order
came across the ocean to Francis Bernard, royal governor of
Massachusetts, to demand of the assembly that it rescind its circular
letter, under penalty of instant dissolution. Otis exclaimed that Great
Britain had better rescind the Townshend acts if she did not wish to
lose her colonies. The assembly decided, by a vote of 92 to 17, that it
would not rescind. This flat defiance was everywhere applauded. The
assemblies of the other colonies were ordered to take no notice of the
Massachusetts circular, but the order was generally disobeyed, and in
several cases the governors turned the assemblies out of doors. The
atmosphere of America now became alive with politics; more meetings were
held, more speeches made, and more pamphlets printed, than ever before.

    [Sidenote: The quarrel was not between England and America, but
    between George III. and the principles which the Americans
    maintained.]

In England the dignified and manly course of the Americans was generally
greeted with applause by Whigs of whatever sort, except those who had
come into the somewhat widening circle of "the king's friends." The Old
Whigs,--Burke, Fox, Conway, Savile, Lord John Cavendish, and the Duke of
Richmond; and the New Whigs,--Chatham, Shelburne, Camden, Dunning,
Barré, and Beckford; steadily defended the Americans throughout the
whole of the Revolutionary crisis, and the weight of the best
intelligence in the country was certainly on their side. Could they have
acted as a united body, could Burke and Fox have joined forces in
harmony with Chatham and Shelburne, they might have thwarted the king
and prevented the rupture with America. But George III. profited by the
hopeless division between these two Whig parties; and as the quarrel
with America grew fiercer, he succeeded in arraying the national pride
to some extent upon his side and against the Whigs. This made him feel
stronger and stimulated his zeal against the Americans. He felt that if
he could first crush Whig principles in America, he could then turn and
crush them in England. In this he was correct, except that he
miscalculated the strength of the Americans. It was the defeat of his
schemes in America that ensured their defeat in England. It is quite
wrong and misleading, therefore, to remember the Revolutionary War as a
struggle between the British people and the American people. It was a
struggle between two hostile principles, each of which was represented
in both countries. In winning the good fight, our forefathers won a
victory for England as well as for America. What was crushed was George
III. and the kind of despotism which he wished to fasten upon America in
order that he might fasten it upon England. If the memory of George III.
deserves to be execrated, it is especially because he succeeded in
giving to his own selfish struggle for power the appearance of a
struggle between the people of England and the people of America; and in
so doing, he sowed seeds of enmity and distrust between two glorious
nations that, for their own sakes and for the welfare of mankind, ought
never for one moment to be allowed to forget their brotherhood. Time,
however, is rapidly repairing the damage which George III.'s policy
wrought, and it need in nowise disturb our narrative. In this brief
sketch we must omit hundreds of interesting details; but, if we would
look at things from the right point of view, we must bear in mind that
every act of George III., from 1768 onward, which brought on and carried
on the Revolutionary War, was done in spite of the earnest protest of
many of the best people in England; and that the king's wrong-headed
policy prevailed only because he was able, through corrupt methods, to
command a parliament which did not really represent the people. Had the
principles in support of which Lord Chatham joined hands with Samuel
Adams for one moment prevailed, the king's schemes would have collapsed
like a soap-bubble.

As it was, in 1768 the king succeeded, in spite of strong opposition, in
carrying his point. He saw that the American colonies were disposed to
resist the Townshend acts, and that in this defiant attitude
Massachusetts was the ringleader. The Massachusetts circular pointed
toward united action on the part of the colonies. Above all things it
was desirable to prevent any such union, and accordingly the king
decided to make his principal attack upon Massachusetts, while dealing
more kindly with the other colonies. Thus he hoped Massachusetts might
be isolated and humbled, and in this belief he proceeded faster and more
rashly than if he had supposed himself to be dealing with a united
America. In order to catch Samuel Adams and James Otis, and get them
sent over to England for trial, he attempted to revive an old statute of
Henry VIII. about treason committed abroad; and in order to enforce the
revenue laws in spite of all opposition, he ordered troops to be sent to
Boston.

    [Sidenote: Troops sent to Boston.]

This was a very harsh measure, and some excuse was needed to justify it
before Parliament. It was urged that Boston was a disorderly town, and
the sacking of Hutchinson's house could be cited in support of this
view. Then in June, 1768, there was a slight conflict between
townspeople and revenue officers, in which no one was hurt, but which
led to a great town-meeting in the Old South Meeting-House, and gave
Governor Bernard an opportunity for saying that he was intimidated and
hindered in the execution of the laws. The king's real purpose, however,
in sending troops was not so much to keep the peace as to enforce the
Townshend acts, and so the people of Boston understood it. Except for
these odious and tyrannical laws, there was nothing that threatened
disturbance in Boston. The arrival of British troops at Long Wharf, in
the autumn of 1768, simply increased the danger of disturbance, and in a
certain sense it may be said to have been the beginning of the
Revolutionary War. Very few people realized this at the time, but Samuel
Adams now made up his mind that the only way in which the American
colonies could preserve their liberties was to unite in some sort of
federation and declare themselves independent of Great Britain. It was
with regret that he had come to this conclusion, and he was very slow in
proclaiming it, but after 1768 he kept it distinctly before his mind. He
saw clearly the end toward which public opinion was gradually drifting,
and because of his great influence over the Boston town-meeting and the
Massachusetts assembly, this clearness of purpose made him for the next
seven years the most formidable of the king's antagonists in America.

The people of Boston were all the more indignant at the arrival of
troops in their town because the king in his hurry to send them had even
disregarded the act of Parliament which provided for such cases.
According to that act the soldiers ought to have been lodged in Castle
William on one of the little islands in the harbour. Even according to
British-made law they had no business to be quartered in Boston so long
as there was room for them, in the Castle. During the next seventeen
months the people made several formal protests against their presence in
town, and asked for their removal. But these protests were all fruitless
until innocent blood had been shed. The soldiers generally behaved no
worse than rough troopers on such occasions are apt to do, and the
townspeople for the most part preserved decorum, but quarrels now and
then occurred, and after a while became frequent. In September, 1769,
James Otis was brutally assaulted at the British Coffee House by one of
the commissioners of customs aided and abetted by two or three army
officers. His health was already feeble and in this affray he was struck
on the head with a sword and so badly injured that he afterward became
insane. After this the feeling of the people toward the soldiers was
more bitter than ever. In February, 1770, there was much disturbance.
Toward the end of the month an informer named Richardson fired from his
window into a crowd and killed a little boy about eleven years of age,
named Christopher Snyder. The funeral of this poor boy, the first victim
of the Revolution, was attended on Monday, the 26th, by a great
procession of citizens, including those foremost in wealth and
influence.

    [Sidenote: The "Boston Massacre."]

The rest of that week was full of collisions which on Friday almost
amounted to a riot and led the governor's council to consider seriously
whether the troops ought not to be removed. But before they had settled
the question the crisis came on Monday evening, March 5, in an affray
before the Custom House on King street, when seven of Captain Preston's
company fired into the crowd, killing five men and wounding several
others. Two of the victims were innocent bystanders. Two were sailors
from ships lying in the harbour, and they, together with the remaining
victim, a ropemaker, had been actively engaged in the affray. One of the
sailors, a mulatto or half-breed Indian of gigantic stature, named
Crispus Attucks, had been especially conspicuous. The slaughter of these
five men secured in a moment what so many months of decorous protest had
failed to accomplish. Much more serious bloodshed was imminent when
Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson arrived upon the scene and promptly
arrested the offending soldiers. The next day there was an immense
meeting at the Old South, and Samuel Adams, at the head of a committee,
came into the council chamber at the Town House, and in the name of
three thousand freemen sternly commanded Hutchinson to remove the
soldiers from the town. Before sunset they had all been withdrawn to the
Castle. When the news reached the ears of Parliament there was some talk
of reinstating them in the town, but Colonel Barré cut short the
discussion with the pithy question, "if the officers agreed in removing
the soldiers to Castle William, what minister will dare to send them
back to Boston?"

    [Sidenote: Lord North, as prime minister removes all duties except
    on tea, 1770.]

Thus the so-called "Boston Massacre" wrought for the king a rebuff which
he felt perhaps even more keenly than the repeal of the Stamp Act. Not
only had his troops been peremptorily turned out of Boston, but his
policy had for the moment weakened in its hold upon Parliament. In the
summer of 1769 the assembly of Virginia adopted a very important series
of resolutions condemning the policy of Great Britain and recommending
united action on the part of the colonies in defence of their liberties.
The governor then dissolved the assembly, whereupon its members met in
convention at the Raleigh tavern and adopted a set of resolves prepared
by Washington, strictly forbidding importations from England until the
Townshend acts should be repealed. These resolves were generally adopted
by the colonies, and presently the merchants of London, finding their
trade falling off, petitioned Parliament to reconsider its policy. In
January, 1770, Lord North became prime minister. In April all the duties
were taken off, except the duty on tea, which the king insisted upon
retaining, in order to avoid surrendering the principle at issue. The
effect of even this partial concession was to weaken the spirit of
opposition in America, and to create a division among the colonies. In
July the merchants of New York refused to adhere any longer to the
non-importation agreement except with regard to tea, and they began
sending orders to England for various sorts of merchandise. Rhode Island
and New Hampshire also broke the agreement. This aroused general
indignation, and ships from the three delinquent colonies were driven
from such ports as Boston and Charleston.

    [Sidenote: Want of union.]

Union among the colonies was indeed only skin deep. The only thing
which kept it alive was British aggression. Almost every colony had some
bone of contention with its neighbours. At this moment New York and New
Hampshire were wrangling over the possession of the Green Mountains, and
guerrilla warfare was going on between Connecticut and Pennsylvania in
the valley of Wyoming. It was hard to secure concerted action about
anything. For two years after the withdrawal of troops from Boston there
was a good deal of disturbance in different parts of the country;
quarrels between governors and their assemblies were kept up with
increasing bitterness; in North Carolina there was an insurrection
against the governor which was suppressed only after a bloody battle
near the Cape Fear river; in Rhode Island the revenue schooner Gaspee
was seized and burned, and when an order came from the ministry
requiring the offenders to be sent to England for trial, the
chief-justice of Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, refused to obey the
order. But amid all these disturbances there appeared nothing like
concerted action on the part of the colonies. In June, 1772, Hutchinson
said that the union of the colonies seemed to be broken, and he hoped it
would not be renewed, for he believed it meant separation from the
mother-country, and that he regarded as the worst of calamities.



CHAPTER V.

THE CRISIS.


    [Sidenote: Salaries of the judges.]

The surest way to renew and cement the union was to show that the
ministry had not relaxed in its determination to enforce the principle
of the Townshend acts. This was made clear in August, 1772, when it was
ordered that in Massachusetts the judges should henceforth be paid by
the crown. Popular excitement rose to fever heat, and the judges were
threatened with impeachment should they dare accept a penny from the
royal treasury. The turmoil was increased next year by the discovery in
London of the package of letters which were made to support the unjust
charge against Hutchinson and some of his friends that they had
instigated and aided the most extreme measures of the ministry.

    [Sidenote: Committees of Correspondence.]

In the autumn of 1772 Hutchinson refused to call an extra session of the
assembly to consider what should be done about the judges. Samuel Adams
then devised a scheme by which the towns of Massachusetts could consult
with each other and agree upon some common course of action in case of
emergencies. For this purpose each town was to appoint a standing
committee, and as a great part of their work was necessarily done by
letter they were called "committees of correspondence." This was the
step that fairly organized the Revolution. It was by far the most
important of all the steps that preceded the Declaration of
Independence. The committees did their work with great efficiency and
the governor had no means of stopping it. They were like an invisible
legislature that was always in session and could never be dissolved; and
when the old government fell they were able to administer affairs until
a new government could be set up. In the spring of 1773 Virginia carried
this work of organization a long step further, when Dabney Carr
suggested and carried a motion calling for committees of correspondence
between the several colonies. From this point it was a comparatively
short step to a permanent Continental Congress.

It happened that these preparations were made just in time to meet the
final act of aggression which brought on the Revolutionary War. The
Americans had thus far successfully resisted the Townshend acts and
secured the repeal of all the duties except on tea. As for tea they had
plenty, but not from England; they smuggled it from Holland in spite of
custom-houses and search-warrants. Clearly unless the Americans could be
made to buy tea from England and pay the duty on it, the king must own
himself defeated.

    [Sidenote: Tea ships sent by the king, as a challenge.]

Since it appeared that they could not be forced into doing this, it
remained to be seen if they could be tricked into doing it. A truly
ingenious scheme was devised. Tea sent by the East India Company to
America had formerly paid a duty in some British port on the way. This
duty was now taken off, so that the price of the tea for America might
be lowered. The company's tea thus became so cheap that the American
merchant could buy a pound of it and pay the threepence duty beside for
less than it cost him to smuggle a pound of tea from Holland. It was
supposed that the Americans would of course buy the tea which they could
get most cheaply, and would thus be beguiled into submission to that
principle of taxation which they had hitherto resisted. Ships laden with
tea were accordingly sent in the autumn of 1773 to Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Charleston; and consignees were appointed to receive
the tea in each of these towns.

Under the guise of a commercial operation, this was purely a political
trick. It was an insulting challenge to the American people, and merited
the reception which they gave it. They would have shown themselves
unworthy of their rich political heritage had they given it any other.
In New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston mass-meetings of the people
voted that the consignees should be ordered to resign their offices, and
they did so. At Philadelphia the tea-ship was met and sent back to
England before it had come within the jurisdiction of the custom-house.
At Charleston the tea was landed, and as there was no one to receive it
or pay the duty, it was thrown into a damp cellar and left there to
spoil.

    [Sidenote: How the challenge was received; the "Boston Tea Party,"
    Dec. 16, 1773.]

In Boston things took a different turn. The stubborn courage of Governor
Hutchinson prevented the consignees, two of whom were his own sons, from
resigning; the ships arrived and were anchored under guard of a
committee of citizens; if they were not unloaded within twenty days, the
custom-house officers were empowered by law to seize them and unload
them by force; and having once come within the jurisdiction of the
custom-house, they could not go out to sea without a clearance from the
collector or a pass from the governor. The situation was a difficult
one, but it was most nobly met by the men of Massachusetts. The
excitement was intense, but the proceedings were characterized from
first to last by perfect quiet and decorum. In an earnest and solemn,
almost prayerful spirit, the advice of all the towns in the commonwealth
was sought, and the response was unanimous that the tea must on no
account whatever be landed. Similar expressions of opinion came from
other colonies, and the action of Massachusetts was awaited with
breathless interest. Many town-meetings were held in Boston, and the
owner of the ships was ordered to take them away without unloading; but
the collector contrived to fritter away the time until the nineteenth
day, and then refused a clearance. On the next day, the 16th of
December, 1773, seven thousand people were assembled in town-meeting in
and around the Old South Meeting-House, while the owner of the ships was
sent out to the governor's house at Milton to ask for a pass. It was
nightfall when he returned without it, and there was then but one thing
to be done. By sunrise next morning the revenue officers would board the
ships and unload their cargoes, the consignees would go to the
custom-house and pay the duty, and the king's scheme would have been
crowned with success. The only way to prevent this was to rip open the
tea-chests and spill their contents into the sea, and this was done,
according to a preconcerted plan and without the slightest uproar or
disorder, by a small party of men disguised as Indians. Among them were
some of the best of the townsfolk, and the chief manager of the
proceedings was Samuel Adams. The destruction of the tea has often been
spoken of, especially by British historians, as a "riot," but nothing
could have been less like a riot. It was really the deliberate action of
the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the only fitting reply to the
king's insulting trick. It was hailed with delight throughout the
thirteen colonies, and there is nothing in our whole history of which
an educated American should feel more proud.

    [Sidenote: The Retaliatory Acts, April, 1774.]

The effect upon the king and his friends was maddening, and events were
quickly brought to a crisis. In spite of earnest opposition retaliatory
acts were passed through Parliament in April, 1774. One of these was the
Port Bill, for shutting up the port of Boston and stopping its trade
until the people should be starved and frightened into paying for the
tea that had been thrown overboard. Another was the Regulating Act, by
which the charter of Massachusetts was annulled, its free government
swept away, and a military governor appointed with despotic power like
Andros. These acts were to go into operation on the 1st of June, and on
that day Governor Hutchinson sailed for England, in the vain hope of
persuading the king to adopt a milder policy. It was not long before his
property was confiscated, like that of other Tories, and after six years
of exile he died in London. The new governor, Thomas Gage, who had long
been commander of the military forces in America, was a mild and
pleasant man without much strength of character. His presence was
endured but his authority was not recognized in Massachusetts. Troops
were now quartered again in Boston, but they could not prevent the
people from treating the Regulating Act with open contempt. Courts
organized under that act were prevented from sitting, and councillors
were compelled to resign their places. The king's authority was
everywhere quietly but doggedly defied. At the same time the stoppage of
business in Boston was the cause of much distress which all the colonies
sought to relieve by voluntary contributions of food and other needed
articles.

    [Sidenote: Continental Congress meets, Sept. 1774.]

The events of the last twelve months had gone further than anything
before toward awakening a sentiment of union among the people of the
colonies. It was still a feeble sentiment, but it was strong enough to
make them all feel that Boston was suffering in the common cause. The
system of corresponding committees now ripened into the Continental
Congress, which held its first meeting at Philadelphia in September,
1774. Among the delegates were Samuel and John Adams, Robert Livingston,
John Rutledge, John Dickinson, Samuel Chase, Edmund Pendleton, Richard
Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. Their action was
cautious and conservative. They confined themselves for the present to
trying the effect of a candid statement of grievances, and drew up a
Declaration of Rights and other papers, which were pronounced by Lord
Chatham unsurpassed for ability in any age or country. In Parliament,
however, the king's friends were becoming all-powerful, and the only
effect produced by these papers was to goad them toward further attempts
at coercion. Massachusetts was declared to be in a state of rebellion,
as in truth she was.

    [Sidenote: The Suffolk Resolves, Sept. 1774.]

While Samuel Adams was at Philadelphia, the lead in Boston was taken by
his friend Dr. Warren. In a county convention held at Milton in
September, Dr. Warren drew up a series of resolves which fairly set on
foot the Revolution. They declared that the Regulating Act was null and
void, and that a king who violates the chartered rights of his subjects
forfeits their allegiance; they directed the collectors of taxes to
refuse to pay the money collected to Gage's treasurer; and they
threatened retaliation in case Gage should venture to arrest any one for
political reasons. These bold resolves were adopted by the convention
and sanctioned by the Continental Congress. Next month the people of
Massachusetts formed a provisional government, and began organizing a
militia and collecting military stores at Concord and other inland
towns.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775.]

General Gage's position at this time was a trying one for a man of his
temperament. In an unguarded moment he had assured the king that four
regiments ought to be enough to bring Massachusetts into an attitude of
penitence. Now Massachusetts was in an attitude of rebellion, and he
realized that he had not troops enough to command the situation. People
in England were blaming him for not doing something, and late in the
winter he received a positive order to arrest Samuel Adams and his
friend John Hancock, then at the head of the new provisional government
of Massachusetts, and send them to England to be tried for high treason.
On the 18th of April, 1775, these gentlemen were staying at a friend's
house in Lexington; and Gage that evening sent out a force of 800 men to
seize the military stores accumulated at Concord, with instructions to
stop on the way at Lexington and arrest Adams and Hancock. But Dr.
Warren divined the purpose of the movement, and his messenger, Paul
Revere, succeeded in forewarning the people, so that by the time the
troops arrived at Lexington the birds were flown. The soldiers fired
into a company of militia on Lexington common and slew eight or ten of
their number; but by the time they reached Concord the country was
fairly aroused and armed yeomanry were coming upon the scene by
hundreds. In a sharp skirmish the British were defeated and, without
having accomplished any of the objects of their expedition, began their
retreat toward Boston, hotly pursued by the farmers who fired from
behind walls and trees after the Indian fashion. A reinforcement of 1200
men at Lexington saved the routed troops from destruction, but the
numbers of their assailants grew so rapidly that even this larger force
barely succeeded in escaping capture. At sunset the British reached
Charlestown after a march which was a series of skirmishes, leaving
nearly 300 of their number killed or wounded along the road. By that
time yeomanry from twenty-three townships had joined in the pursuit. The
alarm spread like wildfire through New England, and fresh bands of
militia arrived every hour. Within three days Israel Putnam and Benedict
Arnold had come from Connecticut and John Stark from New Hampshire, a
cordon of 16,000 men was drawn around Boston, and the siege of that town
was begun.

    [Sidenote: Capture of Ticonderoga, May 10, 1775.]

    [Sidenote: Washington appointed to command the army, June 15, 1775.]

    [Sidenote: Charles Lee.]

The belligerent feeling in New England had now grown so strong as to
show itself in an act of offensive warfare. On the 10th of May, just
three weeks after Lexington, the fortresses at Ticonderoga and Crown
Point, controlling the line of communication between New York and
Canada, were surprised and captured by men from the Green Mountains and
Connecticut valley under Ethan Allen and Seth Warner. The Congress,
which met on that same day at Philadelphia, showed some reluctance in
sanctioning an act so purely offensive; but in its choice of a president
the spirit of defiance toward Great Britain was plainly shown. John
Hancock, whom the British commander-in-chief was under stringent orders
to arrest and send over to England to be tried for treason, was chosen
to that eminent position on the 24th of May. This showed that the
preponderance of sentiment in the country was in favour of supporting
the New England colonies in the armed struggle into which they had
drifted. This was still further shown two days later, when Congress in
the name of the "United Colonies of America" assumed the direction of
the rustic army of New England men engaged in the siege of Boston. As
Congress was absolutely penniless and had no power to lay taxes, it
proceeded to borrow £6000 for the purchase of gunpowder. It called for
ten companies of riflemen from Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, to
reinforce what was henceforth known as the Continental army; and on the
15th of June it appointed George Washington commander-in-chief. The
choice of Washington was partly due to the general confidence in his
ability and in his lofty character. In the French War he had won a
military reputation higher than that of any other American, and he was
already commander-in-chief of the forces of Virginia. But the choice was
also partly due to sound political reasons. The Massachusetts leaders,
especially Samuel Adams and his cousin John, were distrusted by some
people as extremists and fire-eaters. They wished to bring about a
declaration of independence, for they believed it to be the only
possible cure for the evils of the time. The leaders in other colonies,
upon which the hand of the British government had not borne so heavily,
had not yet advanced quite so far as this. Most of them believed that
the king could be brought to terms; they did not realize that he would
never give way because it was politically as much a life and death
struggle for him as for them. Washington was not yet clearly in favour
of independence, nor was Jefferson, who a twelvemonth hence was to be
engaged in writing the Declaration. It is doubtful if any of the leading
men as yet agreed with the Adamses, except Dr. Franklin, who had just
returned from England after his ten years' stay there, and knew very
well how little hope was to be placed in conciliatory measures. The
Adamses, therefore, like wise statesmen, were always on their guard lest
circumstances should drive Massachusetts in the path of rebellion faster
than the sister colonies were likely to keep pace with her. This was
what the king above all things wished, and by the same token it was what
they especially dreaded and sought to avoid. To appoint George
Washington to the chief command was to go a long way toward irrevocably
committing Virginia to the same cause with Massachusetts, and John Adams
was foremost in urging the appointment. Its excellence was obvious to
every one, and we hear of only two persons that were dissatisfied. One
of these was John Hancock, who coveted military distinction and was vain
enough to think himself fit for almost any position. The other was
Charles Lee, a British officer who had served in America in the French
War and afterward wandered about Europe as a soldier of fortune. He had
returned to America in 1773 in the hope of playing a leading part here.
He set himself up as an authority on military questions, and pretended
to be a zealous lover of liberty. He was really an unprincipled
charlatan for whom, the kindest thing that can be said is that perhaps
he was slightly insane. He had hoped to be appointed to the chief
command, and was disgusted when he found himself placed second among the
four major-generals. The first major-general was Artemas Ward of
Massachusetts; the third was Philip Schuyler of New York; the fourth was
Israel Putnam of Connecticut. Eight brigadier-generals were appointed,
among whom we may here mention Richard Montgomery of New York, William
Heath of Massachusetts, John Sullivan of New Hampshire, and Nathanael
Greene of Rhode Island. The adjutant-general, Horatio Gates, was an
Englishman who had served in the French War, and since then had lived in
Virginia.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775.]

While Congress was appointing officers and making regulations for the
Continental army, reinforcements for the British had landed in Boston,
making their army 10,000 strong. The new troops were commanded by
General William Howe, a Whig who disapproved of the king's policy. With
him came Sir Henry Clinton and John Burgoyne, who were more in sympathy
with the king. Howe and Burgoyne were members of Parliament. On the
arrival of these reinforcements Gage prepared to occupy the heights in
Charlestown known as Breed's and Bunker's hills. These heights commanded
Boston, so that hostile batteries placed there would make it necessary
for the British to evacuate the town. On the night of June 16, the
Americans anticipated Gage in seizing the heights, and began erecting
fortifications on Breed's Hill. It was an exposed position for the
American force, which might easily have been cut off and captured if the
British had gone around by sea and occupied Charlestown Neck in the
rear. The British preferred to storm the American works. In two
desperate assaults, on the afternoon of the 17th, they were repulsed
with the loss of one-third of their number; and the third assault
succeeded only because the Americans were not supplied with powder. By
driving the Americans back to Winter Hill, the British won an important
victory and kept their hold upon Boston. The moral effect of the battle,
however, was in favour of the Americans, for it clearly indicated that
under proper circumstances they might exhibit a power of resistance
which the British would find it impossible to overcome. It was with
George III. as with Pyrrhus: he could not afford to win many victories
at such cost, for his supply of soldiers for America was limited, and
his only hope of success lay in inflicting heavy blows. In winning
Bunker Hill his troops were only holding their own; the siege of Boston
was not raised for a moment.

The practical effect upon the British army was to keep it quiet for
several months. General Howe, who presently superseded Gage, was a brave
and well-trained soldier, but slothful in temperament. His way was to
strike a blow, and then wait to see what would come of it, hoping no
doubt that political affairs might soon take such a turn as to make it
unnecessary to go on with this fratricidal war. This was fortunate for
the Americans, for when Washington took command of the army at Cambridge
on the 3d of July, he saw that little or nothing could be done with that
army until it should be far better organized, disciplined, and equipped,
and in such work he found enough to occupy him for several months.

    [Sidenote: Last petition to the king; and its answer.]

[Illustration: Invasion of Canada by Montgomery and Arnold.]

Meanwhile Congress, at the instance of John Dickinson of Pennsylvania
and John Jay of New York, decided to try the effect of one more candid
statement of affairs, in the form of a petition to the king. This paper
reached London on the 14th of August, but the king refused to receive
it, although it was signed by the delegates as separate individuals and
not as members of an unauthorized or revolutionary body. His only answer
was a proclamation dated August 23, in which he called for volunteers
to aid in putting down the rebellion in America. At the same time he
opened negotiations with the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the duke of
Brunswick, and other petty German princes, and succeeded in hiring
20,000 troops to be sent to fight against his American subjects. When
the news of this reached America it produced a profound effect. Perhaps
nothing done in that year went so far toward destroying the lingering
sentiment of loyalty.

    [Sidenote: Americans invade Canada, Aug., 1775--June, 1776.]

In the spring Congress had hesitated about encouraging offensive
operations. In the course of the summer it was ascertained that the
governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, was planning an invasion of
northern New York and hoping to obtain the coöperation of the Six
Nations and the Tories of the Mohawk valley. Congress accordingly
decided to forestall him by invading Canada. Two lines of invasion were
adopted. Montgomery descended Lake Champlain with 2000 men, and after a
campaign of two months captured Montreal on the 12th of November. At the
same time Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan set out from Cambridge with
1200 men, and made their way through the wilderness of Maine, up the
valley of the Kennebec and down that of the Chaudière, coming out upon
the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec on the 13th of November. This long
march through the primeval forest and over rugged and trackless
mountains was one of the most remarkable exploits of the war. It cost
the lives of 200 men, but besides this the rear-guard gave out and went
back to Cambridge, so that when Arnold reached Quebec he had only 700
men, too few for an attack upon the town. After Montgomery joined him,
it was decided to carry the works by storm, but in the unsuccessful
assault on December 31, Montgomery was killed, Arnold disabled, and
Morgan taken prisoner. During the winter Carleton was reinforced until
he was able to recapture Montreal. The Americans were gradually driven
back, and by June, 1776, had retreated to Crown Point. Carleton then
resumed his preparations for invading New York.

    [Sidenote: Washington takes Boston, March 17, 1776.]

While the northern campaign was progressing thus unfavourably, the
British were at length driven from Boston. Howe had unaccountably
neglected to occupy Dorchester heights, which commanded the town; and
Washington, after waiting till a sufficient number of heavy guns could
be collected, advanced on the night of March 4 and occupied them with
2000 men. His position was secure. The British had no alternative but to
carry it by storm or retire from Boston. Not caring to repeat the
experiment of Bunker Hill, they embarked on the 17th of March and sailed
to Halifax, where they busied themselves in preparations for an
expedition against New York. Late in April Washington transferred his
headquarters to New York, where he was able to muster about 8000 men for
its defence. Thus the line of the Hudson river was now threatened with
attack at both its upper and lower ends.

    [Sidenote: Lord Dunmore in Virginia.]

This change in the seat of war marks the change that had come over the
political situation. It was no longer merely a rebellious Massachusetts
that must be subdued; it was a continental Union that must be broken up.
During the winter and spring the sentiment in favour of a declaration of
independence had rapidly grown in strength. In November, 1775, Lord
Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, sought to intimidate the
revolutionary party by a proclamation offering freedom to such slaves as
would enlist under the king's banner. This aroused the country against
Dunmore, and in December he was driven from Norfolk and took refuge in a
ship of war. On New Year's Day he bombarded the town and laid it in
ashes from one end to the other. This violence rapidly made converts to
the revolutionary party, and further lessons were learned from the
experience of their neighbours in North Carolina.

    [Sidenote: North Carolina and Virginia.]

That colony was the scene of fierce contests between Whigs and Tories.
As early as May 31, 1775, the patriots of Mecklenburg county had
adopted resolutions pointing toward independence and forwarded them to
their delegates in Congress, who deemed it impolitic, however, to lay
them before that body. Josiah Martin, royal governor of North Carolina,
was obliged to flee on board ship in July. He busied himself with plans
for the complete subjugation of the southern colonies, and corresponded
with the government in London, as well as with his Tory friends ashore.
In pursuance of these plans Sir Henry Clinton, with 2000 men, was
detached in January, 1776, from the army in Boston, and sent to the
North Carolina coast; a fleet under Sir Peter Parker was sent from
Ireland to meet him; and a force of 1600 Tories was gathered to assist
him as soon as he should arrive. But the scheme utterly failed. The
fleet was buffeted by adverse winds and did not arrive; the Tories were
totally defeated on February 27 in a sharp fight at Moore's Creek; and
Clinton, thus deprived of his allies, deemed it most prudent for a while
to keep his troops on shipboard. On the 12th of April the patriots of
North Carolina instructed their delegates in Congress to concur with
other delegates in a declaration of independence. On the 14th of May
Virginia went further, and instructed her delegates to propose such a
declaration. South Carolina, Georgia, and Rhode Island expressed a
willingness to concur in any measures which Congress might think best
calculated to promote the general welfare. In the course of May
town-meetings throughout Massachusetts expressed opinions unanimously in
favour of independence.

Massachusetts had already, as long ago as July, 1775, framed a new
government in which the king was not recognized; and her example had
been followed by New Hampshire in January, 1776, and by South Carolina
in March. Now on the 15th of May Congress adopted a resolution advising
all the other colonies to form new governments, because the king had
"withdrawn his protection" from the American people, and all governments
deriving their powers from him were accordingly set aside as of no
account. This resolution was almost equivalent to a declaration of
independence, and it was adopted only after hot debate and earnest
opposition from the middle colonies.

    [Sidenote: Richard Henry Lee's motion in Congress.]

On the 7th of June, in accordance with the instructions of May 14 from
Virginia, Richard Henry Lee submitted to Congress the following
resolutions:--

"That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the
State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally 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."

This motion of Virginia, in which Independence and Union went hand in
hand, was at once seconded by Massachusetts, as represented by John
Adams. It was opposed by John Dickinson and James Wilson of
Pennsylvania, and by Robert Livingston of New York, on the ground that
the people of the middle colonies were not yet ready to sever the
connection with the mother country. As the result of the discussion it
was decided to wait three weeks, in the hope of hearing from all those
colonies which had not yet declared themselves.

The messages from those colonies came promptly enough. As for
Connecticut and New Hampshire, there could be no doubt; and their
declarations for independence, on the 14th and 15th of June
respectively, were simply dilatory expressions of their sentiments. They
were late, only because Connecticut had no need to form a new government
at all, while New Hampshire had formed one as long ago as January. Their
support of the proposed declaration of independence was already secured,
and it was only in the formal announcement of it that they were somewhat
belated. But with the middle colonies it was different. There the
parties were more evenly balanced, and it was not until the last moment
that the decision was clearly pronounced. This was not because they were
less patriotic than the other colonies, but because their direct
grievances were fewer, and up to this moment they had hoped that the
quarrel was one which a change of ministry in Great Britain might
adjust. In the earlier stages of the quarrel they had been ready enough
to join hands with Massachusetts and Virginia. It was only on this
irrevocable decision as to independence that they were slow to act.

    [Sidenote: The middle colonies.]

But in the course of the month of June their responses to the invitation
of Congress came in,--from Delaware on the 14th, from New Jersey on the
22d, from Pennsylvania on the 24th, from Maryland on the 28th. This
action of the middle colonies was avowedly based on the ground that, in
any event, united action was the thing most to be desired; so that,
whatever their individual preferences might be, they were ready to
subordinate them to the interests of the whole country. The broad and
noble spirit of patriotism shown in their resolves is worthy of no less
credit than the bold action of the colonies which, under the stimulus of
direct aggression, first threw down the gauntlet to George III.

On the 1st of July, when Lee's motion was taken up in Congress, all the
colonies had been heard from except New York. The circumstances of this
central colony were peculiar. We have already seen that the Tory party
was especially strong in New York. Besides this, her position was more
exposed to attack on all sides than that of any other state. As the
military centre of the Union, her territory was sure to be the scene of
the most desperate fighting. She was already threatened with invasion
from Canada. As a frontier state she was exposed to the incursions of
the terrible Iroquois, and as a sea-board state she was open to the
attack of the British fleet. At that time, moreover, the population of
New York numbered only about 170,000, and she ranked seventh among the
thirteen colonies. The military problem was therefore much harder for
New York than for Massachusetts or Virginia. Her risks were greater than
those of any other colony. For these reasons the Whig party in New York
found itself seriously hampered in its movements, and the 1st of July
arrived before their delegates in Congress had been instructed how to
vote on the question of independence.

    [Sidenote: Difficulties in New York.]

Richard Henry Lee had been suddenly called home to Virginia by the
illness of his wife, and so the task of defending his motion fell upon
John Adams who had seconded it. His speech on that occasion was so able
that Thomas Jefferson afterward spoke of him as "the Colossus of that
debate." As Congress sat with closed doors and no report was made of
the speech, we have no definite knowledge of its arguments. Fifty years
afterwards, shortly after John Adams's death, Daniel Webster wrote an
imaginary speech containing what in substance he _might_ have said. The
principal argument in opposition was made by John Dickinson, who thought
that before the Americans finally committed themselves to a deadly
struggle with Great Britain, they ought to establish some stronger
government than the Continental Congress, and ought also to secure a
promise of help from some such country as France. This advice was
cautious, but it was not sound and practical. War had already begun, and
if we had waited to agree upon some permanent kind of government before
committing all the colonies to a formal defiance of Great Britain, there
was great danger that the enemy might succeed in breaking up the Union
before it was really formed. Besides, it is not likely that France would
ever have decided to go to war in our behalf until we had shown that we
were able to defend ourselves. It was now a time when the boldest advice
was the safest.

    [Sidenote: The Declaration of Independence, July 1 to 4, 1776.]

During this debate on the 1st of July Congress was sitting as a
committee of the whole, and at the close of the day a preliminary vote
was taken. Like all the votes in the Continental Congress, it was taken
by colonies. The majority of votes in each delegation determined the
vote of that colony. Each colony had one vote, and two-thirds of the
whole number, or nine colonies against four, were necessary for a
decision. On this occasion the New York delegates did not vote at all,
because they had no instructions. One delegate from Delaware voted yea
and another nay; the third delegate, Cæsar Rodney, had been down in the
lower counties of his little state, arguing against the loyalists. A
special messenger had been sent to hurry him back, but he had not yet
arrived, and so the vote of Delaware was divided and lost. Pennsylvania
declared in the negative by four votes against three. South Carolina
also declared in the negative. The other nine colonies all voted in the
affirmative, and so the resolution received just votes enough to carry
it. A very little more opposition would have defeated it, and would
probably have postponed the declaration for several weeks.

The next day Congress took the formal vote upon the resolution. Mr.
Rodney had now arrived, so that the vote of Delaware was given in the
affirmative. John Dickinson and Robert Morris stayed away, so that
Pennsylvania was now secured for the affirmative by three votes against
two. Though Dickinson and Morris were so slow to believe it necessary or
prudent to declare independence, they were firm supporters of the
declaration after it was made. Without Morris, indeed, it is hard to
see how the Revolution could have succeeded. He was the great financier
of his time, and his efforts in raising money for the support of our
hard-pressed armies were wonderful.

When the turn of the South Carolina delegates came they changed their
votes in order that the declaration might go forth to the world as the
unanimous act of the American people. The question was thus settled on
the 2d of July, and the next thing was to decide upon the form of the
declaration, which Jefferson, who was weak in debate but strong with the
pen, had already drafted. The work was completed on the 4th of July,
when Jefferson's draft was adopted and published to the world. Five days
afterward the state of New York declared her approval of these
proceedings. The Rubicon was crossed, and the thirteen English colonies
had become the United States of America.



CHAPTER VI.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE.


    [Sidenote: Lord Cornwallis.]

While these things were going on at Philadelphia, the coast of South
Carolina, as well as the harbour of New York, was threatened by the
British fleet. When the delegates from South Carolina gave their votes
on the question of independence, they did not know but the revolutionary
government in Charleston might already have been taken captive or
scattered in flight. After a stormy voyage Sir Peter Parker's squadron
at length arrived off Cape Fear early in May, and joined Sir Henry
Clinton. Along with Sir Peter came an officer worthy of especial
mention. Charles, Earl Cornwallis, was then thirty-eight years old. He
had long served with distinction in the British army, and had lately
reached the grade of lieutenant-general. In politics he was a New Whig,
and had on several occasions signified his disapproval of the king's
policy toward America. As a commander his promptness and vigour
contrasted strongly with the slothfulness of General Howe. Cornwallis
was the ablest of the British generals engaged in the Revolutionary War,
and among the public men of his time there were few, if any, more
high-minded, disinterested, faithful, and pure. After the war was over,
he won great fame as governor-general of India from 1786 to 1794. He was
afterward raised to the rank of marquis and appointed lord-lieutenant of
Ireland. In 1805 he was sent out again to govern India, and died there.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Fort Moultrie, June 28, 1776.]

    [Sidenote: Lord Howe's effort toward conciliation.]

On the arrival of the fleet it was decided to attack and capture
Charleston, and overthrow the new government there. General Charles Lee
was sent down by Congress to defend the city, but the South Carolina
patriots proved quite able to take care of themselves. On Sullivan's
Island in Charleston harbour Colonel William Moultrie built a low
elastic fortress of palmetto logs supported by banks of sand and
mounting several heavy guns. In the cannonade which took place on the
28th of June this rude structure escaped with little injury, while its
guns inflicted such serious damage upon the fleet that the British were
obliged to abandon for the present all thought of taking Charleston. In
the course of July they sailed for New York harbour to reinforce General
Howe. On the 12th of that month the general's brother, Richard, Lord
Howe, arrived at Staten Island to take the chief command of the fleet.
He was one of the ablest seamen of his time, and was a favourite with
his sailors, by whom, on account of his swarthy complexion, he was
familiarly known as "Black Dick." Lord Howe and his brother were
authorized to offer terms to the Americans and endeavour to restore
peace by negotiation. It was not easy, however, to find any one in
America with whom to negotiate. Lord Howe was sincerely desirous of
making peace and doing something to heal the troubles which had brought
on the war; and he seems to have supposed that some good might be
effected by private interviews with leading Americans. To send a message
to Congress was, of course, not to be thought of; for that would be
equivalent to recognizing Congress as a body entitled to speak for the
American people. He brought with him an assurance of amnesty and pardon
for all such rebels as would lay down their arms, and decided that it
would be best to send it to the American commander; but as it was not
proper to recognize the military rank which had been conferred upon
Washington by a revolutionary body, he addressed his message to "George
Washington, Esq.," as to a private citizen. When Washington refused to
receive such a message, his lordship could think of no one else to
approach except the royal governors. But they had all fled, except
Governor Franklin of New Jersey, who was under close confinement in East
Windsor, Connecticut. All British authority in the United States had
disappeared, and there was no one for Lord Howe to negotiate with,
unless he should bethink himself of some way of laying his case before
Congress.

    [Sidenote: Change in the British military plan, due to the union of
    the colonies in the Declaration of Independence.]

Military operations were now taken up in earnest by the British, and
were briskly carried on for nearly six months. They were for the most
part concentrated upon the state of New York. Before 1776 it was
Massachusetts that was the chief object of military measures on the part
of the British. That was the colony that since the summer of 1774 had
defied the king's troops and set at naught the authority of Parliament;
and the first object of the British was to make an example of that
colony, to suppress the rebellion there, and to reinstate the royal
government. The king believed that it would not take long to do this,
and there is some reason for supposing that if he had succeeded in
humbling Massachusetts, he would have been ready to listen to
Hutchinson's request that the vindictive acts of April, 1774, should be
repealed and the charter restored. At all events, he seems to have felt
confident that things could soon be made so quiet that Hutchinson could
return and resume the office of governor. If the king and his friends
had not entertained such ill-founded hopes, they would not have been so
ready to resort to violent measures. They made the fatal mistake of
supposing that such a man as Samuel Adams represented only a small
party and not the majority of the people. They had also supposed that
the other colonies would not make common cause with Massachusetts. But
now, before they had accomplished any of their objects, and while their
troops had even been driven from Boston, they found that the rebellion
had spread through the whole country. They had a belligerent government
to confront, and must now enter upon the task of conquering the United
States.

    [Sidenote: Why the British concentrated their attack upon the state
    of New York.]

The first and most obvious method of attempting this was to strike at
New York as the military centre. In such a plan everything seemed to
favour the British. The state was comparatively weak in population and
resources; a large proportion of the people were Tories; and close at
hand on the frontier, which was then in the Mohawk valley, were the most
formidable Indians on the continent. These Iroquois had long been under
the influence of the famous Sir William Johnson, of Johnson Hall, near
Schenectady, and his son Sir John Johnson. Their principal sachem,
Joseph Brant, or Thayendanegea, was connected by the closest bonds of
friendship with the Johnsons, and the latter were staunch Tories. It
might reasonably be expected that the entire force of these Indians
could be enlisted on the British side. The work for the regular army
seemed thus to be reduced to the single problem of capturing the city
of New York and obtaining full control of the Hudson river.

If this could be done, the United States would be cut in two. As the
Americans had no ships of war, they could not dispute the British
command of the water. There was no way in which the New England states
could hold communication with the South except across the southern part
of the state of New York. To gain this central position would thus be to
deal a fatal blow to the American cause, and it seemed to the British
government that, with the forces now in the field, this ought easily to
be accomplished. General Carleton was ready to come down from the north
by way of Lake Champlain, with 12,000 men, and General Schuyler could
scarcely muster half as many to oppose him. On Staten Island there were
more than 25,000 British troops ready to attack New York, while
Washington's utmost exertions had succeeded in getting together only
about 18,000 men for the defence of the city. The American army was as
yet very poor in organization and discipline, badly equipped, and
scantily fed; and it seemed very doubtful whether it could long keep the
field in the presence of superior forces.

    [Sidenote: Washington's military genius.]

But in spite of all these circumstances, so favourable to the British,
there was one obstacle to their success upon which at first they did not
sufficiently reckon. That obstacle was furnished by the genius and
character of the wonderful man who commanded the American army. In
Washington were combined all the highest qualities of a general,--dogged
tenacity of purpose, endless fertility in resource, sleepless vigilance,
and unfailing courage. No enemy ever caught him unawares, and he never
let slip an opportunity of striking back. He had a rare geographical
instinct, always knew where the strongest position was, and how to reach
it. He was a master of the art of concealing his own plan and detecting
his adversary's. He knew better than to hazard everything upon the
result of a single contest, and because of the enemy's superior force he
was so often obliged to refuse battle that some of his impatient critics
called him slow; but no general was ever quicker in dealing heavy blows
when the proper moment arrived. He was neither unduly elated by victory
nor discouraged by defeat. When all others lost heart he was bravest;
and at the very moment when ruin seemed to stare him in the face, he was
craftily preparing disaster and confusion for the enemy.

To the highest qualities of a military commander there were united in
Washington those of a political leader. From early youth he possessed
the art of winning men's confidence. He was simple without awkwardness,
honest without bluntness, and endowed with rare discretion and tact. His
temper was fiery and on occasion he could use pretty strong language,
but anger or disappointment was never allowed to disturb the justice and
kindness of his judgment. Men felt themselves safe in putting entire
trust in his head and his heart, and they were never deceived. Thus he
soon obtained such a hold upon the people as few statesmen have ever
possessed. It was this grand character that, with his clear intelligence
and unflagging industry, enabled him to lead the nation triumphantly
through the perils of the Revolutionary War. He had almost every
imaginable hardship to contend with,--envious rivals, treachery and
mutiny in the camp, interference on the part of Congress, jealousies
between the states, want of men and money; yet all these difficulties he
vanquished. Whether victorious or defeated on the field, he baffled the
enemy in the first year's great campaign and in the second year's, and
then for four years more upheld the cause until heart-sickening delay
was ended in glorious triumph. It is very doubtful if without Washington
the struggle for independence would have succeeded as it did. Other men
were important, he was indispensable.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Long Island, Aug. 27, 1776.]

The first great campaign began, as might have been expected, with defeat
on the field. In order to keep possession of the city of New York it was
necessary to hold Brooklyn Heights. That was a dangerous position for an
American force, because it was entirely separated from New York by deep
water, and could thus be cut off from the rest of the American army by
the enemy's fleet. It was necessary, however, for Washington either to
occupy Brooklyn Heights or to give up the city of New York without a
struggle. But the latter course was out of the question. It would never
do to abandon the Whigs in New York to the tender mercies of the Tories,
without at least one good fight. So the position in Brooklyn must be
fortified, and there was perhaps one chance in a hundred that, through
some blunder of the enemy, we might succeed in holding it. Accordingly
9000 men were stationed on Brooklyn Heights under Putnam, who threw
forward about half of this force, under Sullivan and Stirling, to defend
the southern approaches through the rugged country between Gowanus bay
and Bedford. On the 22d of August General Howe crossed from Staten
Island to Gravesend bay with 20,000 men, and on the 27th he defeated
Sullivan and Stirling in what has ever since been known as the battle of
Long Island. About 400 men were killed and wounded on each side, and
1000 Americans, including both generals, were taken captive. A more
favourable result for the Americans was not to be expected, as the
British outnumbered them four to one, and could therefore march where
they pleased and turn the American flank without incurring the slightest
risk. The wonder is, not that 5000 half-trained soldiers were defeated
by 20,000 veterans, but that they should have given General Howe a good
day's work in defeating them.

    [Sidenote: Washington's skilful retreat.]

The American forces were now withdrawn into their works on Brooklyn
Heights, and Howe advanced to besiege them. During the next two days
Washington collected boats and on the night of the 29th conveyed the
army across the East River to New York. With the enemy's fleet
patrolling the harbour and their army watching the works, this was a
most remarkable performance. To this day one cannot understand, unless
on the supposition that the British were completely dazed and
moonstruck, how Washington could have done it.

    [Sidenote: Howe takes New York, Sept. 15, 1776.]

People were much disheartened by the defeat on Long Island and the
immediate prospect of losing New York. Lord Howe turned his thoughts
once more to negotiation, and at length, on September 11, succeeded in
obtaining an informal interview with Franklin, John Adams, and Edward
Rutledge. But nothing was accomplished, and seventeen eventful months
elapsed before the British again seriously tried negotiation. General
Howe had extended his lines northward, and on the 15th his army crossed
the East River in boats, and landed near the site of Thirty-Fourth
street. On the same day Washington completed the work of evacuating the
city. His army was drawn up across the island from the mouth of Harlem
river to Fort Washington, and over on the Jersey side of the Hudson,
opposite Fort Washington, a detachment occupied Fort Lee. It was hoped
that these two forts would be able to prevent British ships from going
up the Hudson river, but this hope soon proved to be delusive.

On the 16th General Howe tried to break through the centre of
Washington's position at Harlem Heights, but after losing 300 men he
gave up the attempt, and spent the next three weeks in studying the
situation. A sad incident came now to remind the people of the sternness
of military law. Nathan Hale, a young graduate of Yale College, captain
of a company of Connecticut rangers, had been for several days within
the British lines gathering information. Just as he had accomplished his
purpose, and was on the point of departing with his memoranda, he was
arrested as a spy and hanged next morning, lamenting on the gallows that
he had but one life to lose for his country.

    [Sidenote: Battle of White Plains, Oct. 28, 1776.]

As Howe deemed it prudent not to attack Washington in front, he tried to
get around into his rear, and began on October 12 by landing a large
force at Throg's Neck, in the Sound. But Washington baffled him by
changing front, swinging his left wing northward as far as White Plains.
After further reflection Howe decided to try a front attack once more;
on the 28th he assaulted the position at White Plains, and carried one
of the outposts, losing twice as many men as the Americans. Not wishing
to continue the fight at such a disadvantage he paused again, and
Washington improved the occasion by retiring to a still stronger
position at Northcastle. These movements had separated Washington's main
body from his right wing at Forts Washington and Lee, and Howe now
changed his plan. Desisting from the attempt against the American main
body, he moved southward against this exposed wing.

A sad catastrophe now followed, which showed how many obstacles
Washington had to contend with. It was known that Carleton's army was on
the way from Canada. Congress was nervously afraid of losing its hold
upon the Hudson river, and Washington accordingly selected West Point as
the strongest position upon the river, to be fortified and defended at
all hazards. He sent Heath, with 3000 men, to hold the Highland passes,
and went up himself to inspect the situation and give directions about
the new fortifications. He left 7000 of his main body at Northcastle, in
charge of Lee, who had just returned from South Carolina. He sent 5000,
under Putnam, across the river to Hackensack; and ordered Greene, who
had some 5000 men at Forts Washington and Lee, to prepare to evacuate
both those strongholds and join his forces to Putnam's.

If these orders had been carried out, Howe's movement against Fort
Washington would have accomplished but little, for on reaching that
place, he would have found nothing but empty works, as at Brooklyn. The
American right wing would have been drawn together at Hackensack, and
the whole army could have been concentrated on either bank of the great
river, as the occasion might seem to require. If Howe should aim at the
Highlands, it could be kept close to the river and cover all the passes.
If, on the other hand, Howe should threaten the Congress at
Philadelphia, the whole army could be collected in New Jersey to hold
him in check.

    [Sidenote: Howe takes Fort Washington, Nov. 16, 1776.]

But Washington's orders were not obeyed. Congress was so uneasy that it
sent word to Greene to hold both his forts as long as he could.
Accordingly he strengthened the garrison at Fort Washington, just in
time for Howe to overwhelm and capture it, on the 16th of November,
after an obstinate resistance. In killed and wounded the British loss
was three times as great as that of the garrison, but the Americans were
in no condition to afford the loss of 8000 men taken prisoners. It was a
terrible blow. On the 19th Greene barely succeeded in escaping from Fort
Lee, with his remaining 2000 men, but without his cannon and stores.

    [Sidenote: Treachery of Charles Lee.]

Bad as the situation was, however, it did not become really alarming
until it was complicated with the misconduct of General Lee. Washington
had returned from West Point on the 14th, too late to prevent the
catastrophe; but after all it was only necessary for Lee's wing of the
army to cross the river, and there would be a solid force of 14,000 men
on the Jersey side, able to confront the enemy on something like equal
terms, for Howe had to keep a good many of his troops in New York. On
the 17th Washington ordered Lee to come over and join him; but Lee
disobeyed, and in spite of repeated orders from Washington he stayed at
Northcastle till the 2d of December. General Ward had some time since
resigned, so that Lee now ranked next to Washington. A good many people
were finding fault with the latter for losing the 3000 men at Fort
Washington, although, as we have seen, that was not his fault but the
fault of Congress. Lee now felt that if Washington were ruined, he would
surely become his successor in the command of the army, and so, instead
of obeying his orders, he spent his time in writing letters calculated
to injure him.

    [Sidenote: Washington's retreat through New Jersey.]

Lee's disobedience thus broke the army in two, and did more for the
British than they had been able to do for themselves since they started
from Staten Island. It was the cause of Washington's flight through New
Jersey, ending on the 8th of December, when he put himself behind the
Delaware river, with scarcely 3000 men. Here was another difficulty. The
American soldiers were enlisted for short terms, and when they were
discouraged, as at present, they were apt to insist upon going home as
soon as their time had expired. It was generally believed that
Washington's army would thus fall to pieces within a few days. Howe did
not think it worth while to be at the trouble of collecting boats
wherewith to follow him across the Delaware. Congress fled to Baltimore.
People in New Jersey began taking the oath of allegiance to the crown.
Howe received the news that he had been knighted for his victory on Long
Island, and he returned to New York to celebrate the occasion.

    [Sidenote: Arnold's naval battle at Valcour Island, Oct. 11, 1776.]

While the case looked so desperate for Washington, events at the north
had taken a less unfavourable turn. Carleton had embarked on Lake
Champlain early in the autumn with his fine army and fleet. Arnold had
fitted up a small fleet to oppose his advance, and on the 11th of
October there had been a fierce naval battle between the two near
Valcour Island, in which Arnold was defeated, while Carleton suffered
serious damage. The British general then advanced upon Ticonderoga, but
suddenly made up his mind that the season was too late for operations in
that latitude. The resistance he had encountered seems to have made him
despair of achieving any speedy success in that quarter, and on the 3d
of November he started back for Canada. This retreat relieved General
Schuyler at Albany of immediate cause for anxiety, and presently he
detached seven regiments to go southward to Washington's assistance.

    [Sidenote: Charles Lee is captured by British dragoons,
    Dec. 13, 1776.]

On the 2d of December Lee crossed the Hudson with 4000 men, and
proceeded slowly to Morristown. Just what he designed to do was never
known, but clearly he had no intention of going beyond the Delaware to
assist Washington, whom he believed to be ruined. Perhaps he thought
Morristown a desirable position to hold, as it certainly was. Whatever
his plans may have been, they were nipped in the bud. For some unknown
reason he passed the night of the 12th at an unguarded tavern, about
four miles from his army; and there he was captured next morning by a
party of British dragoons, who carried him off to their camp at
Princeton. The dragoons were very gleeful over this unexpected exploit,
but really they could not have done the Americans a greater service than
to rid them of such a worthless creature. The capture of Lee came in the
nick of time, for it set free his men to go to the aid of Washington.
Even after this force and that sent by Schuyler had reached the
commander-in-chief, he found he had only 6000 men fit for duty.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Trenton, Dec. 26, 1776.]

[Illustration: Washington's Campaigns IN NEW JERSEY & PENNSYLVANIA.]

With this little force Washington instantly took the offensive. It was
the turning-point in his career and in the history of the Revolutionary
War. On Christmas, 1776, and the following nine days, all Washington's
most brilliant powers were displayed. The British centre, 10,000 strong,
lay at Princeton. The principal generals, thinking the serious business
of the war ended, had gone to New York. An advanced party of Hessians,
1000 strong, was posted on the bank of the Delaware at Trenton, and
another one lower down, at Burlington. Washington decided to attack both
these outposts, and arranged his troops accordingly, but when Christmas
night arrived, the river was filled with great blocks of floating ice,
and the only division which succeeded in crossing was the one that
Washington led in person. It was less than 2500 in number, but the
moment had come when the boldest course was the safest. By daybreak
Washington had surprised the Hessians at Trenton and captured them all.
The outpost at Burlington, on hearing the news, retreated to Princeton.
By the 31st Washington had got all his available force across to
Trenton. Some of them were raw recruits just come in to replace others
who had just gone home. At this critical moment the army was nearly
helpless for want of money, and on New Year's morning Robert Morris was
knocking at door after door in Philadelphia, waking up his friends to
borrow the fifty thousand dollars which he sent off to Trenton before
noon. The next day Cornwallis arrived at Princeton, and taking with him
all the army, except a rear-guard of 2000 men left to protect his
communications, came on toward Trenton.

When he reached that town, late in the afternoon, he found Washington
entrenched behind a small creek just south of the town, with his back
toward the Delaware river. "Oho!" said Cornwallis, "at last we have run
down the old fox, and we will bag him in the morning." He sent back to
Princeton, and ordered the rear-guard to come up. He expected next
morning to cross the creek above Washington's right, and then press him
back against the broad and deep river, and compel him to surrender.
Cornwallis was by no means a careless general, but he seems to have gone
to bed on that memorable night and slept the sleep of the just.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Princeton, Jan. 3, 1777.]

Washington meanwhile was wide awake. He kept his front line noisily at
work digging and entrenching, and made a fine show with his campfires.
Then he marched his army to the right and across the creek, and got
around Cornwallis's left wing and into his rear, and so went on gayly
toward Princeton. At daybreak he encountered the British rear-guard,
fought a sharp battle with it and sent it flying, with the loss of
one-fourth of its number. The booming guns aroused Cornwallis too late.
To preserve his communications with New York, he was obliged to retreat
with all haste upon New Brunswick, while Washington's victorious army
pushed on and occupied the strong position at Morristown.

There was small hope of dislodging such a general from such a position.
But to leave Washington in possession of Morristown was to resign to him
the laurels of this half-year's work. For that position guarded the
Highlands of the Hudson on the one hand, and the roads to Philadelphia
on the other. Except that the British had taken the city of New
York--which from the start was almost a foregone conclusion--they were
no better off than in July when Lord Howe had landed on Staten Island.
In nine days the tables had been completely turned. The attack upon an
outpost had developed into a campaign which quite retrieved the
situation. The ill-timed interference of Congress, which had begun the
series of disasters, was remedied; the treachery of Lee was checkmated;
and the cause of American Independence, which on Christmas Eve had
seemed hopeless, was now fairly set on its feet. Earlier successes had
been local; this was continental. Seldom has so much been done with such
slender means.

    [Sidenote: Effects of the campaign, in Europe.]

The American war had begun to awaken interest in Europe, especially in
France, whither Franklin, with Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, had been
sent to seek for military aid. The French government was not yet ready
to make an alliance with the United States, but money and arms were
secretly sent over to Congress. Several young French nobles had asked
the king's permission to go to America, but it was refused, and for the
sake of keeping up appearances the refusal had something of the air of a
reprimand. The king did not wish to offend Great Britain prematurely.
One of these nobles was Lafayette, then eighteen years of age, who
fitted up a ship at his own expense, and sailed from Bordeaux in April,
1777, in spite of the royal prohibition, taking with him Kalb and other
officers. Lafayette and Kalb, with the Poles, Kosciuszko and Pulaski,
who had come some time before, and the German Steuben, who came in the
following December, were the five most eminent foreigners who received
commissions in the Continental army.

    [Sidenote: Difficulty in raising an army.]

During the winter season at Morristown the efforts of Washington were
directed toward the establishment of a regular army to be kept together
for three years or so long as the war should last. Hitherto the military
preparations of Congress had been absurdly weak. Squads of militia had
been enlisted for terms of three or six months, as if there were any
likelihood of the war being ended within such a period. While the men
thus kept coming and going, it was difficult either to maintain
discipline or to carry out any series of military operations.
Accordingly Congress now proceeded to call upon the states for an army
of 80,000 men to serve during the war. The enlisting was to be done by
the states, but the money was to be furnished by Congress. Not half that
number of men were actually obtained. The Continental army was larger in
1777 than in any other year, but the highest number it reached was only
34,820. In addition to these about 34,000 militia turned out in the
course of the year. An army of 80,000 would have taken about the same
proportion of all the fighting men in the country as an army of
1,000,000 in our great Civil War. Now in our Civil War the Union army
grew with the occasion until it numbered more than 1,000,000. But in the
Revolutionary War the Continental army was not only never equal to the
occasion, but it kept diminishing till in 1781 it numbered only 13,292.
This was because the Continental Congress had no power to enforce its
decrees. It could only _ask_ for troops and it could only _ask_ for
money. It found just the same difficulty in getting anything that the
British ministry and the royal governors used to find,--the very same
difficulty that led Grenville to devise the Stamp Act. Everything had to
be talked over in thirteen different legislatures, one state would wait
to see what another was going to do, and meanwhile Washington was
expected to fight battles before his army was fit to take the field.
Something was gained, no doubt, by Congress furnishing the money. But as
Congress could not tax anybody, it had no means of raising a revenue,
except to beg, borrow, or issue its promissory notes, the so-called
Continental paper currency.

    [Sidenote: The British plan for conquering New York in 1777.]

While Congress was trying to raise an adequate army, the British
ministry laid its plans for the summer campaign. The conquest of the
state of New York must be completed at all hazards; and to this end a
threefold system of movements was devised:--

_First_, the army in Canada was to advance upon Ticonderoga, capture it,
and descend the Hudson as far as Albany. This work was now entrusted to
General Burgoyne.

_Secondly_, in order to make sure of efficient support from the Six
Nations and the Tories of the frontier, a small force under Colonel
Barry St. Leger was to go up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, land at
Oswego, and march down the Mohawk valley to reinforce Burgoyne on the
Hudson.

_Thirdly_, after leaving a sufficient force to hold the city of New
York, the main army, under Sir William Howe, was to ascend the Hudson,
capture the forts in the Highlands, and keep on to Albany, so as to
effect a junction with Burgoyne and St. Leger.

It was thought that such an imposing display of military force would
make the Tory party supreme in New York, put an end to all resistance
there, and effectually cut the United States in two. Then if the
southern states on the one hand and the New England states on the other
did not hasten to submit, they might afterward be attacked separately
and subdued.

In this plan the ministry made the fatal mistake of underrating the
strength of the feeling which, from one end of the United States to the
other, was setting itself every day more and more decidedly against the
Tories and in favour of independence. This feeling grew as fast as the
anti-slavery feeling grew among the northern people during our Civil
War. In 1861 President Lincoln thought it necessary to rebuke his
generals who were too forward in setting free the slaves of persons
engaged in rebellion against the United States. In 1862 he announced his
purpose to emancipate all such slaves; and then it took less than three
years to put an end to slavery forever. It was just so with the
sentiment in favour of separation from Great Britain. In July, 1775,
Thomas Jefferson expressly declared that the Americans had not raised
armies with any intention of declaring their independence of the
mother-country. In July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence, written
by Jefferson, was proclaimed to the world, though the consent of the
middle colonies and of South Carolina seemed somewhat reluctant. By the
summer of 1777 the Tories were almost everywhere in a hopeless minority.
Every day of warfare, showing Great Britain more and more clearly as an
enemy to be got rid of, diminished their strength; so that, even in New
York and South Carolina, where they were strongest, it would not do for
the British ministry to count too much upon any support they might give.

It was natural enough that King George and his ministers should fail to
understand all this, but their mistake was their ruin. If they had
understood that Burgoyne's march from Lake Champlain to the Hudson river
was to be a march through a country thoroughly hostile, perhaps they
would not have been so ready to send him on such a dangerous expedition.
It would have been much easier and safer to have sent his army by sea to
New York, to reinforce Sir William Howe. Threatening movements might
have been made by some of the Canada forces against Ticonderoga, so as
to keep Schuyler busy in that quarter; and then the army at New York,
thus increased to nearly 40,000 men, might have had a fair chance of
overwhelming Washington by sheer weight of numbers. Such a plan might
have failed, but it is not likely that it would have led to the
surrender of the British army. And if they could have disposed of
Washington, the British might have succeeded. It was more necessary for
them to get rid of him than to march up and down the valley of the
Hudson. But it was not strange that they did not see this as we do. It
is always easy enough to be wise after things have happened.

Even as it was, if their plan had really been followed, they might have
succeeded. If Howe's army had gone up to meet Burgoyne, the history of
the year 1777 would have been very different from what it was. We shall
presently see why it did not do so. Let us now recount the fortunes of
Burgoyne and St. Leger.

    [Sidenote: Burgoyne takes Ticonderoga, July 5, 1777.]

Burgoyne came up Lake Champlain in June, and easily won Ticonderoga,
because the Americans had failed to secure a neighbouring position which
commanded the fortress. Burgoyne took Ticonderoga from Mount Defiance,
just as the Americans would have taken Boston from Bunker Hill, if they
had been able to stay there, just as they afterward did take it from
Dorchester Heights, and just as Howe took New York after he had won
Brooklyn Heights. When you have secured a position from which you can
kill the enemy twice as fast as he can kill you, he must of course
retire from the situation; and the sooner he goes, the better chance he
has of living to fight another day. The same principle worked in all
these cases, and it worked with General Howe at Harlem Heights and at
White Plains.

    [Sidenote: Schuyler and Gates.]

When it was known that Burgoyne had taken Ticonderoga, there was
dreadful dismay in America and keen disappointment among those Whigs in
England whose declared sympathies were with us. George III. was beside
himself with glee, and thought that the Americans were finally defeated
and disposed of. But they were all mistaken. The garrison of Ticonderoga
had taken the alarm and retreated, so that Burgoyne captured only an
empty fortress. He left 1000 men in charge of it, and then pressed on
into the wilderness between Lake Champlain and the upper waters of the
Hudson river. His real danger was now beginning to show itself, and
every day it could be seen more distinctly. He was plunging into a
forest, far away from all possible support from behind, and as he went
on he found that there were not Tories enough in that part of the
country to be of any use to him. As Burgoyne advanced, General Schuyler
prudently retreated, and used up the enemy's time by breaking down
bridges and putting every possible obstacle in his way. Schuyler was a
rare man, thoroughly disinterested and full of sound sense; but he had
many political enemies who were trying to pull him down. A large part of
his army was made up of New England men, who hated him partly for the
mere reason that he was a New Yorker, and partly because as such he had
taken part in the long quarrel between New York and New Hampshire over
the possession of the Green Mountains. The disaffection toward Schuyler
was fomented by General Horatio Gates, who had for some time held
command under him, but was now in Philadelphia currying favour with the
delegates in Congress, especially with those from New England, in the
hope of getting himself appointed to the command of the northern army in
Schuyler's place. Gates was an extremely weak man, but so vain that he
really believed himself equal to the highest command that Congress could
be persuaded to give him. On the battle-field he seems to have been
wanting even in personal courage, as he certainly was in power to handle
his troops; but in society he was quite a lion. He had a smooth
courteous manner and a plausible tongue which paid little heed to the
difference between truth and falsehood. His lies were not very
ingenious, and so they were often detected and pointed out. But while
many people were disgusted by his selfishness and trickery, there were
always some who insisted that he was a great genius. History can point
to a good many men like General Gates. Such men sometimes shine for a
while, but sooner or later they always come to be recognized as humbugs.

[Illustration: BURGOYNE'S CAMPAIGN.]

    [Sidenote: Battle of Hubbardton, July 7, 1777.]

While Gates was intriguing, Schuyler was doing all in his power to
impede the enemy's progress. It was on the night of July 5 that the
garrison of Ticonderoga, under General St. Clair, had abandoned the
fortress and retreated southward. On the 7th a battle was fought at
Hubbardton between St. Clair's rear, under Seth Warner, and a portion of
the British army under Fraser and Riedesel. Warner was defeated, but
only after such an obstinate resistance as to check the pursuit, so that
by the 12th St. Clair was able to bring his retreating troops in safety
to Fort Edward, where they were united with Schuyler's army. Schuyler
managed his obstructions so well that Burgoyne's utmost efforts were
required to push into the wilderness at the rate of one mile per day;
and meanwhile Schuyler was collecting a force of militia in the Green
Mountains, under General Lincoln, to threaten Burgoyne in the rear and
cut off his communications with Lake Champlain.

Burgoyne was accordingly marching into a trap, and Schuyler was doing
the best that could be done. But on the first of August the intrigue
against him triumphed in Congress, and Gates was appointed to supersede
him in the command of the northern army. Gates, however, did not arrive
upon the scene until the 19th of August, and by that time Burgoyne's
situation was evidently becoming desperate.

On the last day of July Burgoyne reached Fort Edward, which Schuyler
had evacuated just before. Schuyler crossed the Hudson river, and
continued his retreat to Stillwater, about thirty miles above Albany. It
was as far as the American retreat was to go. Burgoyne was already
getting short of provisions, and before he could advance much further he
needed a fresh supply of horses to drag the cannon and stores. He began
to realize, when too late, that he had come far into an enemy's country.
The hostile feelings of the people were roused to fury by the atrocities
committed by the Indians employed in Burgoyne's army. The British
supposed that the savages would prove very useful as scouts and guides,
and that by offers of reward and threats of punishment they might be
restrained from deeds of violence. They were very unruly, however, and
apt to use the tomahawk when they found a chance.

    [Sidenote: Jane McCrea.]

The sad death of Miss Jane McCrea has been described in almost as many
ways as there have been people to describe it, but no one really knows
how it happened. What is really known is that, on the 27th of July,
while Miss McCrea was staying with her friend Mrs. McNeil, near Fort
Edward, a party of Indians burst into the house and carried off both
ladies. They were pursued by some American soldiers, and a few shots
were exchanged. In the course of the scrimmage the party got scattered,
and Mrs. McNeil was taken alone to the British camp. Next day an Indian
came into the camp with Miss McCrea's scalp, which her friend recognized
from its long silky hair. A search was made, and the body of the poor
girl was found lying near a spring, pierced with three bullet-wounds.
The Indian's story, that she was accidentally killed by a volley from
the American soldiers, may well enough have been true. It is also known
that she was betrothed to David Jones, a lieutenant in Burgoyne's army,
and, as her own home was in New Jersey, her visit to Mrs. McNeil may
very likely have been part of a plan for meeting her lover. These facts
were soon woven into a story, in which Jenny was said to have been
murdered while on her way to her wedding, escorted by a party of Indians
whom her imprudent lover had sent to take charge of her.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Bennington, Aug. 16, 1777.]

The people of the neighbouring counties, in New York and Massachusetts,
enraged at the death of Miss McCrea and alarmed for the safety of their
own firesides, began rising in arms. Sturdy recruits began marching to
join Schuyler at Stillwater and Lincoln at Manchester in the Green
Mountains. Meanwhile Burgoyne had made up his mind to attack the village
of Bennington, which was Lincoln's centre of supplies. By seizing these
supplies, he could get for himself what he stood sorely in need of,
while at the same time the loss would cripple Lincoln and perhaps oblige
him to retire from the scene. Accordingly 1000 Germans were sent out,
in two detachments under colonels Baum and Breymann, to capture the
village. But instead they were captured themselves. Baum was first
outmanoeuvred, surrounded, and forced to surrender by John Stark,
after a hot fight, in which Baum was mortally wounded. Then Breymann was
put to flight and his troops dispersed by Seth Warner. Of the whole
German force, 207 were killed or wounded, and at least 700 captured. Not
more than 70 got back to the British camp. The American loss in killed
and wounded was 56.

This brilliant victory at Bennington had important consequences. It
checked Burgoyne's advance until he could get his supplies, and it
decided that Lincoln's militia could get in his rear and cut off his
communications with Ticonderoga. It furthermore inspired the Americans
with the exulting hope that Burgoyne's whole army could be surrounded
and forced to surrender.

    [Sidenote: St. Leger in the Mohawk valley.]

If, however, the British had been successful in gaining the Mohawk
valley and ensuring the supremacy over that region for the Tories, the
fate of Burgoyne might have been averted. The Tories in that region,
under Sir John Johnson and Colonel John Butler, were really formidable.
As for the Indians of the Iroquois league, they had always been friendly
to the English and hostile to the French; but now, when it came to
making their choice between two kinds of English--the Americans and the
British, they hesitated and differed in opinion. The Mohawks took sides
with the British because of the friendship between Joseph Brant and the
Johnsons. The Cayugas and Senecas followed on the same side; but the
Onondagas, in the centre of the confederacy, remained neutral, and the
Oneidas and Tuscaroras, under the influence of Samuel Kirkland and other
missionaries, showed active sympathy with the Americans. It turned out,
too, that the Whigs were much stronger in the valley than had been
supposed.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Oriskany, Aug. 6, 1777.]

After St. Leger had landed at Oswego and joined hands with his Tory and
Indian allies, his entire force amounted to about 1700 men. The
principal obstacle to his progress toward the Hudson river was Fort
Stanwix, which stood where the city of Rome now stands. On the 3d of
August St. Leger reached Fort Stanwix and laid siege to it. The place
was garrisoned by 600 men under Colonel Peter Gansevoort, and the Whig
yeomanry of the neighbourhood, under the heroic General Nicholas
Herkimer, were on the way to relieve it, to the number of at least 800.
Herkimer made an excellent plan for surprising St. Leger with an attack
in the rear, while the garrison should sally forth and attack him in
front. But St. Leger's Indian scouts were more nimble than Herkimer's
messengers, so that he obtained his information sooner than Gansevoort.
An ambush was skilfully prepared by Brant in a ravine near Oriskany, and
there, on the 6th of August, was fought the most desperate and murderous
battle of the Revolutionary War. It was a hand to hand fight, in which
about 800 men were engaged on each side, and each lost more than
one-third of its number. As the Tories and Indians were giving way,
their retreat was hastened by the sounds of battle from Fort Stanwix,
where the garrison was making its sally and driving back the besiegers.
Herkimer remained in possession of the field at Oriskany, but his plan
had been for the moment thwarted, and in the battle he had received a
wound from which he died.

    [Sidenote: St. Leger's flight, Aug. 22, 1777.]

Benedict Arnold had lately been sent by Washington to be of such
assistance as he could to Schuyler. Arnold stood high in the confidence
of both these generals. He had shown himself one of the ablest officers
in the American army, he was especially skilful in getting good work out
of raw troops, and he was a great favourite with his men. On hearing of
the danger of Fort Stanwix, Schuyler sent him to the rescue, with 1200
men. When he was within twenty miles of that stronghold, he contrived,
with the aid of some friendly Oneidas and a Tory captive whose life he
spared for the purpose, to send on before him exaggerated reports of the
size of his army. The device accomplished far more than he could have
expected. The obstinate resistance at Oriskany had discouraged the
Tories and angered the Indians. Distrust and dissension were already
rife in St. Leger's camp, when such reports came in as to lead many to
believe that Burgoyne had been totally defeated, and that the whole of
Schuyler's army, or a great part of it, was coming up the Mohawk. This
news led to riot and panic among the troops, and on August 22 St. Leger
took to flight and made his way as best he could to his ships at Oswego,
with scarcely the shred of an army left. This catastrophe showed how
sadly mistaken the British had been in their reliance upon Tory help.

The battle of Bennington was fought on the 16th of August. Now by the
overthrow of St. Leger, six days later, Burgoyne's situation had become
very alarming. It was just in the midst of these events that Gates
arrived, on August 19, and took command of the army at Stillwater, which
was fast growing in numbers. Militia were flocking in, Arnold's force
was returning, and Daniel Morgan was at hand with 500 Virginian
sharpshooters. Unless Burgoyne could win a battle against overwhelming
odds, there was only one thing that could save him; and that was the
arrival of Howe's army at Albany, according to the ministry's programme.
But Burgoyne had not yet heard a word from Howe; and Howe never came.

    [Sidenote: Why Howe failed to coöperate with Burgoyne.]

This failure of Howe to coöperate with Burgoyne was no doubt the most
fatal military blunder made by the British in the whole course of the
war. The failure was of course unintentional on Howe's part. He meant to
extend sufficient support to Burgoyne, but the trouble was that he
attempted too much. He had another plan in his mind at the same time,
and between the two he ended by accomplishing nothing. While he kept one
eye on Albany, he kept the other on Philadelphia. He had not relished
being driven back across New Jersey by Washington, and the hope of
defeating that general in battle, and then pushing on to the "rebel
capital" strongly tempted him. In such thoughts he was encouraged by the
advice of the captive General Lee. That unscrupulous busybody felt
himself in great danger, for he knew that the British regarded him in
the light of a deserter from their army. While his fate was in suspense,
he informed the brothers Howe that he had abandoned the American cause,
and he offered them his advice and counsel for the summer campaign. This
villainy of Lee's was not known till eighty years afterward, when a
paper of his was discovered that revealed it in all its blackness. The
Howes were sure to pay some heed to Lee's opinions, because he was
supposed to have acquired a thorough knowledge of American affairs. He
advised them to begin by taking Philadelphia, and supported this plan
by plausible arguments. Sir William Howe seems to have thought that he
could accomplish this early in the summer, and then have his hands free
for whatever might be needed on the Hudson river. Accordingly on the
12th of June he started to cross the state of New Jersey with 18,000
men.

    [Sidenote: Washington's masterly campaign in New Jersey, June, 1777.]

But Sir William had reckoned without his host. In a campaign of eighteen
days, Washington, with only 8000 men, completely blocked the way for
him, and made him give up the game. The popular histories do not have
much to say about these eighteen days, because they were not marked by
battles. Washington won by his marvellous skill in choosing positions
where Howe could not attack him with any chance of success. Howe
understood this and did not attack. He could not entice Washington into
fighting at a disadvantage, and he could not march on and leave such an
enemy behind without sacrificing his own communications. Accordingly on
June 30 he gave up his plan and retreated to Staten Island. If there
ever was a general who understood the useful art of wasting his
adversary's time, Washington was that general.

Howe now decided to take his army to Philadelphia by sea. He waited a
while till the news from the north seemed to show that Burgoyne was
carrying everything before him; and then he thought it safe to start.
He left Sir Henry Clinton in command at New York, with 7000 men, telling
him to send a small force up the river to help Burgoyne, should there be
any need of it, which did not then seem likely. Then he put to sea with
his main force of 18,000 men, and went around to the Delaware river,
which he reached at the end of July, just as Burgoyne was reaching Fort
Edward.

    [Sidenote: Howe's strange movement upon Philadelphia, by way of
    Chesapeake bay.]

Howe's next move was very strange. He afterward said that he did not go
up the Delaware river, because he found that there were obstructions and
forts to be passed. But he might have gone up a little way and landed
his forces on the Delaware coast at a point where a single march would
have brought them to Elkton, at the head of Chesapeake bay, about fifty
miles southwest from Philadelphia. Instead of this, he put out to sea
again and sailed four hundred miles, to the mouth of Chesapeake bay and
up that bay to Elkton, where he landed his men on the 25th of August.
Why he took such a roundabout course cannot be understood, unless he may
have attached importance to Lee's advice that the presence of a British
squadron in Chesapeake bay would help to arouse the Tories in Maryland.
The British generals could not seem to make up their minds that America
was a hostile country. Small blame to them, brave fellows that they
were! They could not make war against America in such a fierce spirit as
that in which France would now make war against Germany if she could see
her way clear to do so. They were always counting on American sympathy,
and this was a will-o'-the-wisp that lured them to destruction.

On landing at Elkton, Howe received orders from London, telling him to
ascend the Hudson river and support Burgoyne, in any event. This order
had left London in May. It was well for the Americans that the telegraph
had not then been invented. Now it was the 25th of August; Burgoyne was
in imminent peril; and Howe was three hundred miles away from him!

    [Sidenote: Battle of the Brandywine, Sept. 11, 1777.]

All these movements had been carefully watched by Washington; and as
Howe marched toward Philadelphia he found that general blocking the way
at the fords of the Brandywine creek. A battle ensued on the 11th of
September. It was a well-contested battle. With 11,000 men against
18,000, Washington could hardly have been expected to win a victory. He
was driven from the field, but not badly defeated. He kept his army well
in hand, and manoeuvred so skilfully that the British were employed
for two weeks in getting over the twenty-six miles to Philadelphia.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Germantown, Oct. 4, 1777.]

Before Howe had reached that city, Congress had moved away to York in
Pennsylvania. When he had taken Philadelphia, he found that he could
not stay there without taking the forts on the Delaware river which
prevented the British ships from coming up; for by land Washington could
cut off his supplies, and he could only be sure of them by water. So
Howe detached part of his army to reduce these forts, leaving the rest
of it at Germantown, six miles from Philadelphia. On the 4th of October,
Washington attacked the force at Germantown in such a position that
defeat would have quite destroyed it. The attempt failed at the critical
moment because of a dense fog in which one American brigade fired into
another and caused a brief panic. The forts on the Delaware were
captured after hard fighting, and Washington went into winter quarters
at Valley Forge.

The result of the summer's work was that, because Howe had made several
mistakes and Washington had taken the utmost advantage of every one of
them, the whole British plan was spoiled. Howe had used up the whole
season in getting to Philadelphia, and Washington's activity had also
kept Sir Henry Clinton's attention so much occupied with what was going
on about the Delaware river as to prevent him from sending aid to the
northward until it was too late. Sir Henry was once actually obliged to
send reinforcements to Howe.

Thus Burgoyne was left to himself. He supposed that Howe was coming up
the Hudson river to meet him, and so on September 13 he crossed the
river and advanced to attack Gates's army, which was occupying a strong
position at Bemis Heights, between Stillwater and Saratoga. It was a
desperate move. While Burgoyne was making it, Lincoln's men cut his
communications with Ticonderoga, so that his only hope lay in help from
below; and such help never came. In this extremity he was obliged to
fight on ground chosen by the Americans, because he must either fight or
starve.

    [Sidenote: Burgoyne is defeated by Arnold, and surrenders his army,
    Oct. 17, 1777.]

Under these circumstances Burgoyne fought two battles with consummate
gallantry. The first was on September 19, the second on October 7. In
each battle the Americans were led by Arnold and Morgan, and Gates
deserves no credit for either. In both battles Arnold was the leading
spirit, and in the second he was severely wounded at the moment of
victory. In the first battle the British were simply repulsed, in the
second they were totally defeated. This settled the fate of Burgoyne,
and on the 17th of October he surrendered his whole army, now reduced to
less than 6000 men, as prisoners of war. Before the final catastrophe
Sir Henry Clinton had sent a small force up the river to relieve him,
but it was too late. The relieving force succeeded in capturing some of
the Highland forts, but turned back on hearing of Burgoyne's surrender.



CHAPTER VII.

THE FRENCH ALLIANCE.


    [Sidenote: Lord North changes front, and France interferes,
    Feb., 1778.]

This capture of a British army made more ado in Europe than anything
which had happened for many a day. It was compared to Leuktra and the
Caudine Fork. The immediate effect in England was to weaken the king and
cause Lord North to change his policy. The tea-duty and the obnoxious
acts of 1774 were repealed, the principles of colonial independence of
Parliament laid down by Otis and Henry were admitted, and commissioners
were sent over to America to negotiate terms of peace. It was hoped that
by such ample concessions the Americans might be so appeased as to be
willing to adopt some arrangement which would leave their country a part
of the British Empire. As soon as the French government saw the first
symptoms of such a change of policy on the part of Lord North, it
decided to enter into an alliance with the United States. There was much
sympathy for the Americans among educated people of all grades of
society in France; but the action of the government was determined
purely by hatred of England. While Great Britain and her colonies were
weakening each other by war, France had up to this moment not cared to
interfere. But if there was the slightest chance of a reconciliation, it
was high time to prevent it; and besides, the American cause was now
prosperous, and something might be made of it. The moment had come for
France to seek revenge for the disasters of the Seven Years' War; and on
the 6th of February, 1778, her treaty of alliance with the United States
was signed at Paris.

    [Sidenote: Untimely death of Lord Chatham, May 11, 1778.]

At the news of this there was an outburst of popular excitement in
England. There was a strong feeling in favour of peace with America and
war with France, and men of all parties united with Lord North himself
in demanding that Lord Chatham, who represented such a policy, should be
made prime minister. It was rightly believed that he, if any one, could
both conciliate America and humiliate France. There was only one way in
which Chatham could have broken the new alliance which Congress had so
long been seeking. The faith of Congress was pledged to France, and the
Americans would no longer hear of any terms that did not begin with the
acknowledgment of their full independence. To break the alliance, it
would have been necessary to concede the independence of the United
States. The king felt that if he were now obliged to call Chatham to the
head of affairs and allow him to form a strong ministry, it would be the
end of his cherished schemes for breaking down cabinet government.
There was no man whom George III. hated and feared so much as Lord
Chatham. Nevertheless the pressure was so great that, but for Chatham's
untimely death, the king would probably have been obliged to yield. If
Chatham had lived a year longer, the war might have ended with the
surrender of Burgoyne instead of continuing until the surrender of
Cornwallis. As it was, Lord North consented, against his own better
judgment, to remain in office and aid the king's policy as far as he
could. The commissioners sent to America accomplished nothing, because
they were not empowered to grant independence; and so the war went on.

    [Sidenote: Change in the conduct of the war.]

There was a great change, however, in the manner in which the war was
conducted. In the years 1776 and 1777 the British had pursued a definite
plan for conquering New York and thus severing the connection between
New England and the southern states. During the remainder of the war
their only definite plan was for conquering the southern states. Their
operations at the north were for the most part confined to burning and
plundering expeditions along the coast in their ships, or on the
frontier in connection with Tories and Indians. The war thus assumed a
more cruel character. This was chiefly due to the influence of Lord
George Germaine, the secretary of state for the colonies. He was a
contemptible creature, weak and cruel. He had been dismissed from the
army in 1759 for cowardice at the battle of Minden, and he was so
generally despised that when in 1782 the king was obliged to turn him
out of office and tried to console him by raising him to the peerage as
Viscount Sackville, the House of Lords protested against the admission
of such a creature. George III. had made this man his colonial secretary
in the autumn of 1775, and he had much to do with planning the campaigns
of the next two years. But now his influence in the cabinet seems to
have increased. He was much more thoroughly in sympathy with the king
than Lord North, who at this time was really to be pitied. Lord North
would have been a fine man but for his weakness of will. He was now
keeping up the war in America unwillingly, and was obliged to sanction
many things of which he did not approve. In later years he bitterly
repented this weakness. Now the truculent policy of Lord George Germaine
began to show itself in the conduct of the war. That minister took no
pains to conceal his willingness to employ Indians, to burn towns and
villages, and to inflict upon the American people as much misery as
possible, in the hope of breaking their spirit and tiring them out.

    [Sidenote: The Conway Cabal.]

In America the first effect of Burgoyne's surrender was to strengthen a
feeling of dissatisfaction with Washington, which had grown up in some
quarters. In reality, as our narrative has shown, Washington had as much
to do with the overthrow of Burgoyne as anybody; for if it had not been
for his skilful campaign in June, 1777, Howe would have taken
Philadelphia in that month, and would then have been free to assist
Burgoyne. It is easy enough to understand such things afterward, but
people never can see them at the time when they are happening. This is
an excellent illustration of what was said at the beginning of this
book, that when people are down in the midst of events they cannot see
the wood because of the trees, and it is only when they have climbed the
hill of history and look back over the landscape that they can see what
things really meant. At the end of the year 1777 people could only see
that Burgoyne had surrendered to Gates, while Washington had lost two
battles and the city of Philadelphia. Accordingly there were many who
supposed that Gates must be a better general than Washington, and in the
army there were some discontented spirits that were only too glad to
take advantage of this feeling. One of these malcontents was an Irish
adventurer, Thomas Conway, who had long served in France and came over
here in time to take part in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown.
He had a grudge against Washington, as Charles Lee had. He thought he
could get on better if Washington were out of the way. So he busied
himself in organizing a kind of conspiracy against Washington, which
came to be known as the "Conway Cabal." The purpose was to put forward
Gates to supersede Washington, as he had lately superseded the noble
Schuyler. Gates, of course, lent himself heartily to the scheme; such
intrigues were what he was made for. And there were some of our noblest
men who were dissatisfied with Washington, because they were ignorant of
the military art, and could not understand his wonderful skill, as
Frederick the Great did. Among these were John and Samuel Adams, who
disapproved of "Fabian strategy." Gates and Conway tried to work upon
such feelings. They hoped by thwarting and insulting Washington to wound
his pride and force him to resign. In this wretched work they had
altogether too much help from Congress, but they failed ignominiously
because Gates's lies were too plainly discovered. The attempts to injure
Washington recoiled upon their authors. Never, perhaps, was Washington
so grand as in that sorrowful winter at Valley Forge.

When the news of the French alliance arrived, in the spring of 1778,
there was a general feeling of elation. People were over-confident. It
seemed as if the British might be driven from the country in the course
of that year. Some changes occurred in both the opposing armies. A great
deal of fault was found in England with Howe and Burgoyne. The latter
was allowed to go home in the spring, and took his seat in Parliament
while still a prisoner on parole. He was henceforth friendly to the
Americans, and opposed the further prosecution of the war. Sir William
Howe resigned his command in May and went home in order to defend his
conduct. Shortly before his appointment to the chief command in America,
he had uttered a prophecy somewhat notable as coming from one who was
about to occupy such a position. In a speech at Nottingham he had
expressed the opinion that the Americans could not be subdued by any
army that Great Britain could raise!

    [Sidenote: Howe is superseded by Clinton.]

Howe was succeeded in the chief command by Sir Henry Clinton. His
brother, Lord Howe, remained in command of the fleet until the autumn,
when he was succeeded by Admiral Byron. During the winter the American
army had received a very important reinforcement in the person of Baron
von Steuben, an able and highly educated officer who had served on the
staff of Frederick the Great. Steuben was appointed inspector-general
and taught the soldiers Prussian discipline and tactics until the
efficiency of the army was more than doubled. About the time of Sir
William Howe's departure, Charles Lee was exchanged, and came back to
his old place as senior major-general in the Continental army. Since
his capture there had been a considerable falling off in his reputation,
but nothing was known of his treasonable proceedings with the Howes.
Probably no one in the British army knew anything about that affair
except the Howes and their private secretary Sir Henry Strachey. Lee saw
that the American cause was now in the ascendant, and he was as anxious
as ever to supplant Washington.

    [Sidenote: The Americans take the offensive; Lee's misconduct at
    Monmouth, June 28, 1778.]

The Americans now assumed the offensive. Count d'Estaing was approaching
the coast with a powerful French fleet. Should he be able to defeat Lord
Howe and get control of the Delaware river, the British army in
Philadelphia would be in danger of capture. Accordingly on the 18th of
June that city was evacuated by Sir Henry Clinton and occupied by
Washington. As there were not enough transports to take the British army
around to New York by sea, it was necessary to take the more hazardous
course of marching across New Jersey. Washington pursued the enemy
closely, with the view of forcing him to battle in an unfavourable
situation and dealing him a fatal blow. There was some hope of effecting
this, as the two armies were now about equal in size--15,000 in
each--and the Americans were in excellent training. The enemy were
overtaken at Monmouth Court House on the morning of June 28, but the
attack was unfortunately entrusted to Lee, who disobeyed orders and
made an unnecessary and shameful retreat. Washington arrived on the
scene in time to turn defeat into victory. The British were driven from
the field, but Lee's misconduct had broken the force of the blow which
Washington had aimed at them. Lee was tried by court-martial and at
first suspended from command, then expelled from the army. It was the
end of his public career. He died in October, 1782.

After the battle of Monmouth the British continued their march to New
York, and Washington moved his army to White Plains. Count d'Estaing
arrived at Sandy Hook in July with a much larger fleet than the British
had in the harbour, and a land force of 4000 men. It now seemed as if
Clinton's army might be cooped up and compelled to surrender, but on
examination it appeared that the largest French ships drew too much
water to venture to cross the bar. All hope of capturing New York was
accordingly for the present abandoned.

[Siege of Newport, Aug. 1778.]

The enemy, however, had another considerable force near at hand, besides
Clinton's. Since December, 1776, they had occupied the island which
gives its name to the state of Rhode Island. Its position was safe and
convenient. It enabled them, if they should see fit, to threaten Boston
on the one hand and the coast of Connecticut on the other, and thus to
make diversions in aid of Sir Henry Clinton. The force on Rhode Island
had been increased to 6000 men, under command of Sir Robert Pigott. The
Americans believed that the capture of so large a force, could it be
effected, would so discourage the British as to bring the war to an end;
and in this belief they were very likely right. The French fleet
accordingly proceeded to Newport; to the 4000 French infantry Washington
added 1500 of the best of his Continentals; levies of New England
yeomanry raised the total strength to 13,000; and the general command of
the American troops was given to Sullivan.

The expedition was poorly managed, and failed completely. There was some
delay in starting. During the first week of August the Americans landed
upon the island and occupied Butts Hill. The French had begun to land on
Conanicut when they learned that Lord Howe was approaching with a
powerful fleet. The count then reëmbarked his men and stood out to sea,
manoeuvring for a favourable position for battle. Before the fight had
begun, a terrible storm scattered both fleets and damaged them severely.
When D'Estaing had got his ships together again, which was not till the
20th of August, he insisted upon going to Boston for repairs, and took
his infantry with him. This vexed Sullivan and disgusted the yeomanry,
who forthwith dispersed and went home to look after their crops. General
Pigott then tried the offensive, and attacked Sullivan in his strong
position on Butts Hill, on the 29th of August. The British were
defeated, but the next day Sullivan learned that Clinton was coming with
heavy reinforcements, and so he was obliged to abandon the enterprise
and lose no time in getting his own troops into a safe position on the
mainland. In November the French fleet sailed for the West Indies, and
Clinton was obliged to send 5000 men from New York to the same quarter
of the world.

    [Sidenote: Wyoming and Cherry Valley, July-Nov., 1778.]

In the years 1778 and 1779 the warfare on the border assumed formidable
proportions. The Tories of central New York, under the Johnsons and
Butlers, together with Brant and his Mohawks, made their headquarters at
Fort Niagara, from which they struck frequent and terrible blows at the
exposed settlements on the frontier. Early in July, 1778, a force of
1200 men, under John Butler, spread death and desolation through the
beautiful valley of Wyoming in Pennsylvania. On the 10th of November,
Brant and Walter Butler destroyed the village of Cherry Valley in New
York, and massacred the inhabitants. Many other dreadful things were
done in the course of this year; but the affairs of Wyoming and Cherry
Valley made a deeper impression than all the rest. During the following
spring Washington organized an expedition of 5000 men, and sent it,
under Sullivan, to lay waste the Iroquois country and capture the nest
of Tory malefactors at Fort Niagara. While they were slowly advancing
through the wilderness, Brant sacked the town of Minisink and destroyed
a force of militia sent against him. But on the 29th of August a battle
was fought on the site of the present town of Elmira, in which the
Tories and Indians were defeated with great slaughter. The American army
then marched through the country of the Cayugas and Senecas, and laid it
waste. More than forty Indian villages were burned and all the corn was
destroyed, so that the approach of winter brought famine and pestilence.
Sullivan was not able to get beyond the Genesee river for want of
supplies, and so Fort Niagara escaped. The Iroquois league had received
a blow from which it never recovered, though for two years more their
tomahawks were busy on the frontier.

    [Sidenote: Conquest of the northwestern territory, 1778-79.]

At intervals during the Revolution there was more or less Indian warfare
all along the border. Settlers were making their way into Kentucky and
Tennessee. Feuds with these encroaching immigrants led the powerful
tribe of Cherokees to take part with the British, and they made trouble
enough until they were crushed by John Sevier, the "lion of the border."
In 1778 Colonel Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, attempted to
stir up all the western tribes to a concerted attack upon the frontier.
When the news of this reached Virginia, an expedition was sent out
under George Rogers Clark, a youth of twenty-four years, to carry the
war into the enemy's country. In an extremely interesting and romantic
series of movements, Clark took the posts of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, on
the Mississippi river, defeated and captured Colonel Hamilton at
Vincennes, on the Wabash, and ended by conquering the whole northwestern
territory for the state of Virginia.

    [Sidenote: Storming of Stony Point, July 15, 1779.]

The year 1779 saw very little fighting in the northern states between
the regular armies. The British confined themselves chiefly to marauding
expeditions along the coast, from Martha's Vineyard down to the James
river. These incursions were marked by cruelties unknown in the earlier
part of the war. Their chief purpose would seem to have been to carry
out Lord George Germaine's idea of harassing the Americans as
vexatiously as possible. But in Connecticut, which perhaps suffered the
worst, there was a military purpose. In July, 1779, an attack was made
upon New Haven, and the towns of Fairfield and Norwalk were burned. The
object was to induce Washington to weaken his force on the Hudson river
by sending away troops to protect the Connecticut towns. Clinton now
held the river as far up as Stony Point, and he hoped by this diversion
to prepare for an attack upon Washington which, if successful, might end
in the fall of West Point. If the British could get possession of West
Point, it would go far toward retrieving the disaster which had befallen
them at Saratoga. Washington's retort was characteristic of him. He did,
as always, what the enemy did not expect. He called Anthony Wayne and
asked him if he thought he could carry Stony Point by storm. Wayne
replied that he could storm a very much hotter place than any known in
terrestrial geography, if Washington would plan the attack. Plan and
performance were equally good. At midnight of July 15 the fort was
surprised and carried in a superb assault with bayonets, without the
firing of a gun on the American side. It was one of the most brilliant
assaults in all military history. It instantly relieved Connecticut, but
Washington did not think it prudent to retain the fortress. The works
were all destroyed, and the garrison, with the cannon and stores,
withdrawn. The American army was as much as possible concentrated about
West Point. In the general situation of affairs on the Hudson there was
but little change for the next two years.

It may seem strange that so little was done in all this time. But, in
fact, both England and the United States were getting exhausted, so far
as the ability to carry on war was concerned.

    [Sidenote: How England was weakened and hampered, 1778-81.]

As regards England, the action of France had seriously complicated the
situation. England had now to protect her colonies and dependencies on
the Mediterranean, in Africa, in Hindustan, and in the West Indies. In
1779 Spain declared war against her, in the hope of regaining Gibraltar
and the Floridas. For three years Gibraltar was besieged by the allied
French and Spanish forces. A Spanish fleet laid siege to Pensacola.
France strove to regain the places which England had formerly won from
her in Senegambia. War broke out in India with the Mahrattas, and with
Hyder Ali of Mysore, and it required all the genius of Warren Hastings
to save England's empire in Asia. We have already seen how Clinton, in
the autumn of 1778, was obliged to weaken his force in New York by
sending 5,000 men to the West Indies. Before the end of 1779 there were
314,000 British troops on duty in various parts of the world, but not
enough could be spared for service in New York to defeat Washington's
little army of 15,000. We thus begin to realize what a great event was
the surrender of Burgoyne. The loss of 6,000 men by England was not in
itself irreparable; but in leading to the intervention of France it was
like the touching of a spring or the drawing of a bolt which sets in
motion a vast system of machinery.

Under these circumstances George III. tried to form an alliance with
Russia, and offered the island of Minorca as an inducement. Russia
declined the offer, and such action as she took was hostile to England.
It had formerly been held that the merchant ships of neutral nations,
employed in trade with nations at war, might lawfully be overhauled and
searched by war ships of either of the belligerent nations, and their
goods confiscated. England still held this doctrine and acted upon it.
But during the eighteenth century her maritime power had increased to
such an extent that she could damage other nations in this way much more
than they could damage her. Other nations accordingly began to maintain
that goods carried in neutral ships ought to be free from seizure. Early
in 1780 Denmark, Sweden, and Russia entered into an agreement known as
the Armed Neutrality, by which they pledged themselves to unite in
retaliating upon England whenever any of her cruisers should molest any
of their ships. This league was a new source of danger to England,
because it entailed the risk of war with Russia.

    [Sidenote: Paul Jones, 1779.]

During these years several bold American cruisers had made the stars and
stripes a familiar sight in European waters. The most famous of these
cruisers, Paul Jones, made his name a terror upon the coasts of England,
burned the ships in a port of Cumberland, sailed into the Frith of Forth
and threatened Edinburgh, and finally captured two British war vessels
off Flamborough Head, in one of the most desperate sea-fights on
record.

    [Sidenote: St. Eustatius, Feb., 1781.]

Paul Jones was a regularly commissioned captain in the American navy,
but because the British did not recognize Congress as a legal body they
called him a pirate. When he took his prizes into a port in Holland,
they requested the Dutch government to surrender him into their hands,
as if he were a mere criminal to be tried at the Old Bailey. But the
Dutch let him stay in port ten weeks and then depart in peace. This
caused much irritation, and as there was also perpetual quarrelling over
the plunder of Dutch ships by British cruisers, the two nations went to
war in December, 1780. One of England's reasons for entering into this
war was the desire to capture the little Dutch island of St. Eustatius
in the West Indies. An immense trade was carried on there between
Holland and the United States, and it was believed that the stoppage of
this trade would be a staggering blow to the Americans. It was captured
in February, 1781, by Admiral Rodney, private property was seized to the
amount of more than twenty million dollars, and the inhabitants were
treated with shameful brutality.

    [Sidenote: How the Americans were weakened and hampered. The want
    of union.]

As England was thus fighting single-handed against France, Spain,
Holland, and the United States, while the attitude of all the neutral
powers was unfriendly, we can find no difficulty in understanding the
weakness of her military operations in some quarters. The United States,
on the other hand, found it hard to carry on the war for very different
reasons. In the first place the country was really weak. The military
strength of the American Union in 1780 was inferior to that of Holland,
and about on a level with that of Denmark or Portugal. But furthermore
the want of union made it hard to bring out such strength as there was.
In the autumn of 1777 the Articles of Confederation were submitted to
the several states for adoption; but the spring of 1781 had arrived
before all the thirteen states had ratified them. These articles left
the Continental Congress just what it was before, a mere advisory body,
without power to enlist soldiers or levy taxes, without federal courts
or federal officials, and with no executive head to the government. As
we have already seen, the only way in which Congress could get money
from the people was by requisitions upon the states, by _asking_ the
state-governments for it. This was always a very slow way to get money,
and now the states were unusually poor. There was very little
accumulated capital. Farming, fishing, ship-building, and foreign trade
were the chief occupations. Farms and plantations suffered considerably
from the absence of their owners in the army, and many were kept from
enlisting, because it was out of the question to go and leave their
families to starve. As for ship-building, fishing, and foreign trade,
these occupations were almost annihilated by British cruisers. No doubt
the heaviest blows that we received were thus dealt us on the water.

    [Sidenote: Fall of the Continental currency:--"Not worth a
    Continental."]

The people were so poor that the states found it hard to collect enough
revenue for their own purposes, and most of them had a way of issuing
paper money of their own, which made things still worse. Under such
circumstances they had very little money to give to Congress. It was
necessary to borrow of France, or Spain, or Holland, and by the time
these nations were all at war, that became very difficult. From the
beginning of the war Congress had issued paper notes, and in 1778 the
depreciation in their value was already alarming. But as soon as the
exultation over Burgoyne's surrender had subsided, as soon as the hope
of speedily driving out the British had been disappointed, people soon
lost all confidence in the power of Congress to pay its notes, and in
1779 their value began falling with frightful rapidity. In 1780 they
became worthless. It took $150 in Continental currency to buy a bushel
of corn, and an ordinary suit of clothes cost $2000. Then people refused
to take it, and resorted to barter, taking their pay in sheep or
ploughs, in jugs of rum or kegs of salt pork, or whatever they could
get. It thus became almost impossible either to pay soldiers, or to
clothe and feed them properly and supply them with powder and ball. We
thus see why the Americans, as well as the British conducted the war so
languidly that for two years after the storming of Stony Point their
main armies sat and faced each other by the Hudson river, without any
movements of importance.

    [Sidenote: The British conquer Georgia, 1779.]

In one quarter, however, the British began to make rapid progress. They
possessed the Floridas, having got them from Spain by the treaty of
1763. Next them lay Georgia, the weakest of the thirteen states, and
then came the Carolinas, with a strong Tory element in the population.
For such reasons, after the great invasion of New York had failed, the
British tried the plan of starting at the southern extremity of the
Union and lopping off one state after another. In the autumn of 1778
General Prevost advanced from East Florida, and in a brief campaign
succeeded in capturing Savannah, Sunbury, and Augusta. General Lincoln,
who had won distinction in the Saratoga campaign, was appointed to
command the American forces in the South. He sent General Ashe, with
1500 men, to threaten Augusta. At Ashe's approach, the British abandoned
the town and retreated toward Savannah. Ashe pursued too closely and at
Briar Creek, March 3, 1779, the enemy turned upon him and routed him.
The Americans lost nearly 1000 men killed, wounded, and captured,
besides their cannon and small arms; and this victory cost the British
only 16 men killed and wounded. Augusta was reoccupied, the royal
governor, Sir James Wright, was reinstated in office, and the machinery
of government which had been in operation previous to 1776 was restored.
Lincoln now advanced upon Augusta, but Prevost foiled him by returning
the offensive and marching upon Charleston. In order to protect that
city, Lincoln was obliged to retrace his steps. It was now the middle of
May, and little more was done till September, when D'Estaing returned
from the West Indies. On the 23d Savannah was invested by the combined
forces of Lincoln and D'Estaing, and the siege was vigorously carried on
for a fortnight. Then the French admiral grew impatient. On the 9th of
October a fierce assault was made, in which the allies were defeated
with the loss of 1000 men, including the gallant Pulaski. The French
fleet then departed, and the British could look upon Georgia as
recovered.

    [Sidenote: And capture Charleston, with Lincoln's army,
    May 12, 1780.]

It was South Carolina's turn next. Washington was obliged to weaken his
own force by sending most of the southern troops to Lincoln's
assistance. Sir Henry Clinton then withdrew the garrisons from his
advanced posts on the Hudson, and also from Rhode Island, and was thus
able to leave an adequate force in New York, while he himself set sail
for Savannah, December 26, 1779, with a considerable army. After the
British forces were united in Georgia, they amounted to more than
13,000 men, against whom Lincoln could bring but 7000. The fate of the
American army shows us what would probably have happened in New York in
1776 if an ordinary general instead of Washington had been in command.
Lincoln allowed himself to be cooped up in Charleston, and after a siege
of two months was obliged to surrender the city and his whole army on
the 12th of May, 1780. This was the most serious disaster the Americans
had suffered since the loss of Fort Washington. The dashing cavalry
leader, Tarleton, soon cut to pieces whatever remnants of their army
were left in South Carolina. Sir Henry Clinton returned in June to New
York, leaving Lord Cornwallis with 5000 men to carry on the work. The
Tories, thus supported, got the upperhand in the interior of the state,
which suffered from all the horrors of civil war. The American cause was
sustained only by partisan leaders, of whom the most famous were Francis
Marion and Thomas Sumter.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Camden, Aug. 16, 1780.]

When the news of Lincoln's surrender reached the North, the emergency
was felt to be desperate. A fresh army was raised, consisting of about
2000 superbly trained veterans of the Maryland and Delaware lines, under
the Baron de Kalb, and such militia as could be raised in Virginia and
North Carolina. The chief command was given to Gates, whose conduct from
the start was a series of blunders. The most important strategic point
in South Carolina was Camden, at the intersection of the principal roads
from the coast to the mountains and from north to south. In marching
upon this point Gates was met by Lord Cornwallis on the 16th of August
and utterly routed. Kalb was mortally wounded at the head of the
Maryland troops, who held their ground nobly till overwhelmed by
numbers; the Delaware men were cut to pieces; the militia were swept
away in flight, and Gates with them. His northern laurels, as it was
said, had changed into southern willows; and for the second time within
three months an American army at the South had been annihilated.

This was, on the whole, the darkest moment of the war. For a moment in
July there had been a glimmer of hopefulness when the Count de
Rochambeau arrived with 6000 men who were landed on Rhode Island. The
British fleet, however, soon came and blockaded them there, and again
the hearts of the people were sickened with hope deferred. It seemed as
if Lord George Germaine's policy of "tiring the Americans out" might be
going to succeed after all. When the value of the Continental paper
money now fell to zero, it was a fair indication that the people had
pretty much lost all faith in Congress. In the army the cases of
desertion to the British lines averaged about a hundred per month.

    [Sidenote: Benedict Arnold's treason, July-Sept., 1780.]

This was a time when a man of bold and impulsive temperament, prone to
cherish romantic schemes, smarting under an accumulation of injuries,
and weak in moral principle, might easily take it into his head that the
American cause was lost, and that he had better carve out a new career
for himself, while wreaking vengeance on his enemies. Such seems to have
been the case with Benedict Arnold. He had a great and well-earned
reputation for skill and bravery. His military services up to the time
of Burgoyne's surrender had been of priceless value, and he had always
stood high in Washington's favour. But he had a genius for getting into
quarrels, and there seem always to have been people who doubted his
moral soundness. At the same time he had good reason to complain of the
treatment which he received from Congress. The party hostile to
Washington sometimes liked to strike at him in the persons of his
favourite generals, and such admirable men as Greene and Morgan had to
bear the brunt of this ill feeling. Early in 1777 five brigadier
generals junior to Arnold in rank and vastly inferior to him in ability
and reputation had been promoted over him to the grade of major-general.
On this occasion he had shown an excellent spirit, and when sent by
Washington to the aid of Schuyler, he had signified his willingness to
serve under St. Clair and Lincoln, two of the juniors who had been
raised above him. Arnold was a warm friend to Schuyler, and perhaps did
not take enough pains to conceal his poor opinion of Gates. Other
officers in the northern army let it plainly be seen that they placed
more confidence in Arnold than in Gates, and the result was a bitter
quarrel between the two generals, echoes of which were probably
afterwards heard in Congress.

If Arnold's wound on the field of Saratoga had been a mortal wound, he
would have been ranked, among the military heroes of the Revolution,
next to Washington and Greene. Perhaps, however, in a far worse sense
than is commonly conveyed by the term, it proved to be his death-wound,
for it led to his being placed in command of Philadelphia. He was
assigned to that position because his wounded leg made him unfit for
active service. Congress had restored him to his relative rank, but now
he soon got into trouble with the state government of Pennsylvania. It
is not easy to determine how much ground there may have been for the
charges brought against him early in 1779 by the state government. One
of them concerned his personal honesty, the others were so trivial in
character as to make the whole affair look somewhat like a case of
persecution. They were twice investigated, once by a committee of
Congress and once by a court-martial. On the serious charge, which
affected his pecuniary integrity, he was acquitted; on two of the
trivial charges, of imprudence in the use of some public wagons, and of
carelessness in granting a pass for a ship, he was convicted and
sentenced to be reprimanded. The language in which Washington couched
the reprimand showed his feeling that Arnold was too harshly dealt with.

If the matter had stopped here, posterity would probably have shared
Washington's feeling. But the government of Pennsylvania must have had
stronger grounds for distrust of Arnold than it was able to put into the
form of definite charges. Soon after his arrival in Philadelphia he fell
in love with a beautiful Tory lady, to whom he was presently married. He
was thus thrown much into the society of Tories and was no doubt
influenced by their views. He had for some time considered himself
ill-treated, and at first thought of leaving the service and settling
upon a grant of land in western New York. Then, as the charges against
him were pressed and his anger increased, he seems to have dallied with
the notion of going over to the British. At length in the early summer
of 1780, after the reprimand, his treasonable purpose seems to have
taken definite shape. As General Monk in 1660 decided that the only way
to restore peace in England was to desert the cause of the Commonwealth
and bring back Charles II., so Arnold seems now to have thought that the
cause of American independence was ruined, and that the best prospect
for a career for himself lay in deserting it and helping to bring back
the rule of George III. In this period of general depression, when even
the unconquerable Washington said "I have almost ceased to hope," one
staggering blow would be very likely to end the struggle. There could be
no heavier blow than the loss of the Hudson river, and with baseness
almost incredible Arnold asked for the command of West Point, with the
intention of betraying it into the hands of Sir Henry Clinton. The depth
of his villainy on this occasion makes it probable that there were good
grounds for the suspicions with which some people had for a long time
regarded him, although Washington, by putting him in command of the most
important position in the country, showed that his own confidence in him
was unabated. The successful execution of the plot seemed to call for a
personal interview between Arnold and Clinton's adjutant-general, Major
John André, who was entrusted with the negotiation. Such a secret
interview was extremely difficult to bring about, but it was effected on
the 21st of September, 1780. After a marvellous chapter of accidents,
André was captured just before reaching the British lines. But for his
hasty and quite unnecessary confession that he was a British officer,
which led to his being searched, the plot would in all probability have
been successful. The papers found on his person, which left no room for
doubt as to the nature of the black scheme, were sent to Washington;
the principal traitor, forewarned just in the nick of time, escaped to
the British at New York; and Major André was condemned as a spy and
hanged on the 2d of October.

    [Sidenote: Battle of King's Mountain, Oct. 7, 1780.]

Only five days after the execution of André an event occurred at the
South which greatly relieved the prevailing gloom of the situation. It
was the first of a series of victories which were soon to show that the
darkness of 1780 was the darkness that comes before dawn. After his
victory at Camden, Lord Cornwallis found it necessary to give his army
some rest from the intense August heat. In September he advanced into
North Carolina, boasting that he would soon conquer all the states south
of the Susquehanna river. But his line of march now lay far inland, and
the British armies were never able to accomplish much except in the
neighbourhood of their ships, where they could be reasonably sure of
supplies. In traversing Mecklenburg county Cornwallis soon found himself
in a very hostile and dangerous region, where there were no Tories to
befriend him. One of his best partisan commanders, Major Ferguson,
penetrated too far into the mountains. The backwoodsmen of Tennessee and
Kentucky, the Carolinas, and western Virginia were aroused; and under
their superb partisan leaders--Shelby, Sevier, Cleaveland, McDowell,
Campbell, and Williams--gave chase to Ferguson, who took refuge upon
what he deemed an impregnable position on the top of King's Mountain. On
the 7th of October the backwoodsmen stormed the mountain, Ferguson was
shot through the heart, 400 of his men were killed and wounded, and all
the rest, 700 in number, surrendered at discretion. The Americans lost
28 killed and 60 wounded. There were some points in this battle, which
remind one of the British defeat at Majuba Hill in southern Africa in
1881.

In the series of events which led to the surrender of Cornwallis, the
battle of King's Mountain played a part similar to that played by the
battle of Bennington in the series of events which led to the surrender
of Burgoyne. It was the enemy's first serious disaster, and its
immediate result was to check his progress until the Americans could
muster strength enough to overthrow him. The events, however, were much
more complicated in Cornwallis's case, and took much longer to unfold
themselves. Burgoyne surrendered within nine anxious weeks after
Bennington; Cornwallis maintained himself, sometimes with fair hopes of
final victory, for a whole year after King's Mountain.

[Illustration]

    [Sidenote: Greene takes command in South Carolina, Dec. 2, 1780.]

As soon as he heard the news of the disaster he fell back to
Winnsborough, in South Carolina, and called for reinforcements. While
they were arriving, the American army, recruited and reorganized
since its crushing defeat at Camden, advanced into Mecklenburg county.
Gates was superseded by Greene, who arrived upon the scene on the 2d of
December. Under Greene were three Virginians of remarkable
ability,--Daniel Morgan; William Washington, who was a distant cousin of
the commander-in-chief; and Henry Lee, familiarly known as "Light-horse
Harry," father of the great general, Robert Edward Lee. The little army
numbered only 2000 men, but a considerable part of them were disciplined
veterans fully a match for the British infantry.

In order to raise troops in Virginia to increase this little force,
Steuben was sent down to that state. In order to interfere with such
recruiting, and to make diversions in aid of Cornwallis, detachments
from the British army were also sent by sea from New York to Virginia.
The first of these detachments, under General Leslie, had been obliged
to keep on to South Carolina, to make good the loss inflicted upon
Cornwallis at King's Mountain. To replace Leslie in Virginia, the
traitor Arnold was sent down from New York. The presence of these
subsidiary forces in Virginia was soon to influence in a decisive way
the course of events.

    [Sidenote: Battle of the Cowpens, Jan. 17, 1781.]

Greene, on reaching South Carolina, acted with boldness and originality.
He divided his little army into two bodies, one of which coöperated
with Marion's partisans in the northeastern part of the state, and
threatened Cornwallis's communications with the coast. The other body he
sent under Morgan to the southwestward, to threaten the inland posts and
their garrisons. Thus worried on both flanks, Cornwallis presently
divided his own force, sending Tarleton with 1100 men, to dispose of
Morgan. Tarleton came up with Morgan on the 17th of January, 1781, at a
grazing-ground known as the Cowpens, not far from King's Mountain. The
battle which ensued was well fought, and on Morgan's part it was a
wonderful piece of tactics. With only 900 men in open field he
surrounded and nearly annihilated a superior force. The British lost 230
in killed and wounded, 600 prisoners, and all their guns. Tarleton
escaped with 270 men. The Americans lost 12 killed and 61 wounded.

    [Sidenote: Battle of Guilford, March 15, 1781.]

The two battles, King's Mountain and the Cowpens, deprived Cornwallis of
nearly all his light-armed troops, and he was just entering upon a game
where swiftness was especially required. It was his object to intercept
Morgan and defeat him before he could effect a junction with the other
part of the American army. It was Greene's object to march the two parts
of his army in converging directions northward across North Carolina and
unite them in spite of Cornwallis. By moving in this direction Greene
was always getting nearer to his reinforcements from Virginia, while
Cornwallis was always getting further from his supports in South
Carolina. It was brilliant strategy on Greene's part, and entirely
successful. Cornwallis had to throw away a great deal of his baggage and
otherwise weaken himself, but in spite of all he could do, he was
outmarched. The two wings of the American army came together and were
joined by the reinforcements; so that at Guilford Court House, on the
15th of March, Cornwallis found himself obliged to fight against heavy
odds, two hundred miles from the coast and almost as far from the
nearest point in South Carolina at which he could get support.

The battle of Guilford was admirably managed by both commanders and
stubbornly fought by the troops. At nightfall the British held the
field, with the loss of nearly one third of their number, and the
Americans were repulsed. But Cornwallis could not stay in such a place,
and could not afford to risk another battle. There was nothing for him
to do but retreat to Wilmington, the nearest point on the coast. There
he stopped and pondered.

    [Sidenote: Cornwallis retreats into Virginia.]

His own force was sadly depleted, but he knew that Arnold in Virginia
was being heavily reinforced from New York. The only safe course seemed
to march northward and join in the operations in Virginia; then
afterwards to return southward. This course Cornwallis pursued, arriving
at Petersburg and taking command of the troops there on the 20th of May.

    [Sidenote: Greene takes Camden, May 10, 1781.]

    [Sidenote: Battle of Eutaw Springs, Sept. 8, 1781.]

Meanwhile Greene, after pursuing Cornwallis for about fifty miles from
Guilford, faced about and marched with all speed upon Camden, a hundred
and sixty miles distant. Whatever his adversary might do, he was now
going to seize the great prize of the campaign, and break the enemy's
hold upon South Carolina. Lord Rawdon held Camden. Greene stopped at
Hobkirk's Hill, two miles to the north, and sent Marion and Lee to take
Fort Watson, and thus cut the enemy's communications with the coast. On
April 23 Fort Watson surrendered; on the 25th Rawdon defeated Greene at
Hobkirk's Hill, but as his communications were cut, the victory did him
no good. He was obliged to retreat toward the coast, and Greene took
Camden on the 10th of May. Having thus obtained the commanding point,
Greene went on until he had reduced every one of the inland posts. At
last on the 8th of September he fought an obstinate battle at Eutaw
Springs, in which both sides claimed the victory. The facts were that he
drove the British from their first position, but they rallied upon a
second position from which he failed to drive them. Here, however, as
always after one of Greene's battles, it was the enemy who retreated
and he who pursued. His strategy never failed. After Eutaw Springs the
British remained shut up in Charleston under cover of their ships, and
the American government was reëstablished over South Carolina. Among all
the campaigns in history that have been conducted with small armies,
there have been few, if any, more brilliant than Greene's.

    [Sidenote: Lafayette and Cornwallis in Virginia, May-Sept., 1718.]

There was something especially piquant in the way in which after
Guilford he left Cornwallis to himself. It reminds one of a chess-player
who first gets the queen off the board, where she can do no harm, and
then wins the game against the smaller pieces. As for Cornwallis, when
he reached Petersburg, May 20, he found himself at the head of 5000 men.
Arnold had just been recalled to New York, and Lafayette, who had been
sent down to oppose him, was at Richmond with 3000 men. A campaign of
nine weeks ensued, in the first part of which Cornwallis tried to catch
Lafayette and bring him to battle. The general movement was from
Richmond up to Fredericksburg, then over toward Charlottesville, then
back to the James river, then down the north bank of the river. But
during the last part the tables were turned, and it was Lafayette,
reinforced by Wayne and Steuben, that pursued Cornwallis on his retreat
to the coast. At the end of July the British general reached Yorktown,
where he was reinforced and waited with 7000 men.

    [Sidenote: Washington's masterly movement.]

We may now change our simile, and liken Cornwallis to a ball between two
bats. The first bat, which had knocked him up into Virginia, was Greene;
the second, which sent him quite out of the game, was Washington. The
remarkable movement which the latter general now proceeded to execute
would have been impossible without French coöperation. A French fleet of
overwhelming power, under the Count de Grasse, was approaching
Chesapeake bay. Washington, in readiness for it, had first moved
Rochambeau's army from Rhode Island across Connecticut to the Hudson
river. Then, as soon as all the elements of the situation were
disclosed, he left part of his force in position on the Hudson, and in a
superb march led the rest down to Virginia. Sir Henry Clinton at New
York was completely hoodwinked. He feared that the real aim of the
French fleet was New York, in which case it would be natural that an
American land-force should meet it at Staten island. Now a glance at the
map of New Jersey will show that Washington's army, starting from West
Point, could march more than half the way toward Philadelphia and still
be supposed to be aiming at Staten island. Washington was a master hand
for secrecy. When his movement was first disclosed, his own generals, as
well as Sir Henry Clinton, took it for granted that Staten island was
the point aimed at. It was not until he had passed Philadelphia that
Clinton began to surmise that he might be going down to Virginia.

When this fact at length dawned upon the British commander, he made a
futile attempt at a diversion by sending Benedict Arnold to attack New
London. It was as weak as the act of a drowning man who catches at a
straw. Arnold's expedition, cruel and useless as it was, crowned his
infamy. A sad plight for a man of his power! If he had only had more
strength of character, he might now have been marching with his old
friend Washington to victory. With this wretched affair at New London,
the brilliant and wicked Benedict Arnold disappears from American
history. He died in London, in 1801, a broken-hearted and penitent man,
as his grandchildren tell us, praying God with his last breath to
forgive his awful crime.

    [Sidenote: Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Oct. 19, 1781.]

Washington's march was so swift and so cunningly planned that nothing
could check it. On the 26th of September the situation was complete.
Washington had added his force to that of Lafayette, so that 16,000 men
blockaded Cornwallis upon the Yorktown peninsula. The great French
fleet, commanding the waters about Chesapeake bay, closed in behind and
prevented escape. It was a very unusual thing for the French thus to get
control of the water and defy the British on their own element. It was
Washington's unwearied vigilance that, after waiting long for such a
chance, had seized it without a moment's delay. As soon as Cornwallis
was thus caught between a hostile army and a hostile fleet, the problem
was solved. On the 19th of October the British army surrendered.
Washington presently marched his army back to the Hudson and made his
headquarters at Newburgh.

    [Sidenote: Overthrow of George III.'s political schemes, May, 1784.]

When Lord North at his office in London heard the dismal news, he walked
up and down the room, wringing his hands and crying, "O God, it is all
over!" Yorktown was indeed decisive. In the course of the winter the
British lost Georgia. The embers of Indian warfare still smouldered on
the border, but the great War for Independence was really at an end. The
king's friends had for some time been losing strength in England, and
Yorktown completed their defeat. In March, 1782, Lord North's ministry
resigned. A succession of short-lived ministries followed; first, Lord
Rockingham's, until July, 1782; then Lord Shelburne's, until February,
1783; then, after five weeks without a government, there came into power
the strange Coalition between Fox and North, from April to December.
During these two years the king was trying to intrigue with one interest
against another so as to maintain his own personal government. With this
end in view he tried the bold experiment of dismissing the Coalition
and making the young William Pitt prime minister, without a majority in
Parliament. After a fierce constitutional struggle, which lasted all
winter, Pitt dissolved Parliament, and in the new election in May, 1784,
obtained the greatest majority ever given to an English minister. But
the victory was Pitt's and the people's, not the king's. This election
of 1784 overthrew all the cherished plans of George III. in pursuance of
which he had driven the American colonies into rebellion. It established
cabinet government more firmly than ever, so that for the next seventeen
years the real ruler of Great Britain was William Pitt.



CHAPTER VIII.

BIRTH OF THE NATION.


    [Sidenote: The treaty of peace, 1782-83.]

The year 1782 was marked by great victories for the British in the West
Indies and at Gibraltar. But they did not alter the situation in
America. The treaty of peace by which Great Britain acknowledged the
independence of the United States was made under Lord Shelburne's
ministry in the autumn of 1782, and adopted and signed by the Coalition
on the 3d of September, 1783. The negotiations were carried on at Paris
by Franklin, Jay, and John Adams, on the part of the Americans; and they
won a diplomatic victory in securing for the United States the country
between the Alleghany mountains and the Mississippi river. This was done
against the wishes of the French government, which did not wish to see
the United States become too powerful. At the same time Spain recovered
Minorca and the Floridas. France got very little except the satisfaction
of having helped in diminishing the British empire.

    [Sidenote: Troubles with the army, 1781-83.]

The return of peace did not bring contentment to the Americans. Because
Congress had no means of raising a revenue or enforcing its decrees, it
was unable to make itself respected either at home or abroad. For want
of pay the army became very troublesome. In January, 1781, there had
been a mutiny of Pennsylvania and New Jersey troops which at one moment
looked very serious. In the spring of 1782 some of the officers,
disgusted with the want of efficiency in the government, seem to have
entertained a scheme for making Washington king; but Washington met the
suggestion with a stern rebuke. In March, 1783, inflammatory appeals
were made to the officers at the headquarters of the army at Newburgh.
It seems to have been intended that the army should overawe Congress and
seize upon the government until the delinquent states should contribute
the money needed for satisfying the soldiers and other public creditors.
Gates either originated this scheme or willingly lent himself to it, but
an eloquent speech from Washington prevailed upon the officers to reject
and condemn it.

On the 19th of April, 1783, the eighth anniversary of Lexington, the
cessation of hostilities was formally proclaimed, and the soldiers were
allowed to go home on furloughs. The army was virtually disbanded. There
were some who thought that this ought not to be done while the British
forces still remained in New York; but Congress was afraid of the army
and quite ready to see it scattered. On the 21st of June Congress was
driven from Philadelphia by a small band of drunken soldiers clamorous
for pay. It was impossible for Congress to get money. Of the Continental
taxes assessed in 1783, only one fifth part had been paid by the middle
of 1785. After peace was made, France had no longer any end to gain by
lending us money, and European bankers, as well as European governments,
regarded American credit as dead.

    [Sidenote: Congress unable to fulfil the treaty.]

There was a double provision of the treaty which could not be carried
out because of the weakness of Congress. It had been agreed that
Congress should request the state governments to repeal various laws
which they had made from time to time confiscating the property of
Tories and hindering the collection of private debts due from American
to British merchants. Congress did make such a request, but it was not
heeded. The laws hindering the payment of debts were not repealed; and
as for the Tories, they were so badly treated that between 1783 and 1785
more than 100,000 left the country. Those from the southern states went
mostly to Florida and the Bahamas; those from the north made the
beginnings of the Canadian states of Ontario and New Brunswick. A good
many of them were reimbursed for their losses by Parliament.

    [Sidenote: Great Britain retaliates, presuming upon the weakness of
    the feeling of union among the states.]

When the British government saw that these provisions of the treaty were
not fulfilled, it retaliated by refusing to withdraw its troops from
the northern and western frontier posts. The British army sailed from
Charleston on the 14th of December, 1782, and from New York on the 25th
of November, 1783, but in contravention of the treaty small garrisons
remained at Ogdensburgh, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, and
Mackinaw until the 1st of June, 1796. Besides this, laws were passed
which bore very severely upon American commerce, and the Americans found
it impossible to retaliate because the different states would not agree
upon any commercial policy in common. On the other hand, the states
began making commercial war upon each other, with navigation laws and
high tariffs. Such laws were passed by New York to interfere with the
trade of Connecticut, and the merchants of the latter state began to
hold meetings and pass resolutions forbidding all trade whatever with
New York.

The old quarrels about territory were kept up, and in 1784 the troubles
in Wyoming and in the Green Mountains came to the very verge of civil
war. People in Europe, hearing of such things, believed that the Union
would soon fall to pieces and become the prey of foreign powers. It was
disorder and calamity of this sort that such men as Hutchinson had
feared, in case the control of Great Britain over the colonies should
cease. George III. looked upon it all with satisfaction, and believed
that before long the states would one after another become repentant and
beg to be taken back into the British empire.

    [Sidenote: The craze for paper money and the Shays rebellion, 1786.]

The troubles reached their climax in 1786. Because there seemed to be no
other way of getting money, the different states began to issue their
promissory notes, and then tried to compel people by law to receive such
notes as money. There was a strong "paper money" party in all the states
except Connecticut and Delaware. The most serious trouble was in Rhode
Island and Massachusetts. In both states the farmers had been much
impoverished by the war. Many farms were mortgaged, and now and then one
was sold to satisfy creditors. The farmers accordingly clamoured for
paper money, but the merchants in towns like Boston or Providence,
understanding more about commerce, were opposed to any such miserable
makeshifts. In Rhode Island the farmers prevailed. Paper money was
issued, and harsh laws were passed against all who should refuse to take
it at its face value. The merchants refused, and in the towns nearly all
business was stopped during the summer of 1786.

In the Massachusetts legislature the paper money party was defeated.
There was a great outcry among the farmers against merchants and
lawyers, and some were heard to maintain that the time had come for
wiping out all debts. In August, 1786, the malcontents rose in
rebellion, headed by one Daniel Shays, who had been a captain in the
Continental army. They began by trying to prevent the courts from
sitting, and went on to burn barns, plunder houses, and attack the
arsenal at Springfield. The state troops were called out, under General
Lincoln, two or three skirmishes were fought, in which a few lives were
lost, and at length in February, 1787, the insurrection was suppressed.

    [Sidenote: The Mississippi question, 1786.]

At that time the mouth of the Mississippi river and the country on its
western bank belonged to Spain. Kentucky and Tennessee were rapidly
becoming settled by people from Virginia and North Carolina, and these
settlers wished to trade with New Orleans. The Spanish government was
unfriendly and wished to prevent such traffic. The people of New England
felt little interest in the southwestern country or the Mississippi
river, but were very anxious to make a commercial treaty with Spain. The
government of Spain refused to make such a treaty except on condition
that American vessels should not be allowed to descend the Mississippi
river below the mouth of the Yazoo. When Congress seemed on the point of
yielding to this demand, the southern states were very angry. The New
England states were equally angry at what they called the obstinacy of
the South, and threats of secession were heard on both sides.

    [Sidenote: The northwestern territory; the first national domain,
    1780-87.]

Perhaps the only thing that kept the Union from falling to pieces in
1786 was the Northwestern Territory, which George Rogers Clark had
conquered in 1779, and which skilful diplomacy had enabled us to keep
when the treaty was drawn up in 1782. Virginia claimed this territory
and actually held it, but New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut also
had claims upon it. It was the idea of Maryland that such a vast region
ought not to be added to any one state, or divided between two or three
of the states, but ought to be the common property of the Union.
Maryland had refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation until the
four states that claimed the northwestern territory should yield their
claims to the United States. This was done between 1780 and 1785, and
thus for the first time the United States government was put in
possession of valuable property which could be made to yield an income
and pay debts. This piece of property was about the first thing in which
all the American people were alike interested, after they had won their
independence. It could be opened to immigration and made to pay the
whole cost of the war and much more. During these troubled years
Congress was busy with plans for organizing this territory, which at
length resulted in the famous Ordinance of 1787 laying down fundamental
laws for the government of what has since developed into the five great
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. While other
questions tended to break up the Union, the questions that arose in
connection with this work tended to hold it together.

    [Sidenote: The convention at Annapolis, Sept. 11, 1786.]

The need for easy means of communication between the old Atlantic states
and this new country behind the mountains led to schemes which ripened
in course of time into the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio and
the Erie canals. In discussing such schemes, Maryland and Virginia found
it necessary to agree upon some kind of commercial policy to be pursued
by both states. Then it was thought best to seize the occasion for
calling a general convention of the states to decide upon a uniform
system of regulations for commerce. This convention was held at
Annapolis in September, 1786, but only five states had sent delegates,
and so the convention adjourned after adopting an address written by
Alexander Hamilton, calling for another convention to meet at
Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May, "to devise such
further provisions as shall appear necessary to render the constitution
of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

The Shays rebellion and the quarrel about the Mississippi river had by
this time alarmed people so that it began to be generally admitted that
the federal government must be in some way strengthened. If there were
any doubt as to this, it was removed by the action of New York. An
amendment to the Articles of Confederation had been proposed, giving
Congress the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the
collectors. By the summer of 1786 all the states except New York had
consented to this. But in order to amend the articles, unanimous consent
was necessary, and in February, 1787, New York's refusal defeated the
amendment. Congress was thus left without any immediate means of raising
a revenue, and it became quite clear that something must be done without
delay.

    [Sidenote: The Federal Convention at Philadelphia, May-Sept., 1787.]

The famous Federal Convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and
remained in session four months, with Washington presiding. Its work was
the framing of the government under which we are now living, and in
which the evils of the old confederation have been avoided. The trouble
had all the while been how to get the whole American people
_represented_ in some body that could thus rightfully _tax_ the whole
American people. This was the question which the Albany Congress had
tried to settle in 1754, and which the Federal Convention did settle in
1787.

In the old confederation, starting with the Continental Congress in
1774, the government was all vested in a single body which represented
states, but did not represent individual persons. It was for that
reason that it was called a congress rather than a parliament. It was
more like a congress of European states than the legislative body of a
nation, such as the English parliament was. It had no executive and no
judiciary. It could not tax, and it could not enforce its decrees.

    [Sidenote: The new government, in which the Revolution was
    consummated, 1789.]

The new constitution changed all this by creating the House of
Representatives which stood in the same relation to the whole American
people as the legislative assembly of each single state to the people of
that state. In this body the people were represented, and could
therefore tax themselves. At the same time in the Senate the old
equality between the states was preserved. All control over commerce,
currency, and finance was lodged in this new Congress, and absolute free
trade was established between the states. In the office of President a
strong executive was created. And besides all this there was a system of
federal courts for deciding questions arising under federal laws. Most
remarkable of all, in some respects, was the power given to the federal
Supreme Court, of deciding, in special cases, whether laws passed by the
several states, or by Congress itself, were conformable to the Federal
Constitution.

Many men of great and various powers played important parts in effecting
this change of government which at length established the American
Union in such a form that it could endure; but the three who stood
foremost in the work were George Washington, James Madison, and
Alexander Hamilton. Two other men, whose most important work came
somewhat later, must be mentioned along with these, for the sake of
completeness. It was John Marshall, chief justice of the United States
from 1801 to 1835, whose profound decisions did more than those of any
later judge could ever do toward establishing the sense in which the
Constitution must be understood. It was Thomas Jefferson, president of
the United States from 1801 to 1809, whose sound democratic instincts
and robust political philosophy prevented the federal government from
becoming too closely allied with the interests of particular classes,
and helped to make it what it should be,--a "government of the people,
by the people, and for the people." In the _making_ of the government
under which we live, these five names--Washington, Madison, Hamilton,
Jefferson, and Marshall--stand before all others. I mention them here
chronologically, in the order of the times at which their influence was
felt at its maximum.

When the work of the Federal Convention was sanctioned by the
Continental Congress and laid before the people of the several states,
to be ratified by special conventions in each state, there was earnest
and sometimes bitter discussion. Many people feared that the new
government would soon degenerate into a tyranny. But the century and a
half of American history that had already elapsed had afforded such
noble political training for the people that the discussion was, on the
whole, more reasonable and more fruitful than any that had ever before
been undertaken by so many men. The result was the adoption of the
Federal Constitution, followed by the inauguration of George Washington,
on the 30th of April, 1789, as President of the United States. And with
this event our brief story may fitly end.



COLLATERAL READING.


The following books may be recommended to the reader who wishes to get a
general idea of the American Revolution:--

1. GENERAL WORKS. The most comprehensive and readable account is
contained in Mr. Fiske's larger work, _The American Revolution_, in two
volumes. The subject is best treated from the biographical point of view
in Washington Irving's _Life of Washington_, vols. i.-iv. Mr. Fiske has
abridged and condensed these four octavos into one stout duodecimo
entitled _Washington and his Country_, Boston, Ginn & Co., 1887. Our
young friends may find Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_ rather close
reading, but one can hardly name a book that will more richly reward
them for their study. Green's _Historical View of the Revolution_ should
be read by every one. Carrington's _Battles of the Revolution_ makes the
military operations quite clear with numerous maps. Very young readers
find it interesting to begin with Coffin's _Boys of Seventy-Six_, or C.
H. Woodman's _Boys and Girls of the Revolution_. The social life of the
time is admirably portrayed in Scudder's _Men and Manners in America One
Hundred Years Ago_. See also Thornton's _Pulpit of the Revolution_.
Lossing's _Field Book of the Revolution_--two royal octavos profusely
illustrated--is an excellent book to browse in. Lecky's _England in the
Eighteenth Century_ gives an admirable statement of England's position.

2. BIOGRAPHIES. Lodge's _George Washington_, 2 vols., Scudder's _George
Washington_, Tyler's _Patrick Henry_, Tudor's _Otis_, Hosmer's _Samuel
Adams_, Morse's _John Adams_, Frothingham's _Warren_, Quincy's _Josiah
Quincy_, Parton's _Franklin_ and _Jefferson_, Fonblanque's _Burgoyne_,
Lossing's _Schuyler_, Riedesel's _Memoirs_, Stone's _Brant_, Arnold's
_Arnold_, Sargent's _André_, Kapp's _Steuben_ and _Kalb_, Greene's
_Greene_, Amory's _Sullivan_, Graham's _Morgan_, Simms's _Marion_,
Abbott's _Paul Jones_, John Adams's _Letters to his Wife_, Morse's
_Hamilton_, Gay's _Madison_, Roosevelt's _Gouverneur Morris_, Russell's
_Fox_, Albemarle's _Rockingham_, Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, MacKnight's
_Burke_, Macaulay's essay on _Chatham_.

3. FICTION. Cooper's _Chainbearer_, Miss Sedgwick's _Linwoods_,
Paulding's _Old Continental_, Mrs. Child's _Rebels_, Motley's _Morton's
Hope_, Herman Melville's _Israel Potter_, Kennedy's _Horse Shoe
Robinson_. There is an account of the battle of Bunker Hill in Cooper's
_Lionel Lincoln_. Thompson's _Green Mountain Boys_ gives interesting
descriptions of many of the events in that region. The border warfare is
treated in Grace Greenwood's _Forest Tragedy_ and Hoffman's _Greyslaer_.
Simms's _Partisan_ and _Mellichampe_ deal with events in South Carolina
in 1780, and later events are covered in his _Scout_, _Katharine
Walford_, _Woodcraft_, _Forayers_, and _Eutaw_. See also Miss Sedgwick's
_Walter Thornley_, and Cooper's _Pilot_ and _Spy_, and H. C. Watson's
_Camp Fires of the Revolution_. The scenes of _Paul and Persis_, by Mary
E. Brush, are laid in the Mohawk Valley.

For further references, see Justin Winsor's _Reader's Handbook of the
American Revolution_, a book which is absolutely indispensable to every
one who wishes to study the subject.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX.


Adams, John, 46, 84, 88, 89, 98, 100, 113, 149, 182.

Adams, Samuel, 53, 58, 68, 71, 72, 73, 75, 78, 82, 84, 85, 88, 107, 149.

Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 6.

Albany Congress, 34, 190.

Albany Plan, 35.

Algonquins, 28-30, 37.

Alleghany mountains, 27.

Allen, Ethan, 87.

André John, 170, 171.

Andros, Sir Edmund, 22.

Annapolis convention, 189.

Antislavery feeling, 126.

Armada, the Invincible, 6.

Armed Neutrality, 159.

Army, continental, 88, 124;
  disbanded, 183.

Arnold, Benedict, 87, 93, 94, 118, 136, 137, 143, 167-171, 173, 175, 177,
  179.

Ashe, Samuel, 163.

Attucks, Crispus, 75.

Augusta, Ga., 163.


Bacon's rebellion, 21.

Baltimore, Congress flees to, 118.

Barons' War, 19.

Barré, Isaac, 69, 75.

Barter, 162.

Baum, Col., 134.

Bemis Heights, 143.

Bennington, 133, 134, 137, 172.

Berkeley, Sir W., 21.

Bernard, Sir F., 68, 72.

Boston, 7, 44-47;
  "Massacre," 72-75;
  "Tea Party," 79-83;
  Port Bill, 83;
  siege of, 87-94.

Braddock, Edward, 36.

Brandywine, 141.

Brant, Joseph, 108, 135, 136, 154, 155.

Breymann, Col., 134.

Briar Creek, 163.

Brooklyn Heights, 111-113, 128.

Bunker Hill, 91, 128.

Burgoyne, John, 90, 125-134, 137, 140-143, 148, 150, 158, 172.

Burlington, N. J., 120.

Burke, Edmund, 62, 69.

Butler, Col. John, 134, 154.

Butts Hill, 154.

Byron, Admiral, 150.


Cahokia, 156.

Calvert family, 13.

Camden, Lord, 69.

Camden, S. C., 166, 171, 173, 176.

Campbell, Col. William, 171.

Canada, invasion of, 93, 94.

Canals, 189.

Carleton, Sir Guy, 93, 94, 109, 115, 118.

Carlisle, Pa., 26.

Carr, Dabney, 79.

Castle William, 73, 75.

Caudine Fork, 144.

Cavaliers, 9.

Cavendish, Lord John, 69.

Charles II., 22, 43, 45.

Charleston, S. C., 80, 165.

Charlestown, Mass., 86

Chase, Samuel, 84.

Cherry Valley, 154.

Choiseul, Duke de, 38.

Clark, George Rogers, 156, 188.

Cleaveland, Col., 171.

Cleveland, Grover, 1.

Clinton, Sir H., 90, 96, 140, 142, 150-152, 156-158, 164, 165, 178, 179.

Coalition ministry, 180.

Cobden, Richard, 61.

Colonial trade, 42-44.

Committees of correspondence, 79.

Commons, House of, 19, 58-61.

Concord, 85, 86.

Congress, Continental, 79, 84, 87-90, 100-103, 106, 115-117, 161, 162, 183,
  184, 191.

Congress, Stamp Act, 56.

Connecticut, 13, 21, 23, 77, 98, 156.

Conway, Henry, 69.

Conway Cabal, 148, 149.

Cornwallis, Lord, 104, 121, 122, 165, 171-180.

Cowpens, 174.

Cromwell, Oliver, 9.

Crown Point, 87.

Currency, Continental, 162, 166.


Deane, Silas, 123.

Declaration of Independence, 97-103, 127.

Declaratory Act, 58.

Delaware, 9, 10.

Delaware river, 142.

Denmark, 159.

Desertions, 166.

D'Estaing, Count, 151-154, 164.

Dickinson, John, 84, 92, 98, 101, 102.

Discovery, French doctrine of, 27.

Dorchester Heights, 94, 128.

Dunmore, Lord, 95.


"Early" American history, 5.

Edinburgh, 159.

Elkton, 140, 141.

Elmira, 155.

Eutaw Springs, 176.


Fairfield, Conn., 156.

Federal convention, 190, 191.

Ferguson, Major, 171, 172.

Five Nations, 29.

Flamborough Head, 150.

Fort Duquesne, 33;
  Edward, 131, 132, 140;
  Lee, 114-116;
  Moultrie, 105;
  Necessity, 33;
  Niagara, 154, 155;
  Stanwix, 135-137;
  Washington, 114-117, 165;
  Watson, 176.

Forts on the Delaware, 141.

Fox, Charles, 69, 180.

Franklin, Benjamin, 34, 54, 89, 113, 123, 182.

Franklin, William, 106.

Fraser, Gen., 131.

Frederick the Great, 150.

French power in Canada, 10, 20, 26-38.

Frontenac, Count, 29.

Frontier between English and French colonies, 26.


Gage, Thomas, 29, 83, 85, 91, 92.

Gansevoort, Peter, 135.

Gaspee, schooner, 77.

Gates, Horatio, 39, 90, 130, 131, 137, 143, 148, 165, 166, 168, 173.

George III., his character and schemes, 59-71, 146;
  glee over news from Ticonderoga, 120;
  tries to make an alliance with Russia, 158, 159;
  his schemes overthrown, 180, 181.

Georgia, 11, 96, 163.

Germaine, Lord George, 147, 156, 166.

Germantown, 141.

Gibraltar, 158, 182.

Gladstone, W. E., 61.

Governments of the colonies, 13-16.

Grasse, Count de, 178.

Green Mountains, 77, 87, 131, 185.

Greene, Nathanael, 90, 115, 116, 167, 173-177.

Grenville, George, 41, 49, 51, 54, 124.

Gridley, Jeremiah, 46.

Guilford Court House, 175, 177.


Hackensack, 115, 116.

Hale, Nathan, 114.

Hamilton, commandant at Detroit, 155.

Hamilton, Alexander, 189, 192.

Hancock, John, 80, 87, 89.

Harlem Heights, 114, 129.

Harrison, Benjamin, 6.

Hastings, Warren, 158.

Heath, William, 90, 115.

Henry VIII., 59.

Henry, Patrick, 48, 55, 58, 84, 144.

Herkimer, Nicholas, 135, 136.

Hessian troops, 93.

Hobkirk's Hill, 176.

Holland and Great Britain, 160.

Hopkins, Stephen, 77.

Howe, Richard, Lord, 105, 106, 113, 150, 153.

Howe, Sir William, 39, 90, 94, 104, 105, 112-118, 125, 127, 137-143,
  148, 150.

Hubbardton, 131.

Hudson river, 95, 115, 128, 157, 170.

Hutchinson, Thomas, 46, 56, 72, 75, 77, 78, 81, 83, 107, 185.

Hyder, Ali, 158.


Impost amendment defeated by New York, 190.

Indian tribes, 27, 28.

Iroquois, 28, 29.


Jay, John, 92, 182.

Jefferson, Thomas, 55, 89, 100, 103, 126, 127, 192.

Jeffreys, George, 17.

Johnson, Sir John, 108, 134.

Johnson, Sir William, 108.

Johnson Hall, 26, 108.

Jones, David, 133.

Jones, Paul, 159, 160.


Kalb, John, 38, 123, 165, 166.

Kaskaskia, 156.

Kentucky, 155, 171, 187.

King's friends, 64, 69, 84.

King's Mountain, 171, 172, 174.

Kirkland, Samuel, 135.

Kosciuszko, Thaddeus, 123.


Lafayette, 123, 177.

Land Bank, 20.

Lee, Arthur, 123.

Lee, Charles, 89, 105, 117-119, 122, 138, 140, 148, 150-152.

Lee, Henry, 173.

Lee, Richard Henry, 84, 97, 100.

Lee, Robert Edward, 173.

Leslie, Gen., 173.

Leuktra, 144.

Lexington, 86, 183.

Lincoln, Abraham, 126.

Lincoln, Benjamin, 131, 134, 143, 163-165, 167, 187.

Livingston, Robert, 84, 98.

Long House, 28, 29.

Long Island, battle of, 112.

Lords proprietary, 13.

Louis XV., 31.


Macaulay, Lord, 49.

McCrea, Jane, 132, 133.

McDowell, Col., 171.

McNeil, Mrs., 132, 133.

Madison, James, 192.

Mahratta war, 158.

Majuba Hill, 172.

Manchester, Vt., 133.

Marion, Francis, 165, 174.

Marshall, John, 192.

Martha's Vineyard, 156.

Martin, Josiah, 96.

Maryland, 8, 99, 140, 188.

Massachusetts, 21, 22, 68, 71, 72, 83, 97, 107.

Mecklenburg county, N. C., 95, 171, 173.

Minden, 147.

Minisink, 155.

Minorca, 158, 182.

Mississippi valley, 182, 187.

Mobilians, 27.

Molasses Act, 49-51, 67.

Monk, Gen., 169.

Monmouth, 151, 152.

Montgomery, Richard, 90, 93, 94.

Morgan, Daniel, 93, 94, 137, 143, 167, 173, 174.

Morris, Robert, 102, 120.

Morristown, 119, 122, 123.

Moultrie, William, 105.


New England colonies, 6-8.

New Hampshire, 76, 98.

New Haven, 156.

New Jersey, 11, 99.

New Whigs, 60-62, 69.

New York, 9, 66, 76, 80, 100, 108, 125, 143, 190.

Newburgh, 180, 183.

Norfolk, Va., 95.

North, Lord, 66, 76, 144-147, 180.

North Carolina, 11, 77, 96, 171-175.

Northcastle, 115.

Northwestern Territory, 188.

Nullification of the Regulating Act, 85.

Norwalk, 156.


Ohio, 189.

Ohio Company, 32.

Old Sarum, 59.

Old South church, 53, 72, 82.

Old Whigs, 59-64, 69.

Otis, James, 45-47, 62, 72, 74, 144.


Paper money, 20, 162, 186.

Parker, Sir Peter, 96, 104.

Parsons' Cause, 47, 48.

Paxton, Charles, 44.

Pendleton, Edmund, 84.

Penn family, 14.

Pennsylvania, 11, 13, 77, 99, 102.

Pensacola, 158.

Periods in history, 4.

Petersburg, Va., 177.

Petition (last) to the king, 92.

Petty William (Earl of Shelburne), 61, 69, 180, 182.

Philadelphia, 80, 84, 138-142, 151, 168, 183.

Pigott, Sir Robert, 153.

Pitt, William (Earl of Chatham), 57, 61, 62, 64, 66, 69, 71, 84, 145, 146.

Pitt, William, the younger, 61, 181.

Pontiac's war, 38, 41.

Pownall, Thomas, 14.

Preston, Capt., 74.

Prevost, Gen., 163, 164.

Princeton, 120, 121.

Proprietary government, 13.

Protectionist legislation, 43, 50.

Pulaski, Casimir, 123, 164.

Putnam, Israel, 39, 87, 90, 112, 115.


Rawdon, Lord, 176.

Reform, parliamentary, 61-63.

Regulating Act, 83, 85;
  repealed, 144.

Representation in England, 58-61.

Requisitions, 31, 54, 161.

Retaliatory acts, 83;
  repealed, 144.

Revere, Paul, 4, 86.

Rhode Island, 18, 21, 23, 70, 77, 96, 153, 154, 164, 166, 186.

Riedesel, Gen., 131.

Riots in Boston, 56.

Rochambeau, Count, 166, 178.

Rockingham, Lord, 57, 64, 180.

Rodney, Cæsar, 102.

Rodney, George, 160.

Rotten boroughs, 59, 62.

Royal governors, 14-18.

Russell, Lord John, 61.

Russell, Lord William, 17.

Russia, 159.

Rutledge, Edward, 113.

Rutledge, John, 84.


St. Clair, Arthur, 131, 167.

St. Eustatius, 160.

St. Leger, Harry, 125, 126, 135-137.

Salaries, 15-18, 65-68.

Savannah, 163, 164.

Savile, Sir George, 69.

Schuyler, Philip, 90, 109, 119, 129-133, 136.

Secession, threats of, 187.

Senegambia, 158.

Sevier, John, 155, 171.

Shays rebellion, 186.

Shelburne, Lord, 61, 69, 180, 182.

Shelby, Isaac, 171.

Shirley, William, 52.

Sidney, Algernon, 17.

Silver bank, 20.

Six Nations, 29, 34, 93, 125.

Snyder, Christopher, 74.

Sons of Liberty, 57.

South Carolina, 96, 102, 104, 105, 127, 173-177.

Spain declares war with Great Britain, 158.

Spanish possessions in North America, 37, 158, 182.

Spotswood, Alexander, 14.

Stamp Act, 4, 41, 52, 58, 124.

Stark, John, 39, 87, 134.

Staten Island, 109, 117, 122, 139, 178.

Steuben, Baron, 123, 150, 173, 177.

Stillwater, 132.

Stirling, William Alexander, called Lord, 112.

Stony Point, 156, 157, 163.

Strachey, Sir Henry, 151.

Stuart Kings, 17, 60.

Suffolk resolves, 85.

Sullivan, John, 90, 112, 153-155.

Sumter, Thomas, 165.

Sunbury, 163.

Supreme court, 191.

Sweden, 159.


Tarleton, Banastre, 165, 174.

Taxation, 16-20, 31, 52-54, 62.

Tea Party, Boston, 4, 79-83.

Tennessee, 155, 171, 187.

Throg's Neck, 114.

Ticonderoga, 87, 118, 125, 127, 128, 131, 134, 143.

Tories, 12, 60, 93, 126, 154, 155, 163, 184.

Town meetings, 7, 53.

Townshend Acts, 64-68, 76, 78;
  repealed, 144.

Treaty of peace, 182.

Tuscaroras, 29.


Union, want of, 34, 77, 161, 162, 182-191.


Valcour, Island, 118.

Venango, 33.

Vincennes, 156.

Virginia, 8, 21, 24, 47, 48, 76, 79, 96, 97, 173.


Walpole, Sir Robert, 31.

War expenses, 30-32, 36, 40, 41.

Ward, Artemas, 90, 117.

Warner, Seth, 87, 131, 134.

Warren, Joseph, 85, 86.

Washington, George, 1, 4, 5, 30, 55;
  his mission to Venango, 33;
  surrenders Fort Necessity, 33;
  in Virginia legislature, 76;
  in the Continental Congress, 84;
  appointed to command the army, 88;
  not yet in favour of independence, 89;
  takes command at Cambridge, 92;
  takes Boston, 94;
  addressed by Lord Howe, 106;
  his character as general and statesman, 110, 111;
  withdraws his army from Brooklyn Heights, 113;
  masterly campaign in New York and New Jersey, 114-122;
  endeavours to secure an efficient regular army, 123-125;
  campaign of June, 1777, in New Jersey, 139;
  Brandywine and Germantown, 141, 142;
  intrigues of his enemies, 148, 149;
  Monmouth, 151, 152;
  sends a force against the Iroquois, 154, 155;
  Stony Point, 156, 157;
  his favourite generals often ill used by Congress, 167;
  his superb march and capture of Yorktown, 178-180;
  scheme for making him king, 183;
  elected first president of the United States, 193.

Washington, William, 173.

Wayne, Anthony, 157, 177.

Webster, Daniel, 101.

West Point, 115, 117, 157, 170.

Western frontier posts, 185.

White Plains, 115, 129.

Wildcat banks, 20.

William III., 45.

Williams, James, 171.

Wilson, James, 98.

Winchester, Va., 26.

Winnsborough, S. C., 172.

Wright, Sir James, 164.

Writs of assistance, 4, 47.

Wyoming, 77, 154. 186.


Yorktown, 178-180.

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[Transcriber's Note: The following list of books has been combined from
the front and back matter and consolidated in one list here.]

RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES

_All prices are net, postpaid._

1.  Longfellow's Evangeline. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25. Nos. 1, 4, and
    30, one vol., _linen_, .50.

2.  Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish; Elizabeth. _Pa._, .15;
    _linen_, .25.

3.  A Dramatization of The Courtship of Miles Standish. _Paper_, .15.

4.  Whittier's Snow-Bound, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

5.  Whittier's Mabel Martin, etc. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 4, 5, one vol.,
    _linen_, .40.

6.  Holmes's Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, etc. _Paper_,
    .15; _linen_, .25. Nos. 6, 31, one vol., _linen_, .40.

7, 8, 9. Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair. In three parts. Each, _paper_,
    .15. Nos. 7, 8, 9, complete, one vol., _linen_, .50.

10. Hawthorne's Biographical Series. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25. Nos.
    29, 10, one vol., _linen_, .40.

11. Longfellow's Children's Hour, etc. _Pa._, .15. Nos. 11, 63, one
    vol., _linen_, .40.

12. Outlines--Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell. _Paper_, .15.

13, 14. Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. In two parts, each, _paper_, .15.
    Nos. 13, 14, complete, one vol., _linen_, .40.

15. Lowell's Under the Old Elm, etc. _Pa._, .15. Nos. 30, 15, one vol.,
    _lin._, .40.

16. Bayard Taylor's Lars. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

17, 18. Hawthorne's Wonder-Book. In two parts, each _paper_, .15. Nos.
    17, 18, complete, one vol., _linen_, .40.

19, 20. Franklin's Autobiography. In two parts, each, _paper_, .15. Nos.
    19, 20, complete, one vol., _linen_, .40.

21. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, etc. _Paper_, .15.

22, 23. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. In two parts, each, _paper_, .15.
    Nos. 22, 23, one vol., _linen_, .40.

24. Washington's Farewell Addresses, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

25, 26. Longfellow's Golden Legend. In two parts, each, _paper_, .15.
    Nos. 25, 26, one vol., _linen_, .40.

27. Thoreau's Forest Trees, etc. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 28, 37, 27, one
    vol., _linen_, .50.

28. Burroughs's Birds and Bees. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 28, 36, one vol.,
    _linen_, .40.

29. Hawthorne's Little Daffydowndilly, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

30. Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

31. Holmes's My Hunt after the Captain, etc. _Paper_, .15.

32. Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech, etc. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 133, 32, one
    vol., _linen_, .40.

33, 34, 35. Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. In three parts, each,
    _pa._, .15. Nos. 33, 34, 35, complete, one vol., _linen_, .50.

36. Burroughs's Sharp Eyes, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

37. Warner's A-Hunting of the Deer, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

38. Longfellow's Building of the Ship, etc. _Paper_, .15.

39. Lowell's Books and Libraries, etc. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 39, 123, one
    vol., _linen_, .40.

40. Hawthorne's Tales of the White Hills, etc. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 40,
    69, one vol., _linen_, .40.

41. Whittier's Tent on the Beach, etc. _Paper_, .15.

42. Emerson's Fortune of the Republic, etc. _Paper_, .15.

43. Ulysses among the Phæacians. Bryant. _Paper_, .15; _linen_,
    .25.

44. Edgeworth's Waste Not, Want Not, etc. _Paper_, .15.

45. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25

46. Old Testament Stories in Scripture Language. _Paper_, .15.

47, 48. Scudder's Fables and Folk Stories. In two parts, each, _paper_,
    .15. Nos. 47, 48, complete, one vol., _linen_, .40.

49, 50. Andersen's Stories. In two parts, each, _paper_, .15. Nos. 49,
    50, one vol., _linen_, .40.

51. Irving's Rip Van Winkle, etc. _Paper_, .15.

52. Irving's The Voyage, etc. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 51, 52, one vol.,
    _linen_, .40.

53. Scott's Lady of the Lake. _Paper_, .30. _Also, in Rolfe's Students'
    Series, to Teachers_, .53.

54. Bryant's Thanatopsis, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

55. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25. Nos.
    55, 67, one vol., _linen_, .40.

56. Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

57. Dickens's Christmas Carol. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

58. Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth. _Pa._, .15; Nos. 57, 58, one vol.,
    _linen_, .40.

59. Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

60, 61. Addison and Steele's The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. In two
    parts. Each, _paper_, .15.Nos. 60, 61, one vol., _linen_, .40.

62. Fiske's War of Independence. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

63. Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride, etc. _Paper_, .15.

64, 65, 66. Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare. In three parts, each,
    _paper_, .40. Nos. 64, 65, 66, one vol., _linen_, .50.

67. Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

68. Goldsmith's Deserted Village, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

69. Hawthorne's The Old Manse, etc. _Pa._, .15. Nos. 40, 69, one vol.,
    _linen_, .40.

70. A Selection from Whittier's Child Life in Poetry. _Paper_, .15.

71. A Selection from Whittier's Child Life in Prose. _Paper_, .15. Nos
    70, 71, one vol., _linen_, .40.

72. Milton's Minor Poems. _Pa._, .15; _linen_, .25. Nos. 72, 94, one
    vol., _linen_, .40.

73. Tennyson's Enoch Arden, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

74. Gray's Elegy, etc.; Cowper's John Gilpin, etc. _Paper_, .15.

75. Scudder's George Washington. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

76. Wordsworth's On the Intimations of Immortality, etc. _Paper_, .15.

77. Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

78. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

79. Lamb's Old China, etc. _Paper_, .15.

80. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, etc.; Campbell's Lochiel's Warning,
    etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

81. Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. _Paper_, .45; _linen_, .50.

82. Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. _Paper_, .50; _linen_, .60.

83. Eliot's Silas Marner. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

84. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. _Linen_, .60.

85. Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days. _Paper_, .45; _linen_, .50.

86. Scott's Ivanhoe. _Paper_, .50; _linen_, .60.

87. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. _Paper_, .50; _linen_, .60.

88. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. _Linen_, .60.

89. Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput. _Paper_, .15.

90. Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to Brobdingnag. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 89, 90,
    one vol., _linen_, .40.

91. Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables. _Paper_, .50; _linen_, .60.

92. Burroughs's A Bunch of Herbs, etc. _Paper_, .15.

93. Shakespeare's As You Like It. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

94. Milton's Paradise Lost. Books I-III. _Paper_, .15.

95, 96, 97, 98. Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. In four parts, each,
    _paper_, .15. Nos. 95-98, complete, _linen_, .60.

99. Tennyson's Coming of Arthur, etc. _Paper_, .15.

100. Burke's Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies. _Pa._, .15;
     _linen_, .25.

101. Pope's Iliad. Books I, VI, XXII, XXIV. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

102. Macaulay's Johnson and Goldsmith. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

103. Macaulay's Essay on John Milton, _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

104. Macaulay's Life and Writings of Addison. _Paper_, .15; _linen_,
     .25. Nos. 103, 104, one vol., _linen_, .40.

105. Carlyle's Essay on Burns. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

106. Shakespeare's Macbeth. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

107, 108. Grimms' Tales. In two parts, each, _paper_, .15. Nos. 107,
     108, one vol., _linen_, .40.

109. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

110. De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

111. Tennyson's Princess. _Paper_, .30. _Also, in Rolfe's Students'
     Series to Teachers_, .53.

112. Virgil's Æneid. Books I-III. Translated by CRANCH. _Paper_, .15.

113. Poems from Emerson. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 113, 42, one vol.,
     _linen_, .40.

114. Peabody's Old Greek Folk Stories. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

115. Browning's Pied Piper of Hamelin, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

116. Shakespeare's Hamlet. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

117, 118. Stories from the Arabian Nights. In two parts, each, _paper_,
     .15. Nos. 117, 118, one vol., _linen_, .40.

119. Poe's The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, etc. _Paper_, .15.

120. Poe's The Gold-Bug, etc. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 119, 120, one vol.,
     _linen_, .40.

121. Speech by Robert Young Hayne on Foote's Resolution. _Paper_, .15.

122. Speech by Daniel Webster in Reply to Hayne. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 121,
     122, one vol., _linen_, .40.

123. Lowell's Democracy, etc. _Paper_, .15. Nos. 39, 123, one vol.,
     _linen_, .40.

124. Aldrich's Baby Bell, etc. _Paper_, .15.

125. Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

126. Ruskin's King of the Golden River, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

127. Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn, etc. _Paper_, .15.

128. Byron's Prisoner of Chillon, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

129. Plato's Judgment of Socrates. Translated by P. E. MORN. _Paper_, .15.

130. Emerson's The Superlative, and Other Essays. _Paper_, .15.

131. Emerson's Nature, and Compensation. _Paper_, .15.

132. Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

133. Schurz's Abraham Lincoln. _Paper_, .15.

134. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. _Paper_, .30. _Also in Rolfe's
     Students' Series, to Teachers_, _net_ .50.

135. Chaucer's Prologue. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

136. Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, and The Nun's Priest's Tale._Paper_,
     .15. Nos. 135, 136, one vol., _linen_, .40.

137. Bryant's Iliad. Books I, VI, XXII, and XXIV. _Paper_, .15.

138. Hawthorne's The Custom House, and Main Street. _Paper_, .15.

139. Howells's Doorstep Acquaintance, and Other Sketches. _Paper_, .15.

140. Thackeray's Henry Esmond. _Linen_, .75.

141. Three Outdoor Papers, by THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. _Paper_, .15.

142. Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

143. Plutarch's Life of Alexander the Great. North's Translation.
     _Paper_, .15.

144. Scudder's The Book of Legends, _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

145. Hawthorne's The Gentle Boy, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

146. Longfellow's Giles Corey. _Paper_, .15.

147. Pope's Rape of the Lock, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

148. Hawthorne's Marble Faun. _Linen_, .60.

149. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

150. Ouida's Dog of Flanders, and the Nürnberg Stove. _Paper_, .15;
     _linen_, .25.

151. Ewing's Jackanapes, and The Brownies. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

152. Martineau's The Peasant and the Prince. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

153. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

154. Shakespeare's Tempest. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

155. Irving's Life of Goldsmith. _Paper_, .45; _linen_, .50.

156. Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, etc. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

157. The Song of Roland. Translated by ISABEL BUTLER. _Paper_, .30;
     _linen_, .40.

158. Malory's Book of Merlin and Book of Sir Balin. _Paper_, .15;
     _linen_, .25.

159. Beowulf. Translated by C. G. CHILD. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

160. Spenser's Faerie Queene. Book I. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

161. Dickens's Tale of Two Cities. _Paper_, .45; _linen_, .50.

162. Prose and Poetry of Cardinal Newman. Selections. _Paper_, .30;
     _linen_, .40.

163. Shakespeare's Henry V. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

164. De Quincey's Joan of Arc, and The English Mail-Coach. _Pa._, .15;
     _lin._, .25.

165. Scott's Quentin Durward. _Paper_, .50; _linen_, .60.

166. Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship. _Paper_, .45; _linen_, .50.

167. Norton's Memoir of Longfellow. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

168. Shelley's Poems. Selected. _Paper_, .40; _linen_, .50.

169. Lowell's My Garden Acquaintance, etc. _Paper_, .15.

170. Lamb's Essays of Elia. Selected. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

171, 172. Emerson's Essays. Selected. In two parts, each, _paper_, .15.
     Nos. 171, 172, one vol., _linen_, .40.

173. Kate Douglas Wiggin's Flag-Raising. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

174. Kate Douglas Wiggin's Finding a Home. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

175. Bliss Perry's Memoir of Whittier. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

176. Burroughs's Afoot and Afloat. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

177. Bacon's Essays. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

178. Selections from the Works of John Ruskin. _Paper_, .45; _linen_, .50.

179. King Arthur Stories from Malory. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

180. Palmer's Odyssey. _Abridged Edition._ _Linen_, .75.

181, 182. Goldsmith's The Good-Natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer.
     Each, _paper_, .15; in one vol., _linen_, .40.

183. Old English and Scottish Ballads. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

184. Shakespeare's King Lear. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

185. Moores's Abraham Lincoln. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

186. Thoreau's Katahdin and Chesuncook. _Paper_, .15; _linen_, .25.

_EXTRA NUMBERS_

_A_ American Authors and their Birthdays. _Paper_, .15.

_B_ Portraits and Biographical Sketches of 20 American Authors. _Paper_,
    .15.

_C_ A Longfellow Night. _Paper_, .15.

_D_ Scudder's Literature in School. _Paper_, .15.

_E_ Dialogue and Scenes from Harriet Beecher Stowe. _Paper_, .15.

_F_ Longfellow Leaflets. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

_G_ Whittier Leaflets. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, _net_, .40.

_H_ Holmes Leaflets. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

_J_ Holbrook's Northland Heroes. _Linen_, .35.

_K_ The Riverside Primer and Reader. _Linen_, .30.

_L_ The Riverside Song Book. _Paper_, .30; _boards_, .40.

_M_ Lowell's Fable for Critics. _Paper_, .30.

_N_ Selections from the Writings of Eleven American Authors. _Paper_, .15.

_O_ Lowell Leaflets. _Paper_, .30; _linen_, .40.

_P_ Holbrook's Hiawatha Primer. _Linen_, .40.

_Q_ Selections from the Writings of Eleven English Authors. _Paper_, .15.

_R_ Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. Selected. _Paper_, .20; _linen_, .30.

_S_ Irving's Essays from Sketch Book. Selected. _Paper_, .30; _linen_,
    .40.

_T_ Literature for the Study of Language (N. D. Course). _Paper_, .30;
    _linen_, .40.

_U_ A Dramatization of The Song of Hiawatha. _Paper_, .15.

_V_ Holbrook's Book of Nature Myths. _Linen_, .45.

_W_ Brown's In the Days of Giants. _Linen_, .50.

_X_ Poems for the Study of Language (Illinois Course of Study). _Pa._,
    .30; _lin._, .40. Also in three parts, each, _paper_, .15.

_Y_ Warner's In the Wilderness. _Paper_, .20; _linen_, .30.

_Z_ Nine Selected Poems. _N. Y. Regents' Requirements._ _Paper_, .15;
    _linen_, .25.





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