The American Revolution Part 9

Whereas many of Our Subjects in divers Parts of Our Colonies and Plantations in _North America_, misled by dangerous and ill-designing Men, and forgetting the Allegiance which they owe to the Power that has protected and sustained them, after various disorderly Acts committed in Disturbance of the Publick Peace, to the Obstruction of lawful Commerce, and to the Oppression of Our loyal Subjects carrying on the same, have at length proceeded to an open and avowed Rebellion, by arraying themselves in hostile Manner to withstand the Execution of the Law, and traitorously preparing, ordering, and levying War against Us. And whereas there is Reason to apprehend that such Rebellion hath been much promoted and encouraged by the traitorous Correspondence, Counsels, and Comfort of divers wicked and desperate Persons within this Realm: To the End therefore that none of Our Subjects may neglect or violate their Duty through Ignorance thereof, or through any Doubt of the Protection which the Law will afford to their Loyalty and Zeal; We have thought fit, by and with the Advice of Our Privy Council, to issue this Our Royal Proclamation, hereby declaring that not only all Our Officers Civil and Military are obliged to exert their utmost Endeavours to suppress such Rebellion, and to bring the Traitors to Justice; but that all Our Subjects of this Realm and the Dominions thereunto belonging are bound by Law to be aiding and a.s.sisting in the Suppression of such Rebellion, and to disclose and make known all traitorous Conspiracies and Attempts against Us, Our Crown and Dignity; And We do accordingly strictly charge and command all Our Officers as well Civil as Military, and all other Our obedient and loyal Subjects, to use their utmost Endeavours to withstand and suppress such Rebellion, and to disclose and make known all Treasons and traitorous Conspiracies which they shall know to be against Us, Our Crown and Dignity; and for that Purpose, that they transmit to One of Our Princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State, or other proper Officer, due and full Information of all Persons who shall be found carrying on Correspondence with, or in any Manner or Degree aiding or abetting the Persons now in open Arms and Rebellion against Our Government within any of Our Colonies and Plantations in _North America_, in order to bring to condign Punishment the Authors, Perpetrators, and Abettors of such traitorous Designs.

Given at Our Court at _St. James's_, the Twenty-third day of _August_, One thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, in the Fifteenth Year of Our Reign.

G.o.d save the King.

LONDON:

Printed by _Charles Eyre_ and _William Strahan_, Printers to the King's most Excellent Majesty. 1775.

[Sidenote: The king issues a proclamation, and tries to hire troops from Russia]

[Sidenote: Catherine refuses]

[Sidenote: The king hires German troops]

[Sidenote: Indignation in Germany]

Penn made all possible haste, and arrived in London on the 14th of August; but when he got there the king would neither see him nor receive the pet.i.tion in any way, directly or indirectly. The Congress was an illegal a.s.sembly which had no business to send letters to him: if any one of the colonies wanted to make terms for itself separately, he might be willing to listen to it. But this idea of a united America was something unknown either to law or to reason, something that could not be too summarily frowned down. So while Penn waited about London, the king issued a proclamation; setting forth that many of his subjects in the colonies were in open and armed rebellion, and calling upon all loyal subjects of the realm to a.s.sist in bringing to condign punishment the authors and abettors of this foul treason. Having launched this thunderbolt, George sent at once to Russia to see if he could hire 20,000 men to aid in giving it effect, for the "loyal subjects of the realm" were slow in coming forward. A war against the Americans was not yet popular in England. Lord Chatham withdrew his eldest son, Lord Pitt, from the army, lest he should be called upon to serve against the men who were defending the common liberties of Englishmen. There was, moreover, in England as well as in America, a distrust of regular armies. Recruiting was difficult, and conscription was something that the people would not endure unless England should actually be threatened with invasion. The king had already been obliged to raise a force of his Hanoverian subjects to garrison Minorca and Gibraltar, thus setting free the British defenders of these strongholds for service in America. He had no further resource except in hiring troops from abroad. But his attempt in Russia was not successful, for the Empress Catherine, with all her faults, was not disposed to sell the blood of her subjects. She improved the occasion--as sovereigns and others will sometimes do--by asking George, sarcastically, if he thought it quite compatible with his dignity to employ foreign troops against his own subjects; as for Russian soldiers, she had none to spare for such a purpose. Foiled in this quarter, the king applied to the Duke of Brunswick, the Landgrave of Hesse-Ca.s.sel, the princes of Waldeck and Anhalt-Zerbst, the Margrave of Ans.p.a.ch-Bayreuth, and the Count of Hesse-Hanau, and succeeded in making a bargain for 20,000 of the finest infantry in Europe, with four good generals,--Riedesel of Brunswick, and Knyphausen, Von Heister, and Donop of Hesse. The hiring of these troops was bitterly condemned by Lord John Cavendish in the House of Commons, and by Lords Camden and Shelburne and the Duke of Richmond in the House of Lords; and Chatham's indignant invectives at a somewhat later date are familiar to every one.

It is proper, however, that in such an affair as this we should take care to affix our blame in the right place. The king might well argue that in carrying on a war for what the majority of Parliament regarded as a righteous object, it was no worse for him to hire men than to buy cannon and ships. The German troops, on their part, might justly complain of Lord Camden for stigmatizing them as "mercenaries," inasmuch as they did not come to America for pay, but because there was no help for it. It was indeed with a heavy heart that these honest men took up their arms to go beyond sea and fight for a cause in which they felt no sort of interest, and great was the mourning over their departure. The persons who really deserved to bear the odium of this transaction were the mercenary princes who thus shamelessly sold their subjects into slavery. It was a striking instance of the demoralization which had been wrought among the petty courts of Germany in the last days of the old empire, and among the German people it excited profound indignation.

The popular feeling was well expressed by Schiller, in his "Cabale und Liebe." Frederick the Great, in a letter to Voltaire, declared himself beyond measure disgusted, and by way of thriftily expressing his contempt for the transaction he gave orders to his custom house officers that upon all such of these soldiers as should pa.s.s through Prussian territory a toll should be levied, as upon "cattle exported for foreign shambles."

[Sidenote: Burning of Portland, Oct 16, 1775]

When the American question was brought up in the autumn session of Parliament, it was treated in the manner with which the Americans had by this time become familiar. A few far-sighted men still urged the reasonableness of the American claims, but there was now a great majority against them. In spite of grave warning voices, both houses decided to support the king; and in this they were upheld by the university of Oxford, which a century ago had burned the works of John Milton as "blasphemous," and which now, with equal felicity, in a formal address to the king, described the Americans as "a people who had forfeited their lives and their fortunes to the justice of the state."

At the same time the department of American affairs was taken from the amiable Lord Dartmouth, and given to the truculent Lord George Germain.

These things were done in November, 1775, and in the preceding month they had been heralded by an act of wanton barbarity on the part of a British naval officer, albeit an unwarranted act, which the British government as promptly as possible disowned. On the 16th of October, Captain Mowatt had sailed with four small vessels into the harbour of Portland (then called Falmouth), and with sh.e.l.ls and grenades set fire to the little town. St. Paul's Church, all the public buildings, and three fourths of all the dwellings were burned to the ground, and a thousand unoffending men, women, and children were thus turned out-of-doors just as the sharp Maine winter was coming on to starve and freeze them.

The news of the burning of Portland reached Philadelphia on the same day (October 31) with the news that George III. was about to send foreign mercenaries to fight against his American subjects; and now the wrath of Congress was thoroughly kindled, and the party which advised further temporizing was thrown into helpless minority.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CONTEMPORARY SKETCH OF THE BURNING OF FALMOUTH]

[Sidenote: Effects upon Congress]

"Well, brother rebel," said a Southern member to Samuel Ward of Rhode Island, "we have now got a sufficient answer to our pet.i.tion: I want nothing more, but am ready to declare ourselves independent." Congress now advised New Hampshire, Virginia, and South Carolina to frame for themselves new republican governments, as Ma.s.sachusetts had already done; it urged South Carolina to seize the British vessels in her waters; it appointed a committee to correspond with foreign powers; and above all, it adopted unreservedly the scheme, already partially carried into operation, for the expulsion of the British from Canada.

[Portrait: Guy Carleton]

[Portrait: Rich^d. Montgomery]

[Sidenote: The Americans invade Canada, Sept., 1775]

At once upon the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington, the conquest of Canada had been contemplated by the Northern leaders, who well remembered how, in days gone by, the valley of the St. Lawrence had furnished a base for attacks upon the province of New York, which was then the strategic centre of the American world. It was deemed an act of military prudence to secure this region at the outset. But so long as the least hope of conciliation remained, Congress was unwilling to adopt any measures save such as were purely defensive in character. As we have seen, it was only with reluctance that it had sanctioned the garrisoning of Ticonderoga by the Connecticut troops. But in the course of the summer it was learned that the governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, was about to take steps to recover Ticonderoga; and it was credibly reported that intrigues were going on with the Iroquois tribes, to induce them to harry the New England frontier and the pleasant farms on the Hudson: so that, under these circ.u.mstances, the invasion of Canada was now authorized by Congress as a measure of self-defence. An expedition down Lake Champlain, against Montreal, was at once set on foot. As Schuyler, the commander of the northern department, was disabled by ill health, the enterprise was confided to Richard Montgomery, an officer who had served with distinction under Wolfe. Late in August, Montgomery started from Ticonderoga, and on the 12th of September, with a force of two thousand men, he laid siege to the fortress of St. John's, which commanded the approach to Montreal.

Carleton, whose utmost exertions could bring together only some nine hundred men, made heroic but fruitless efforts to stop his progress.

After a siege of fifty days, St. John's surrendered on the 3d of November, and on the 12th Montgomery entered Montreal in triumph. The people of Canada had thus far seemed favourably disposed toward the American invaders, and Montgomery issued a proclamation urging them to lose no time in choosing delegates to attend the Continental Congress.

[Sidenote: Arnold's march through the wilderness of Maine]

Meanwhile, in September, Washington had detached from the army at Cambridge one thousand New England infantry, with two companies of Pennsylvania riflemen and Morgan's famous Virginia sharpshooters, and ordered them to advance upon Quebec through the forests of Maine and by way of the rivers Kennebec and Chaudiere. The expedition was commanded by Colonel Benedict Arnold, who seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to suggest it. Such plans of invading an enemy's territory, involving the march of independent forces upon convergent lines from remote points, were much more in favour with military men a century ago than to-day. The vice of such methods was often ill.u.s.trated during our Revolutionary War. The vast distances and total lack of communication made effective cooperation between Montgomery and Arnold impossible; while a surprise of Quebec by the latter, with force sufficient to capture it unaided, was almost equally out of the question. But the very difficulty of the scheme commended it to the romantic and buoyant temper of Benedict Arnold. The enterprise was one to call for all his persistent daring and fertile resource. It was an amphibious journey, as his men now rowed their boats with difficulty against the strong, swift current of the Kennebec, and now, carrying boats and oars on their shoulders, forced their way through the tangled undergrowth of the primeval forests. Often they had to wade across perilous bogs, and presently their shoes were cut to pieces by sharp stones, and their clothes torn to shreds by thorns and briers. Their food gave out, and though some small game was shot, their hunger became such that they devoured their dogs. When they reached the head of the Chaudiere, after this terrible march of thirty-three days, two hundred of their number had succ.u.mbed to starvation, cold, and fatigue, while two hundred more had given out and returned to Ma.s.sachusetts, carrying with them such of the sick and disabled as they could save. The descent of the Chaudiere in their boats afforded some chance for rest, and presently they began to find cattle for food. At last, on the 13th of November, the next day after Montgomery's capture of Montreal, they crossed the broad St. Lawrence, and climbed the Heights of Abraham at the very place where Wolfe had climbed to victory sixteen years ago.

There was splendid bravado in Arnold's advancing to the very gates with his little, worn-out army, now reduced to seven hundred men, and summoning the garrison either to come out and fight, or to surrender the town. But the garrison very properly would neither surrender nor fight.

The town had been warned in time, and Arnold had no alternative but to wait for Montgomery to join him.

[Sidenote: a.s.sault upon Quebec, Dec. 31, 1775]

Six days afterward, Carleton, disguised as a farmer, and ferried down stream in a little boat, found his way into Quebec; and on the 3d of December, Montgomery made his appearance with a small force, which raised the number of the Americans to twelve hundred men. As Carleton persistently refused to come out of his defences, it was resolved to carry the works by storm,--a chivalrous, nay, one might almost say, a foolhardy decision, had it not been so nearly justified by the event. On the last day of 1775, England came within an ace of losing Quebec. At two o'clock in the morning, in a blinding snowstorm, Montgomery and Arnold began each a furious attack, at opposite sides of the town; and aided by the surprise, each came near carrying his point. Montgomery had almost forced his way in when he fell dead, pierced by three bullets; and this so chilled the enthusiasm of his men that they flagged, until reinforcements drove them back. Arnold, on his side, was severely wounded and carried from the field; but the indomitable Morgan took his place, and his Virginia company stormed the battery opposed to them, and fought their way far into the town. Had the attack on the other side been kept up with equal vigour, as it might have been but for Montgomery's death, Quebec must have fallen. As it was, Morgan's triumphant advance only served to isolate him, and presently he and his gallant company were surrounded and captured.

[Sidenote: Total failure of the attempt upon Canada]

With the failure of this desperate attack pa.s.sed away the golden opportunity for taking the citadel of Canada. Arnold remained throughout the winter in the neighbourhood of Quebec, and in the spring the enterprise was taken up by Wooster and Sullivan with fresh forces. But by this time many Hessians had come over, and Carleton, reinforced until his army numbered 13,000, was enabled to recapture Montreal and push back the Americans, until in June, after a hazardous retreat, well conducted by Sullivan, the remnant of their invading army found shelter at Crown Point. Such was the disastrous ending of a campaign which at the outset had promised a brilliant success, and which is deservedly famous for the heroism and skill with which it was conducted. The generalship of Montgomery received the warm approval of no less a critic than Frederick the Great; and the chivalrous bravery of Arnold, both in his march through the wilderness and in the military operations which followed, was such that if a kind fate could then and there have cut the thread of his life, he would have left behind him a sweet and shining memory. As for the attempt to bring Canada into the American union, it was one which had no hope of success save through a strong display of military force. The sixteen years which had elapsed since the victory of Wolfe had not transformed the Canadian of the old _regime_ into a free-born Englishman. The question at present for him was only that of a choice of allegiance, and while at first the invaders were favourably received, it soon became apparent that between the Catholic and the Puritan there could be but little real sympathy. The Quebec Act, which legalized Catholic worship in Canada, had done much toward securing England's hold upon this part of her American possessions. And although, in the colourless political condition of this northern province, the capture of Quebec might well have brought it into the American union, where it would gradually have taken on a fresh life, as surely as it has done under British guidance, yet nothing short of such a military occupation could have had any effect in determining its languid preferences.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HANc.o.c.k HOUSE, BEACON HILL, BOSTON]

[Sidenote: The siege of Boston]

While Canada was thus freed from the presence of the Continental troops, the British army, on the other hand, was driven from Boston, and New England was cleared of the enemy. During the autumn and winter, Washington had drawn his lines as closely as possible about the town, while engaged in the work of organizing and equipping his army. The hardest task was to collect a sufficient quant.i.ty of powder and ball, and to bring together siege-guns. As the season wore on, the country grew impatient, and Washington sometimes had to listen to criticisms like those that were directed against McClellan in Virginia, at the beginning of 1862, or against Grant before Vicksburg, in the spring of 1863. President Hanc.o.c.k, who owned a great deal of property in Boston, urged him to set fire to the town and destroy it, if by so doing he could drive the British to their ships. But Washington had planned much more wisely. By the 1st of March a great quant.i.ty of cannon had been brought in by Henry Knox, some of them dragged on sledges all the way from Ticonderoga, and so at last Washington felt himself prepared to seize upon Dorchester Heights. This position commanded the town and harbour even more effectually than Bunker Hill, and why in all these months General Howe had not occupied it one would find it hard to say.

He was bitterly attacked for his remissness by the British newspapers, as was quite natural.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOSTON, WITH ITS ENVIRONS, IN 1775 AND 1776]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEDAL GRANTED TO WASHINGTON FOR HIS CAPTURE OF BOSTON]

[Sidenote: Washington seizes Dorchester Heights March 4, 1776]

[Sidenote: The British troops evacuate Boston March 17, 1776]

Washington chose for his decisive movement the night of the 4th of March. Eight hundred men led the way, escorting the wagons laden with spades and crowbars, hatchets, hammers, and nails; and after them followed twelve hundred men, with three hundred ox-carts, carrying timbers and bales of hay; while the rear was brought up by the heavy siege-guns. From Somerville, East Cambridge, and Roxbury, a furious cannonade was begun soon after sunset and kept up through the night, completely absorbing the attention of the British, who kept up a lively fire in return. The roar of the cannon drowned every other sound for miles around, while all night long the two thousand Americans, having done their short march in perfect secrecy, were busily digging and building on Dorchester Heights, and dragging their siege-guns into position. Early next morning, Howe saw with astonishment what had been done, and began to realize his perilous situation. The commander of the fleet sent word that unless the Americans could be forthwith dislodged, he could not venture to keep his ships in the harbour. Most of the day was consumed in deciding what should be done, until at last Lord Percy was told to take three thousand men and storm the works. But the slaughter of Bunker Hill had taught its lesson so well that neither Percy nor his men had any stomach for such an enterprise. A violent storm, coming up toward nightfall, persuaded them to delay the attack till next day, and by that time it had become apparent to all that the American works, continually growing, had become impregnable. Percy's orders were accordingly countermanded, and it was decided to abandon the town immediately. It was the sixth anniversary of the day on which Hutchinson had yielded to the demand of the town meeting and withdrawn the two British regiments from Boston. The work then begun was now consummated by Washington, and from that time forth the deliverance of Ma.s.sachusetts was complete. Howe caused it at once to be known among the citizens that he was about to evacuate Boston, but he threatened to lay the town in ashes if his troops should be fired on. The selectmen conveyed due information of all this to Washington, who accordingly, secure in the achievement of his purpose, allowed the enemy to depart in peace. By the 17th, the eight thousand troops were all on board their ships, and, taking with them all the Tory citizens, some nine hundred in number, they sailed away for Halifax. Their s.p.a.ce did not permit them to carry away their heavy arms, and their retreat, slow as it was, bore marks of hurry and confusion. In taking possession of the town, Washington captured more than two hundred serviceable cannon, ten times more powder and ball than his army had ever seen before, and an immense quant.i.ty of muskets, gun-carriages, and military stores of every sort.

Thus was New England set free by a single brilliant stroke, with very slight injury to private property, and with a total loss of not more than twenty lives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EVOLUTION OF THE UNITED STATES FLAG[8]]

[Sidenote: A provisional flag]

[Sidenote: Effect of the hiring of "myrmidons"]

The time was now fairly ripe for the colonies to declare themselves independent of Great Britain. The idea of a separation from the mother-country, which in the autumn had found but few supporters, grew in favour day by day through the winter and spring. The incongruousness of the present situation was typified by the flag that Washington flung to the breeze on New Year's Day at Cambridge, which was made up of thirteen stripes, to represent the United Colonies, but retained the British crosses in the corner. Thus far, said Benjamin Harrison, they had contrived to "hobble along under a fatal attachment to Great Britain," but the time had come when one must consider the welfare of one's own country first of all. As Samuel Adams said, their pet.i.tions had not been heard, and yet had been answered by armies and fleets, and by myrmidons hired from abroad. Nothing had made a greater impression upon the American people than this hiring of German troops. It went farther than any other single cause to ripen their minds for the declaration of independence. Many now began to agree with the Ma.s.sachusetts statesman; and while public opinion was in this malleable condition, there appeared a pamphlet which wrought a prodigious effect upon the people, mainly because it gave terse and vigorous expression to views which every one had already more than half formed for himself.

[Portrait: T. Paine]

[Sidenote: "Common Sense"]

Thomas Paine had come over to America in December, 1774, and through the favour of Franklin had secured employment as editor of the "Pennsylvania Magazine." He was by nature a dissenter and a revolutionist to the marrow of his bones. Full of the generous though often blind enthusiasm of the eighteenth century for the "rights of man," he was no respecter of the established order, whether in church or state. To him the church and its doctrines meant slavish superst.i.tion, and the state meant tyranny. Of crude undisciplined mind, and little scholarship, yet endowed with native acuteness and sagacity, and with no mean power of expressing himself, Paine succeeded in making everybody read what he wrote, and achieved a popular reputation out of all proportion to his real merit. Among devout American families his name was for a long time a name of horror and opprobrium, and uneducated free thinkers still build lecture-halls in honour of his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday, with speeches full of harmless but rather dismal plat.i.tudes. The "Age of Reason," which was the cause of all this blessing and banning, contains, amid much crude argument, some sound and sensible criticism, such as is often far exceeded in boldness in the books and sermons of Unitarian and Episcopalian divines of the present day; but its tone is coa.r.s.e and dull, and with the improvement of popular education it is fast sinking into oblivion. There are times, however, when such caustic pamphleteers as Thomas Paine have their uses.

There are times when they can bring about results which are not so easily achieved by men of finer mould and more subtle intelligence. It was at just such a time, in January, 1776, that Paine published his pamphlet, "Common Sense," on the suggestion of Benjamin Rush, and with the approval of Franklin and of Samuel Adams. The pamphlet contains some irrelevant abuse of the English people, and resorts to such arguments as the denial of the English origin of the Americans. Not one third of the people, _even_ of Pennsylvania, are of English descent, argues Paine, as if Pennsylvania had been preeminent among the colonies for its English blood, and not, as in reality, one of the least English of all the thirteen. But along with all this there was a sensible and striking statement of the practical state of the case between Great Britain and the colonies. The reasons were shrewdly and vividly set forth for looking upon reconciliation as hopeless, and for seizing the present moment to declare to the world what the logic of events was already fast making an accomplished fact. Only thus, it was urged, could the States of America pursue a coherent and well-defined policy, and preserve their dignity in the eyes of the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PAGE FROM "COMMON SENSE"

84 COMMON SENSE

The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a City, a County, a Province or a Kingdom; but of a Continent--of at least one eight part of the habitable Globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time by the proceedings now. Now Is the seed-time of Continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.