The Loyalist Part 22

"Is the Captain home?"

"I saw him t' other day. He is goin' t' Boston t' command the _Raleigh_, a thirty-two gunner. But one's no good. He needs a fleet."

"Thank G.o.d! The French have come. Peace is here now."

"It's money we need more'n soldiers. We can git an army right here if we could only pay 'em. No one 'll fight fur nuthin'. They're starvin' as much as us."

The fact that the hopes of this American couple had suffered a partial collapse, must be attributed rather to the internal state of affairs than to the military situation. While it is true that no great military objective had been gained as a result of the three years of fighting, yet the odds at the present moment were decidedly on the American side.

Still the country was without anything fit to be called a general government. The Articles of Confederation, which were intended to establish a league of friendship between the thirteen states, had not yet been adopted. The Continental Congress, continuing to decline in reputation and capacity, provoked a feeling of utter weariness and intense depression. The energies and resources of the people were without organization.

Resources they had. There was also a vigorous and an animated spirit of patriotism, but there were no means of concentrating and utilizing these a.s.sets. It was the general administrative paralysis rather than any real poverty that tried the souls of the colonists. They heartily approved of the war; Washington now held a higher place in their hearts than he had ever held before; peace seemed a certainty the longer the war endured. But they were weary of the struggle and handicapped by the internal condition of affairs.

Jim and his wife typified the members of the poorer cla.s.s, the cla.s.s upon whom the war had descended with all its horror and cruelty and desolation. Whatever scanty possessions they had, cows, corn, wheat or flour, had been seized by the foraging parties of the opposing forces, while their horse and wagon had been impressed into the service of the British, at the time of the evacuation of the city, to cart away the stores and provisions. A means of occupation had been denied Jim during the period of stagnation and what mere existence could now be eked out depended solely in the tillage of the land upon which he dwelled.

Nevertheless the Cadwaladers maintained their outward cheer and apparent optimism throughout it all but still they yearned inwardly for the day when strife would be no more.

"I can't see as t' how we're goin' to git off eny better when this here whole thin's over. We're fightin' fur independence, but the peopul don't want to change their guver'ment; Washington 'll be king when this is over."

Jim was ruminating aloud, stripping with his thumb nail the bark from a small branch which he had picked from the ground.

"'Twas the Quebec Act th' done it. It was supposed to reestablish Popery in Canada, and did by right. But th' Americans, and mostly those in New England who are the worst kind of Dissenters and Whigs got skeered because they thought the Church o' England or the Church o' Rome 'd be the next thing established in the Colonies. That's what brought on the war."

"We all don't believe that. Some do; but I don't."

"You don't?" he asked, without lifting his eyes to look at her. "Well you kin. Wasn't the first thing they did up in New England to rush t'

Canada t' capture the country or else t' form an alliance with it? And didn't our own Arnold try t' git revenge on it fur not sidin' in with him by plunderin' th' homes of th' peopul up there and sendin' the goods back to Ticonderoga?"

She made no reply, but continued to peer into the distance.

"And didn't our Congress send a pet.i.tion to King George t' have 'm repeal the limits o' Quebec and to the peopul t' tell 'm the English Guver'ment 'is not authorized to establish a religion fraught with sanguary 'r impius tenets'? I know 'cause I read it."

"It makes no diff'rence now. It's over."

"Well it shows the kind o' peopul here. They're so afreed o' the Pope."

She waved her hand in a manner of greeting.

"Who's that?" asked Jim.

"Marjorie."

He turned sideways looking over his shoulder.

Then he stood up.

II

That there was more than a grain of truth in the a.s.sertion of Jim Cadwalader that the war for Independence had, like the great rivers of the country, many sources, cannot be gainsaid. There were oppressive tax laws as well as restrictions on popular rights. There were odious navigation acts together with a host of iniquitous, tyrannical measures which were destined to arouse the ire of any people however loyal. But there were religious prejudices which were likewise a moving cause of the revolt, a moving force upon the minds of the people at large. And these were utilized and systematized most effectively by the active malcontents and leaders of the strife.

The vast majority of the population of the Colonies were Dissenters, subjects of the crown who disagreed with it in matters of religious belief and who had emigrated thither to secure a haven where they might worship their G.o.d according to the dictates of their own conscience rather than at the dictates of a body politic. The Puritans had sought refuge in Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut where the white spires of their meeting houses, projecting above the angles of the New England hills, became indicative of Congregationalism. Roger Williams and the Baptists found a harbor in Rhode Island. William Penn brought the Quaker colony to Pennsylvania. Captain Thomas Webb lent active measures to the establishment of Methodism in New York and in Maryland, while the colony of Virginia afforded protection to the adherents of the Established Church. The country was in the main Protestant, save for the vestiges of Catholicity left by the Franciscan and Jesuit Missionary Fathers, who penetrated the boundless wastes in an heroic endeavor to plant the seeds of their faith in the rich and fertile soil of the new and unexplored continent.

Consequently with the pa.s.sage of the Quebec Act in 1774 a wave of indignation and pa.s.sionate apprehension swept the country from the American Patriots of Boston to the English settlements on the west. That large and influential members of the Protestant religion were being a.s.sailed and threatened with oppression and that the fear of Popery, recently reestablished in Canada, became an incentive for armed resistance, proved to be motives of great concern. They even reminded King George of these calamities and emphatically declared themselves Protestants, faithful to the principles of 1688, faithful to the ideals of the "Glorious Revolution" against James II, faithful to the House of Hanover, then seated on the throne.

"Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic Church?"

asked John Adams of Thomas Jefferson. This simple question embodied in concrete form the apprehensions of the country at large, whose inhabitants had now become firmly convinced that King George, in granting the Quebec Bill, had become a traitor, had broken his coronation oath, was a Papist at heart, and was scheming to submit this country to the unconst.i.tutional power of the English monarch. It was not so much a contest between peoples as a conflict of principles, political and religious, the latter of which contributed the active force that brought on the revolt and gave it power.

III

Strange to relate, there came a decided reversal of position after the formation of the French Alliance. No longer was the Catholic religion simply tolerated; it was openly professed, and, owing in a great measure to the unwearied labors of the Dominican and Franciscan friars, made the utmost progress among all ranks of people. The fault of the Catholic population was anything but disloyalty, it was found, and their manner of life, their absolute sincerity in their religious convictions, their generous and altruistic interest in matters of concern to the public good, proved irrefutable arguments against the calumnies and vilifications of earlier days. The Const.i.tutions adopted by the several states and the laws pa.s.sed to regulate the new governments show that the principles of religious freedom and equality had made progress during the war and were to be incorporated as vital factors in the shaping of the destinies of the new nation.

The supreme importance of the French Alliance at this juncture cannot be overestimated. Coming, as it did, at a time when the depression of the people had reached the lowest ebb, when the remnant of the army of the Americans was enduring the severities of the winter season at Valley Forge, when the enemy was in possession of the fairest part of the country together with the two most important cities, when Congress could not pay its bills, nor meet the national debt which alone exceeded forty million dollars,--when the medium of exchange would not circulate because of its worthlessness, when private debts could not be collected and when credit was generally prostrated, the Alliance proved a benefit of incalculable value to the struggling nation, not only in the enormous resources which it supplied to the army but in the general morale of the people which it made buoyant.

The capture of Burgoyne and the announcement that Lord North was about to bring in conciliatory measures furnished convincing proof to France that the American Alliance was worth having. A treaty was drawn up by virtue of which the Americans solemnly agreed, in consideration of armed support to be furnished by France, never to entertain proposals of peace with Great Britain until their independence should be acknowledged, and never to conclude a treaty of peace except with the concurrence of their new ally.

Large sums of money were at once furnished the American Congress. A strong force of trained soldiers was sent to act under Washington's command. A powerful fleet was soon to set sail for American waters and the French forces at home were directed to cripple the military power of England and to lock up and neutralize much British energy which would otherwise be directed against the Americans. Small wonder that a new era began to dawn for the Colonists!

When we remember the anti-Catholic spirit of the first years of the Revolution and consider the freedom of action which came to the Catholics as a consequence of the French Alliance, another and a striking phase of its influence is revealed. The Catholic priests. .h.i.therto seen in the colonies had been barely tolerated in the limited districts where they labored. Now came Catholic chaplains of foreign emba.s.sies; army and navy chaplains celebrating ma.s.s with pomp on the men-of-war and in the camps and cities. The French chaplains were brought in contact with all cla.s.ses of the people in all parts of the country and the ma.s.ses said in the French lines were attended by many who had never before witnessed a Catholic ceremony. Even Rhode Island, with a French fleet in her waters, blotted from her statute-book a law against Catholics.

IV

"What have we here, Marjorie?" asked Jim as he walked part of the way to meet her.

"Just a few ribs of pork. I thought that you might like them."

She gave Jim the basket and walked over to Mrs. Cadwalader and kissed her.

"Heaven bless you, Marjorie," exclaimed Nancy as she took hold of the girl's hands and held them.

"Oh, thank you! But it is nothing, I a.s.sure you."

"You kin bet it is," announced Jim as he removed from the basket a long side of pork. "Look 't that, Nancy." And he held it up for her observation.

Marjorie had been accustomed to render some relief to Jim and his wife since the time when reverses had first visited them. Her good nature, as well as her consideration of the long friendship which had existed between the two families, had prompted her to this service. Jim would never be in want through any fault of hers, yet she was discreet enough never to proffer any avowed financial a.s.sistance. The mode she employed was that of an occasional visit in which she never failed to bring some choice morsel for the table.

"How's the dad?" asked Jim.

"Extremely well, thank you. He has been talking all day on the failure of the French to take Newport."

"What's that?" asked Jim, thoroughly excited. "Has there been news in town?"

"Haven't you heard? The fleet made an attack."

"Where? What about it?"

"They tried to enter New York to destroy the British, but it was found, I think, that they were too large for the harbor. So they sailed to Newport to attack the garrison there."

"Yeh?"