The Story of American History Part 10

To bring this about, laws were pa.s.sed forbidding the manufacture of all such goods as English shops could produce. For instance, iron must not be made from the abundant mines of our country. We must buy all our hardware from England. It was a crime to use the wool from our own sheep in making woolen goods, and we were forbidden to sell these articles from one colony to another. For example, a Boston hatter could be punished if he sold his hats in New York. Men were forbidden to cut down trees on their own lands for staves and barrels. For wooden ware, as chairs, tables, wheels, wagons, the raw material must be sent to England to be worked up, and the finished goods brought back to this country.

=137. A Bitter Feeling aroused against the Home Government.=--Now all these laws seemed very harsh and unjust. And, indeed, they were well-nigh intolerable. They crippled and almost ruined the business of the colonies, and violated what our forefathers regarded as their natural right to make what they pleased and sell where they pleased.

These laws were so unjust that our forefathers thought there was not much wrong in evading them. They smuggled goods and carried them home.

British officers went around and searched houses from cellar to attic, often with rudeness and insults. This conduct created much bitterness of feeling. Pine trees of twelve inches or more in diameter were marked with the "king's arrow," which showed that they were to be saved for use in the navy. It was a criminal offense to cut down any such. However much a settler might need them to build his house, he was forbidden to touch them. In fact, before he cleared his land, he had to pay an officer to come and make the arrow mark on the king's trees!

These unjust and absurd statutes produced a vast deal of ill-will toward England. If they had been strictly enforced, no doubt the Revolution would have come several years before it did. And yet there was also much friendly feeling for the mother country. The friends and relatives of the colonists still lived there, letters were constantly exchanged, and hundreds of people coming and going every year kept up an affection between the two countries. Our people in those times always called England "home."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRITISH STAMP.]

=138. The Obnoxious Stamp Act.=--There came at last one event which, of all the troubles, hastened the Revolution. The French and Indian War had cost both England and the colonies a great deal of money. King George wanted to compel the colonies to pay part of this expense, and accordingly Parliament pa.s.sed in 1765 the "Stamp Act," the most unpopular measure ever tried with the colonists. This law required that stamped paper should be used for all bills, bonds, notes, wills, and deeds, and even for all pamphlets, almanacs, and newspapers.

Stamps for this purpose had to be bought of stamp officers appointed by the king. They were for the most part not unlike our revenue stamps. One kind was a red-ink seal, made with a hand stamp; the other a seal on blue paper, to be fastened on the article. The cost varied from one cent to fifty dollars each. No doc.u.ment was legal unless stamped.

Our people at once saw that if England could levy taxes in this way, she could in many other ways, and there would be no end to such high-handed and tyrannical laws. Besides, there were no American representatives in Parliament, and Americans had no voice at all in the matter. They felt that the tax thus laid upon them was wrong. They did not object to paying the cost of a trifling tax. They felt bound to resist the rank injustice of the demand. It was not the amount but the principle at stake.

=139. The Indignation of the People.=--The people were aroused. A storm of indignation swept over the land. Violent opposition broke out along the entire length of the colonies. They pledged themselves to stand by each other. The cry pa.s.sed through the land: "No taxation without representation!" This became the watchword of the country. They did not wish to avoid paying a fair a.s.sessment in a fair way; but they insisted that, as always before, their own legislatures and not Parliament should levy the contribution. Our forefathers declared over and over again that they would not be taxed by a governing body three thousand miles away, whose members had never seen America.

=140. Patrick Henry and his Bold Speech.=--One day the Virginia a.s.sembly was in session. Washington was there in his seat, and Jefferson, then a young law student, stood listening at the door. Patrick Henry stoutly argued that Virginia was not bound to obey any law which was plainly a menace to the common freedom of Englishmen.

"Caesar had his Brutus," said the bold and eloquent orator; "Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third"----

"Treason!" shouted the Speaker of the a.s.sembly, and the cry, "Treason, treason!" rang through the room.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PATRICK HENRY'S BOLD SPEECH.]

The intrepid patriot finished his sentence: "may profit by their example. If that be treason, make the most of it!"

=141. The People combine to resist the Hated Law.=--The people combined to resist, and a stamp-tax congress was held in New York. Lovers of liberty would not deal in stamped goods. They refused to buy a single stamp.

Riots occurred at the stamp offices. Packages of stamps were seized, and some were publicly burned in the streets. Boxes of stamped paper arriving in vessels were seized and thrown overboard. Publishers of newspapers decorated their headlines with skull and cross-bones instead of stamps. Stamp officers were dragged out and compelled to swear they would not sell any stamps.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PATRICK HENRY.]

On the day for the law to take effect, funeral bells were tolled, flags were at half-mast, and shops were closed. New England, New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas all felt alike and acted alike. William Pitt, also called the Earl of Chatham, one of the greatest of Englishmen, took his stand on the side of the colonies in a speech of surpa.s.sing eloquence and power. The hated law was repealed in just one year from its pa.s.sage.

This happy news was received both in England and in America with bonfires, ringing of bells, and universal rejoicings. But the joy was short-lived. King George, "industrious as a beaver and obstinate as a mule," and his followers in Parliament were not slow to pick a fresh quarrel with the Americans.

The next year the English Parliament made a law requiring duties to be paid on paper, gla.s.s, paints, and tea. Again the liberty-loving Americans were a unit in opposing any kind of taxation that seemed to them illegal. Some of the legislatures protested to Parliament, and King George answered by breaking up the legislatures. The people indignantly refused to buy any goods at all from England while these taxes were demanded. English traders found their business going to ruin. Ships came loaded with British goods, and had to carry them back.

=142. Bitter Hatred of the British Soldiers.=--So bitter was the opposition in Boston that a regiment of British troops was sent there to force the people to submit even at the point of the bayonet. But a brave people, determined to be free, is not so easily forced.

The citizens of Boston were ordered to furnish lodging and food for the soldiers. They would not do it--not they! Their hatred of the soldiers grew more bitter. Brawls often occurred on the streets. The soldiers on their part began to be insulting.

=143. Boston Boys stand up for their Rights.=--Even the children took part in the quarrels, as an incident will show. During the winter the boys used to build snow-slides on Boston Common and slide down upon them to the frog pond. The English soldiers destroyed these slides, merely to provoke the boys. The young Americans complained of the injury and set about repairing it. However, when they returned from school, they found the snow-slides destroyed again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOSTON BOYS MAKE THEIR PROTEST TO GENERAL GAGE.]

Several of the boys now waited upon one of the under-officers, and told him of the conduct of his soldiers; but he would have nothing to say to them; and the soldiers were more impudent than ever. At last the boys called a meeting and sent a committee of the largest of their number to General Gage, the commander-in-chief. He asked why so many boys had called upon him.

"We came, sir," said the tallest, "to demand satisfaction."

"What!" said the general; "have your fathers been teaching you rebellion, and sent you to show it here?"

"n.o.body sent us, sir," he answered, while his cheek reddened and his eye flashed. "We have never injured nor insulted your troops; but they have trodden down our snow-slides and broken the ice on the pond. We complained and they called us young rebels and told us to help ourselves if we could. We told one of your officers of this, and he laughed at us.

Yesterday our slides were destroyed for the third time; and, sir, we will bear it no longer."

General Gage was a kind-hearted and courteous gentleman. He looked at them with admiration, and said to an officer at his side: "The very children draw in a love of liberty with the air they breathe. You may go, my brave boys; and be a.s.sured, if my soldiers trouble you again, they shall be punished."

=144. The Boston Ma.s.sacre.=--One night in March (1770) some soldiers stationed in Boston got into a quarrel, and the noise increased until the guard was called out. As the platoon of regulars drew up in line, most of the crowd fell back.

A few remained and reviled the red-coat soldiers, shouting, "Lobster-backs! Fire if you dare, you cowards! You don't dare to fire!"

Captain Preston, the officer in command, gave the word, "Fire!" The regulars fired.

Five men were killed and several wounded. There was now intense excitement in Boston. The Old South Church was crowded with an angry town-meeting. Thousands filled the streets near by. The people demanded that the troops be removed. The governor promised to remove one regiment. "Both regiments or none," was the watchword.

Samuel Adams waited upon the governor, and stretching forth his long right arm, and pointing his finger at him, he sternly demanded, in the name of three thousand freemen, that the royal governor remove every British soldier from Boston.

"I observed his knees to tremble," said the stern patriot in after years; "I saw his face grow pale--and I enjoyed the sight."

Before sunset of the same day the British troops were removed from the city and sent to a fort in the harbor. Not until then did the meeting in the Old South break up.

This unfortunate affair was the so-called "Boston Ma.s.sacre." It did more to mould public opinion than weeks of vigorous protest and fine argument could have done. It was one step, and an important one too, toward the final appeal to the sword and the bayonet.

=145. The Famous Boston Tea Party.=--In view of all these troubles, England took off the taxes from everything but tea. King George said he must have one tax to maintain the principle of the right of taxation.

But the colonists refused to drink tea imported from China! The women were patriotic and made their tea of raspberry leaves, sage, and other plants, rather than use the hated foreign article.

But the government of England was determined we should buy tea, and the merchants sent shiploads of it to our large cities. The Americans were firm. They vowed that not an ounce of it should land. There was only a few cents' tax on each pound. What our people disputed was the right of the king to tax. When the tea reached New York and Philadelphia, none dared to receive it, lest their houses should be pulled down about their heads. In Charleston, S. C., some was taken ash.o.r.e, but as no one would buy it or pay the duty, it was hid in damp cellars, where it soon spoiled. In Annapolis it was burned.

At Boston warning was several times given to the masters of the ships to sail out of the harbor. On the last day before the tea must be landed or be prevented by force from landing, a town-meeting was held in the Old South Church. The crowd in the church, and in the streets about it, numbered more than seven thousand people. "It was to be," says John Fiske, "one of the most momentous days in the history of the world."

The discussion continued until dark, and candles were brought in. It was decided that the tea should not be landed.

"Who knows," shouted one in the audience, "how tea will mix with salt water?"

The church fairly shook with cheers.

Then up rose Samuel Adams and quickly said: "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country."

This was the signal. A war-whoop was heard outside the door, and forty or fifty men, disguised as Indians, went quietly aboard the three vessels, and before the nine-o'clock bell rang three hundred and forty-two chests of tea had been cut open and their contents emptied into Boston Harbor. This was the famous "Boston Tea Party" we have so often heard of, and it took place in the middle of December in 1773. A large crowd of the friends of these men stood on sh.o.r.e until the deed was done, and then, without doing any other injury to property, all separated and went home in the clear, frosty moonlight.

The next morning there was not a chest of taxed tea in Boston, on shipboard or on sh.o.r.e, and Paul Revere was riding post haste to Philadelphia to let the good people of that city know that Boston had at last thrown down the gauntlet.

One of the "Indians" found a handful of tea in his shoe the next morning. He carefully saved it and sealed it in a bottle. It is still shown as a souvenir of this informal "tea party" in Boston harbor.

One rash fellow, probably thinking that his family would like a good drink of real tea, cut open the lining of his coat and waistcoat, and, watching his chance, filled them with tea; but he was caught in the act and handled pretty roughly.

=146. Attempts to punish Boston.=--"Boston shall be punished," said King George when he heard of the "tea party." Parliament pa.s.sed the "Boston Port Bill." By this act the port of Boston was closed. No vessel could go in or out except under the most rigid conditions. The object of course was to frighten or force the Boston people into yielding to the royal power.