CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE KING AND THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT AGAINST THE TOWN OF BOSTON. HILLSBOROUGH'S ADMINISTRATION OF THE COLONIES CONTINUED.

OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1768.

1768.

Oct.

SPAIN valued Louisiana as a screen for Mexico; and England held the valley of the Mississippi from jealousy of France. To the great joy of Spain, and against the advice of Shelburne, every idea of settling the country was opposed; and every post between Mobile and Fort Chartres was abandoned: John Finley, a backwoodsman of North Carolina, who this year passed through Kentucky, found not one white man's cabin in all the enchanting wilderness. Gage was even for giving up Fort Chartres and Pittsburg. But this policy was obstructed by the settlements in Illinois and on the Wabash; the roving disposition of the Americans; and the avarice of British officers, who coveted profit from concessions of lands. In the conflict of interests, the office of the colonial secretary was swayed by wavering opinions, producing only inconclusive correspondence, references, and reports on the questions how to regulate trade with the Indians; how to "reform " the excess in expenses; how to keep off planters; how to restrain the cupidity of British governors and agents.

The Spanish town of St. Louis was fast rising into importance, as the centre of the fur-trade with the Indian nations on the Missouri; but the population of Illinois had declined, and scarcely amounted to more than one thousand three hundred and fifty-eight, of whom rather more than three hundred were Africans. Kaskaskia counted six hundred white persons, and three hundred and three ne

groes. At Kahokia, there were about three hundred persons; at Prairie du Rocher, one hundred and twenty-five; at St. Philip, fifteen; and not more at Fort Chartres. To Hillsborough's great alarm, the adult men had been formed into military companies. Vincennes, the only settlement in Indiana, claimed to be within a year as old as Detroit, and had rapidly and surprisingly increased. Its own population, consisting of two hundred and thirty-two white persons, ten negro and seventeen Indian slaves, was

1768. Oct.

recruited by one hundred and sixty-eight "strangers.' Detroit had now about six hundred souls. The western villages abounded in wheat, Indian corn, and swine; of beeves, there was more than one to each human being; and more than one horse to every two, counting slaves and children.

The course of the rivers inclined the French in the west to send their furs to New Orleans; or across the river by night to St. Louis, where they could be exchanged for French goods. All English merchandise came burdened with the cost of land carriage from Philadelphia to Fort Pitt. In November, Wilkins, the new commandant in Illinois, following suggestions from Gage, appointed seven civil judges to decide local controversies, yet without abdicating his own overruling authority. This temporary plan led the people to reflect on the best forms of government.

But Wilkins was chiefly intent on enriching some Philadelphia fur-traders, who were notorious for their willingness to bribe; he reported favorably of their zeal for British commerce, and, in less than a year after his arrival, executed at their request inchoate grants of large tracts of land, of which one sixth part was reserved for himself.

The procedure contravened the explicit orders of Hillsborough, who renewed imperatively the instruction to extend an unbroken line of Indian frontier from Georgia to Canada, as an impassable barrier to emigration.

This purpose was strenuously opposed by Virginia. From its ancient charter, the discoveries of its people, the authorized grants of its governors since 1746, the encouragement of its legislature to settlers in 1752 and 1753, the promise of lands

as bounty to officers and soldiers who served in the French war, the continued emigration of its inhabitants, the Ancient Dominion derived its title to occupy the great west. Carolina stopped at the line of thirty-six and a half degrees; on the north, New York could at most extend to Lake Erie; Maryland and Pennsylvania were each limited by definitive boundaries. None but Virginia claimed the Ohio lands, south of the line of Connecticut.

But, in spite of her objections, Stuart was ordered to complete the demarcation with the Indians, and to accept no new territory from the Cherokees.

The honest agent, without regarding the discontent of Virginia, which, though notified, declined co-operating with him, met the chiefs of the upper and lower Cherokees in council, at Hard Labor in Western South Carolina; and, on the fourteenth of October, concluded a treaty by which the Cherokees ratified all their former grants of lands, and established as the western boundary of Virginia a straight line drawn from Chiswell's mine, on the eastern bank of the Great Kanawha, in a northerly course to the confluence of that river with the Ohio.

To thwart the negotiation of Stuart, Virginia had appointed Thomas Walker its commissioner to the congress held at Fort Stanwix with the Six Nations. Sir William Johnson, the Indian agent for the northern district, was thoroughly versed in the methods of making profit by his office. William Franklin, of New Jersey, readily assisted in obtaining the largest cessions of lands. The number of Indians who appeared was but little short of three thousand. Unusual largesses won over the chiefs of the Six Nations; The line that was established began at the north, where Canada Creek joins Wood Creek; on leaving New York, it passed from the nearest fork of the West Branch of the Susquehannah to Kittaning on the Alleghany, whence it followed that river and the Ohio. Had it stopped at the mouth of the Kanawha, the Indian frontier would have been marked all the way from northern New York to Florida. But, instead of following his instructions, Sir William Johnson, pretending to recognise a

1768.

Nov

right of the Six Nations to the largest part of Kentucky, continued the line down the Ohio to the Tennessee River, which was thus constituted the western boundary of Virginia.

While the congress was in session, Botetourt, the new governor of Virginia, arrived on the James River, in the delicious season of the fall of the leaf, when that region enjoys a many-tinted sky and a soft but invigorating air. He was charmed with the scenes on which he entered; his house seemed admirable; the grounds around it well planted and watered by beautiful rills. Every thing was just as he could have wished. Coming up without state to an unprovided residence, he was asked abroad every day; and, as a guest, gave pleasure and was pleased. He thought nothing could be better than the disposition of the colony, and augured well of every thing that was to happen. Received with frankness, he dealt frankly with the people to whom he was deputed. He wrote to Hillsborough that they would never willingly submit to being taxed by the mother country; but he justified them by their universal avowal of a most ardent desire to assist upon every occasion, if they might do it as formerly in consequence of requisition. Yet the duties complained of were collected in every part of the colony, without a shadow of resistance. He was persuaded that the new assembly would come together in good humor, which he was resolved not wantonly to disturb.

The western boundary invited immediate attention. Botetourt entered heartily into the wishes of Virginia, and put in pledge his life and fortune to carry its jurisdiction to the Tennessee River on the parallel of thirty-six and a half degrees. "This boundary," it was said, "will give some room to extend our settlements for ten or twelve years."

1768. Nov.

England, at this time, began to think reconciliation with Massachusetts hopeless, when news arrived that the troops had landed at Boston without opposition, that the convention had dissolved, and that all thoughts of resistance were at an end. "They act with highest wisdom and spirit," said Thomas Hollis; "they will extricate themselves with firmness and magnanimity." But most men ex

pressed contempt for them, as having made a vain bluster. No one doubted that, on the arrival of the additional regiments from Ireland, Otis and Cushing, and sixteen other members of the late political assemblies, would be arrested. Hillsborough hastened to send Bernard's despatches to the attorney and solicitor general, asking what crimes had been committed, and if the guilty were to be impeached by parliament.

1768.

Nov.

The king, in his speech on the eighth of November, railed at "the spirit of faction breaking out afresh in some of the colonies." "Boston," said he, "appears to be in a state of disobedience to all law and government, with circumstances that might manifest a disposition to throw off its dependence on Great Britain.”

In the house of commons, Lord Henly, moving the address, signalized the people of Boston for their "defiance of all legal authority."

"I gave my vote to the revenue act of Charles Townshend," thus he was seconded by Hans Stanley, "that we might test the obedience of the Americans to the declaratory law of 1766. Troops have been drawn together in America to enforce it, and have commenced the operation in Boston. Men so unsusceptible of all middle terms of accommodation call loudly for our correction. What, sir, will become of this insolent town, when we deprive its inhabitants of the power of sending out their rums and molasses to the coast of Africa? For they must be treated like aliens, as they have treated us upon this occasion. The difficulties in governing Massachusetts are insurmountable, unless its charter and laws shall be so changed as to give to the king the appointment of the council, and to the sheriffs the sole power of returning juries." Samuel Adams, at Boston, weighed well the meaning of these words, uttered by an organ of the ministry; but England hardly noticed the presumptuous menace of the subversion of chartered rights and of the independence of juries.

Edmund Burke poured out a torrent of invective against Camden, for the inconsistency of his former opposition to the declaratory act with his present support of the ministry.