imagined; in matter and manner far beyond what I can express; it must have an infinite effect without doors, the bar being crowded with Americans." The statesmanship of Chatham and the close reasoning of Camden "availed no more than the whistling of the winds:" the motion was rejected by a vote of sixtyJan. 20. eight against eighteen; but the Duke of Cumberland, 1775. one of the king's own brothers, was found in the minority. The king, triumphing in "the very handsome majority," was sure "nothing could be more calculated to bring the Americans to submission;" but the debate of that day, notwithstanding that Rockingham had expressed his adherence to his declaratory act, went forth to the colonies as an assurance that the inevitable war would be a war with a ministry, not with the British people. It took from the contest the character of internecine hatred, to be transmitted from generation to generation, and showed that the true spirit of England, which had grown great by freedom, was on the side of America. Its independence was foreshadowed; and three of Chatham's hearers on that day, Franklin, Shelburne, and his own son, William Pitt, never ceased in exertions, till their joint efforts established peace and international good-will. CHAPTER XIX. THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK TRUE TO UNION. JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1775. WHILE Gage was waiting for England to undertake in 1775. Jan. earnest the subjugation of America, the king expected every moment to hear that the small but well-disciplined force at Boston had struck a decisive blow at a disorderly "rabble." Neither he nor his ministers believed the hearty union of so vast a region as America possible. But, at the one extreme, New Hampshire in convention unanimously adhered to the recent congress, and elected delegates to the next; at the other, South Carolina on the eleventh of January held a general meeting, Jan. 11. which was soon resolved into a provincial congress, with Charles Pinckney for president. They then called upon their deputies to explain why they had not included in the list of grievances the entire series of monopolies and restrictions; and they murmured at the moderation of Virginia, which had refused to look further back than 1763. Gadsden proposed to strike out the exceptional privilege in the association in favor of exporting rice. The torrent of enthusiasm was able to break down the plea of interest; and after a debate of a day, in which John Rutledge pointed out the inequality and impolicy of extending the restriction, nearly half the body, seventy-five members against eightyseven, were still ready to sacrifice the rice crop. Had the minority prevailed, they would have impoverished the province without benefit to the union; the convention of South Carolina wisely adopted the continental measures without change, completed her internal organization, elected delegates to the congress, encouraged her inhabitants to learn the use of arms, and asked their prayers that God would defend their just title to freedom, and "avert the impending calamities of civil war." If blood should be spilled in Massachusetts, her sons were to rise in arms. 1775. Georgia, from its weakness, was much influenced Jan 12 by the royal government. On the twelfth, the representatives of the extensive district of Darien, assembling in a local congress, held up the conduct of Massachusetts to the imitation of mankind, joined in all the resolutions of the grand American congress, and instructed their delegates to the provincial congress accordingly. They demanded liberal land laws to attract the distressed in Britain and elsewhere to the new world which Providence had opened for them; for, said they, "all encouragement should be given to the poor of every nation by every generous American." They loved freedom for its own sake, and made it known in these words: "To show the world that we are not influenced by any contracted or interested motives, but a general philanthropy for all mankind, of whatever climate, language, or complexion, we hereby declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of slavery in America (however the uncultivated state of our country or other specious arguments may plead for it); a practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our liberties as well as lives, debasing part of our fellow-creatures below men, and corrupting the morals of the rest, and laying the basis of that liberty we contend for (and which we pray the Almighty to, continue to the latest posterity) upon a very wrong foundation. We therefore resolve at all times to use our utmost endeavors for the manumission of our slaves in this colony, upon the most safe and equitable footing for the masters and themselves." The provincial congress, which was called to meet Jan. 18. on the eighteenth at Savannah, failed of its end, since five only out of twelve parishes in the province were represented, and some of these were bound to half-way measures by their instructions. The legislature, which simultaneously assembled, might have interposed, had it not been suddenly prorogued by the royal governor. But towards the southern border, in the parish of St. John, which contained one third of the wealth of Georgia, the inhabitants, chiefly descendants of New England people, mocked by the royalists as Puritans, Independents, republicans, or at least Oliverians, conformed to the resolutions of the continental congress; after some negotiation with South Carolina, appointed Lyman Hall to represent them in Philadelphia; and set apart two hundred barrels of rice for their brethren in Boston. 1775. Virginia looked to Washington as her adviser in military affairs. In December, 1774, the Maryland convention, resting "the security of free government on a well-regulated militia, composed of the gentlemen, freeholders, and other freemen," had recommended to the inhabitants of the province to form themselves into companies of sixty-eight men under officers of their own choice; and had apportioned among the several counties the sum of ten thousand pounds in currency, to be raised by subscription or voluntary offerings, for the purchase of arms. The measure took the sword out of the hands of the governor, to whom all military appointments had belonged, and directed the people to choose their own officers to defend Massachusetts and themselves. The resolve might have remained Jan. 17. unheeded among the many votes of conventions, had not the Virginians of the Fairfax county committee, on the seventeenth of January, adopted the substance and almost the very words of the resolve, and had not Washington, as their chairman, published them under the sanction of his name. Thus he stood forth before the country as the early and the earnest advocate of a revolutionary system which set aside the war powers of the royal governor and encouraged the people to make their own military organization and elect their own officers. The royalists were well aware of the full significance of his proposition, and the weight of the personal responsibility which he assumed. A company composed exclusively of "the sons of gentlemen" in his neighborhood chose Washington as their commander, and he gave them his support. Every county in Virginia glowed with zeal to imbody its militia; the marksmen, armed with rifles, chose the costume of the painted huntingshirt and moccasons. Mutual pledges were given for each one to keep a good firelock, a supply of ammunition, bulletmoulds, powder-horn, and bag for balls. The committee of Northampton county offered a premium for the manufacture of gunpowder. Dunmore's excursion to the frontiers had justified a prorogation of the assembly until the second of February; but when, near the end of January, the colony was surprised by a further prorogation to May, Peyton Randolph, as the organ of the people against the representative of the crown, directed the choice of deputies to a colony convention in March. 1775. Jan. The influence of Washington and his county confirmed the decision of Maryland. The Presbyterians of Baltimore supported "the good old cause." Near Annapolis, the volunteers whom Charles Lee began to muster melted away before his overbearing manner and incapacity; but the inhabitants would hear of no opposition to the recommendations of congress. In Delaware, a little army that stood in the same relation to the people sprung up from the general enthusiasm. The trust of the ministry was in the central provinces. To divide the colonies they were urged to petition the king separately, in the hope that some one of them would offer acceptable terms. Especially crown officers and royalists practised every art to separate New York from the general union. The city of New York, unlike Boston, was a corporation with a mayor of the king's appointment. There the president of the chartered college taught that "Christians are required to be subject to the higher powers; that an apostle enjoined submission to Nero;" that the friends of the American congress were as certainly guilty of "an unpardonable crime as that St. Paul and St. Peter were inspired men." There the Episcopal clergy fomented a distrust of the New England people, as "rebellious republicans, harebrained fanatics; intolerant towards the church of England, Quakers, and Baptists; doubly intolerant towards the Germans and Dutch." There a corrupt influence grew out of contracts for the army. There |