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How complete was the general confidence, that CHAP. the great majorities in parliament would overawe the colonies, appeared on Monday, the sixth of March, 1775. when the bill depriving New England of her fisheries was to be engrossed. Even Lord Howe advocated it as the means of bringing the disobedient provinces to a sense of their duty, without involving the empire in a civil war. "Now," replied Fox, "as by this act all means of acquiring a livelihood, or of receiving provisions, is cut off, no alternative is left, but starving or rebellion. If the act should not produce universal acquiescence, I defy any body to defend the policy of it. Yet America will not submit. New York only differs in the modes." "The act," said Dundas, the solicitor general of Scotland, “is just, because provoked by the most criminal disobedience; is merciful, because that disobedience would have justified the severest military execution. As to the famine, which is so pathetically lamented, I am afraid it will not be produced by this act. When it is said, no alternative is left to them but to starve or rebel, this is not the fact, for there is another way, to submit." The king, on receiving an account of "the languor of opposition" during the debate, wrote to Lord North: "I am convinced the line adopted in American affairs will be crowned with success."

These words fell from George the Third on the day on which Boston commemorated the " massacre" of its citizens. The orator was Joseph Warren, who understood the delusion of the king, and resolved to prove that "the Americans would make the last appeal, rather than submit to the yoke prepared for their necks; that their unexampled pa

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CHAP. tience had no alloy of cowardice." The commemoraXXIII. tion was a public affront to Gage both as general of 1775. the army, and as governor of the province; for the 6. subject of the oration was the baleful effects of standing armies in time of peace; and it was to be delivered to the town in a town meeting, contrary to an act of parliament which he came to Boston to enforce. In the crowd which thronged to the Old South Meetinghouse, appeared about forty British officers of the army and navy; these, Samuel Adams, the moderator, received with studied courtesy, placing them all near the orator, some of them on the platform above the pulpit stairs. There they sat conspicuously, and listened to a vivid picture of the night of the massacre, after which Warren proceeded:

"Our streets are again filled with armed men, our harbor is crowded with ships of war; but these cannot intimidate us; our liberty must be preserved; it is far dearer than life; we hold it even dear as our allegiance; we cannot suffer even Britons to ravish it from us. Should America be brought into vassalage, Britain must lose her freedom also; her liberty, as well as ours, will eventually be preserved by the virtue of America. The attempt of parliament to raise a revenue from America, and our denial of their right to do it, have excited an almost universal inquiry into the rights of British subjects and of mankind. The malice of the Boston port-bill has been defeated in a very considerable degree, by benefactions in this and our sister colonies; and the sympathetic feelings for a brother in distress, and the grateful emotions of him who finds relief, must forever endear each to the other, and form those indissoluble bonds of

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friendship and affection on which the preservation CHAP. of our rights so evidently depends. The mutilation of our charter has made every other colony jealous for its own. Even the sending troops to put these acts in execution, is not without advantages to us. The exactness and beauty of their discipline inspire our youth with ardor in the pursuit of military knowlege. Charles the Invincible taught Peter the Great the art of war; the battle of Pultowa convinced Charles of the proficiency Peter had made.

"Our country is in danger. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and Heaven and earth will aid the resolution. You are to decide the important question, on which rests the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. The faltering tongue of hoary age calls on you to support your country. The lisping infant raises its suppliant hands, imploring defence against the monster slavery. Your fathers look from their celestial seats with smiling approbation on their sons, who boldly stand forth in the cause of virtue.

"My fellow-citizens, I know you want not zeal or fortitude. You will maintain your rights or perish in the generous struggle. However difficult the combat, you will never decline it, when freedom is the prize. An independence of Great Britain is not our aim. No, our wish is, that Britain and the colonies may, like the oak and the ivy, grow and increase together. But if these pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from your foes, but will undauntedly press forward, until tyranny is trodden under foot."

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The officers of the army and navy who heard the XXIII. oration gave no offence during its delivery; but at 1775. the motion for "appointing an orator for the ensuing 6. year to commemorate the horrid massacre," they began to hiss. The assembly became greatly exasperated, and threatened vengeance for the insult; but Adams, with imperturbable calmness, soon restored order; the vote was taken, and the business of the meeting was regularly concluded.

The event of that day maddened the army, and both officers and soldiers longed for revenge. An honest countryman from Billerica inquiring for a firelock, bought an old one of a private; but as soon as he had paid the full price, he was seized by half a dozen of a company for having violated an act of parliament against trading with soldiers, and confined during the night in the guard-room. The next day he was labelled on his back," American liberty, or a specimen of democracy," was tarred and feathered, and carted through the principal streets of the town, accompanied by all the drums and fifes of the fortyseventh, playing Yankee Doodle, by a guard of twenty men with fixed bayonets, and by a mob of officers, among whom was Lieutenant Colonel Nesbit himself.

"See what indignities we suffer, rather than precipitate a crisis," wrote Samuel Adams to Virginia. The soldiers seemed encouraged to provoke the people, that they might have some color for beginning hostilities.

CHAPTER XXIV.

PUBLIC OPINION IN ENGLAND.

MARCH, 1775.

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WHILE such was the state of angry opposition be- CHAP. tween the citizens and soldiers at Boston, Lord Howe at London finally broke off his negotiations with 1775. Franklin, and the ministry used the pen of Samuel Johnson, to inflame the public mind. Johnson was a poor man's son, and had himself tasted the bitter cup of extreme indigence. His father left no more than twenty pounds. To bury his mother and pay her little debts, he had written Rasselas. For years he had gained a precarious support as an author. He had paced the streets of London all night long, from not having where to lay his head; he had escaped a prison for a trifle he owed by begging an alms of Richardson, had broken his bread with poverty, and had even known what it is from sheer want to go without a dinner. When better days came, he loved the poor as few else love them; and he nursed in his house whole nests of the lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful. A man who had thus sturdily battled

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