appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we CHAP. determine to die or be free." Granville Sharpe, who was employed in the ordnance department, declined to take part in sending stores to America, and after some delay, threw up his employment. Lord Chatham was the real conqueror of Canada for England; and Carleton had been proud to take to Quebec as his aide de camp Chatham's eldest son. But it was impossible for the offspring of the elder Pitt to draw his sword against the Americans; and his resignation was offered, as soon as it could be done without a wound to his character as a soldier. Admiral Keppel, one of the most gallant officers in the British navy, expressed his readiness to serve, if required, against the ancient enemies of England, but asked not to be employed in America. An inhabitant of London, after reading morning prayers in his family as usual, closed the book with a face of grief, and to his children, of whom Samuel Rogers, the poet, was one, told the sad tale of the murder of their American brethren. The recorder of London put on a full suit of mourning, and being asked if he had lost a relative or friend, answered, "Yes, many brothers at Lexington and Concord." Ten days before the news arrived, Lord Effingham, who in his youth had been prompted by military genius to enter the army, and had lately served as a volunteer in the war between Russia and Turkey, finding that his regiment was intended for America, renounced the profession which he loved, as the only means of escaping the obligation of fight XXXIII 1775. May. XXXIII June. CHAP. ing against the cause of freedom. This resignation gave offence to the court, and was a severe rebuke to 1775. the officers who did not share his scruple; but at London the Common Hall, in June, thanked him publicly as "a true Englishman;" and the guild of merchants in Dublin addressed him in the strongest terms of approbation. June On the twenty-fourth of June, the citizens of Lon24. don, agreeing fully with the letter received from New York, voted an address to the king, desiring him to consider the situation of the English people, "who had nothing to expect from America but gazettes of blood, and mutual lists of their slaughtered fellowsubjects." And again they prayed for the dissolution of parliament, and a dismission for ever of the present ministers. As the king refused to receive this address on the throne, it was never presented; but it was entered in the books of the city and published under its authority. The society for constitutional information, after a special meeting on the seventh of June, raised a hundred pounds, "to be applied," said they, "to the relief of the widows, orphans, and aged parents of our beloved American fellow-subjects, who, faithful to the character of Englishmen, preferring death to slavery, were, for that reason only, inhumanly murdered by the king's troops at Lexington and Concord." Other sums were added; and an account of what had been done was laid before the world by Horne Tooke in the "Public Advertiser." The publication raised an implacable spirit of revenge. Three printers were fined in consequence one hundred pounds each; and Horne was pursued unrelentingly XXXIII by Thurlow, till in a later year he was convicted be- CHAP fore Lord Mansfield of a libel, and sentenced to pay 1775. a fine of two hundred pounds and to be imprisoned June. twelve months. Thurlow even asked the judge to punish him with the pillory. It was Hutchinson, whose false information had misled the government. The moment was come when he was to lose his distinction as chief counsellor to the ministers, and to sink into insignificance. A continent was in arms, and the prize contended for was the liberty of mankind; but Hutchinson saw nothing of the grandeur of the strife, saying: "The country people must soon disperse, as it is the season for planting their Indian corn, the chief sustenance of New England." With clearer vision Garnier took notice, that the Americans had acted on the nineteenth of April, after a full knowledge of the address of the two houses of parliament to the king, pledging lives and fortunes for the reduction of America, and of the king's answer. "The Americans," he wrote to Vergennes, "display in their conduct, and even in their errors, more thought than enthusiasm, for they have shown. in succession, that they know how to argue, to negotiate, and to fight." "The effects of General Gage's attempt at Concord are fatal," said Dartmouth, who just began to wake from his dream of conciliation. "By that unfortunate event, the happy moment of advantage is lost." The condemnation of Gage was universal. Many people in England were from that moment convinced, that the Americans could not be reduced, and that England must concede their independence. The XXXIII CHAP. British force, if drawn together, could occupy but a few insulated points, while all the rest would be 1775. free; if distributed, would be continually harassed and destroyed in detail. June. These views were frequently brought before Lord North. That statesman was endowed with strong affections, and was happy in his family, in his fortune and abilities. In his public conduct, he, and he alone among ministers, was sensible to the reproaches of remorse; and he cherished the sweet feelings of human kindness. Appalled at the prospect, he wished to resign. But the king would neither give him a release, nor relent towards the Americans. Every question of foreign policy was made subordinate to that of their reduction. The enforcement of the treaty of Paris respecting Dunkirk, was treated as a small matter. The complaints of France for the wrongs her fishermen had suffered, and the curtailment of her boundary in the fisheries of Newfoundland, were uttered with vehemence, received with suavity, and recognised as valid. How to subdue the rebels was the paramount subject of consideration. The people of New England had with one impulse rushed to arms; the people of England quite otherwise stood aghast, doubtful and saddened, unwilling to fight against their countrymen; languid and appalled; astonished at the conflict, which they had been taught to believe never would come; in a state of apathy; irresolute between their pride and their sympathy with the struggle for English liberties. The king might employ emancipated negroes, or Indians, or Canadians, or Russians, or Germans; Englishmen enough to carry on the war were not to be engaged. CHAP. XXXIII 1775. 14. The ministers, as they assembled in the cabinet, June on the evening of the fourteenth of June, were in very bad humor; Lord North grieved at the prospect of further disagreeable news. The most prominent person at the meeting was Sandwich, who had been specially sent for; a man of talents, greedy alike of glory and of money, but incapable of taking the lead, for he was incapable of awakening enthusiasm. There was no good part for them to choose, except to retire, and leave Chatham to be installed as conciliator; but they clung to their places, and the stubborn king, whatever might happen, was resolved not to change his government. There existed no settled plan, no reasonable project; the conduct of the administration hardly looked beyond the day. A part of them threw all blame on the too great lenity of North. As there were no sufficient resources in England for the subjugation of America, some proposed to blockade its coast, hold its principal ports, and reduce the country by starvation and distress. But zeal for energetic measures prevailed, and the king's advisers cast their eyes outside of England for aid. They counted with certainty upon the inhabitants of Canada; they formed plans to recruit in Ireland; they looked to Hanover for regiments to take the place of British garrisons in Europe. The Landgrave of Hesse began to think his services as a dealer in troops might be demanded; but a more stupendous scheme was contemplated. Russia had just retired from the war with Turkey, with embarrassed finances, and an army |