VI. a son of liberty as any man in America," met the CHAP. committee at New Brunswick; and with William Livingston labored to instruct their delegates that 1774. the tea should not be paid for. The matter was left to the general congress, to which William Livingston was chosen. In New Hampshire the members of its convention brought with them little stocks of money, contributed by the several towns to defray the expenses of a representation in congress. The inhabitants of that province also solemnized their action by keeping a day of fasting and public prayer. Massachusetts did the same; and Gage, who looked with stupid indifference on the spectacle of thirteen colonies organizing themselves as one people, on occasion of the fast, issued a proclamation against "hypocrisy and sedition." Meantime New York had grown weary of dissensions. The persons nominated for congress gave in writing a satisfactory profession of their zeal for liberty; and on the twenty-seventh of July, the nomination was unanimously ratified by the inhabitants. Yet the delegation was lukewarm and divided, leaving Virginia to give the example of energy and courage. Dunmore had issued writs for an assembly; but the delegates from the different counties of Virginia none the less assembled in provincial convention. Illness detained Jefferson on the road, but he sent for consideration a paper which expressed his convictions and distinctly foreshadowed the declaration of independence. Enumerating the grievances which affected all the colonies, he made a special complaint of a July. 1774. July. CHAP. Wrong to Virginia. "For the most trifling reasons,' VI. said he, "and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative; thus preferring the immediate advantage of a few British corsairs, to the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice." The words of Jefferson were universally approved; and the convention to which they were presented by Peyton Randolph came to this resolution: "After the first day of November next, we will neither ourselves import, nor purchase any slave or slaves imported by any other person, either from Africa, the West Indies, or any other place." On the affairs of Massachusetts the temper of the Virginians ran exceedingly high. "An innate spirit of freedom," such were the words of Washington, "tells me that the measures which the administration are most violently pursuing, are opposed to every principle of natural justice." He was certain that it was neither the wish nor the interest of any government on the continent, separately or collectively, to set up independence, but he rejected indignantly the claim of parliament, and saw no "reason to expect VI. July. any thing from their justice." "The crisis," he said, CHAP. " is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us, till 1774. custom and use shall make us tame and abject slaves." From the first he was convinced that there was not any thing to be expected from petitioning." "Ought we not, then,” he exclaimed, "to put our virtue and fortitude to the severest test?" Thus Washington reasoned privately with his friends. In the convention, Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry were heard with such delight that the one was compared to Cicero, the other to Demosthenes. But Washington, who never was able to see distress without a desire to assuage it, made the most effective speech when he uttered the wish to "raise one thousand men, subsist them at his own expense, and march at their head for the relief of Boston." The resolves and instructions of Virginia corresponded to his spirit. They demanded that the restrictions on navigation should themselves be restrained. Especially were they incensed at the threat of Gage to use the deadly weapon of constructive treason against such inhabitants of Massachusetts as should assemble to consider of their grievances, and form associations for their common conduct; and they voted that "the attempt to execute this illegal and odious proclamation, would justify resistance and reprisal." CHAPTER VII. THE CABINET OF LOUIS SIXTEENTH. JULY-AUGUST, 1774. CHAP. IN France, Louis the Sixteenth had selected minisVII. ters, of whom a part only were disposed to take 1774. advantage of the perplexities of England; but they July. were the more likely to prevail from the unsteadiness of the administration, which sprung from his own character and made his life a long equipoise between right intentions and executive feebleness. His countenance, seeming to promise probity, betrayed irresolution. In manner he was awkward and embarrassed, and even at his own court ill at ease. His turn of mind was serious, inclining even to sadness; and his appearance in public did not accord with his station or his youth. He had neither military science, nor martial spirit, nor gallant bearing; and in the eyes of a warlike nation, which interpreted his torpid languor as a want of courage, he was sure to fall into contempt. In the conduct of affairs, his sphere of vision was narrow; and he applied himself chiefly to details VII. July. or matters of little importance. Conforming to the CHAP. public wish, he began by dismissing the ministers of the late king, and then felt the need of a guide. 1774. Marie Antoinette would have recalled Choiseul, the supporter of an intimate friendship between France and Austria, the passionate adversary of England, the prophet and the favorer of American independence. But filial respect restrained the king, for Choiseul had been his father's enemy. He turned to his aunts for advice; and their choice fell on the Count de Maurepas from their regard to his experience, general good character, and independence of the parties at court. Not descended from the old nobility, Maurepas belonged to a family which, within a hundred and fifty years had furnished nine secretaries of state. He had himself held office in the last days of Louis the Fourteenth; and had been sent into retirement by Louis the Fifteenth for writing verses that offended the king's mistress. At the age of seventy-three, and after an exile of twenty-five years, he was still as he had been in youth, polite, selfish, jealous, superficial, and frivolous. Despising gravity of manner and airs of mystery as ridiculous, and incapable of serious passion or profound reflection, he charmed by the courtesy and ease of his conversation. He enjoyed the present moment, and was careless of the future which he was not to share; taking all things so easily, that age did not wear him out. Full of petty artifice in attack, of sly dexterity in defence, he could put aside weighty objections by mirth and laugh even at merit, having no faith in virtues that were difficult, and deriding the love of country as a vain boast or a |