A.D. 1774] MEETING OF A CONGRESS AT PHILADELPHIA. resistance and reprisals. They instructed their delegates to subscribe for the sufferers in Boston as the congress should see fit, and to declare their determination to export no tobacco after the 10th of August till they obtained redress. The delegates elected were, Peyton Randolph, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, and Benjamin Harrison. This important congress met at Philadelphia on the 4th of September, when all the delegates, except those of North Carolina, who did not arrive till the 14th, were found to represent twelve states, namely: the four New England States, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and the two Carolinas. The number of delegates was fifty-five, including nearly all those afterwards honoured with the title of patres patriæ, except Franklin, who was yet in England. These delegates had been elected in various modes, and the numbers from different states were very various, some sending eight, some only two. It was settled, however, that, whatever the number of delegates, each colony should have one vote. The instructions from different colonies were also found to be as various, some being extremely violent, some moderate, and others verging on vagueness and indifference. The next day they assembled in Carpenters' Hall for business, and elected Peyton Randolph, late speaker of the Virginian house of burgesses, president. The debates were opened by Patrick Henry, the popular and democratic orator of Virginia. It was soon found that so much diversity of opinion prevailed, that it was deemed prudent, in order to preserve the air of unanimity, to deliberate with closed doors. It was clear that Massachusetts and Virginia were ready for war; but it became equally clear that other states yet clung with all the attachment of blood and old connection to the fatherland. Nothing can express this more strongly than the extract of a letter from Mr. Reed, afterwards adjutant-general to Washington, addressed at this moment from the seat of congress to lord Dartmouth : -"Believe me, my lord, no king ever had more loyal subjects, or any country more affectionate colonists, than the Americans were. I, who am but a young man, well remember when the king was always mentioned with respect approaching to adoration; and to be an Englishman was alone a sufficient recommendation for an office of friendship or civility. But I confess, with the greatest concern, that the happy days seem passing swiftly away, and, unless some scheme of accommodation can be speedily formed, the affections of the colonists will be irrevocably lost." Even at this late period, it would appear that if we had had a king, or a great minister, capable of discovering the, to us, palpable fact, that there ought to be no taxation without representation, the storm might have blown over. Strong and long-continued, according to Mr. Joseph Galloway, one of their own members, were the debates; and though they finally, and, from their system of secrecy, with an air of unanimity, drew up strong resolutions, they were more moderately expressed than the instructions of many of the delegates. They concluded on a Declaration of Rights, in which they asserted that they had neither lost the rights of nature, nor the privileges of Englishmen, by emigration; consequently, that the late acts of parliament had been 111 gross violations of those rights, especially as affecting Massachusetts. They therefore passed resolutions to suspend all imports, or use of imported goods, until harmony was restored betwixt Great Britain and her colonies. An association was formed to carry these resolutions out, to which every member subscribed. They then composed addresses to the king of England, expressing their loyal affection; and one much more significant to the people of England, telling how tyrannically these loyal colonies had been treated, and that this policy was but the prelude to the same despotism at home. Another was to the French of Canada, calling on them to make common cause with the other American colonies. They assured them that all the American colonies must stand or fall together; part oppressed, all must be oppressed; part successful in maintaining their rights, all must be so. That they were all bound in one bright and strong chain of interest; that Nature had joined their country to the other colonies. They appealed to them by their eloquent writer, Montesquieu, and his " Esprit des Lois." But, as regarded the Canadians, they had already fatally committed themselves. They had lately denounced the act of Great Britain, which gave to the Canadians the full exercise of their religion, and pronounced that act disastrous to the protestantism of the American colonies. England had given Canada all that it asked-the retention of the French laws and of the catholic religion. This was more than the fierce puritans of New England were likely to do, and their address to the Canadians fell flat, as their invasion of the country afterwards did. Had the English government been as conceding to the other American colonies as to Canada, the trouble had soon been over. Similar letters were addressed to the inhabitants of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and to those of Georgia and East and West Florida, with very similar want of response. Having adjourned till the 10th of May of the next year, the congress dissolved itself on the 26th of October, and the delegates then hastened home to keep alive the flame of their revived zeal in every quarter of the continent. Though the more violent paper of instructions for the delegates, drawn up by Jefferson, had been superseded by a milder one, this paper was made to do duty in the form of a pamphlet entitled, "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," and zealously circulated. Within the doors of the congress, too, there had been heard far more fiery harangues than they had allowed to issue out of doors. Amongst the most determined incendiaries was the Bostonian defaulter, Samuel Adams, who seemed to have adopted the task of blowing the fire of hatred to England with greatest unction. He exclaimed, "I would advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it was revealed from Heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to perish, and only one of a thousand to survive and retain his liberty!" But the bulk of the colonists were far from this self-immolating pitch of virtue. They were ready to concede a great deal to secure partisans, and to retain the adhesion of South Carolina, which threatened to secede if they were not allowed to export rice to Europe. They permitted that exception, as they afterwards made a more fatal concession to the slave states-that of retaining slavery-an abandon-places be filled up by their constituents. It was resolved that ment of principle which is now menacing them with a general Gage's troops should be attacked whenever they frightful Nemesis. marched out of their present entrenchment with baggage and ammunition. They called on Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, to augment the militia from twelve thousand to twenty thousand men; and they issued an address to all dissenting ministers to exhort their congregations to take their stand against the attempts of England to reduce the colonies to slavery. Early in December this provincial congress prorogued itself; but the spirit it had sent abroad was not for a moment prorogued. But, whilst congress was sitting, the spirit of revolution was every day growing more rife in Massachusetts. Governor Gage had issued writs for a new assembly, which was to meet at Salem on the 5th of October; but so many of the newly-appointed members refused to act, that he issued a proclamation to countermand the writs. The patriots, however, set the proclamation at defiance; and confident, from the resignation of the timid loyalists, that they were in a majority, met at Salem, and formed themselves into a provincial congress, to be joined by such other persons as should be chosen for the consideration of public affairs. They then adjourned to Concord, a town about twenty-five miles from Boston, and elected John Hancock, the owner of the Liberty sloop, as president. They appointed a standing committee, to be called the "Committee of Safety," a precedent adopted not only by the other colonies, but afterwards by the French in their revolution, "Comité du Salut Public." They then sent a deputation to governor Gage, to remonstrate on the maintenance of his camp so near Boston, as menacing to the liberties and lives of the colonists. Gage, who might very properly have refused to receive a deputation from an unconstitutional body, prudently waived that consideration, received them, and told them that their pretence of fear from the troops was simply absurd; that they had seen that, notwithstanding the constant provocations of the people, the troops had calmly refrained from every attempt at injury or retaliation; that, so far from his violating the constitution, it was they who at this moment were there in open violation of it. Returning from this interview, where they certainly had the worst of the argument, they proceeded to still more warlike measures. They adjourned to Cambridge, and constituted Concord the depôt of arms and ammunition for twelve thousand militia. They appointed as generals, Jeremiah Pribble and Artenias Ward, who had seen some service in the Canadian war, and enrolled the militia under the name of MINUTE MEN, or men who were to turn out, at a minute's notice, with musket or rifle. They appointed committees and sub-committes for different purposes, and, in fact, put the province into a perfect attitude of war. Gage had troops suflicient to irritate, but not to overawe, and he found himself in the greatest straits. It was almost impossible to procure carpenters to build the necessary barracks for his soldiers. He was obliged to bring all his provisions by sea; and he was in danger of having the royal guns of the town batteries turned upon him, and he sent a party of sailors by night to spike them. News arrived that the king, by proclamation, had prohibited the exportation of all arms and military stores to America. This news was received with a burst of rage. The people of Rhode Island, who had burnt the king's schooner, Gaspee, seized forty pieces of cannon on the batteries defending the harbour, and carried them into the country. The people of New Hampshire surprised a small fort called "William and Mary," garrisoned only by one officer and five men, and carried off all the ordnance, arms, ammunition, and military stores. Everywhere orders were issued for the purchase of arms and ammunition; for training the militia; for erecting powder mills, and manufactories of arms and shot, as well as for making saltpetre. So far as it depended on the people of Massachusetts, it was already rebellion. Still, however, the other colonies, except, perhaps, Virginia, were far from this bellicose temper. The colonies, in general, thought the measures of the late congress too strong; and the state of New York, spite of the impetuosity of such men as Jay, carried a vote rejecting the resolutions of the congress. In England, their indefatigable agent, Franklin, lost no time in giving all possible publication to the resolutions and addresses of the congress as they arrived, especially those which warned the English people that the slavery of America was meant only to introduce the destruction of their own rights. He sent his sub-agents throughout the manufacturing towns of the north of England, to show to the people there how their trade would suffer through the non-importation of their goods by the Americans, and to excite them to petition for the rights of the colonies. To neutralise Franklin's active representatives, Adam Smith, the celebrated author of the "Wealth of Nations," implored Dr. Roebuck, of Birmingham, an eminent physician, to make a tour through the manufacturing districts, and unveil to the people the real objects of the American colonists. This movement was managed by Wedderburn, the solicitor-general, who exerted himself in other ways to discredit the proceedings of Franklin. The parliament of England had now nearly run its septennial course, and was accordingly dissolved on the 30th of The newly-constituted provincial congress of Massa- September. Such was the feeling of resentment in this chusetts now openly declared for commencement of hos-country against the proceedings of the Americans, that the tilities. They proposed to fix a day for an attack on the king's troops. Those who disapproved of these violent proceedings, without being able to check them, began to absent themselves from the congress, under pleas of indisposition; but the sultry-souled Samuel Adams soon put a stop to this backsliding, by carrying a motion, that all members incapable of attendance should immediately resign, and their new parliament sent up gave the ministers an increased majority. In Middlesex, notwithstanding, no competitor appeared against Wilkes and Glynn, and they were both returned. In the city the opposition also triumphed, and Wilkes was elected lord mayor. Thus at once he saw himself member for Middlesex and chief magistrate of the city. Whilst the condition of the colonies occasioned them so A.D. 1775.] CHATHAM CENSURES THE CONDUCT OF MINISTERS. much anxiety, the government had wisely determined to drop further opposition to Wilkes at home; and the event might have shown them how much wiser it would have been to have let him alone from the first, for, the moment he was permitted to take his seat in parliament, he sank into insignificance. A mere cipher in the commons, he managed to secure the office of city chamberlain, which he held to his death in 1797. Such was the change in the feeling of parliament on this subject that, after having so long incensed the whole country, and actually violated the constitution in opposition to Wilkes, they allowed him, in 1782, to carry a vote for expunging the whole of the proceedings against him from the journals. Wilkes became a constant supporter of Pitt's administration, and attended the king's levees, where George became so convinced, by closer observation, of the smallness of the man whom the folly of his ministers had exalted into a hero, that he used to address very gracious observations to his old bugbear; and on one occasion, asking Wilkes after his friend Glynn, with his characteristic impudence Wilkes replied, "Pray, sir, do not call sergeant Glynn my friend; he was a WILKESITE, which, I can assure your majesty, I never was!" The new parliament met on the 29th of November. The king, in his speech, alluded to the determined resistance to the imperial authority of the American colonists, and preeminently of those of Massachusetts Bay. He called upon parliament to support him in his endeavours to restore order. There was strong opposition to the addresses in both houses, demands being made for a full production of all papers and correspondence on this great subject. Burke, in the Annual Register, says, the great speakers in the opposition never declared themselves more ably and eloquently; but the addresses were carried by large majorities. 113 who was in town, to say that he would be up and make a motion on American affairs, if the gout did not absolutely nail him to his bed. On the 19th of January he wrote to lord Stanhope that he would certainly be in town the next day, and knock at the minister's door to awake him. Accordingly, on the morrow, there he was, lame with the gout, but otherwise in full vigour; and there was an awful silence as he entered the house, for he had let no one but his most intimate friends know the nature of the motion that he meant to propose. He had begged that Franklin might be present, and he and numerous other Americans were seeking admittance to the bar of the house of lords. Chatham introduced Franklin himself, saying to the doorkeepers, "This is Dr. Franklin!" a circumstance which caused much speculation. Chatham, on rising, severely blamed ministers for the course which they had pursued, and which had driven the colonies to the verge of rebellion. He censured them for not sooner having laid the necessary papers before the houses of parliament; but now that they were there, he would endeavour to convey to his majesty and the country his ideas upon them. He moved that an address be immediately sent to his majesty, praying that measures might be taken, without loss of time, for settling the unhappy differences with the colonies; that the troops were useless at Boston, because no magistrate could be found to sanction their use for putting down the riots. He wished, he said, that not a day should be lost in doing this; a day, an hour, might produce years of calamity. He condemned the people of Massachusetts for their violence, but he condemned still more the arbitrary conduct of ministers which had provoked that violence. It was clear, by his still asserting that we had a right to regulate the trade of America, that he had acquired no fresh light on the real nature of import duties, and the like; but he declared that the resistance of the colonies to all internal taxation was just. He reproduced the acts of parliament which had lately passed, and in his censure of these, he certainly censured the Declaratory Act, which was his own work. "Resistance to your acts," he said, "was necessary as it was just; and your vain decla What, however, astonished the public was, that after such a declaration of the insurrectionary condition of the American colonies, ministers proposed only the usual peace establishment of four thousand seamen and sixteen thousand troops. The same fatal blindness still continued to distinguish the ministry, which allowed them to see only disorders which they could at any time quell, and left them still strong in acts of parliament and feeble in active pre-rations of the omnipotence of parliament "-these were his ventive measures. Now was the time to pour into the New England colonies such an amount of force as should utterly preclude resistance; and, having assumed that strong position, then gracefully to retract their unconstitutional one, and repeal the obnoxious statutes, granting to the assemblies their undoubted right to vote the necessary taxes. But ministers despised the military talent and bravery of men of their own blood and lineage, and let the mischief grow till it became irremediable. The year 1775 opened with fresh intelligence of alarm from America. The news came down to the taking of Fort William and Mary. There was a state of great anxiety, and many speculations whether Chatham would come to town and exert himself to bring ministers to a sense of the ruin they were bringing about. Some said that he had resolved to interfere no more regarding America; but at this very time Chatham had resolved on one more great effort to avoid the calamities which the incompetent ministers were preparing for the country. He wrote to his wife, own declarations-"and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally competent to convince or to enslave your fellow-subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, whether attempted by an individual part of the legislature, or the bodies who compose it, is equally intolerable to British subjects." He drew a vivid picture of the situation of general Gage, who, not allowed to act against the insurgents, was only an object of irritation and contempt; and he cried-" Laying of papers on your table, or counting members in a division, will not avert or postpone the hour of danger; it must arrive, my lords; unless those fatal acts of last session are done away, it must arrive in all its horrors." He added, that it was "not merely repealing these acts of parliament— it is not cancelling a piece of parchment," he said, "that can win back America to our bosom. You must repeal her fears and her resentments." He eulogised the conduct of the congress, and remarked that it was obvious that all attempts to impose servitude on such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. "We shall be forced," he said, "ultimately, to retract; let us retract while we can not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violently oppressive acts; they must be repealed. You will repeal them; I pledge myself for it that you will, in the end, repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed. Avoid, then, this humiliating, this disgraceful necessity." He declared that the cause of America and England was one; that it was the glorious spirit of whiggism which ani He concluded a speech of upwards of an hour, and, according to his son, William Pitt, who was present, one of the finest speeches ever delivered, except by himself, in these words :-"If the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the king, I will not say that they can alienate the affection of his subjects from his crown, but I will affirm that they will make the crown not worth his wearing; I will not say that the king is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone." It is clear that this language of Chatham, if it did not induce the government to alter its insane policy, muɛt wonderfully encourage the Americans; and that is the unalter mated the colonists. "It is liberty to liberty engaged. In this great cause they are immovably allied; it is the alliance of God and nature-immutable, eternal-fixed as the firmament of heaven. You cannot force them, united as they are, to your unworthy terms of submission. It is impossible. And when I hear general Gage censured for inactivity, I must retort with indignation on those whose headlong measures and improvident counsels have betrayed him into his present situation. His situation reminds me, my lords, of the answer of a French general, in the civil wars of France-Monsieur de Condé-opposed to marshal Turenne. He was asked how it happened that he did not take his enemy prisoner, as he was often very near him? 'Because,' replied Condé, very honestly, 'I was afraid he might take me!"" able nature of our free institutions, that our members of parliament are the first to proclaim to the whole world our follies and our weaknesses; to apprise our enemies what we are going to do, or not to do, and how best to defeat us. This inevitable consequence of our free deliberation on all subjects should therefore teach us never to violate the laws of justice and liberty; for, if we do, our own tongues will punish us by instructing and invigorating our antagonists. Well would it have been had the ministers been sensible of their folly, and frankly have abandoned their obstinate purpose of taxing without representation. Lords Shelburne, Camden, and Rockingham, and the duke of Richmond, zealously supported the views of Chatham, but the ministerial party opposed the motion as obstinately as ever; and it was rejected by sixty-eight votes against eighteen. The |