The Siege of Boston
by Allen French · English · Gutenberg #29199 · 458,680 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Siege of Boston
Author: Allen French
Release date: June 21, 2009 [eBook #29199]
Language: English
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THE SIEGE OF BOSTON
[Illustration: Logo]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE]
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON
BY
ALLEN FRENCH
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1911,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1911.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO C. E. S.
PREFACE
In writing this book I have endeavored to produce a brief and readable
account of the Siege of Boston, and of the events which brought it
about. These were, of course, parts of a larger history, the connection
with which I have carefully indicated. My main endeavor, nevertheless,
has been to treat my subject as a single organic series of events. To
select the more interesting and significant masses of detail, and
properly to coördinate them, has not been an easy task. The minor
incidents were conditioned by the scale of the book; the result, I hope,
is fluency and a more evident connection between the larger events.
So far as possible, I have relied upon contemporary statements. But no
writer on the Siege can fail to acknowledge his deep obligations to the
"History of the Siege" by Richard Frothingham. This acknowledgment I
gladly make. Since 1849, however, the date of the publication of the
book, there has come to light interesting new material which I have
endeavored to incorporate here. The other authorities upon which I have
chiefly depended will be found by referring to the footnotes.
ALLEN FRENCH.
CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS,
January, 1911.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BEGINNINGS AND CONDITIONS 1
II. WRITS OF ASSISTANCE AND THE STAMP ACT 21
III. CHARLES TOWNSHEND, SAM ADAMS, AND THE MASSACRE 41
IV. THE TEA-PARTY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 71
V. THE OCCUPATION OF BOSTON 91
VI. THE POWDER ALARM AND THE WINTER OF 1774-1775 123
VII. MILITARY PREPARATIONS 161
VIII. THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL 187
IX. BOSTON BELEAGUERED 216
X. THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL 256
XI. WASHINGTON TAKES COMMAND 288
XII. EVENTS IN BOSTON FROM JUNE TO DECEMBER, 1775 331
XIII. WASHINGTON'S DIFFICULTIES 361
XIV. THE WINTER IN BOSTON 392
XV. THE EVACUATION 415
ILLUSTRATIONS
OLD STATE HOUSE _Frontispiece_
PAGE
THE HUTCHINSON HOUSE 35
FANEUIL HALL _facing_ 58
SAMUEL ADAMS _facing_ 69
THE INVESTMENT OF BOSTON _facing_ 127
REVERE'S PICTURE OF BOSTON IN 1768 175
THE OLD NORTH CHURCH _facing_ 181
THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON _facing_ 193
PLAN OF THE SIEGE 235
THE MINUTE MAN _facing_ 303
THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE _facing_ 303
WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS _facing_ 374
DORCHESTER TOWER 407
GOLD MEDAL COMMEMORATING WASHINGTON'S VICTORY 434
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON
CHAPTER I
BEGINNINGS AND CONDITIONS
The Siege of Boston was the culmination of a series of events which will
always be of importance in the history of America. From the beginning of
the reign of George the Third, the people of the English colonies in the
new world found themselves at variance with their monarch, and nowhere
more so than in Massachusetts. Since the New England people were fitted
by their temperament and history to take the lead in the struggle, at
their chief town naturally took place the more important incidents.
These, which were often dramatic, had nevertheless a political cause and
significance which link them in a rising series that ended in a violent
outbreak and the eleven months' leaguer.
As to the siege itself, it varies an old situation, for Boston was beset
by its own neighbors in defence of the common rights. Previously the
king's troops, though regarded as invaders, had been but half-hearted
oppressors; it was the people themselves who persistently provoked
difficulties. The siege proper is of striking military interest, for its
hostilities begin by the repulse of an armed expedition into a community
of farmers, continue with a pitched battle between regular troops and a
militia, produce a general of commanding abilities, and end with a
strategic move of great skill and daring. It is the first campaign of a
great war, and precedes the birth of a nation. Politically, the cause of
the struggle is of enduring consequence to mankind. Socially, the siege
and its preliminaries bring to view people of all kinds, some weak, some
base, some picturesque, some entirely admirable. The period shows the
breaking up of an old society and the formation of a new. A study of
the siege is therefore of value.
It will be observed that the siege cannot satisfactorily be considered
as a distinct series of military or semi-military events, abruptly
beginning and still more abruptly ending. Such a view would reduce the
siege to a mere matter of local history, having little connection with
the larger movements of the American Revolution, and appearing almost as
an accident which might have happened at any other centre of sufficient
population.[1] On the contrary, neither the siege nor the Revolution
were accidents of history. That the Revolution was bound to come about,
and that its beginnings were equally bound to be at Boston, these were
conditioned in the nature, first of the colonists in general, and second
of the New Englanders in particular. However striking were certain of
the occurrences, they were of less importance than their causes and
consequences.
Accordingly I shall consider as an organic series the more important of
those events which happened in Boston during the reign of George the
Third, and which ended when the last of his redcoats departed from the
town. In fact, in order to be perfectly intelligible I must first devote
a few pages to a consideration of previous conditions.
"Any one," wrote George E. Ellis in the "Memorial History of Boston,"[2]
"who attempts to trace the springs, the occasions, and the directing
forces of the revolt ... cannot find his clew a year short of the date
when the former self-governed Colony of Massachusetts Bay became a Royal
Province." He is right in pointing out that in 1692 the struggle took
open form. Yet even then the controversy was not new. In other form it
had been carried on for more than half a century previous. Its ultimate
origin lay in the fact that the very charter under which the colony was
planted differed from all other documents granted by any English king.
This difference lay in the omission of the condition, usual in such
charters, that its governing board should meet in London practically for
the purpose of supervision by the king. That the omission of this
condition was the result of wisdom on the part of the founders, and
stupidity on the part of the officers of the king, seems undeniable. The
founders, unhappy and alarmed at the political and religious situation
in England under Charles the First, were seeking to provide for
themselves and their families a refuge from his oppressions. Secure in
their charter, they presently left England for good. When they sailed
for America they did all that could be done to cut themselves off from
interference by the crown.
At intervals, extremely valuable for the future of America, the
Massachusetts colony certainly was free of all restraint. Charles's
benediction seems to have been "Good riddance!" From the crown the
colonists received no assistance whatever, and it was long both their
boast and their plea that they had planted the colony "at their own
expense." They were left to work out their own salvation.[3] As a
result, their passionate desire for freedom from interference by the
king grew into the feeling that they had earned it as a right.
Englishmen they were still, and subjects of the king; but to the
privileges of Englishmen they had added the right to manage their own
affairs. The English king and the English law were to help them in their
difficulties and to settle cases of appeal. In return they would grant
money and fight for the king when necessary; but in the meantime they
would live by themselves.
Taking advantage of the clause in their charter which authorized them
"to ordain and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders,
laws, statutes, and ordinances," they speedily took to themselves
everything but the name of independence. They instituted courts for all
purposes, set up their legislative government, raised their own taxes,
whether general or local, and perfected that wonderful instrument of
resistance to oppression, New England town government. They even coined
money. And, different from most of the other colonies, they chose their
governor from among their own number.
Distance and home difficulties--for the Stuart kings usually had their
hands full of trouble with their subjects--favored the non-interference
which the colonists craved. When, however, the Stuarts had any leisure
at all, they at once devoted it to quarrelling with their subjects in
New England. Even to the easy-going Charles II the cool aloofness of the
colonists was a bit too strong; to his father and brother it was
intolerable.
The invariable methods of the colonists, when facing a demand from the
king, were evasion and delay. "Avoid or protract" were Winthrop's own
words in 1635. In 1684 the General Court wrote advising their attorney,
employed in England in defending the charter, "to spin out the case to
the uttermost."[4] Once and once only until the Revolution--in the case
of the seizing of Andros--did the men of Massachusetts proceed to
action. Their habitual policy was safe, and, on the whole, successful.
Slow communication (one voyage of commissioners from Boston to England
took three months), and the existence in England of a strong party of
friends, helped powerfully to obscure and obliterate the issues. Yet
Charles I in 1640, and James II in 1689, made preparations to reduce the
colony to proper subjection, by force if necessary.
It was doubtless well for Massachusetts that both Charles and James were
presently dethroned, for against the power of England no successful
resistance could then have been made. New England, indeed, might have
been united against the king, but it is very unlikely that the other
colonies would have given their help. Some generations more were needed
before the aristocrats of Virginia could feel themselves at one with the
Puritans of New England.
Yet it is interesting to notice the spirit of Massachusetts. On the news
of Charles's intentions the colony prepared for resistance. In James's
time it went a step further. When the news came of the expedition of
William of Orange, Massachusetts cast in its lot with him. Without
waiting to learn the result of the struggle, Boston rose against James's
unpopular governor, and imprisoned him in the Castle. The act was
heroic, for the Bloody Assizes had taught the world what punishment the
cowardly king meted out to rebels.
It will be noticed that the political status of Massachusetts was
already changed. After many delays Charles II had abrogated the charter.
His death followed almost immediately, and Andros had been appointed at
the head of a provisional government. Doubtless the resistance to him
had been inspired by the hope that the old charter might be restored.
Instead, William, when once secure on the throne, issued a new charter.
Under its provisions the colony, now a province, lived until the
Revolution. In order that the events leading up to the siege may be
understood, it will be well to consider the provisions of the new
governmental machinery.
At the head of the province were to be a governor and a
lieutenant-governor, both appointed by the king. Their powers were
executive, with the right of veto over legislation, and also over
certain appointments by the legislature. Laws passed by this legislature
and not vetoed by the governor or the king were to go in force three
years after their enactment. The legislature had two houses, the lower a
popular chamber, called the Assembly, elected by the towns. The upper
branch was called the Council. The first Council was appointed by the
king; later members were to be nominated by the Assembly for the
approval of the governor. The Assembly and Council formed together the
Great and General Court. Judges were to be chosen by the governor and
Council, but all officers were to be paid by the General Court. As will
be seen later, in the case of the Writs of Assistance, appeal could be
taken to the English courts.
And now for the first time became evident the fact that three
generations of practical independence had bred in America a race of
men--or it may be better to say had fostered a school of thought--that
never could agree in submitting to a distant and arbitrary authority. In
the seventy years which followed, New England showed this spirit in many
ways. The most prominent cause of disagreement was the question of the
governor's prerogatives, resulting in constant bickerings with the
crown.
The principle, of course, lay deeper still. On the one side were
sovereigns whose powers were not yet definitely restricted, and who
were likely to resent any apparent tendency to make them less. On the
other side was a people who had progressed far in self-government, and
who resisted any limitation of their rights. It is not the purpose of
this book to trace the earlier unification of the colonies under
pressure from without. By the year 1760 that process was approaching
completion; there was, therefore, in America a stronger feeling than
ever, while across the water was that new ruler into whose youthful ears
his mother had continually dinned the words, "George, be king!"
It is well to understand the status of a colony in those days, and the
difficulties with which its inhabitants struggled. Yet it is hard for
the modern man to conceive the restrictions upon freedom. From earliest
days there had been discontent with the king's claim to the finest trees
in the public forests, the "mast trees" which, reserved for the king's
navy, no man might lawfully cut.[5] Exportation of lumber, except to
England and the British West Indies, was long illegal. Trade with the
French and Spanish islands was prohibited entirely, and trade in many
products of home manufacture (tobacco, sugar, wool, dye-stuffs, furs,
are prominent examples) was forbidden "to any place but Great
Britain--even to Ireland."[6] Certain merchandise might be imported at
will, subject to duty; but most articles could be bought, and sold, only
through Great Britain.
Further, internal commerce and manufacture were severely hampered. No
wool or woollen product might be carried from one province to another.
The Bible might not be printed. The making of hats was almost entirely
suppressed. The manufacture of iron, on a scale sufficient to compete
with English wares, was practically prohibited--as a "nuisance."[7]
Under all these restrictions the colonies were not as yet restive. To be
sure there were smuggling and illicit trade, and grievances in plenty;
yet the stress of colonial life, the continual danger from the north and
west, had kept the provincials satisfied as a body. And now, at the
opening of the reign of George III, with the French driven out of Canada
and the Mississippi Valley, and the Indians subdued, there should have
been concord between the colonists and the king.
The comparison between the two is very striking, while at the same time
it is not easily brought home to the city dweller of to-day. City
government gives the individual a chance to bury himself in the mass,
and to avoid his duties; further, our cities are now many, and very
large, while we are notoriously patient under misrule. In 1760, on the
other hand, few towns had as yet adopted city government. Boston was the
largest town, and its population was little more than fifteen thousand.
So well did its enemies understand one reason for its truculence, that
they even considered means to force upon the town a city charter. The
question came, however, to no definite proposition. The town therefore
proceeded with its open discussion of all public questions, with its
right of free speech in town meetings extended even to strangers, and
with its _viva voce_ vote letting each man know where his neighbor
stood. "The town" was an entity of which each man felt himself a part.
As a whole, its self-consciousness was like that of an individual: it
could feel a trespass on its privileges as quickly as could the
haughtiest monarch of the old world. And all New England was filled with
towns whose feelings, on all essential points, were one and the same.
Against the town-meetings of America stood George III, as determined to
assert his prerogatives as was any member of the house of Stuart. Still
comparatively young, he had not yet learned that there are limitations
of power, even to a king. And it was to the misfortune of his empire
that there were few in England to teach him.
For the old Puritan middle class of the Stuart days was gone. Its fibre
had softened; the class itself had disappeared in the easier-going
masses of a more prosperous day. For seventy-five years England had had
no internal dissensions, and her foreign wars had added to her wealth
and contentment. To her well-wishers it seemed as if the people had
given itself to sloth and indulgence. "I am satisfied," wrote Burke,
"that, within a few years, there has been a great change in the national
character. We seem no longer that eager, inquisitive, jealous, fiery
people which we have been formerly, and which we have been a very short
time ago."[8] England was the country of Tom Jones, hearty and healthy,
but animated by no high principles and keyed to no noble actions. It
needed the danger of the Napoleonic wars to bring out once more the
sturdy manliness of the nation. Through all the earlier reign of George
III there was, to be sure, a remainder of the old high-minded spirit.
Chatham and Rockingham, Burke, Barre, and others, spoke in public and
private for the rights of the colonists, to whom their encouragement
gave strength. But the greater part of the English people was so
indifferent to the moral and political significance of the quarrel that
the king was practically able to do as he pleased.
He proceeded on the assumption that every man had his price. The
assumption was unhappily too correct, for he was able to gather round
him, in Parliament or the civil service, his own party, the "King's
Friends," who served him for the profit that they got. No tale of modern
corruption can surpass the record of their plundering of a nation. With
this goes a story of gambling, drinking, and general loose living which,
while the attention is concentrated on it, rouses the belief that the
nation was wholly degenerate, until the recollection of the remnant,
Chatham and the party of the Earl of Rockingham, gives hope of the
salvation of the country.
At any rate, for more than fifteen years of his reign the king was in
the ascendant. There was no party to depose him, scarcely one strong
enough to curb him, even at times of popular indignation. He was,
therefore, as no other king had been before him, able to force the issue
upon the colonies, in spite of the protests of the few friends of
liberty. In complete ignorance of the strength of the colonists, both in
resources and in purpose, he proceeded to insist upon his rights. When
it is remembered that those rights, according to his interpretation of
them, were to tax without representation, to limit trade and
manufactures, and to interfere at will in the management of colonial
affairs, it will be seen that he was playing with fire.
The danger will appear the greater if it is considered that the
population of the colonies had not progressed, like that of England, to
days of easy tolerance. The Americans, and especially the New
Englanders, were of the same stuff as those who had beheaded Charles I,
and driven James II from his kingdom. They had among their military
officers plenty of such men as Pomeroy, who, destined to fight at Bunker
Hill, wrote from the siege of Louisburg: "It looks as if our campaign
would last long; but I am willing to stay till God's time comes to
deliver the city into our hands."[9] Many besides himself wrote, and
even spoke, in Biblical language. There were still heard, in New
England, the echoes of the "Great Awakening"; the preaching of
Whitefield and others had everywhere roused a keen religious feeling,
and the people were as likely as ever to open town-meeting with prayer,
and to go into battle with psalms.
Such, then, were the contestants in the struggle. On the one side was
the king with his privileges, backed by his Parliamentary majority, and
having at command an efficient army and navy, and a full treasury. There
was at hand no one to resist him successfully at home, none to whose
warnings he would listen. And on the other side were the colonists,
quite capable of fighting for what they knew to be the "rights of
Englishmen." Both hoped to proceed peaceably. In ignorance, each was
hoping for the impossible, for the king would not retreat, and the
colonists would not yield. As soon as each understood the other's full
intention, there would be a rupture.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It may appear to a hasty consideration that Frothingham's "Siege of
Boston" treats the siege as an isolated military event. It must,
however, be remembered that Mr. Frothingham had treated previous events
in a preliminary volume, his "Life of Joseph Warren."
[2] "Memorial History of Boston," ii, 31.
[3] "They nourished by your indulgence? They grew up by your neglect of
them!" Barre's speech in Parliament, February, 1765.
[4] "Memorial History of Boston," i, 340, 376.
[5] See, on this point, Sabine's "American Loyalists," 7.
[6] Bancroft's "United States," ed. 1855, v, 265. References to Bancroft
will at first be to this edition.
[7] Bancroft's "United States," v, 266.
[8] Trevelyan, "American Revolution," Part i, 21.
[9] "Memorial History of Boston," ii, 116.
CHAPTER II
WRITS OF ASSISTANCE AND THE STAMP ACT
The men who, whether in America or England, took sides with the king or
the colonies as Tories and Whigs, or as "prerogative men" and "friends
of liberty," fall naturally into two classes. A line of cleavage could
be seen at the time, and can even be traced now, among the supporters of
either side, according as they followed principle or self-interest.
There were those who sought profit in supporting the colonies, as well
as those who knowingly faced loss in defending the king. It is well for
Americans to remember, therefore, that while many sided with the king
for what they could get, there were others whose minds could not
conceive a country without a king, or a subject with inalienable rights.
The best of the Tories honestly believed the Whig agitation to be
"unnatural, causeless, wanton, and wicked."[10] Such Americans were, in
the inevitable struggle, truly martyrs to their beliefs.
Nevertheless, just as there was naturally more profit or prominence (and
the two were often the same) on the king's side, so his party had the
more self-seekers. "The cause is not worth dying for," said Ingersoll,
facing the Connecticut farmers, and spoke the sentiment of all the
stamp-officers who resigned their positions at the demand of the people.
The cause, however, did seem worth working for. There were many, in
England and America, who, like those whom Otis saw around him, "built
much upon the fine salaries they should receive from the plantation
branch of the revenue." Position, pay, and the chance to exploit the
revenues as this was done in England, were the temptations which brought
many to the side of the king, and which made men unite to urge upon him
the acts which he desired for less selfish reasons.
Urged by principle, then, or excited by self-interest, the proposers of
new measures were strong. The earliest act of the king's reign showed
what could and what would be done, and brought upon the Boston stage the
first of the actors in the drama. On the one hand were the governor, the
justices, and the minor officials, on the other the people's
self-appointed--but willingly accepted--leaders.
Francis Bernard was the first Massachusetts governor under George III.
Bernard arrived August 2, 1760; the old king died on October 25; and in
November the customs officials, stimulated by orders from home to
enforce the provisions of the Sugar Act of 1733, petitioned for "writs
of assistance," to empower them to summon help in forcible entries in
search of smuggled goods. Now there can be no doubt that there was
smuggling in the colony, even in Boston itself. On the other hand, the
officials were inquisitorial and rapacious. Once they were armed with
writs of assistance, no dwelling would be safe from entry by them. The
struggle was at once begun, and in the council chamber of the old Town
House was fought out before the eyes of the province.
The scene is pictured on the walls of the modern State House. Chief
among the justices sat Thomas Hutchinson, a man of property and
education, and an excellent historian, but the very type of
office-holder, and by prejudice and interest a partisan of the king.
Against him stood James Otis, the first of the Massachusetts orators of
liberty, a man of good family, and, like so many of the patriot leaders,
a lawyer. His speech was the first definite pronouncement for a new
order of things.
"I am determined," he said, "to sacrifice estate, ease, health,
applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of my country." He referred
to the "kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king of England
his head and another his throne." Such language, publicly spoken, was
new. His argument was, to Englishmen, irrefutable. No precedent, no
English statute, could stand against the Constitution. "This writ, if
declared legal, totally annihilates" the privacy of the home.
"Custom-house officers might enter our houses when they please, and we
could not resist them. Upon bare suspicion they could exercise this
wanton power.... Both reason and the Constitution are against this
writ.... Every act against the Constitution is void."[11] The speech,
continued for four hours, was a brilliant example of keen logic combined
with burning eloquence.
This is Otis's great service to the cause of the Revolution. Fiery and
magnetic, but moody and eventually unbalanced, he gave place in the
public confidence to men perhaps of lesser talents, but with equal zeal
and steadier purpose. Yet his service was invaluable. His speech
expressed for his countrymen the indignation of the hour, and it pointed
the way to younger men. To one at least of his hearers, John Adams, it
was "like the oath of Hamilcar administered to Hannibal."[12] To many it
was the final appeal that settled them in their patriotism. For history
the scene has been called the beginning of the Revolution.
Yet it had no immediate results, for Hutchinson--and the service was
forgotten by neither his friends nor his opponents--secured delay of
judgment in the case until the English courts could uphold him against
his wavering associates. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the
public indignation secured moderate measures on the part of the customs
officials, since we hear of few complaints. And the affair had its
influence on the public attitude toward the Stamp Act, five years later.
The Stamp Act was the first definite assertion of the right to tax
America. In 1763 the Sugar Act had been reënacted, but its provisions,
taxing only importations from foreign colonies, yielded little revenue.
The king's treasury was already feeling the drains upon it, and a pack
of eager office-seekers was clamoring to be let loose upon the revenues
of the colonies. Together the king and his friends pushed through
Parliament the legislation which was to secure their purposes. To meet
any such danger as in the recent French and Indian wars, ten thousand
soldiers were to be quartered on the colonies, which were to pay for
their maintenance. Certain sops to public sentiment were given, in the
shape of concessions, yet new restrictions were laid on foreign trade.
And finally and most important, a stamp-tax, the easiest to collect, was
laid on business and legal formalities of all kinds. After its passage
no land title might be passed, no legal papers issued, no ship might
clear from a home port, without a stamp affixed to the necessary
documents. Not even inheritances might be transferred, nor marriages be
legalized.
This was the first internal taxation laid by England on America. A word
is necessary as to the meaning of the phrase in those days. An external
tax, perhaps merely an export duty, was levied and paid in England; its
effect was seen in higher prices in the colonies. Internal taxation
would include all taxes actually paid in America on goods coming from
England. The provisions of the Sugar Act were regarded as "trade
restrictions," and not as intended to raise an English revenue.
There is perhaps no better place to discuss the justice of the
Revolution than right here. Even to-day the illegality, the utter
wrongfulness of the American position, is occasionally raised among us
by those who see the great obligations to the mother country under which
the colonies lay, and who recall the needless hardships suffered by the
wretched Tories, the martyrs of a lost cause. Doubtless wrongs were
inflicted in the course of the struggle, and the great expenditures of
England were in large part unrequited. But it must be remembered that
the world had not yet reached the point where the losers in a war were
gently treated, and that no amount of financial obligation will ever
compel to the acceptance of political servitude. By habit of mind and
force of circumstances America had developed a political theory
puzzlingly novel to the old world and as yet not thoroughly understood
by the new. It was upon this unformulated theory that all future
differences were to arise. It interfered in all affairs in which the
question arose: Should the colonies be governed, and especially should
they be taxed, without a voice in their own affairs?
No one in England doubted that Parliament had a right to tax America
without its consent. Customs restrictions were long familiar. As to
internal taxation, why, it was asked, should the colonies have a voice
in Parliament? Birmingham and Manchester, great centres of population,
were not represented, while that uninhabited heap of stones, Old Sarum,
sent a member to the Commons. Resting on these abuses, even Pitt and
Burke were content to argue that taxation of America was just. For them
it was a question whether that right should be exercised.
With the best will in the world to be on good terms with the mother
country, America could not agree in such reasoning. The case had nothing
to do with obligations. As for these, the colonists knew that England
would never have won against the French in Canada without their aid. But
that was not the question. Should those who for a hundred and
thirty-five years had paid no tax to England pay one now? Were the
people who for seventy years had drawn a fine distinction between paying
their governor of their own accord and paying him at the command of the
king, and who in every year of royal governorship had made their
contention plain--were they to be satisfied to pay taxes because
Birmingham did?
Undoubtedly there were other causes for discontent. "To me," says
Sabine, in the preface to his "American Loyalists," "the documentary
history, the state papers of the period teach nothing more clearly than
this, namely, that almost every matter brought into discussion was
practical, and in some form or other related to LABOR, to some branch
of COMMON INDUSTRY." He reminds us that twenty-nine laws limited
industry in the colonies, and concludes that "the great object of the
Revolution was to release LABOR from these restrictions." Undoubtedly
these restrictive laws had their effect upon the temper of the people.
Undoubtedly also there was much fear lest there should be established in
the colonies a bureaucracy of major and minor officials, corruptly, as
in England, winning fortunes for themselves. Yet the question of
taxation, a matter of merely theoretical submission, which produced no
hardship and would not impoverish the country, was the main cause of
trouble. The two branches of the race had long unconsciously parted
their ways, and the realization of it was upon them.
Upon the proposal of the Stamp Act the colonies did everything in their
power to prevent the passage of the bill. They urged that internal
taxation had never been levied before. Protests, arguments, and
petitions were sent across the water, but in vain. The Commons fell
back upon its custom "to receive no petition against a money bill," and
would listen to nothing. "We have the power to tax them, and we will tax
them."[13] And following this utterance of one of the ministry, the bill
was passed.
It is interesting to note that no resistance to the tax was expected.
Its operation was automatic; there was no hardship in its provisions; of
course the colonists would yield. Even Franklin, who should have known
his countrymen better, expected submission. "The sun is down," he wrote,
but "we may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great
way toward indemnifying us." His correspondent, Charles Thomson, had in
this case the truer foresight, and predicted the works of darkness.[14]
Throughout the colonies there was not only sorrow, but anger. When even
Hutchinson had protested against the Stamp Act, it can be seen how the
Whigs would feel. Non-importation agreements were widely signed, and
people accustomed to silks and laces prepared to go into homespun. But
the act, passed in February, 1765, was not to go into effect until
November. Before that date, much could be done.
What was done came from the lower as well as the upper classes. The
people acted promptly. One colony after another sent crowds to those who
had accepted, in advance, the positions of stamp-officers. One by one,
under persuasion or intimidation, the officers resigned until none were
left. In New York the governor fled to the military for protection, and
from the parapet of the fort looked helplessly on while the people burnt
before his eyes his own coach, containing images of himself and the
devil. But before this happened, Boston, first of all the capitals to
take a positive stand, began to draw upon itself the particular
resentment of the king.
Early in August came to Boston the news of the nomination of its
stamp-collector, Andrew Oliver, long prominent upon the Tory side. The
lower class of the inhabitants, after a week of delay, stirred itself to
action. On the 14th the image of Oliver was seen hanging on the bough of
a large elm, then known as the Great Tree. Hutchinson ordered the image
down, but as the sheriff did not act, Bernard summoned his council, and
until evening fruitlessly endeavored to urge them to action. Then the
populace, having themselves removed the image, came to the Town House,
and, passing directly through it, shouted to the council, still sitting
upstairs, "Liberty, property, and no stamps!" Proceeding with perfect
order, the crowd next tore down the frame of a building which Oliver was
suspected of raising to use as his office, and, carrying the beams to
Fort Hill, burnt them and the image before Oliver's house.
Hutchinson, who never lacked personal courage, called on the militia
colonel to summon his men and disperse the crowd, but the colonel
replied that his drummers were in the mob. Hutchinson then went with
the sheriff to order the crowd to disperse, but was himself forced to
depart in order to escape violence. The next day Bernard, the governor,
whose courage left him at the very thought of another such night, fled
to Castle William, behind whose ancient walls he considered himself
safe. Oliver hastily resigned his office, lest the mob should visit him
again.
[Illustration: THE HUTCHINSON HOUSE]
The people were not satisfied with the conduct of Hutchinson, who,
although he had actually opposed the passage of the Stamp Act, was
under suspicion of secretly abetting and profiting by it. After twelve
days there was a second outbreak; the mob began by burning the records
of the vice-admiralty court, went on to invade the house of the
comptroller of customs, and finally, worked to the usual pitch of a
mob's courage, attacked Hutchinson's house. With his family he escaped,
but the mob broke into the handsome mansion, and sacked it thoroughly.
His library, with priceless manuscripts concerning the history of the
colony, was scattered in the mud of the street.
This was the most disgraceful event that happened in Boston during all
the long period preceding the Revolution. It was due to popular feeling,
wrongly directed; and to new working-men's organizations, not as yet
understanding the task that was before them. These organizations, as yet
almost formless, and never so important that records were kept, called
themselves the Sons of Liberty, after a phrase used by Isaac Barre, in a
speech in Parliament opposing the Stamp Act. The tree on which they had
hung the image of Oliver was from this time called Liberty Tree.
The better class of Boston citizens at once, in a town meeting called
the following morning, declared their "detestation of these violent
proceedings," and promised to suppress them in future. We shall see that
one more such outbreak, and one only, was made by a Boston mob. There is
here suggested an unwritten, perhaps never to be written, chapter of the
history of this time. By what means did the Boston leaders, Samuel Adams
chief among them, manage to control the Boston workmen? However it was
done, by what conferences and through what reasoning, it is safe to say
that the loose organizations of the Sons of Liberty, and still another
set of clubs, the caucuses which met in various parts of the town, were
utilized to control the lower classes. We know the names of a few of the
leaders of the workmen: Edes the printer, Crafts the painter, and, most
noted of them all, Paul Revere the silversmith. These sturdy men, and
others in different trades, were the means of transmitting to the
artisans of Boston the thoughts and desires of the upper-class Whigs.
The organization was looser than that of a political party of to-day,
but as soon as it was completed, it produced a subordination, secrecy,
and self-control which cannot be paralleled in modern times.
The opposition to the Stamp Act continued. More formidable than mobs
were the actions of the town meetings and legislatures. Protests and
declarations were solemnly drawn up; for the first time was heard the
threat of disaffection. Representatives from nine provinces met in the
Stamp Act Congress, and passed resolutions against the new taxation.
It was impossible for England to ignore the situation. Reluctantly--it
was an act which the king never forgot nor forgave--more than a year
after its passage, when it was proved that its enforcement was
impossible, the Stamp Act was repealed.
This was the time for England to change her whole policy. Not Boston
alone, but all America, had declared against American taxation. The
principles of liberty had again and again been clearly pointed out.
Further, there would have been no disgrace in admitting a mistake. The
whole colonial question was new in human history, for Roman practice was
inadmissible. "The best writers on public law," reasoned Otis, "contain
nothing that is satisfactory on the natural rights of colonies.... Their
researches are often but the history of ancient abuses."[15] The natural
rights of man should have been allowed to rule, as in the course of
time, with England's other colonies, they came to do.
But, for better or for worse, sides had been taken. Few thought of
turning back. In England there were no breaks in the ranks of the king's
supporters; in America the office-holding class, the "best families,"
the people of settled income and vested rights, were as a rule,
selfishly or unselfishly, for the king. Already "mobocracy," "the
faction," "sedition," were familiar terms among them. England was ready
to take, and the American Tories were ready to applaud, the next step.
And Boston was being marked down as the most obnoxious of the towns of
America.[16]
FOOTNOTES:
[10] The adjectives are those of _Massachusettensis_, the ablest Tory
pamphleteer, as quoted in Frothingham's "Siege," 33.
[11] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 5.
[12] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 7.
[13] Bancroft's "United States," v, 247.
[14] Fiske, "American Revolution," illustrated edition, i, 17.
[15] Bancroft's "United States," v, 203.
[16] The Castle, or Castle William, referred to in this chapter, was the
old fort on Castle Island. It was never put to any other use than as a
barracks and magazine.
CHAPTER III
CHARLES TOWNSHEND, SAM ADAMS, AND THE MASSACRE
Unfortunately, when the Stamp Act was repealed, the way had been left
open for future trouble. The Rockingham ministry, the most liberal which
could then be assembled, even in repealing the Stamp Act thought it
incumbent upon them to assert, in the Declaratory Act, the right to tax
America. The succeeding ministry, called together under the failing
Pitt, was the means of reasserting the right. Pitt, too ill to support
the labor of leading his party in the Commons, entered the House of
Lords as Earl of Chatham, thus acknowledging the eclipse of fame and
abilities which in the previous reign had astounded Europe. It was
during one of his periods of illness, when he was unable to attend to
public affairs, that a subordinate insubordinately reversed his public
policy by proceeding once more to tax America.
Charles Townshend was Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was he who had
urged the reënactment of the Sugar Act in 1763, and he now saw
opportunity to put through a more radical policy. In violation of all
implied pledges, disdaining restraint from his colleagues, this
brilliant but unstable politician introduced into Parliament a new bill
for raising an American revenue. "I am still,"[17] he declared, "a firm
advocate of the Stamp Act.... I laugh at the absurd distinction between
internal and external taxation.... It is a distinction without a
difference; if we have a right to impose the one, we have a right to
impose the other; the distinction is ridiculous in the sight of
everybody, except the Americans."
"Everybody, except the Americans!" The phrase, from an important speech
at a critical moment, marks the fact that a world of thought divided
the two parts of the Empire more truly than did the Atlantic. But not as
yet so evidently. It is only in unconscious acknowledgments such as
these that we find the English admitting the new classification. In
studying the years before and after this event we find the Americans
often called Puritans and Oliverians, while the possible rise of a
Cromwell among them is admitted. Yet the parallel, though unmistakably
apt, and containing a serious warning, was never taken to heart, even in
America.
Americans were very slow in approaching the conclusion that colonists
had irrefragable rights. Caution and habit and pride in the name of
Englishman kept them from it; the colonist, visiting England for the
first time, still proudly said that he was going "home." There was no
reason why this feeling should ever change, if only the spirit of
compromise, the basis of the British Constitution, had been kept in mind
by Parliament. But the times were wrong. Hesitate as the colonists might
before the syllogism which lay ready for completion, its minor and
major premises were already accepted. That they were Englishmen, and
that Englishmen had inalienable rights, were articles of faith among
them. The conclusion would be drawn as soon as they were forced to it.
And Townshend was preparing to force them.
Townshend proposed small duties on lead, paints, glass, and paper.
Besides this, he withdrew the previous export duty, one shilling per
pound, on tea taken from England to America, and instead of this he laid
an import duty of threepence per pound. This was ingeniously new, being
internal taxation in a form different from that of the Stamp Act. At the
same time was abandoned the ancient contention that customs duties were
but trade regulations. The new taxes were obviously to raise an English
revenue. For the execution of the new laws provision was made in each
colony for collectors to be paid directly by the king, but indirectly by
the colonies. The head of these collectors was a board of Commissioners
of the Customs, stationed at Boston. It will be seen that thus were
begun new irritations for the colonies, in the shape of duties for the
benefit of England, and of a corps of officials whose dependence on the
crown made sure that they would be subservient tools.
While this was done, no change was made in the plan to maintain in
America an army at colonial expense. Indeed, New York was punished for
refusing to supply to the troops quartered in the city supplies that had
been illegally demanded. Its assembly was not allowed to proceed with
public business until the supplies should be voted. Thus every other
colony was notified what to expect.
The Revenue Acts were passed in July, 1767. Upon receiving the news the
colonies expressed to each other their discontent. Concerning the
Customs Commissioners Boston felt the greatest uneasiness. "We shall
now," wrote Andrew Eliot, "be obliged to maintain in luxury sycophants,
court parasites, and hungry dependents." The strongest expression upon
the general situation was in Dickinson's "Farmer's Letters."[18]
"This," said he, "is an INNOVATION, and a most dangerous innovation. We
being obliged to take commodities from Great Britain, special duties
upon their exportation to us are as much taxes as those imposed by the
Stamp Act. Great Britain claims and exercises the right to prohibit
manufactures in America. Once admit that she may lay duties upon her
exportations to us, for the purpose of levying money on us only, she
will then have nothing to do but to lay those duties on the articles
which she prohibits us to manufacture, and the tragedy of American
liberty is finished."
There was but one way to meet the situation. In October the town of
Boston resolved, through its town meeting, to import none of the
dutiable articles. The example was followed by other towns until all the
colonies had entered, unofficially, into a non-importation agreement.
The question arose, What further should be done? Otis was beginning his
mental decline. It was now that Samuel Adams, or Sam Adams, as Boston
better loves to call him, came into the leadership which he ever after
exercised.
He was a man of plain Boston ancestry, whose father had interested
himself in public affairs, and who, like his son, was of doubtful
business ability. Sam Adams's interests were evident from his boyhood,
and when in 1743 he took his degree of Master of Arts at Harvard, he
presented a thesis on the subject: "Whether it be Lawful to resist the
Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved."
Although he inherited a little property from his father, and although
from the year 1753 he served constantly in public offices, up to the
year 1764 he had scarcely been a success. His patrimony had largely
disappeared; further, as tax-collector he stood, with his associates,
indebted to the town for nearly ten thousand pounds. The reason for this
is not clear; the fact has been used to his disadvantage by Tory
historians, the first of them being Hutchinson, who calls the situation
a "defalcation." But in order to feel sure that the state of affairs
was justified by circumstances, we need only to consider that in the
same year Adams was chosen by the town on the committee to "instruct"
its representatives, and a year later was himself made a legislator.
From that time on, his influence in Boston and Massachusetts politics
steadily grew.
His political sentiments were never in doubt. In his "instructions" of
1764 are found the words: "If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape
without our having a legal representative where they are laid, are we
not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State
of tributary Slaves?"[19] Throughout the Stamp Act agitation he was
active in opposing the new measures. He was found to be ready with his
tongue, but especially so with his pen. For this reason he was
constantly employed by the town and the Assembly to draft their
resolutions, and some of the most momentous documents of the period
remain to us in his handwriting. When at last, at the beginning of 1768,
some one was needed to express the opinion of Massachusetts upon the
Townshend Acts, Samuel Adams was naturally looked to as the man for the
work.
He drafted papers which were, one after the other, adopted by the
Massachusetts Assembly. The first was a letter of remonstrance,
addressed to the colony's agent in London, and intended to be made
public. It protested, in words seven times revised by the Assembly,
against the proposed measures. Similar letters were sent to members of
the ministry and leaders of English opinion. Another letter was
addressed to the king. Of the success of this, Adams apparently had
little hope, for when his daughter remarked that the paper might be
touched by the royal hand, he replied, "More likely it will be spurned
by the royal foot." The final one of these state papers was a circular
letter addressed to "each House of Representatives or Burgesses on the
continent." This expressed the opinion of Massachusetts upon the new
laws, and invited discussion. That nothing in this should be considered
underhanded, a copy of the circular letter was sent to England.
It is significant that at the same time the new revenue commission sent
a secret letter to England, protesting against New England town
meetings, "in which the lowest mechanics discussed the most important
points of government with the utmost freedom,"[20] and asking for
troops.
This begins the series of misrepresentations and complaints which,
constantly sent secretly to England, became a leading cause of trouble.
The working of the old colonial system is here seen in its perfection.
Believing in the right to tax and punish, the Ministry appointed
officers of the same belief. These men, finding themselves in hot water
in Boston, were annoyed and perhaps truly alarmed, and constantly urged
harsher measures and the sending of troops. The ministry, listening to
its own supporters, and disbelieving the assertions of the American
Whigs, more and more steadily inclined toward severity.
Perhaps no falser idea was created than that Boston was riotous. Says
Fiske: "Of all the misconceptions of America by England which brought
about the American Revolution, perhaps this notion of the turbulence of
Boston was the most ludicrous." One of the most serious also. The chief
cause was in the timorousness of Bernard, the governor. On the occasion
of the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act, when, as Hutchinson
said, "We had only such a mob as we have long been used to on the Fifth
of November," Bernard wrote that there was "a disposition to the utmost
disorder." As a crowd reached his house, "There was so terrible a yell
it was apprehended they were breaking in. It was not so; however, it
caused the same terror as if it had been so." That such a letter should
have any effect on home opinion is, as Fiske says, ludicrous. Yet the
mischief caused by these reports is incalculable. "It is the bare
truth," says Trevelyan, "that his own Governors and
Lieutenant-Governors wrote King George out of America."[21]
Another little series of incidents at this time shows the official
disposition to magnify reports of trouble. For some weeks the ship of
war _Romney_ had lain in the harbor, summoned by the commissioners of
customs. That the ship should be summoned was in itself an offence to
the town; but the conduct of the captain, in impressing seamen in the
streets of Boston, was worse. Bad blood arose between the ship's crew
and the longshoremen; one of the impressed men was rescued, but the
captain angrily refused to accept a substitute for another. Trouble was
brought to a head by the seizure, on the order of the commissioners of
customs, of John Hancock's sloop, the _Liberty_, on alleged violation of
regulations. Irritated by the seizure, and by the fact that the sloop
was moored by the side of the _Romney_, a crowd threatened the customs
house officers, broke the comptroller's windows, and, taking a boat
belonging to the collector, after parading with it through the streets,
burnt it on the Common.
This was the second disturbance in Boston which can be called a riot.
But it was of small size and short duration; the influence of the Whig
leaders, working through secret channels, quieted the mob, and there was
no further trouble. Nevertheless, four of the commissioners of the
customs seized the occasion to flee to the _Romney_, and to request of
the governor protection in the Castle, declaring that they dared not
return. But the remaining commissioner remained undisturbed on shore,
and a committee of the council, examining into the matter, found that
the affair had been only "a small disturbance." A committee from the
Boston town meeting, going in eleven chaises to Bernard at his country
seat, secured from him a promise to stop impressments, and a statement
of his desire for conciliation. Nevertheless Bernard, Hutchinson, and
the various officers of the customs, used the incident in their letters
home to urge that troops were needed in Boston.
This was but an interlude, though an instructive one, in the main course
of events. Massachusetts had protested against the new Acts. The next
issue arose when the Assembly was directed, by the new colonial
secretary, Lord Hillsborough, to rescind its Remonstrance and Circular
Letter. The debate on the question was long and important; the demand
was refused by a vote of seventeen to ninety-two. The curious can still
see, in the Old State House, the punch-bowl that Paul Revere was
commissioned to make for the "Immortal Ninety-two;" and there still
exist copies of Revere's caricature of the Rescinders, with Timothy
Ruggles at their head, being urged by devils into the mouth of hell.
These are indications of the feelings of the times. The immediate result
was that in June, 1768, Bernard dissolved the house, and Massachusetts
was "left without a legislature." Upon the news reaching England, it
was at last resolved to send troops to Boston. The crisis in
Massachusetts was now serious. Against the governor and the expected
troops stood only the council, with slight powers. Some machinery must
be devised to meet the emergency, and the solution of the difficulty was
found by Samuel Adams. His mind first leaped to the ultimate remedy for
all troubles, and then found the way out of the present difficulty.
The ultimate solution was independence. Though in moments of despondency
and exasperation the word had been used by both parties, until now no
one had considered independence possible except Samuel Adams. From this
period he worked for it, in secret preparing men's minds for the grand
change. According to a Tory accusation made in a later year, Adams
"confessed that the independence of the colonies had been the great
object of his life; that whenever he met a youth of parts he had
endeavored to instil such notions into his mind, and had neglected no
opportunity, either in public or in private, of preparing the way for
independence."[22]
Another Tory source, a deposition gathered when the Tories were
preparing an accusation against Adams, shows the agitator at work.
During the affair of the sloop _Liberty_, "the informant observed
several parties of men gathered in the street at the south end of the
town of Boston, in the forenoon of the day. The informant went up to one
of the parties, and Mr. Samuel Adams, then one of the representatives of
Boston, happened to join the same party near about the same time,
trembling and in great agitation.... The informant heard the said Samuel
Adams then say to the same party, 'If you are men, behave like men. Let
us take up arms immediately, and be free, and seize all the king's
officers. We shall have thirty thousand freemen to join us from the
country.'"
The statement of the deposition is crude and overdone, yet there can be
no doubt that from this time Adams did work for the one great end. At
first he was alone, yet he recognized the temper of the continent, and
saw the way that the political sentiments of the country were tending.
The methods which he followed were not always open; for never did he
avow his true sentiments, while often protesting, on behalf of the town
or the province, loyalty to the crown. Doubtless he did train the young
men up as he saw them inclined. In one case we know that he failed.
"Samuel Adams used to tell me," said John Coffin, a Boston Tory,
"'Coffin, you must not leave us; we shall have warm work, and want
you.'"[23] But in other cases Adams succeeded: one by one John Hancock,
Josiah Quincy, Jr., John Adams, and Joseph Warren were by him brought
into prominence. And at the same time he began to accustom men's minds
to new methods of political activity.
This Adams did in the present difficulty, when, in default of the
Assembly, he yet needed an expression of the opinion of the province.
Through his means was called a convention of the towns of Massachusetts,
which met in Faneuil Hall, on the 22d of September, 1768.
The convention was self-restrained. It called upon the governor to
convene the Assembly, and approved all the acts which had caused the
Assembly's dismissal; it resolved to preserve order, and quietly
dissolved itself. "I doubt," said the British Attorney-General, "whether
they have committed an overt act of treason, but I am sure they have
come within a hair's breadth of it."
Immediately afterwards arrived the ships with troops. These were landed
with much parade, to find a peaceful town, yet one which from the first
was able to annoy them. Demand was made for quarters for the soldiers;
the Selectmen and Council replied by referring to the law which forbade
such a requisition until the barracks at Castle William should be
filled. By neither subtlety nor threats could the town be induced to
yield; the troops camped on the Common until, at great expense, the
crown officials were forced to hire quarters. It was but the beginning
of the discomfort of the troops, openly scorned in a town where
three-quarters of the people were against them. Where few women except
their own camp-followers would have to do with the soldiers, where the
men despised them and the boys jeered, where "lobster-back" was the
mildest term that was flung at them, there was no satisfaction in
wearing the king's uniform.
[Illustration: FANEUIL HALL]
Eighteen months of this life wore upon the soldiers. The townsfolk
became adepts at subtle irritations, against which there was not even
the solace of interesting occupation; for except for daily drill there
was nothing to do. In time the more violent among the troops were ripe
for any affray; while the lower classes among the inhabitants, stanch
Whigs and sober livers, were sick of the noisy ribaldry which for so
long had made unpleasant the streets of the town. Out of these
conditions grew what has been called the Boston Massacre.
The best contemporary, and in fact the best general authority for this
event is the "Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston." This
was published by the town for circulation in England, and is still
extant in Doggett's reprint of 1849, and in Kidder's of 1870. In a
report of a special committee the town rehearses both the events of the
Massacre and the proceedings which followed it. Seventy-two pages of
depositions are appended to the report of the committee: no other single
event of those days is made so vivid to us.
The Massacre was preceded by minor disturbances. On the second of March,
1770, insults having passed between a soldier and a ropemaker, the
former came to the ropewalk, "and looking into one of the windows said,
_by God I'll have satisfaction!_ ... and at last said he was not afraid
of any one in the ropewalks. I"--thus deposes Nicholas Feriter, of
lawful age, "stept out of the window and speedily knocked up his heels.
On falling, his coat flew open, and a naked sword appeared, which one
John Willson, following me out, took from him, and brought into the
ropewalks." The soldier returned a second and a third time, each time
with more men from his regiment. At the last they were "headed by a tall
negro drummer, with a cutlass chained to his body, with which, at first
rencounter," says valiant Nicholas, "I received a cut on the head, but
being immediately supported by nine or ten more of the ropemakers, armed
with their wouldring sticks, we again beat them off."
For three days there was, among the two regiments stationed in the town,
anger which the inhabitants endeavored to allay by the discharge of the
ropemaker who gave the original insult, and by agreements made with the
commanding officer, Colonel Dalrymple. But, as afterwards appeared,
there were warnings of further trouble. Cautions were given to friends
of the soldiers not to go on the streets at night. The soldiers and
their women could not refrain from dark hints of violence to come. It is
even possible that violence was concerted. On the night of the fifth a
number of soldiers assembled in Atkinson Street. "They stood very still
until the guns were fired in King Street, then they clapped their hands
and gave a cheer, saying, 'This is all that we want'; they then ran to
their barracks and came out again in a few minutes, all with their arms,
and ran toward King Street." "I never," so runs other testimony, "saw
men or dogs so greedy for their prey as these soldiers seemed to be."
But the affray was of small proportions, and soon over. The actual
outbreak originated in a quarrel between a barber's boy and a sentry,
stationed in King Street below the east end of the Town House.[24] Boys
and men gathered, the sentry called out the guard, fire-bells were rung,
and the crowd increased. The captain of the guard was not the man for
the emergency. Said Henry Knox, afterward general and Secretary of War,
"I took Captain Preston by the coat and told him for God's sake to take
his men back again, for if they fired his life must answer for the
consequence; he replied he was sensible of it, or knew what he was
about, or words to that purpose; and seemed in great haste and much
agitated." The gathering still increased, there was crowding and
jostling, snowballs and possibly sticks were thrown; the soldiers grew
angry and the officer uncertain what to do. "The soldiers," testified
John Hickling, "assumed different postures, shoving their bayonets
frequently at the people, one in particular pushing against my side
swore he would run me through; I laid hold of his bayonet and told him
that nobody was going to meddle with them. Not more than ten seconds
after this I saw something white, resembling a piece of snow or ice,
fall among the soldiers, which knocked the end of a firelock to the
ground. At that instant the word 'Fire!' was given, but by whom I know
not; but concluded it did not come from the officer aforesaid, as I was
within a yard of him and must have heard him had he spoken it, but am
satisfied said Preston did not forbid them to fire; I instantly leaped
within the soldier's bayonet as I heard him cock his gun, which that
moment went off.... I, thinking there was nothing but powder fired,
stood still, till ... I saw another gun fired, and the man since called
Attucks, fall. I then withdrew about two or three yards.... During this
the rest of the guns were fired, one after another, when I saw two more
fall.... I further declare that I heard no other affront given them than
the huzzaing and whistling of boys in the street."
After the firing, other soldiers were summoned to the spot, and more
townspeople appeared. The soldiers, says the official narrative, "were
drawn up between the State House and main guard, their lines extended
across the street and facing down King Street, where the town people
were assembled. The first line kneeled, and the whole of the first
platoon presented their guns ready to fire, as soon as the word should
be given.... For some time the appearance of things were dismal. The
soldiers outrageous on the one hand, and the inhabitants justly incensed
against them on the other: both parties seemed disposed to come to
action."
Had the affair gone further, so that the soldiers fired again, or the
townspeople stormed the barracks, then the affray would have resembled
the riots not uncommon in Europe at that time, and known even in
England. In such a case the turbulence of Boston might have been proved.
But the good town was later able to claim that up to the actual breaking
out of hostilities not one soldier or Tory had been harmed in
Massachusetts. In the present case nothing further happened. The
stubborn people stood their ground, but the eager troops were restrained
and led away. The punishment of the offenders took place according to
law, with John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., leaders of the Whigs, as
successful defenders of the captain.
The important consequences were political. Though the people dispersed
that night, they assembled on the morrow in a crowded town meeting,
where Samuel Adams guided the actions of the assembly. Adjourning from
Faneuil Hall to the Old South, which itself could not accommodate them
all, the throng passed the very spot of the Massacre and under the
windows of the State House, where the lieutenant-governor viewed them.
This man was Hutchinson, acting governor in the absence of Bernard, and
at last about to arrive at the goal of colonial ambition.
Thomas Hutchinson has been too much condemned, and of late years almost
too much commended. He had spent thirty years in the service of the
colony, holding more offices, and more at the same time, than any man of
his generation. Now he was unpopular and misjudged, yet he was a man for
his day and party honest and patriotic; his end, in exile in England,
was one of the tragedies of American loyalty. But though a braver man
than Bernard and more public-spirited, his methods were equally
underhanded, and he fatally mistook the capacity of his countrymen to
govern themselves. A man who could wish for less freedom of speech in
England was not the man to sympathize with the spirit of Americans.
He now, backed by a few councillors and officials, was to face Sam Adams
and the Boston town meeting. With a committee from the meeting, Adams
came to the State House to demand the withdrawal of the troops to the
Castle. Hutchinson answered that he would withdraw one regiment, but had
not the power to remove both. Retiring at the head of his committee,
Adams passed through a lane of people on his way to the Old South. "Both
regiments or none!" he said right and left as he passed, and every one
took up the word. "Both regiments or none!" cried the meeting. Voting
his report unsatisfactory, it sent him back to the governor to repeat
his demand.
"Now for the picture," wrote John Adams many years after. "The theatre
and the scenery are the same with those at the discussion of the writs
of assistance. The same glorious portraits of King Charles the Second,
and King James the Second, to which might be added, and should be added,
little miserable likenesses of Governor Winthrop, Governor Bradstreet,
Governor Endicott, and Governor Belcher, hung up in obscure corners of
the room. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, commander-in-chief in the
absence of the governor, must be placed at the head of the
council-table. Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, commander of his majesty's
military forces, taking rank of all his majesty's councillors, must be
seated by the side of the lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief of
the Province. Eight-and-twenty councillors must be painted, all seated
at the council-board. Let me see,--what costume? What was the fashion of
that day in the month of March? Large white wigs, English scarlet-cloth
coats, some of them with gold-laced hats; not on their heads indeed in
so august a presence, but on the table before them or under the table
beneath them. Before these illustrious persons appeared SAMUEL ADAMS, a
member of the House of Representatives and their clerk, now at the head
of the committee of the great assembly at the Old South Church."[25]
[Illustration: 1722--SAMUEL ADAMS 1803 By John Singleton Copley]
It is this moment that Copley chose to represent Adams. Facing the
governor, the officers, and the councillors, Adams stood in his simple
"wine-colored suit," and appealed to the charter and the laws. "If you
have power to remove one regiment, you have power to remove both. It is
at your peril if you do not. The meeting is composed of three thousand
people. They are become very impatient. A thousand men are already
arrived from the neighborhood, and the country is in general motion.
Night is approaching; an immediate answer is expected."[26]
Hutchinson was a man learned in the history of the province and the
people, and the occasion had impressed him already. As the meeting had
passed under his windows on the way to the Old South, a friend at his
side had remarked that this was not the kind of men that had sacked his
house. He had noted the resolute countenances of the best men of the
town, and had--to use his own words--judged their spirit to be as
strong, and their resolve as high, as those of the men who had
imprisoned Andros. Adams, narrowly watching him now, marked the tumult
in Hutchinson's mind.
"I observed his knees to tremble," said Adams afterward; "I saw his face
grow pale; and I enjoyed the sight."[27] For Hutchinson, poorly
supported and irresolute, the strain was too great. He temporized and
parleyed, but he thought again of Andros, and gave way. It was a
complete triumph for the town. The troops, until their removal to the
Castle could be effected, were virtually imprisoned in their barracks by
a patrol of citizens. From that time they bore the name of the "Sam
Adams regiments."
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Bancroft, vi, 48.
[18] Farmer's Letters, quoted in Bancroft, vi, 105.
[19] Hosmer, "Life of Samuel Adams," 48.
[20] Bancroft's "United States," vi, 128.
[21] "American Revolution," Part 1, 43.
[22] Hosmer's "Life of Adams."
[23] Sabine's "Loyalists."
[24] King Street is now State Street, and the Town House is the Old
State House.
[25] Hosmer's "Samuel Adams," 172.
[26] Bancroft, vi, 344.
[27] Bancroft, vi, 345.
CHAPTER IV
THE TEA-PARTY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Step by step the mother country and its colonies were advancing to a
rupture. The first step was taken at the test concerning the writs of
assistance, the second at the passage of the Stamp Act and its repeal,
the third resulted in the Massacre and the withdrawal of the troops from
Boston. Each time the colonies gained the practical advantages which
they sought; each time the king's party, while yielding, became more
exasperated, and presently tested the strength of the colonies once
more; and each time it was Boston that stood as the head and front of
opposition. The town was marked for martyrdom.
In the case of the Townshend Acts, the victory of the colonists was
temporarily complete. The movement had come to a head at Boston in an
actual outbreak, the Massacre, which obscured the greater issues;
nevertheless the issues were won. America would not submit to the new
revenue laws. Very calmly it had avoided them by refusing to import from
England. A thorough test of nearly two years showed that from north to
south the colonies were almost a unit in rejecting English and foreign
goods, and in relying on home manufactures. From importations of more
than a million and a quarter pounds, two-thirds fell clean away,[28] and
the merchants of England felt the pinch. There was but one thing to do,
and England grudgingly did it. The withdrawal of the troops from Boston
was acquiesced in, and the revenue acts, the cause of all the trouble,
were repealed, except for a duty still maintained upon tea.
The response was such that England was relieved. New York began to
import those articles which had been made free of duty. The
non-importation agreement was broken, as the colonies perceived. "You
had better send us your old liberty pole," wrote Philadelphia scornfully
to New York, "since you clearly have no further use for it."[29] Whigs
and Tories both saw that, the agreement thus broken, other colonies
would follow the example of New York.
The advantage was now clearly with the king, and he endeavored to make
the most of it, not by abiding in peace, but by taking a further step.
He ordered that colonial judges should in future be paid from the
English treasury. No one in the colonies could fail to see that the blow
was aimed directly at the independence of the judiciary.
Massachusetts was alarmed. Boston sent resolutions to the governor, but
Hutchinson, now at last in the chair, refused to listen to the town
meeting. In this moment of indignation, Samuel Adams conceived a scheme
which was the longest step yet taken toward independence.
This was the idea of Committees of Correspondence, to be permanently
maintained by each town and even by each colony. The idea of such
committees was not novel. It had been suggested years before by Jonathan
Mayhew, and had more than once been used in emergencies. But permanent
committees, watching affairs and at any time ready to act, were new.
Naturally composed of the best men in each town, they would at all times
be ready to speak, and to speak vigorously. The plan, when perfected,
eventually enabled the colonies to act as a unit. From the first it gave
strength to the Americans; in the present instance it spread the news of
the king's action and roused indignation, and before long it brought
about an act which startled the English-speaking world.
This was the Boston Tea-Party. The king had a hand in making the fire
hot. He had been vexed by his unsuccessful tariff, and was now
especially irritated that his concessions had brought about no result in
one important particular.
Until the present every shipmaster had been a smuggler, and all the
Whigs dealt in smuggled goods. This was according to old English
practice, but as a matter of fact illicit trade was more decorous in
America than in England. Whereas in Cornwall the forces of the smugglers
were so strong that they chased the revenue cutters into harbors and
landed their goods by bright moonlight, in America the appearances of
legality were gravely preserved.
Nevertheless the result was the same, and in one quarter was actually
serious. The recent tariff had brought to the royal treasury scarcely
three hundred pounds from tea. The situation was no better now that the
tea-duty was the only one remaining. So completely did America, while
still drinking tea in quantity, avoid the duly imported article, that
the revenue of the East India Company fell off alarmingly. On pathetic
representations of the financial state of the company, the king gave
permission, through a subservient Parliament, for the company to export
tea to America free even of the English duty. The company had lost
hundreds of thousands of pounds since the Townshend Acts went in force;
now by favorable terms it was to be enabled to undersell in the colonial
market even the smuggled teas. Taking advantage of this new ruling, tea
was promptly shipped, in the autumn of 1773, to different consignees in
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.
It was confidently expected that the colonies would buy the tea. No one
in the government supposed that the Americans would be blind to their
own interests. This much, indeed, was admitted by the leaders among the
Whigs, that once the tea was on sale Yankee principle might be sorely
tempted by Yankee thrift. Indignant at the insidious temptation,
determined that no such test should be made, and resenting the
establishment of a practical monopoly throughout the colonies, the
leaders resolved that the tea should not be landed.
It is an odd fortune that connected the Chinese herb so closely with
the struggle of principle in America. To this day, while the issues are
obscured in the mind of the average American, he remembers the tax on
tea, and that his ancestors would not pay it. Picturesque tales of
ladies' associations depriving themselves of their favorite beverage, of
men tarring and feathering unpopular tradesmen, have survived the
hundred and thirty odd years which have passed since then; and the
impression is general that the colonists would not pay a tax which bore
heavy on them. But it will be noticed by those who have attentively read
this account that the colonists were refusing to pay less, in order that
they might have the satisfaction of paying more. They balked, not at the
amount of the tax, but at its principle.
In the case of the tea-ships the duty of action fell upon Boston.
Charleston and Philadelphia had taken a positive stand resolving not to
receive the tea; but the ships were due at Boston first. The eyes of
the continent were upon this one town. Boston made ready to act, yet of
the preparations we know nothing. While the story as it is told is
interesting enough, there is no record of the secret meetings in which
the events were prepared. Hints are dropped, and it is asserted that
within the Green Dragon tavern, a favorite meeting-place of the Whigs,
were finally decided the means by which the workmen of the town should
carry out the plans of the leaders. But of these meetings nothing is
positively known; all we can say with certainty is that the plans worked
perfectly, and that Sam Adams must have had a hand in their making.
The Sons of Liberty took the first step toward forcing the consignees of
the tea to resign. "Handbills are stuck up," writes John Andrews,
"calling upon Friends! Citizens! and Countrymen!" To Liberty Tree the
"freemen of Boston and the neighboring towns" were invited, by placard
and advertisement, "to hear the persons, to whom the tea shipped by the
East India Company is consigned, make a public resignation of their
office as consignees, upon oath."[30]
But the consignees did not come, though the freemen did. The
townspeople, forming themselves into a "meeting," sent a committee to
the consignees, demanding that they refuse to receive the tea. But the
consignees believed themselves safe. They were merchants of family and
property, the governor's sons were among them, and it was rumored that
Hutchinson had a pecuniary interest in the success of the venture. They
refused to give the pledge.
The official town meeting now took up the matter. Before the tea
arrived, and again after the appearance of the first ship, the town
called upon the consignees to resign. Each time the consignees refused.
The second town meeting, after thus acting in vain, dissolved without
the customary expression of opinion. Hutchinson himself records that
"this sudden dissolution struck more terror into the consignees than the
most minatory resolves." From that moment the matter was in the hands
of the Boston Committee of Correspondence.
By means of the committee, at whose head was Adams, communication was
held with the towns throughout Massachusetts. The province was greatly
excited, and repeated demands for resignation were made upon the
consignees, but they clung to their offices and the hope of profit.
Delays were skilfully secured, and the first ship was entered at the
customs, after which according to law it must within twenty days either
clear for England or land its cargo. The governor was resolved not to
grant a clearance, and rejoiced over his opponents. "They find
themselves," he said, "in invincible difficulties."
But everything was prepared. To the last minute of the twenty days the
Whigs were patient. Petition after petition, appeal after appeal, went
to the governor or the consignees. There was no success. On the last
day, the 16th of December, 1773, all three of the tea-ships were at
Griffin's Wharf, watched by the patriots. A town meeting, the largest in
the history of Boston, crowded the Old South, and again resolved that
the tea should not be landed. "Who knows," asked John Rowe, "how tea
will mingle with salt water?" The remark was greeted with cheers, yet
one more legal step might be taken, and the meeting, sending Rotch, the
master of the first tea-ship, to the governor at Milton to ask for a
clearance, patiently waited while he should traverse the fifteen miles
of his journey. During the hours of his absence there was no
disturbance; when he returned, the daylight had gone, and the Old South
was lighted with candles. Seven thousand people were silent to hear the
report. It was brief, and its meaning was clear: the governor had
refused; the last legal step had been taken. Then Samuel Adams rose.
"This meeting," he declared, "can do nothing more to save the country."
It was the expected signal. Immediately there was a shout from the
porch, and the warwhoop sounded out of doors. The meeting poured out of
doors and followed some fifty men in the garb of Indians, who suddenly
appeared in the street. They hurried to Griffin's Wharf. There they
posted guards, took possession of the tea-ships, and hoisting the chests
from the holds, knocked them open and emptied the tea into the water.
Under the moon the great crowd watched in silence, there was no
interference from the troops or the war-ships, and in three hours the
last of the tea was overboard. Nothing remained except what had sifted
into the shoes of some of the "Indians," to be preserved as mementoes of
the day.
"They say," wrote John Andrews dryly two days later, "that the actors
were _Indians_ from _Narragansett_. Whether they were or not, to a
transient observer they appear'd as _such_, being cloath'd in Blankets
with the heads muffled, and copper color'd countenances, being each
arm'd with a hatchet or axe, and pair pistols, nor was their _dialect_
different from what I conceive these geniusses to _speak_, as their
jargon was unintelligible to all but themselves. Not the least insult
was offer'd to any person, save one Captain Conner, a letter of horses
in this place, not many years since remov'd from _dear Ireland_, who had
ript up the lining of his coat and waistcoat under the arms, and
watching his opportunity had nearly fill'd 'em with tea, but being
detected, was handled pretty roughly. They not only stripp'd him of his
cloaths, but gave him a coat of mud, with a severe bruising into the
bargain; and nothing but their utter aversion to make _any_ disturbance
prevented his being tar'd and feather'd."
Such was the Boston Tea-Party, "the boldest stroke," said Hutchinson,
"that had yet been struck in America." Much has been written about it.
It has been minimized into a riot and magnified into a deed of glory. As
a matter of fact, it was neither the one nor the other, yet if either it
was nearer the latter. Carried out by Boston mechanics, but doubtless
directed by Boston leaders, it was a cool and deliberate law-breaking,
the penalty for which, could the offenders but have been discovered,
would have been severe. But none of the actors in the affair were
betrayed at the time, though hundreds in the town must have had positive
knowledge of their identity. Names, like those of the burners of the
_Gaspee_ eighteen months before, were not given out until after the
Revolution, and even to-day the list of them is not complete.
The project of the king and the East India Company was a failure. In one
way or other the other three seaports either destroyed or sent back
their tea. But Boston was the first and most violent offender. It was on
her that punishment was to descend.
The news of the Tea-Party came to England at a time when king and
Parliament were less amiably disposed than usual toward Massachusetts.
Some weeks before had happened the affair of the Hutchinson letters.
Benjamin Franklin, then Postmaster-General of England, and agent for
Massachusetts, had secured possession of certain letters written by
Governor Hutchinson and by others in office in the colony. These letters
proved beyond doubt that the Massachusetts officials had been secretly
urging upon the home government repressive measures against the colony.
This was but what Bernard had done, and what had been suspected of his
successor; yet the actual proof was too much for Franklin. He sent the
letters, under pledge of secrecy, home to be read by the leaders among
the Massachusetts Whigs. But the pledge of secrecy could not be kept.
The letters were read in the Assembly and then published. "He had
written," says Bancroft of Hutchinson, "against every part of the
Constitution, the elective character of the Council, the annual choice
of the Assembly, the New England organization of the towns; had advised
and solicited the total dependence of the judiciary on the Crown, had
hinted at making the experiment of declaring Martial Law, and of
abrogating English liberty; had advised to the restraint of the
commerce of Boston and the exclusion of the Province from the
fisheries."[31] Hutchinson's defence was that he "had never wrote any
public or private letter that tends to subvert the Constitution." But he
was thinking of the Constitution rather than the Charter. The province
was thoroughly roused, and sent to England a firm yet respectful
petition demanding his dismissal.
But Hutchinson had been serving the king as the king wished to be
served. The wrath of the government fell upon Franklin. In a crowded
meeting of the Privy Council, with scant respect for the forms of law,
Franklin was subjected to elaborate abuse. There were none to defend him
who could gain a respectful hearing; he stood immovable under the
tongue-lashing of the Solicitor-General, and made no reply. "I have
never," he said afterwards, "been so sensible of the power of a good
conscience, for if I had not considered the thing for which I have been
so much insulted, as one of the best actions of my life, and what I
should certainly do again in the same circumstances, I could not have
supported it."[32] The suit which he wore that day he put carefully
away, and did not wear it again until as Commissioner for the United
States he signed in Paris the treaty of alliance with France.
Franklin was deprived of his office under the crown, and the king who
directed the punishment, the council who condemned him, and the
Parliament which cheered them both on, were not yet satisfied. When the
news of the Tea-Party came, they felt that their chance had come to
strike at the real culprit. The king consulted General Gage, who was
fresh from Boston, and listened eagerly to his fatally mistaken account
of the situation. "He says," wrote the king to Lord North, "'They will
be lions while we are lambs; but if we take the resolute part they will
undoubtedly prove very meek.' Four regiments sent to Boston will, he
thinks, be sufficient to prevent any disturbance."[33] On such a basis
the king and his prime minister planned the laws which should punish the
town of Boston.
The first act was the Boston Port Bill. It closed the port to all
commerce until the East India Company should be paid for its tea, and
the king satisfied that the town was repentant. Nothing except food and
fuel was to be brought to the town in boats; in fact, as Lord North
promised the Commons, Boston was to be removed seventeen miles from the
ocean. For Salem was made the port of entry, and there the governor and
the collector, the surveyor and the comptroller, and all underlings were
to go. It was planned to station war-ships in Boston Harbor to enforce
the law.
The second law was the "Bill for the better Regulating the Government of
the Massachusetts Bay," generally called the Regulating Act. This
virtually swept away the charter of Massachusetts. It provided first
that the Council was to be appointed by the king, and next that without
the consent of the Council the governor might appoint or remove all
officers of justice, from judges to constables. By the provisions of the
law even the jury lists could be controlled by appointive officers.
Finally town meetings were made illegal throughout the province, except
for the election of town officers, and other necessary local business.
The third proposal of the government was a bill "for the Impartial
Administration of Justice," in proposing which "it was observed that
Lord North trembled and faultered at every word of his motion." It
provided that magistrates, officers, or soldiers might be tried for
"murder, or any other capital offence," in Great Britain.
The fourth act made provision for quartering troops in Boston.
The bills went through Parliament without much opposition. Says
Trevelyan, "Even after the lapse of a century and a quarter the debates
are not pleasant reading for an Englishman."[34] It was assumed that
the punishment was just, and that not only Boston but also the whole
continent would take it meekly. A few voices were raised in protest, but
as a rule even the Opposition was silent. One by one the bills became
law. One more step was taken toward separation.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Trevelyan, "American Revolution," Part I, 104.
[29] "A Card from the Inhabitants of Philadelphia," Bancroft, vi, 366.
[30] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 45.
[31] Bancroft, vi, 461, 462.
[32] Bancroft, vi, 498.
[33] Avery, "History of the United States," v, 190.
[34] "American Revolution," Part I, 181.
CHAPTER V
THE OCCUPATION OF BOSTON
Early in May of 1774 Hutchinson, ostensibly called to England to advise
the king, gave up his offices in Massachusetts. His exile was
approaching. Never again was he to see the fair hill of Milton, nor to
look from its top upon the town and harbor that he loved. The Whigs
exulted over the fall of "the damn'd arch traitor;" yet surely, though
as an official he failed in his task, and as a patriot misread the
temper and the capacity of his countrymen, he commands our pity. Amid
the booming of the cannon which welcomed his successor he prepared for
his departure. Except for his pathetic letters and journals he made no
further mark upon his times or ours. His Milton estate remains, but his
house is gone, and the very street that he lived on bears the name of
Adams, his most persistent enemy.
Hutchinson's successor was Thomas Gage, the first governor sent to
Boston with an army at his back. He was well known in the colonies, for
he had fought well at Braddock's defeat, had married an American wife,
and was courteous and affable. It remained to be seen whether one of his
hesitating temperament could meet the situation. With four regiments he
had undertaken to pacify Massachusetts. He had his four regiments and
more, yet he must occasionally have wondered why he found no more signs
of weakness in the ranks of his opponents.
At this time there were in Boston four chief classes of Whigs. The first
were the ministers, and these for many years had been American to the
core. As the first settlers of Massachusetts, whether Puritan or
Pilgrim, had fled away from prelacy, so their spiritual descendants
still hated the name of bishop. In fact, episcopacy in New England was
still weak, and its greater part was concentrated in Boston itself.
Some few of its ministers preached submission; but they either had to
content themselves with Tory congregations, or lost their pulpits, or
had them boarded up against them. The wiser part was taken by most in
avoiding politics. The sole Congregational minister who supported the
king was Mather Byles, famed for his witticisms, and he likewise
declined to bring into the pulpit any mention of the affairs of the day.
"In the first place," he told those who demanded an expression of his
opinion, "I do not understand politics; in the second place you all do,
every man and mother's son of you; in the third place you have politics
all the week, so pray let one day in the seven be devoted to religion;
in the fourth place I am engaged in work of infinitely greater
importance. Give me any subject to preach on of more consequence than
the truth I bring to you, and I will preach on it next Sabbath."[35]
Gage's support from the pulpit was therefore weak, while at the same
time the opposition from the same source was strong. Those country
ministers who were of the political creed of Sam Adams confessed it each
Sabbath, and desisted not on week days from strengthening the wills of
their congregations. More than that, like their predecessors in older
times, many held chaplaincies in the militia, and on training days
turned out, not only to approve by their presence the object of the
drill, but also to stir the spirit of the homespun soldiery by prayers
to the God of Moses, and of Joshua, and of David. Those in Boston, under
the very nose of the general and in the presence of his soldiery, abated
nothing of their zeal, but preached resistance as before. Gage, as he
looked among them for signs of wavering, could have found very little
comfort.
The lawyers next, like the clergymen, had supplied the Whigs much of
their strength. Surely, up to the present the patriot party had been
distinguished by pliancy and persistence. These characteristics had come
from the lawyers, whose rejoinders and remonstrances, petitions,
resolves, and appeals were familiar professional devices. Yet Gage might
have found hope in these men. For the purpose of all their delays had
been compromise, and their hope was the avoidance of bloodshed. The
lawyers had showed, too, a love of fair play; for while they pressed the
Tories hard, they had also taken the lead in protesting against mob
violence. Again, leading Whig lawyers had defended--and acquitted--the
perpetrators of the Massacre. Possibly such men might be made to see
reason.
A more numerous class than the lawyers was made up of the merchants,
small and large. Some few of these men had made their own way in the
world, yet most of them may almost have been said to have held
hereditary positions in the provincial aristocracy. By far the larger
number of them were Whigs, some of considerable estate, others--like
that John Andrews from whose letters I have already quoted and shall
quote more--were men of moderate means, shrewdly working for a
"competency." Gage, looking forward to the enforcement of the Port
Bill, could see that these men would be hard hit. While they had so far
been firm in the colonial cause, the coming temptation to desert their
party would be very strong. Income, security, and the favor of the king
awaited them.
At the end of this series was the largest class of all, the mechanics.
Until now these men had been eager in their demonstrations against
technical oppression--which yet was technical after all. No Boston Whig
had ever known a tithe of the wrongs of the French peasant or the
Russian serf. No laboring class on earth enjoyed or ever had enjoyed
greater freedom or less hampered prosperity. But with the enforcement of
the Port Bill all this would change. Gage hoped, and the Tories
declared, that the mechanics, so soon as pressure was applied, would
"fall away from the faction."
The first results of the new régime were not promising. To begin with,
on the news of the passage of the Port Bill the Committee of
Correspondence of Boston called a meeting of the committees of the
neighboring towns. This meeting scouted the idea of paying for the tea,
and in a circular letter to the other colonies proposed a general
cessation of trade with Great Britain. Similarly the town meeting of
Boston discussed the situation, pronounced against the Port Bill, and
appealed to all the sister colonies, entreating not to be left to suffer
alone. In more homely language the merchants appealed to their friends.
"Yes, Bill," wrote John Andrews to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia,
"nothing will save us but an entire stoppage of trade, both to England
and the West Indies.... The least hesitancy on your part _to the
Southerd_, and the matter is over."
There was little hesitancy. The suggestion made by the Boston Whigs was
taken up, and the maritime towns, which had been expected to take
advantage of Boston's predicament, began to discontinue trade, not
merely with Great Britain, but also with the West Indies. Then Salem,
which was to be the capital in place of Boston, formally repudiated the
idea of profiting by the situation. The news spread to the other
colonies, and they began to act. New York proposed, and the sister
provinces agreed in, a call for "a general Congress." In less than a
month after the coming of the news of the Port Bill, Boston was assured
that the continent would not leave her to suffer alone.
But then, on the first of June, 1774, the Port Bill went into effect. So
literally was it interpreted, that all carriage by boat in the harbor
was forbidden. No owner of a pasture on the harbor islands might bring
his hay to the town; no goods might be brought across any ferry; not
even carriage by water from wharf to wharf in the town was allowed.
Further, while food and fuel, according to the provisions of the act,
might be brought to Boston by water, all vessels carrying them were
forced to go through troublesome formalities. They must report at the
customs in Salem, unload, load again, and receive a clearance for
Boston. Returning, they might carry enough provision to last them only
to Salem. Besides all this, the Commissioners of Customs at Salem
undertook to decide when Boston had enough provisions. The blockade, as
enforced by them and the ships of war in Boston Harbor, was minutely
complete and vexatious.
Yet at their mildest its provisions were complete enough. Trade by sea
with the town was stopped. Consequently, so maritime were the town's
activities, prosperity was instantly checked. All the workers
immediately dependent on the sea for a living, sailors, wharfingers,
longshoremen, and fishermen, were at once thrown out of employment. Then
by a severe interpretation of the act all ship-building was stopped,
since the authorities declared that, on launching, any boat would be
confiscated. The shipyards shut down, the boats ready to launch were
filled with water "for their preservation,"[36] and ship-carpenters,
calkers, rope-makers, and sailmakers were thrown out of work. Much
misery to the unemployed would have been the result but for the
forethought of the patriot leaders.
These men, early realizing the threatened hardship, called for help from
the rest of the country. The response was prompt. "A special chronicle,"
says Bancroft, "could hardly enumerate all the generous deeds." While
Lord North, fresh from an interview with Hutchinson, cheered the king
with the belief that the province would soon submit, South Carolina was
sending a cargo of provisions in a vessel offered for the purpose by the
owner, and sailed without wages by the captain and her crew. Sheep were
driven into Boston from all New England; provisions of every kind were
brought in; wheat was sent by the French in Quebec; money was subscribed
and sent from the more distant points. All supplies thus received were
put in the hands of a donation committee, who distributed the gifts to
the needy.
Yet in spite of such relief as this, and though for a short time
employment was given to workmen by permitting them to finish, launch,
rig, and send away the ships then on the stocks, the situation was hard
at best. It was felt not only by the lower classes, but by the
merchants, whose profits ceased, and by all who depended for their
income on the current trade and activity of the town. Gossipy John
Andrews gives us the situation as it affected him. "If you'll believe me
(though I have got near two thousand sterling out in debts and about as
much more in stock), I have not received above eighty or ninety pounds
Lawful money from both resources for above two months past; though
previous to the port's being shut, I thought it an ordinary day's work
if I did not carry home from twenty to forty dollars every evening." So
little ready money circulated in the town "that really, Bill, I think
myself well off to satisfy the necessary demands of my family, and you
may as well ask a man for the teeth out of his head as to request the
payment of money that he owes you (either in town or country, for we
are alike affected), for you'll be as likely to get the one as the
other."[37]
Now was, indeed, the time to discover the weak points in the cause and
organization of the Americans. Even strong Whigs were at times
discontented, and chiefly among the middle class, without whom the
leaders could have no strong support. Much of the distress of the
shopkeepers and merchants came from the "Solemn League and Covenant"
which, proposed on the first news of the Port Bill, was now in actual
operation. Andrews's case must have been typical of many. He had
countermanded all goods on the news of the Port Bill, and acquiesced in
the non-importation agreement: "but upon y^e measure not being adopted
by the Southern Colonies, I embraced the first opportunity and
re-ordered about one-fourth part of such goods as I thought would be in
most demand, and behold! in about three or four weeks after that, I
heard of y^e amazing progress the non-consumption agreement had made
through y^e country; which, in my opinion, has serv'd rather to create
dissensions among ourselves than to answer any valuable purpose."
Many of the Tories held the same opinion. Could not the waverers, they
asked Gage, be induced to change their political faith, and especially
could not the leaders be tempted?
Among these leaders the influence of Otis was waning. He had always been
eccentric and unreliable, and now his intellect was threatened. An
assault upon him had nearly ruined both his health and his reason. But
his place had been taken by others. Samuel Adams, John Adams, Joseph
Warren, and John Hancock were the men whose names were oftenest
mentioned. Sinister rumors were frequent that Gage had been directed to
seize them and deport them to England. Whether or not more evidence
against them was needed, no arrest was as yet attempted. Instead, in at
least three quarters there was some hope of corruption.
Warren the general left untempted; it is no small tribute to the
patriot's character that there could be no doubt of his integrity.
Warren was not yet thirty-five years old, was of good social position,
had an excellent practice and an assured future. His temperament was
frank and manly, and so enthusiastic as to be fiery. Once already, on
the anniversary of the Massacre in 1772, he had addressed the town
meeting in condemnation of the government measures; on many other
opportunities, before and since, he had either spoken in public or
expressed his opinions through the press. While no advocate of violence,
he was unreservedly a Whig, and nothing could be made of him. So far as
is known, no attempt was made to corrupt him.
The case of John Adams was different, at least to Tory eyes. He was
ambitious: no one who knew him could doubt that he was conscious of his
own ability. Further, he was poor, with a growing family to support; he
was known, with the troubled times which he clearly foresaw, to be
anxious for his children's future. Surely there was a possibility that
Adams might be wise, and be tempted to the safer course; and fortunately
there was at hand an instrument to induce him to become a Tory. Adams
was the close personal friend of Jonathan Sewall, the king's
attorney-general for the province, and an admirable character. The
chance of distinction, the certainty of prosperity, and the
importunities of such a friend, might in the end persuade Adams.
Of John Hancock it was often argued among the Tories that he might
almost be left to himself. If Adams was ambitious, Hancock was more so;
known to be vain, he was believed to be jealous by nature. With these
weaknesses, he was also instinctively an aristocrat. How long, asked the
Tories, would he continue to consort with men of low social position?
How soon would he rebel at being led by the nose by the wily Adams?
Position and influence were ready for him as soon as he chose to go
over to the king. The bait was always plain, and he might be counted on
eventually to take it.
Even Samuel Adams, so reasoned the advisers of Gage, might be bought.
For Adams was poor. In his devotion to public affairs he had let his
business go to ruin, had seen his money melt away, had even sold off
parts of his own house-lot. His sentiments were, no better known in
Boston than his threadbare clothes. His sole income was from his salary
as clerk of the house of representatives, only a hundred pounds a year.
To the new governor it was the most natural thing in the world to
suppose that the discontent of such a man could soon be removed. He
forgot Hutchinson's words: "Such is the obstinacy and inflexible
disposition of the man, that he never would be conciliated by any office
or gift whatever."[38]
Gage sent, therefore, Colonel Fenton to Adams with offers which would
tempt any man that had a price. No definite knowledge of the
inducements has come down to us: money, place, possibly even a patent of
nobility. We know, however, that they were coupled with a threat in the
form of advice to make his peace with the king. And we can imagine Adams
as, rising from his seat, and standing with the habitual nervous tremor
of head and hands which often led his adversaries to mistake his mettle,
he delivered his fearless reply.
"Sir, I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of kings. No
personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the righteous cause of
my country. Tell Governor Gage that it is the advice of Samuel Adams to
him no longer to insult the feelings of an exasperated people!"[39]
And this was in the face of a situation the like of which had never been
known in America. "Notwithstanding which," wrote John Andrews, "there
seems to be ease, contentment, and perfect composure in the countenance
of almost every person you meet in the streets, which conduct very much
perplexes the Governor and others, our lords and masters, that they are
greatly puzzled, and know not what to do or how to act, as they expected
very different behaviour from us."
There is but one explanation of such a state of mind in the Whigs, in
the face of the evidently approaching trial. Their consciences were
clear. This revolution, when finally it came about, was quite within the
spirit of the British Constitution. The Whigs believed they were right,
and had no fear of the consequences. No testimony to their virtues, as
the backbone of a new nation, will speak louder than their present
attitude. External testimony is not hard to quote. "The people of Boston
and Massachusetts Bay," wrote Thomas Hollis but a few weeks before this
time, "are, I suppose, take them as a body, the soberest, most knowing,
virtuous people at this time upon earth." Other English opinion to the
same effect, and French admiration by the chapter, might be quoted. Yet
a truer proof of the quality of the people is to be found in the calm
self-confidence which "very much perplexed" the governor.
One more comment may safely be ventured here. Before two years were over
it was known that Gage, and perhaps even Hutchinson during his
administration, had had the most complete information of the secret
doings of the Whig leaders. In fact, even the deliberations of the
workmen's caucuses must have been known to Gage. That no arrests were
made can mean but one thing: that the Whigs were honest in their
endeavor to work their ends by legal means. Samuel Adams may have
foreseen the eventual outcome, and knowing it to be inevitable may have
striven to make it speedy and complete. But there was no general scheme
for independence, no plot for a revolt. "The Father of the Revolution"
laid his plans in silence, and waited for the ripening of the times.
Gage and his advisers, "greatly puzzled," also watched the crystallizing
of opinion. Of the temper of the Bostonians, although oppressed by the
Port Bill, there could presently be no doubt. Emboldened by the presence
of troops in the town, the Tories called town meetings, first to resolve
to pay for the tea, and then to dismiss the Committee of Correspondence.
These two actions, if taken, would have totally changed the situation.
The meetings were crowded, every courtesy was shown the Tories, and in
the second meeting, since Adams was absent, the Whigs had to be content
with the leadership of Warren. But there was no hesitation in either
case. The first meeting rejected the proposal to pay for the tea. In the
second the discretion of Warren proved equal to his zeal, his management
of the meeting was perfect, and the vote upheld the Committee of
Correspondence by a large majority.
The next action explains the absence of Adams from Boston at such an
important time. According to the new laws, the Assembly met at Salem,
under the eye of the governor and in the presence of his troops. Gage
knew very well that a call had been sent throughout the colonies for an
election of delegates to a general Congress which should deliberate on
the present situation. He had no intention that delegates should be
elected from Massachusetts. He had partisans in the Assembly, and an
informant on the committee to introduce legislation. Every move was
reported to him. Never did Sam Adams dissemble more cleverly. So dull
and spiritless did public matters seem, that Gage's informant thought it
safe to go home on private business. Then Adams acted. Quietly laying
his plans, on the morning of the seventeenth of June, 1774, he locked
the door of the chamber and proposed that the Assembly elect delegates
to the Continental Congress. A Tory pleaded sickness and hurried to Gage
with the news; but the door was again locked, and the business
proceeded. Though the governor sent his secretary with a message
dissolving the Assembly, the secretary knocked in vain. The doors were
not opened until delegates had been elected to the Congress, a tax laid
to pay their expenses, and resolutions passed exhorting the province to
stand firm.
One of the delegates-elect was John Adams. For years he had declined to
hold public office, and had even avoided town meetings. There was now a
natural Tory hope that he might refuse this office; there was even a
last chance to wean him from the Whig cause, for he was presently to
ride on circuit, and there would meet his friend Sewall. When the two
met, the Tory reasoned earnestly, pointing out the irresistible power of
Great Britain. But Adams was ready with his answer. "Sink or swim, live
or die, survive or perish with my country is my unalterable
determination."[40] And so went another hope of the Tories.
The summer of 1774 wore along, with no improvement in the situation.
Rather it became worse. So much time had elapsed without definite news
of the passing of the Regulating Act, that there was hope that the
measure had failed. But early in August came news of its passage, and
with it a list of appointments for the new Council. The appointees were
all chosen from among the Tories, or from those inclined to the king's
side. "It is apprehended," wrote Andrews, "that most of 'em will
accept."
Now at last it was natural to suppose that the Whigs had come to the end
of their resources. Their Assembly was dissolved, a Tory held each
appointive position, Boston was filled with soldiers, and the harbor was
guarded by ships of war. Active opposition to the troops would have been
madness, and it seemed impossible to conduct even the ordinary business
of the town, for now town meetings might legally be called only for the
purpose of electing officers. Yet when Gage called the selectmen before
him, and graciously indicated his willingness to allow meetings for
certain harmless purposes, the reply surprised him. There was no need,
said the selectmen, to ask his permission for a meeting: they had one
in existence already. In fact they had two, the May meeting and the June
meeting, each legally called before the enforcement of the Regulating
Act, and each legally "adjourned" until such time as it was needed. The
technical subterfuge was too much for Gage, and the adjournments
continued in spite of the law.
As the Massachusetts delegates prepared for their journey to
Philadelphia, where the Congress was to be held, there occurred, if we
can believe the story told by John Andrews--it was certainly believed in
Boston at the time--a demonstration of affection for Samuel Adams. "For
not long since some persons (their names unknown) sent and ask'd his
permission to build him a new barn, the old one being decay'd, which was
executed in a few days. A second sent to ask leave to repair his house,
which was thoroughly effected soon. A third sent to beg the favor of him
to call at a taylor's shop and be measur'd for a suit of cloaths and
chuse his cloth, which were finish'd and sent home for his acceptance.
A fourth presented him with a new whig,[41] a fifth with a new Hatt, a
sixth with a pair of the best silk hose, a seventh with six pair of fine
thread ditto, a eighth with six pair shoes, and a ninth modestly
inquired of him whether his finances want rather low than otherways. He
reply'd it was true that was the case, but he was very indifferent about
these matters, so that his _poor_ abilities was of any service to the
Publick; upon which the Gentleman obliged him to accept of a purse
containing about 15 or 20 Johannes." It is possible that these
attentions to Adams grew out of the desire that he, so well known in
Boston that his shabbiness meant nothing, should appear well at the
Congress, where his dress might prejudice others against him. True or
not, this little story has its significance, for, says Andrews to his
correspondent, "I mention this to show you how much he is esteem'd here.
They value him for his _good_ sense, _great_ abilities, _amazing_
fortitude, _noble_ resolution, and _undaunted_ courage: being firm and
unmov'd at all the various reports that were propagated in regard to his
being taken up and sent home,[42] notwithstanding he had repeated
letters from his _friends_, both in England as well as here, to keep out
of the way."
If the governor desired to arrest Adams, he had plenty of opportunity.
There was even a public occasion to take all the delegates together,
when they left the town on their way to Philadelphia. "A very
respectable parade," wrote Andrews, "in sight of five of the Regiments
encamp'd on the Common, being in a coach and four, preceded by two white
servants well mounted and arm'd, with four blacks behind in livery, two
on horseback and two footmen." Perhaps Gage breathed a sigh of relief
with the "brace of Adamses" away, but his real troubles were only
beginning.
Massachusetts would have nothing to do with the newly appointed
officers. The thirty-six councillors, appointed under writ of mandamus,
excited the most indignation. Of the Boston nominees thirteen accepted,
two declined, and four took time to consider; throughout the province
the proportion was about the same. But those who wavered and those who
accepted presently heard from their neighbors. Leonard of Taunton,
hearing of a surprise party mustering from the neighboring towns,
departed hastily for Boston. His father, by promises that he would urge
his son to resign, with difficulty prevailed on the disgusted neighbors
to leave the councillor's property unharmed. In Worcester, Timothy Paine
was taken to the common, and, in the presence of two thousand standing
in military order, he read his declination of his appointment. Ruggles
of Hardwick was warned not to return home; his neighbors swore that he
should never pass the great bridge of the town alive. Murray of Rutland,
like Leonard of Taunton, escaped the attentions of his townspeople, who
scorned the threat of confiscation and death, and demanded his
resignation. "This," wrote his brother to him, "is not the language of
the common people only: those that have heretofore sustained the fairest
character are the warmest in this matter; and, among the many friends
you have heretofore had, I can scarcely mention any to you now."
The people did not always act with violence, but the compulsion which
they put upon their fellow-townsmen was strong. Watson of Plymouth, long
respected in the town, had been appointed by the king to the Council,
and had intended to accept. But when he appeared in church on the
following Sunday, his friends rose and left the meeting-house. In the
face of their scorn he bowed his head over his cane, and resolved to
resign.[43]
More than twenty of the thirty-six councillors either declined their
appointment, or resigned. The rest could find no safety except in
Boston, under the protection of the troops. Even the courts were
prevented from sitting, in one case by the ingenious method of packing
the court-room so solidly with spectators that judge and sheriff could
not enter. Only among the garrison at Boston was there comfort for the
Tory officials.
Boston itself was troublesome enough. When Gage, regarding himself as
"personally affronted" by John Hancock,[44] removed him from command of
the Cadets, the company sent a deputation to Salem and returned him
their standard, declining longer to keep up their customary service as
the governor's body-guard. The governor, vexed, replied that had he
previously known of their intentions, he would have dismissed them
himself.
The town meetings troubled him also. Salem held one under his nose, in
spite of a feint to interrupt them by the soldiers. When he summoned the
committee of correspondence of the town to answer for the meeting, they
were stubborn and defiant, refused to give bail when arrested, and were
consequently--released! Other towns held meetings to elect delegates to
a county convention, and the governor was powerless to stop them.
Although he had many more troops than the four regiments with which he
first declared that he could do so much, he felt his helplessness, and,
cursing the town meetings, waited for more soldiers. He summoned the
remnant of his council to meet in Salem; but the members were afraid to
come, and, departing from his orders, he allowed them to sit in Boston.
And now, as the weeks passed on, even Boston was rumbling with the
thunder of the coming storm. Israel Putnam, having driven to Boston a
flock of sheep, the gift to the poor of Boston from his Connecticut
town, became the lion of the day. Meeting on the Common some of his old
friends in the regular army, they chaffed him on the military situation.
Twenty ships and twenty regiments, they told him, were to be expected if
the country did not submit. "If they come," returned the stanch old
Indian fighter, "I am ready to treat them as enemies."
At length the forms of law failed even in Boston. When the judges
summoned a jury, it not only refused to take oath, but presented a
written protest against the authority on which the court acted. The
judges gave up the attempt in despair, and the governor and his advisers
thought that matters were come to a pretty pass when a mere petit juror
could declare "that his conscience would not let him take oath whiles
Peter Oliver set upon the bench."[45] There was apparently no punishment
to meet such obduracy.
But at last news came to Gage on which he felt compelled to act. Much
powder had been stored in the magazine at Quarry Hill in Charlestown. He
was informed that during August the towns had removed their stock, until
there remained only that which belonged to the province. This stock Gage
determined to secure against possible illegal seizure, by seizing it
himself. On the morning of the first of September, by early daylight,
detachments of troops in boats took the powder to the Castle, and also
secured two cannon from Cambridge. Rumors of violence and bloodshed
spread rapidly, and by nightfall half of New England was in motion,
marching toward Boston.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Sabine's "Loyalists," 190.
[36] Andrews Letters.
[37] The Andrews Letters, as already noted, are in the Massachusetts
Historical Society's Proceedings for the volume of 1864-1865. I shall
refer to them frequently without quoting pages.
[38] Wells, "Life of Adams," ii, 193.
[39] Wells, "Adams," ii, 193.
[40] Bancroft, edition of 1876, iv, 344. Subsequent references to
Bancroft will be to this edition.
[41] Sic!
[42] Note the use of the word, as meaning England.
[43] I take these facts from Bancroft and the Andrews Letters.
[44] Hancock seems to have practised upon Gage the subterfuge which he
afterwards used with Washington, pretending to be too ill to wait upon
him.
[45] Andrews Letters.
CHAPTER VI
THE POWDER ALARM AND THE WINTER OF 1774-1775
Gage had by this time given up hope of winning to his side the leaders
of the Whigs. If he still retained a doubt of the temper of the people,
the events of the first and second of September would have made him
certain. Marching in companies, they converged upon Cambridge, whence
the Lieutenant-Governor, Andrew Oliver, hastily departed to Boston, to
implore Gage to send out no troops, lest not a man of them should return
alive. On his way in, Oliver passed Warren hastening out. But his
influence was not needed. The militia companies had already laid aside
their weapons and were parading peacefully upon Cambridge common. There
they were addressed by two of the Mandamus Council, who confirmed their
resignations and promised in no way to be concerned in the acts of
Gage's government. Then the high-sheriff came under the attention of the
meeting, and likewise promised to do nothing under the new laws.
Hallowell, the Commissioner of Customs, escaped more serious handling.
Passing by the common and its assemblage of Whigs, he "spoke somewhat
contemptuously of them." They promptly sent some mounted men after his
chaise. On seeing them coming he stopped his chaise, unhitched his horse
and mounted, and ran his pursuers a close race to Boston Neck, where he
found safety with the guard.
Oliver, returning to Cambridge with the governor's promise to send out
no troops, was waited upon by the great assemblage. The Whigs demanded
his resignation as a councillor. This, after demurring, Oliver gave, and
offered to resign also from the lieutenant-governorship. But this the
company allowed him to keep. Andrews records, "It is worthy remark that
Judge Lee remarked to 'em, after he had made his resignation, that he
never saw so large a number of people together and preserve so peaceable
order before in his life."
This orderly meeting, proceeding with parliamentary forms, passed a
resolve that Gage was within his legal rights in removing the powder
from the store-house. They then "voted unanimously their abhorrence of
mobs and riots,"[46] and with these lessons given for any one to learn,
they peaceably turned toward their homes. On their way they turned back
those who, from further away, were eagerly coming to avenge the rumored
death of their countrymen and the bombardment of the town. Putnam, after
disbanding his Connecticut company, wrote to urge the men of
Massachusetts to take better care of the remainder of their powder.
The "Powder Alarm" stirred the country everywhere. At Philadelphia its
exaggerated reports greatly disturbed the Congress, but the response was
significant. "When the horrid news was brought here of the bombardment
of Boston," wrote John Adams, "which made us completely miserable for
two days, we saw proofs both of the sympathy and the resolution of the
continent. War! war! war! was the cry, and it was pronounced in a tone
which would have done honor to the oratory of a Briton or a Roman. If it
had proved true, you would have heard the thunder of an American
Congress."[47]
Gage now, for the first time, seems to have had a glimmer of an idea of
the formidable forces that were against him. He began to consider the
military situation, and the defence of the town against another such
rising. If on the next occasion the provincials should attempt to pursue
a commissioner not merely to the Neck, but past it, there must be means
of stopping them. Gage gave orders to fortify the Neck, which was in
those days the single land approach to Boston.
[Illustration: THE INVESTMENT OF BOSTON]
The modern city in no way resembles the old town. Now, between South
Boston and Cambridge, a score of highways lead into the city. Bridges
and even tunnels give direct communication from South Boston, Cambridge,
Charlestown, Chelsea, and East Boston. But in 1774 South Boston was a
mudflat; the Back Bay--at least at high water--was what its name
implies; Chelsea was Winnisimit, with but half a dozen houses; and East
Boston was an island, having but two houses on it. Now the flats have
been filled up, the mainland brought closer, and the approaches bridged.
In Governor Gage's day Boston was still a peninsula, roughly
pear-shaped, and connected with the mainland by a strip of land which
was, at high tide, scarcely a hundred yards wide.
Batteries commanding the road which crossed this isthmus seemed, at the
time, quite sufficient to defend the town. It was not till later that
Gage began to consider the heights of Dorchester and Charlestown, which,
to the south and north, threatened Boston. Now he set to work upon an
earthwork at the Neck, brought cannon there, and began to build
block-houses. It was reported that he was to cut a ditch across the
Neck, and confine traffic to a narrow bridge; but at the objection of
the selectmen such an idea, if he had considered it, was given up.
Protest against the new earthworks was also lodged. The selectmen of the
town, and a committee from the convention for Suffolk County which then
happened to sit, came to Gage with remonstrances. Warren, from the
convention, twice urged his demands. "Good God, gentlemen," responded
the harried governor, "make yourselves easy, and I will be so."[48]
There was no more ease of mind for Governor Gage. Within the limits of
Boston and Charlestown were several cannon belonging to the militia
organizations of the town. When the general tried to secure the
Charlestown guns from secretion by the provincials, they disappeared.
"Ever since," wrote Andrews a fortnight later, "the General has ordered
a double guard to y^e new and old gun houses, where y^e brass field
pieces belonging to our militia are lodged: notwithstanding which ...
We'n'sday evening, or rather night, our people took these from the Old
house (by opening the side of the house) and carried away through Frank
Johonnot's Garden. Upon which he gave it in orders the next day to the
officer on guard to remove those from the New house (which stands
directly opposite the encampment of the 4th Regiment and in the middle
of the street near the large Elm tree), sometime the next night into the
camp; and to place a guard at each end, or rather at both doors, till
then. At the fixed hour the Officer went with a number of Mattrosses to
execute his orders, but behold, the guns were gone!" Lest the guns in
the North Battery should similarly be spirited away, the bewildered
general ordered them to be spiked.
His state of mind was not improved when he received, as he did early in
September, the resolutions passed by the Suffolk convention. The Suffolk
Resolves, as they are called, covered the whole of the existing
situation. Repudiating the king's claim to unconditional obedience,
they declared the Regulating Act unconstitutional, and called on all
officers under it to resign their places. They advised that all taxes
should be withheld from the king's treasury, and suggested a provincial
congress to deal with the affairs of Massachusetts. The resolves further
declared that the Americans had no intention of aggression, advised
peaceful measures, but threatened to seize all crown officers if any
political arrest were made. Looking forward to the eventual rupture, the
resolves advised the towns to choose their military officers with great
care, and finally made provision to spread alarm or summon assistance at
a moment's notice.
Affairs had now reached a new phase. The barrier which Gage had erected
at the Neck had effectually cut him off from the province which he had
been sent to govern. From that time on he had no authority beyond the
range of his batteries.
Boston was his, to be sure. In spite of alarms (for once the field day
of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, the pride of the
province, aroused the fleet; and once the little navy was awake all
night against an attack that never came), in spite of such alarms, no
attempt was made upon his army or his ships. The town was quiet, and
Tory ladies and gentlemen were at last at ease. On the Mall they might
daily watch the parade of the troops, speak their minds about the
faction, and agree upon the cowardice of the provincials. Yet the Whigs
of Boston made no submission. They were, as Warren wrote of them,
"silent and inflexible." At the same time they had everything at stake.
Their leaders Hancock and Warren still lived openly among them, in the
face of the threat of arrest. The artisans, too, at this period put
behind them a great temptation. For many months they had been idle; now
within a few weeks the governor had commenced building barracks for the
troops, upon which Boston workmen were engaged. For the first time since
the Port Bill went into effect they were earning a comfortable living.
But now they refused to work longer for the king. In vain Gage appealed
to the selectmen and to Hancock. One and all the artisans withdrew, to
subsist, as before, upon the donations that still continued to come in
from the other towns and colonies.
Outside the barrier at the Neck was an unparalleled state of affairs. In
Massachusetts there was no legal government. The charter had been
abrogated, but the new system had been rejected by the people. There
were no judges and no courts, no sheriffs; there was no treasury, and no
machinery of government whatever. Consequently there was a striking
opportunity for lawlessness. Yet the quiet in the province was
remarkable. In the absence of executive and judicial officers, the
selectmen of the towns and the Committees of Correspondence took upon
themselves the work that was to be done, and did it quietly and well.
There was no thievery, no murder, no repudiation of debts. So far as
their ordinary life was concerned, the people simply lived on in their
ancient way.
There was, nevertheless, plenty of lawlessness of the new kind. Just as
soon as the people could catch the newly appointed officials, they
forced them to resign; and whenever the courts attempted to sit they
were made to adjourn. There continued the little migration of Tories
toward Boston, always in the expectation that the sojourn was to be
brief, and that presently Gage would have the situation in hand. Most of
the refugees, however, never saw their homes again. As for Gage, he was
suspected of detaining the remaining councillors in Boston, lest he
should not have any left to him. Indeed, his position in Salem had
already become so undignified and uncomfortable that early in September,
with the Commissioners of Customs and all other officials, he returned
to Boston. There he also withdrew the two regiments with which he had
ineffectually endeavored to sustain his prestige in Salem. Yet he had
not been long in Boston before he was forced to watch the preparations
for a new act of defiance.
Already, unfortunately for him, he had convened the Assembly to meet at
Salem. Now that he was in Boston he desired the legislators to meet
there also; yet he could not adjourn them until they met. This he
planned to do. The delegates, however, knew that if they came to Boston
they must take their oaths of office before the Mandamus Council. To
this the representatives would never submit, and accordingly planned
another move. Boston carried out its part under the eye of the governor.
The town elected its representatives, chief among whom were Hancock,
Warren, and the absent Samuel Adams. The meeting then deliberately,
reminding the delegates that they could not conscientiously discharge
their duty under the conditions which the governor would impose,
"empowered and instructed" them to join with the delegates from other
towns in a general provincial congress, to act upon public matters in
such a manner as should appear "most conducive to the true interest of
this town and province, and most likely to preserve the liberties of all
America."
Thus the town of Boston, inflexible but no longer silent, calmly ignored
the governor and his troops. A strong governor would have imprisoned the
delegates and dissolved the meeting; Gage allowed it to proceed for the
rest of the day with illegal business, and did nothing.
It was at this time that the conduct of affairs fell into the hands of
Warren. Adams was away at Philadelphia, and Hancock, though older than
Warren and an excellent figurehead, had neither Warren's wisdom nor his
fiery energy. It was Warren who corresponded with the Congress at
Philadelphia and with the Committees of Correspondence of the
Massachusetts towns, and it was to him that the province naturally
turned. When we remember him as the hero of Bunker Hill, it is well also
to recall him as the tried servant and the excellent adviser of the
public.
One act of his at this point is worth remembering. As we have seen,
Episcopalians were not in good odor with the Massachusetts Whigs; the
colony had been founded as an asylum from "prelacy," and still, after
nearly two hundred and fifty years, the few members of the English
church were chiefly supporters of the crown. Warren now took occasion to
remind his brethren that to the south conditions were different, and
that "the gentlemen of the Established Church of England are men of the
most just and liberal sentiments." In a printed letter he requested fair
treatment of all Episcopalians, and ended by quoting from a letter of
Samuel Adams an account of the Episcopal chaplain of the Philadelphia
Congress, whose first prayer moved many of the members to tears.
Although this chaplain later turned his coat, the reminder was timely
and valuable, for many southern Whigs, among them Washington himself,
were members of the Established Church.
As to the proposed provincial congress, Gage now hastened to forestall
the consequences of his own action. He declared the convening of the
Assembly inexpedient, and removed the obligation to attend. Nevertheless
ninety of the delegates came together, waited a day for the governor,
then formed themselves into a provincial congress, and adjourned. On the
11th of October they met again at Concord, this time with nearly two
hundred more members, and in the old meeting-house began their sessions
with Hancock as their president, but with Warren as the most influential
member of their body.
His influence was thrown on the side of moderation. There were plenty in
the province ready to urge violence. They argued that the old charter
should be resumed; and as if the present acts were not sufficiently
revolutionary, were ready to proceed to violent measures. But the time
had not yet come. Massachusetts sentiment, responding to persecution,
was far in advance of the feelings of the rest of the country. No action
could safely be taken until the other colonies were ready to support
New England. In constant touch with Samuel Adams--for Paul Revere and
other trusted couriers were always on the road with letters--Warren was
able to remind his colleagues of the need of patience, and to cool their
ardor by his warnings that in open rebellion they would stand alone. His
services, and those of the steadfast band who supported him, were
invaluable. In these days he rose to the full stature of political
leadership, in guiding the actions of the provincial congress and in
constraining it to patience.
And yet its acts were revolutionary enough. It must be remembered that
until this time the Whigs of Massachusetts had remained within their
constitutional rights. Apart from the Tea-Party, no word or act of town
meeting or of legislature, or even of any prominent citizen, needed for
justification anything more than the ancient charter rights of the
province. But now the provincial congress went beyond anything that had
ever been done before. It appointed a Committee of Safety, which should
prepare for equipping and raising an army. It appointed a Committee of
Supplies, which presently gathered together a few hundred spades and
pickaxes, some muskets, a thousand wooden mess-bowls, four thousand
flints, and a small supply of peas and flour--a pitiful attempt to
compete with the vast resources of Great Britain. More than this, it
appointed a Receiver-General, to keep the public money of the province.
It might be argued that all these acts were still within the charter
rights, yet the Whig position was no longer so strong as on the
occasions when it had caused the crown lawyers to doubt. With a
treasurer engaged in receiving the taxes which the towns willingly paid
him, and with generals appointed to command an army, it began to look as
if Massachusetts were in rebellion.
Gage was perplexed. His province was out of his control, and now came
the news that the Continental Congress, before adjourning, had voted
approval of the course of Massachusetts. In fact, Congress had voted
its support. "Resolved, that this congress approve of the opposition
made by the inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the
late acts of Parliament; and, if the same shall be attempted to be
carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to
support them in their opposition." With such words in his mind, Gage had
to listen to the ringing of the church bells in welcome to Samuel Adams
as he returned from Philadelphia. Adams and Cushing, two of the Boston
delegates, now took their seats in the provincial congress, and the
remaining two delegates were invited to attend. The public acts of the
congress continued bold and uncompromising, and every little while there
came to the harried governor some public letter of remonstrance, or some
delegation from an aggrieved town or county convention, to object, to
expostulate, or to demand. Never were people better trained to politics
than the Americans at this moment. Gage was quite unfitted to cope with
them. Hutchinson would have been more vigorous, and even Bernard more
clever. The king fitly characterized his governor as "the mild general."
Gage, in his perplexity, now made trouble by suggesting the recruiting
of Indians against the day of rebellion, and called for more troops from
England. The disgusted king sought to replace him as commander-in-chief
by the one English soldier whom the Americans held in respect, in fact,
as the hero of the French war, almost in reverence. But Sir Jeffrey
Amherst bluntly told the king that he would not serve against the
Americans, "to whom he had been so much obliged." The king was forced to
content himself by sending to Gage's support three major-generals, as if
in the hope that their divided counsels would bring about a uniform
policy.
Of these three men America was to hear a good deal in the next seven
years. The least important of them was Sir Henry Clinton, of respectable
military skill. More striking in character was Sir John Burgoyne, poet,
dramatist, parliamentarian, upon whom America will ever look with the
indulgence which the victor feels for one who is signally and completely
defeated. "General Big-talk," the Yankee balladist called him when once
the siege was in progress. It is true that Burgoyne had an easy flow of
words, and we shall before long find him doing his share to make Gage
ridiculous. But Burgoyne had his manly parts, and though he lacked
greatness, he commands at times our sympathy and our respect. He made a
romantic marriage, which proved a happy one; and his real claim to
literary distinction lies in the letter in which, on his departure for
America, he commended his wife to the care of the king. Burgoyne, in a
still brutal age, was a humanitarian, and was one of the first, not only
to oppose flogging in the army, but also to advocate friendly personal
relations between officers and men. America seldom took Burgoyne
seriously, but he is to us of to-day a pleasing and picturesque
character.
The third of the new generals was Sir William Howe, whose chief
misfortune was that fate had set him to oppose Washington. He came of a
family well known in American annals, for one brother was now an admiral
popular in the colonies, and another was still mourned in America for
his brilliant talents and magnetic personality. William Howe had gained
his seat in Parliament by appeals to the memory of that brother, and by
promises to take no active military command against America. But on
being offered the post under Gage, Howe asked if this were a request or
an order. The adroit king returned the proper answer, and Howe,
protesting that no other course was open to him, prepared to sail for
Boston.
Meanwhile Gage, alone, made various futile moves, at which the province
looked with patience. From time to time his troops marched a few miles
into the country, and returned again. In January he sent a detachment to
Marshfield, to occupy the village so that the loyal residents might
drink their tea in peace. It was a comfort to him to think that there
was one town in the province in which a militia company was drilling for
his support, and with the king's muskets. A month later Gage sent troops
to Salem, in order to seize some cannon; but the commander, finding the
country in arms to receive him, wisely withdrew his little force
after--to use a term yet to be invented--"saving his face" by crossing a
bridge under promise of immediate return.
The Reverend Jonas Clark, speaking of this event, adds an indignant note
to an equally indignant sermon.[49] "This unsuccessful expedition was
made on Lord's day, Feb. 26, 1775. The party consisted of 200 or 300
men; it was commanded by Lieut. Col. Leslie. The vessels which brought
them to _Marblehead_, arrived in the harbour, on the morning of the
sabbath; and the better to conceal their intentions, lay quietly, at
anchor, near to the wharves, with but very few hands upon deck (the
troops being kept close) 'till the people of the town were assembled
for the services of religion.--While the inhabitants were thus engaged
in their devotions to God, the party landed and made a speedy march to
Salem. But all their precaution did not avail them for the
accomplishment of their enterprize. The _eagle-eyes_ of a watchful and
wary people, justly jealous of every measure of their oppressors, are
not easily evaded. Their motions were observed, and such timely notice
given, that such numbers were collected and such measures taken, before
they arrived, as effectually frustrated their design and obliged them to
return defeated and chagrined."
So, throughout the winter, the garrison and its governor accomplished
nothing--or less than nothing, if one considers that Gage proved to the
provincials the weakness of his character, while at the same time he
angered them by issuing, when the provincial congress appointed a day of
prayer, a proclamation against hypocrisy.
As the winter passed there was at times hope that the political
situation might be relieved by action of Parliament. Yet though the
worst House of Commons in history had been dissolved, the one which took
its place was, at its beginning, little better. It learned wisdom only
from the events of the war. To this Parliament Chatham and Burke now
appealed in vain; even Fox, at last definitely taking his stand with the
supporters of America, could not move it from its subservience to the
king. When finally a bill was introduced to deprive America of its
fisheries, it began to seem that legislative oppression could go no
further.
And now to other Americans than Samuel Adams it became evident that
there was no hope of concession from England. The second provincial
congress began its sittings. Warren was still on the Committee of
Safety. Preble, Ward, and Pomeroy were reappointed generals, and to them
were added Thomas and Heath. Supplies were voted for an army of fifteen
thousand. There was still hope of conciliation, but, wrote Warren,
"every day, every hour, widens the breach."
The town of Boston knew how wide the breach was, and how different the
points of view. The letters and diaries of the time show the constant
little irritations which exasperated both sides. In those days, if the
British soldier was not so sober as now, the British officer was far
more given to drink. From "the Erskine incident" until almost the
outbreak of hostilities, drunken officers made trouble with the
inhabitants, and found them less submissive than the average British
citizen. Yankee burghers had an uncomfortable trick of arming themselves
with cudgels and returning to the attack; the watch occasionally locked
up Lieutenant This and Ensign That; and more dignified citizens,
disdaining personal conflict, brought their complaints to the general,
thus adding to his troubles. John Andrews tells the story of the school
boys who, in the phrase of the day, "improv'd" the coast on School
Street. "General Haldiman, improving the house that belongs to Old Cook,
his servant took it upon him to cut up their coast and fling ashes upon
it. The lads made a muster, and chose a committee to wait upon the
General, who admitted them, and heard their complaint, which was couch'd
in very genteel terms, complaining that their fathers before 'em had
improv'd it as a coast from time immemorial, &ca. He ordered his servant
to repair the damage, and acquainted the Governor with the affair, who
observ'd that it was impossible to beat the notion of Liberty out of the
people, as it was rooted in 'em _from their Childhood_."
Gage did his best to be fair to the inhabitants, and they acknowledged
his endeavor. But the officers, less experienced than he and with fewer
responsibilities, and also less acquainted with the spirit of the
colonists, were angry with him for what they called his subservience.
They dubbed him Tommy, and confided their indignation to their diaries.
"Yesterday," wrote Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own,[50] "in
compliance with the request of the Select Men, Genl Gage order'd that
no Soldier in future shou'd appear in the Streets with his side Arms.
Query, Is this not encouraging the Inhabitants in their licentious and
riotous disposition? Also orders are issued for the Guards to seize all
military Men found engaged in any disturbance, whether Agressors or not;
and to secure them, 'till the matter is enquired into. By Whom? By
Villains that wou'd not censure one of their own Vagrants, even if He
attempted the life of a Soldier; whereas if a Soldier errs in the least,
who is more ready to accuse than Tommy? His negligence on the other hand
has been too conspicuous in the affair of Cn. Maginis to require a
further comment."
Doubtless there is much to be said for the soldiers, both officers and
privates, since the Bostonians had not abandoned their irritating ways,
even in the midst of an army. But the army was also very hard to live
with. On the first of January our discontented officer records, "Nothing
remarkable but the drunkenness among the Soldiers, which is now got to
a very great pitch; owing to the cheapness of the liquor, a Man may get
drunk for a Copper or two." The officers, we have seen, did not set
their men a very good example; but even in their sober senses they were
scarcely conciliatory. They formed burlesque congresses, and marched in
mock procession in the streets, absurdly dressed to represent the
leaders of the Whigs. On the queen's birthday a banquet was held, and
from the balcony of the tavern the toasts were announced, while in the
street a squad of soldiers fired salutes. Toasts to Lord North were not
relished in Boston, and reminders of Culloden were too significant for
those whom the army already called rebels. It is an interesting proof of
the weakness of Gage's hold upon his own army that such childishness
should have been permitted, or that such threats should have been made
to a town that still was within its legal rights.
Beneath these petty quarrels we perceive the fundamental differences.
Over these the more learned of both sides carried on a war of words.
The newspapers teemed with letters, poems, essays, and dissertations;
and Novanglus, Massachusettensis, Vindex, and other pseudo-Romans
endeavored to convert each other, or else to point solemn warnings.
"Remember," writes a yeoman of Suffolk County, "the fate of Wat Tyler,
and think how vain it is for Jack, Sam, or Will to war against Great
Britain, now she is in earnest!... Our leaders are desperate bankrupts!
Our country is without money, stores, or necessaries of war,--without
one place of refuge or defence! If we were called together, we should be
a confused herd, without any disposition to obedience, without a general
of ability to direct and guide us; and our numbers would be our
destruction! Never did a people rebel with so little reason; therefore
our conduct cannot be justified before God!... Rouse, rouse ye,
Massachusetians, while it be yet time! Ask pardon of God, submit to our
king and parliament, whom we have wickedly and grievously offended."[51]
This exclamatory appeal plainly shows a type of mind which often has
saved the British Empire, yet which at periods in history has come near
to ruining it. English conservatism has at most times been invaluable to
the country; but when, as repeatedly under the Stuart kings and again
under George III, it has forsaken its true task in order to support
absolutism, it has brought the ship of state very near to wreck. In
reminding of the fate of Wat Tyler our Suffolk yeoman forgot, if indeed
he ever knew, the fate of Charles and James Stuart. The majority of
Englishmen have never been willing to admit that in defending their
constitutional rights they were guilty of impiety. Though such warnings
and appeals were at this time frequent enough, the Whigs paid no regard
to them.
When we leave the Tories and turn to the soldiery we find one other
common English failing--underrating an adversary. England had so long
been victorious on land and sea that it was almost a natural assumption
that she was superior to any force that could be brought against her.
But that she was always right, or her opponents always cowards, were
corollaries that did not necessarily follow. Yet both of these were
implicitly believed, not only by supporters at home, but also by the
army in America. As to Yankee cowardice, many a Tory could, and later
did, warn the troops against belief in it. But now, at any rate, the
belief was fully indulged. From it was an easy step to general contempt.
Rascal and Scoundrel were common synonyms for Whig. Lord Percy was a
brigadier-general and old enough to form his own conclusions, yet after
living in the camp at Boston for a month, he gives us a complete
analysis of the American character--the summary, no doubt, of British
military opinion. "The People here," he wrote home, "are the most
designing, Artfull Villains in the World. They have not the least Idea
of either Religion or Morality. Nor have they the least Scruple of
taking the most solemn Oath on any Matter that can assist their
Purpose, tho' they know the direct contrary can be clearly & evidently
proved in half an Hour."[52]
We see, then, the situation fully prepared: an inflexible people, a weak
governor, a party of believers in divine right, and a contemptuous
soldiery. The next event, which all but ended in violence, showed that
there needed but a little tenser situation in order to bring about the
rupture.
Now occurred the annual oration on the Massacre. Since that tragedy,
five years ago, there had been an annual commemoration of it in the form
of a speech by one of the Whig leaders. This year the post was one of
evident responsibility and even of danger, but Warren, true to his
character, solicited the appointment. He announced his subject as "The
Baleful Influence of Standing Armies in Time of Peace." On the fifth of
March the crowd that came to hear him filled the Old South to the doors.
The chance was one which, had Gage received the orders which were
supposed to have been sent him, and had he been the man he ought to
have been, he never should have let slip. There in one building were, of
the chiefs of the "faction," Warren, Samuel Adams, Hancock, and many
lesser men. They could be taken at one blow. Some forty British officers
were present, whether to effect a capture or merely to cause a
disturbance was not known. At Samuel Adams' instance they were given
front seats, or places on the steps of the pulpit. There they listened
quietly to Warren's words.
The oration was, in the style of the day, florid; but it was full of
genuine feeling. Warren spoke of the rise of the British Empire in
America, the hope of its future, the policy of the king, and the
Massacre. Turning then to the present situation, he spoke in words which
no one could mistake, bolder, perhaps, than ever before had been
publicly spoken in the presence of hostile soldiers. He reminded his
countrymen of their martial achievements, he spoke of the critical
situation, and, while disclaiming the desire for independence,
encouraged the colonists to claim their rights. "An independence of
Great Britain is not our aim. No: our wish is, that Britain and the
colonies may, like the oak and ivy, grow and increase in strength
together. But, whilst the infatuated plan of making one part of the
empire slaves to the other is persisted in, the interest and safety of
Britain as well as the colonies require that the wise measures
recommended by the honorable, the Continental Congress be steadily
pursued, whereby the unnatural contest between a parent honored and a
child beloved may probably be brought to such an issue that the peace
and happiness of both may be established upon a lasting basis. But, if
these pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears the only way to
safety lies through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces
from our foes, but will undauntedly press forward until tyranny is
trodden under foot, and you have fixed your adored goddess, Liberty,
fast by a Brunswick's side, on the American throne."[53]
These were fearless words, and full of meaning. Had there been men of
sense among the officers present, they must have been impressed by the
solemnity of the warning; in fact, they were silent until the end. It
was not until after the oration, when the meeting was voting thanks to
the orator, that the officers endeavored to interrupt the proceedings.
The cry of Fie! was mistaken for that of Fire, and there was a moment's
panic. We have opposing accounts of it.
"It was imagined," wrote our discontented Lieutenant of the King's Own,
"that there wou'd have been a riot, which if there had wou'd in all
probability have proved fatal to Hancock, Adams, Warren, and the rest of
those Villains, as they were all up in the Pulpit together, and the
meeting was crowded with Officers and Seamen in such a manner that they
cou'd not have escaped; however it luckily did not turn out so; it wou'd
indeed have been a pity for them to have made their exit in that way, as
I hope before long we shall have the pleasure of seeing them do it by
the hands of the Hangman."
John Andrews looked at the matter differently. "The officers in general
behave more like a parcel of children, of late, than men. Captain ----
of the Royal Irish first exposed himself by behaving in a very
scandalous manner at the South meeting.... He got pretty decently
frighted for it. A woman, among the rest, attacked him and threatened to
wring his nose." An outbreak may have been what the officers wanted.
"But," says Samuel Adams, who acted on his maxim that it is good
politics to put and keep the enemy in the wrong, "order was restored,
and we proceeded regularly, and finished the business. I am persuaded,
were it not for the danger of precipitating a crisis, not a man of them
would have been spared."[54]
The whole was a type of the existing situation. Here were the officers,
still causing petty disturbances; here too, no doubt, were Tories,
contemptuous of the proceedings. Deeper still appears the real
significance of the occasion. On the one side was the governor, unable,
with all the power of the king, to prevent a meeting of the citizens to
condemn his presence in the town--for the meeting was the "Port Bill
meeting," adjourned from time to time since the previous May. And on the
other side were the citizens, legally protesting and exasperatingly
defiant, evidently under perfect self-restraint, determined not to
strike the first blow.
The officers took, as usual, a puerile revenge in the form of a
burlesque. "A vast number" of them assembled at the Coffee House in King
Street, and chose selectmen and an orator, "who deliver'd an oration
from the balcony to a crowd of few else beside gaping officers."[55]
Others of them caught a countryman who had been decoyed into buying a
musket from a soldier, and tarred and feathered him.
But these were surface trivialities. Beneath them the true situation was
growing worse. Out in the country military stores were being collected
at Worcester and at Concord; and over in Parliament the fisheries bill,
designed to deprive thousands in America of their living, was sure of
passing. At last Franklin, who had stayed in London as long as there
seemed anything for him to accomplish, patiently bearing humiliation and
insults, on the 20th of March took ship for Philadelphia. It was the
sign that there was no further hope of peace.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] Bancroft.
[47] Adams Letters, 39.
[48] Andrews Letters.
[49] A Sermon preached at Lexington, April 19, 1776, 26.
[50] His diary is published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for April and May,
1877, 384 and 544. I shall use it freely without further definite
reference.
[51] Frothingham's "Life of Warren," 413
[52] Bulletin of Boston Public Library, x, No. 87, 320.
[53] Frothingham's "Life of Warren," 435-436.
[54] Wells, "Life of Adams," ii, 281.
[55] Andrews Letters.
CHAPTER VII
MILITARY PREPARATIONS
As the spring of 1775 advanced, matters took on a constantly more
threatening aspect. The governor's force in Boston was steadily
increasing, and was approaching a total of four thousand men. Vessels of
war were with equal steadiness being added to the little fleet in the
harbor. With each budget of news from England it became evident that
Parliament would not yield, and at last came word that Lord North had
offered a joint resolution that New England was in a state of rebellion,
which both houses pledged their lives and fortunes to suppress. With
such a military force at his command, and with such moral support from
King and Parliament, Gage was in a position to take decided action.
No one could doubt what that action would be. Since September the
province had been gathering its meagre military supplies. It was but
common sense to seize them before they could be used. Soon after the new
year Gage began his measures. "Genl. Orders," writes disgruntled
Lieutenant Barker. "If any officers of the different Regts. are
_capable_ of taking sketches of a Country, they will send their names to
the Dep. Adj. Genl ... that is an extraordinary method of wording the
order; it might at least have been in a more genteel way; at present it
looks as if he doubted whether there were any such." However, there were
such, and in February the governor chose Captain Brown and Ensign De
Berniere (or Bernicre, as the name is sometimes spelled) and sent them
out to map the roads.
The little expedition was somewhat absurd, for the disguise which the
officers wore was sufficient to conceal them only from their friends.
When, at the first tavern at which they stopped, they remarked that it
was a very fine country, the black woman who waited on them answered,
"So it is, and we have got brave fellows to defend it, and if you go any
higher you will find it so." "This," admits Ensign De Berniere, whose
account of the expedition was left in Boston at the evacuation, and was
"printed for the information and amusement of the curious," "this
disconcerted us a good deal." From that time on, any one who took the
trouble to "eye them attentively" was in no doubt as to their real
character.
They went first to Worcester, where it was possible that the governor
might wish to send troops, to protect the courts as well as to seize
stores. The weather was rough and snowy, and the officers' task
correspondingly difficult; the countrymen, by persevering sociability,
kept them in an uneasy state of mind. After roughly mapping roads
concerning which the general should long before have had accurate
information, the two officers made their way to Sudbury, where they
hoped to rest with a sympathizer, after walking in a snow-storm for
hours. But the town doctor, though long a stranger at the house, came
to call, and the townspeople showed their host various other undesirable
attentions, so that in twenty minutes the two officers were glad to
leave the place. They arrived again safely at Worcester, "very much
fatigued, after walking thirty-two miles between two o'clock and
half-after ten at night, through a road that every step we sunk up to
the ankles, and it blowing and drifting snow all the way."
In spite of this experience, the two officers, a month later, undertook
a similar journey to Concord. In this they succeeded, returning with a
rough sketch of the roads, but bringing also their Concord host, who did
not think it safe to remain after entertaining them. They brought
information that in Concord there were "fourteen cannon (ten iron and
four brass) and two cohorns," with "a store of flour, fish, salt, and
rice; and a magazine of powder and cartridges."
They might, in their two journeys, have brought better information than
that the Concord Whigs "fired their morning gun, and mounted a guard of
ten men at night." The stores at Concord had far better protection than
these, as the two officers should have learned at Framingham, where they
watched the drill of the militia company. "After they had done their
exercise, one of their commanders spoke a very eloquent speech,
recommending patience, coolness, and bravery (which indeed they very
much wanted), particularly told them they would always conquer if they
did not break, and recommended them to charge us coolly, and wait for
our fire, and everything would succeed with them--quoted Cæsar and
Pompey, brigadiers Putnam and Ward, and all such great men; put them in
mind of Cape Breton, and all the battles they had gained for his majesty
in the last war, and observed that the regulars must have been ruined
but for them."
Had the two officers known it, every town in the province had just such
a militia company, which at set seasons met, and drilled, and listened
to good old-fashioned exhortations to valor. It would not take long,
therefore, for the neighboring towns to send their companies to
reinforce the guard of ten men which Concord set over its stores every
night. And yet the province was not satisfied with this ancient militia
organization, for it had set up another to strengthen it.
The militia was composed, as it had been since the foundation of the
colony, of the whole body of male inhabitants of proper military age. In
some cases even clergymen drilled in the ranks. More than once this
militia had gathered to repel an expected attack of French or Indians;
it had stood between the settlers and their foes from the days of Miles
Standish down to the French and Indian War. The martial spirit still
prevailed among the youth of the colony, and each town took pride in its
company. In 1774 John Andrews thus records his innocent delight in the
appearance of the Boston trainbands:--
"Am almost every minute taken off with agreeable sight of our militia
companies marching into the Common, as it is a grand field day with
us.... They now vie with the best troops in his majesties service, being
dress'd all in blue uniforms, with drums and fifes to each company
dress'd in white uniforms trim'd in y^e most elegant manner; with a
company of Grenadiers in red with every other apparatus, that equal any
regular company I ever saw both in appearance and discipline, having a
grand band of musick consisting of eight that play nearly equal to that
of the 64th. What crowns all is the Cadet company, being perfectly
compleat and under the best order you can conceive of, with a band of
musick likewise, that perform admirably well. What with these and
Paddock's company of artillery make y^e completest militia in America;
not a drummer, fifer, and scarcely a soldier but what are in compleat
uniforms and thoroughly instructed in the military exercises."
It was this Boston Cadet company that, at the affront to its leader
Hancock had returned its standard to the governor and disbanded. Gage
knew too well that others of the companies were thoroughly disaffected.
In fact, many of the Boston young men left the town before hostilities
began, and were ready to join with their country brethren in showing
that their military training was worth something.
Yet early in the fall it was recognized in the colony that the militia
system was not sufficient, being too slow of movement to meet any such
sudden expedition as that which Gage sent to seize the powder. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find John Andrews reporting on October 5 the
existence of a new body of troops, "which are call'd _minute men_,
_i.e._ to be ready at a minute's warning with a fortnight's provision,
and ammunition and arms." There is doubt of the origin of this body, but
it was first officially accepted in Concord, where the town adopted
definite terms of enlistment, the more important of which reads:--
"We will ... to the utmost of our power and abilities, defend all and
every of our charter rights, liberties, and privileges; and will hold
ourselves in readiness at a minute's warning, with arms and ammunition
thus to do."[56]
Tradition says that the terms of the enlistment were interpreted
literally, and that wherever the minute men went, to the field, the
shop, or to church, gun and powder-horn and bullet-pouch were ready to
hand. It is scarcely an exaggeration to suppose that, as represented by
French's statue, the farmers actually left the plough in the furrow and
snatched up the ready rifle.
One further preparation was also made. The rallying point was possibly
Worcester, where were the courts and some few stores; but it was more
probably Concord. The shortest route to Concord, or to the road between
Concord and Boston, was known to the captain of every company of minute
men within a hundred miles. But that the captains should be notified of
any emergency was essential. A complete system of couriers for
spreading news was projected in September, and now was in good working
order, so that, with Boston as a radiating point, the summons could be
sent over the province with the greatest rapidity. By virtue of his
efficiency, trustworthiness, and picturesque personality, Paul Revere is
accepted as the type of the men who stood ready for this service.
This system, further, had been tested. The spontaneous response to the
Powder Alarm in September had been ready enough, for the men of
Connecticut and New Hampshire were in motion before the next day. But
through the winter of 1774-1775 there had been minor alarms at each
little expedition on which Gage sent his soldiers. By these the new
system was proved efficient. Whether the troops marched to Jamaica Pond,
to the "punch bowl" in Brookline, or even went, by sea and land, as far
as Salem, the militia of the surrounding towns showed a prompt curiosity
as to the object of the excursion. These fruitless musters, far from
making the minute men callous to alarms, served to prepare them to meet
the great occasion which they foresaw would finally come. For that they
were in excellent practice.
As to Concord itself, it had become very important. The Congress, which
after its first week in Concord had been sitting in Cambridge, now
returned, and from the 22d of March until the 15th of April[57] sat
daily in the meeting-house. The Committee of Safety remained still
longer, busy with the gathering of supplies. It is within this period
that Berniere and Brown came on their spying expedition to Concord, and
were directed by a woman to the house of Daniel Bliss. A threat of the
Whigs to tar and feather her sent her to the officers for refuge, and
word presently came to Bliss that the Whigs "would not let him go out of
the town alive that morning." This fate the officers and their host
avoided by leaving in the night. What became of the woman is not said,
but we may be easy about her: no injury, and in fact no serious
indignity, was put upon a woman in New England at this period. The
officers returned to Boston with a report of the stores in Concord.
This may have increased the anxiety of the Committee of Safety. Already
they had voted, "requiring Colonel Barrett of Concord to engage a
sufficient number of faithful men to guard the Colony's magazines in
that town; to keep a suitable number of teams in constant readiness, by
day and night, to remove the stores; and to provide couriers to alarm
the neighboring towns, on receiving information of any movements of the
British troops."[58] A watch was kept upon the British movements; and
finally, when, on the 15th, Warren sent Paul Revere from Boston with
warning of suspicious movements, the Committee felt that soon Gage must
strike. On the 18th it ordered the removal of some of the stores. "That
very night," says Tolman, without knowledge of affairs in Boston, the
work was begun.
Meanwhile, in response to another vote of the committee, the British had
been under close observation. The vote was that "members of this
Committee belonging to the towns of Charlestown, Cambridge, and Roxbury,
be required at the Province expense to procure at least two men for a
watch every night to be placed in each of these towns, and that said
members be in readiness to send couriers forward to the towns where the
magazines are placed, when sallies are made by the army by night." In
view of these preparations, it scarcely needs to be said that there was
nothing accidental about Concord fight. Some day Gage was bound to
strike at Concord, and for that day the Whigs were ready.
It is now that Paul Revere comes prominently into the course of events.
Revere was a Boston craftsman of Huguenot descent, who was and is well
known as a silversmith, engraver, and cartoonist. His prints and
articles of silverware sell to-day for high prices, and his house in
North Square has recently been fitted up as a public museum, chiefly on
account of a single act at a critical moment. One is glad to know,
however, that Revere's fame is not accidental. His pictures are
historically interesting; we should be the poorer without his prints
which give views of Boston, and without his picture of the Massacre. His
silver--we have mentioned his punch-bowl for the "immortal
Ninety-two"--is usually beautiful. From the foundry which he established
later in life came cannon, and church-bells which are in use to-day. And
finally his famous ride, the object of which would have been brought
about had Revere been stopped at the outset, was but one out of many.
[Illustration: REVERE'S PICTURE OF BOSTON IN 1768.]
"In the year 1773," says Revere of himself,[59] "I was employed by the
selectmen of the town of Boston to carry the account of the Destruction
of the Tea to New York, and afterwards, 1774, to carry their despatches
to New York and Philadelphia for calling a Congress; and afterwards to
Congress several times." Revere does not mention the fact that he was
himself a member of the Tea-Party. When he goes on to speak of still
more important events, he suppresses the fact that he was one of the
leaders, if not the chief leader, of the Boston artisans.
"In the fall of 1774, and winter of 1775, I was one of upwards of
thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves into a committee for the
purpose of watching the movements of the British soldiers, and gaining
every intelligence of the movements of the Tories. We held our meetings
at the Green Dragon Tavern. We were so careful that our meetings should
be kept secret, that every time we met, every person swore upon the
Bible that they would not discover any of our transactions but to
Messrs. Hancock, Adams, Doctors Warren, Church, and one or two more....
In the winter, towards the spring, we frequently took turns, two and
two, to watch the soldiers, by patrolling the streets all night."
Such was the watch, then, kept upon the royalists, and such were the
preparations to receive the troops when they should march out. We know
now that Gage was informed of them, for among those whom Revere names as
confidants of the mechanics there was a traitor to the cause. Yet though
Gage knew of the organization of the Whigs, of its efficiency he had
apparently not the glimmer of an idea. It was with no expectation of
serious results that, when at last he learned that the resolution
declaring the colonies to be in rebellion had passed Parliament, he
slowly put himself in motion to seize the stores of the provincials.
The Americans were keenly aware of all his movements. There were two
common methods of leaving the town, one by the Neck, the other over
Charlestown ferry. But these routes lay through towns, either Roxbury
or Charlestown, and to march so openly meant to give the alarm. The
Americans were ready for Gage to take a third route: across the Charles
by means of boats, and then by unfrequented roads until striking the
highway at Cambridge Common. This way the Whigs suspected he might
choose, and this they found he did.
Gage's preparations were almost open. The boats of the men-of-war were
hauled up and repaired at the foot of the Common. On the 14th, in the
night, they were launched, and moored at the sterns of the men-of-war.
On the 15th was given out in general orders that "'The Grenadiers and
Light Infantry in order to learn Grenadrs. Exercise and new evolutions
are to be off all duties till further orders.'--This," remarks
Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own, "I suppose is by way of a blind. I
dare say they have something for them to do."
This "something" was either one or both of two objectives: the stores at
Concord, and the persons of Adams and Hancock, then known to be staying
at the house of the Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington. That this latter
objective was seriously considered, at least by the Americans, we shall
see from Revere's narrative. There never has been proof that Gage
endeavored to seize either them or Warren. But in any case the stores
were in danger, and strict watch was kept.
There was evidence enough of a coming expedition. As before the
Massacre, there were soldiers' rumors that something was to happen, and
the name of Concord was whispered about. On the night of the 18th word
came in from the country that parties of officers were riding here and
there. This same notice was sent by vigilant patriots to Hancock at
Lexington. In Boston itself different persons noticed that the troops
were astir. Word of all this came from various sources to Warren who,
relinquishing for a while his sittings with the Committee of Safety, had
for some days been working for it at the post of responsibility and
danger. Warren finally decided that he must act. He sent for the men
who had pledged themselves for this service, and gave them his
directions.
One of these men was William Dawes, of whom, except for his actions on
this night, we know little. Obeying his instructions, he took horse, and
rode across the Neck to go to Lexington by way of Roxbury and Watertown.
"About ten o'clock," writes Revere, "Dr. Warren sent in great haste for
me, and begged that I would immediately set off for Lexington, where
Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and acquaint them of the movement, and
that it was thought they were the objects." Revere was ready. In
returning on the 15th he had arranged signals to his friends in
Charlestown to inform them what route the British would take; he knew,
also, how he should cross--for the ferry was closed at nine o'clock--and
where he should get his horse. From Warren's Revere went home, got his
"boots and surtout," and started. Two of his friends rowed him to
Charlestown in a boat which was kept ready for the purpose, another was
already despatched to make certain of the route the British would take.
[Illustration: THE OLD NORTH CHURCH
(From which Paul Revere's signals were displayed.)]
Of the person and the actions of this other friend there has been much
dispute. The weight of evidence seems to show that on making sure of the
route of the British, he went to the Old North Church, still standing in
Salem Street, and from its steeple displayed the signal. I make no
positive assertion that he spent any time in watching the British;
Revere, knowing the route, may have signalled in order to make sure that
the news crossed the river, even though he himself might fail. The
person who displayed the signals seems to have been one Newman, the
sexton of the church, rather than Captain Pulling, a friend of Revere's.
At any rate, the signals were hung while Revere was crossing the river
to Charlestown. He passed unobserved not far from the _Somerset_
man-of-war, and remarks that "it was then young flood, the ship was
winding, and the moon was rising." On landing, his Charlestown friends
told him they had already seen the signals. Revere (if we still suppose
that he needed to make sure of the route) himself must have taken a look
at the signal lanterns, as in Longfellow's poem. "Two if by sea." This
poetical language means merely that the troops were preparing to cross
the river in their boats. This is the traditional account of Revere's
action. A contemporary memorandum states, however, that on landing
Revere "informed [us] that the T [troops] were actually in the boats."
"I got a horse," says Revere, "of Deacon Larkin," which horse the deacon
never saw again. Before Revere started he again received warning that
there were British officers on the road, but he was quite cool enough to
take note of the beauty of the night, "about eleven o'clock and very
pleasant." Crossing Charlestown Neck, he started on the road for
Cambridge, when he saw before him two horsemen under a tree. As Revere
drew near, they pushed out into the moonlight, and he saw their
uniforms. One of them blocked the road, the other tried to take him,
and Revere, turning back, galloped first for Charlestown and then
"pushed for the Medford road." Revere made the turn successfully; the
officer who followed, ignorant of the locality, mired himself in a clay
pond. Revere's road was now clear. He reached Medford, and roused the
captain of the minute men; then, hastening on through Menotomy, now
Arlington, and thence to Lexington, he "alarmed almost every house." He
reached Lexington about midnight, and went directly to the house of the
Reverend Jonas Clark, where Hancock and Adams were sleeping under a
guard of the militia. Revere asked admittance, and the sergeant informed
him that the family had requested that no noise be made.
"Noise!" replied Revere in the phrase familiar to every schoolboy,
"you'll have noise enough before long--the regulars are coming out!"[60]
The family was accordingly at once aroused.
Meanwhile the troops had actually started. "Between 10 and 11 o'clock,"
says Lieutenant Barker, "all the Grenadiers and Light Infantry of the
Army, making about 600 Men, (under command of Lt. Coll. Smith of the
10th and Major Pitcairn of the Marines,) embarked and were landed on the
opposite shore of Cambridge Marsh." This phrasing is not immediately
clear to one of to-day. In those days every regiment had two special
companies, the heavy-armed grenadiers, so called because they originally
carried hand-grenades, and the light-infantry company. These were
frequently detached for special duty, as the present, when the Light
Infantry would be used for flanking purposes. Thus every regiment in
Boston was represented in the expedition--and we may add in the list of
killed and wounded on the following day. The number is generally
estimated at eight hundred. They were commanded by the colonel who had
been longest on duty in New England. Smith was in character too much
like Gage himself. The general would have done better to send one of
his brigadiers.
One at least of the brigadiers was reasonably alert. According to
Stedman, Lord Percy was crossing the Common after learning from the
general that a secret expedition had just started. Perceiving a group of
men talking together, the nobleman joined them in time to hear one say,
"The British troops have marched, but have missed their aim."
"What aim?" asked Lord Percy.
The reply was, "The cannon at Concord." Percy, in much perturbation, at
once returned to the general and told him that his secret was known.
Poor Gage complained that his confidence had been betrayed, "for that he
had communicated his design to one person only besides his lordship."
The student of the time sees in this story a side-thrust at Mrs. Gage,
on whom, as an American, the officers were ready to blame the knowledge
of secrets which were gained by Yankee shrewdness alone. In this case we
have seen that it was Gage that betrayed himself to the eyes of
Revere's volunteer watch. The general hastily sent to order the guard at
the Neck to let no one leave the town. But he was too late: Dawes was
gone, Revere was on the water, and the news was out.
The expedition was bungled at the very start. "After getting over the
Marsh, where we were wet up to the knees," says Lieutenant Barker, "we
were halted in a dirty road and stood there till two o'clock in the
morning, waiting for provisions to be brought from the boats and to be
divided, and which most of the men threw away, having carried some with
'em." As they waited there they might have heard signal guns, and
learned that in a constantly widening circle of villages, "the bells
were rung backward, the drums they were beat." The news had three hours'
start of them. At last, at two on the 19th, having "waded through a very
long ford up to our middles," wet, dirty, and loaded with the heavy
equipment of the period, they started on their march.
FOOTNOTES:
[56] Tolman, "The Concord Minute Man," 12.
[57] I take many facts in the following pages from the three pamphlets
by George Tolman, "The Concord Minute Man," "Preliminaries of Concord
Fight," and "Events of April Nineteenth." These, published by the
Concord Antiquarian Society, are invaluable to the student of this
period.
[58] "Preliminaries," 23-24.
[59] After the Revolution, Revere wrote a narrative of the events in
which he was concerned. It is to be found in several books, notably
Goff's "Life of Revere."
[60] Most of these facts are from Frothingham's "Siege," 57-59, and from
Revere's letter.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL
John Hancock never showed better in his life than on the morning of the
19th of April. Many times the Tories had tried to win him over.
Hutchinson himself had written: "At present, Hancock and Adams are at
variance. Some of my friends blow the coals, and I hope to see a good
effect." Yet Adams and Hancock were still enlisted in the same cause on
this morning when blood was to be shed. And Hancock, when roused from
his sleep at midnight, was hot with the desire to take his musket and
fight on Lexington Green.
Adams and his friends--among them his sweetheart--dissuaded him. The two
Whig leaders finally took the road to Woburn, and in the succeeding days
passed on to Worcester and Hartford, planned the taking of Ticonderoga,
and, joining the other delegates from Boston, in May met with the second
Continental Congress. If Gage had meant to seize Hancock and Adams, he
had lost his chance. The outcome lay in the hands of the fighting men.
Revere waited at Mr. Clark's house for about half an hour, when Dawes
arrived. The two then set out for Concord, and were joined on the way by
"a young Dr. Prescott, whom we found to be a high son of liberty."[61]
They began to rouse the farmers along the road, and had already gone
halfway when they saw in the road horsemen whom Revere knew at once to
be British officers. Revere and Prescott, blocked in front and rear,
turned into a pasture; but this was a trap where other officers were
waiting. Prescott, knowing the country, put his horse at a fence and got
away; Revere found himself surrounded by six horsemen who, with swords
and pistols ready, ordered him to dismount. There was nothing for him to
do but comply. Dawes, who had been behind upon the road, turned to go
back, and was pursued. He rode into a farmyard, shouted out as to
friends in waiting, and frightened off his pursuers. Both he and
Prescott were useful in spreading the alarm farther.
But Revere was caught. His chief captor examined him, and got slight
satisfaction. "I told him, and added that their troops had catched
aground in passing the river and that there would be five hundred
Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the
way up." His anxious captors consulted together, and were conducting him
back toward Lexington, "when the militia fired a volley of guns, which
seemed to alarm them very much." They asked if there were any other road
to Cambridge, took Revere's horse, and left him. He hurried back to
Lexington, to give Hancock and Adams the news that sent them on their
way. Revere himself remained long enough to save a trunk of papers
belonging to Hancock.
Meanwhile the militia of the town, alarmed by Revere, assembled and
waited for the troops. They sent two messengers toward Cambridge to
bring certain news, but each of these blundered into the advancing
regulars, and were seized and held. The militia waited for some hours,
but on hearing no word they were finally dismissed, with a warning to be
ready to come together again instantly. Some went to their homes, some
to the near-by tavern, to finish out the night.
News came at last to Captain Parker that the British were scarcely a
mile away, and in such numbers that his company could not hope to oppose
them. He called his men together, nevertheless, "but only with a view to
determine what to do, when and where to meet, and to dismiss and
disperse."[62] The minute men were still standing in their ranks when
the British suddenly appeared.
The succeeding events caused much controversy at the time. Gage reported
"that the troops were fired upon by the rebels out of the
meeting-house, and the neighboring houses, as well as by those that were
in the field; and that the troops only returned the fire, and passed on
their way to Concord."[63] But in number the little company of minute
men were, according to Revere, who had just passed through them, "about
fifty"; the Reverend Jonas Clark says "fifty or sixty, or even seventy."
Had there been even the two or three hundred of the British reports,
these men, drawn up without protection on an open green, are scarcely
likely to have attacked a force of more than twice their number. The
logic of the situation seems against Gage.
There is one more factor to consider. It is well enough known that both
the British officers, and the Americans as a whole, were under
instructions not to fire, and earnest to obey. But what of the British
privates? Their eagerness for blood at the time of the Massacre was so
great as to account for that tragedy; it was now not likely to be less.
There were even among the troops at Lexington two companies from one of
the "Sam Adams regiments." When we learn from Lieutenant Barker that
after the skirmish "the Men were so wild they cou'd hear no orders," we
may even suspect that, as at the Massacre, the men may have taken
matters into their own hands.
"For," says the minister of Lexington, "no sooner did they come in sight
of our company, but one of them, supposed to be an officer of rank, was
heard to say to the troops, 'Damn them, we will have them!'--Upon this
the troops shouted aloud, huzza'd, and rushed furiously towards our
men.--About the same time, three officers (supposed to be Col. Smith,
Major Pitcairn and another officer) advanced, on horse back, to the
front of the body, and coming within five or six rods of the militia,
one of them cried out, 'ye villains, ye Rebels, disperse; Damn you,
disperse!' or words to this effect. One of them (whether the same, or
not, is not easily determined) said, 'Lay down your arms, Damn you, why
don't you lay down your arms!'--The second of these officers, about
this time, fired a pistol towards the militia, as they were
dispersing.--The foremost, who was within a few yards of our men,
brandishing his sword, and then pointing towards them, said, with a loud
voice, to the troops, 'Fire!--By God, fire!'--which was instantly
followed by a discharge of arms from the said troops, succeeded by a
very heavy and close fire upon our party, dispersing, so long as any of
them were within reach.--Eight were left dead upon the ground! Ten were
wounded."[64]
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON]
This is the best contemporary account which we have of the affair. It is
evident from his careful language and semi-legal terms that the Reverend
Mr. Clark, though not on the ground until half an hour afterwards, took
all possible pains to gather the facts, and considered himself upon oath
in reporting them. He was himself a witness of the exultation of the
troops at their victory, and expresses his indignation.
Tradition gives Major Pitcairn, of the Marines, a prominent part in the
affair. "A good man," says Stiles, "in a bad cause," and adds that had
Pitcairn ever been able to say that he was sure the Americans fired
first, he would have believed him. Honest Major Pitcairn could only
state his belief.
So the first blood in the Revolution was spilt. The death of one of the
Americans, Jonathan Harrington, was pitiful: shot within sight of his
home, he crawled to the door, and expired at his wife's feet. To the
heavy volleys they received, the Americans returned but a scattering
fire; some of them did not fire at all.[65] Two British privates were
wounded, and Pitcairn's horse.
The troops, as soon as they could be marshalled again, fired a volley
and gave three cheers, rested for a little while, and marched on toward
Concord. There, since early morning, had gathered some of the militia
from Bedford and Lincoln, and about sunrise the little company marched
out of town. "We thought," says Amos Barrett quaintly, "we would go and
meet the British. We marched down towards Lexington about a mile or mile
and a half, and we saw them coming." But on seeing their numbers the
militia turned back, "and marched before them with our drums and fifes
going, and also the British. We had grand musick."[66] The provincials
halted once or twice on the hill that ran along the high road, and came
at last to the liberty pole, overlooking the town. "The Yankees,"
records Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own, "had that hill but left it
to us; we expected they wou'd have made a stand there, but they did not
chuse it." The militia, still withdrawing before superior numbers,
retreated across the river, and the British occupied the town.
In place of the five bridges which to-day, within a mile of the
meeting-house, encircle Concord, the town in 1775 had but two. The first
of these was the South Bridge, on the present Main Street route to
Marlborough and South Acton. The other was the North Bridge, on a
highway now abandoned, which in those days led to Acton, Carlisle, and
Bedford. Colonel Smith took possession of both these bridges, and while
his men searched the town for stores, he sent a detachment across the
North Bridge to the farm of Colonel Barrett, where it was known that
supplies had been kept. Of our two British informants of the events of
the day, Ensign Berniere guided the troops that went to the Barrett
farm, Lieutenant Barker remained with a detachment that stayed to guard
the bridge. Meanwhile, on a hillside beyond the river, almost within
gunshot of the bridge, the militia watched the first detachment pass on
its errand, and counted the numbers of the redcoats that held the nearer
side of the passage.
Colonel Smith speedily learned that his journey had been nearly in vain.
As we have seen, already on the night before, without news from Boston,
the removal of the stores had been begun. The alarm brought in by Dr.
Prescott hastened the work. Men and boys, and even women and girls, were
busy in hiding the stores or carrying them away. Some of them were
skilfully secreted under the very eyes of the British. The troops found
little. In the town some few gun-carriages, barrels of flour, wooden
mess-bowls, and wooden spoons were found and destroyed. At Colonel
Barrett's, acknowledges Berniere, "we did not find so much as we
expected, but what there was we destroyed." He was unaware that the
cannon had been laid in a ploughed field, and concealed by turning a
furrow over them, the work continuing even while the troops were in
sight.
Of proceedings in the town we get the best picture from the petition of
Martha Moulton, "widow-woman," who in her deposition "humbly sheweth:
That on the 19th day of April, 1775, in the forenoon, the town of
Concord, wherein I dwell, was beset with an army of regulars, who, in a
hostile manner, entered the town, and drawed up in form before the house
in which I live; and there they continued on the green, feeding their
horses within five feet of the door; and about fifty or sixty of them
was in and out of the house, calling for water and what they wanted, for
about three hours." The neighbors had fled, and poor Mrs. Moulton was
left with "no person near but an old man of eighty-five years, and
myself seventy-one years old, and both very infirm. It may easily be
imagined what a sad condition your petitioner must be in." But she
committed herself to Providence, "and was very remarkably helpt with so
much fortitude of mind, as to wait on them, as they called, with what we
had,--chairs for Major Pitcairn and four or five more officers,--who sat
at the door viewing their men. At length your petitioner had, by
degrees, cultivated so much favor as to talk a little with them. When
all on a sudden they had set fire to the great gun-carriages just by the
house, and while they were in flames your petitioner saw smoke arise out
of the Town House higher than the ridge of the house. Then your
petitioner did put her life, as it were, in her hand, and ventured to
beg of the officers to send some of their men to put out the fire; but
they took no notice, only sneered. Your petitioner, seeing the Town
House on fire, and must in a few minutes be past recovery, did yet
venture to expostulate with the officers just by her, as she stood with
a pail of water in her hand, begging them to send, &c. When they only
said, 'O, mother, we won't do you any harm!' 'Don't be concerned,
mother,' and such like talk." But the widow Moulton persisted, until "at
last, by one pail of water and another, they did send and extinguish the
fire."[67] It is pleasant to know that the courageous old lady received
three pounds for her services, and that the smoke which rose higher than
the Town House served only to give the signal for Concord fight.
All this while the numbers of the militia had been growing. They were
stationed on the slope of Punkatasset Hill, and from minute to minute
squads and companies came in from the neighboring towns. It has been
made a reproach to Concord that so few of her men were there, but they
were engaged in the far more important duty of saving the stores.
Nevertheless, one of her militia companies was on the ground, with those
individuals who were able to hurry back after putting the stores in
safety. The Carlisle and Acton men had joined the waiting provincials,
whose numbers at last became so threatening that the guard at the
bridge, in full sight of them, became uneasy.
The militia became uneasy also. Beyond the bridge, in the town, they saw
more smoke than seemed warranted by merely burning cannon wheels and
spoons. The officers consulted, and Captain Smith, of Lincoln, urged
that the bridge be forced. Davis of Acton, speaking of his company,
said, "I haven't a man that's afraid to go!" The movement was decided
upon, and the militia, in double file, marched down toward the bridge.
The Acton company had the lead, with Davis at its head; beside him
marched Major John Buttrick, of Concord, in command, with
Lieutenant-Colonel Robinson, of Westford, as a volunteer aid. As the
provincials drew near, the British hastil
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