To any statesman who looked into the question inquiringly and with clear vision, it must have appeared evident that, if the English colonies resolved to sever themselves from the British Empire, it would be impossible to prevent them. Their population was said to have doubled in twenty-five years. They were separated from the mother country by three thousand miles of water, their seaboard extended for more than one thousand miles, their territory was almost boundless in its extent and resources, and the greater part of it no white man had traversed or seen. To conquer such a country would be a task of greatest difficulty and stupendous cost. To hold it in opposition to the general wish of the people would be impossible. The colonists were chiefly small and independent freeholders, hardy backwoodsmen and hunters, well skilled in the use of arms and possessed of all the resources and energies which life in a new country seldom fails to develop. They had representative a.s.semblies to levy taxes and organize resistance. They had militia, which in some colonies included all adult freemen between the ages of sixteen and fifty or sixty, and, in addition to Indian raids, they had the military experience of two great wars. The first capture of Louisburg, in 1745, had been mainly their work. In the latter stages of the war, which ended in 1763, there were more than twenty thousand colonial troops under arms, ten thousand of them from New England alone, and more than four hundred privateers had been fitted out in colonial harbors.[18]

[18] Ramsey, History of the American Revolution, Vol. I, page 40; Hildreth, Vol. II., page 486; Grahame, Vol. IV., page 94.

There were a.s.suredly no other colonies in the world so favorably situated as these were at the close of the Seven Years' War. They had but one grievance, the Navigation Act, and it is a gross and flagrant misrepresentation to describe the commercial policy of England as exceptionally tyrannical. As Adam Smith truly said, "Every European nation had more or less taken to itself the commerce of its colonies, and upon that account had prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading with them, and had prohibited them from importing European goods from any foreign nation," and "though the policy of Great Britain with regard to the trade of her colonies has been dictated by the same mercantile spirit as that of other nations, it has, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive than any of them."[19]

[19] Wealth of Nations, Vol. IV., chapter 7; Tucker's Four Tracts, page 133.

There is, no doubt, much to be said in palliation of the conduct of England. If Virginia was prohibited from sending her tobacco to any European country except England, Englishmen were prohibited from purchasing any tobacco except that which came from America or Bermuda.

If many of the trades and manufactures in which the colonies were naturally most fitted to excel were restrained or crushed by law, English bounties encouraged the cultivation of indigo and the exportation to England of pitch, tar, hemp, flax and ship timber from America, and several articles of American produce obtained a virtual monopoly of the English market by their exemption from duties which were imposed on similar articles imported from foreign countries.

The revenue laws were habitually violated. Smuggling was very lucrative, and therefore very popular, and any attempt to interfere with it was greatly resented. The attention of the British government was urgently called to it during the war. At a time when Great Britain was straining every nerve to free the English colonies from the incubus of France, and when millions of pounds sterling were being remitted from England to pay colonists for fighting in their own cause, it was found that French fleets, French garrisons, and the French West India Islands were systematically supplied with large quant.i.ties of provisions by the New England colonies. Pitt, who still directed affairs, wrote with great indignation that this contraband trade must be stopped, but the whole community of the New England seaports appeared to favor or was partaking in it, and great difficulty was found in putting the law into execution.[20]

[20] Hildreth Vol. II., page 498; McPherson's Annals of Commerce, Vol.

III., page 330; Arnold's History of Rhode Island, Vol. II., pages 227-235.

From a legal point of view, the immense activity of New England was for the most part illicit. In serene ignorance the New England sailor penetrated all harbors, conveying in their holds, from the North, where they belonged, various sorts of interdicted merchandise, and bringing home cargoes equally interdicted from all ports they touched. The merchants, who since 1749, through Hutchinson's excellent statesmanship, had been free from the results of a bad currency, greatly throve. The shipyards teemed with fleets, each nook of the coast was the seat of mercantile ventures. It was then that in all the sh.o.r.e towns arose the fine colonial mansions of the traders along the main streets, that are even admired today for their size and comeliness. Within the houses bric-a-brac from every clime came to abound, and the merchants and their wives and children were clothed gaily in rich fabrics from remote regions. Glowing reports of the gaiety and luxury of the colonies reached the mother country.[21] The merchants and sailors were, to a man, law-breakers. It was this universal law-breaking, after the fall of Quebec, that the English ministry undertook to stop over its extended empire. This caused friction, which gave rise to fire, which increased until the ties with the mother land were quite consumed.

[21] Gordon's History of the American War, Vol. I., page 157.

As early as 1762 there were loud complaints in Parliament of the administration of custom houses in the colonies. Grenville found on examination that the whole revenue derived by England from the custom houses in America amounted only to between one and two thousand pounds a year, and that for the purpose of collecting this revenue the English exchequer was paying annually between seven and eight thousand pounds.

Nine-tenths, probably, of all the tea, wine, fruit, sugar and mola.s.ses consumed in the colonies, were smuggled. Grenville determined to terminate this state of affairs. Several new revenue officers were appointed with more rigid rules for the discharge of their duties.

"Writs of a.s.sistance" were to be issued, authorizing custom house officers to search any house they pleased for smuggled goods. English ships of war were at the same time stationed off the American coast for the purpose of intercepting smugglers.

Adam Smith, writing in 1776, says:

"Parliament, in attempting to exercise its supposed right, whether well or ill-grounded, of taxing the colonies, _has never hitherto demanded of them anything which even approached to a just proportion to what was paid by their fellow subjects at home_. Great Britain has. .h.i.therto suffered her subjects and subordinate provinces to disburden themselves upon her of almost the whole expense."

The colonists had profited by the successful war incomparably more than any other British subjects. Until the destruction of the French power, a hand armed with a rifle or tomahawk and torch seemed constantly near the threshold of every New England home. The threatening hand was now paralyzed and the fringe of plantations by the coast could now extend itself to the illimitable West in safety. No foreign foe could now dictate a boundary line and bar the road beyond it. The colonists were asked only to bear a share in the burden of the empire by a contribution to the sum required for maintenance of the ten thousand soldiers and of the armed fleet which was unquestionably necessary for the protection of their long coast line and of their commerce.

James Otis started the Revolution in New England by what Mr. Lecky calls an "incendiary speech" against writs of a.s.sistance, and if half of what Hildreth a.s.serts and Bancroft admits in regard to smuggling along the coast of New England is true, there is no reason to wonder that such writs were unpopular in Boston. James Otis, whose father had just been disappointed in his hopes of obtaining a seat upon the bench, was no doubt an eloquent man and all the more dangerous because he often thought he was right. That it is always prudent to distrust the eloquence of a criminal lawyer we have ample proof, in the advice he gave the people on the pa.s.sage of the Stamp Act. "It is the duty," he said, "of all, humbly and silently to acquiesce in all the decisions of the supreme legislature. Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the colonists will never once entertain a thought but of submission to our sovereign and to authority of Parliament, in all possible contingencies. They undoubtedly have the right to levy internal taxes on the colonies."

In private talk he was more vigorous than in his formal utterance.

"Hallowell says that Otis told him Parliament had a right to tax the colonies and he was a d---- fool who denied it, and that this people would never be quiet till we had a council from home, till our charter was taken away and till we had regular troops quartered upon us."[22]

[22] John Adams' Diary, January 16, 1776.

John Adams wrote in his diary, under date of January 16, 1770, concerning Otis, as follows: "In one word Otis will spoil the club. He talks so much and takes up so much of our time and fills it with trash, obsceneness, profaneness, nonsense and distraction that we have none left for rational amus.e.m.e.nts or inquiries. I fear, I tremble, I mourn for the man and for his country. Many others mourn over him with tears in their eyes."

Again John Adams says, after an attack upon him by Otis: "There is a complication of malice, envy and jealousy in the man, in the present disordered state of his mind, that is quite shocking."[23] On the 7th of May, 1771, Otis, who at this time had recovered his reason was elected with John Hanc.o.c.k to the a.s.sembly. They both left their party and went over to the side of the government. John Adams wrote "Otis' change was indeed startling. John Chandler, Esq., of Petersham gave me an account of Otis' conversion to Toryism, etc." Hutchinson writing to Governor Bernard, says, "Otis was carried off today in a post-chaise, bound hand and foot. He has been as good as his word--set the Province in a flame and perished in the attempt."

[23] John Adams' Diary, October 27, 1772; John Adams' Works, Vol. II page 26; Letters to Bernard December 3, 1771.

In Virginia the revolutionary movement of the poor whites or "crackers," led by Patrick Henry, was against the planter aristocracy, and Washington was a conspicuous member of the latter cla.s.s. In tastes, manners, instincts and sympathies he might have been taken as an admirable specimen of the better cla.s.s of English country gentlemen, and he had a great deal of the strong conservative feeling which is natural to that cla.s.s. He was in the highest sense a gentleman and a man of honor, and he carried into public life the severest standard of private morals.

It was only slowly and very deliberately that Washington identified himself with the disunionist cause. No man had a deeper admiration for the British const.i.tution, or a more sincere desire to preserve the connection, and to put an end to the disputes between the two countries.

From the first promulgation of the Stamp Act, however, he adopted the conviction that a recognition of the sole right of the colonies to tax themselves was essential to their freedom, and as soon as it became evident that Parliament was resolved at all hazards to a.s.sert its authority by taxing the Americans, he no longer hesitated. Of all the great men in history he was the most invariably judicious, and there is scarcely a rash word or action of judgment related of him. America had found in Washington a leader who could be induced by no earthly motive to tell a falsehood or to break an engagement or to commit a dishonorable act.

In the despondency of long-continued failure, in the elation of sudden success, at times when his soldiers were deserting by hundreds, and when malignant plots were formed against his reputation; amid the constant quarrels, rivalries and jealousies of his subordinates; in the dark hour of national ingrat.i.tude and in the midst of the most universal and intoxicating flattery, he was always the same calm, wise, just and single-minded man, pursuing the course which he believed to be right, without fear, favor or fanaticism.

In civil as in military life he was pre-eminent among his contemporaries for the clearness and soundness of his judgment, for his perfect moderation and self-control, for the quiet dignity and the indomitable firmness with which he pursued every path which he had deliberately chosen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: READING THE STAMP ACT IN KING STREET: OPPOSITE THE STATE HOUSE.]

As previously stated, the heart of the Old Dominion was fired by Patrick Henry, one of the most unreliable men living. Byron called him a forest-born Demosthenes, and Jefferson, wondering over his career, exclaimed: "Where he got that torrent of language is inconceivable. I have frequently closed my eyes while he spoke and, when he was done, asked myself what he had said without being able to recollect a word of it." He had been successively a storekeeper, a farmer and a shopkeeper, but had failed in all these pursuits and became a bankrupt at twenty-three. Then he studied law a few weeks and practiced a few years.

The first success he made in this line was in an effort to persuade a jury to render one of the most unjust verdicts ever recorded in court. Finally he embarked on the stormy sea of politics. One day he worked himself into a fine frenzy, and in a most dramatic manner demanded "Liberty or Death," although he had both freely at his disposal. He was a slaveholder nearly all his life. He bequeathed slaves and cattle in his will, and one of his eulogists brags that he would buy or sell a horse or a negro as well as anybody.

John Adams of Braintree, now Quincy, was a graduate of Harvard College, and a lawyer by profession. He ranks next to Washington as being the most prominent of the Revolutionary leaders. He was the son of a poor farmer and shoemaker. He married Abigail Smith, the daughter of the Congregational minister in the adjoining town of Weymouth. Much disapprobation of the match appears to have been manifested, for Mr.

Adams, the son of a poor farmer, was thought scarcely good enough to be match with the minister's daughter, descended from many of the shining lights of the colony.[24]

[24] "Letters of Mrs. Adams." Memoirs, XXIX.

John Adams was a cousin of Samuel Adams. He joined the disunionists, probably, because he saw that if the Revolution was successful there would be great opportunity for advancement under the new government.

This proved to be the case, for he was the first minister to Great Britain, the successor of Washington as second president of the United States. His eldest son became the sixth president, and his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, ably represented his country as minister to Great Britain during the Civil War of 1861.

The Stamp Act received the royal a.s.sent on March 22, 1765, and it was to come into operation on the first day of November following. The "Virginia Resolutions," through which Patrick Henry first acquired a continental fame, voted by the House of Burgess in May following, denied very definitely the authority of Parliament to tax the colonies. At first men recoiled. Otis was reported to have publicly condemned them in King street, which was no doubt true, for, as we have seen, he fully admitted the supremacy of Parliament.

The princ.i.p.al objection made by the colonists to the Stamp Act was that it was an internal tax. They denied the right of Parliament to impose internal taxation, claiming that to be a function that could be exercised only by colonial a.s.semblies. They admitted, however, that Parliament had a right to levy duties on exports and imports, and they had submitted to such taxation for many years without complaint.

In order to soften the opposition, and to consult to the utmost of his power the wishes of the colonists, Grenville informed the colonial agents that the distribution of the stamps should be confided not to Englishmen but to Americans. Franklin, then agent for Pennsylvania, accepted the act and, in his canny way, took steps to have a friend appointed stamp distributor for his province. This made him very unpopular and the mob threatened to destroy his house.

The Stamp Act, when its ultimate consequences are considered, must be deemed one of the most momentous legislative acts in the history of mankind.

A timely concession of a few seats in the upper and lower houses of the Imperial Parliament would have set at rest the whole dispute. Franklin had suggested it ten years before, antic.i.p.ating even Otis, Grenville was quite ready to favor it, Adam Smith advocated it. Why did the scheme fail? Just at that time in Ma.s.sachusetts a man was rising into provincial note, who was soon to develop a heat, truly fanatical, in favor of an idea quite inconsistent with Franklin's plan. He from the first claimed that representation of the colonies in Parliament was quite impracticable or, if accepted, would be of no benefit to the colonies, and that there was no fit state for them but independence. His voice at first was but a solitary cry in the midst of a tempest, but it prevailed mightily in the end.

This sole expounder of independence was Samuel Adams, the father of the Revolution. Already his influence was superseding that of Otis, in stealthy ways of which neither Otis nor those who made an idol of him were sensible, putting into the minds of men, in the place of the ideas for which Otis stood, radical conceptions which were to change in due time the whole future of the world. "Samuel Adams at this time was a man of forty-two years of age, but already gray and bent with a physical infirmity which kept his head and hands shaking like those of a paralytic. He was a man of broken fortunes, a ne'er-do-well in his private business, a failure as a tax collector, the only public office he had thus far undertaken to discharge."[25] He had an hereditary antipathy to the British government, for his father was one of the princ.i.p.al men connected with Land-Bank delusion, and was ruined by the restrictions which Parliament imposed on the circulation of paper money, causing the closing up of the bank by act of Parliament and leaving debts which seventeen years later were still unpaid.

[25] Hosmer, Life of Hutchinson, page 82.

It appears that Governor Hutchinson was a leading person in dissolving the bank, and from that time Adams was the bitter enemy of Hutchinson and the government. Hutchinson in describing him says, "Mr. S. Adams had been one of the directors of the land bank in 1741 which was dissolved by act of Parliament. After his decease his estate was put up for sale by public auction, under authority of an act of the General a.s.sembly.

The son first made himself conspicuous on this occasion. He attended the sale, threatened the sheriff to bring action against him and threatened all who should attempt to enter upon the estate under pretence of a purchase, and by intimidating both the sheriff and those persons who intended to purchase, he prevented the sale, kept the estate in his possession and the debts to the land bank remained unsatisfied. He was afterwards a collector of taxes for the town of Boston and made defalcation which caused an additional tax upon the inhabitants. He was for nearly twenty years a writer against government in the public newspapers. Long practice caused him to arrive at great perfection and to acquire a talent of artfully and fallaciously insinuating into the minds of readers a prejudice against the characters of all he attacked beyond any other man I ever knew, and he made more converts to his cause by calumniating governors and other servants of the crown than by strength of reasoning. The benefit to the town from his defence of their liberties, he supposed an equivalent to his arrears as their collector, and prevailing principle of the party that the end justified the means probably quieted the remorse he must have felt from robbing men of their characters and injuring them more than if he had robbed them of their estates."[26]

[26] Hutchinson's History, Vol. III., pages 294-295.

In a letter written by Hutchinson about this time he thus characterizes his chief adversary:

"I doubt whether there is a greater incendiary in the King's dominion or a man of greater malignity of heart, who has less scruples any measure ever so criminal to accomplish his purposes; and I think I do him no injustice when I suppose he wishes the destruction of every friend to government in America."[27]

[27] M. A. History, Vol. XXV., page 437.

In a letter dated March 13, 1769, Adams pet.i.tioned the town, requesting that he be discharged from his indebtedness to the town for the amount that he was in arrears as tax collector. He states that the town treasurer, by order of the town, had put his bond in suit and recovered judgment for the sum due 2009.8.8. He stated that his debts and 1106.11 will fully complete the sum which he owes and requests "that the town would order him a final discharge upon the condition of his paying the aforesaid sum of 1106.11 into the province treasury." This letter of Adams to the town of Boston fully confirms the statement made by Hutchinson that he was a defaulter, for it appears from this letter that during the several years he was collector of taxes for the town, that he did not make a proper return for the taxes which he had collected, and it was only after suit and judgment had been obtained against his bondsmen that rest.i.tution was made, his sureties having to pay over $5000 in cash and the balance was made up of uncollected taxes.[28]

[28] This letter was purchased at the E. H. Leffingwell sale of January 6, 1891, for $185, by the city of Boston, and can be seen at the city clerk's office. In connection with this see "Life of Samuel Adams," by his great-grandson, William V. Wells, Vol. I., pages 35-38. Here he emphatically denies that bonds or sureties were given by collectors.

Evidently he had not consulted Boston Town Records, 1767, page 9, when it was voted that Samuel Adams' bond "shall be put in Suit," and when bonds and sureties were required of his successor, neither could he have known of the existence of this letter.

Adams was poor, simple, ostentatiously austere; the blended influence of Calvinistic theology and republican principles had indurated his whole character. He hated monarchy and the Episcopal church, all privileged cla.s.ses and all who were invested with dignity and rank, with a fierce hatred. He was the first to foresee and to desire an armed struggle, and he now maintained openly that any British troops which landed should be treated as enemies, attacked and if possible destroyed.