would not submit to while they were unrepresented CHAP. in the British Parliament. Half alarmed, half exasperated, the English Government took a middle course, and the worst which they could have chosen. They abandoned the duties on glass and paper; they retained a nominal tea duty. Had they tried force at once, they might have crushed the colonies in detail, and for a time have broken them down. Had they made a frank surrender, the colonies for a time also would have refrained from raising the question of separation. They maintained the cause of the irritation; they took no active steps to compel obedience. Ill-feeling grew rapidly. Bloody riots broke out in Boston between the garrison and the citizens. For four years, through the thirteen colonies, in town and village, tea, which had become a necessary of life, disappeared from the breakfasttable. At length the decrease of consumption having created a glut in the East Indian warehouses, and as it was supposed that by this time the colonists would be weary of the strife, it was determined to tempt their constancy with a supply of the coveted luxury at a price which, notwithstanding the duty, was still lower than Americans had ever paid for it before. The tea ships generally were prevented from making their way into the American harbours, or else were sent back without being allowed to unload. A ship which entered Boston harbour was less fortunate. A party of men, disguised as Mohawk Indians in their war-paint, stole on board one midnight, overpowered the crew, burst the chests open, and emptied them into the sea. III. 1773. Struck thus in the face, England lost its temper 1774. BOOK V. 1774. 1775. All and its prudence. The port of Boston was declared Dr. Franklin, who had been long in England, and was personally intimate with many of the chief English statesmen, took charge of the address to the Crown. He was leaning on the bar of the House of Lords when the question was debated in that assembly whether he should be allowed to present it. At that great crisis in his country's future, Chatham CHAP. came once more to the front. Si Pergama dextrâ Defendi possent etiam hâc defensa fuissent. Chatham's name was honoured in America beyond that of every other Englishman. He insisted on the madness or the wickedness of using force in an unnatural quarrel. America was willing to admit the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. America would not refuse to contribute of her own accord for the interest of the war debts. England must meet her with a frank confession that if she was to be taxed, her own consent was necessary; that it was unlawful to employ the army to destroy the rights of the people; the port at Boston must be thrown open again, and Gage and his troops must be recalled. So advised the greatest of living Englishmen, who had raised his country to the proudest eminence which she had attained since the death of the Protector. But Lord North and his Cabinet desired to be thought better patriots than Chatham. Lord Sandwich moved that Chatham's propositions could not be entertained. Glancing at Franklin, he said that he had in his eye the person by whom they had been drawn-the most mischievous and bitterest enemy the country had ever known. Franklin could not answer, but Chatham did. His words were his own, he said. He had given the House his own opinion; but had he needed help, he would not have been ashamed of asking it from one whom all Europe esteemed, who was an honour not to the English nation only, but to human nature.' The House of Lords went with Sandwich, and determined by a great majority that the colonists should III. 1775. L BOOK V. 1775. be taught their duties. The Cabinet felt more uncertainty than they confessed. Private conferences were held with Franklin; and Franklin, to whom, as to those by whom he was employed, a dismemberment of the empire was no trifling thing to be rushed after with foolish haste, was most earnest to suggest means by which the catastrophe could be averted. He undertook that the tea should be paid for; and that the colonies should contribute to war expenses. If England would relinquish her monopolies and give them free trade, they would contribute in peace. On the other hand, as Chatham had said, the duties must be abandoned and the troops be withdrawn. The Imperial Parliament must disclaim a right to legislate for the internal regulation of the colonies, and the cancelled charter must be restored to Massachusetts. To most of these conditions Lord North was ready to agree. The negociation went off upon a point of honour. All else might be conceded, but England could not humble herself before Massachusetts. At all risks the new Constitution must be upheld. For this feather terms infinitely more favourable than we now dare demand from our remaining dependencies were idly rejected. Franklin carried back the news that he had failed, and a new page was turned in the history of mankind. Both sides had paused upon their arms till the answer came. Debate was then over. It was now for action to decide between them. The Massachusetts Congress had employed the winter in collecting stores at Concord. Gage finding the issue to be war, resolved on dealing a vigorous blow. On the night of the 18th of April he despatched Colonel Smith with 800 grenadiers to destroy the magazines. Concord is twenty miles from Boston. Lexington is a village on the road a few miles short of it. In Lexington Street, at five in the morning of the 19th, a party of Massachusetts militia were assembled, uncertain (as before the first blood is shed in a civil war, men always are uncertain) what they were precisely to do. The troops settled the question by firing on them. They scattered. Colonel Smith went on, accomplished his work, and was again returning on the same road when he found the houses in Lexington, and the walls and hedges outside it, lined with riflemen. The soldiers, tired with a thirty-mile march and encumbered with their knapsacks, found themselves received with a close and deadly fire from practised marksmen. Their enemies were country farmers and farm servants, trained as hunters in the woods, and light of foot as they were skilful in aim. They would have been destroyed without a chance of defending themselves, had not Gage, who had heard of what had passed in the morning, sent forward reinforcements. Fresh troops arriving on the scene drove the Americans off, and the shattered grenadiers reached Boston at sunset with a loss of nearly half their strength. The effect of the battle of Lexington was to enclose the British within the lines of the city. The head-quarters of the Americans were pushed forward to Cambridge, four miles only outside all the walls, and Gage's communications with the country were wholly cut off. The inglorious investment it was thought could be but of short duration. Regiments were pouring in from England. General Howe arrived at the beginning of the summer, and decided to give the colonists a decisive lesson without loss of time. The Peninsula of Charlestown is divided CHAP. III. 1775. |