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Employing this event also to contribute to the great purpose of a general union, the Boston committee, as the year went out, were "encouraged, by the people's thorough understanding of their civil and religious rights and liberties, to trust in God that a day was hastening when the efforts of the colonists would be crowned with success, and the present generation furnish an example of public virtue worthy the imitation of all posterity."

1773.

In a like spirit, the eventful year of 1773 was rung Jan. in by the men of Marlborough. "Death," said they unanimously, on the first of January, "is more eligible than slavery. A free-born people are not required by the religion of Jesus Christ to submit to tyranny, but may make use of such power as God has given them to recover and support their laws and liberties." And, advising all the colonies to prepare for war, they "implored the Ruler above the skies that he would make bare his arm in defence of his church and people, and let Israel go."

"As we are in a remote wilderness corner of the earth, we know but little," said the farmers of Lenox; "but neither nature nor the God of nature require us to crouch, Issachar-like, between the two burdens of poverty and slavery." "We prize our liberties so highly," thus spoke the men of Leicester, with the districts of Spencer and Paxton, “that we think it our duty to risk our lives and fortunes in defence thereof." "For that spirit of virtue which induced your town at so critical a day to take the lead in so good a cause," wrote the town of Petersham, 66 our admiration is heightened, when we consider your being exposed to the first efforts of power. The time may come when you may be driven from your goodly heritage; if that should be the case, we invite you to share with us in our small supplies of the necessaries of life; and, should we still not be able to withstand, we are determined to retire, and seek repose amongst the inland aboriginal natives, with whom we doubt not but to find more humanity and brotherly love than we have lately received from our mother country." "We join with the town of Petersham,” was the reply of Boston, "in preferring a life among the

savages to the most splendid condition of slavery; but Heaven will bless the united efforts of a brave people."

1773.

"It is only some people in the Massachusetts Bay making a great clamor, in order to keep their party alive,” wrote time-servers to Dartmouth, begging for further grants of salaries, and blind to the awakening of a nation. "This unhappy contest between Britain and America," wrote Samuel Adams, "will end in rivers of blood; but America may wash her hands in innocence." Informing Rhode Island of the design of "administration to get their charter vacated," he advised them to make delay, without conceding any of their rights; and to address the assemblies of all the other colonies for support.

Jan.

1773. Jan.

CHAPTER XLIX.

VIRGINIA CONSOLIDATES UNION.

JANUARY-JULY, 1773.

On the sixth of January, the day on which the legislature of Massachusetts assembled at Boston, the affairs of America were under consideration in England. The king, who read even the semi-official letters in which Hutchinson described the Boston committee of correspondence as in part composed of "deacons” and “atheists," and "black-hearted fellows whom one would not choose to meet in the dark," "very much approved the temper and firmness of his governor, and was concerned

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lest "the inhabitants of Boston should be deluded into acts of disobedience, and the most atrocious criminality towards individuals;" he found "consolation" in the assurance that "the influence of the malignant spirits was daily decreasing," and "that their mischievous tenets were held in abhorrence by the generality of the people." But already eighty towns or more, including almost every one of the larger towns, had chosen their committees; and Samuel Adams was planning how to effect a union of all the colonies in congress. When the assembly met, the speaker transmitted the proceedings of the town of Boston for organizing the provincial committees of correspondence to Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia.

The governor, in his speech to the two houses, with calculating malice summoned them to admit or disprove the supremacy of parliament. The disorder in the government he attributed to the denial of that supremacy, which he undertook to establish by arguments derived from the history of the colony, its charter, and English law. "I know

of no line," he said, "that can be drawn between the supreme authority of parliament and the total independence of the colonies. It is impossible there should be two independent legislatures in one and the same state." He therefore invited the legislature to adhere to his principles or convince him of his error. Elated with vanity, he was sure in any event of a victory; for, if they should disown the opinions of the several towns, he would gain glory in England; if they should avow them, then, said he in a letter which was to go straight to the king, "I shall be enabled to make apparent the reasonableness and necessity of coercion, and justify it to all the world."

1773.

Jan.

The speech was printed and industriously circulated in England, and for a short time made an impression on the minds of many not well acquainted with the dispute. His hearers in Boston saw his indiscretion, and Samuel Adams prepared to "take the fowler in his own snare." No man in the province had reflected so much as he on the question of the legislative power of parliament; no man had so early arrived at the total denial of that power. For nine years, he had been seeking an opportunity of promulgating that denial as the opinion of the assembly; and caution had always stood in his way. At last, the opportunity had come; and the assembly, with one consent, placed the pen in his hand.

Meantime, the towns of Massachusetts were still vibrating from the impulse given by Boston. "The swords which we whet and brightened for our enemies are not yet grown rusty," wrote the town of Gorham. "We offer our lives as a sacrifice in the glorious cause of liberty," was the response of Kittery. "We will not sit down easy," voted Shirley, "until our rights and liberties are restored." The people of Medfield would also "have a final period put to that most cruel, inhuman, and unchristian practice, the slave-trade." Acton spoke out concisely and firmly. "Prohibiting slitting-mills," said South Hadley, "is similar to the Philistines prohibiting smiths in Israel, and shews we are esteemed by our brethren as vassals." "We think ourselves obliged to emerge from our former obscurity, and

speak our minds with freedom," declared Lunenburg, "or our posterity may otherwise rise up and curse us.' "We

1773. Jan.

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of this place are unanimous," was the message from Pepperell; "our resentment riseth against those who dare invade our natural and constitutional rights." With one voice they named Captain William Prescott to be the chief of their committee of correspondence; and no braver heart beat in Middlesex than his. Lynn called for a provincial convention; Stoneham invited the sister colonies to harmony; Danvers would have "strict union of all the provinces on the continent." "Digressions from compacts," said the men of Princeton, "lessen the connection between the mother country and the colonies."

South Carolina, too remote for immediate concert, was engaged in the same cause. Its assembly elected Rawlins Lowndes their speaker. The governor "directed the assembly to return to their house and choose another;" and, as they persisted in their first choice, he prorogued them, and did it in so illegal a manner that, as a remedy, he dissolved them by a proclamation, and immediately issued writs for choosing a new house; thus carrying the subject home to the thoughts of every voter in the province.

This controversy was local; the answers of the legislature of Massachusetts to its governor's challenge would be of general importance. That of the council, drafted by Bowdoin, clearly traced the existing discontents to the acts of parliament, subjecting the colonies to taxes without their consent. The removal of this original cause would remove its effects. Supreme or unlimited authority can with fitness belong only to the Sovereign of the universe; from the nature and end of government, the supreme authority of every government is limited; and from the laws of England, its constitution, and the provincial charter, it was shown that the limits of that authority did not include the levying of taxes within the province. Thus the council conceded nothing, and at the same time avoided a conflict with the opinions of Chatham, Camden, and Shelburne.

The house in their reply, which Samuel Adams, aided by the sound legal knowledge of Hawley, had constructed with

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