XXIV. 1775. Mar. CHAP. rate." He mocked at the rule of progression, which showed that America must in the end exceed Europe in in population. "Then," said he in derision, not knowing how much truth he was uttering, "in a century and a quarter let the princes of the earth tremble in their palaces." Had Johnson been truly a man of genius, he would have escaped the shame of having, in his old age, aimed at freedom the feeble shaft which was meant to have carried ruin. In spite of the ostentatious pomp of his morality, his own heart was riveted to the earth. At the last, he cowered under the fear of dissolution as though death were an enemy; scarifying his limbs in the vain hope of breathing though but a few hours more; unable in the moment of change to fix his eye on God, or to grasp eternity; the emblem of the old political system, which also lay on its deathbed, helplessly longing to live on. His name is never breathed as a watchword; his writings never thrill as oracles. The pure-minded man, who in a sensual age, became the quickener of religious fervor, the preacher to the poor, John Wesley, also came forward to defend the system of the court with the usual arguments. He looked so steadily towards the world beyond the skies, that he could not brook the interruption of devout gratitude by bloody contests in this stage of being. Besides, he saw that the rupture between the English and the Americans was growing wider every day, and to him the total defection of America was the evident prelude of a conspiracy against monarchy. The thought of such a conspiracy made him shudder. "No governments under XXIV. Mar. Heaven," said he, "are so despotic as the republican; CHAP. no subjects are governed in so arbitrary a manner as those of a commonwealth. The people never but 1775. once in all history gave the sovereign power, and that was to Masaniello of Naples. Our sins will never be removed, till we fear God and honor the king." Wesley's mental constitution was not robust enough to gaze on the future with unblenched calm. He could not foresee that the constellation of republics, so soon to rise in the wilds of America, would welcome the members of the society, which he was to found, as the pioneers of religion; that the breath of liberty would waft their messages to the masses of the people; would encourage them to collect the white and the negro, slave and master in the green wood, for counsel on divine love and the full assurance of grace; and would carry their consolation, and songs, and prayers to the furthest cabins in the wilderness. To the gladdest of glad tidings for the political regeneration of the world, Wesley listened with timid trembling, as to the fearful bursting of the floodgates of revolution; and he knew not, that God was doing a work, which should lead the nations of the earth to joy. 16. In the house of lords, Camden, on the sixteenth Mar. of March, took the occasion of the motion to commit the bill depriving New England of the fisheries, to reply not to ministers only, but to their „pensioned apologist, in a speech which was admired in England, and gained applause of Vergennes. He justified the union of the Americans, and refuted the suggestion that New York was or could be detached from it. By the extent of America, the numbers of XXIV. Mar. 16. 66 CHAP. its people, their solid, firm, and indissoluble agreement on the great basis of liberty and justice, and the want 1775. of men and money on the part of England, he proved that England could not but fail in her attempt at coercion, and that the ultimate independence of America was inevitable. "I cannot think him serious," said Sandwich. Suppose the colonies do abound in men; they are raw, undisciplined, and cowardly. I wish instead of forty or fifty thousand of these brave fellows, they would produce in the field at least two hundred thousand; the more the better; the easier would be the conquest. At the siege of Louisburg. Sir Peter Warren found what egregious cowards they were. Believe me, my lords, the very sound of a cannon would send them off, as fast as their feet could carry them." He then abused the Americans for not paying their debts, and ascribed their associations to a desire to defraud their creditors. It is memorable, that when on the twenty-first, the debate was renewed and the bill passed, both Rockingham and Shelburne, the heads of the old whigs, and the new, inserted in their protest against the act, that "the people of New England are especially entitled to the fisheries." Franklin, as he heard the insinuations of Sandwich against the honesty of his countrymen, turned on his heel in wrath; nothing was left for him but to go home where duty called him. The French minister, who revered his supreme ability, sought with him one last interview. "I spoke to him," wrote Garnier to Vergennes, "of the part which our president Jeannin had taken in establishing the independence and forming the government of the United Provinces;" and the citation of the precedent cheered Franklin as a CHAP. prediction. "But then," subjoined Garnier, "they have neither a marine, nor allies, nor a prince of Orange." Mar. A large part of his last day in London, Franklin passed with Edmund Burke, and however much he may have been soured and exasperated by wrongs and insults to himself and his country, he still regarded the approaching independence as an event which gave him the greatest concern. He called up the happy days which America had passed under the protection of England; he said "that the British empire was the only instance of a great empire, in which the most distant members had been as well governed as the metropolis; but then," reasoned he, "the Americans are going to lose the means which secured to them this rare and precious advantage. The question with them, is not whether they are to remain as they had been before the troubles, for better, they could not hope to be; but whether they are to give up so happy a situation without a struggle. I lament the separation between Great Britain and her colonies; but it is inevitable." So parted the great champion of the British aristocracy, and the man of the people. For what noble purpose will they two act together once more? When will an age again furnish minds like theirs? Burke revered Franklin to the last, foretold the steady brightening of his fame; and drew from his integrity the pleasing hope of ultimate peace. On the morning after his conversation with Burke, Franklin posted to Portsmouth with all speed, and before his departure from London was XXIV. 1775. CHAP. known, was embarked for Philadelphia. 1775. Mar. What "He has left with bad designs," said Hutchinson ; "had I been the master, his embarkation would have been prevented.”"—"With his superiority," said Garnier, "and with the confidence of the Americans, he will be able to cut out work for the ministers who have persecuted him." Vergennes felt assured he would spread the conviction that the British ministry had irrevocably chosen its part; and that America had no choice but independence. With personal friends, with merchants, with manufacturers, with the liberal statesmen of England, with supporters of the ministry, Franklin had labored on all occasions earnestly, disinterestedly, and long. With his disappearance from the scene, the last gleam of a compromise vanished. The administration and their followers called him insincere. They insisted on believing to the last, that he had private instructions which would have justified him in accepting the regulating act for Massachusetts, and they attributed his answers to an inflexible and subtle hostility to England. But nothing deceives like jealousy ; he perseveringly endeavored to open the eyes of the king and his servants. At the bar of the house of commons he first revealed his conviction, that persistence in taxation would compel independence; it was for the use of the government, that once to Strahan and then to Lord Howe he explained the American question with frankness and precision. The British ministry overreached themselves by not believing him. "Speaking the truth to them in sincerity," said Franklin, "was my only finesse." |