US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0013/00130.txt

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$Unique_ID{USH00130}
$Pretitle{11}
$Title{Our Country:  Volume 3
Chapter L}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{church
massachusetts
new
americans
liberty
upon
america
boston
officers
state}
$Volume{Vol. 3}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Book:        Our Country:  Volume 3
Author:      Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.
Volume:      Vol. 3
Date:        1905

Chapter L

     The Americans Resolve to Resist - Violence Deprecated - Views of Leaders
- Folly of the Ministry - The Massachusetts Circular - Acts of Crown Officers
- The Issue - Hillsborough's Instructions - Temper of the Other Colonies - A
Prophecy - A Warlike Menace - Seizure of the "Liberty" - Exciting Scenes at
Boston - Firmness of the Citizens - Action on Rescinding by the Assembly - A
Theological Controversy.

     At the beginning of 1768, the Americans, educated by a long series of
moral and political contests with the government of Great Britain, and assured
by recent experience and observation of their own sound and potent physical
and moral strength derived from numbers and the justice of their acts, stood
in an attitude of firm resolve not to submit to the new schemes of the
ministry for their enslavement.  They were determined to maintain home rule
inviolate in their political affairs, yet they were willing to bear with
patience the pressure upon their industrial enterprise of old acts of
Parliament then unrepealed.  They were still eminently loyal, and were proud
of the honor of being British subjects in its broad sense of nationality.  But
to the eye of a superficial observer the Americans, at that time, were in a
state of open revolt.  Their representative assemblies, uttering the voices of
the people, were defying the power of Great Britain which threatened to impose
unjust and unconstitutional laws upon them, and to enforce them with ball and
bayonet.  The nonimportation agreements, working disastrously against British
commerce, were again in full force and the spirit of resistance was rife among
the people.

     But the leaders of American opinion, deprecating the spasmodic violence
seen in opposition to the Stamp Act, counselled moderation, and condemned any
but legal, just, and dignified measures.  They saw that a crisis was at hand,
when statesmanship of the highest order would be needed in the popular
representative assemblies, and wise and judicious men were wanted as popular
leaders of the people.  When, in Boston, a placard appeared, calling on the
Sons of Liberty to "rise and fight for their rights," and declaring that they
would be joined by legions, James Otis, in a town-meeting, denounced that
spirit.  Were the burdens of the people ever so heavy," he said, or their
grievances ever so great, no possible circumstances, though ever so
oppressive, could be supposed sufficient to justify private tumults and
disorders, either to their consciences before God or legally before men that
their forefathers, in the beginning of the reign of Charles I, for fifteen
years together, were continually offering up prayers to their God, and
petitions to their king, for redress of grievances, before they would betake
themselves to any forcible measures and to insult and tear each other in
pieces was to act like madmen."  John Dickinson wrote: Our cause is a cause of
the highest dignity; it is nothing less than to maintain the liberty with
which Heaven itself has made us free.  I hope it will not be disgraced in any
colony by a single rash step. We have constitutional methods of seeking
redress, and they are the best methods."  Like sentiments were expressed by
other patriotic leaders; and their advice to stand in an attitude of defence
and not of aggression - to make the king and his ministers the real
revolutionists if revolution should occur - was heartily endorsed by the
people.  It was a new, a benign, and a thoroughly American method of resisting
the oppressions of an imperial government - a method having its foundations on
law, enlightened public opinion, and social order.

     Had the king and his ministers been wise, and simply respected the
natural and chartered rights of the colonists, the climax of revolution toward
which events were rapidly tending might have been indefinitely postponed. But
they were not wise.  The pride of power would not brook resistance or even
opposition to its wishes and its will.  The three estates of the realm - King,
Lords, and Commons - esteeming themselves collectively the absolute masters of
America, resolved to teach the colonists that implicit obedience was their
birthright and their natural and legal tribute to that master.  Leaning upon
the acknowledged power of Great Britain to execute the will of the King and
Parliament in America, that government resolved to effect a thorough
revolution in the colonial governments by military force; to establish a vast
consolidated empire under absolute royal rule, and to lay the foundations of a
great American revenue.  When the suggestion was made to Charles Townshend
that the troops might be safely withdrawn from America, and by so lessening
the expenses might lessen the need of a revenue and causes for discontent, the
imperious minister replied: I will hear nothing on that subject; the moment a
resolution shall be taken to with draw the army, I will resign my office and
have no more to do in public affairs.  I insist it is absolutely necessary to
keep up a large army there and here.  An American army and consequently an
American revenue are essential."

     At that time Massachusetts, and particularly Boston, was regarded as the
focus of sedition, and consequently had become the objects of the suspicion
and wrath of the ministry.  That Massachusetts was the "head centre of
opposition to ministerial and parliamentary injustice, cannot be truthfully
denied.  At the opening of the Assembly of that province at the beginning of
1768, the several obnoxious acts then recently passed were read and referred
to a committee on the state of the province.  That committee submitted a
Letter addressed to the agent of the colony in England, but intended for the
ministry.  It set forth the rights of the Americans their equality with
British subjects as free citizens, and their right; to local self-government.
It expressed loyalty, and disclaimed a desire for independence; opposed the
late acts as unconstitutional remonstrated against the maintaining of a
standing army in America as expensive, useless, altogether inadequate to
compel obedience, and as dangerous to liberty.  It objected to the
establishment here of commissioners of cub toms; expressed alarm because of
the attempt to annihilate the legislative authority of New York, and indicated
the intention of Massachusetts to defend its rights.  After much debate the
Letter was adopted with other epistles to distinguished men in England; also a
petition to the king couched in beautiful and touching language, in which a
brief history of the settlements of the colonies was recounted the story of
their investment of rights by the revolution of 1688 was told, and the
principles of the sacred right of being taxed only by representatives of their
own free election were laid down.  All of these documents were the production
of the teeming brain and facile pen of Samuel Adams, one of the soundest,
purest, most inflexible and incorruptible men of his time; poor in purse, but
rich in principle; of whom Governor Hutchinson said, He is of such an
obstinate and inflexible disposition that he could never be conciliated by any
office or gift whatever."

     In February, a Circular Letter, also written by Samuel Adams, was sent to
the several colonial assemblies, informing them of the contents of the Letter
to the agent of the province, and the petition to the king, and inviting them
to join the people of Massachusetts in maintaining the liberties of America."

     This Circular was fearlessly laid before Governor Bernard, for the
patriot had nothing to conceal.  It excited his fears and indignation. He
wrote a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, the Secretary of State for the
colonies, in which he grossly misrepresented the temper and sentiments of the
Circular, and declared that the Americans were aiming at independence.  The
board of commissioners of the revenue at Boston, who had lately been
appointed, wrote in like manner, declaring their belief that their persons
were not safe that the seeming moderation of the Americans was illusory; that
the colonists were uniting to throw off the yoke of dependence; complaining
that at the town-meetings in the province the lowest mechanics discussed the
most important points of government with the utmost freedom," and said: "We
have every reason to expect that we shall find it impracticable to enforce the
execution of the revenue laws until the hand of government is properly
strengthened.  At present there is not a ship-of-war in the province, nor a
company of soldiers nearer than New York." Massachusetts said to the ministry:
"Touch not our local government, and relieve us of taxation without
representation," and asked her sister colonies to join in the just demand. The
crown officers said to the ministry: "Send us a fleet and army that we may
destroy the local governments and tax the people without their consent." This
was now the issue.  To this complexion it had come at last; and the crown
officers, wishing to have troops sent over, that the work might be speedily
accomplished, wrote alarming letters home about concerted insurrections and of
danger to the commissioners of customs.  They pretended that the anniversary
of the repeal of the Stamp Act was the day fixed for unlawful proceedings; and
they tried to excite the people to some violent act to justify their
accusations, by causing the effigies of two revenue officers to be seen
hanging on Liberty-Tree on that morning.  The Sons of Liberty" quietly took
them down, and celebrated the day in a temperate manner.  Not even a bonfire
was lighted in the streets at night; and only a few men, women and children
gathered with harmless demonstrations of joy.  The false Bernard wrote that
there was great disposition to disorder that "hundreds paraded the streets
with yells and outcries that were quite terrible."

     When, at the middle of April, the Circular and the misrepresentations of
Bernard and other crown officers reached Hillsborough, he sent instructions to
the governor to call upon the General Assembly of Massachusetts to rescind
their resolutions, the substance of which was embodied in their Circular, and
in case of refusal to dissolve them.  Meanwhile responses to the Circular had
come to Boston from the other assemblies, expressing cordial approbation of
its sentiments.  Individuals also sent approving letters, and patriots issued
appeals to the people through the medium of newspapers and pamphlets.
Courage, Americans!  wrote William Livingston (it is supposed, an eminent
Presbyterian lawyer in New York), in the American Whig, No. V.  "Liberty,
religion, and science are on the wing to these shores.  The finger of God
points out a mighty empire to your sons. The savages of the wilderness were
never expelled to make room for idolaters and slaves.  The land we possess is
the gift of Heaven to our fathers, and Divine Providence seems to have decreed
it to our latest posterity.  So legible is this munificent and celestial deed
in past events, that we need not be discouraged by the bickering between us
and the parent country.  The angry cloud will soon be dispersed, and America
advance to felicity and glory with redoubled activity and vigor.  The day
dawns in which the foundations of this mighty empire is to be laid by the
establishment of a regular American constitution.  All that has hitherto been
done seems to be little beside the collection of materials for the
construction of this glorious fabric. 'Tis time to put them together.  The
transfer of the European part of the great family is so swift, and our growth
so vast, that before seven years roll over our heads the first stone must be
laid.  Peace or war, famine or plenty, poverty or affluence - in a word, no
circumstance, whether prosperous or adverse, can happen to our parent - nay,
no conduct of hers, whether wise or imprudent - no possible temper on her
part, will put a stop to this building."  So ran the prophecy in 1768.  At the
end of seven years its fulfillment began in earnest.

     With his instructions to Bernard, Hillsborough sent a letter to the other
royal governors, describing the Massachusetts Circular as of a most dangerous
and factious tendency," and directing them to use their influence to induce
their respective assemblies to treat it "with the contempt it deserved." The
governors were also instructed, in case the assemblies gave any countenance to
the seditious paper," to immediately dissolve them.  By these means the
Secretary hoped to induce the other assemblies to oppose the bold measure
proposed by Massachusetts, and so isolate that province. The result did not
justify his hopes.  By this attempt to control their action, the assemblies
were irritated, and their zeal in the cause in which Massachusetts was leading
was increased.  Meanwhile orders had been given to General Gage at New York to
hold a regiment in readiness there to send to Boston, for the assistance of
the crown officers in executing the laws. The admiralty was also directed to
send a frigate and four smaller vessels-of-war to Boston harbor for the same
purpose, and directions were given for the repairing and occupancy of Castle
William on an island in that harbor.  This measure was regarded by the
Americans as a virtual declaration of war, yet they resolved to keep the sword
of resistance in the scabbard as long as possible.

          The commissioners of customs and the master of a sloop-of-war which,
at their request, had come to Boston from Halifax, now assumed the utmost
insolence of manner and speech toward the people.  New England men were
impressed into the British naval service, and in June, the sloop 'Liberty',
belonging to John Hancock, whom the crown officers cordially hated because of
his opposition to them, was seized under peculiar circumstances.  She had come
into the harbor with a cargo of Madeira wine.  Just at sunset, the
"tide-waiter" in the employ of the commissioners went on board, and took his
seat in the cabin, as usual, to drink punch with the master until the sailors
should land the cargo of dutiable goods.  Hancock had resolved to resist the
obnoxious revenue laws and at about nine o'clock in the evening, his captain
and others in his employ entered the cabin, confined the tide-waiter, and
proceeded to land the wine without entering it at the custom-house or
observing any other formula.  So great were the exertions of the master of the
Liberty that night, that he died from their effects before morning.

     The sloop was now seized by the officers of the customs for a violation
of the revenue laws.  A crowd of citizens quickly gathered at the wharf and as
the proceedings went on, a part of them, of the lower order, became a mob
under the lead of Malcom, a bold smuggler.  The collector (Harrison) and the
controller (Hallowell) were there to enforce the law.  The former thought the
sloop might remain at Hancock's wharf with the broad arrow upon her (a mark
designating her legal position) but the latter had determined to have her
moored under the guns of the war-vessel (Romney, of sixty guns), and had sent
for her boats to come ashore.  An exciting scene now occurred, which Mr.
Bancroft has described as follows:


"'You had better let the vessel be at the wharf' said Malcom.  I shall not,'
said Hallowell, and gave directions to cut the fasts.  Stop, at least, till
the owner comes,' said the people who crowded round.  No, damn you,' cried
Hallowell, cast her off.' I'll split out the brains of any man that offers to
receive a fast or stop the vessel,' said the master of the Romney, 'and he
shouted to the marines to fire.  What rascal is that who dares to tell the
marines to fire?  cried a Bostoneer and turning to Harrison, the collector, a
well-meaning man, who disapproved the violent manner of the seizure, he added:
The owner is sent for you had better let her lie at the wharf till he comes
down.  "No, she shall go," insisted the controller; "show me the man who dares
oppose it." "Kill the damned scoundrel," cried the master.  "We will throw the
people from the Ronney overboard," said Malcom, stung with anger.  'By God she
shall go,' repeated the master, and he more than once called to the marines,
'Why don't you fire?' and bade them fire.  So they cut her moorings, and with
ropes in the barges the sloop was towed away to the Romney."


     This act excited the hot indignation of the people.  A mob, led by
Malcom, followed the custom-house officers, pelted them with stones and other
missiles, and broke the windows of their offices.  The mob seized a
pleasure-boat belonging to the collector, and after dragging it through the
town, burned it on the Common.  Then they quietly dispersed.  The
commissioners were unhurt, but greatly alarmed.  They applied to the governor
for protection, but he, as much frightened as they, told them he was
powerless.  They finally fled to the Romney, and thence to Castle William,
nearly three miles southeast of the city, where a company of British artillery
were stationed.  They were in no real danger in the city, but they were
playing a deep game to deceive the ministry.

     The Sons of Liberty now called a meeting of the citizens at Faneuil Hall,
in a large building erected by Peter Faneuil in 1742 for the use of the town.
They assembled in great numbers on the 13th of June, 1768.  Citizens and
yeomen from the surrounding country commingled there, all animated by a spirit
of patriotic defiance.  James Otis was appointed chairman.  A committee of
twenty-one citizens were requested to convey to the governor an address
adopted by the assemblage, asking him to order the Romney to leave the harbor,
and to restrain further violent proceedings on the part of the crown officers.
At that meeting the people plainly told the crown that its oppressions must
cease.  So was Faneuil Hall consecrated as The Cradle of Liberty.

     In eleven chaises the committee went in procession to the governors house
in the country.  Bernard received them courteously, and the next day he sent a
reply to the address, in which he promised to stop impressments, and said: "I
shall think myself most highly honored if I can be, in the lowest degree, an
instrument in preserving a perfect conciliation between you and the parent
state."  At that very time, the dissimulating governor was using his utmost
endeavors to get troops into Boston, either from New York or England, and had
written to his superiors that the events of the 10th of June constituted an
insurrection rather than a riot."  The crown officers all reported that a
general spirit of insurrection was prevailing throughout the province," hoping
to induce the ministry to use vigorous measures immediately for subjugating
the Americans.  Meanwhile the town of Boston declared in words written by John
Adams, a rising young lawyer, that every person who shall solicit or promote
the importation of troops at this time is an enemy to the town and province,
and a disturber of the peace and good order of both."

     While the excitement was at its height, the instructions of Hillsborough
concerning the rescinding of the Massachusetts resolutions arrived.  The
Assembly were in session.  On the 2 1st of June the governor delivered his
message in accordance with those instructions.  The House was composed of one
hundred and nine members - much the largest legislative body in America. The
message was received with calmness, and discussed with moderation but
firmness.  James Otis and Samuel Adams were the chief speakers.  The latter
was grave in demeanor and philosophical in his utterance.  The former was
fiery, and more declamatory.  The friends of the Icing and Parliament declared
that his harangue was "the most violent, insolent, abusive and treasonable
declaration that perhaps ever was delivered."  "When Lord Hillsborough knows,"
said Otis, "that we will not rescind our acts, he should apply to Parliament
to rescind theirs.  Let Britons rescind their measures, or they are lost
forever.

     For more than an hour Otis harangued the Assembly with words similar to
these in meaning and intensity of expression.  Even the "Sons of Liberty
trembled lest he should tread upon the domain of treason.  The House refused
to rescind, passed resolutions denunciatory of this attempt to arrest free
discussion and expressions of opinion, and then sent a letter to the governor
informing him of their action.  If the votes of this House," they said, are to
be controlled by direction of a minister, we he left us but a vain semblance
of liberty.  We have now only to inform you that this House have voted not to
rescind, and that, in a division on the question, there were ninety-two years
and seventeen days.  The seventeen "rescinders", became objects of public
contempt.  The governor was irritated by the "insolent letter," and proceeded
to dissolve the Assembly but before the act was accomplished that body had
prepared a list of serious accusations against him, and a petition to the king
praying for his removal.  Massachusetts felt strong in the assurances of
sympathy and support received from the other colonies.

     We have hinted that the Church and State in England worked in concert for
the enslavement of the Americans.  So early as 1748, Dr. Secker, Archbishop of
Canterbury, had proposed the establishment of Episcopacy in America, and
overtures were made to several eminent Puritan divines to accept the mitre,
but they all declined it.  It was known that among other reforms in the
colonies, proposed by the ministry at the beginning of the reign of George the
Third, was the curtailment or destruction of the Puritan, or Dissenting
influence in the provinces, and to make the ritual of the Anglican Church the
State mode of worship.  This movement was made as secretly as possible, but it
could not be wholly concealed.  Rev. George Whitefield said to Dr. Langdon, a
Puritan divine at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, "I can't, in conscience, leave
this town without acquainting you with a secret.  My heart bleeds for America.
O poor New England!  There is a deep-laid plot against both your civil and
religious liberties, and they will be lost. Your golden days are at an end.
You have nothing but trouble before you. My information comes from the best
authority in Great Britain.  I was allowed to speak of the affair in general,
but enjoined not to mention particulars.  Your liberties will be lost."

     Remembering the aspect of Episcopacy or rather of the Anglican Church in
the early colonial days, the Americans had ever looked upon that Church as a
partner of the State in its acts of oppression, and they feared its power.
They well knew that if Parliament could create dioceses and appoint bishops,
they would establish tithes and crush out dissent as a heresy. For years
controversy on the subject was very warm and sometimes acrimonious this
country.  The Anglican Church had many adherents in nearly all the colonies,
and they naturally desired its ascendancy.  Essays by able writers appeared in
pamphlets and sometimes in newspapers for and against Episcopacy.  Among those
of its opponents, none held a more trenchant pen than William Livingston, just
mentioned.  Dr. Ewer, Lord Bishop of Llandaff, had preached a sermon before
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in which he
recommended the scheme for establishing Episcopacy in America, and heaped
abuse upon the colonists, who were mostly Dissenters.  Upon the adventurers
themselves," he said, "what reproach could be cast heavier than they deserved?
Who, with their native soil abandoned their native manners and religion, and
ere long were found in many parts living without remembrance or knowledge of
God, without any divine worship, in dissolute wickedness and the most brutal
profligacy of manners.  Instead of civilizing and converting barbarous
infidels, as they undertook to do, they became, themselves, infidels and
barbarians."  With this view of the state of religion in the colonies, the
prelate concluded that the only remedy for the great evil was to be found in a
church establishment.  His recommendations were laid hold of with a firm grasp
by churchmen in this country, and urged with zeal. Dr. Chandler of
Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, published "An Appeal to the Public in behalf of
the Church of England" - an able and moderate performance.  Men of less note
followed, and echoed the sentiments of the worthy rector.

     The Dissenters were aroused.  They perceived in the Bishop's sermon the
spirit of the old persecuting Church, and visions of Laud and the Star Chamber
troubled them.  They felt that their liberties were in danger, without a
doubt.  The unjust reproaches of the prelate were severely commented upon, and
his erroneous assertions were met with t;ruth.  Dr. Chauncey of Boston first
entered the lists against him and his abettors; and early in 1768, Mr.
Livingston issued, in pamphlet form, his famous Letter to the prelate, in
which, with sarcastic indignation of tone, he refuted the charges of that
dignitary so completely that they were not repeated.  The pamphlet was
republished in London, and excited much attention in England.  It was highly
commended by all Dissenters in America; and in the summer of 1768, when
Massachusetts was in a blaze of indignation because of the instructions of
Hillsborough and the duplicity of Bernard, the consociated churches of the
colony of Connecticut assembled in convention at Coventry, with Noah Wells as
their scribe or secretary, passed a vote of thanks to Mr. Livingston "for
vindicating the New England churches and plantations against the injurious
reflections and unjust aspersions cast upon them in the Bishop of Llandaff's
sermon."  This compliment was travestied by one of the champions of the church
in a poem of fifty lines, which was published in Hugh Gaines' New York
Mercury.  It was entitled "A Reviving Cordial for a Fainting Hero."  The
following is its conclusion: "March on, brave will, and rear our Babel, On
Language so unanswerable; Give Church and State a hearty thump, And knock down
Truth with Falsehoods plump; So flat shall fall their church's fair stones,
Felled by another Praise-God-Bare-Bones.  Signed with consent of all the
Tribe, By No--h W--s our fasting scribe, The Scribe and Pharisee in meeting To
William Li---n send greeting."

     This theological controversy ceased when the vital question of absolute
resistance or submission to the encroachments of both Church and State upon
the liberties of the Americans was brought to a final issue.  In the War for
Independence which followed the ten years of discussion, appeal and
remonstrance, many adherents to the republican cause were found among the
members of the Anglican Church.  The intimate relations of that Church with
the State, however, caused many of its communion, especially of the clergy, to
take the side of the crown.