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They also declared their opinion of the necessity, that another Congress should be held in the ensuing month of May, unless the redress of grievances which they had desired, was obtained before that time, and that all the colonies in North America choose deputies, as soon as possible, to attend such Congress. On the twenty-sixth of October, after a secret session of fifty-one days, this body adjourned.

The recommendations of this Congress were received with marked respect among the patriots of the colonies. A public manifestation of it was now given in Maryland. A vessel arrived at Annapolis laden with tea. The people resolved and threatened its destruction. The alarmed master sought the counsel of Charles Carroll, just beginning his long distinguished career. He advised, as the only means of quieting them, the immediate sacrifice of the property. The sails were set, the colors unfurled, and amid the exultations of the multitude, the vessel was a mass of fire.*

It would be a great achievement so to impair the influence of the self-denying ordinance of Congress as to induce its violation. This office was undertaken by the same individuals, the episcopal clergy of New York, who had distinguished themselves in their advocacy of an American episcopate, of which New York, the head-quarters of all the colonies, was to be the SEE. Accomplished scholars and able writers, they again entered the lists of controversy with unhesitating confidence and quickened zeal; "for the Presbyterians," they said, "were the chief instruments of all these flaming measures."

Of these loyalists, Doctor Myles Cooper, an Oxford scholar, the president of King's College, an Englishman by birth, held the first rank. Among the other clerical

* Grahame's United States, iv. 330.

gentlemen, Doctor Inglis, the father of a bishop of Nova Scotia, Doctor Seabury, subsequently bishop of Connecticut, and Doctor Chandler, were the most prominent.

Of the champions for the colonies in New York, Livingston, afterwards governor of New Jersey, and his sonin-law, John Jay, were the most conspicuous. To these was added the name of Hamilton.

His "debut as a political writer, was on the necessity and policy of destroying the tea at Boston. The tories regarded this bold measure as a most outrageous attack on private rights, and as an irrefragable proof that the Whigs aimed at nothing less than the overthrow of all law and government.' "When he wrote it," Troup states, "I was his room-mate in college.'

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He also kept up in Holt's Journal, a spirited attack upon the measures of the British ministry.† A more important controversy awaited him.

About a month after the adjournment of Congress, two tracts appeared, the productions of Seabury. The first bore the title of "Free Thoughts on the proceedings of the Continental Congress;" the other was entitled, "Congress Canvassed by a Westchester Farmer."

In the first, the writer, with much art, endeavors to impress the minds of the colonists with the dangers of restrictive measures; to excite the jealousy of the farmers against the merchants, alleging that the whole object was to engross a monopoly of goods;-anticipates, as the probable consequence, the closing of the port, and the suspension of justice, and remarks, with great ingenuity, on the inconsistency of a Congress, which, pretending to

* Letter of Colonel Troup, March 17, 1828.

Jay writes to McDougall, Dec. 5, 1775: "I hope Mr. Hamilton continues busy. I have not received Holts paper these three months, and therefore cannot judge of the progress he makes."

protect the liberties of the people, had sanctioned the invasion of every private right, and recommended inquisitorial powers to committees, to enforce their worse than fruitless agreements; artfully directing the attention of the people to the assembly of the province, as the onlylegitimate and adequate medium of redress.

In the second address, the illegality of the recent elections is strongly urged; the appropriation of the proceeds of goods sold for the infraction of the restrictive associations to the use of the people of Boston, is condemned as a violation of the rights of property; the danger of territorial encroachments is strongly depicted; and displaying in full array the omnipotence of England, the chimera of a commonwealth of congresses being able to cope with the vigor of the monarchy, is powerfully ridiculed.

The wide, industrious, and gratuitous circulation of these pamphlets, inducing the belief that they had the sanction of the government, they soon became the text book of the tories, and were applauded by them as containing irrefutable arguments against the measures of the "Sons of Liberty."

The zeal with which they were extolled by the friends of government, excited loud condemnations by the popu lar party.

They were believed to have been the productions of a clergyman of the Church of England, who had been conspicuous in the support of the ministry. This circumstance was connected in the public mind with the recollection of the course adopted by the spiritual lords in parliament, and new feelings of quickened asperity were aroused. The efforts to introduce an episcopacy into America were recurred to, and the abject devotion displayed by some of the clerical dependents of the crown,

and their unguarded avowal of their sentiments increased the odium.

In the journal of the Whigs (as they were then called), the zealots of the day proposed that the author and publisher should be indicted for treasonable designs; and in a neighboring colony the exasperation rose so high, that, at a meeting of the county, the pamphlets were tarred and feathered, and nailed to the pillory, amid the shouts of the people. Within a fortnight after the second tract had issued from the press, a pamphlet appeared under the title of "A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress from the Calumnies of their Enemies, in answer to a letter under the signature of A. W. Farmer; whereby his sophistry is exposed, his cavils confuted, his artifices detected, and his wit ridiculed, in a General Address to the Inhabitants of America, and a Particular Address to the Farmers of the Province of New York. Veritas magna est et prævalebit. Truth is powerful, and will prevail. New York. Printed by James Rivington.

1774."

After a just tribute to that "body, truly respectable on every account, whether we consider the characters of the men who composed it; the number and dignity of their constituents; or the important ends for which they were appointed;" the writer in the outset meets the question of the supremacy of parliament, as involving the freedom or slavery of the American people. "All men have one common original, they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be assigned why one man should exercise any power or pre-eminence over his fellow creatures more than another, unless they have voluntarily vested him with it. Since, then, Americans have not, by any * December 15, 1774.

VOL. I.-5.

act of theirs, empowered the British Parliament to make laws for them, it follows they can have no just authority to do it." He insists, that representation is essential to the validity of a tax, according to the fundamental principles of the British constitution and the express conditions of the colonial charters.

In vindication of Congress, he observes, "When the political salvation of any community is depending, it is incumbent upon those who are set up as its guardians, to embrace such measures as have justice, vigor, and a probability of success to recommend them. If, instead of this, they take those measures which are in themselves feeble, and little likely to succeed; and may, through a defect of vigor, involve the community in still greater danger, they may be justly considered as its betrayers. It is not enough, in times of imminent peril, to use only possible means of preservation. Justice and sound policy dictate the use of probable means."

A defence of the principle of the restrictive measures follows, remonstrances and petitions having failed. "The obligation to a mutual intercourse, in the way of trade, is of the imperfect kind." Self-preservation warrants its disregard.

Though the artisans of Great Britain and Ireland "are not chargeable with any actual crime towards. America, they may, in a political view, be esteemed criminal." By not preventing the wrongs, they were participants in them. But "we are ready to receive with open arms any who may be sufferers by the operation of our measures, and to recompense them with every blessing our country affords to honest industry. We will receive them as brethren, and make them sharers with us in all the advantages we are struggling for."

He next defends the policy of the restrictive opposi

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