THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN FIVE EPOCHS. EPOCH FOURTH. AMERICA IN ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. FROM 1776 TO 1780. VOL. V.-1 AMERICA IN ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. CHAPTER I. CAN THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES MAINTAIN INDEPENDENCE? JULY-AUGUST 1776. THE American declaration of independence was the beginning of new ages. It disembarrassed the people of the United States from the legal fiction of allegiance to a king against whom they were in arms, and set before them a well-defined, single, and inspiring purpose. It changed the contest from a war for the redress of grievances to the creation of a self-governing commonwealth. Hope whispered the assurance of unheard-of success in the pursuit of public happiness through faith in the rights of man. Before receiving the declaration, the convention of Maryland, on the sixth of July, yielded to "the dire necessity" of renouncing the king who had violated his compact, and "conjured every virtuous citizen to join cordially in maintaining the freedom of Maryland and her sister colonies." Two days later, the committee of safety and that of inspection at Philadelphia marched in procession to the state-house, where the declaration was read to the battalions of volunteers and a concourse of the inhabitants of the city and county. The emblems of royalty were then burnt amid the acclamations of the crowd, and peals from the state-house bell proclaimed "liberty throughout the land." With the certainty of immediate war the congress of New Jersey, in presence of the committee of safety, the militia un der arms, and a great assembly of the people at Trenton, published simultaneously the declaration of independence and their own new constitution. On the morning of the ninth, the newly elected convention of New York, invested with full powers from the people, assembled at White Plains, chose as president Nathaniel Woodhull of Suffolk county, a man of courage and discriminating mind, and listened to the reading of the declaration of independence. In the afternoon they met again, thirty-eight in number, among whom were Woodhull, Jay, Van Cortlandt, Lewis Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Gansevoort, Sloss Hobart, the Presbyterian minister Keteltas, and other representatives of the Dutch, English, and Huguenot elements of the state. If resistance to the end should be chosen, Lewis Morris must abandon his large estate to the unsparing ravages of the enemy; Woodhull could not hope to save his constituents from immediate subjection; Jay must prepare to see his aged father and mother driven from their home at Rye, to pine away and die as wanderers; the men from the western part of the state knew that their vote would let loose the Indian with his scalping-knife along their border. But they trusted in the unconquerable spirit of those by whom they had been elected. The leading part fell to Jay. On his report, the convention with one voice, while they lamented the cruel necessity for "independence, approved it, and joined in supporting it at the risk of their lives and fortunes." They directed it to be published with the beat of drum at White Plains, and in every district of the state; empowered their delegates in congress to act for the happiness and the welfare of the United States of America; and named themselves the representatives of the people of the state of New York. By this decree the union of the thirteen colonies was consummated; New York, long with the cup of misery at her lips, ever remained true to her pledge. In announcing independence, the commander-in-chief asserted for the colonists "the rights of humanity." The declaration was read on the ninth to every brigade in New York city, and received with the most hearty approbation. In the evening a mob, composed in part of soldiers, threw down the leaden equestrian statue of George III. which stood in the Bowl |