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force the stamp act; and, with the multitude for witnesses, he, upon absolute requisition, made oath to this pledge before Richard Dana, a justice of the peace. At this, the crowd gave three cheers; and, when Oliver spoke to them with a smile, they gave three cheers more.

1765.

Dec.

On the evening of the next day, as John Adams sat ruminating, in his humble mansion at Quincy, on the interruption of his career as a lawyer, a message came that Boston, at the instance of Samuel Adams, had joined him with Gridley and Otis, to sustain their memorial to the governor and council for opening the courts. It fell to him, on the evening of the twentieth, to begin the argument. "The stamp act," he reasoned, "is invalid; it is not in any sense our act; we never consented to it. A parliament, in which we are not represented, had no legal authority to impose it; and, therefore, it ought to be waived by the judges as against natural equity and the constitution." Otis spoke with great learning and zeal on the duties and obligations of judges. Gridley dwelt on the inconvenience of the interruption of justice.

"Many of the arguments," said Bernard, in reply, “are very good ones to be used before the judges, but there is no precedent for the interference of the governor and council. In England, the judges would scorn directions. from the king on points of law."

On Saturday, the town voted the answer unsatisfactory. Ever fertile in resources, Otis proposed to invite the governor to call a convention of the members of both houses of the legislature; if the governor should refuse, then to call one themselves, by requesting all the members to meet; and John Adams came round to this opinion.

"The king," thus the young lawyer mused at his own fireside, "the king is the fountain of justice. Protection and allegiance are reciprocal. If we are out of the king's protection, we are discharged from our allegiance. The ligaments of government are dissolved, the throne abdicated." Otis, quoting Grotius and the English lawyers of 1688, assured the public that, "if a king lets the affairs of a state run into disorder and confusion, his conduct is a

real abdication;" that, unless business should proceed as usual, there "would be a release of subjects from their allegiance."

America must unite and prepare for resistance. In New York, on Christmas Day, the lovers of liberty pledged themselves "to march with all despatch, at their own costs and expense, on the first proper notice, with their whole force, if required, to the relief of those who should or might be in danger from the stamp act or its abettors." Before the year was up, Mott, one of the New York committee of correspondence, arrived with others at New London, to ascertain how far New England would adopt the same

covenant.

Jan.

"If the great men are determined to enforce the 1766. act," said John Adams, on New Year's Day, "they will find it a more obstinate war than the conquest of Canada and Louisiana." "Great sir," said Edes and Gill, through their newspaper to the king, printing the message in large letters, "retreat, or you are ruined."

"None," said the press of Philadelphia, in words widely diffused, "none in this day of liberty will say that duty binds us to yield obedience to any man or body of men, forming part of the British constitution, when they exceed the limits prescribed by that constitution. The stamp act is unconstitutional, and no more obligatory than a decree of the divan of Turkey."

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Encouraged by public opinion, the Sons of Liberty of New York, on the seventh of January, resolved that "there was safety for the colonies only in the firm union of the whole; that they themselves "would venture their lives and fortunes, effectually to prevent the stamp act." On the following night, the ship, which arrived from London with ten more packages of stamps for New York and Connecticut, was searched from stem to stern, and the packages were seized and carried in boats up the river to the shipyards, where, by the aid of tar barrels, they were thoroughly consumed.

The resolutions of New York were carried swiftly to Connecticut. The town of Wallingford voted a fine of

twenty shillings on any of its inhabitants" that should use or improve any stamped vellum or paper;" its Sons of Liberty were ready "to oppose the unconstitutional stamp act to the last extremity, even to take the field." The county of New London, meeting at Lyme, declared "the general safety and privileges of all the colonies to depend on a firm union ;" and they appointed Major John Durkee to correspond with the Sons of Liberty in the adjoining provinces. Israel Putnam, the brave patriot of Pomfret, -whose people derived their connection with England from a compact, their freedom from God and nature, rode from town to town through the eastern part of Connecticut to see what number of men could be depended upon, and gave out that he could lead forth ten thousand. Massachusetts spoke through its house of representatives, which convened in the middle of January. They called on impartial history to record their glorious stand even against an act of parliament, and that the union of all the colonies was upon a motion made in their house. Insisting that "the courts of justice must be open, open immediately," they voted, sixty-six against four, that the shutting of them was not only "a very great grievance requiring immediate redress," but "dangerous to his majesty's crown."

1766.

Jan.

Bernard, who consulted in secret a "select council," unknown to the law, in which the principal advisers were Hutchinson and Oliver, opposed all concession. Tranquillity, he assured the secretary of state, could not be restored by "lenient methods." "There will be no submission," reported he, "until there is a subjection. The people here occasionally talk very high of their power to resist Great Britain; but it is all talk. They talk of revolting from Great Britain in the most familiar manner, and declare that, though the British forces should possess themselves of the coast and maritime towns, they never will subdue the inland. But nothing can be more idle. New York and Boston would both be defenceless to a royal fleet; and, they being possessed by the king's forces, no other town or place could stand out. A forcible subjection is

1766. Jan.

unavoidable, let it cost what it will. The forces, when they come, should be respectable enough not to encourage resistance, that, when the people are taught they have a superior, they may know it effectually. I hope that New York, as well upon account of its superior rank and greater professions of resistance, and of its being the head-quarters, will have the honor of being subdued first."

CHAPTER XXI.

HAS PARLIAMENT THE RIGHT TO TAX AMERICA? ROCKINGHAM'S ADMINISTRATION CONTINued.

JANUARY, 1766.

1766.

Jan.

SIR JEFFREY AMHERST, in his advice to the ministry, strenuously opposed the repeal of the stamp act. During the recess of parliament, Egmont, Conway, Dowdeswell, Dartmouth, and Charles Yorke, met at the house of Rockingham. To modify, but not to repeal the American tax, and to enact the penalty of high treason against any one who, by speaking or writing, should impeach the legislative authority of parliament, were measures proposed in this assembly; but they did not prevail. The ministry could form no plan of mutual support, and decided nothing but the words of the speech. The world looked from them to an individual in private life, unconnected and poor, vainly seeking at Bath relief from infirmities that would have crushed a less hopeful mind.

The cabinet, therefore, yielding to Grafton and Conway, requested Pitt's advice to the measures as proper to be taken with regard to America, and expressed a desire, now or at any future time, for his reception among them as their head. This vague and indefinite offer of place, unsanctioned by the king, was but a concession from the aristocratic portion of the whigs to a necessity of seeking support. Pitt remembered the former treachery of Newcastle; and, being resolved never to accept office through him or his connections, he treated their invitation as an unmeaning compliment, declaring that he would support those, and those only, who acted on true revolution principles. The state of his health demanded quiet and absence from the chapel

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