The Project Gutenberg ebook of a brief History of the United States

therefore forced the agents to resign their commissions, and when the tea

ships arrived, took possession of them. At Philadelphia the ships were

sent back to London. At Charleston the tea was landed and stored for three

years and then seized and sold by the state of South Carolina. At

Annapolis the people forced the owner of a tea ship to go on board and set

fire to his ship; vessel and cargo were thus consumed. At Boston the

people wished the tea sent back to London, and when the authorities

refused to allow this, a party of men disguised as Indians boarded the

ships and threw the tea into the water. [15]
[Illustration: THROWING THE TEA OVERBOARD, BOSTON.]
THE INTOLERABLE ACTS.--Parliament now determined to punish the colonies,

and for this purpose enacted five laws called by the colonists the

Intolerable Acts:--
1. The port of Boston was shut to trade and commerce till the colony

should pay for the tea destroyed.

taken for trial to another colony or to Great Britain.

Mississippi rivers. As Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia claimed

parts of this territory, they regarded the Quebec Act as another act of

tyranny. [16]

Congress suggested by Virginia and called by Massachusetts met in

Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia in September, 1774, and issued a

declaration of rights and grievances, a petition to the king, and

addresses to the people of Great Britain, to the people of Canada, and to

the people of the colonies. It also called a second Congress to meet on

May 10, 1775, and take action on the result of the petition to the king.

SUMMARY
1. After the French and Indian War Great Britain determined to enforce the

laws of trade.
2. It also decided that the colonies should bear a part of the cost of

their defense, and for this purpose a stamp tax was levied.

on the ground that they were not represented in Parliament.

colonies (1765) issued a declaration of rights and grievances.

its right to tax.

goods brought into the colonies. At the same time the arrival of the

troops for defense of the colonies caused new trouble; in Boston the

people and the troops came to blows (1770).

repeal of all the taxes except that on tea (1770).

enabled the East India Company to send over tea for sale at a lower price

than before.
9. The tea was not allowed to be sold. In Boston it was destroyed.
10. As a punishment Parliament enacted the five Intolerable Acts.
11. The First Continental Congress (1774) thereupon petitioned for

redress, and called a second Congress to meet the next year.

FOOTNOTES
[1] That is, compel the colonists to furnish quarters--rooms or houses--

for the troops to live in. Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I,

pp. 439-440.
[2] In order to detect and seize smugglers the crown had resorted to

"writs of assistance." The law required that every ship bringing goods to

America should come to some established port and that her cargo should be

reported at the customhouse. Instead, the smugglers would secretly land

goods elsewhere. If a customs officer suspected this, he could go to court

and ask for a search warrant, stating the goods for which he was to seek

and the place to be searched. But this would give the smugglers warning

and they could remove the goods. What the officers wanted was a general

warrant good for any goods in any place. This writ of assistance, as it

was called, was common in England, and was issued in the colonies about

1754. In 1760 King George II died, and all writs issued in his name

expired. In 1761, therefore, application was made to the Superior Court of

Massachusetts for a new writ of assistance to run in the name of King

George III. Sixty merchants opposed the issue, and James Otis and

Oxenbridge Thacher appeared for the merchants. The speech of Otis was a

famous plea, sometimes called the beginning of colonial resistance; but

the court granted the writ.
[3] These acts are complained of in the Declaration of Independence. The

king is blamed "For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world,"

that is, enforcing the trade laws; again, "He has erected a multitude of

new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people,"

that is to say, the vice-admiralty judges and naval officers sworn to act

as customhouse officers and seize smugglers. In doing this duty these

officers did "harass our people."
[4] While the Stamp Act was under debate in Parliament, Colonel Barré, who

fought under Wolfe at Louisburg, opposed it. A member had spoken of the

colonists as "children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence,

and protected by our arms." "They planted by your care!" said Barré. "No,

your oppression planted them in America. Nourished by your indulgence!

They grew up by your neglect of them. They protected by your arms! These

Sons of Liberty have nobly taken up arms in your defense." The words "Sons

of Liberty" were at once seized on, and used in our country to designate

the opponents of the stamp tax. Read "The Stamp Act" in Hawthorne's

_Grandfather's Chair_.

trade of the whole British Empire, and to lay "external taxes"--customs

duties--for the purpose of regulating trade. But this stamp tax was an

"internal tax" for the purpose of raising revenue.

consisting of nobles and clergy, and the Commons, consisting then of two

members elected by each county and two elected by each of certain towns.

Some change was made in the list of towns thus represented in Parliament

before the sixteenth century, but no change had been made since, though

many of them had lost all or most of their population. Thus Old Sarum had

become a green mound; its population had all drifted away to Salisbury. A

member of the Commons, so the story runs, once said: "I am the member from

Ludgesshall. I am also the population of Ludgesshall. When the sheriff's

writ comes, I announce the election, attend the poll, deposit my vote for

myself, sign the return, and here I am." When a town disappeared, the

landowner of the soil on which it once stood appointed the two members.

Such towns were called "rotten boroughs," "pocket boroughs," "nomination

boroughs."

indolent and gave no sign of coming greatness. After two failures as a

storekeeper and one as a farmer he turned in desperation to law, read a

few books, and with difficulty passed the examination necessary for

admittance to the bar. Henry had now found his true vocation. Business

came to him, and one day in 1763 he argued the weak (but popular) side of

a case with such eloquence that he carried court and jury with him, and it

is said was carried out of the courthouse on the shoulders of the people.

He was now famous, and in 1765 was elected to the Virginia House of

Burgesses to represent the county in which he had lived, just in time to

take part in the proceedings on the Stamp Act. His part was to move the

resolutions and support them in a fiery and eloquent speech, of which one

passage has been preserved. Recalling the fate of tyrants of other times,

he exclaimed, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and

George the Third--." "Treason! treason!" shouted the Speaker. "Treason!

treason!" shouted the members. To which Henry answered, "and George the

Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of

it."
[8] In Canada and the West Indies the stamp tax was not resisted, and

there stamps were used.
[9] When Parliament was considering the repeal, Benjamin Franklin, then in

London as agent for Pennsylvania and other colonies, was called before a

committee and examined as to the state of colonial affairs; read his

answers in Hart's _American History told by Contemporaries_, Vol. II,

pp. 407-411. Pitt in a great speech declared, "The kingdom has no right to

lay a tax on the colonies, because they are unrepresented in Parliament. I

rejoice that America has resisted." Edmund Burke, one of the greatest of

Irish orators, took the same view.

his assent to acts of Parliament "For suspending our own legislatures,"

and "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us," and "For

imposing taxes on us without our consent."

as were the assemblies of Maryland and Georgia for having approved it, and

that of New York for refusing supplies to the royal troops, and that of

Virginia for complaining of the treatment of New York. Read Fiske's

_American Revolution_, Vol. I, pp. 28-36, 39-52.
[12] The two regiments of British troops in Boston were now removed, on

demand of the people, to a fort in the harbor. The soldiers who fired the

shots were tried for murder and acquitted, save two who received light

sentences.

Having run aground in Narragansett Bay (June, 1772), she was boarded by a

party of men in eight boats and burned. The Virginia legislature appointed

a "committee of correspondence," to find out the facts regarding the

destruction of the _Gaspee_ and "to maintain a correspondence with our

sister colonies." This plan of a committee to inform the other colonies

what was happening in Virginia, and obtain from them accurate information

as to what they were doing, was at once taken up by Massachusetts and

other colonies, each of which appointed a similar committee. Such

committees afterward proved to be the means of revolutionary organization.

Read Fiske's _American Revolution_, Vol. I, pp. 76-80.
[14] Parliament had given the company permission to do this. The company

had long possessed the monopoly of trade with the East Indies, and the

sole right to bring tea from China to Great Britain. Before 1773, however,

it was obliged to sell the tea in Great Britain, and the business of

exporting tea to the colonies had been carried on by merchants who bought

from the company.

Independence. See if you can find the references.

CHAPTER XIII
THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE BEGUN

LEXINGTON, 1775.--When the second Continental Congress met (May 10, 1775),

the mother country and her colonies had come to blows.
The people of Massachusetts, fearing that this might happen, had begun to

collect and hide arms, cannon, and powder. General Gage, the royal

governor of Massachusetts and commander of the British troops in Boston,

was told that military supplies were concealed at Concord, a town some

twenty miles from Boston (map, p. 168). Now it happened that in April,

1775, two active patriots, Samuel Adams [1] and John Hancock, were at

Lexington, a town on the road from Boston to Concord. Gage determined to

strike a double blow at the patriots by sending troops to arrest Adams and

Hancock and destroy the military stores. On the evening of April 18,

accordingly, eight hundred regulars left Boston as quietly as possible.

Gage hoped to keep the expedition a secret, but the patriots in Boston,

suspecting where the troops were going, sent off Paul Revere [2] and

William Dawes to ride by different routes to Lexington, rousing the

countryside as they went. As the British advanced, alarm bells, signal

guns, and lights in the villages gave proof that their secret was out.
[Illustration: JOHN HANCOCK'S BIBLE. Now in the Old Statehouse, Boston.]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE LANTERNS HUNG IN THE BELFRY. Now in the

possession of the Concord Antiquarian Society.]

entered Lexington and saw drawn up across the village green some fifty

minutemen [3] under Captain John Parker. "Disperse, ye villains," cried

Pitcairn; "ye rebels, disperse!" Not a man moved, whereupon the order to

fire was given; the troops hesitated to obey; Pitcairn fired his pistol,

and a moment later a volley from the British killed or wounded sixteen

minutemen. [4] Parker then gave the order to retire.
[Illustration: STONE ON VILLAGE GREEN AT LEXINGTON.]
THE CONCORD FIGHT.--From Lexington the British went on to Concord, set the

courthouse on fire, spiked some cannon, cut down the liberty pole, and

destroyed some flour. Meantime the minutemen, having assembled beyond the

village, came toward the North Bridge, and the British who were guarding

it fell back. Shots were exchanged, and six minutemen were killed. [5] But

the Americans crossed the bridge, drove back the British, and then

dispersed.
[Illustration: BOSTON, CHARLESTON, ETC.]
About noon the British started for Boston, with hundreds of minutemen, who

had come from all quarters, hanging on their flanks and rear, pouring in a

galling fire from behind trees and stone fences and every bit of rising

ground. The retreat became a flight, and the flight would have become a

rout had not reinforcements met them near Lexington. Protected by this

force, the defeated British entered Boston by sundown. By morning the

hills from Charlestown to Roxbury were black with minutemen, and Boston

was in a state of siege.

Ethan Allen [6] surprised and captured Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain

(map, p. 168).
THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.--On the day that Fort Ticonderoga was

captured (May 10, 1775), the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia. It

had been created, not to govern the colonies, nor to conduct a war, but

merely to consult concerning the public welfare, and advise what the

colonies should do. But war had begun, Congress was forced to become a

governing body, and after a month's delay it adopted the band of patriots

gathered about Boston, made it the Continental army, and appointed George

Washington (then a delegate to Congress from Virginia) commander in chief.

gone twenty miles when he was met by news of the battle of Bunker Hill.

April, troops under General Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and General Burgoyne

had arrived at Boston and raised the number there to ten thousand. Gage

now felt strong enough to seize the hills near Boston, lest the Americans

should occupy them and command the town. Learning of this, the patriots

determined to forestall him, and on the night of June 16 twelve hundred

men under Prescott were sent to fortify Bunker Hill in Charlestown.

Prescott thought best to go beyond Bunker Hill, and during the night threw

up a rude intrenchment on Breeds Hill instead.
[Illustration: DRUM USED AT BUNKER HILL. Now in the possession of the

Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, Boston.]

Howe with nearly three thousand regulars to drive away the Americans and

hold the hill. Coming over from Boston in boats, the British landed and

marched up the hill till thirty yards from the works, when a deadly volley

mowed down the front rank and sent the rest down the hill in disorder.
A little time elapsed before the regulars were seen again ascending, only

to be met by a series of volleys at short range. The British fought

stubbornly, but were once more forced to retreat, leaving the hillside

covered with dead and wounded. Their loss was dreadful, but Howe could not

bear to give up the fight, and a third time the British were led up the

hill. The powder of the Americans was spent, and the fight was hand to

hand with stones, butts of muskets, anything that would serve as a weapon,

till the bayonet charges of the British forced the Americans to retreat.

[7]
WASHINGTON IN COMMAND.--Two weeks later Washington reached Cambridge and

took formal command of the army. For eight months he kept the British shut

up in Boston, while he gathered guns, powder, and cannon, and trained the

men.
To the Continental army mean time came troops from Virginia, Maryland,

Pennsylvania, and of course from the four New England colonies, commanded

by men who were destined to rise to high positions during the war. There

was Daniel Morgan of Virginia, with a splendid band of sharpshooters, and

Israel Putnam of Connecticut, John Stark and John Sullivan of New

Hampshire, Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island, Henry Knox of Boston, Horatio

Gates of Virginia, and Benedict Arnold and Charles Lee who later turned

traitors.
THE HESSIANS.--When King George III heard of the fight at Bunker Hill, he

issued a proclamation declaring the colonists rebels, closed their ports

to trade and commerce, [8] and sought to hire troops from Russia and

Holland. Both refused, whereupon he turned to some petty German states and

hired many thousand soldiers who in our country were called Hessians. [9]
[Illustration: HESSIAN HAT. Now in Essex Hall, Salem.]
CANADA INVADED.--Now that the war was really under way, Congress turned

its attention to Canada. It was feared that the British governor there

might take Ticonderoga, enter New York, and perhaps induce the Indians to

harry the New England frontier as they did in the old French wars. In the

summer of 1775, therefore, two expeditions were sent against Canada. One

under Richard Montgomery went down Lake Champlain from Ticonderoga and

captured Montreal. Another under Benedict Arnold sailed from Massachusetts

to the mouth of the Kennebec River, arid forced its way through the dense

woods of Maine to Quebec. There Montgomery joined Arnold, and on the night

of December 31, 1775, the American army in a blinding snowstorm assaulted

the town. Montgomery fell dead while leading the attack on one side of

Quebec, Arnold was wounded during the attack on the other side, and

Morgan, who took Arnold's place and led his men far into the town, was cut

off and captured. Though the attack on Quebec failed, the Americans

besieged the place till spring, when they were forced to leave Canada and

find shelter at Crown Point.

dragged over the snow on sledges from Ticonderoga to Boston. A captured

British vessel provided powder, and in March, 1776, Washington seized

Dorchester Heights, fortified them, and by so doing forced Howe, who had

succeeded Gage in command, to evacuate Boston, March 17.
WHIGS AND TORIES.--During the excitement over the Stamp Act, the Townshend

Acts, and the tea tax, the people were divided into three parties. Those

who resisted and--finally rebelled were called Whigs, or Patriots, or

"Sons of Liberty." Those who supported king and Parliament were called

Tories or Loyalists. [10] Between these two extremes were the great mass

of the population who cared little which way the struggle ended. In New

York, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas the Tories were numerous and active,

and when the war opened, they raised regiments and fought for the king.

from Boston to attack North Carolina, and a force of sixteen hundred

Tories marched toward the coast to aid. But North Carolina had its

minutemen as well as Massachusetts. A body of them under Colonel Caswell

met and beat the Tories at Moores Creek (February 27) and so large a force

of patriots had assembled when Clinton arrived that he did not make the

attack.
The next attempt was against South Carolina. Late in June, Clinton with

his fleet appeared before Charleston, and while the fleet opened fire on

Fort Moultrie (mol'try) from the water, Clinton marched to attack it by

land. But the land attack failed, the fleet was badly damaged by shot from

the fort, and the expedition sailed away to New York. [11]
INDEPENDENCE NECESSARY.--Prior to 1776 many of the colonies denied any

desire for independence, [12] but the events of this year caused a change.

After the battle of Moores Creek, North Carolina bade her delegates in

Congress vote for independence. Virginia, in May, ordered her delegates to

propose that the United Colonies be declared free and independent. South

Carolina and Georgia instructed their delegates to assent to any measure

for the good of America. Rhode Island dropped the king's name from state

documents and sheriffs' writs, and town after town in Massachusetts voted

to uphold Congress in a declaration of independence.
Thus encouraged, Congress, in May, resolved that royal authority must be

suppressed, and advised all the colonies to establish independent

governments. Some had already done so; the rest one by one framed written

constitutions of government, and became states. [13]

farce. Congress, therefore, appointed Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin,

John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to write a declaration

of independence, and on July 2, 1776, resolved: "That these United

Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that

they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all

political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and

ought to be, totally dissolved." [14] This is the Declaration of