rupture which would lead to the withdrawal of those colonies from the government of Great Britain. That dismemberment of the empire was looked forward to by the French as the consummation of their wishes, and they resolved to help the Americans whenever they should enter upon a struggle, with arms, for their independence. That struggle now seemed to be near, and the chief French minister, Choiseul, resolved to send an emissary to America to spy out the real intentions of the colonists, if possible. That emissary was the Baron De Kalb, a colonel from the Franco-German province of Alsace, who was afterward a general in the American army of the Revolution, and fell a martyr, near Camden, in South Carolina. He was instructed to ascertain the wants of the Americans in respect to engineers and artillery officers, and munitions of war and stores; the strength of their purpose to withdraw from Great Britain; their resources in troops. and fortifications; the plan of their projected revolution, and the character of their leaders, civil and military. The French minister did not comprehend the real loyalty of the Americans, nor their power of endurance and patience under provocation. The baron performed the service, but his report did not warrant Choiseul in hoping for an immediate rupture. From that time it was the cherished policy of the French government to foster the quarrel, and to give aid to the Americans whenever they should strike a blow for freedom. They did so, as we shall observe hereafter, for the sole purpose of injuring Great Britain and restricting her power.

Meanwhile the colonists were preparing for resistance to the taxation schemes. The common danger had thoroughly united them, and a feeling of nationality was budding in their hearts. The committees of correspondence kept each colony fully acquainted with the sentiments and acts of the others. The assemblies and people took the broad view expressed by James Otis, that "taxes on trade, if designed to raise a revenue, were just as much a violation of their rights as any other tax." The colonial newspapers, then about thirty in number, were becoming tribunes of the people, and in them the principles of liberty and the rights of the colonists were ably discussed in short essays. Among the most effective of these were a dozen “Letters of a Farmer of Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies," which were published in a Philadelphia newspaper in the summer and autumn of 1767. In a style of great simplicity, vigor and animation, their author (John Dickinson, an eminent lawyer of Philadelphia) portrayed the unconstitutionality of the conduct of Great Britain, the imminent peril to liberty in America which existed, and the fatal consequences of a supine acquiescence in ministerial measures-more fatal as precedents than by the immediate calamities they were calculated to produce. Votes of thanks

CHAP. III.

THE FARMER'S LETTERS.

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were given to Dickinson at public meetings; and in May, 1768, an association in Philadelphia, called the Society of Fort St. David, presented an address to him "in a box of heart of oak," with suitable inscriptions. On the top was represented the Phœnician cap of liberty on a spear, resting on a cipher of the letters "J. D."; underneath the cipher, in a semi-circular label, were the words "Pro Patria." Around the whole, the following: "The gift of the Governor and Society of Fort St. David to the author of THE FARMER'S LETTERS, in grateful testimony to the very eminent service thereby rendered to this country, 1768." On the inside of the lid was the following inscription : "The Liberties of the British colonies in America asserted with Attic eloquence and Roman spirit, by John Dickinson, barristerat-law."

The immediate and subsequent effects of these letters were wonderful. The colonial assemblies noticed them, and upon the broad grounds of right and justice laid down in these essays, they denounced the acts of Parliament. Non-importation associations which had been dissolved on the repeal of the stamp act were reorganized, and that powerful machinery almost destroyed the commerce with England. Dr. Franklin caused the Letters to be republished in London, with a preface written by himself, in 1768. They were also translated into French and published in Paris.

CHAPTER IV.

THE AMERICANS RESOLVE TO RESIST-VIOLENCE DEPRECATED-VIEWS OF LEADERS-FOLLY OF THE MINISTRY—THE MASSACHUSETTS CIRCULAR—ACTS OF CROWN OFFICERS-THE ISSUEHILLSBOROUGH'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.

A

T 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 townmeeting, denounced that spirit. "Were the burdens of the people ever

CHAP. IV.

THE MOB SPIRIT REBUKED.

639

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 realmKing, 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 withdraw 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 independ

ence; 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 customs; 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."

SAMUEL ADAMS.