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Lord North. Colonel Barré's Warnings. General Gage in Boston. No Co-operation. Dissolution of Assemblies. Bernard.

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don at less than half the expense." Pownall, after alluding to the early settlement of America, the privations of the people, their virtues and courage, perseverance and enterprise, remarked," But now that spirit, equally strong and equally inflamed, has but a slight and trifling sacrifice to make; the Americans have not a country to leave, but a country to defend; and have not friends and relatives to leave and forsake, but friends and relatives to unite with and stand by in one common union." But all efforts to avert the evil were vain; Mr. Fuller's motion was negatived by a majority of one hundred and sixty-nine against sixty-five.

He be

1769.

Lord North had succeeded Charles Townshend as Chancellor of the Exchequer. gan his long career of opposition to the Americans by offering a resolution, on the 14th of March, that a respectful petition or remonstrance from the people of New York should not be received. This proposition, which was adopted, called up Colonel Barré. He reminded the House that he had predicted all that would happen on the passage of the Stamp Act, and he now plainly warned ministers that, if they persisted in their wretched course of oppression, the whole continent of North America would rise in arms, and those colonies, perhaps, be lost to England forever. But the British Legislature, blinded by ignorance of Americans when the Stamp Act was passed, seemed now still more blind, because of films of prejudice generated by a false national pride. The motion of Lord North prevailed the petition was refused acceptance.

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LORD NORTH.2

1768.

Gage went to Boston in October, to enforce the requisitions of the Quartering Act. But he found none to co-operate with him except Governor Bernard, whose zeal in his majesty's service had procured him a baronetcy, at the

king's expense. The Council and the select-men declined to act, and Gage was obliged to hire houses for the troops, and provide many articles for them out of his own military chest. Thus matters remained until spring, when intelligence of the several acts of Parliament against Massachusetts aroused the fiercest sentiments of opposition, short of actual rebellion, throughout the colonies. Legislative Assemblies spoke out boldly, and for this crime they were dissolved by royal governors. Yet amid all the excitement the colonists held out the olive branch of peace and reconciliation.

May 31, 1769.

The Massachusetts Assembly convened in May, and resolved that it was inconsistent with their dignity and freedom to deliberate in the midst of an armed force, and that the presence of a military and naval armament was a breach of privilege. They refused to enter upon the business of supplies, or any thing else but a redress of grievances, and petitioned the governor to remove the troops from Boston. He not only refused, but adjourned the Assembly to Cambridge, when he informed them that he was going to June 13. England to lay a statement of the affairs of the colony before the king. The House unanimously voted a petition to his majesty, asking the removal of Bernard forever; and also adopted a resolution, declaring that the establishment of a standing army in the colony, in time of peace, was an invasion of natural rights, a violation of the British Constitution, high

It has been said that when Charles Townshend's project of taxation was in agitation, the English merchants offered to pay the taxes, or an equivalent for them, rather than run the risk of provoking the Americans and losing their trade.-Pictorial History of the Reign of George III., i., 72.

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Frederic, Earl of Guilford, better known as Lord North, was a man of good parts, sincerely attached to English liberty, and conscientious in the performance of all his duties. Like many other statesmen of his time, he utterly misapprehended the character of the American people, and could not perceive the justice of their claims. Devoted to his king and country, he labored to support the dignity of the crown and the unity of the realm, but in so doing he aided in bringing fearful misery upon the Americans for a time. He was a persuasive orator, a fair logician, amiable in private life, and correct in his morals. He was afflicted with blindness during the last years of his life. He died July, 1792, aged sixty years.

Departure of Governor Bernard for England. Effect of the Non-importation Agreements.

Hillsborough's Circular Letter.

ly dangerous to the people, and unprecedented. The governor, finding the members incorriAugust 1, gible, dissolved the Assembly, and sailed for England,' leaving the colony in charge of his lieutenant, Thomas Hutchinson.

1769.

The effects of the non-importation agreements upon English commerce again brought ministers to their senses. The English merchants were really more injured by the acts of Parliament than the Americans, and they joined their petitions with those of the colonists for a repeal of the noxious acts." Under the direction of Lord North, Hillsborough sent a circular letter to the colonies, intimating that the duties upon all articles enumerated in the late act would be taken off, as a measure of expediency, except on tea. This would be a partial relief from the burden, but not a removal of the cause of complaint. The principle was the same whether duties were exacted on one article or a dozen, and so long as the assumed right of Parliament to tax the colonies was practically enforced in the smallest degree, so long the Americans felt their rights infringed. Principle, not expediency, was their motive of action, and, therefore, the letter of Hillsborough had no effect in quieting the disturbed ocean of popular feeling. The year 1769 closed without any apparent approximation of Great Britain and her American colonies to a reconciliation.

' Francis Bernard was Governor of New Jersey after Governor Belcher, in 1756. He succeeded Pownall as Governor of Massachusetts in 1760, and held the office nine years. The first years of his adminis tration were satisfactory to the inhabitants, but, associating himself with ministers in their taxation schemes, he became odious to the Massachusetts people. His first false step was the appointment of Hutchinson chief justice instead of the elder Otis. When difficulties arose under the Stamp Act and kindred measures, Bernard was unfit for his position, for he had no talent for conciliation, and was disposed to use British power more prodigally than British justice in maintaining the supremacy of the laws. He was created a baronet in the summer of 1769. He never returned to America after leaving it, and died in England in June, 1779. The exports from England to America, which in 1768 had amounted to $11,890,000, $660,000 being in tea, had fallen in 1769 to $8,170,000, the tea being only $220,000.-Murray's United States, i., 352. Pownall, in the course of a speech in Parliament, also showed that the total produce of the new taxes for the first year had been less than $80,000, and that the expenses of the new ustom-house arrangements had reduced the net profits of the crown revenue in the colonies to only $1475, vhile the extraordinary military expenses in America amounted, for the same time, to $850,000.—Hildreth ii., 552.

Secret Workings of the Spirit of Liberty.

Brief Review.

Alternative of the Colonies.

The Newspaper Press.

CHAPTER XXI.

"There is a spirit working in the world,
Like to a silent, subterranean fire;
Yet, ever and anon, some monarch hurl'd
Aghast and pale attests its fearful ire,
The dungeon'd nations now once more respire
The keen and stirring air of liberty.

The struggling giant wakes, and feels he's free;
By Delphi's fountain-cave that ancient choir

Resume their song; the Greek astonish'd hears,
And the old altar of his worship rears.
Sound on, fair sisters! sound your boldest lyres-
Peal your old harmonies as from the spheres.
Unto strange gods too long we've bent the knee,
The trembling mind, too long and patiently."

GEORGE HILL.

"Grand jurors, and sheriffs, and lawyers we'll spurn;
As judges, we'll all take the bench in our turn,
And sit the whole term without pension or fee,
Nor CUSHING nor SEWALL look graver than we.

Our wigs, though they're rusty, are decent enough;

Our aprons, though black, are of durable stuff;

Array'd in such gear, the laws we'll explain,

That poor people no more shall have cause to complain."

HONEYWOOD'S "RADICAL SONG."

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WE have considered, in the preceding chapter, the most important events, during the first nine years of the reign of George III., having any bear

ing on the Revolution. We have seen the

germs of oppression, planted at different times from the era of the Restoration, springing into

life and vigor, and bearing the bitter fruit of tyranny; and observed the bold freemen of America pruning its most noxious branches, and trampling in the dust its "apples of Sodom." We have seen the tide of British power swelling high, and menacing, and beheld the firm rock of sound principles fearlessly breasting its billows, and hurling them back toward their source. We have seen a loyal people, warmly attached to the person of their sovereign, and venerating the laws of their fatherland, goaded, by ministerial ignorance and haughty indifference respecting the claims of right when interfering with expediency, to the assumption of manly defiance both of king and Par- · liament, until hireling butchers, with pike and bayonet, were seated in their midst to "harass the people and eat out their substance." We now behold them pressed to the alternative

TO FIGHT OR BE SLAVES.

ment.

For several years the newspaper press had been rapidly growing in political importance, and the vehicle of mere general news became the channel of political and social enlightenIn proportion to the development of its power and the creation of public opinion favorable to its views, was the increase of its boldness, and at the beginning of 1770 the American press was not only united in sentiment, but almost as fearless in the expression of political and religious opinions as the newspapers of the present day. American liberty was its theme, and almost every sheet, whether newspaper, almanac, tract, or hand-bill, issued at this time, was tinctured, if not absolutely pervaded, by the absorbing topic. I have before

Bickerstaff's Boston Almanac.

Explanation of its Frontispiece.

Revival of the Terms "Whig" and "Tory."

me a copy of Bickerstaff's Boston Almanac for 1770, the title-page of which is here given, with a fac-simile of the engraving that adorns it. The portrait of Otis is supported on one

BOS

TON:

Printed by MEIN and FLEEMING, and to be SOLD by JOHN MEIN, at the
LONDON BOOK-STORE, North-fide of KING-STREET.

[Price feven Coppers fingle, and 25 s. Old Tenor, or 3 8. 4. Lawful the Dozen.]

side by Liberty, and on the other by Hercules, or Perseverance. At the feet of the latter, uncoiling, preparatory to striking a blow, is the venomous rattlesnake, an emblem used on some of the colonial flags when the war began. This was significant of the intention of America, under the guidance of the Spirit of Liberty, to persevere, and strike a deadly blow, if necessary. The poetry and maxims of the almanac are replete with political sentiments favorable to freedom; and its pages contain the celebrated " Massachusetts Song of Liberty," which became almost as popular throughout the colonies as did Robert Treat Paine's "Adams and Liberty" at a later day. It is believed to have been written by Mrs. Mercy Warren.

Party lines began now to be strictly drawn, and the old names of Whig and Tory, used in England toward the close of the seventeenth century,. and recently revived, were adopted here, the formerbeing assumed by those who opposed Parliamentary taxation, and the latter applied to those who favored it. In Boston the wound inflicted by

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Bernard, in the introduction of soldiers, was daily festering. A weekly paper, the "Journal of the Times," fostered the most bitter animosity against the soldiers, by the publication of all sorts of stories concerning them, some true, but many more false and garbled. Daily quarrels between citizens and soldiers occurred upon the Common and in the streets; and

We give on the following page a copy of the Massachusetts Song of Liberty, with the music, as printed in the Boston Almanac.

2 See note, page 71.

Abuse of Mr. Otis.

Massachusetts Song of Liberty.

the fact that Mr. Otis had been severely beaten with fists and canes, in a coffee-house, by

THE MASSACHUSETTS SONG OF LIBERTY.

FAC-SIMILE OF THE MUSIC.

"Come swallow your bumpers, ye Tories, and roar,
That the Sons of fair Freedom are hamper'd once more;
But know that no Cut-throats our spirits can tame,
Nor a host of Oppressors shall smother the flame.

"In Freedom we're born, and, like Sons of the brave,
Will never surrender,

But swear to defend her,

And scorn to survive, if unable to save.

"Our grandsires, bless'd heroes, we'll give them a tear,

Nor sully their honors by stooping to fear;

Through deaths and through dangers their Trophies they won,
We dare be their Rivals, nor will be outdone.

"In Freedom we're born, &c.

"Let tyrants and minions presume to despise,

Encroach on our RIGHTS, and make FREEDOM their prize;

The fruits of their rapine they never shall keep,

Though vengeance may nod, yet how short is her sleep.
"In Freedom we're born, &c.

"The tree which proud Haman for Mordecai rear'd
Stands recorded, that virtue endanger'd is spared;
That rogues, whom no bounds and no laws can restrain,
Must be stripp'd of their honors and humbled again.
"In Freedom we're born, &c.

"Our wives and our babes, still protected, shall know
Those who dare to be free shall forever be so;
On these arms and these hearts they may safely rely
For in freedom we'll live, or like Heroes we'll die.
"In Freedom we're born, &c.

"Ye insolent Tyrants! who wish to enthrall;
Ye Minions, ye Placemen, Pimps, Pensioners, all;
How short is your triumph, how feeble your trust,
Your honor must wither and nod to the dust.
"In Freedom we're born, &c.

"When oppress'd and approach'd, our KING we implore,
Still firmly persuaded our RIGHTS he'll restore;
When our hearts beat to arms to defend a just right,
Our monarch rules there, and forbids us to fight.
"In Freedom we're born, &c.

"Not the glitter of arms nor the dread of a fray
Could make us submit to their chains for a day;
Withheld by affection, on Britons we call,
Prevent the fierce conflict which threatens your fall.
"In Freedom we're born, &c.

"All ages shall speak with amaze and applause
Of the prudence we show in support of our cause:
Assured of our safety, a BRUNSWICK still reigns,
Whose free loyal subjects are strangers to chains.
"In Freedom we're born, &c.

"Then join hand in hand, brave AMERICANS all,
To be free is to live, to be slaves is to fall;

Has the land such a dastard as scorns not a LORD,
Who dreads not a fetter much more than a sword?
"In Freedom we're born," &c.

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