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Gage's support from the pulpit was therefore weak, while at the same time the opposition from the same source was strong. Those country ministers who were of the political creed of Sam Adams confessed it each Sabbath, and desisted not on week days from strengthening the wills of their congregations. More than that, like their predecessors in older times, many held chaplaincies in the militia, and on training days turned out, not only to approve by their presence the object of the drill, but also to stir the spirit of the homespun soldiery by prayers to the God of Moses, and of Joshua, and of David. Those in Boston, under the very nose of the general and in the presence of his soldiery, abated nothing of their zeal, but preached resistance as before. Gage, as he looked among them for signs of wavering, could have found very little comfort.
The lawyers next, like the clergymen, had supplied the Whigs much of their strength. Surely, up to the present the patriot party had been distinguished by pliancy and persistence. These characteristics had come from the lawyers, whose rejoinders and remonstrances, petitions, resolves, and appeals were familiar professional devices. Yet Gage might have found hope in these men. For the purpose of all their delays had been compromise, and their hope was the avoidance of bloodshed. The lawyers had showed, too, a love of fair play; for while they pressed the Tories hard, they had also taken the lead in protesting against mob violence. Again, leading Whig lawyers had defended—and acquitted—the perpetrators of the Massacre. Possibly such men might be made to see reason.
A more numerous class than the lawyers was made up of the merchants, small and large. Some few of these men had made their own way in the world, yet most of them may almost have been said to have held hereditary positions in the provincial aristocracy. By far the larger number of them were Whigs, some of considerable estate, others—like that John Andrews from whose letters I have already quoted and shall quote more—were men of moderate means, shrewdly working for a "competency." Gage, looking forward to the enforcement of the Port Bill, could see that these men would be hard hit. While they had so far been firm in the colonial cause, the coming temptation to desert their party would be very strong. Income, security, and the favor of the king awaited them.
At the end of this series was the largest class of all, the mechanics. Until now these men had been eager in their demonstrations against technical oppression—which yet was technical after all. No Boston Whig had ever known a tithe of the wrongs of the French peasant or the Russian serf. No laboring class on earth enjoyed or ever had enjoyed greater freedom or less hampered prosperity. But with the enforcement of the Port Bill all this would change. Gage hoped, and the Tories declared, that the mechanics, so soon as pressure was applied, would "fall away from the faction."
The first results of the new regime were not promising. To begin with, on the news of the passage of the Port Bill the Committee of Correspondence of Boston called a meeting of the committees of the neighboring towns. This meeting scouted the idea of paying for the tea, and in a circular letter to the other colonies proposed a general cessation of trade with Great Britain. Similarly the town meeting of Boston discussed the situation, pronounced against the Port Bill, and appealed to all the sister colonies, entreating not to be left to suffer alone. In more homely language the merchants appealed to their friends. "Yes, Bill," wrote John Andrews to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia, "nothing will save us but an entire stoppage of trade, both to England and the West Indies.... The least hesitancy on your part to the Southerd, and the matter is over."
There was little hesitancy. The suggestion made by the Boston Whigs was taken up, and the maritime towns, which had been expected to take advantage of Boston's predicament, began to discontinue trade, not merely with Great Britain, but also with the West Indies. Then Salem, which was to be the capital in place of Boston, formally repudiated the idea of profiting by the situation. The news spread to the other colonies, and they began to act. New York proposed, and the sister provinces agreed in, a call for "a general Congress." In less than a month after the coming of the news of the Port Bill, Boston was assured that the continent would not leave her to suffer alone.
But then, on the first of June, 1774, the Port Bill went into effect. So literally was it interpreted, that all carriage by boat in the harbor was forbidden. No owner of a pasture on the harbor islands might bring his hay to the town; no goods might be brought across any ferry; not even carriage by water from wharf to wharf in the town was allowed. Further, while food and fuel, according to the provisions of the act, might be brought to Boston by water, all vessels carrying them were forced to go through troublesome formalities. They must report at the customs in Salem, unload, load again, and receive a clearance for Boston. Returning, they might carry enough provision to last them only to Salem. Besides all this, the Commissioners of Customs at Salem undertook to decide when Boston had enough provisions. The blockade, as enforced by them and the ships of war in Boston Harbor, was minutely complete and vexatious.
Yet at their mildest its provisions were complete enough. Trade by sea with the town was stopped. Consequently, so maritime were the town's activities, prosperity was instantly checked. All the workers immediately dependent on the sea for a living, sailors, wharfingers, longshoremen, and fishermen, were at once thrown out of employment. Then by a severe interpretation of the act all ship-building was stopped, since the authorities declared that, on launching, any boat would be confiscated. The shipyards shut down, the boats ready to launch were filled with water "for their preservation,"[36] and ship-carpenters, calkers, rope-makers, and sailmakers were thrown out of work. Much misery to the unemployed would have been the result but for the forethought of the patriot leaders.
These men, early realizing the threatened hardship, called for help from the rest of the country. The response was prompt. "A special chronicle," says Bancroft, "could hardly enumerate all the generous deeds." While Lord North, fresh from an interview with Hutchinson, cheered the king with the belief that the province would soon submit, South Carolina was sending a cargo of provisions in a vessel offered for the purpose by the owner, and sailed without wages by the captain and her crew. Sheep were driven into Boston from all New England; provisions of every kind were brought in; wheat was sent by the French in Quebec; money was subscribed and sent from the more distant points. All supplies thus received were put in the hands of a donation committee, who distributed the gifts to the needy.
Yet in spite of such relief as this, and though for a short time employment was given to workmen by permitting them to finish, launch, rig, and send away the ships then on the stocks, the situation was hard at best. It was felt not only by the lower classes, but by the merchants, whose profits ceased, and by all who depended for their income on the current trade and activity of the town. Gossipy John Andrews gives us the situation as it affected him. "If you'll believe me (though I have got near two thousand sterling out in debts and about as much more in stock), I have not received above eighty or ninety pounds Lawful money from both resources for above two months past; though previous to the port's being shut, I thought it an ordinary day's work if I did not carry home from twenty to forty dollars every evening." So little ready money circulated in the town "that really, Bill, I think myself well off to satisfy the necessary demands of my family, and you may as well ask a man for the teeth out of his head as to request the payment of money that he owes you (either in town or country, for we are alike affected), for you'll be as likely to get the one as the other."[37]
Now was, indeed, the time to discover the weak points in the cause and organization of the Americans. Even strong Whigs were at times discontented, and chiefly among the middle class, without whom the leaders could have no strong support. Much of the distress of the shopkeepers and merchants came from the "Solemn League and Covenant" which, proposed on the first news of the Port Bill, was now in actual operation. Andrews's case must have been typical of many. He had countermanded all goods on the news of the Port Bill, and acquiesced in the non-importation agreement: "but upon y^e measure not being adopted by the Southern Colonies, I embraced the first opportunity and re-ordered about one-fourth part of such goods as I thought would be in most demand, and behold! in about three or four weeks after that, I heard of y^e amazing progress the non-consumption agreement had made through y^e country; which, in my opinion, has serv'd rather to create dissensions among ourselves than to answer any valuable purpose."
Many of the Tories held the same opinion. Could not the waverers, they asked Gage, be induced to change their political faith, and especially could not the leaders be tempted?
Among these leaders the influence of Otis was waning. He had always been eccentric and unreliable, and now his intellect was threatened. An assault upon him had nearly ruined both his health and his reason. But his place had been taken by others. Samuel Adams, John Adams, Joseph Warren, and John Hancock were the men whose names were oftenest mentioned. Sinister rumors were frequent that Gage had been directed to seize them and deport them to England. Whether or not more evidence against them was needed, no arrest was as yet attempted. Instead, in at least three quarters there was some hope of corruption.
Warren the general left untempted; it is no small tribute to the patriot's character that there could be no doubt of his integrity. Warren was not yet thirty-five years old, was of good social position, had an excellent practice and an assured future. His temperament was frank and manly, and so enthusiastic as to be fiery. Once already, on the anniversary of the Massacre in 1772, he had addressed the town meeting in condemnation of the government measures; on many other opportunities, before and since, he had either spoken in public or expressed his opinions through the press. While no advocate of violence, he was unreservedly a Whig, and nothing could be made of him. So far as is known, no attempt was made to corrupt him.
The case of John Adams was different, at least to Tory eyes. He was ambitious: no one who knew him could doubt that he was conscious of his own ability. Further, he was poor, with a growing family to support; he was known, with the troubled times which he clearly foresaw, to be anxious for his children's future. Surely there was a possibility that Adams might be wise, and be tempted to the safer course; and fortunately there was at hand an instrument to induce him to become a Tory. Adams was the close personal friend of Jonathan Sewall, the king's attorney-general for the province, and an admirable character. The chance of distinction, the certainty of prosperity, and the importunities of such a friend, might in the end persuade Adams.
Of John Hancock it was often argued among the Tories that he might almost be left to himself. If Adams was ambitious, Hancock was more so; known to be vain, he was believed to be jealous by nature. With these weaknesses, he was also instinctively an aristocrat. How long, asked the Tories, would he continue to consort with men of low social position? How soon would he rebel at being led by the nose by the wily Adams? Position and influence were ready for him as soon as he chose to go over to the king. The bait was always plain, and he might be counted on eventually to take it.
Even Samuel Adams, so reasoned the advisers of Gage, might be bought. For Adams was poor. In his devotion to public affairs he had let his business go to ruin, had seen his money melt away, had even sold off parts of his own house-lot. His sentiments were, no better known in Boston than his threadbare clothes. His sole income was from his salary as clerk of the house of representatives, only a hundred pounds a year. To the new governor it was the most natural thing in the world to suppose that the discontent of such a man could soon be removed. He forgot Hutchinson's words: "Such is the obstinacy and inflexible disposition of the man, that he never would be conciliated by any office or gift whatever."[38]
Gage sent, therefore, Colonel Fenton to Adams with offers which would tempt any man that had a price. No definite knowledge of the inducements has come down to us: money, place, possibly even a patent of nobility. We know, however, that they were coupled with a threat in the form of advice to make his peace with the king. And we can imagine Adams as, rising from his seat, and standing with the habitual nervous tremor of head and hands which often led his adversaries to mistake his mettle, he delivered his fearless reply.
"Sir, I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of kings. No personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the righteous cause of my country. Tell Governor Gage that it is the advice of Samuel Adams to him no longer to insult the feelings of an exasperated people!"[39]
And this was in the face of a situation the like of which had never been known in America. "Notwithstanding which," wrote John Andrews, "there seems to be ease, contentment, and perfect composure in the countenance of almost every person you meet in the streets, which conduct very much perplexes the Governor and others, our lords and masters, that they are greatly puzzled, and know not what to do or how to act, as they expected very different behaviour from us."
There is but one explanation of such a state of mind in the Whigs, in the face of the evidently approaching trial. Their consciences were clear. This revolution, when finally it came about, was quite within the spirit of the British Constitution. The Whigs believed they were right, and had no fear of the consequences. No testimony to their virtues, as the backbone of a new nation, will speak louder than their present attitude. External testimony is not hard to quote. "The people of Boston and Massachusetts Bay," wrote Thomas Hollis but a few weeks before this time, "are, I suppose, take them as a body, the soberest, most knowing, virtuous people at this time upon earth." Other English opinion to the same effect, and French admiration by the chapter, might be quoted. Yet a truer proof of the quality of the people is to be found in the calm self-confidence which "very much perplexed" the governor.
One more comment may safely be ventured here. Before two years were over it was known that Gage, and perhaps even Hutchinson during his administration, had had the most complete information of the secret doings of the Whig leaders. In fact, even the deliberations of the workmen's caucuses must have been known to Gage. That no arrests were made can mean but one thing: that the Whigs were honest in their endeavor to work their ends by legal means. Samuel Adams may have foreseen the eventual outcome, and knowing it to be inevitable may have striven to make it speedy and complete. But there was no general scheme for independence, no plot for a revolt. "The Father of the Revolution" laid his plans in silence, and waited for the ripening of the times.
Gage and his advisers, "greatly puzzled," also watched the crystallizing of opinion. Of the temper of the Bostonians, although oppressed by the Port Bill, there could presently be no doubt. Emboldened by the presence of troops in the town, the Tories called town meetings, first to resolve to pay for the tea, and then to dismiss the Committee of Correspondence. These two actions, if taken, would have totally changed the situation. The meetings were crowded, every courtesy was shown the Tories, and in the second meeting, since Adams was absent, the Whigs had to be content with the leadership of Warren. But there was no hesitation in either case. The first meeting rejected the proposal to pay for the tea. In the second the discretion of Warren proved equal to his zeal, his management of the meeting was perfect, and the vote upheld the Committee of Correspondence by a large majority.
The next action explains the absence of Adams from Boston at such an important time. According to the new laws, the Assembly met at Salem, under the eye of the governor and in the presence of his troops. Gage knew very well that a call had been sent throughout the colonies for an election of delegates to a general Congress which should deliberate on the present situation. He had no intention that delegates should be elected from Massachusetts. He had partisans in the Assembly, and an informant on the committee to introduce legislation. Every move was reported to him. Never did Sam Adams dissemble more cleverly. So dull and spiritless did public matters seem, that Gage's informant thought it safe to go home on private business. Then Adams acted. Quietly laying his plans, on the morning of the seventeenth of June, 1774, he locked the door of the chamber and proposed that the Assembly elect delegates to the Continental Congress. A Tory pleaded sickness and hurried to Gage with the news; but the door was again locked, and the business proceeded. Though the governor sent his secretary with a message dissolving the Assembly, the secretary knocked in vain. The doors were not opened until delegates had been elected to the Congress, a tax laid to pay their expenses, and resolutions passed exhorting the province to stand firm.
One of the delegates-elect was John Adams. For years he had declined to hold public office, and had even avoided town meetings. There was now a natural Tory hope that he might refuse this office; there was even a last chance to wean him from the Whig cause, for he was presently to ride on circuit, and there would meet his friend Sewall. When the two met, the Tory reasoned earnestly, pointing out the irresistible power of Great Britain. But Adams was ready with his answer. "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my country is my unalterable determination."[40] And so went another hope of the Tories.
The summer of 1774 wore along, with no improvement in the situation. Rather it became worse. So much time had elapsed without definite news of the passing of the Regulating Act, that there was hope that the measure had failed. But early in August came news of its passage, and with it a list of appointments for the new Council. The appointees were all chosen from among the Tories, or from those inclined to the king's side. "It is apprehended," wrote Andrews, "that most of 'em will accept."
Now at last it was natural to suppose that the Whigs had come to the end of their resources. Their Assembly was dissolved, a Tory held each appointive position, Boston was filled with soldiers, and the harbor was guarded by ships of war. Active opposition to the troops would have been madness, and it seemed impossible to conduct even the ordinary business of the town, for now town meetings might legally be called only for the purpose of electing officers. Yet when Gage called the selectmen before him, and graciously indicated his willingness to allow meetings for certain harmless purposes, the reply surprised him. There was no need, said the selectmen, to ask his permission for a meeting: they had one in existence already. In fact they had two, the May meeting and the June meeting, each legally called before the enforcement of the Regulating Act, and each legally "adjourned" until such time as it was needed. The technical subterfuge was too much for Gage, and the adjournments continued in spite of the law.
As the Massachusetts delegates prepared for their journey to Philadelphia, where the Congress was to be held, there occurred, if we can believe the story told by John Andrews—it was certainly believed in Boston at the time—a demonstration of affection for Samuel Adams. "For not long since some persons (their names unknown) sent and ask'd his permission to build him a new barn, the old one being decay'd, which was executed in a few days. A second sent to ask leave to repair his house, which was thoroughly effected soon. A third sent to beg the favor of him to call at a taylor's shop and be measur'd for a suit of cloaths and chuse his cloth, which were finish'd and sent home for his acceptance. A fourth presented him with a new whig,[41] a fifth with a new Hatt, a sixth with a pair of the best silk hose, a seventh with six pair of fine thread ditto, a eighth with six pair shoes, and a ninth modestly inquired of him whether his finances want rather low than otherways. He reply'd it was true that was the case, but he was very indifferent about these matters, so that his poor abilities was of any service to the Publick; upon which the Gentleman obliged him to accept of a purse containing about 15 or 20 Johannes." It is possible that these attentions to Adams grew out of the desire that he, so well known in Boston that his shabbiness meant nothing, should appear well at the Congress, where his dress might prejudice others against him. True or not, this little story has its significance, for, says Andrews to his correspondent, "I mention this to show you how much he is esteem'd here. They value him for his good sense, great abilities, amazing fortitude, noble resolution, and undaunted courage: being firm and unmov'd at all the various reports that were propagated in regard to his being taken up and sent home,[42] notwithstanding he had repeated letters from his friends, both in England as well as here, to keep out of the way."
If the governor desired to arrest Adams, he had plenty of opportunity. There was even a public occasion to take all the delegates together, when they left the town on their way to Philadelphia. "A very respectable parade," wrote Andrews, "in sight of five of the Regiments encamp'd on the Common, being in a coach and four, preceded by two white servants well mounted and arm'd, with four blacks behind in livery, two on horseback and two footmen." Perhaps Gage breathed a sigh of relief with the "brace of Adamses" away, but his real troubles were only beginning.
Massachusetts would have nothing to do with the newly appointed officers. The thirty-six councillors, appointed under writ of mandamus, excited the most indignation. Of the Boston nominees thirteen accepted, two declined, and four took time to consider; throughout the province the proportion was about the same. But those who wavered and those who accepted presently heard from their neighbors. Leonard of Taunton, hearing of a surprise party mustering from the neighboring towns, departed hastily for Boston. His father, by promises that he would urge his son to resign, with difficulty prevailed on the disgusted neighbors to leave the councillor's property unharmed. In Worcester, Timothy Paine was taken to the common, and, in the presence of two thousand standing in military order, he read his declination of his appointment. Ruggles of Hardwick was warned not to return home; his neighbors swore that he should never pass the great bridge of the town alive. Murray of Rutland, like Leonard of Taunton, escaped the attentions of his townspeople, who scorned the threat of confiscation and death, and demanded his resignation. "This," wrote his brother to him, "is not the language of the common people only: those that have heretofore sustained the fairest character are the warmest in this matter; and, among the many friends you have heretofore had, I can scarcely mention any to you now."
The people did not always act with violence, but the compulsion which they put upon their fellow-townsmen was strong. Watson of Plymouth, long respected in the town, had been appointed by the king to the Council, and had intended to accept. But when he appeared in church on the following Sunday, his friends rose and left the meeting-house. In the face of their scorn he bowed his head over his cane, and resolved to resign.[43]
More than twenty of the thirty-six councillors either declined their appointment, or resigned. The rest could find no safety except in Boston, under the protection of the troops. Even the courts were prevented from sitting, in one case by the ingenious method of packing the court-room so solidly with spectators that judge and sheriff could not enter. Only among the garrison at Boston was there comfort for the Tory officials.
Boston itself was troublesome enough. When Gage, regarding himself as "personally affronted" by John Hancock,[44] removed him from command of the Cadets, the company sent a deputation to Salem and returned him their standard, declining longer to keep up their customary service as the governor's body-guard. The governor, vexed, replied that had he previously known of their intentions, he would have dismissed them himself.
The town meetings troubled him also. Salem held one under his nose, in spite of a feint to interrupt them by the soldiers. When he summoned the committee of correspondence of the town to answer for the meeting, they were stubborn and defiant, refused to give bail when arrested, and were consequently—released! Other towns held meetings to elect delegates to a county convention, and the governor was powerless to stop them. Although he had many more troops than the four regiments with which he first declared that he could do so much, he felt his helplessness, and, cursing the town meetings, waited for more soldiers. He summoned the remnant of his council to meet in Salem; but the members were afraid to come, and, departing from his orders, he allowed them to sit in Boston.
And now, as the weeks passed on, even Boston was rumbling with the thunder of the coming storm. Israel Putnam, having driven to Boston a flock of sheep, the gift to the poor of Boston from his Connecticut town, became the lion of the day. Meeting on the Common some of his old friends in the regular army, they chaffed him on the military situation. Twenty ships and twenty regiments, they told him, were to be expected if the country did not submit. "If they come," returned the stanch old Indian fighter, "I am ready to treat them as enemies."
At length the forms of law failed even in Boston. When the judges summoned a jury, it not only refused to take oath, but presented a written protest against the authority on which the court acted. The judges gave up the attempt in despair, and the governor and his advisers thought that matters were come to a pretty pass when a mere petit juror could declare "that his conscience would not let him take oath whiles Peter Oliver set upon the bench."[45] There was apparently no punishment to meet such obduracy.
But at last news came to Gage on which he felt compelled to act. Much powder had been stored in the magazine at Quarry Hill in Charlestown. He was informed that during August the towns had removed their stock, until there remained only that which belonged to the province. This stock Gage determined to secure against possible illegal seizure, by seizing it himself. On the morning of the first of September, by early daylight, detachments of troops in boats took the powder to the Castle, and also secured two cannon from Cambridge. Rumors of violence and bloodshed spread rapidly, and by nightfall half of New England was in motion, marching toward Boston.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Sabine's "Loyalists," 190.
[36] Andrews Letters.
[37] The Andrews Letters, as already noted, are in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings for the volume of 1864-1865. I shall refer to them frequently without quoting pages.
[38] Wells, "Life of Adams," ii, 193.
[39] Wells, "Adams," ii, 193.
[40] Bancroft, edition of 1876, iv, 344. Subsequent references to Bancroft will be to this edition.
[41] Sic!
[42] Note the use of the word, as meaning England.
[43] I take these facts from Bancroft and the Andrews Letters.
[44] Hancock seems to have practised upon Gage the subterfuge which he afterwards used with Washington, pretending to be too ill to wait upon him.
[45] Andrews Letters.
CHAPTER VI
THE POWDER ALARM AND THE WINTER OF 1774-1775
Gage had by this time given up hope of winning to his side the leaders of the Whigs. If he still retained a doubt of the temper of the people, the events of the first and second of September would have made him certain. Marching in companies, they converged upon Cambridge, whence the Lieutenant-Governor, Andrew Oliver, hastily departed to Boston, to implore Gage to send out no troops, lest not a man of them should return alive. On his way in, Oliver passed Warren hastening out. But his influence was not needed. The militia companies had already laid aside their weapons and were parading peacefully upon Cambridge common. There they were addressed by two of the Mandamus Council, who confirmed their resignations and promised in no way to be concerned in the acts of Gage's government. Then the high-sheriff came under the attention of the meeting, and likewise promised to do nothing under the new laws.
Hallowell, the Commissioner of Customs, escaped more serious handling. Passing by the common and its assemblage of Whigs, he "spoke somewhat contemptuously of them." They promptly sent some mounted men after his chaise. On seeing them coming he stopped his chaise, unhitched his horse and mounted, and ran his pursuers a close race to Boston Neck, where he found safety with the guard.
Oliver, returning to Cambridge with the governor's promise to send out no troops, was waited upon by the great assemblage. The Whigs demanded his resignation as a councillor. This, after demurring, Oliver gave, and offered to resign also from the lieutenant-governorship. But this the company allowed him to keep. Andrews records, "It is worthy remark that Judge Lee remarked to 'em, after he had made his resignation, that he never saw so large a number of people together and preserve so peaceable order before in his life."
This orderly meeting, proceeding with parliamentary forms, passed a resolve that Gage was within his legal rights in removing the powder from the store-house. They then "voted unanimously their abhorrence of mobs and riots,"[46] and with these lessons given for any one to learn, they peaceably turned toward their homes. On their way they turned back those who, from further away, were eagerly coming to avenge the rumored death of their countrymen and the bombardment of the town. Putnam, after disbanding his Connecticut company, wrote to urge the men of Massachusetts to take better care of the remainder of their powder.
The "Powder Alarm" stirred the country everywhere. At Philadelphia its exaggerated reports greatly disturbed the Congress, but the response was significant. "When the horrid news was brought here of the bombardment of Boston," wrote John Adams, "which made us completely miserable for two days, we saw proofs both of the sympathy and the resolution of the continent. War! war! war! was the cry, and it was pronounced in a tone which would have done honor to the oratory of a Briton or a Roman. If it had proved true, you would have heard the thunder of an American Congress."[47]
Gage now, for the first time, seems to have had a glimmer of an idea of the formidable forces that were against him. He began to consider the military situation, and the defence of the town against another such rising. If on the next occasion the provincials should attempt to pursue a commissioner not merely to the Neck, but past it, there must be means of stopping them. Gage gave orders to fortify the Neck, which was in those days the single land approach to Boston.
The modern city in no way resembles the old town. Now, between South Boston and Cambridge, a score of highways lead into the city. Bridges and even tunnels give direct communication from South Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, Chelsea, and East Boston. But in 1774 South Boston was a mudflat; the Back Bay—at least at high water—was what its name implies; Chelsea was Winnisimit, with but half a dozen houses; and East Boston was an island, having but two houses on it. Now the flats have been filled up, the mainland brought closer, and the approaches bridged. In Governor Gage's day Boston was still a peninsula, roughly pear-shaped, and connected with the mainland by a strip of land which was, at high tide, scarcely a hundred yards wide.
Batteries commanding the road which crossed this isthmus seemed, at the time, quite sufficient to defend the town. It was not till later that Gage began to consider the heights of Dorchester and Charlestown, which, to the south and north, threatened Boston. Now he set to work upon an earthwork at the Neck, brought cannon there, and began to build block-houses. It was reported that he was to cut a ditch across the Neck, and confine traffic to a narrow bridge; but at the objection of the selectmen such an idea, if he had considered it, was given up. Protest against the new earthworks was also lodged. The selectmen of the town, and a committee from the convention for Suffolk County which then happened to sit, came to Gage with remonstrances. Warren, from the convention, twice urged his demands. "Good God, gentlemen," responded the harried governor, "make yourselves easy, and I will be so."[48]
There was no more ease of mind for Governor Gage. Within the limits of Boston and Charlestown were several cannon belonging to the militia organizations of the town. When the general tried to secure the Charlestown guns from secretion by the provincials, they disappeared. "Ever since," wrote Andrews a fortnight later, "the General has ordered a double guard to y^e new and old gun houses, where y^e brass field pieces belonging to our militia are lodged: notwithstanding which ... We'n'sday evening, or rather night, our people took these from the Old house (by opening the side of the house) and carried away through Frank Johonnot's Garden. Upon which he gave it in orders the next day to the officer on guard to remove those from the New house (which stands directly opposite the encampment of the 4th Regiment and in the middle of the street near the large Elm tree), sometime the next night into the camp; and to place a guard at each end, or rather at both doors, till then. At the fixed hour the Officer went with a number of Mattrosses to execute his orders, but behold, the guns were gone!" Lest the guns in the North Battery should similarly be spirited away, the bewildered general ordered them to be spiked.
His state of mind was not improved when he received, as he did early in September, the resolutions passed by the Suffolk convention. The Suffolk Resolves, as they are called, covered the whole of the existing situation. Repudiating the king's claim to unconditional obedience, they declared the Regulating Act unconstitutional, and called on all officers under it to resign their places. They advised that all taxes should be withheld from the king's treasury, and suggested a provincial congress to deal with the affairs of Massachusetts. The resolves further declared that the Americans had no intention of aggression, advised peaceful measures, but threatened to seize all crown officers if any political arrest were made. Looking forward to the eventual rupture, the resolves advised the towns to choose their military officers with great care, and finally made provision to spread alarm or summon assistance at a moment's notice.
Affairs had now reached a new phase. The barrier which Gage had erected at the Neck had effectually cut him off from the province which he had been sent to govern. From that time on he had no authority beyond the range of his batteries.
Boston was his, to be sure. In spite of alarms (for once the field day of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, the pride of the province, aroused the fleet; and once the little navy was awake all night against an attack that never came), in spite of such alarms, no attempt was made upon his army or his ships. The town was quiet, and Tory ladies and gentlemen were at last at ease. On the Mall they might daily watch the parade of the troops, speak their minds about the faction, and agree upon the cowardice of the provincials. Yet the Whigs of Boston made no submission. They were, as Warren wrote of them, "silent and inflexible." At the same time they had everything at stake. Their leaders Hancock and Warren still lived openly among them, in the face of the threat of arrest. The artisans, too, at this period put behind them a great temptation. For many months they had been idle; now within a few weeks the governor had commenced building barracks for the troops, upon which Boston workmen were engaged. For the first time since the Port Bill went into effect they were earning a comfortable living. But now they refused to work longer for the king. In vain Gage appealed to the selectmen and to Hancock. One and all the artisans withdrew, to subsist, as before, upon the donations that still continued to come in from the other towns and colonies.
Outside the barrier at the Neck was an unparalleled state of affairs. In Massachusetts there was no legal government. The charter had been abrogated, but the new system had been rejected by the people. There were no judges and no courts, no sheriffs; there was no treasury, and no machinery of government whatever. Consequently there was a striking opportunity for lawlessness. Yet the quiet in the province was remarkable. In the absence of executive and judicial officers, the selectmen of the towns and the Committees of Correspondence took upon themselves the work that was to be done, and did it quietly and well. There was no thievery, no murder, no repudiation of debts. So far as their ordinary life was concerned, the people simply lived on in their ancient way.
There was, nevertheless, plenty of lawlessness of the new kind. Just as soon as the people could catch the newly appointed officials, they forced them to resign; and whenever the courts attempted to sit they were made to adjourn. There continued the little migration of Tories toward Boston, always in the expectation that the sojourn was to be brief, and that presently Gage would have the situation in hand. Most of the refugees, however, never saw their homes again. As for Gage, he was suspected of detaining the remaining councillors in Boston, lest he should not have any left to him. Indeed, his position in Salem had already become so undignified and uncomfortable that early in September, with the Commissioners of Customs and all other officials, he returned to Boston. There he also withdrew the two regiments with which he had ineffectually endeavored to sustain his prestige in Salem. Yet he had not been long in Boston before he was forced to watch the preparations for a new act of defiance.
Already, unfortunately for him, he had convened the Assembly to meet at Salem. Now that he was in Boston he desired the legislators to meet there also; yet he could not adjourn them until they met. This he planned to do. The delegates, however, knew that if they came to Boston they must take their oaths of office before the Mandamus Council. To this the representatives would never submit, and accordingly planned another move. Boston carried out its part under the eye of the governor. The town elected its representatives, chief among whom were Hancock, Warren, and the absent Samuel Adams. The meeting then deliberately, reminding the delegates that they could not conscientiously discharge their duty under the conditions which the governor would impose, "empowered and instructed" them to join with the delegates from other towns in a general provincial congress, to act upon public matters in such a manner as should appear "most conducive to the true interest of this town and province, and most likely to preserve the liberties of all America."
Thus the town of Boston, inflexible but no longer silent, calmly ignored the governor and his troops. A strong governor would have imprisoned the delegates and dissolved the meeting; Gage allowed it to proceed for the rest of the day with illegal business, and did nothing.
It was at this time that the conduct of affairs fell into the hands of Warren. Adams was away at Philadelphia, and Hancock, though older than Warren and an excellent figurehead, had neither Warren's wisdom nor his fiery energy. It was Warren who corresponded with the Congress at Philadelphia and with the Committees of Correspondence of the Massachusetts towns, and it was to him that the province naturally turned. When we remember him as the hero of Bunker Hill, it is well also to recall him as the tried servant and the excellent adviser of the public.
One act of his at this point is worth remembering. As we have seen, Episcopalians were not in good odor with the Massachusetts Whigs; the colony had been founded as an asylum from "prelacy," and still, after nearly two hundred and fifty years, the few members of the English church were chiefly supporters of the crown. Warren now took occasion to remind his brethren that to the south conditions were different, and that "the gentlemen of the Established Church of England are men of the most just and liberal sentiments." In a printed letter he requested fair treatment of all Episcopalians, and ended by quoting from a letter of Samuel Adams an account of the Episcopal chaplain of the Philadelphia Congress, whose first prayer moved many of the members to tears. Although this chaplain later turned his coat, the reminder was timely and valuable, for many southern Whigs, among them Washington himself, were members of the Established Church.
As to the proposed provincial congress, Gage now hastened to forestall the consequences of his own action. He declared the convening of the Assembly inexpedient, and removed the obligation to attend. Nevertheless ninety of the delegates came together, waited a day for the governor, then formed themselves into a provincial congress, and adjourned. On the 11th of October they met again at Concord, this time with nearly two hundred more members, and in the old meeting-house began their sessions with Hancock as their president, but with Warren as the most influential member of their body.
His influence was thrown on the side of moderation. There were plenty in the province ready to urge violence. They argued that the old charter should be resumed; and as if the present acts were not sufficiently revolutionary, were ready to proceed to violent measures. But the time had not yet come. Massachusetts sentiment, responding to persecution, was far in advance of the feelings of the rest of the country. No action could safely be taken until the other colonies were ready to support New England. In constant touch with Samuel Adams—for Paul Revere and other trusted couriers were always on the road with letters—Warren was able to remind his colleagues of the need of patience, and to cool their ardor by his warnings that in open rebellion they would stand alone. His services, and those of the steadfast band who supported him, were invaluable. In these days he rose to the full stature of political leadership, in guiding the actions of the provincial congress and in constraining it to patience.
And yet its acts were revolutionary enough. It must be remembered that until this time the Whigs of Massachusetts had remained within their constitutional rights. Apart from the Tea-Party, no word or act of town meeting or of legislature, or even of any prominent citizen, needed for justification anything more than the ancient charter rights of the province. But now the provincial congress went beyond anything that had ever been done before. It appointed a Committee of Safety, which should prepare for equipping and raising an army. It appointed a Committee of Supplies, which presently gathered together a few hundred spades and pickaxes, some muskets, a thousand wooden mess-bowls, four thousand flints, and a small supply of peas and flour—a pitiful attempt to compete with the vast resources of Great Britain. More than this, it appointed a Receiver-General, to keep the public money of the province. It might be argued that all these acts were still within the charter rights, yet the Whig position was no longer so strong as on the occasions when it had caused the crown lawyers to doubt. With a treasurer engaged in receiving the taxes which the towns willingly paid him, and with generals appointed to command an army, it began to look as if Massachusetts were in rebellion.
Gage was perplexed. His province was out of his control, and now came the news that the Continental Congress, before adjourning, had voted approval of the course of Massachusetts. In fact, Congress had voted its support. "Resolved, that this congress approve of the opposition made by the inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late acts of Parliament; and, if the same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to support them in their opposition." With such words in his mind, Gage had to listen to the ringing of the church bells in welcome to Samuel Adams as he returned from Philadelphia. Adams and Cushing, two of the Boston delegates, now took their seats in the provincial congress, and the remaining two delegates were invited to attend. The public acts of the congress continued bold and uncompromising, and every little while there came to the harried governor some public letter of remonstrance, or some delegation from an aggrieved town or county convention, to object, to expostulate, or to demand. Never were people better trained to politics than the Americans at this moment. Gage was quite unfitted to cope with them. Hutchinson would have been more vigorous, and even Bernard more clever. The king fitly characterized his governor as "the mild general."
Gage, in his perplexity, now made trouble by suggesting the recruiting of Indians against the day of rebellion, and called for more troops from England. The disgusted king sought to replace him as commander-in-chief by the one English soldier whom the Americans held in respect, in fact, as the hero of the French war, almost in reverence. But Sir Jeffrey Amherst bluntly told the king that he would not serve against the Americans, "to whom he had been so much obliged." The king was forced to content himself by sending to Gage's support three major-generals, as if in the hope that their divided counsels would bring about a uniform policy.
Of these three men America was to hear a good deal in the next seven years. The least important of them was Sir Henry Clinton, of respectable military skill. More striking in character was Sir John Burgoyne, poet, dramatist, parliamentarian, upon whom America will ever look with the indulgence which the victor feels for one who is signally and completely defeated. "General Big-talk," the Yankee balladist called him when once the siege was in progress. It is true that Burgoyne had an easy flow of words, and we shall before long find him doing his share to make Gage ridiculous. But Burgoyne had his manly parts, and though he lacked greatness, he commands at times our sympathy and our respect. He made a romantic marriage, which proved a happy one; and his real claim to literary distinction lies in the letter in which, on his departure for America, he commended his wife to the care of the king. Burgoyne, in a still brutal age, was a humanitarian, and was one of the first, not only to oppose flogging in the army, but also to advocate friendly personal relations between officers and men. America seldom took Burgoyne seriously, but he is to us of to-day a pleasing and picturesque character.
The third of the new generals was Sir William Howe, whose chief misfortune was that fate had set him to oppose Washington. He came of a family well known in American annals, for one brother was now an admiral popular in the colonies, and another was still mourned in America for his brilliant talents and magnetic personality. William Howe had gained his seat in Parliament by appeals to the memory of that brother, and by promises to take no active military command against America. But on being offered the post under Gage, Howe asked if this were a request or an order. The adroit king returned the proper answer, and Howe, protesting that no other course was open to him, prepared to sail for Boston.
Meanwhile Gage, alone, made various futile moves, at which the province looked with patience. From time to time his troops marched a few miles into the country, and returned again. In January he sent a detachment to Marshfield, to occupy the village so that the loyal residents might drink their tea in peace. It was a comfort to him to think that there was one town in the province in which a militia company was drilling for his support, and with the king's muskets. A month later Gage sent troops to Salem, in order to seize some cannon; but the commander, finding the country in arms to receive him, wisely withdrew his little force after—to use a term yet to be invented—"saving his face" by crossing a bridge under promise of immediate return.
The Reverend Jonas Clark, speaking of this event, adds an indignant note to an equally indignant sermon.[49] "This unsuccessful expedition was made on Lord's day, Feb. 26, 1775. The party consisted of 200 or 300 men; it was commanded by Lieut. Col. Leslie. The vessels which brought them to Marblehead, arrived in the harbour, on the morning of the sabbath; and the better to conceal their intentions, lay quietly, at anchor, near to the wharves, with but very few hands upon deck (the troops being kept close) 'till the people of the town were assembled for the services of religion.—While the inhabitants were thus engaged in their devotions to God, the party landed and made a speedy march to Salem. But all their precaution did not avail them for the accomplishment of their enterprize. The eagle-eyes of a watchful and wary people, justly jealous of every measure of their oppressors, are not easily evaded. Their motions were observed, and such timely notice given, that such numbers were collected and such measures taken, before they arrived, as effectually frustrated their design and obliged them to return defeated and chagrined."
So, throughout the winter, the garrison and its governor accomplished nothing—or less than nothing, if one considers that Gage proved to the provincials the weakness of his character, while at the same time he angered them by issuing, when the provincial congress appointed a day of prayer, a proclamation against hypocrisy.
As the winter passed there was at times hope that the political situation might be relieved by action of Parliament. Yet though the worst House of Commons in history had been dissolved, the one which took its place was, at its beginning, little better. It learned wisdom only from the events of the war. To this Parliament Chatham and Burke now appealed in vain; even Fox, at last definitely taking his stand with the supporters of America, could not move it from its subservience to the king. When finally a bill was introduced to deprive America of its fisheries, it began to seem that legislative oppression could go no further.
And now to other Americans than Samuel Adams it became evident that there was no hope of concession from England. The second provincial congress began its sittings. Warren was still on the Committee of Safety. Preble, Ward, and Pomeroy were reappointed generals, and to them were added Thomas and Heath. Supplies were voted for an army of fifteen thousand. There was still hope of conciliation, but, wrote Warren, "every day, every hour, widens the breach."
The town of Boston knew how wide the breach was, and how different the points of view. The letters and diaries of the time show the constant little irritations which exasperated both sides. In those days, if the British soldier was not so sober as now, the British officer was far more given to drink. From "the Erskine incident" until almost the outbreak of hostilities, drunken officers made trouble with the inhabitants, and found them less submissive than the average British citizen. Yankee burghers had an uncomfortable trick of arming themselves with cudgels and returning to the attack; the watch occasionally locked up Lieutenant This and Ensign That; and more dignified citizens, disdaining personal conflict, brought their complaints to the general, thus adding to his troubles. John Andrews tells the story of the school boys who, in the phrase of the day, "improv'd" the coast on School Street. "General Haldiman, improving the house that belongs to Old Cook, his servant took it upon him to cut up their coast and fling ashes upon it. The lads made a muster, and chose a committee to wait upon the General, who admitted them, and heard their complaint, which was couch'd in very genteel terms, complaining that their fathers before 'em had improv'd it as a coast from time immemorial, &ca. He ordered his servant to repair the damage, and acquainted the Governor with the affair, who observ'd that it was impossible to beat the notion of Liberty out of the people, as it was rooted in 'em from their Childhood."
Gage did his best to be fair to the inhabitants, and they acknowledged his endeavor. But the officers, less experienced than he and with fewer responsibilities, and also less acquainted with the spirit of the colonists, were angry with him for what they called his subservience. They dubbed him Tommy, and confided their indignation to their diaries. "Yesterday," wrote Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own,[50] "in compliance with the request of the Select Men, Genl Gage order'd that no Soldier in future shou'd appear in the Streets with his side Arms. Query, Is this not encouraging the Inhabitants in their licentious and riotous disposition? Also orders are issued for the Guards to seize all military Men found engaged in any disturbance, whether Agressors or not; and to secure them, 'till the matter is enquired into. By Whom? By Villains that wou'd not censure one of their own Vagrants, even if He attempted the life of a Soldier; whereas if a Soldier errs in the least, who is more ready to accuse than Tommy? His negligence on the other hand has been too conspicuous in the affair of Cn. Maginis to require a further comment."
Doubtless there is much to be said for the soldiers, both officers and privates, since the Bostonians had not abandoned their irritating ways, even in the midst of an army. But the army was also very hard to live with. On the first of January our discontented officer records, "Nothing remarkable but the drunkenness among the Soldiers, which is now got to a very great pitch; owing to the cheapness of the liquor, a Man may get drunk for a Copper or two." The officers, we have seen, did not set their men a very good example; but even in their sober senses they were scarcely conciliatory. They formed burlesque congresses, and marched in mock procession in the streets, absurdly dressed to represent the leaders of the Whigs. On the queen's birthday a banquet was held, and from the balcony of the tavern the toasts were announced, while in the street a squad of soldiers fired salutes. Toasts to Lord North were not relished in Boston, and reminders of Culloden were too significant for those whom the army already called rebels. It is an interesting proof of the weakness of Gage's hold upon his own army that such childishness should have been permitted, or that such threats should have been made to a town that still was within its legal rights.
Beneath these petty quarrels we perceive the fundamental differences. Over these the more learned of both sides carried on a war of words. The newspapers teemed with letters, poems, essays, and dissertations; and Novanglus, Massachusettensis, Vindex, and other pseudo-Romans endeavored to convert each other, or else to point solemn warnings. "Remember," writes a yeoman of Suffolk County, "the fate of Wat Tyler, and think how vain it is for Jack, Sam, or Will to war against Great Britain, now she is in earnest!... Our leaders are desperate bankrupts! Our country is without money, stores, or necessaries of war,—without one place of refuge or defence! If we were called together, we should be a confused herd, without any disposition to obedience, without a general of ability to direct and guide us; and our numbers would be our destruction! Never did a people rebel with so little reason; therefore our conduct cannot be justified before God!... Rouse, rouse ye, Massachusetians, while it be yet time! Ask pardon of God, submit to our king and parliament, whom we have wickedly and grievously offended."[51]
This exclamatory appeal plainly shows a type of mind which often has saved the British Empire, yet which at periods in history has come near to ruining it. English conservatism has at most times been invaluable to the country; but when, as repeatedly under the Stuart kings and again under George III, it has forsaken its true task in order to support absolutism, it has brought the ship of state very near to wreck. In reminding of the fate of Wat Tyler our Suffolk yeoman forgot, if indeed he ever knew, the fate of Charles and James Stuart. The majority of Englishmen have never been willing to admit that in defending their constitutional rights they were guilty of impiety. Though such warnings and appeals were at this time frequent enough, the Whigs paid no regard to them.
When we leave the Tories and turn to the soldiery we find one other common English failing—underrating an adversary. England had so long been victorious on land and sea that it was almost a natural assumption that she was superior to any force that could be brought against her. But that she was always right, or her opponents always cowards, were corollaries that did not necessarily follow. Yet both of these were implicitly believed, not only by supporters at home, but also by the army in America. As to Yankee cowardice, many a Tory could, and later did, warn the troops against belief in it. But now, at any rate, the belief was fully indulged. From it was an easy step to general contempt. Rascal and Scoundrel were common synonyms for Whig. Lord Percy was a brigadier-general and old enough to form his own conclusions, yet after living in the camp at Boston for a month, he gives us a complete analysis of the American character—the summary, no doubt, of British military opinion. "The People here," he wrote home, "are the most designing, Artfull Villains in the World. They have not the least Idea of either Religion or Morality. Nor have they the least Scruple of taking the most solemn Oath on any Matter that can assist their Purpose, tho' they know the direct contrary can be clearly & evidently proved in half an Hour."[52]
We see, then, the situation fully prepared: an inflexible people, a weak governor, a party of believers in divine right, and a contemptuous soldiery. The next event, which all but ended in violence, showed that there needed but a little tenser situation in order to bring about the rupture.
Now occurred the annual oration on the Massacre. Since that tragedy, five years ago, there had been an annual commemoration of it in the form of a speech by one of the Whig leaders. This year the post was one of evident responsibility and even of danger, but Warren, true to his character, solicited the appointment. He announced his subject as "The Baleful Influence of Standing Armies in Time of Peace." On the fifth of March the crowd that came to hear him filled the Old South to the doors.
The chance was one which, had Gage received the orders which were supposed to have been sent him, and had he been the man he ought to have been, he never should have let slip. There in one building were, of the chiefs of the "faction," Warren, Samuel Adams, Hancock, and many lesser men. They could be taken at one blow. Some forty British officers were present, whether to effect a capture or merely to cause a disturbance was not known. At Samuel Adams' instance they were given front seats, or places on the steps of the pulpit. There they listened quietly to Warren's words.
The oration was, in the style of the day, florid; but it was full of genuine feeling. Warren spoke of the rise of the British Empire in America, the hope of its future, the policy of the king, and the Massacre. Turning then to the present situation, he spoke in words which no one could mistake, bolder, perhaps, than ever before had been publicly spoken in the presence of hostile soldiers. He reminded his countrymen of their martial achievements, he spoke of the critical situation, and, while disclaiming the desire for independence, encouraged the colonists to claim their rights. "An independence of Great Britain is not our aim. No: our wish is, that Britain and the colonies may, like the oak and ivy, grow and increase in strength together. But, whilst the infatuated plan of making one part of the empire slaves to the other is persisted in, the interest and safety of Britain as well as the colonies require that the wise measures recommended by the honorable, the Continental Congress be steadily pursued, whereby the unnatural contest between a parent honored and a child beloved may probably be brought to such an issue that the peace and happiness of both may be established upon a lasting basis. But, if these pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears the only way to safety lies through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from our foes, but will undauntedly press forward until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you have fixed your adored goddess, Liberty, fast by a Brunswick's side, on the American throne."[53]
These were fearless words, and full of meaning. Had there been men of sense among the officers present, they must have been impressed by the solemnity of the warning; in fact, they were silent until the end. It was not until after the oration, when the meeting was voting thanks to the orator, that the officers endeavored to interrupt the proceedings. The cry of Fie! was mistaken for that of Fire, and there was a moment's panic. We have opposing accounts of it.
"It was imagined," wrote our discontented Lieutenant of the King's Own, "that there wou'd have been a riot, which if there had wou'd in all probability have proved fatal to Hancock, Adams, Warren, and the rest of those Villains, as they were all up in the Pulpit together, and the meeting was crowded with Officers and Seamen in such a manner that they cou'd not have escaped; however it luckily did not turn out so; it wou'd indeed have been a pity for them to have made their exit in that way, as I hope before long we shall have the pleasure of seeing them do it by the hands of the Hangman."
John Andrews looked at the matter differently. "The officers in general behave more like a parcel of children, of late, than men. Captain —— of the Royal Irish first exposed himself by behaving in a very scandalous manner at the South meeting.... He got pretty decently frighted for it. A woman, among the rest, attacked him and threatened to wring his nose." An outbreak may have been what the officers wanted. "But," says Samuel Adams, who acted on his maxim that it is good politics to put and keep the enemy in the wrong, "order was restored, and we proceeded regularly, and finished the business. I am persuaded, were it not for the danger of precipitating a crisis, not a man of them would have been spared."[54]
The whole was a type of the existing situation. Here were the officers, still causing petty disturbances; here too, no doubt, were Tories, contemptuous of the proceedings. Deeper still appears the real significance of the occasion. On the one side was the governor, unable, with all the power of the king, to prevent a meeting of the citizens to condemn his presence in the town—for the meeting was the "Port Bill meeting," adjourned from time to time since the previous May. And on the other side were the citizens, legally protesting and exasperatingly defiant, evidently under perfect self-restraint, determined not to strike the first blow.
The officers took, as usual, a puerile revenge in the form of a burlesque. "A vast number" of them assembled at the Coffee House in King Street, and chose selectmen and an orator, "who deliver'd an oration from the balcony to a crowd of few else beside gaping officers."[55] Others of them caught a countryman who had been decoyed into buying a musket from a soldier, and tarred and feathered him.
But these were surface trivialities. Beneath them the true situation was growing worse. Out in the country military stores were being collected at Worcester and at Concord; and over in Parliament the fisheries bill, designed to deprive thousands in America of their living, was sure of passing. At last Franklin, who had stayed in London as long as there seemed anything for him to accomplish, patiently bearing humiliation and insults, on the 20th of March took ship for Philadelphia. It was the sign that there was no further hope of peace.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] Bancroft.
[47] Adams Letters, 39.
[48] Andrews Letters.
[49] A Sermon preached at Lexington, April 19, 1776, 26.
[50] His diary is published in the Atlantic Monthly for April and May, 1877, 384 and 544. I shall use it freely without further definite reference.
[51] Frothingham's "Life of Warren," 413
[52] Bulletin of Boston Public Library, x, No. 87, 320.
[53] Frothingham's "Life of Warren," 435-436.
[54] Wells, "Life of Adams," ii, 281.
[55] Andrews Letters.
CHAPTER VII
MILITARY PREPARATIONS
As the spring of 1775 advanced, matters took on a constantly more threatening aspect. The governor's force in Boston was steadily increasing, and was approaching a total of four thousand men. Vessels of war were with equal steadiness being added to the little fleet in the harbor. With each budget of news from England it became evident that Parliament would not yield, and at last came word that Lord North had offered a joint resolution that New England was in a state of rebellion, which both houses pledged their lives and fortunes to suppress. With such a military force at his command, and with such moral support from King and Parliament, Gage was in a position to take decided action.
No one could doubt what that action would be. Since September the province had been gathering its meagre military supplies. It was but common sense to seize them before they could be used. Soon after the new year Gage began his measures. "Genl. Orders," writes disgruntled Lieutenant Barker. "If any officers of the different Regts. are capable of taking sketches of a Country, they will send their names to the Dep. Adj. Genl ... that is an extraordinary method of wording the order; it might at least have been in a more genteel way; at present it looks as if he doubted whether there were any such." However, there were such, and in February the governor chose Captain Brown and Ensign De Berniere (or Bernicre, as the name is sometimes spelled) and sent them out to map the roads.
The little expedition was somewhat absurd, for the disguise which the officers wore was sufficient to conceal them only from their friends. When, at the first tavern at which they stopped, they remarked that it was a very fine country, the black woman who waited on them answered, "So it is, and we have got brave fellows to defend it, and if you go any higher you will find it so." "This," admits Ensign De Berniere, whose account of the expedition was left in Boston at the evacuation, and was "printed for the information and amusement of the curious," "this disconcerted us a good deal." From that time on, any one who took the trouble to "eye them attentively" was in no doubt as to their real character.
They went first to Worcester, where it was possible that the governor might wish to send troops, to protect the courts as well as to seize stores. The weather was rough and snowy, and the officers' task correspondingly difficult; the countrymen, by persevering sociability, kept them in an uneasy state of mind. After roughly mapping roads concerning which the general should long before have had accurate information, the two officers made their way to Sudbury, where they hoped to rest with a sympathizer, after walking in a snow-storm for hours. But the town doctor, though long a stranger at the house, came to call, and the townspeople showed their host various other undesirable attentions, so that in twenty minutes the two officers were glad to leave the place. They arrived again safely at Worcester, "very much fatigued, after walking thirty-two miles between two o'clock and half-after ten at night, through a road that every step we sunk up to the ankles, and it blowing and drifting snow all the way."
In spite of this experience, the two officers, a month later, undertook a similar journey to Concord. In this they succeeded, returning with a rough sketch of the roads, but bringing also their Concord host, who did not think it safe to remain after entertaining them. They brought information that in Concord there were "fourteen cannon (ten iron and four brass) and two cohorns," with "a store of flour, fish, salt, and rice; and a magazine of powder and cartridges."
They might, in their two journeys, have brought better information than that the Concord Whigs "fired their morning gun, and mounted a guard of ten men at night." The stores at Concord had far better protection than these, as the two officers should have learned at Framingham, where they watched the drill of the militia company. "After they had done their exercise, one of their commanders spoke a very eloquent speech, recommending patience, coolness, and bravery (which indeed they very much wanted), particularly told them they would always conquer if they did not break, and recommended them to charge us coolly, and wait for our fire, and everything would succeed with them—quoted Caesar and Pompey, brigadiers Putnam and Ward, and all such great men; put them in mind of Cape Breton, and all the battles they had gained for his majesty in the last war, and observed that the regulars must have been ruined but for them."
Had the two officers known it, every town in the province had just such a militia company, which at set seasons met, and drilled, and listened to good old-fashioned exhortations to valor. It would not take long, therefore, for the neighboring towns to send their companies to reinforce the guard of ten men which Concord set over its stores every night. And yet the province was not satisfied with this ancient militia organization, for it had set up another to strengthen it.
The militia was composed, as it had been since the foundation of the colony, of the whole body of male inhabitants of proper military age. In some cases even clergymen drilled in the ranks. More than once this militia had gathered to repel an expected attack of French or Indians; it had stood between the settlers and their foes from the days of Miles Standish down to the French and Indian War. The martial spirit still prevailed among the youth of the colony, and each town took pride in its company. In 1774 John Andrews thus records his innocent delight in the appearance of the Boston trainbands:—
"Am almost every minute taken off with agreeable sight of our militia companies marching into the Common, as it is a grand field day with us.... They now vie with the best troops in his majesties service, being dress'd all in blue uniforms, with drums and fifes to each company dress'd in white uniforms trim'd in y^e most elegant manner; with a company of Grenadiers in red with every other apparatus, that equal any regular company I ever saw both in appearance and discipline, having a grand band of musick consisting of eight that play nearly equal to that of the 64th. What crowns all is the Cadet company, being perfectly compleat and under the best order you can conceive of, with a band of musick likewise, that perform admirably well. What with these and Paddock's company of artillery make y^e completest militia in America; not a drummer, fifer, and scarcely a soldier but what are in compleat uniforms and thoroughly instructed in the military exercises."
It was this Boston Cadet company that, at the affront to its leader Hancock had returned its standard to the governor and disbanded. Gage knew too well that others of the companies were thoroughly disaffected. In fact, many of the Boston young men left the town before hostilities began, and were ready to join with their country brethren in showing that their military training was worth something.
Yet early in the fall it was recognized in the colony that the militia system was not sufficient, being too slow of movement to meet any such sudden expedition as that which Gage sent to seize the powder. It is not surprising, therefore, to find John Andrews reporting on October 5 the existence of a new body of troops, "which are call'd minute men, i.e. to be ready at a minute's warning with a fortnight's provision, and ammunition and arms." There is doubt of the origin of this body, but it was first officially accepted in Concord, where the town adopted definite terms of enlistment, the more important of which reads:—
"We will ... to the utmost of our power and abilities, defend all and every of our charter rights, liberties, and privileges; and will hold ourselves in readiness at a minute's warning, with arms and ammunition thus to do."[56]
Tradition says that the terms of the enlistment were interpreted literally, and that wherever the minute men went, to the field, the shop, or to church, gun and powder-horn and bullet-pouch were ready to hand. It is scarcely an exaggeration to suppose that, as represented by French's statue, the farmers actually left the plough in the furrow and snatched up the ready rifle.
One further preparation was also made. The rallying point was possibly Worcester, where were the courts and some few stores; but it was more probably Concord. The shortest route to Concord, or to the road between Concord and Boston, was known to the captain of every company of minute men within a hundred miles. But that the captains should be notified of any emergency was essential. A complete system of couriers for spreading news was projected in September, and now was in good working order, so that, with Boston as a radiating point, the summons could be sent over the province with the greatest rapidity. By virtue of his efficiency, trustworthiness, and picturesque personality, Paul Revere is accepted as the type of the men who stood ready for this service.
This system, further, had been tested. The spontaneous response to the Powder Alarm in September had been ready enough, for the men of Connecticut and New Hampshire were in motion before the next day. But through the winter of 1774-1775 there had been minor alarms at each little expedition on which Gage sent his soldiers. By these the new system was proved efficient. Whether the troops marched to Jamaica Pond, to the "punch bowl" in Brookline, or even went, by sea and land, as far as Salem, the militia of the surrounding towns showed a prompt curiosity as to the object of the excursion. These fruitless musters, far from making the minute men callous to alarms, served to prepare them to meet the great occasion which they foresaw would finally come. For that they were in excellent practice.
As to Concord itself, it had become very important. The Congress, which after its first week in Concord had been sitting in Cambridge, now returned, and from the 22d of March until the 15th of April[57] sat daily in the meeting-house. The Committee of Safety remained still longer, busy with the gathering of supplies. It is within this period that Berniere and Brown came on their spying expedition to Concord, and were directed by a woman to the house of Daniel Bliss. A threat of the Whigs to tar and feather her sent her to the officers for refuge, and word presently came to Bliss that the Whigs "would not let him go out of the town alive that morning." This fate the officers and their host avoided by leaving in the night. What became of the woman is not said, but we may be easy about her: no injury, and in fact no serious indignity, was put upon a woman in New England at this period. The officers returned to Boston with a report of the stores in Concord.
This may have increased the anxiety of the Committee of Safety. Already they had voted, "requiring Colonel Barrett of Concord to engage a sufficient number of faithful men to guard the Colony's magazines in that town; to keep a suitable number of teams in constant readiness, by day and night, to remove the stores; and to provide couriers to alarm the neighboring towns, on receiving information of any movements of the British troops."[58] A watch was kept upon the British movements; and finally, when, on the 15th, Warren sent Paul Revere from Boston with warning of suspicious movements, the Committee felt that soon Gage must strike. On the 18th it ordered the removal of some of the stores. "That very night," says Tolman, without knowledge of affairs in Boston, the work was begun.
Meanwhile, in response to another vote of the committee, the British had been under close observation. The vote was that "members of this Committee belonging to the towns of Charlestown, Cambridge, and Roxbury, be required at the Province expense to procure at least two men for a watch every night to be placed in each of these towns, and that said members be in readiness to send couriers forward to the towns where the magazines are placed, when sallies are made by the army by night." In view of these preparations, it scarcely needs to be said that there was nothing accidental about Concord fight. Some day Gage was bound to strike at Concord, and for that day the Whigs were ready.
It is now that Paul Revere comes prominently into the course of events. Revere was a Boston craftsman of Huguenot descent, who was and is well known as a silversmith, engraver, and cartoonist. His prints and articles of silverware sell to-day for high prices, and his house in North Square has recently been fitted up as a public museum, chiefly on account of a single act at a critical moment. One is glad to know, however, that Revere's fame is not accidental. His pictures are historically interesting; we should be the poorer without his prints which give views of Boston, and without his picture of the Massacre. His silver—we have mentioned his punch-bowl for the "immortal Ninety-two"—is usually beautiful. From the foundry which he established later in life came cannon, and church-bells which are in use to-day. And finally his famous ride, the object of which would have been brought about had Revere been stopped at the outset, was but one out of many.
"In the year 1773," says Revere of himself,[59] "I was employed by the selectmen of the town of Boston to carry the account of the Destruction of the Tea to New York, and afterwards, 1774, to carry their despatches to New York and Philadelphia for calling a Congress; and afterwards to Congress several times." Revere does not mention the fact that he was himself a member of the Tea-Party. When he goes on to speak of still more important events, he suppresses the fact that he was one of the leaders, if not the chief leader, of the Boston artisans.
"In the fall of 1774, and winter of 1775, I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves into a committee for the purpose of watching the movements of the British soldiers, and gaining every intelligence of the movements of the Tories. We held our meetings at the Green Dragon Tavern. We were so careful that our meetings should be kept secret, that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible that they would not discover any of our transactions but to Messrs. Hancock, Adams, Doctors Warren, Church, and one or two more.... In the winter, towards the spring, we frequently took turns, two and two, to watch the soldiers, by patrolling the streets all night."
Such was the watch, then, kept upon the royalists, and such were the preparations to receive the troops when they should march out. We know now that Gage was informed of them, for among those whom Revere names as confidants of the mechanics there was a traitor to the cause. Yet though Gage knew of the organization of the Whigs, of its efficiency he had apparently not the glimmer of an idea. It was with no expectation of serious results that, when at last he learned that the resolution declaring the colonies to be in rebellion had passed Parliament, he slowly put himself in motion to seize the stores of the provincials.
The Americans were keenly aware of all his movements. There were two common methods of leaving the town, one by the Neck, the other over Charlestown ferry. But these routes lay through towns, either Roxbury or Charlestown, and to march so openly meant to give the alarm. The Americans were ready for Gage to take a third route: across the Charles by means of boats, and then by unfrequented roads until striking the highway at Cambridge Common. This way the Whigs suspected he might choose, and this they found he did.
Gage's preparations were almost open. The boats of the men-of-war were hauled up and repaired at the foot of the Common. On the 14th, in the night, they were launched, and moored at the sterns of the men-of-war. On the 15th was given out in general orders that "'The Grenadiers and Light Infantry in order to learn Grenadrs. Exercise and new evolutions are to be off all duties till further orders.'—This," remarks Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own, "I suppose is by way of a blind. I dare say they have something for them to do."
This "something" was either one or both of two objectives: the stores at Concord, and the persons of Adams and Hancock, then known to be staying at the house of the Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington. That this latter objective was seriously considered, at least by the Americans, we shall see from Revere's narrative. There never has been proof that Gage endeavored to seize either them or Warren. But in any case the stores were in danger, and strict watch was kept.
There was evidence enough of a coming expedition. As before the Massacre, there were soldiers' rumors that something was to happen, and the name of Concord was whispered about. On the night of the 18th word came in from the country that parties of officers were riding here and there. This same notice was sent by vigilant patriots to Hancock at Lexington. In Boston itself different persons noticed that the troops were astir. Word of all this came from various sources to Warren who, relinquishing for a while his sittings with the Committee of Safety, had for some days been working for it at the post of responsibility and danger. Warren finally decided that he must act. He sent for the men who had pledged themselves for this service, and gave them his directions.
One of these men was William Dawes, of whom, except for his actions on this night, we know little. Obeying his instructions, he took horse, and rode across the Neck to go to Lexington by way of Roxbury and Watertown.
"About ten o'clock," writes Revere, "Dr. Warren sent in great haste for me, and begged that I would immediately set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and acquaint them of the movement, and that it was thought they were the objects." Revere was ready. In returning on the 15th he had arranged signals to his friends in Charlestown to inform them what route the British would take; he knew, also, how he should cross—for the ferry was closed at nine o'clock—and where he should get his horse. From Warren's Revere went home, got his "boots and surtout," and started. Two of his friends rowed him to Charlestown in a boat which was kept ready for the purpose, another was already despatched to make certain of the route the British would take.
Of the person and the actions of this other friend there has been much dispute. The weight of evidence seems to show that on making sure of the route of the British, he went to the Old North Church, still standing in Salem Street, and from its steeple displayed the signal. I make no positive assertion that he spent any time in watching the British; Revere, knowing the route, may have signalled in order to make sure that the news crossed the river, even though he himself might fail. The person who displayed the signals seems to have been one Newman, the sexton of the church, rather than Captain Pulling, a friend of Revere's. At any rate, the signals were hung while Revere was crossing the river to Charlestown. He passed unobserved not far from the Somerset man-of-war, and remarks that "it was then young flood, the ship was winding, and the moon was rising." On landing, his Charlestown friends told him they had already seen the signals. Revere (if we still suppose that he needed to make sure of the route) himself must have taken a look at the signal lanterns, as in Longfellow's poem. "Two if by sea." This poetical language means merely that the troops were preparing to cross the river in their boats. This is the traditional account of Revere's action. A contemporary memorandum states, however, that on landing Revere "informed [us] that the T [troops] were actually in the boats."
"I got a horse," says Revere, "of Deacon Larkin," which horse the deacon never saw again. Before Revere started he again received warning that there were British officers on the road, but he was quite cool enough to take note of the beauty of the night, "about eleven o'clock and very pleasant." Crossing Charlestown Neck, he started on the road for Cambridge, when he saw before him two horsemen under a tree. As Revere drew near, they pushed out into the moonlight, and he saw their uniforms. One of them blocked the road, the other tried to take him, and Revere, turning back, galloped first for Charlestown and then "pushed for the Medford road." Revere made the turn successfully; the officer who followed, ignorant of the locality, mired himself in a clay pond. Revere's road was now clear. He reached Medford, and roused the captain of the minute men; then, hastening on through Menotomy, now Arlington, and thence to Lexington, he "alarmed almost every house." He reached Lexington about midnight, and went directly to the house of the Reverend Jonas Clark, where Hancock and Adams were sleeping under a guard of the militia. Revere asked admittance, and the sergeant informed him that the family had requested that no noise be made.
"Noise!" replied Revere in the phrase familiar to every schoolboy, "you'll have noise enough before long—the regulars are coming out!"[60] The family was accordingly at once aroused.
Meanwhile the troops had actually started. "Between 10 and 11 o'clock," says Lieutenant Barker, "all the Grenadiers and Light Infantry of the Army, making about 600 Men, (under command of Lt. Coll. Smith of the 10th and Major Pitcairn of the Marines,) embarked and were landed on the opposite shore of Cambridge Marsh." This phrasing is not immediately clear to one of to-day. In those days every regiment had two special companies, the heavy-armed grenadiers, so called because they originally carried hand-grenades, and the light-infantry company. These were frequently detached for special duty, as the present, when the Light Infantry would be used for flanking purposes. Thus every regiment in Boston was represented in the expedition—and we may add in the list of killed and wounded on the following day. The number is generally estimated at eight hundred. They were commanded by the colonel who had been longest on duty in New England. Smith was in character too much like Gage himself. The general would have done better to send one of his brigadiers.
One at least of the brigadiers was reasonably alert. According to Stedman, Lord Percy was crossing the Common after learning from the general that a secret expedition had just started. Perceiving a group of men talking together, the nobleman joined them in time to hear one say, "The British troops have marched, but have missed their aim."
"What aim?" asked Lord Percy.
The reply was, "The cannon at Concord." Percy, in much perturbation, at once returned to the general and told him that his secret was known. Poor Gage complained that his confidence had been betrayed, "for that he had communicated his design to one person only besides his lordship."
The student of the time sees in this story a side-thrust at Mrs. Gage, on whom, as an American, the officers were ready to blame the knowledge of secrets which were gained by Yankee shrewdness alone. In this case we have seen that it was Gage that betrayed himself to the eyes of Revere's volunteer watch. The general hastily sent to order the guard at the Neck to let no one leave the town. But he was too late: Dawes was gone, Revere was on the water, and the news was out.
The expedition was bungled at the very start. "After getting over the Marsh, where we were wet up to the knees," says Lieutenant Barker, "we were halted in a dirty road and stood there till two o'clock in the morning, waiting for provisions to be brought from the boats and to be divided, and which most of the men threw away, having carried some with 'em." As they waited there they might have heard signal guns, and learned that in a constantly widening circle of villages, "the bells were rung backward, the drums they were beat." The news had three hours' start of them. At last, at two on the 19th, having "waded through a very long ford up to our middles," wet, dirty, and loaded with the heavy equipment of the period, they started on their march. |
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