Day-By-Day America

Here’s another member of Parliament speaking out against changing the boundaries and government of Quebec, which was mostly populated by French Catholics and hadn’t been long under British control. George Johnstone, who had formerly been governor of the colony of West Florida (there were two Floridas at that time), said that he thought the Quebec Bill promoted the following ideas:

That a state of Slavery is better than a state of Freedom:

That the Popish Religion is better than the Protestant:

That Juries are unnecessary, and therefore to be disused:

That Monopolies are useful to Trade:

That French Laws and Commercial Regulations are preferable to English:

And that the Constitution which our ancestors had framed with so much wisdom, and established at the expense of so much blood and treasure, is to be destroyed by their wiser sons.

Ouch.

You may wonder why I’m bringing up Quebec again, but you can’t ignore it when studying the American Revolution. And the Quebec Bill in particular, coming as it did at the same time as the Intolerable Acts, and coinciding with fears and prejudices born of past wars with the French, was seen by many Americans as a tyrannical measure.

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Source

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 2, page 204.

Sometimes, it seems that people in the 1700s were speaking a different language than what we speak today; other times, what they said seems just like what you heard on the news yesterday.

There are some interesting statements and arguments to be found among the debates in Parliament in the spring of 1774, when the focus was on tightening Britain’s control over the American colonies — Massachusetts in particular — in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party. I don’t recommend that you read all of the debates and proceedings, unless you really like that sort of thing; you’ll probably get bored after the first page. But here and there you find bits and pieces that enlightening and even entertaining.

For example, while the House of Commons was debating the Boston Port Bill, which stopped all shipping in and out of Boston, a member of Parliament named Henry Herbert supported the bill by saying that “the Americans were a strange set of People, and that it was in vain to expect any degree of reasoning from them; that instead of making their claim by argument, they always chose to decide the matter by tarring and feathering.” Therefore, he implied, the use of force was the proper way to deal with them.

And when Parliament was debating how to reorganize the government of Massachusetts, in order to help the governor (who was appointed by the King) to maintain order, George Byng commented that he was “not…at all surprised at hearing that the Governor of Boston had no power, when he had not a single place in his gift” (meaning that he didn’t have rewards, in the form of government positions and other favors, to dispense to those who supported or followed him). “Men look up to their superiors, and obey their directions according to the emoluments received from them; and when once there is no dependence in it, there will be no obedience.”

In other words: If you’re getting paid, then you’ll listen to your boss; otherwise, you won’t. And if you think you might get a bonus, then you’ll listen to your boss even more.

But perhaps most surprising to people of today would be the debate that took place over the Quebec Bill, which extended the boundaries and changed the government of the province of Quebec. This province had been under English control for just over a decade — since the end of the French and Indian War — and most of the people there were French, and Roman Catholic. This bill was not intended as a punishment to the other American colonies, but to many in both England and America, expanding a French-speaking territory and increasing the authority of its Catholic clergy seemed like a threat. One Thomas Townshend spoke in apparent horror of the bill:

Little did I think that, that a country as large as half of Europe, and within the Dominions of the Crown of Great Britain, was going to have the Romish religion established in it, as the religion of the State.

Little did I think, that so many thousand men, entitled and born to the rights of Englishmen, settling on the faith of the King’s proclamation, should, contrary to that assistance, contrary to the idea of the constitution, be subjected to French Papists [i.e. supporters of the Pope], and French laws.

That sounds like religious intolerance to us, and I suppose it is. But it must be remembered that the people of England and America were mostly Protestant, that religious wars between Catholics and Protestants were part of the not-too-distant past, and that Britain and France had been bitter rivals for generations.

Even though they talked a bit differently, and even though the current events on their minds were different than the ones we’re worried about, can you see anything similar between the arguments used in the 1770s and the 2010s?

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Sources

Henry Herbert, speech in Parliament, 21 March 1774; American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, 42.

George Byng, speech in Parliament, 28 March 1774; American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, 68.

Thomas Townshend, speech in Parliament, 18 May 1774; American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, 180.

A short passage from the Parliamentary record from June 1774 goes a long way toward illustrating the political climate in Britain at that time. A motion had been made and seconded to summon an additional witness to provide information about Canada (Parliament was debating a bill about Quebec). The Prime Minister, Lord North, was against the motion, not least because it would delay the bill, which he supported:

Mr. Dempster, Governor Johnstone, Mr. Burke, Mr. Baker, Mr. Turner, &c., spoke in favour of the motion, and none but Lord North against it.

When the question was put, the House divided: Yeas, 36; Nays, 90.

So it passed in the Negative.

Even before that, four other people had spoken in support of the motion. But it didn’t matter. They could talk all they wanted. Their opponents, on the other hand, didn’t need to talk much; they had numbers on their side, so all they had to do was vote.

The Quebec Bill wasn’t one of the “Intolerable Acts,” aimed at punishing Boston for the Tea Party — though many Americans saw it that way — but the same sort of thing happened in many of the debates regarding those acts. If you read the debates, the arguments of the opposition seem eloquent, forceful and persuasive; but the votes fell on the other side. You can argue all you want, but actions speak louder than words.

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Source

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, page 203.

On the 25th of January [1774] a great number of rioters in the town of Boston, committed a most inhuman act of violence upon the person of John Malcolm.

Parliament was considering how to “better [secure] the execution of the Laws, and the just dependence of the Colonies upon the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain” — that was what the King had asked them to do — and in the process, they were reviewing a number of letters, newspapers and reports about the American colonies. This particular account came from a letter from Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that would inspire the members of Parliament to be lenient toward the people of Boston in the aftermath of the Tea Party.

John Malcolm (or Malcom) was a customs officer, and he wasn’t very well liked. Not only was his job the sort that could easily make a man unpopular (since he enforced trade regulations), but he had a nasty temper. He had been tarred and feathered a few months before when he evidently pushed his authority too far, but apparently that hadn’t taught him to be more diplomatic. Here’s the account of his second run-in with a mob, as a Parliamentary committee recorded it:

This unfortunate man having afterwards been hooted at in the streets, was provoked on the 25th, by a tradesman, who, he alleged, had several times before affronted him, to strike him with his cane; in consequence of which a warrant was issued against him, but the constable not being able to find him, a mob gathered about his house in the evening, and having broke his windows, he pushed through the broken window with his sword, and gave a slight scratch to one of the assailants; soon after which the mob entered his house, lowered him by a rope from an upper chamber into a cart, tore his clothes off, tarred his head and body, feathered him, and dragged him through the main street into King Street, from thence to Liberty Tree, and from thence to The Neck, as far as the gallows, where they whipt him, beat him with sticks, and threatened to hang him. Having kept him under the gallows above an hour, they carried him back in the same manner, to the extremity of the north end of the town, and returned him to his own house, so benumbed by the cold, having been naked near four hours, and so bruised, that his life was despaired of.

The man that Malcolm hit with a cane was none other than George Hewes, one of the “Indians” who had destroyed the tea in Boston harbor a month earlier (see his account in my previous post). Hewes reportedly came upon Malcolm threatening to hit a boy with his cane; he tried to stop him, and Malcolm decided to hit him instead. That was the spark that started the mob on fire that day, but they wouldn’t have gone so far if Malcolm hadn’t already been so unpopular. As the Parliamentary record put it, “Mr. Malcolm [had] for some time before been threatened by the populace with revenge for his free and open declarations against the late proceedings [such as the Boston Tea Party, and] had occasionally indiscreetly given them provocation.” That was putting it a bit mildly; but to Parliament, it was just one more stick on the fire; it encouraged them all the more to punish Boston harshly for the Tea Party.

For more on Malcolm’s tarring and feathering, see The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr (an odd name but a valuable resource) or The Epic Tarring and Feathering of John Malcom.

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Source

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, p. 31.

I suppose I should take a step back and say something more about the Boston Tea Party. It’s one of the most important events leading up to the American Revolution, so it’s certainly worth talking about. And it makes a great story — after all, who would have thought that dumping a bunch of tea in the ocean would eventually lead to an eight-year war?

The problem with the tea was NOT taxes. Taxes were one of the main things that the colonies and the British government had been fighting about for years, but this time it was different. The Tea Act didn’t change the tax on tea; in fact, it made it so the colonists could buy tea cheaper than before. But in doing so, it gave the East India Company an unfair advantage — a monopoly, really — in the tea market. Not surprisingly, colonial merchants weren’t too fond of that. And the idea that Parliament might do the same thing for other types of goods was just too much. That was why the radicals succeeded in uniting so many colonists to oppose this law.

The East India Company sent shiploads of tea to four cities in America. At New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, South Carolina, mass meetings and protests prevented the tea from being unloaded and sold. But in Boston, things came down to a standoff: the governor (who was appointed by the King) wouldn’t let the tea ships leave, and the rebellious citizens (led by Samuel Adams and others) wouldn’t let them unload their cargo. On December 16th, 1773, the issue came to a head.

George Hewes, who participated in the Boston Tea Party, recalled many years later:

It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin’s wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination.

The “tea party” had been well planned and was carried out in an orderly manner. The “Indians” split into three groups, boarded the three ships, and asked the captains for the keys to the cargo holds.

We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water.

In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and throws overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.

While the tea was being thrown overboard, some people tried to sneak some of it into their pockets for their own use. Some of them were caught, but others doubtless went home with some free tea. The next morning, people went out in boats to destroy any tea that was still floating.

This unique demonstration was like a match that lit the fuse to a bomb. The King and Parliament were outraged, and they passed several laws that became known as the Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts. Those laws fired things up even more, especially in Massachusetts, until the bomb finally went off in April of 1775.

 

During the summer of 1774, political leaders throughout the American colonies debated on what to do about British policies. Some said they should try to put pressure on Britain by not buying merchandise from them. Others focused on preparing for war, in case that should ever happen. Others wanted to simply keep asking the King and Parliament to reconsider, to listen to reason, to take a different approach toward the colonies.

Bryan Fairfax was one of the latter. He was a close friend of George Washington, and while he strongly believed that American rights were being violated by British policies, and he was ready to stand firmly for what he believed, he favored the approach of asking: asking for justice, for the British government to changes policies — rather than trying to force them into it. He thought that a petition would be better than a boycott.

One reason he gave for this opinion was that while a lot of Americans talked big, they might not put their money where their mouth was. If the colonists decided to stop buying British goods, they would be making things harder for themselves; a lot of things weren’t manufactured much in America, and people would have to do without. You can understand that if you’ve ever gone on a diet: it’s not hard to say that you won’t eat any ice cream, but following through with that is another thing…

Fairfax wrote to George Washington, explaining his position and urging that they send another petition to the King, to ask for — rather than demand — a change in policies. Washington responded (it was on July 4th, of all days):

As to your political sentiments, I would heartily join you in them, so far as relates to a humble and dutiful petition to the throne, provided there was the most distant hope of success. But have we not tried this already? Have we not addressed the Lords, and remonstrated to the Commons? And to what end? Did they deign to look at our petitions? Does it not appear, as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness, that there is a regular, systematic plan formed to fix the right and practice of taxation upon us? Does not the uniform conduct of Parliament for some years past confirm this? Do not all the debates, especially those just brought to us, in the House of Commons on the side of government, expressly declare that America must be taxed in aid of the British funds, and that she has no longer resources within herself? Is there any thing to be expected from petitioning after this? Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the people of Boston, before restitution of the loss to the India Company was demanded, a plain and self-evident proof of what they are aiming at? Do not the subsequent bills (now I dare say acts), for depriving the Massachusetts Bay of its charter, and for transporting offenders into other colonies or to Great Britain for trial, where it is impossible from the nature of the thing that justice can be obtained, convince us that the administration is determined to stick at nothing to carry its point? Ought we not, then, to put our virtue and fortitude to the severest test?

Washington wasn’t a flaming radical. If he were alive today, you wouldn’t find him as a TV or radio talk show host. He stood for ideals, but he was a realist. (Or, to irreverently borrow a phrase from Meredith Willson’s song “Shipoopi,” in The Music Man, he had his “head in the clouds, feet on the ground.”) His own virtue and fortitude would soon be put to a very severe test; almost exactly a year after he wrote this letter, he took command of the newly-formed, makeshift American army near Boston, and he spent the next eight years working and fighting for his ideals. Without a lot of virtue and fortitude, he wouldn’t have made it through that test. Fairfax wasn’t sure that the colonists would be able to carry through with their plan; Washington wasn’t sure either, but he saw no viable alternative, and he was determined to do what he could.

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Source

“From George Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 4 July 1774,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified March 30, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0075. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 109–110.]

No matter what happened, the American colonists were going to need a lot of help. They couldn’t change the policies of the British government, though they did try. They couldn’t stop the shiploads of redcoats who were landing in Boston to enforce the “Intolerable Acts.” They did what they could to help the people of Boston and to stand firmly for their rights, but there was only so much they could do. And so, almost a year before the war began, the Virginia House of Burgesses decided to ask for divine help:

This House, being deeply impressed with Apprehension of the great Dangers to be derived to British America, from the hostile Invasion of the City of Boston, … whose Commerce and Harbour are on the 1st Day of June next to be stopped by an armed Force, deem it highly necessary that the said first Day of June be set apart by the Members of this House as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, devoutly to implore the divine Interposition for averting the heavy Calamity, which threatens Destruction to our civil Rights, and the Evils of civil War; to give us one Heart and one Mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper Means, every Injury to American Rights, and that the Minds of his Majesty and his Parliament may be inspired from above with Wisdom, Moderation, and Justice, to remove from the loyal People of America all Cause of Danger from a continued Pursuit of Measures pregnant with their Ruin.

They knew the saying, “God helps those who help themselves,” and they weren’t going to sit around and do nothing. But they knew they would need all the help they could get.

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Source

The Spirit of ‘Seventy-Six, ed. Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, 22.

It’s interesting to get a chance to see yourself through someone else’s eyes — especially if that person has a very different perspective from yours. But it’s even rarer and more interesting to get a glimpse through the eyes of someone who was once on the other side but then decided to join your side.

A lot of people deserted during the Revolutionary War. Some, especially on the American side, just went home when they got a taste of real battle, or when they didn’t feel like living under army discipline any more. But many — both British and Americans — deserted to the other side. Maybe they did it on grounds of principle; maybe it was purely self-serving; maybe they just figured the other side would win. After all, the grass is always greener on the other side, and who wants to be on the losing team anyway?

I’d like to tell a little of the story of one man who deserted in late 1774 or early 1775, before the war started. I don’t know his name or much about him, only that he deserted from a British regiment in Boston, with some help, and made his way to Charleston, South Carolina. He was evidently a young man who had some wild living in his past — “my days of folly”, he called it. In February 1775, he wrote to his father, who was a tradesman in York, England, to convince him how much he had matured, and to tell him why he hadn’t written in so long:

Honoured Father,

From the tender affection you always professed for me, your unworthy child, I can easily conceive the pangs your heart must have felt at my long but involuntary silence; know then, that I am now as happy and free as I could wish; unless being denied the liberty of returning to my native land, for the pleasure of seeing you, and convincing you that I have lived over my days of folly. How I came to this place it is necessary to inform you. After our regiment arrived at Boston, I found my wretched situation made so much worse by confinement (although I had obtained a halbert) that I resolved to take the first opportunity of leaving my colours; it was a considerable time before I could do it with safety; at last, with the assistance of a young fellow from Shields, I effected my escape; but the fatigue I suffered for the first [day], from a hurry of spirits, and the labour of walking, is as much beyond my abilities to describe, as is the infinite joy I felt the second day, when I found myself once more possessed of liberty and safety.

The hospitable kindness I received from the county people, in my way from Boston to this place, is beyond my description; if I could have rode an hundred horses I might have had them; every man that owned one offered him to me, and all brought me out their best fare. Before I knew these people, I was shocked at the thought of being sent out to cut their throats, and resolved not to turn human butcher, for it is no better, to destroy my friends and countrymen. Now I know them, I find them the best hearted, generous people in the world, ready to give everything to strangers. I am now down at Charles Town, and have several engagements offered me, to be clerk on different plantations, but I intend accepting a plot of land that is offered me, some distance from this town, where the gentlemen have proposed to build me a house, give me some tools, and lend me some negroes to settle…

We hear several regiments are coming out [from England]; if that is true, they can do nothing in this country. I understand it is determined to oppose them, though that will be unnecessary, for there were not three men in my company who would fire on the people of this country; I am sure there was not one Englishman or Irishman that would do so; be assured, if the army moves up the country, they will soon want a number of recruits, as all the men know they can change a life of beggary, as well as slavery, for liberty, and have a portion of land forever…

The people here that know most, tell me their troubles will soon be over, and some of the great men at home must suffer, and then there will be pardon for all deserters; when that happens I shall certainly come once more to Old England, to see my aged parents and dearest friends…

It sounds like this young soldier was inclined to wishful thinking. Things didn’t turn out as nicely as he hoped: there were plenty of redcoats quite willing to shoot rebels, the war dragged on a long time, and the British never issued a pardon for all deserters.

As I read his letter, I wonder whether he really got the land he had been promised, and whether he was successful at starting his own farm. I wonder whether he ever regretted his decision to leave the British army, and whether he was involved in any fighting during the war. I wonder whether he was ever caught by the British (if so, he was probably executed). And I wonder whether he ever saw his parents again.

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Source

Letters on the American Revolution, 1774-1776, ed. Margaret Wheeler Willard, 60-62.

A lot has been said about the extraordinary marksmanship of the American colonists and how it helped win the Revolutionary War. A lot of that is exaggerated, but it is true that many Americans, having grown up in a semi-frontier land, were more proficient with firearms than many of the British soldiers. John Andrews, a Boston merchant, described an incident in Boston in the fall of 1774 that illustrated this:

It’s common for the soldiers to fire at a target fixed in the stream at the bottom of the common. A countryman stood by a few days ago, and laugh’d very heartily at a whole regiment’s firing, and not one being able to hit it. The officer observ’d him, and asked why he laughed. Perhaps you’ll be affronted if I tell you, reply’d the countryman. No, he would not, he said. Why then, says he, I laugh to see how awkward they fire. Why, I’ll be bound I hit it ten times running. Ah! will you, reply’d the officer; come try: Soldiers, go and bring five of the best guns, and load ’em for this honest man. Why, you need not bring so many: let me have any one that comes to hand, reply’d the other, but I chuse to load myself. He accordingly loaded, and ask’d the officer where he should fire? He reply’d, to the right — when he pull’d tricker, and drove the ball as near the right as possible. The officer was amaz’d — and said he could not do it again, as that was only by chance. He loaded again. Where shall I fire? To the left — when he perform’d as well as before. Come! once more, says the officer. — He prepar’d the third time. — Where shall I fire naow? — In the Center. — He took aim, and the ball went as exact in the middle as possible. The officers as well as soldiers star’d, and tho’t the Devil was in the man. Why, says the countryman, I’ll tell you naow. I have got a boy at home that will toss up an apple and shoot out all the seeds as its coming down.

Not that marksmanship won the war. Battles weren’t fought by snipers; they were fought by men standing in ranks (more or less), firing together, charging together, fighting with bayonets and with cannons loaded with grapeshot (in effect, giant shotguns). A determined charge could overwhelm a group of crack shots, as was shown time and time again. But in small skirmishes and hit-and-run actions, a good shot could make a big difference. And so, in some cases, could a shot not taken — such as when a British rifleman decided not to shoot at an American officer who was looking at the lay of the land — only to find out later that the officer he had spared was George Washington!

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Source: Letters of John Andrews, Esq., of Boston. In Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 8, 371-72.

Without having some say in the government, the people of Massachusetts wouldn’t be as able to resist British authority — at least, that was the idea. The common people were causing too many problems, and they shouldn’t be allowed to meddle in politics. Obviously, the situation in Massachusetts was out of control, and some action had to be taken to discipline the unruly colonists and bring them back under British control.

Those were some of the reasons why the British Parliament passed a law in May 1774 to change the structure of government in Massachusetts. This was another of the “Intolerable Acts” which came as a reaction to the Boston Tea Party. Up to this point, the colony’s government had operated on the basis of a charter granted by the King in 1691; now the charter was repealed and a new form of government was introduced.

For one thing, the Massachusetts Council would be appointed by the governor rather than elected by the House of Representatives. Since the governor himself was appointed by the King, this ensured that the council members would be supporters of British policies. The governor was also given control over the town meetings. And the governor who had been appointed around this time was Thomas Gage, a British general.

Lord George German, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, had no patience with the common people of Massachusetts being involved in their own government:

I would not have men of a mercantile cast every day collecting themselves together and debating about political matters; I would have them follow their occupations as merchants, and not consider themselves as ministers of that country. … You have, Sir, no government, no governor; the whole are the proceedings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble, who ought, if they had the least prudence, to follow their mercantile employment and not trouble themselves with politics and government, which they do not understand.

Germain was a haughty man, accustomed to being in authority and being obeyed, but he wasn’t exactly alone in his point of view (and we can’t say that his view has died out in our time, either). Many members of Parliament agreed that the colony’s government should be run primarily by those who took their side. They had no intention of letting the colonists get out of their control any more.

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Source: The Spirit of ‘Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by Participants. Bicentennial Edition. Page 13.