Formation of the Union

A >> Albert Bushnell Hart >> Formation of the Union

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[Sidenote: Capture of Quebec.]

It is not evident that at the beginning the English expected more than to
get control of Lake Champlain and of the country south of Lake Erie. The
successes of 1758 led the way to the invasion, and eventually to the
occupation, of the whole country. France sent thousands of troops into the
European wars, but left the defence of its American empire to Montcalm
with 5,000 regulars, 10,000 Canadian militia, and a few thousand savage
allies. England, meanwhile, was able to send ships with 9,000 men to take
Quebec. No exploit is more remarkable than the capture of that famous
fortress. It was the key to the whole province; it was deemed impregnable;
it was defended by superior numbers. The English, after vain attempts,
were on the point of abandoning the siege. Wolfe's resolution and daring
found a way over the cliffs; and on the morning of Sept. 13, 1759, the
little English army was drawn up on the Plains of Abraham outside the
landward fortifications of the city; the fate of Canada was decided in a
battle in the open; the dying Wolfe defeated the dying Montcalm, and the
town surrendered. The fall of the rest of Canada was simply a matter of
time. One desperate attempt to retake Quebec was made in 1760, but the
force of Canada had spent itself. The 2,400 defenders of Montreal
surrendered to 17,000 assailants. The colony of New France ceased to
exist. For three years English military officers formed the only
government of Canada.

18. GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS OF THE WAR (1763).

[Sidenote: European war.]
[Sidenote: George III.]
[Sidenote: The war continued.]

The conflict in Europe continued for three years after the colonial war
was at an end. During 1758, 1759, and 1760 Frederick the Second of Prussia
had held his own, with English aid; he was now to lose his ally. The
sudden death of George the Second had brought to the throne the first
energetic sovereign since William the Third. An early public utterance of
George the Third indicated that a new dynasty had arisen: "Born and bred
in England, I glory in the name of Briton." With no brilliancy of speech
and no attractiveness of person or manner, George the Third had a positive
and forcible character. He resented the control of the great Whig
families, to whom his grandfather and great-grandfather had owed their
thrones. He represented a principle of authority and resistance to the
unwritten power of Parliament and to the control of the cabinet. He had
virtues not inherited and not common in his time; he was a good husband, a
kind-hearted man, punctilious, upright, and truthful. He had, therefore, a
certain popularity, notwithstanding his narrow-mindedness, obstinacy, and
arrogance. Resolved to take a personal part in the government of his
country, he began by building up a party of the "king's friends," which
later supported him in the great struggle with the colonies. In a word,
George the Third attempted to restore the Crown to the position which it
had occupied under the last Stuart. Between such a king and the imperious
Pitt there could not long be harmony. The king desired peace with all
powers, and especially with France; Pitt insisted on continuing aggressive
war. In 1761 Pitt was forced to resign, and Frederick the Second was
abandoned. A change of sovereigns in Russia caused a change of policy, and
Prussia was saved. Still peace was not made, and in 1762 Spain joined with
France in the war on England; but the naval supremacy of England was
indisputable. The French West India Islands and Havana, the fortress of
the Spanish province of Cuba, were taken; and France was forced to make
peace.

[Sidenote: Question of Annexations.]
[Sidenote: Canada ceded.]

In the negotiations the most important question was the disposition of the
English conquests in America. Besides the Ohio country, the ostensible
object of the war, Great Britain held both Canada and the French West
Indies. The time seemed ripe to relieve the colonies from the dangers
arising from the French settlements on the north, and the Spanish colonies
in Florida and Cuba. The ministry wavered between keeping Guadeloupe and
keeping Canada; but if they were unable to deal with 8,000 Acadians in
1755, what should they do with 80,000 Canadians in 1763? Was the
inhospitable valley of the Lower St. Lawrence worth the occupation. And if
the French were excluded from North America, could the loyalty of the
colonies be guaranteed? France, however, humbled by the war, was forced to
yield territory somewhere; Canada had long been a burden on the French
treasury; since concession must be made, it seemed better to sacrifice the
northern colonies rather than the profitable West Indies. Choiseul, the
French Minister of Foreign Affairs, therefore ceded to England all the
French possessions east of the Mississippi except the tract between the
Amitic and the Mississippi, in which lay the town of New Orleans. The
island of Cape Breton went with Canada, of which it was an outlyer. The
wound to the prestige of France he passed over with a jaunty apothegm: "I
ceded it," he said, "on purpose to destroy the English nation. They were
fond of American dominion, and I resolved they should have enough of it."

[Sidenote: Louisiana ceded.]

Meanwhile, the Spaniards clamored for some compensation for their own
losses. The English yielded up Havana, and kept the two provinces of
Florida lying along the Gulf; and France transferred to Spain all the
province of Louisiana not already given to England, that is, the western
half of the Mississippi valley, and the Isle d'Orleans. The population was
stretched along the river front of the Mississippi and its lower branches;
it was devotedly French, and it was furious at the transfer. Of all her
American possessions France retained only her West Indies and the
insignificant islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of St
Lawrence. Thenceforward there were but two North American powers. Spain
had all the continent from the Isthmus of Panama to the Mississippi, and
northward to the upper watershed of the Missouri, and she controlled both
sides of the Mississippi at its mouth. England had the eastern half of the
continent from the Gulf to the Arctic Ocean, with an indefinite stretch
west of Hudson's Bay.

[Sidenote: Interior boundaries.]

The interior boundaries of the English colonies were now defined by
proclamations and instructions from Great Britain. A colony of Canada was
established which included all the French settlements near the St.
Lawrence. Cape Breton was joined to Nova Scotia. On the south Georgia was
extended to the St. Mary's River. Florida was divided into two provinces
by the Appalachicola. The interior country from Lake Ontario to the Gulf
was added to no colony, and a special instruction forbade the governors to
exercise jurisdiction west of the mountains. In Georgia alone did the
governor's command cover the region west to the Mississippi. The evident
expectation was that the interior would be formed into separate colonies.

19. THE COLONIES DURING THE WAR (1754-1763).

[Sidenote: Internal quarrels.]

Seven years of war from 1754 to 1760, and two years more of military
excitement, had brought about significant changes in the older colonies.
It was a period of great expenditure of men and money. Thirty thousand
lives had been lost. The more vigorous and more exposed colonies had laid
heavy taxes and incurred burdensome debts. The constant pressure of the
governors for money had aggravated the old quarrels with the assemblies.
The important towns were all on tide water, and not one was taken or even
threatened; hence the sufferings of the frontiersmen were not always
appreciated by the colonial governments. In Pennsylvania the Indians were
permitted to harry the frontier while the governor and the assembly were
in a deadlock over the question of taxes on proprietary lands. Braddock's
expedition in 1755 was intended to assert the claim of the English to
territory in the limits of Pennsylvania; but it had no aid from the
province thus concerned. Twice the peaceful Franklin stepped forward as
the organizer of military resistance.

[Sidenote: English control.]

In the early part of the war Massachusetts took the lead, inasmuch as her
governor, Shirley, was made commander-in-chief. Military and civil control
over the colonies was, during the war, divided in an unaccustomed fashion.
The English commanders, and even Governor Dinwiddie, showed their opinion
of the Provincials by rating all their commissions lower than those of the
lowest rank of regular British officers. The consequence was that George
Washington for a time resigned from the service. In 1757 there was a
serious dissension between Loudoun and the Massachusetts assembly, because
he insisted on quartering his troops in Boston. At first the colonies were
called on to furnish contingents at their own expense: Pitt's more liberal
policy was to ask the colonies to furnish troops, who were paid from the
British military chest. New England, as a populous region near the seat of
hostilities, made great efforts; in the last three campaigns Massachusetts
kept up every year five to seven thousand troops, and expended altogether
500,000 pounds. The other colonies, particularly Connecticut, made similar
sacrifices, and the little colony of New York came out with a debt of
$1,000,000.

[Sidenote: Colonial trade.]

As often happens during a war, some parts of the country prospered,
notwithstanding the constant loss. New England fisheries and trade were
little affected except when, in 1758, Loudoun shut up the ports by a brief
embargo. As soon as Fort Duquesne was captured, settlers began to pass
across the mountains into western Pennsylvania, and what is now Kentucky
and eastern Tennessee. The Virginia troops received ample bounty lands;
Washington was shrewd enough to buy up claims, and located about seventy
thousand acres. The period of 1760 to 1763 was favorable to the colonies.
Their trade with the West Indies was large. For their food products they
got sugar and molasses; from the molasses they made rum; with the rum they
bought slaves in Africa, and brought them to the West Indies and to the
continent. The New Englanders fitted out and provisioned the British
fleets. They supplied the British armies in America. They did not hesitate
to trade with the enemy's colonies, or with the enemy direct, if the
opportunity offered. The conclusion of peace checked this brisk trade and
commercial activity. When the war was ended the agreeable irregularities
stood more clearly revealed.

20. POLITICAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR (1763).

[Sidenote: Free from border wars.]
[Sidenote: Pontiac's conspiracy.]

In government as well as in trade a new era came to the colonies in 1763.
Nine years had brought about many changes in the social and political
conditions of the people. In the first place, they no longer had any
civilized enemies. The Canadians, to be sure, were still mistrusted as
papists; but though the colonists had no love for them, they had no fear
of them; and twelve years later, at the outbreak of the Revolution, they
tried to establish political brotherhood with them. The colonies were now
free to expand westward, or would have been free, except for the
resistance of the Western Indians gathered about the Upper Lakes. In 1763
Pontiac organized them in the most formidable Indian movement of American
history. He had courage; he had statesmanship; he had large numbers. By
this time the British had learned the border warfare, and Pontiac was with
difficulty beaten. From that time until well into the Revolution Indian
warfare meant only the resistance of scattered tribes to the steady
westward advance of the English.

[Sidenote: Military experience.]

For the first time in their history the colonists had participated in
large military operations. Abercrombie and Amherst each had commanded from
twelve to fifteen thousand men. The colonists were expert in
fortification. Many Provincials had seen fighting in line and in the
woods. Israel Putnam had been captured, and the fires lighted to burn him;
and Washington had learned in the hard school of frontier warfare both to
fight, and to hold fast without fighting.

[Sidenote: United action.]

The war had further served to sharpen the political sense of the people.
Year after year the assemblies had engaged in matters of serious moment
They laid heavy taxes and collected them; they discussed foreign policy
and their own defence; they protested against acts of the British
government which affected them. Although no union had been formed at
Albany in 1754, the colonies had frequently acted together and fought
together. New York had been in great part a community of Dutch people
under English rule during the war; now, as most exposed to French attack,
it became the central colony. Military men and civilians from the
different colonies learned to know each other at Fort William Henry and at
Crown Point.

[Sidenote: Scheme of British control.]
[Sidenote: Theory of co-operation.]
[Sidenote: Proposed taxes.]
[Sidenote: Navigation Acts.]

This unwonted sense of power and of common interest was increased by the
pressure of the British government. Just before the war broke out, plans
had been set on foot in England to curb the colonies; legislation was to
be more carefully revised; governors were to be instructed to hold out
against their assemblies; the Navigation Acts were to be enforced. The
scheme was dropped when the war began, because the aid of the colonies in
troops and supplies was essential. Then arose two rival theories as to the
nature of the war. The British took the ground that they were sending
troops to protect the colonies from French invasion, and that all their
expeditions were benefactions to the colonies. The colonists felt that
they were co-operating with England in breaking down a national enemy, and
that all their grants were bounties. The natural corollary of the first
theory was that the colonies ought at least to support the troops thus
generously sent them; and various suggestions looking to this end were
made by royal governors. Thus Shirley in 1756 devised a general system of
taxation, including import duties, an excise, and a poll-tax; delinquents to
be brought to terms by "warrants of distress and imprisonment of persons."
When, in 1762, Governor Bernard of Massachusetts promised 400 pounds
in bounties on the faith of the colony, James Otis protested that he had
"involved their most darling privilege, the right of originating taxes."
On the other hand, the colonies systematically broke the Navigation Acts,
of which they had never denied the legality. To organize the control over
the colonies more carefully, to provide a colonial revenue for general
colonial purposes, to execute the Navigation Acts, and thus to confine the
colonial trade to the mother-country,--these were the elements of the
English colonial policy from 1763 to 1775. Before these ends were
accomplished the colonies had revolted.

CHAPTER III.

CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION (1763-1765.)

21. REFERENCES.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES.--Justin Winsor, _Handbook of the Revolution_, 1-25,
and _Narrative and Critical History_, VI. 62-112; W. E. Foster, _Monthly
Reference Lists_, No. 79; Channing and Hart, _Guide_, secs. 134-136.

HISTORICAL MAPS.--No. 2, this volume (Epoch Maps, No. 5); Labberton,
_Historical Atlas_, lxiv.; Gardiner, _School Atlas_, No. 46; Francis
Parkman, _Pontiac_, frontispiece; Putzger, _Atlas_, No. 21; B. A.
Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, I. 68 (reprinted from MacCoun, _Historical
Geography_).

GENERAL ACCOUNTS.--R. Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, 158-401; E.
Channing, _United States_, 1765-1865, ch. ii.; Geo. Bancroft, _United
States_ (original ed.) V., VII, chs. i-xxvi. (last revision III., IV. chs.
i-viii.); W. E. H. Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Century_, III. ch.
xii.; R. Hildreth, _United States_, II. 514-577; III. 25-56; G. T. Curtis,
_Constitutional History_, I. i.; J. M. Ludlow, _War of Independence_, ch.
iii.; Abiel Holmes, _Annals of America_, II. 124-198; Bryant and Gay,
_United States_, III. 329-376; Justin Winsor, _Narrative and Critical
History_, VI. ch. i.; T. Pitkin, _United States_, I. 155-281; H, C. Lodge,
_Colonies_, ch. xxiii.; J. R. Green, _English People_, IV., 218-234; W. M.
Sloane, _French War and Revolution_, chs. x.-xiv.; Adolphus, _England_,
II. 134-332 _passim_; Grahame, _United States_, IV. book xi. Biographies
of John Adams, Samuel Adams, Otis, Dickinson, Hutchinson, Franklin, and
Washington.

SPECIAL HISTORIES.--W. B. Weeden, _Economic and Special History of New
England_, II. chs. xviii., xix.; Wm. Tudor, _Life of James Otis_; J. K.
Hosmer, _Samuel Adams_, 21-312; J. T. Morse, _Benjamin Franklin_, 99-201;
M. C. Tyler, _Literature of the Revolution_, I., and _Patrick Henry_,
32-147; H. C. Lodge, _George Washington_, I. ch. iv.

CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS.--Works of Washington, Franklin, Patrick Henry, and
John Adams; James Otis, _Rights of the British Colonies asserted and
proved_: Examination of Franklin (Franklin, _Works_, IV. 161-195); W. B.
Donne, _Correspondence of George III. with Lord North_ [1768-1783]; John
Dickinson, _Farmer's Letters_; Jonathan Trumbull, McFingal (epic poem);
Mercy Warren, _History of the American Revolution_; Thomas Hutchinson,
_History of Massachusetts_, III., and _Diary and Letters_; Joseph
Galloway, _Candid Examination_; Stephen Hopkins, _Rights of the Colonies
Examined_.--Reprints in _Library of American Literature_, III.; _Old South
Leaflets_; _American History told by Contemporaries_, II.

22. THE CONDITION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE (1763).

[Sidenote: England's greatness.]

In 1763 the English were the most powerful nation in the world. The
British islands, with a population of but 8,000,000 were the
administrative centre of a vast colonial empire. Besides their American
possessions, the English had a foothold in Africa through the possession
of the former Dutch Cape Colony, and had laid the foundation of the
present Indian Empire; small islands scattered through many seas furnished
naval stations and points of defence. The situation of England bears a
striking resemblance to the situation of Athens at the close of the
Persian wars: a trading nation, a naval power, a governing race, a
successful military people; the English completed the parallel by
tightening the reins upon their colonies till they revolted. Of the other
European powers, Portugal and Spain still preserved colonial empires in
the West; but Spain was decaying. Great Britain had not only gained
territory and prestige from the war, she had risen rich and prosperous,
and a national debt of one hundred and forty million pounds was borne
without serious difficulty.

[Sidenote: English government.]

It was a time of vigorous intellectual life, the period of Goldsmith,
Edmund Burke, and Dr. Johnson. It was also a period of political
development. The conditions seemed favorable for internal peace and for
easy relations with the colonies. The long Jacobite movement had come to
an end; George the Third was accepted by all classes and all parties as
the legitimate sovereign. The system of government worked out in the
preceding fifty years seemed well established; the ministers still
governed through their control of Parliament; but the great Tory families,
which for two generations had been excluded from the administration, were
now coming forward. A new element in the government of England was the
determination of George the Third to be an active political force. From
his accession, in 1760, he had striven to build up a faction of personal
adherents, popularly known as the "king's friends;" and he had broken down
every combination of ministers which showed itself opposed to him.
Although the nation was not yet conscious of it, the forces were at work
which eventually were to create a party advocating the king's prerogative,
and another party representing the right of the English people to govern
themselves.

[Sidenote: Effect on the colonies.]

This change in political conditions could not but affect the English
colonial policy. The king's imperious tone was reflected in all
departments, and was especially positive when the colonies began to
resist. It cannot be said that English parties divided on the question of
governing the colonies, but when the struggle was once begun, the king's
bitterest opponents fiercely criticised his policy, and made the cause of
the colonists their own. The great struggle with the colonies thus became
a part of the struggle between popular and autocratic principles of
government in England.

23. NEW SCHEMES OF COLONIAL CONTROL (1763).

[Sidenote: Grenville's colonial policy.]

Allusion has already been made (sec. 19) to vague schemes of colonial
control suggested during the war. More serious measures were impending.
When George Grenville became the head of the cabinet, in April, 1763, he
took up and elaborated three distinctly new lines of policy, which grew
to be the direct causes of the American Revolution. The first was the
rigid execution of the Acts of Trade; the second was the taxation of the
colonies for the partial support of British garrisons; the third was the
permanent establishment of British troops in America. What was the purpose
of each of these groups of measures?

[Sidenote: Navigation acts.]
[Sidenote: Effect of the system.]

The object of the first series was simply to secure obedience to the
Navigation Acts (Colonies, Section 44, 128),--laws long on the statute
book, and admitted by most Americans to be legal. The Acts were intended
simply to secure to the mother-country the trade of the colonies; they
were in accordance with the practice of other nations; they were far
milder than the similar systems of France and Spain, because they gave to
colonial vessels and to colonial merchants the same privileges as those
enjoyed by English ship-owners and traders. The Acts dated from 1645, but
had repeatedly been re-enacted and enlarged, and from time to time more
efficient provision was made for their enforcement. In the first place,
the Navigation Acts required that all the colonial trade should be carried
on in ships built and owned in England or the colonies. In the second
place, most of the colonial products were included in a list of
"enumerated goods," which could be sent abroad, even in English or
colonial vessels, only to English ports. The intention was to give to
English home merchants a middleman's profit in the exchange of American
for foreign goods. Among the enumerated goods were tobacco, sugar, indigo,
copper, and furs, most of them produced by the tropical and sub-tropical
colonies. Lumber, provisions, and fish were usually not enumerated; and
naval stores, such as tar, hemp, and masts, even received an English
bounty. In 1733 was passed the "Sugar Act," by which prohibitory duties
were laid on sugar and molasses imported from foreign colonies to the
English plantations, Many of these provisions little affected the
continental colonies, and in some respects were favorable to them. Thus
the restriction of trade to English and colonial vessels stimulated ship-
building and the shipping interest in the colonies. From 1772 to 1775 more
than two thousand vessels were built in America.

[Sidenote: Illegal trade.]
[Sidenote: Difficulty of enforcement.]

The chief difficulty with the system arose out of the obstinate
determination of the colonies, especially in New England, to trade with
their French and Spanish neighbors in the West Indies, with or without
permission: they were able in those markets to sell qualities of fish and
lumber for which there was no demand in England. Well might it have been
said, as a governor of Virginia had said a century earlier: "Mighty and
destructive have been the obstructions to our trade and navigation by that
severe Act of Parliament,... for all are most obedient to the laws, while
New England men break through them and trade to any place where their
interests lead them to." The colonists were obliged to register their
ships; it was a common practice to register them at much below their
actual tonnage, or to omit the ceremony altogether. Colonial officials
could not be depended upon to detect or to punish infractions of the Acts,
and for that purpose the English Government had placed customs officers in
the principal ports. Small duties were laid on imports, not to furnish
revenue, but rather to furnish fees for those officers. The amount thus
collected was not more than two thousand pounds a year; and the necessary
salaries, aggregating between seven and eight thousand pounds, were paid
by the British government.

24. WRITS OF ASSISTANCE (1761-1764).

[Sidenote: Smuggling.]
[Sidenote: Argument of James Otis.]

Under the English acts violation of the Navigation Laws was smuggling, and
was punishable in the usual courts. Two practical difficulties had always
been found in prosecutions, and they were much increased as soon as a more
vigorous execution was entered upon. It was hard to secure evidence, for
smuggled goods, once landed, rapidly disappeared; and the lower colonial
judges were both to deal severely with their brethren, engaged in a
business which public sentiment did not condemn. In 1761 an attempt was
made in Massachusetts to avoid both these difficulties through the use of
the familiar Writs of Assistance. These were legal processes by which
authority was given to custom-house officers to make search for smuggled
goods; since they were general in their terms and authorized the search of
any premises by day, they might have been made the means of vexatious
visits and interference. In February, 1761, an application for such a writ
was brought before the Superior Court of Massachusetts, which was not
subject to popular influence. James Otis, advocate-general of the colony,
resigned his office rather than plead the cause of the government, and
became the leading counsel in opposition. The arguments in favor of the
writ were that without some such process the laws could not be executed,
and that similar writs were authorized by English statutes. Otis in his
plea insisted that no English statute applied to the colonies unless they
were specially mentioned, and that hence English precedents had no
application. But he went far beyond the legal principles involved. He
declared in plain terms that the Navigation Acts were "a taxation law made
by a foreign legislature without our consent." He asserted that the Acts
of Trade were "irreconcilable with the colonial charters, and hence were
void." He declared that there were "rights derived only from nature and
the Author of nature;" that they were "inherent, inalienable, and
indefeasible by any laws, pacts, contracts, governments, or stipulations
which man could devise." The court, after inquiring into the practice in
England, issued the writs to the custom-house officers, although it does
not appear that they made use of them.

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