The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

The present writer has a relative who is Professor of Theology in a
certain famous University. With that theologian I recently had a
conversation on the matter of which we have just been thinking. The
Professor lamented bitterly the unchristian features of character
which may be found in many people making a great parade of their
Christianity. He mentioned various facts, which had recently come to
his own knowledge, which would sustain stronger expressions of opinion
than any which I have given. But he went on to say, that it would be a
sad thing, if no fools could get to heaven,--nor any unamiable,
narrow-minded, sour, and stupid people. Now, said he, with great
force of reason, religion does not alter idiosyncrasy. When a fool
becomes a Christian, he will be a foolish Christian; a narrow-minded
man will be a narrow-minded Christian; a stupid man, a stupid
Christian. And though a malignant man will have his malignity much
diminished, it by no means follows that it will be completely rooted
out. "When I would do good, evil is present with me." "I find a law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind, and enslaving me to
the law of sin." But you are not to blame Christianity for the
stupidity and unamiability of Christians. If they be disagreeable, it
is not the measure of true religion they have got that makes them
so. In so far as they are disagreeable, they depart from the
standard. You know, you may make water sweet or sour,--you may make it
red, blue, black; and it will be water still, though its purity and
pleasantness are much interfered with. In like manner, Christianity
may coexist with a good deal of acid,--with a great many features of
character very inconsistent with itself. The cup of fair water may
have a bottle of ink emptied into it, or a little verjuice, or even a
little strychnine. And yet, though sadly deteriorated, though
hopelessly disguised, the fair water is there, and not entirely
neutralized.

And it is worth remarking, that you will find many persons who are
very charitable to blackguards, but who have no charity for the
weaknesses of really good people. They will hunt out the act of
thoughtless liberality done by the scapegrace who broke his mother's
heart and squandered his poor sisters' little portions; they will make
much of that liberal act,--such an act as tossing to some poor
Magdalen a purse filled with money which was probably not his own; and
they will insist that there is hope for the blackguard yet. But these
persons will tightly shut their eyes against a great many
substantially good deeds done by a man who thinks Prelacy the
abomination of desolation, or who thinks that stained glass and an
organ are sinful. I grant you that there is a certain fairness in
trying the blackguard and the religionist by different standards.
Where the pretension is higher, the test may justly be more
severe. But I say it is unfair to puzzle out with diligence the one or
two good things in the character of a reckless scamp, and to refuse
moderate attention to the many good points about a weak,
narrow-minded, and uncharitable good person. I ask for charity in the
estimating of all human characters,--even in estimating the character
of the man who would show no charity to another. I confess freely
that in the last-named case the exercise of charity is extremely
difficult.

THE SAM ADAMS REGIMENTS IN THE TOWN OF BOSTON.

THE QUESTION OF REMOVAL.

"God be praised! the troops are landed, and critically too," Commodore
Hood said, after he had received from Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple an
account of his entrance into Boston. The Commodore reflected, with
infinite satisfaction, he wrote, that, in anticipation of a great
emergency, he collected the squadron; that he was enabled to act the
moment he received the first application for aid; and that he was
prepared to throw forward additional force until informed that no more
was wanted: and now, with an officer's pride, he advised George
Grenville, that on the twenty-seventh day from the date at New York of
the order of General Gage for troops, the detachment was landed at
Boston. The two commanders were well satisfied with each other. Hood
characterized Dalrymple as a very excellent officer, quite the
gentleman, knowing the world, having a good address, and with all the
fire, judgment, coolness, integrity, and firmness that a man could
possess. Dalrymple wrote to Hood,--"My good Sir, you may rest
satisfied that the arrival of the squadron was the most seasonable
thing ever known, and that I am in possession of the town; and
therefore nothing can be apprehended. Had we not arrived so
critically, the worst that could be apprehended must have happened."
Both were good officers and honorable men, who believed and acted on
the fabulous relations of the Boston crown officials.

"Our town is now a perfect garrison," the Patriots said, after the
troops were posted, and the rough experiment on their well-ordered
municipal life had fairly begun. It galled them to see a powerful
fleet and a standing army watching all the inlets to the town,--to see
a guard at the only land-avenue leading into the country, companies
patrolling at the ferry-ways, the Common alive with troops and dotted
with tents, marchings and countermarchings through the streets to
relieve the guards, and armed men occupying the halls of justice and
freedom, with sentinels at their doors. Quiet observers of this
strange spectacle, like Andrew Eliot, wondered at the infatuation of
the Ministry, and what the troops were sent to do; while the popular
leaders and the body of the Patriots regarded their presence as
insulting. The crown officials and Loyalist leaders, however, exulted
in this show of force, and ascribed to it a conservative influence and
a benumbing effect. "Our harbor is full of ships, and our town full of
troops," Hutchinson said. "The red-coats make a formidable
appearance, and there is a profound silence among the Sons of
Liberty." The Sons chose to labor and to wait; and the troops could
not attack the liberty of silence.

The House of Representatives, on reviewing the period of the stay of
the troops in Boston, declared that there resulted from their
introduction "a scene of confusion and distress, for the space of
seventeen months, which ended in the blood and slaughter of His
Majesty's good subjects." The popular leaders, who repelled, as
calumny, the Loyalist charge that they were engaged in a scheme of
rebellion, said that to quarter among them in time of peace a standing
army, without the consent of the General Court, was as harrowing to
the feelings of the people, and as contrary to the constitution of
Massachusetts, as it would be harrowing to the people of England, and
contrary to the Bill of Eights and of every principle of civil
government, if soldiers were posted in London without the consent of
Parliament; in a word, that it was as violative of their local
self-government as the Stamp Act or the Revenue Act, and was also an
impeachment of their loyalty. They, therefore, as a matter of right,
were opposed to a continuance of the troops in the town.

The question of removal now became an issue of the gravest political
character, and of the deepest personal interest; and a steady pursuit
of this object, from October, 1768, to March, 1770, gave unity,
directness, and an ever-painful foreboding to the local politics,
until the flow of blood created a delicate and dangerous crisis.

The crown officials and over-zealous Loyalists, during this period,
resisted this demand for a removal of the troops. The officers urged
that a military force was needed to support the King's authority; the
Loyalists said that it was necessary to protect their lives and
property; and the Ministry viewed it as vital to the success of their
measures. Lord Hillsborough,--who was an exponent of the school that
placed little account on public opinion as the basis of law, but
relied on physical force,--in an elaborate confidential letter
addressed to Governor Bernard, urged as a justification of this
policy, that the authority of the civil power was too weak to enforce
obedience to the laws, and preserve that peace and good order which
are essential to the happiness of every State; and he directed the
Governor punctually to observe former instructions, especially those
of the preceding July, and gave now the additional instruction, to
institute inquiries into such unconstitutional acts as had been
committed since, in order that the perpetrators of them might, if
possible, be brought to justice. It is worthy of remark, that there is
nothing more definite in this letter as to what the Ministry
considered to be unconstitutional acts.

As American affairs were pondered, at this period, (October, 1768,) by
Under-Secretary Pownall, a brother of Ex-Governor Pownall, Lord
Barrington, and Lord Hillsborough, in the deep shading of the
misrepresentations of the local officials of Boston, they appeared to
be in a very critical condition. These officials had, however, the
utmost confidence in the exhibition of British power, and in the
wisdom of Francis Bernard. The letters which the Governor now
received, both private and official, from these friends, were, as to
his personal affairs, of the most gratifying character; and their
congratulations on the landing of the troops were as though a crisis
had been fortunately passed. Lord Hillsborough congratulated him,
officially, "on the happy and quiet landing of the troops, and the
unusual approbation which his steady and able conduct had obtained."
Lord Barrington, in a private letter, said,--"There is only one
comfortable circumstance, which is, that the troops are quietly lodged
in Boston. This will for a time preserve the public peace, and secure
the persons of the few who are well affected to the mother-country."
Both these leading politicians--there were none at this time more
powerful in England--expressed similar sentiments in Parliament from
the Ministerial benches: Lord Hillsborough sounding fully the praise
of the Governor, and Lord Barrington, in an imperial strain, terming
the Americans "worse than traitors against the Crown, traitors against
the legislature of Great Britain," and saying that "the use of troops
was to bring rioters to justice."

The sentiment expressed as to the future was equally gratifying to the
Governor. Lord Hillsborough, (November 15, 1768,) in an official
letter, said,--"It will, I apprehend, be a great support and
consolation for you to know that the King places much confidence in
your prudence and caution on the one hand, and entertains no
diffidence in your spirit and resolution on the other, and that His
Majesty will not suffer these sentiments to receive any alterations
from private misrepresentations, if any should come"; and in a private
letter, by the same mail, the Secretary said,--"If I am listened to,
the measure you think the most necessary will be adopted." It is not
easy to see how a Government could express greater confidence in an
agent than the Secretary expressed in Francis Bernard; and the talk in
Ministerial circles now was, as it was confidentially reported to the
Governor, that, as he had nothing to arrange with the faction, and
nothing to fear from the people, he could fully restore the King's
authority.

The tone of the Governor's letters and the object of his official
action, by a thorough repudiation of the democratic principle, and a
jealous regard for British dominion, were well calculated to inspire
this confidence; for they came up to the ideal, not merely of the
leaders of the Tory party, or of the Whig party, but of the England of
that day. There was then great confusion in the British factions.
Ex-Governor Pownall, after comparing this confusion to Des Cartes's
chaos of vortices, remarked, (1768,) in a letter addressed to
Dr. Cooper,--"We have but one word,--I will not call it an
idea,--that is, our sovereignty; and it is like some word to a madman,
which, whenever mentioned, throws him into his ravings, and brings on
a paroxysm." The Massachusetts crown officials were continually
pronouncing this word to the Ministry. They constantly set forth the
principle of local self-government, which was tenaciously and
religiously clung to by the Patriots as being the foundation of all
true liberty, as a principle of independence; and they represented the
jealous adherence to the local usages and laws, which faithfully
embodied the popular instincts and doctrine, to be proofs of a decay
of the national authority, and the cloak of long-cherished schemes of
rebellion. And this view was accepted by the leading political men of
England. They held, all of them but a little band of republican-
grounded sympathizers with the Patriots, that the principles
announced by the Patriots went too far, and that, in clinging
to them the Americans were endangering the British empire; and
the only question among the public men of England was, whether the
Crown or the Parliament was the proper instrumentality, as the phrase
was, for reducing the Colonies to obedience. Lord Barrington, in his
speech above cited, laid most stress on the denial of the authority of
Parliament: all who questioned any part of this authority were
regarded as disloyal; and hence Lord Hillsborough's instructions to
Governor Bernard ran,--"If any man or set of men have been daring
enough to declare openly that they will not submit to the authority of
Parliament, it is of great consequence that His Majesty's servants
should know who and what they are."

Another class of British observers, already referred to, of the school
of Sidney and Milton, lovers of civil and religious liberty, saw in
Boston and Massachusetts a state of things far removed from rebellion
and anarchy. They looked upon the spectacle of a people in general
raised by mental and moral culture into fitness for self-government
and an appreciation of the higher aims of life, as a result at which
good men the world over ought to rejoice, a result honorable to the
common humanity. They pronounced the late Parliamentary acts affecting
such a people to be grievances, the course of the Ministry towards
them to be oppressive, and the claims set forth in their proceedings
to be reasonable; they even went so far as to say that the equity was
wholly on the side of the North-Americans. Thus this class, as they
rose above a selfish jealousy of political power, fairly anticipated
the verdict of posterity. Thomas Hollis, the worthy benefactor of
Harvard College, was a type of this republican school. "The people of
Boston and of Massachusetts Bay," he wrote in 1768, "are, I suppose,
take them as a body, the soberest, most knowing, virtuous people, at
this time, upon earth. All of them hold Revolution principles, and
were to a man, till disgusted by the Stamp Act, the stanchest friends
to the House of Hanover and subjects of King George III."

The representations made to the Ministry, at this time, (October,
1768,) by Bernard, Hutchinson, and Gage, were similar in tone. There
was very little government in Boston, according to Gage; there was
nothing able to resist a mob, according to Hutchinson; so much
wickedness and folly were never before combined as in the men who
lately ruled here, according to Bernard. The Commander-in-Chief and
the Governor sent despatches to Lord Hillsborough on the same day
(October 31, 1768). Gage informed the Secretary that the constitution
of the Province leaned so much to the side of democracy that the
Governor had not the power to remedy the disorders that happened in
it; Bernard informed him that indulgence towards the Province, whence
all the mischief had arisen, would ever have the same effect that it
had had hitherto, led on from claim to claim till the King had left
only the name of the government and the Parliament but the shadow of
authority. There was nothing whatever to justify this strain of
remark, but the idea which the people had grasped, that they had a
right to an equal measure of freedom with Englishmen; but such a claim
was counted rebellious. "I told Cushing, the Speaker, some months
ago," the Governor says in this letter, "that they were got to the
edge of rebellion, and advised them not to step over the line." The
reply of the Speaker is not given, but he was constantly disclaiming,
in his letters, any purpose of rebellion. Now that Bernard saw, what
he had desired to see for years, troops in Boston, he was as ill at
ease as before; and at the close of the letter just cited he says,--"I
am now at sea again in the old weather-beaten boat, with the wind
blowing as hard as ever."

The political winds, however, do not seem to have been damaging any
body or thing but the Governor and his cause. During the month of
October the crown officials urged the local authorities to billet the
troops in the town; but this demand was quietly and admirably met by
setting against it the law of the land as interpreted by just men. The
press was now of signal service; and all through this period of
seventeen months, though it severely arraigned the advocates of
arbitrary power, yet it ever urged submission to the law. "It is
always safe to adhere to the law," are the grand words of the "Boston
Gazette," October 17, 1768, "and to keep every man of every
denomination and character within its bounds. Not to do this would be
in the highest degree imprudent. What will it be but to depart from
the straight line, to give up the law and the Constitution, which is
fixed and stable, and is the collected and long-digested sentiment of
the whole, and to substitute in its place the opinion of individuals,
than which nothing can be more uncertain?" These words were penned by
Samuel Adams, and freedom never had a more unselfish advocate; they
fell upon a community that was discussing in every home the gravest of
political questions; and they were responded to with a prudence and
order that were warmly eulogized both in America and England. This
respect for Law, when Liberty was as a live coal from a divine altar,
adhered to so faithfully for years, in spite, too, of goadings by
those who wielded British power, but forgot American right, must be
regarded as remarkable. Until the close of Bernard's administration,
the town, to use contemporary words, was surprisingly quiet; but
during the remainder of the period of the seventeen months, when
selfish importers broke their agreement and set themselves against
what was considered to be the public safety, they provoked
disturbances and even mobs. Still, in an age when, to use Hutchinson's
words, "mobs of a certain sort were constitutional," the wonder is,
not that there were any, but that there were not more of them in
Boston. Besides, the concern of the popular leaders to preserve order
was so deep and their action so prompt, that disturbances were checked
and suppressed without the use of the military on a single occasion;
and hence the injury done both to persons and property was so small,
when compared with the bloodshed and destruction by contemporary
British mobs, that what Colonel Barre said of the June riots in Boston
was true of the outbreaks at the close of this period, namely, that
they but mimicked the mobs of the mother-country.

The patience of the people was severely tried on the evening of the
landing of the troops, as they filed into Faneuil Hall; and it was
still more severely tried, as, on the next day, Sunday, they filed
into the Town-House. The latter building was thus occupied under an
order from Governor Bernard, who, it was said in the journals, had no
authority to give such an order. The legislature and the courts of law
held their sessions here, and, what was not known then elsewhere in
the world, the General Court was public,--that is, the people were
admitted to hear the debates, while in England the public was
excluded; it was an offence to report the debates in Parliament, and a
breach of privilege for a member to print even his own speech. In
consequence of the political advance that had been made here, the
galleries of the Hall of the House of Representatives, in December,
1767, for eighteen days in succession, were thronged with people, who
listened to the discussion when the most remarkable state-paper of the
time was under consideration, namely, the letter which the House
addressed to their agent, Mr. De Berdt. It now provoked the people to
see these halls, all except the chamber in which the Council held its
sessions, occupied by armed men, and the field-pieces of the train
placed in the street, pointing towards the building. The lower floor
was used as an Exchange by the merchants, who were annoyed by being
obliged daily to brush by the red-coats. All this was excessively
irritating, and needed no exaggeration from abroad. Still it is but
just to the men of that day to present all the circumstances under
which they maintained their dignity. "Asiatic despotism," so says a
contemporary London eulogy on their conduct, which was printed in the
Boston journals, "does not present a picture more odious to the eye of
humanity than the sanctuary of justice and law turned into a main
guard." And on comparing the moderation in this town under such an
infliction with a late effusion of blood in St. George's Fields, the
writer says,--"By this wise and excellent conduct you have
disappointed your enemies, and convinced your friends that an entire
reliance is to be placed on the supporters of freedom at Boston, in
every occurrence, however delicate or dangerous."

While the indignation of the Sons of Liberty, under such provocations,
was as deep as Hutchinson says their silence was profound, there was,
in the local press, the severest denunciation of this use of their
forum. The building is called in print this year, (1768,) the
Town-House, the State-House, the Court-House, and the Parliament-
House. It may be properly termed the political focus of the Province,
and it then bore to Massachusetts a similar relation to that
which Faneuil Hall now bears to Boston. The goodly and venerable
structure that still looks down on State Street and the Merchants'
Exchange has little in it to attract the common eye, much less a
classic taste; but there is not on the face of the earth, it has been
said, a temple, however magnificent, about which circles a more
glorious halo. There is much to relieve the remark of Mayor Otis from
exaggeration. Its humble halls, for over a generation, had echoed to
the appeals for the Good Old Cause made by men of whom it was said
Milton was their great forerunner. Here popular leaders with such root
in them had struggled long and well against the encroachments of
Prerogative. Here the state-papers were matured that first
intelligently reconciled the claims of local self-government with what
is due to a protective nationality. Here intrepid representatives of
the people, on the gravest occasion that had arisen in an American
assembly, justly refused to comply with an arbitrary royal
command. Here first in modern times was recognized the vital principle
of publicity in legislation. Here James Otis, as a pioneer patriot,
poured forth his soul when his tongue was as a flame of fire,--John
Adams, on the side of freedom, first showed himself to be a Colossus
in debate,--Joseph Hawley first publicly denied that Parliament had
the right to rule in all cases whatsoever,--and the unequalled
leadership of Samuel Adams culminated, when he felt obliged to strive
for the independence of his country; and, in the fulness of time, the
imperishable scroll of the Declaration, from this balcony, and in a
scene of unsurpassed moral sublimity, was first officially unrolled
before the people of the State of Massachusetts. Thus this relic of a
hero age is fragrant with the renown of

"The men that glorious law who taught,
Unshrinking liberty of thought,
And roused the nations with the truth sublime."

On the 15th of October, General Gage, with a distinguished staff, came
to Boston to provide quarters for the troops, and was received at a
review on the Common with a salute of seventeen guns by the train of
artillery, when, preceded by a brilliant corps of officers, he passed
in a chariot before the column. The same journals (October 20) which
contained a notice of this review had extracts from London papers, by
a fresh arrival, in which it was said,--"The town of Boston meant to
render themselves as independent of the English nation as the crown of
England is of that of Spain"; and that "the nation was treated by them
in terms of stronger menace and insult than sovereign princes ever use
to each other."

The journals now announced that two regiments, augmented to seven
hundred and fifty men each, were to embark at Cork for Boston; and
General Gage informed the local authorities that he expected their
arrival, and asked quarters for them, when the subject was considered
in the Council. This body now complied so far as, in the words printed
at the time, to "advise the Governor to give immediate orders to have
the Manufactory House in Boston, which is the property of the
Province, cleared of those persons who are in the present possession
of it, so that it might be ready to receive those of said regiments
who could not be conveniently accommodated at Castle William." This
building, as already remarked, stood in what is now Hamilton Place,
near the Common, and for twelve years had been hired by Mr. John
Brown, a weaver, who not only carried on his business here, but lived
here with his family; and hence it was his legal habitation, his
castle, "which the wind and the rain might enter, but which the King
could not enter."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18