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CHAP. now to have against them king, lords, and comIII. mons, nearly the whole body of the law, the more

1776.

Sept.

considerable part of the landed and mercantile Oct. interests, and the political weight of the church. The archbishop of Canterbury, in his proclamation for a fast, to be read in all the churches, charged the "rebel" congress with congress with uttering "specious falsehoods;" in a commentary on the declaration of independence, Hutchinson referred its origin to a determined design formed in the interval between the reduction and the cession of Canada; the young Jeremy Bentham, unwarmed by hope, misled by his theories, rejected the case of the insurgents as "founded on the assumption of natural rights, claimed without the slightest evidence for their existence, and supported by vague and declamatory generalities." Yet the reflective judgment of England justifies America with almost perfect accord. The revolution began in the attempt of the British government to add to the monopoly of the commerce of the colonies their systematic taxation by parliament, so that the king might wield with one sovereign will the forces of the whole empire for the extension of its trade and its dominion. On this issue all English statesmen now approve the act of independence. Even in that day, Charles Townshend's policy of taxes in 1767 was condemned by Mansfield and Jenkinson, not less than by Camden and Burke, as "the most absurd measure that could possibly be imagined;" the power of parliament to tax colonies was already given up in the mind of parliament itself, and was soon to be renounced by a formal act.

III.

1776.

Sept.

Blood was first shed in the attempt to enforce CHAP. the alterations in the charter of Massachusetts. The few English statesmen who took the trouble to understand the nature of the change pronounced Oct. it a useless violation of a time-hallowed constitution. But the British parliament has never abdicated the general power over charters; it has, from that day to this, repeatedly exercised the function of granting, revoking, and altering the fundamental law of British colonies; and has interfered in their internal affairs to regulate the franchises of English emigrants; to extend civil privileges to semi-barbarous races; to abolish the slave-trade; and to set free the slave.

The conquest of the United States presented appalling difficulties. The task was no less than to recover by force of arms the vast region which lies between Nova Scotia and Florida; the first campaign had ended in the expulsion of the British from New England; the second had already been marked by the repulse from South Carolina, and by delays. The old system of tactics was out of place; nor could the capacity of the Americans for resistance be determined by any known rule of war; the depth of their passions had not been fathomed: they will long shun an open battleground; every thicket will be an ambuscade of partisans; every stone wall a hiding-place for sharpshooters; every swamp a fortress; the boundless woods an impracticable barrier; the farmer's house a garrison. Wherever the armies go, food and forage and sheep and cattle will disappear before them; a country over which the invaders may

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Sept.

CHAP. march in victory will rise up in their rear with III. life and elasticity. Nothing is harder than to beat 1776. down a people who are resolved never to yield; Oct. and of all persons the English themselves were the least suited to abridge the liberties of their own colonies.

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"Can Britain fail?" asked the poet-laureate of England in his birthday ode. "Every man," said the wise political economist Tucker, "is thoroughly convinced that the colonies will and must become independent some time or other; I entirely agree with Franklin and Adams, to make the separation there is no time like the present." David Hume from his death-bed advised his country to give up the war with America, in which defeat would destroy its credit, and success its liberties. A tough business, indeed," said Gibbon; "they have passed the Rubicon, and rendered a treaty infinitely more difficult; the thinking friends of government are by no means sanguine." It was known that Lord North had declared his intention to resign if his conciliatory proposition should fail. Lord George Germain, who had been assured by refugees that if the king's troops, in the course of the campaign, would alarm the rebels in their rear from Canada and the Ohio, they would submit by winter to the attack from the side of the sea, was embittered against the admiralty for having delayed the embarkations of troops, and against Carleton for his lenity and slowness. "The more money you spend as a naval power the better," said the British secretary at war to Garnier; "it will all be thrown away." "How so?" retorted Garnier; "is not France

III.

1776.

Sept.

bounded on both seas, from Dunkirk to Antibes?" CHAP. But if Barrington did not fear France upon the ocean, the colonial policy of England involved him in difficulties affecting his conscience and his char- Oct. acter. "I have my own opinions in respect to the disputes in America," said he imploringly to the king; "I am summoned to meetings, where I sometimes think it my duty to declare them openly before twenty or thirty persons; and the next day I am forced either to vote contrary to them, or to vote with an opposition which I abhor." Yet when the king chose that he should remain secretary at war and member of the house of commons, he added: “I shall continue to serve your majesty in both capacities." The prospect of the interference of France excited in George the Third such restless anxiety that he had an interview with every Englishman of distinction who returned from Paris or Versailles; and he was impatient to hear from America that General Howe had struck decisive blows.

CHAP.

IV.

CHAPTER IV.

BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND.

AUGUST, 1776.

It was the fixed purpose of Washington "to obey implicitly the orders of congress with a scrupulous 1776. exactness;" and he rejected "every idea of interAugust. fering with the authority of the state of New

York." In obedience to their united wishes, he attempted the defence of New York island. The works for its protection, including the fortifications in Brooklyn, were planned by Lee in concert with a New York committee and a committee from congress. Jay thought it proper to lay Long Island waste, burn New York, and retire to the impregnable Highlands; but as it was the maxim of congress not to give up a foot of territory that could possibly be held, Washington promised "his utmost exertions under every disadvantage;" "the appeal," he said, "may not terminate so happily as I could wish, yet any advantage the enemy may gain, I trust will cost them dear." To protect New York

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