confine his attention, however, to the neighbourhood of Boston, but, recognising the advisability of a diversion, and not approving of a suggested plan for the invasion of Nova Scotia, he determined to send an expedition against Canada from Ticonderoga, and to attempt the surprise of Quebec, in order to facilitate an attack on Montreal. Active operations of some kind in some direction were becoming necessary; for the spirit of the troops before Boston did not improve with time. With the approach of autumn, the want of fuel, of warm clothes, and of sufficient shelter, began to prey upon the minds of the soldiers, and a reduction of the daily allowances of food, which the want of means rendered imperative, almost led to a mutiny. A council of war in September unanimously dissuaded Washington from an attack on Boston; and, fretting at the chains which bound him, he remained at his post on the defensive, waiting until a more favourable state of affairs should enable him to begin a campaign. His letters of this period bear testimony to the endless vexations to which he was now subjected. His labours were incessant; his responsibilities terrible; the jealousies of his companions pertinacious, and difficult to be allayed.

In the middle and some of the southern provinces, the revolution progressed with greater slowness than in New England and elsewhere. New Jersey was kept in check by the adroit management of its Governor, William Franklin, the son of Benjamin, who was careful not to offend either party, and who professed to sympathise with most of the patriotic requirements, while deprecating any conduct that had the character of disloyalty. The younger Franklin had, two years before, been described by his father, in a letter to him, as "a thorough Government man." With this disposition the philosopher did not quarrel at the time; but when William continued to adhere to the Royal cause throughout the war, Benjamin made his loyalty a ground of dissension, and even refused an overture of reconciliation from the son. In 1775, however, their divergence was not so great as it afterwards

became, and William Franklin pursued his way without parental admonitions or reproofs. The Provincial Congress made preparations for war, yet at the same time expressed an earnest desire for the re-establishment of harmony with Great Britain. Pennsylvania occupied a similar position of hesitation and compromise. The Penn family, who hel ceased to be Quakers, and were now members of the Church of England, were men of liberal and generous views; but their interests, as well, probably, as their natural inclinations, disposed them to a conciliatory policy. The Quakers, moreover, as the reader has been informed, were strongly averse to the War of Independence, except in particular instances. Some of them, indeed, supported the popular cause even to the extent of drawing the sword. General Mifflin and General Greene were both Quakers, and the ranks of the army were not devoid of members of the Society of Friends.

But

as a rule they ranged themselves on the side of the English, and on several occasions even congratulated the Royal troops on their victories. As a natural consequence, they became objects of general suspicion and abhorrence; and even at the period of which we are now treating, Pennsylvania was regarded as but half-friendly to the ideas which found so much passionate expression in the General Congress assembled in the Pennsylvanian capital. The Assembly appointed a Committee of Safety, but took no very decided measures. Delaware, on the contrary, went heartily with the patriots; so did Maryland, where the infant proprietary—an illegitimate child of the dissolute Lord Baltimore, recently deceasedwas represented by Robert Eden, the LieutenantGovernor. Eden held aloof from partizanship, and refrained from obstructing the popular leaders. Convention, which met at Annapolis in the monta of July, resolved to oppose the Imperial Government by force, and took measures to raise an army and to provide funds. Virginia and New Englan were the two chief leaders in the national movement; but the other colonies also, even to Georgia, grouped themselves, with more or less of fervour, beneath the revolutionary flag.

A

1775.]

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LORD DUNMORE, the Governor of Virginia, lost no opportunity of getting on the worst possible terms with the people whom he was called upon to rule. From the Fowey man-of-war, whither he had fled as a place of refuge from the violence he feared, he conducted his operations against the province and its inhabitants. The Assembly invited him to return; but to this he would not consent, unless they previously accepted the conciliatory propositions of Lord North, which they emphatically declined to do. Dunmore, finding it necessary to meet the members, in order to give his assent to bills that had been passed during the session then about to close, required their presence on board the Fowey. Fearing they might be detained as hostages, they refused, and shortly afterwards voted that the proposal was a high breach of the rights and privileges of the House. They then dissolved; a Provisional Government was established, and Dunmore had no resource but in actual violence. He cherished a belief that he could induce the loyally-disposed to take arms against the rebels, and could obtain the alliance of the negro slaves, by holding up before their eyes a hope of freedom if they sided with the King. It is certain that the blacks were generally attached to the idea of monarchy, and not well inclined to the species of aristocratical republicanism from which they suffered. Yet, when the attempt to rouse them was actually made, some months later, it failed, from causes which we shall shortly see. For the present, matters had not proceeded so far; and the Convention which assembled at Richmond on the 17th of July, 1775, could conduct its deliberations without fear of a servile insurrection. members of that body provided for the military wants of the colony by raising two regiments of regular troops in fifteen companies, and by directing that sixteen regiments of minute-men should hold themselves in readiness for actual service. Patrick Henry was appointed to the command of the first regiment of regulars; and, the military

The

position of the colony being thus settled, the Convention proceeded to the arrangement of its civil affairs. Francis Lee was elected as the Delegate for the ensuing year to the Continental Congress, and a Committee of Safety was formed, with Edmund Pendleton for its head.

Pendleton was a man of loyal inclinations, who declared that a redress of grievances, not a revolution of government, was what he desired. The tendencies of Virginia were less extreme than those of Massachusetts; although even in the more southern colony a feeling of antagonism to the old country was widely diffused. On the present occasion, the members of the Convention declared, before God and the world, that they bore faith. and true allegiance to his Majesty George III., their only lawful and rightful King, and would, so long as it might be in their power, defend him and his Government, as founded on the laws and wellknown principles of the constitution; but that they were also determined to guard their lives and properties, and to maintain their just rights and privileges, even at the extremest hazards. This declaration, whatever its sincerity in the mouths of some, expressed the views of one of the most illustrious of Virginian patriots. Jefferson was disinclined to separation. He thought it better that his country should remain a Dependency of the British Crown than become a distinct Republic. In a letter to John Randolph, dated August 25th, 1775, he said he "would rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation on earth, or than on no nation." But he would on no account submit to the claims of the British Parliament; and in another letter to the same gentleman, written on the 29th of November, he passionately exclaimed: "By the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America. We want neither inducement nor power to declare and assert a separation. It is

will alone which is wanting, and that is growing apace under the fostering hand of our King."* That the will to separate was wanting, may have been true of several; but it was not true of all.

It has been seen that Georgia was the last of the thirteen Provinces to join the Confederation; but by July the amount of discontent in that colony was so serious, that the Governor, Sir James Wright, represented to the English Ministry the urgent need of conciliatory measures. There was not an hour, he said, to be lost: the state of affairs would not admit of the least delay. He even asked leave to return to England, that he might give personal explanations of the dangers by which the Royal authority was threatened in that part of America. The management of Wright, however, was so able and so liberal that no outbreaks of a very alarming character occurred, although a tendency to insubordination appeared every now and then, and a revolutionary Government was formed by a local Congress. South Carolina did not get on so well under the rule of Lord William Campbell. That nobleman met his first Legislature on the 10th of July, two days after receipt of news of the battle of Bunker's Hill; and the intelligence confirmed him in his resolution to oppose the popular party. The summer passed without anything decisive being done on either side; but the feeling of mutual distrust was extreme. The population of South Carolina was very heterogeneous; it included several Germans, with many settlers from different parts of Great Britain; and it was split into two main and rather antagonistic divisions the planters along the coast, and the agriculturists of the interior. The former made a kind of oligarchy-a favoured body, which retained in its own hands the powers of Government and the privileges of election; the latter were the political outcasts of the province. Although the planters were, for the most part, members of the Church of England, their loyalty was questionable, because they did not like the prospect of their exclusive powers being curtailed by the action of the English Government. On the other hand, the working farmers and labourers of the country districts were open to the influence of Royalist agents, because they had nothing to endear them to the existing political condition. Before the summer was over, some armed struggles for the possession of forts had taken place, but without any important result, and, as the autumn approached, a species of truce was agreed to.

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by H. A. Washington. Published at Washington, 1853. Vol. I., pp. 201-3.

The rumour that Indians were to be employed by the Governor added to the perplexities and apprehensions of the time. An agent, named Stuart, was sent to induce the red men to give their warlike services to the King; and to this person Gage wrote a letter from Boston, exhorting him to use his utmost exertions with the aborigines, so that they might distress the rebellious colonists in all possible ways. "No terms," said Gage, "ale now to be kept with them "-meaning the insurgents. "They have brought down all the savages they could against us here, who, with their riflemen, are continually firing upon our advanced sentries. In short, no time should be lost to distress a set of people so wantonly rebellious. Supply the Indians with what they want, be the expense what it will, as every exertion must now be made on the side of Government." This resort to savage allies was a disgraceful feature of the Civil War; but the discredit attaches to English and Americans alike. Both combatants were desirous of strengthening their forces by the wild tribes of the forest; and neither appears to have regarded very much, excepting in so far as its own sufferings were concerned, the wickedness of thus arming remorseless barbarians against civilised men. Gage may pos sibly have confounded the painted and bedizened sharp-shooters of the western settlements with actual savages; but it is well known that, in a thick wood situated near the mouth of the river Charles, a small body of Stockbridge Indians were stationed in aid of the patriotic forces, and that they were armed, not only with their native bows and arrows, but with muskets.† It is also an unquestionable truth that the Americans endea voured, even before the outbreak of actual hostilities, to obtain the assistance of the Indians in the western parts of New York.

Stuart, encouraged in his labours by the emphatic words of Gage, began an active canvass among the Upper and Lower Creeks, the Chickasaws, and other tribes. The leading men of those communities were promised abundance of trade, and many honours, if they would support the King's cause. Ammunition was distributed t them, and they were requested to hold themselves in readiness to act on a concerted plan. The knowledge of these facts added greatly to the exaspera tion of the South Carolinian planters, and inclind them all the more to acts of rebellion. They boarded ships off their coasts, and abstracted more than twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder. Arms were obtained from Hispaniola, and from the West

The fact is stated by Mr. Bancroft himself.

India islands belonging to France and Holland. A free negro, suspected of an intention of piloting British ships up to Charleston-an intention, however, which to the last he denied was hanged without remorse. The ferocity of the southern nature was made painfully apparent in this act, and it is to be feared that the Governor had only too much reason to represent the colony as in a state of anarchy. The loyal were everywhere disarmed, and it was proposed to arrest Lord William Campbell himself. This was over-ruled by a majority of the Committee of Safety; but other daring acts were sanctioned. William Moultrie, colonel of the second regiment of provincial troops, was ordered to take possession of Fort Johnson on James Island. The Governor received information of the design, and accordingly despatched a party to throw the guns and carriages from the platform. He next dissolved the Assembly, and fled on board the Tamar man-of-war, about the middle of September. The fort was then seized by the insurgents, and military preparations went on with great energy. The Royal arsenal was ransacked; new gun-carriages were constructed; and a patriotic flag was devised and manufactured. South Caro lina was in full rebellion,—or at least the planters

were.

North

The Governor of North Carolina looked on these events with an uneasiness which he endeavoured to conceal by threats. He and Lord William Campbell represented in the most vivid colours the terrible consequences which would assuredly ensue on the rebellious conduct of the Carolinians; but the malcontents were not deterred. Carolina was as little inclined to uphold the Royal Government as its southern namesake. Martin, the Governor, thought it prudent to send his family to New York, and himself to retire to Fort Johnston, on the river called Cape Fear. He had formerly been a Lieutenant-Colonel in the English army, and he now solicited to be restored to that position, promising that, if provided with artillery and ammunition, a couple of regiments, and a sufficiency of money, he would bring to his standard the Scotch Highlanders settled in that part of America, raise the people of the upper country, suppress the rebellion in both Carolinas, and hold Virginia and the neighbouring colonies in check. Some approaches were at once made towards organising the Highlanders, who consisted of the greater part of the regiment which had served in America during the last war with France, now turned into peaceful settlers; of members of several clans in the north-west of Scotland; and of humble folks from the isles of Rasay and Skye. Amongst them

185

was the celebrated Flora Macdonald, associated in the minds of most readers with the exciting escape of the Second Pretender in 1746. Her husband, Allan Macdonald, who, with his wife and children, had emigrated to Cumberland county, North Carolina, in 1774, undertook, at the request of Martin, to raise a battalion of his countrymen, of which hẻ was himself to be the Major. But the project soon became generally known, and the malcontent colonists took every precaution to counteract the measures of their opponents.

A summons to elect a new local Congress was issued to the people of North Carolina on the 10th of July by Samuel Johnston, a native of Scotland, to whom had been confided, by the last Congress of the province, the power to make such an order when he thought fit. Governor Martin became alarmed, and, like Dunmore of Virginia, and Campbell of South Carolina, sought refuge on board an armed vessel. This facile desertion of duty had already called forth a sharp reproof from Lord Dartmouth; but the despatch containing it had only just been penned, and Martin knew nothing of its existence. The new Provincial Congress came together at Hillsborough on the 21st of August. It consisted of nearly two hundred members, and Johnston was elected President. A proclamation which Martin had issued, warning the people against the Convention, as tending to rebellion, was voted a false and seditious libel, and it was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. The usual professions of loyalty to the King were not wanting; but these

asseverations were little better than a form to save appearances. Where the King's representative is defied and insulted, it is evident that the King himself cannot be held in much regard. The determination to resist Parliamentary taxation was plainly asserted, and it was resolved that the people of the province, singly and collectively, were bound by the Continental and Provincial Congresses, as elective bodies created by the people themselves. The fact of the Highlanders having been solicited to give their support to the Royal cause had by this time been divulged by one of that nationality; and they were strongly urged, by a committee on the subject, including several Scotchmen, rather to render assistance to the promotion of liberty and colonial right. The province having provided for the military necessities of the time, and authorised an emission of paper money-the usual resource of American communities in times of pressure— Congress proceeded to consider matters of more general and less immediate consequence. Franklin's plan for a Confederacy was discussed, and nearly confirmed, but, on the advice of Johnston, was ulti