secutions should be commenced, and no further confiscations be made; and that all persons in prison on political charges should be set at liberty. The seventh article stipulated that there should be a firm and perpetual peace between his Britannic Majesty and the said States; that all prisoners on both sides should be set at liberty; that his Britannic Majesty should, with all convenient speed, and without causing any destruction, or carrying away any negroes or other property of the American inhabitants, withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets from the said United States; and that he should order the restitution of all archives, records, deeds, and papers, belonging to any of the said States, or their citizens, which in the course of the war might have fallen into the hands of his officers. By the eighth article, it was agreed that the navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, should for ever remain free and open, both to the subjects of Great Britain and to the citizens of the United States. The ninth and last article provided that, supposing it should so happen that any place or territory belonging to Great Britain or the United States should be conquered by the arms of either from the other before the arrival of the preliminary articles in America, the same should be restored without difficulty, and without compensation being required. To these provisions was added a secret article respecting the limits of West Florida, in case, at the close of the war, that province should be, or should be put, in possession of Great Britain. The clause prohibiting the carrying away of " negroes or other property" was interlined, on the demand of Laurens (a South Carolinian), after the preliminaries had been drawn up. The principle of slavery was thus recognised in the very document which secured the liberty of the United States; but it was understood that free negroes were to be regarded among the citizens of the young Republic. The English Ministry were at one time not without hope that they would be able to lay before Parliament, on its assembling, the French and Spanish preliminary articles, as well as the American. But the prolonged diplomatic struggle made by Spain for the restitution of Gibraltar, in which for awhile she was supported by France, thwarted this hope; so that in the Speech from the Throne the King could refer only to the provisional agreement with his sometime colonies. The two Houses met on the 5th of December, when his Majesty announced that he had gone the full length of the powers vested in him by the Legislature, and had offered to declare the colonies of North America free and independent States. "In thus admitting their separation from the Crown of these kingdoms," continued the King, in words which, coming from the source they did, were both natural and affecting, "I have sacrificed every consideration of my own to the wishes and opinion of my people. I make it my humble, and earnest prayer to Almighty God that Great Britain may not feel the evils which might result from so great a dismemberment of the Empire; and that America may be free from the calamities which have formerly proved in the mother country how essential monarchy is to the enjoyment of constitutional liberty. Religion, language, interest, affections, may, and I hope will, yet prove a boad of permanent union between the two countries. To this end, neither attention nor disposition on my part shall be wanting." A painful duty was never more gracefully performed. No amendment to the Address was moved in either House; but several members of the Opposition attacked the Government with great vehemence. The Provisional Treaty was not yet laid before Parliament, yet its bare announcement provoked many expressions of dissatisfaction. Fot again contended, as he had always done, that the acknowledgment of independence should have preceded the negotiations; which was equivalent to saying that England should have deprived herself, at the outset, of every means of resisting extreme demands on the part of the Americans But he found very little support in this view: and Lord North, his ancient enemy, with whom he was shortly to form a coalition, gave it as his opinion that the renunciation by England of her sovereignty over the colonies could not have been justified unless by making it the price of peace. Burke, on the Report of the Address being brought up, described the King's Speech as a medley of hypocrisy and nonsense. Fox said that he detested and despised it; and both taunted Shelburne with having formerly contended that to give up the colonies would be the ruin of England. The Premer replied-and nothing could be more fair or reasonable than such an answer-that his opinion was unchanged, but that he yielded to absolute neces sity; and half a year before he had expressed his belief that the country would in time recover even from this great calamity. On the 23rd of Decenber the two Houses adjourned for a month; and Government hoped in the meanwhile to conclu le preliminaries of peace with France and Spain. 1782.] PARTISAN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA. 467 CHAPTER LIV. Movements of the French Army in the United States-Acts of Violence committed by American Partisans of EnglandSeverities of Delancey-Atrocities of David Fanning-Conciliatory Policy adopted by Sir Guy Carleton-Financial Measures of Robert Morris-Establishment of a National Bank-Desperate Condition of the Union for Want of Funds-Failure of Several of the States to furnish their Quotas of Taxes-State of the South-Condition of the Paper Currency in 1782-Morris's Proposals-Suggestions for Federal Reform-Washington and Greene on the Necessity of greater Federal Powers-Utter Poverty of the National Government-Peace Negotiations of England with France and SpainDifficulties raised by the latter Power-Conclusion of Preliminary Treaties-Articles affecting America-Debates in Parliament, and Fall of the Shelburne Ministry-Coalition between Fox and Lord North-Factious Conduct of FoxRe-arrangement of Commercial Intercourse between England and America-Provision for the Refugees-Increase of the National Debt-The Moral of the War. André as Adjutant-General of the British army; and it was he who, on the 13th of May, 1781, commanded in an attack on Croton Bridge, which resulted in the death, under circumstances of great barbarity, of Colonel Christopher Greene, of Rhode Island, a relative of General Nathaniel Greene, and himself an officer who had acquired distinction in the Canadian campaign of 1775, and on subsequent occasions. In April, 1782, Delancey caused three rebels to be publicly executed within the British lines; but for this he seems to have had some excuse in the cruelties practised by the revolutionary Americans on their loyalist fellow-countrymen. It was in the South, however, that these excesses mainly took place during the year 1782. A ruffian named David Fanning, who held a British commission as colonel of the loyal militia in Randolph and Chatham counties, North Carolina, with authority to grant commissions to others as captains and subalterns, committed, on his own showing, many acts of the utmost atrocity. ALTHOUGH there could be little doubt, as the year his unsparing severities. Delancey succeeded 1782 progressed, that a peace would be speedily concluded, it was held by the Americans and their allies to be but prudent to keep themselves prepared for the worst. The policy now favoured by the British Parliament, and adopted by Government, of maintaining nothing more than a posture of defence, relieved the Americans of any immediate apprehensions; but the French thought that Clinton might consider himself free to send a portion of his troops to the West Indies, to act there against the possessions of France. In course of the summer, Washington wrote to Rochambeau, advising him to march his regiments to the banks of the Hudson, and form a junction with the forces of the United States. The counsel was accepted, and, about the middle of September, the French crossed the Hudson at King's Ferry to Verplank's Point, whence they afterwards removed to the neighbourhood of Crompond, some ten miles off. Washington concentrated his army at his former encampment about Newburgh, where he established his headquarters for the winter. Near the end of October, the French troops marched towards the North-eastern States, under pretence of wintering there, but in reality with the design of embarking for the West Indies. They arrived at Boston in the first week of December, and on the 29th of that month sailed in the fleet of the Marquis de Vaudreuil for their place of destination. Acts of violence continued to be perpetrated in various directions; but they were mainly due to the American partisans of British rule. These These men were sometimes persons of the worst character, who acted with the ferocity of brigands; and their rage and cruelty were experienced in all parts of the Union. The neighbourhood of New York, as the reader is aware, suffered terribly from the lawless devastations of irregular partisans on both sides; and the loyalist, Captain James Delancey, of West Chester, here earned an evil renown by On the 12th of March, this man set out with his companions, to give the rebels what he called "a small scourge." The first place they visited was the plantation of Andrew Balfour, of Randolph county, formerly of the State Legislature, and now an officer of the militia. Having broken into the house of this person, they fired twice at him, in the presence of his sister and daughter, seriously wounding him both times. They then burned the houses of several rebels, ravaged a plantation, and shot an officer who was escaping under cover of darkness. Proceeding to the house of another officer, Fanning told him that if he would come out he would grant him parole; but he refused. "With that," writes this scoundrel in his Journal, "I ordered the house to be set on fire. As soon as he saw the flames increasing, he called out to me to spare his house for his wife's and children's sake, and he would walk out with his arms in his hands. I answered him that, if he would walk out, his house should be spared for his wife and children. When he came out, he said, 'Here I am;' with that he received two balls through his body. I proceeded on to one Major Dugin's plantation, and I destroyed all his property, and all the rebel officers' property in the settlement, for the distance of forty miles. On our way, catched a commissary from Salisbury, and delivered him up to some of my men whom he had treated ill when prisoners, and they immediately hung him. I York, and the prospect of peace negotiations, a conciliatory policy was adopted by the British in the North. Carleton desired that hostilities might be stayed, treated his prisoners with great consideration, and set several of them free. Some Carolinians had been exiled from Charleston at the fall of that city, though the capitulation was understood to protect them against such treatment. These men were now, on the request of Washington, sent back to their own homes at the expense of the British Government, and Carleton said that every On the 18th of April, I set out for Chatham, where I learned that a wedding was to be that day. We surrounded the house, and drove all out, one by one. I found one concealed upstairs. Having my pistols in my hand, I discharged them both at his breast; he fell, and that night expired." Such were the acts which turned even the loyalists of the South into enemies of the British Government; yet, after the war, this murderous wretch was recommended by the office of American Claims as a proper person to be put upon the half-pay list. With the arrival of Sir Guy Carleton at New *MS. copy of Fanning's Journal, quoted by Bancroft in his History of the United States, Vol. X., chap. 28. thing should be done to make them forget the hardships they had suffered. A projected raid into the State of New York by a party of Indians was forbidden by the English commander, and, under his immediate eye, the two nations were virtually at peace. The South, as the reader is aware, was not so entirely free from warlike operations; but even there a species of truce set in before the end of the year. The people, however, could not forget the villanies committed by such men as Fanning; and when the Assembly of South Carolina met, under writs issued by Governor Rutledge, laws were passed, banishing the partisans of England, and confiscating their estates-an act of severity which punished many conscientious adherents of the unsuccessful cause for the misdeeds of some. The monetary affairs of the Union continued to give much trouble, and even the skill of Robert Morris, the Finance Minister of the Federation, could not prevent a considerable degree of embarrassment. This gentleman, who was not an American, but a native of England, had a great idea of the benefit of a public debt-a benefit which the citizens of the United States did not seem inclined to appreciate. His project for a National Bank received the assent of only seven out of the thirteen States, and doubts were expressed as to whether the Federation had the power to incorporate such an institution. Congress, however, had already pledged its word. As a compromise, the corporation was forbidden to exercise its powers in any one of the States in a manner repugnant to the laws or constitution of such State; and the local Assemblies were recommended to give to the incorporating ordinance its full operation. The business of the bank commenced on the 7th of January, 1782, and its transactions proved very profitable to the Federal Government. The notes, though payable at Philadelphia in specie, did not command public confidence at a distance, and the corporation was able to buy up its own promises at from ten to fifteen per cent. discount.* Without the assistance of this bank, it is not easy to see how the affairs of the nation could have gone on at all. The public funds were exhausted; not a dollar remained in the treasury; and Morris, up to the early spring of 1782, had received no money whatever from any State in the Union. The States were half a million of dollars in debt on the year's taxes, which had been raised by anticipation on the system of credit created by this clever financier. On the 14th of May, Morris wrote to John Hancock, formerly President of Congress, and now Governor of Massachusetts, his native State:-"On the 1st of January, 1782, with a heavy arrearage for 1781, unpaid on the face of the requisitions of Congress, I had to provide for a three months' expenditure, when no man would trust the public for a single dollar: your Legislature knew the state of public credit as well as I did. Instead of providing money for the 1st of April, they have made no effort for that purpose which can take effect before the 1st of June. Now then, let us suppose every State in the Union to be as negligent (and many of them are much more so), what can gentlemen promise themselves? I apprehend the most terrible consequences. I beg you to * Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. X., chap. 28. press an immediate payment of money, the necessity of which it is not easy to conceive, nor prudent to declare." For this condition of national bankruptcy, Morris was most unjustly blamed, and was so continually vexed by clamorous demands that he frequently felt tempted to resign his office. Congress had recently received another six millions of livres from the King of France, with an intimation, however, that the United States were to expect no more. Previous to the receipt of the news that this money had been granted, Morris had been obliged to issue drafts for 500,000 livres on the mere chance of further assistance from Paris; and now that it came, he thought it prudent to request the Minister of France, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the Secretary at War, to keep the knowledge of the grant from Congress and from all other persons, lest the State Legislatures, which had not yet passed their tax-bills, should no longer think it necessary to make any provision for the national exigencies. The want of a common patriotism was lamentable. Greene sent repeated complaints from the South that he was deficient in the commonest things. There were not, he said, two quires of paper in the whole army, and several returns it had been found impossible to make, because there was nothing to write them on. Of the scarcity of food and clothing, the reader has heard before. Representations of this miserable condition had no effect. The local Legislatures took not the slightest heed of them, and Congress could do nothing to amend the evils which it found. The paper currency of the Union was a constant source of anxiety-a constant incentive to ques tionable expedients. In March, 1780, Congress resolved to call in by taxes in the course of one year, and to burn, all the paper bills previously emitted, to the amount of two hundred millions of dollars, and in lieu thereof to create ten millions of new money, which was to be issued as fast as, and no faster than, the old was brought in. For every twenty dollars of the old, one dollar of the new emission was to be perfected and lodged in th Continental loan offices of the several States. The new bills were to be redeemable in specie within six years, to bear interest at the rate of five per cent., and to be received in payment of the monthly quotas or taxes of each State, at the same rate as specie. They were to be based on funds raised by the individual States, and each State was to receive for its own use six-tenths of these bills, while the other four-tenths were to be subject to the orders Gordon's History, Vol. IV., pp. 251-2. |