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lute independence and subjection to the authority of parliament, all North America are convinced of their independence, and determined to defend it at all hazards."

On the tenth of February, after the speaker had reported to the house of commons the answer to their address, Lord North presented a message from the king, asking the augmentation of his forces. The minister, who still clung to the hope of reducing Massachusetts by the terrors of legislation, next proposed to restrain the commerce of New England and exclude its fishermen from the banks of Newfoundland. The best ship-builders in the world were at Boston, and their yards had been closed; the New England fishermen were now to be restrained from a toil in which they excelled all nations.

"God and nature," said Johnston, "have given that fishery to New England and not to Old." Dunning defended the right of the Americans to fish on the banks. "If rebellion is resistance to government," said Sir George Saville, "it must sometimes be justifiable. May not a people, taxed without their consent and their petitions against such taxation rejected, their charters taken away without a hearing, and an army let loose upon them without a possibility of obtaining justice, be said to be in justifiable rebellion?" But the ministerial measure, though by keeping the New England fishermen at home it provided recruits for an insurgent army, was carried through all its stages by great majorities. Bishop Newton, in the lords, reasoned "that rebellion is the sin of witchcraft, and that one so unnatural as that of New England could be ascribed to nothing less than diabolical infatuation."

The minister of France requested the most precise orders to all British naval officers not to annoy the commerce of the French colonies. "Such orders," answered Rochford, "have been given; and we have the greatest desire to live with you in the most perfect friendship." A letter from Lord Stormont, the British ambassador at Paris, was cited in the house of lords to prove that France equally wished a continuance of peace. "You can put no trust in Gallic faith," replied Richmond, "except so long as it shall be their interest to keep their word." To this Rochford, the secretary of state, assented,

proving, however, from Raynal's History of the Two Indies, that it was not for the interest of France that the English colonies should throw off the yoke. The next courier took to the king of France the report that neither the opposition nor the British minister put faith in his sincerity.

Lord North would gladly have escaped from his embarrassments by concession. "I am a friend to holding out the olivebranch," wrote the king to his pliant minister, "yet I believe that, when once vigorous measures appear to be the only means, the colonies will submit. I shall never look to the right or to the left, but steadily pursue that track which my conscience dictates to be the right one." The preparations for war were, therefore, to proceed; but he consented that the commanders of the naval and military forces might be invested with commissions for the restoration of peace according to a measure to be proposed by Lord North. From Franklin, whose aid in the scheme was earnestly desired, the minister once more sought to learn the least amount of concession that could be accepted.

Franklin expressed his approbation of the proposed commission, and of Lord Howe as one of its members; and, to smooth the way to conciliation, he offered the payment of an indemnity to the India company, provided the Massachusetts acts should be repealed. "Without the entire repeal," said he, "the language of the proposal is, try on your fetters first, and then, if you don't like them, we will consider." On the eighteenth of February, Lord Howe entreated Franklin "to accompany him, and co-operate with him in the great work of reconciliation;" and he coupled his request with a promise of ample appointments and subsequent rewards. "Accepting favors," replied the American, "would destroy the influence you propose to use; but let me see your propositions, and, if I approve of them, I will hold myself ready to accompany you at an hour's warning." His own opinions, which he had purposely reduced to writing and signed with his own hand, were communicated through Lord Howe to Lord North, with this last word: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. The Massachusetts must suffer all the hazards and mischiefs

of war, rather than admit the alteration of their charter and laws by parliament."

The minister dreading the conflict with America, yet dreading still more a conflict with his colleagues, Franklin was informed on the twentieth that his principles and those of parliament were as yet too wide from each other for discussion; and on the same day Lord North, armed with the king's consent in writing, astounded the house of commons by proposing a plan of conciliation formed on the principle that parliament, if the colonies would tax themselves to its satisfaction, would impose on them no duties except for the regulation of commerce. A storm of opposition ensued, which Lord North could not quell; and for two hours he seemed in a minority. "The plan should have been signed by John Hancock and Otis," said Rigby. Welbore Ellis, and others, particularly young Acland, declared against him loudly and roughly. "Whether any colony will come in on these terms I know not," said Lord North; "but it is just and humane to give them the option. If one consents, a link of the great chain is broken. If not, it will convince men of justice and humanity at home that in America they mean to throw off all dependence." Jenkinson reminded the house that Lord North stood on ground chosen by Grenville; but the Bedford party none the less threatened to vote against the minister, till Sir Gilbert Elliot, the well-known friend of the king, came to his rescue, and secured for the motion a large majority. To recover his lost ground with the extreme supporters of authority, North joined with Suffolk and Rochford in publishing "a paper declaring his intention to make no concessions."

"If fifty thousand men and twenty millions of money," said David Hume, "were intrusted to such a lukewarm coward as Gage, they never could produce any effect." The army in Boston was to be raised to ten thousand men, and the general to be superseded on account of his incapacity to direct such a force. Amherst declined the service, unless the army should be raised to twenty thousand men; the appointment of William Howe was therefore made public. He possessed no one quality of a great general, and was selected for his name and his relationship to the king. On receiving the offer of

the command, he asked: "Is it a proposition or an order from the king?" and when told an order, he replied it was his duty to obey it. "You should have refused to go against this people," cried the voters of Nottingham, with whom he broke faith. "Your brother died there in the cause of freedom; they have shown their gratitude to your name and family by erecting a monument to him." "We cannot wish success to the undertaking," said many more. Lord Howe, the admiral, was announced as commander of the naval forces and pacificator; for it was pretended that the olive-branch and the sword were to be sent together.

Of the two major-generals who attended Howe, the first in rank was Henry Clinton, son of a former governor in New York, related to the families of Newcastle and Bedford, and connected by party with the ministry. The other was John Burgoyne, who in the last war served in Portugal with spirit, and was brave even to rashness. He had a talent for vivid narrative, and wrote comedies that pleased in their day. In parliament he was taken for an opponent of the ministry; but he had spoken and voted against the repeal of the tax on tea, and had pronounced the Americans "children spoiled by too much indulgence;" so that, without flagrant inconsistency, he could promise Lord North "to be his steady, zealous, and active supporter." "I am confident," said he, in the house of commons, "there is not an officer or soldier in the king's service who does not think the parliamentary right of Great Britain a cause to fight for, to bleed and die for."

In reply to Burgoyne, Henry Temple Luttrell, whom curiosity once led to travel many hundreds of miles along the flourishing and hospitable provinces of the continent, bore testimony to their temperance, urbanity, and spirit, and predicted that, if set to the proof, they would evince the magnanimity of republican Rome,

While providing for a re-enforcement to its army, England enjoined the strictest watchfulness on its consuls and agents in every part of Europe to intercept all munitions of war destined for the colonies. The British envoy in Holland, with dictatorial menaces, required the states general of Holland to forbid their subjects from so much as transporting military

VOL. IV.-9

stores to the West Indies beyond the absolute wants of their own colonies. Of the French government, preventive measures were requested in the most courteous words.

An English vessel bore to the colonies news of Lord North's proposal, in the confident belief that they would be divided by the mere hint of giving up the point of taxation. "The plan," said Chatham, "will be spurned, and everything but justice and reason prove vain to men like the Americans." "It is impossible," said Fox, "to use the same resolution to make the Americans believe the right of taxing will be given up, and the mother country that it will be maintained."

Franklin sent advice to Massachusetts by no means to begin war without the approval of the continental congress, unless on a sudden emergency; "but New England alone," said he, "can hold out for ages against this country, and, if they are firm and united, in seven years will win the day." "By wisdom and courage the colonies will find friends everywhere;" thus he wrote to James Bowdoin of Boston, as if predicting a French alliance. "The eyes of all Christendom are now upon us, and our honor as a people is become a matter of the utmost consequence. If we tamely give up our rights in this contest, a century to come will not restore us in the opinion of the world; we shall be stamped with the character of dastards, poltroons, and fools; and be despised and trampled upon, not by this haughty, insolent nation only, but by all mankind. Present inconveniences are therefore to be borne with fortitude, and better times expected."

The friends of the British government in New York were found only on the surface. The Dutch Americans formed the basis of the population, and were animated by the example of their fathers, who had proved to the world that a small people under great discouragements can found a republic. By temperament moderate but inflexible, little noticed by the government, they kept themselves noiselessly in reserve. The settlers in New York from New England and the mechanics of the city were almost to a man enthusiasts for resistance. The landed aristocracy was divided; but the Dutch and the Scotch Presbyterians, especially Schuyler of Albany and the aged Livingston of Rhinebeck, never hesitated to risk their estates

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