[449]
acts of the British Parliament shall be repealed.
Congress, well knowing that it was not a government of any kind, and knowing therefore its utter lack of authority or power to impose any legal penalties on, or to coerce such inhabitants of the colonies as might treat the objects of the association with contempt and act in violation of its articles, had to content itself with instigating its friends to “Boycott” all persons (inhabitants of the Colonies), who should disregard the agreement and act in violation thereof by publishing them in “The Gazette,” and by declaring that they should be “deemed foes to the rights of British America,” be regarded as “unworthy the rights of freemen,” and should be “universally contemned as the foes of American liberty;” and in the fourteenth article they resolved that they “would have no trade, commerce, dealings, or intercourse whatever with any Colony or Province in North America, which shall not accede to or which shall hereafter violate this association.”
Although the articles of association were endorsed and adopted in some instances by colonial conventions; also by county meetings and lesser assemblages, they yet had not the sanctity and force of law, and nobody pretended that they had. They were merely the expression of a sentiment and a purpose that were entertained by a majority of the people of the Colonies, and an agreement, incapable of enforcement by law, between individual persons, even when adopted by a Colonial Convention.
To show how perfectly absent from the minds of the members of this Congress was the purpose or even idea of separation from and independence of Great Britain, I copy here a portion of a foot-note on page 900 of Vol.
II of “American Archives” :
On Friday, September 16th, the honorable delegates, now met in General Congress, were elegantly entertained by the gentlemen of Philadelphia. * * * * * After dinner the following toasts were drank: 1st. The King. 2d. The Queen. 3d. The Duke of Gloucester. 4th. The Prince of Wales and Royal Family. * * * 10th. May the cloud which hangs over Great Britain and the Colonies burst only on the heads of the present Ministry. * * * 18th. A happy conciliation between Great Britain and her Colonies on a constitutional ground.In an Address to the King, dated October 25th, that Congress (of 1784) commence as follows:
Most Gracious Sovereign,--We, your Majesty's most faithful subjects, * * * by this our humble petition, beg leave to lay our grievances before the Throne. * * * * We ask but for peace, liberty and safety. * * * * Your royal authority over us and
