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Chapter 24:
The House of Lords give way with protests.—
Rockingham's administration continued.
February—May, 1766.
The heat of the battle was over.
The Stamp Act
was sure to be repealed; and every one felt that
Pitt, would soon be at the head of affairs.
Rockingham still aspired to intercept his promotion, and engage his services.
In its last struggle to hold place by the tenure which the king disliked, the old whig party desired to make of the rising power of the people its handmaid, rather than its oracle.
But
Pitt spurned to capitulate with the aristocracy.
‘
Rockingham's tone,’ said he, ‘is that of a minister, master of the court and the public, making openings to men who are seekers of office and candidates for ministry.’
‘I will not owe my coming into the closet to any court cabal or ministerial connection.’
On Monday, the twenty-fourth of February, the committee made its report to the house.
‘Both
England and
America are now governed by the mob,’ said
Grenville, continuing to oppose the repeal in every stage.
Dyson hinted that internal taxes might be laid to ascertain the right.
‘To modify the act,’ answered
Palmerston, ‘would be giving up the right and
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retaining the oppression.’
The motion for recommit
ment, was rejected by a vote of two hundred and forty to one hundred and thirty-three; and the bill for the repeal was ordered to be brought in.
Upon this,
Blackstone, the commentator on the laws of
England, wished clauses to be inserted, that all American resolutions against the right of the legislature of
Great Britain to tax America should be expunged; but this was rejected without a division.
Wedderburn would have annexed a clause enact, ing in substance, that it should be as high and mortal a crime to dispute the validity of the Stamp Act as to question the right of the
House of Hanover to the
British throne.
While he was enforcing his sanguinary amend ment, the
American colonies were everywhere in concert putting a denial on the pretension, and choosing the risk of civil war and independence, rather than compliance.
Canada,
Nova Scotia, and the
Floridas, which were military governments, had submitted; the rest of the continent was firm.
Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and
Maryland had opened their courts.
From
New-York, the
Governor reported that ‘he was left entirely to himself;’ that ‘nothing but a superior force would bring the people to a sense of duty; that every one around him was an abettor of resistance.’
1 A merchant, who had signed a stamped bond for a Mediterranean pass, was obliged to stand forth publicly, and ask forgiveness before thousands.
The in fluence of the Sons of Liberty spread on every side Following their advice, the people of
Woodbridge, in New Jersey, recommended ‘the union of the provinces
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throughout the continent.’
Stratford, in Con-
necticut, resolved never to be wanting, and advised ‘a firm and lasting union,’ to be fostered ‘by a mutual correspondence among all the true Sons of Liberty throughout the continent.’
Assembling at
Canterbury in March,
Windham county named
Israel Putnam, of
Pomfret, and
Hugh Ledlie, of
Windham, to correspond with the neighboring provinces.
Delegates from the Sons of Liberty in every town of
Connecticut met at
Hartford; and this solemn convention of one of the most powerful colonies, a new spectacle in the political world, demonstrating the facility with which
America could organize independent governments, declared for ‘perpetuating the
Union’ as the only security for liberty; and they named in behalf of the colony,
Colonel Israel Putnam,
Major John Durkee,
Captain Hugh Ledlie, and five others, their committee for that purpose.
‘A firm union of all the colonies’ was the watchword of
Rhode Island, adopted in a convention of the county of
Providence; and it was resolved to oppose the Stamp Act, even if it should tend to ‘the destruction of the union’ of
America with
Great Britain.
At
Boston,
Otis declared, that ‘the original equality of the species was not a mere chimera.’
2 Joseph Warren, a young man whom nature had adorned with grace, and manly beauty, and a courage that would have been rash audacity had it not been tempered by self-control, saw clearly that the more equal division of property among the people, tended also to equalize and diffuse their influence and authority; and he uttered
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the new war-cry of the world—‘freedom AND
equality.’
3 ‘Death,’ said he, ‘with all its tortures, is preferable to slavery.’
‘The thought of independence,’ said
Hutchinson despondingly, ‘has entered the heart of
America.’
4
Virginia had kindled the flame;
Virginia had now the honor, by the hand of one of her sons, to close the discussion, by embodying, authoritatively, in calm and dignified, though in somewhat pedantic language, the sentiments which the contest had ripened.
It was
Richard Bland,
5 of the
Ancient Dominion, who, through the press, claimed freedom from all parliamentary legislation; and pointed to independence as the remedy for a refusal of redress.
He derived the
English constitution from Anglo-
Saxon principles of the most perfect equality, which invested every freeman with a right to vote at the election of members of parliament.
‘If,’ said he, ‘nine tenths of the people of Britain are deprived of the high privilege of being electors, it would be a work worthy of the best patriotic spirits of the nation to effectuate an alteration in this putrid part of the constitution, by restoring it to its pristine perfection.’
‘But the gangrene,’ he feared, ‘had taken too deep hold to be eradicated in these days of venality.’
Discriminating between the disfranchised inhabitants of
England and the colonists, and refusing to look for the rights of the colonies in former experience, whether of
Great Britain, or
Rome, or
Greece, he appeal ed to ‘the law of nature, and those rights of mankind
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which flow from it.’
He pleaded further, that even
by charters and compacts, the people of
Virginia ought to enjoy the privileges of the free people of
England, as free a trade to all places and with all nations, freedom from all taxes, customs, and impositions whatever, except with the consent of the General Assembly.
Far from conceding the acts of trade of Charles II.
to have been a rightful exercise of power, the
Virginia patriot impugned them as contrary to nature, equal freedom, and justice, nor would he admit them to be cited as valid precedents.
‘The colonies,’ said he, ‘are not represented in parliament; consequently no new law made without the concurrence of their representatives can bind them; every act of parliament that imposes internal taxes upon the colonies, is an act of power and not of right; and power abstracted from right cannot give a just title to dominion.
Whenever I have strength, I may renew my claim; or my son, or his son may, when able, recover the natural right of his ancestor.
I am speaking of the rights of the people: rights imply equality in the instances to which they belong.
The colonies are subordinate to the authority of parliament in degree, not absolutely.
Every colony when treated with injury and violence, is become an alien to its mother state.
Oppression has produced very great and unexpected events.
The Helvetic confederacy, the states of the United Netherlands, are instances in the annals of
Europe of the glorious actions a petty people, in comparison, can perform, when united in the cause of liberty.’
At that time, Louis XV.
was setting his heel on the parliaments of
France, the courts of justice which alone offered barriers to his will.
‘In me,’ said he
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to them solemnly, on the second day of March, ‘it is
in me alone that the sovereign power resides.
Justice is done only in my name, and the fulness of judicial authority remains always in me. To me alone belongs the legislative power, irresponsible and undivided.
Public order emanates entirely from me. I am the people.’
6 Against this the people could have but one rallying cry, Freedom and Equality; and
America was compelled to teach the utterance of the powerful words.
For, on Tuesday, the fourth of March, 1766, came on the third reading of the bill declaratory of the absolute power of parliament to bind America, as well as that for the repeal of the Stamp Act.
Again
Pitt7 moved to leave out the claim of right in all cases whatsoever.
The analogy between
Ireland and
America was much insisted upon, and he renewed his opinion, that the parliament had no right to tax America, while unrepresented.
‘This opinion,’ said he, ‘has been treated, in my absence, as the child of ignorance, as the language of a foreigner, who knew nothing of the constitution.
Yet the common law is my guide; it is civil law that is the foreigner.
I am sorry to have been treated as an overheated enthusiastic leveller, yet I never will change my opinions.
Wales was never taxed till represented; nor do I contend for more than was given up to
Ireland in the reign of King William.
I never gave my dissent with more dislike to a question, than I now give it.’
The amendment was rejected, and henceforward America would have to resist in the parliament of England, as
France in its king, a claim of absolute, irresponsible, legislative power.
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The final debate on the repeal ensued.
Grenville and his party still combated eagerly and obstinately.
‘I doubt,’ said
Pitt, who that night spoke most pleasingly, ‘I doubt if there could have been found a minister who would have dared to dip the royal ermine in the blood of the
Americans.’
‘No, sir,’ replied
Grenville, with personal bitterness, ‘not dip the royal ermine in blood, but I am one who declare, if the tax was to be laid again, I would do it; and I would do it now if I had to choose; it becomes doubly necessary, since
he has exerted all his eloquence so dangerously against it.’
It marks the times and the character of that House of Commons, that with the momentous discussion on questions interesting to the freedom of
England, America, and mankind, was mingled a gay and pleasing conversation on ministerial intrigues, in which it was assumed of the actual ministry, and openly spoken of in their presence, that they, by general consent, were too feeble to have more than a fleeting existence.
A letter was also read foretelling that
Pitt was to come into power.
‘How,’ said
Pitt, ‘could that prophet imagine any thing so improbable, as that I, who have but five friends in one house, and in this am almost single and alone, should be sought for in my retreat?’
But
Pitt had never commanded more respect than now. He had spoken throughout the winter with the dignity of conscious pre-eminence, and had fascinated his audience; and being himself of no party, he had no party banded against him.
At midnight the question was disposed of by a vote of two hundred and fifty against one hundred and twenty-two.
So the House of Commons, in the
Rockingham ministry, sanctioned the principles
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of
Grenville, and adopted half-way, the policy
of
Pitt.
On the next day,
Conway, and more than one hundred and fifty members of the House of Commons, carried the bill up to the House of Lords, where Temple and
Lyttelton did not suffer it to receive its first reading without debate.
On Friday, the seventh of March, the declaratory bill was to have its second reading.
It was moved, though no division took place, to postpone it to the bill for the repeal, for if the latter should miscarry, the former would be unnecessary; and if the latter passed, the former would be but ‘a ridiculous farce after deep tragedy.’
8
‘My lords, when I spoke last on this subject,’ said
Camden, opposing the bill altogether,
I thought I had delivered my sentiments so fully, and supported them with such reasons and such authorities, that I should be under no necessity of troubling your lordships again.
But I find I have been considered as the broacher of new-fangled doctrines, contrary to the laws of this kingdom, and subversive of the rights of parliament.
My lords, this is a heavy charge, but more so, when made against one, stationed as I am, in both capacities as peer and judge, the defender of the law and the constitution.
When I spoke last, I was, indeed, replied to, but not answered.
As the affair is of the utmost importance, and its consequences may involve the fate of kingdoms, I took the strictest review of my arguments; I re-examined all my authorities, fully determined, if I found my self mistaken, publicly to own my mistake, and give up my opinion; but my searches have more and more
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convinced me that the British parliament have no right to tax the Americans.
The declaratory bill, now lying on your table, is 1766 absolutely illegal; contrary to the fundamental laws of nature; contrary to the fundamental laws of this constitution: a constitution grounded on the eternal and immutable laws of nature; a constitution, whose foundation and centre is liberty, which sends liberty to every subject, that is, or may happen to be, within any part of its ample circumference.
Nor, my lords, is the doctrine new; it is as old as the constitution; it grew up with it; indeed it is its support; taxation and representation are inseparably united; God hath joined them; no British parliament can separate them; to endeavor to do it, is to stab our very vitals.
My position is this; I repeat it; I will maintain it to my last hour; taxation and representation are inseparable.
Whatever is a man's own, is absolutely his own; no man hath a right to take it from him without his consent, either expressed by himself or his representative; whoever attempts to do it, attempts an injury; whoever does it, commits a robbery.
Taxation and representation are coeval with, and essential to this constitution.
I wish the maxim of Machiavel was followed, that of examining a constitution, at certain periods, according to its first principles; this would correct abuses, and supply defects.
I wish the times would bear it, and that men's minds were cool enough to enter upon such a task, and that the representative authority of this kingdom was more equally settled.
‘I can never give my assent to any bill for taxing the
American colonies, while they remain unrepresented; for, as to the absurd distinction of a virtual
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representation, I pass it over with contempt.
The fore-
fathers of the
Americans did not leave their native country and subject themselves to every danger and distress, to be reduced to a state of slavery; they did not give up their rights; they looked for protection, and not for chains, from their mother country; by her, they expected to be defended in the possession of their property, and not to be deprived of it. For should the present power continue, there is nothing which they can call their own; ‘for,’ to use the words of
Locke, ‘what property have they in that which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself?’’
9
Thus did the defence of the liberties of a continent lead one of the highest judicial officers of
England, in the presence of the House of Lords, to utter a prayer for the reform of the House of Commons, by a more equal settlement of the representative authority.
10 The reform was needed; for in
Great Britain, with perhaps, at that time, eight millions of inhabitants, less than ten thousand, or as some thought, less than six thousand persons, many of whom were humbled by dependence, or debauched by corruption, elected a majority of the House of Commons, and the powers of government were actually sequestered into the hands of about two hundred men.
Camden spoke deliberately, and his words were of the greater moment, as they were the fruit of a month's reflection and research; yet he mistook the true nature of representation, which he considered to be not of persons, but of property.
The speech printed in the following year, found
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an audience in
America, but in the House of Lords,
Mansfield compared it to words spoken in
Nova Zembla, and which are said to be frozen for a month before any body can get at their meaning; and then with the loud applause of the peers, he proceeded to insist that the Stamp Act was a just assertion of the proposition, that the parliament of Great Britain has a right to tax the subjects of
Great Britain in all the dominions of
Great Britain in
America.
But as to the merits of the bill which the House of Commons had passed to ascertain the right of
England over
America, he treated it with scorn, as an absurdity from beginning to end, containing many falsehoods, and rendering the legislature ridiculous and contemptible.
‘It is,’ said he, ‘a humiliation of the
British Legislature to pass an act merely to annul the resolutions of a lower house of Assembly in
Virginia.’
‘It is only assertion against assertion; and whether it rests in mere declaration, or is thrown into the form of a law, it is still a claim by one only, from which the other dissents; and having first denied the claim, it will very consistently pay as little regard to an act of the same authority.’
In this debate Egmont spoke with ingenuity and candor; reasoning that the powers of legislation, which were exercised by the colonists, had become sanctioned by prescription, and were a gift which could not be recalled, except in the utmost emergency.
Yet the motion for a postponement of the subject was not pressed to a division, and the bill itself was passed, with its two clauses, the one affirming the authority of parliament over
America, in all cases whatsoever; and the other declaring the opposite resolutions
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of the
American Assemblies to be null and
void.
The bill for the repeal of the Stamp Act, was read a second time upon Tuesday, the eleventh of March.
11 The House of Lords was so full on the occasion, that strangers were not admitted.
Ten peers spoke against the repeal, and the lords sat between eleven and twelve hours, which was later than ever was remembered.
Once more
Mansfield and
Camden exerted all their powers on opposite sides; while Temple indulged in personalities, aimed at
Camden.
‘The submission of the
Americans,’ argued the
Duke of
Bedford, who closed the debate, ‘is the palladium, which if suffered to be removed, will put a final period to the
British empire in
America.
To a modification of the duties I would not have been unfavorable; but a total repeal of them is an act of versatility, fatal to the dignity and jurisdiction of parliament, the evil consequences of which no declaratory act can avert or qualify.’
12
The House of Lords divided.
For subduing the colonies, if need be, by sword or fire, there appeared sixty-one, including the
Duke of
York, and several of the bishops; in favor of the repeal there were seventy-three; but adding the voices of those absent peers, who voted by proxy, the numbers were one hundred and five against seventy-one.
Northington, than whom no one had been more vociferous that
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the
Americans must submit, voted for the repeal,
pleading his unwillingness to act on such a question against the House of Commons.
Immediately, the protest which
Lyttelton had prepared against committing the bill, was produced, and signed by thirty-three peers, with
Bedford at their head.
Against the total repeal of the Stamp Act, they maintained that such a strange and unheard of submission of
King,
Lords, and Commons to a successful insurrection of the colonies would make the authority of
Great Britain contemptible; that the reason assigned for their disobeying the Stamp Act, extended to all other laws, and, if admitted, must set them absolutely free from obedience to the power of the
British legislature; that any endeavor to enforce it hereafter, against the will of the colonies, would bring on the contest for their total independence, rendered, perhaps, more dangerous and formidable from the circumstances of the other powers of
Europe; that the power of taxation to be impartially exercised must extend to all the members of the state; that the
North American colonies, ‘our colonies,’ as they were called by the discontented lords, were able to share the expenses of the army, now maintained in them at the vast expense of almost a shilling in the pound land tax, annually remitted from
England for their special protection; that parliament was the only supreme legislature and common council empowered to act for all; that its laying a general tax on the
American colonies was not only right but expedient and necessary; that it was ‘a most indispensable duty to ease the gentry and people of this kingdom, as much as possible, by the due
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exertion of that great right of taxation without an
exemption of the colonies.’
Having thus placed themselves in direct and irreconcilable hostility to
America, the protesting peers glanced also with jealousy at the immense majority of the people of
England; and further opposed the repeal of the Stamp Act, ‘because,’ say they, ‘this concession tends to throw the whole British empire into a state of confusion, as the plea of our North American colonies, of not being represented in the parliament of Great Britain, may, by the same reasoning, be extended to all persons in this island who do not actually vote for members of parliament.’
Such was the famous
Bedford protest, to which a larger number of peers than had ever signed a protest before, hastened in that midnight hour to set their names.
Among them were four in lawn sleeves.
It is the deliberate manifesto of the party which was soon to prevail in the cabinet and in parliament, and to rule
England for two generations.
It is the declaration of the new tory party, in favor of the
English constitution as it was, against any countenance to the extension of suffrage, the reform of parliament, and the effective exercise of private judgment.
It is the modern form of an ancient doctrine.
Oxford had said unconditional obedience to the king was the badge of loyalty; this protest substituted unconditional obedience to the legislature of the realm, as constituted in 1688.
The first had, in the spirit of the mediaeval monarchy, derived the right to the throne from God; the second, resting on principles that had grown up in opposition to the old legitimacy, deified established law, and sought to bind its own and coming ages by statutes which were but the wisdom of a less enlightened
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generation that had long slumbered in their
graves.
The third reading of the repeal bill took place on the seventeenth of March.
Bute, in whose administration the taxing of
America had been resolved upon, spoke once more to maintain his opinion.
He insisted that, as minister, he had done good to his country; in retiring, he had consulted his own character and tastes; and since his retreat he had not meddled with public business, and was firmly resolved for the future to maintain the same reserve.
Yet he wished that an administration might be formed by a junction of the ablest men from every political section.
13
The bill passed without a further division; but a second protest, containing a vigorous defence of the policy of
Grenville, and breathing in every line the sanguinary desire to enforce the Stamp Act, was introduced by Temple, and signed by eight and twenty peers.
Five of the bench of bishops were found ready in the hour of conciliation, to record solemnly on the journals of the house, their unrelenting enmity to measures of peace.
Nor was the apprehension of a great change in the fundamental principles of the constitution concealed.
‘If we pass this bill against our opinion,’ they said, meaning to assert, and with truth, that it was so passed, ‘if we give our consent to it here, without a full conviction that it is right, merely because it has passed the other house, by declining to do our duty on the most important occasion which can ever present itself, and when our interposition, for many obvious reasons,’ alluding to the
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known opinion of the king, ‘would be peculiarly
proper, we in effect annihilate this branch of the legislature, and vote ourselves useless.’
The people of
England had once adopted that opinion.
It was certain that the people of
America were already convinced that the House of Lords had outlived its functions, and was for them become worse than ‘useless.’
On the morning of the eighteenth day of March, the king went in state to
Westminster, and gave his assent, among other bills, to what ever after he regarded as the well-spring of all his sorrows, ‘the fatal repeal of the Stamp Act.’
He returned from signing the repeal, amid the shouts and huzzas of the applauding multitude.
There was a public dinner of the friends of
America in honor of the event; Bow bells were set a ringing; and on the
Thames the ships displayed all their colors.
At night a bonfire was kindled, and houses were illuminated all over the city.
An express was dispatched to
Falmouth with letters to different provinces, to transmit the news of the repeal as rapidly as possible to the colonies, nor was it at that time noticed, that the ministry had carried through the mutiny bill,
14 with the obnoxious American clauses of the last year; and that the king, in giving his assent to the repeal
15 of the Stamp Act, had also given his assent to the act declaratory
16 of the supreme power of parliament over
America in all cases whatsoever.
While swift vessels hurried with the news across the
Atlantic, the cider act was modified by the ministry,
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with the aid of
Pitt; general warrants were de-
dared illegal; and
Edmund Burke, already famed for ‘most shining talents,’ and ‘sanguine friendship, for America,’
17 was consulting merchants and manufacturers on the means of improving and extending the commerce of the whole empire.
When
Grenville, madly in earnest, deprecated any change in ‘the sacred Act of Navigation,’
Burke bitterly ridiculed him on the idea that any act was sacred, if it wanted correction.
Free ports were, therefore, established in
Jamaica and in
Dominica,
18 which meant only that British ports were licensed to infringe the acts of navigation of other powers.
Old duties, among them the plantation duties, which had stood on the statute book from the time of Charles the Second, were modified; and changes were made in points of detail, though not in principle.
The duty on molasses imported into the plantations was fixed at a penny a gallon; that on British coffee was seven shillings the hundred weight; on British pimento, one half-penny a pound; on foreign cambric, or French lawn, three shillings the piece, to be paid into the exchequer, and disposed of by parliament.
19 Thus taxes for regulating trade were renewed in conformity to former laws; and the Act of Navigation was purposely so far sharpened as to prohibit landing non-enumerated goods in
Ireland.
20 The colonial officers did not relax from their haughtiness.
Under instructions given by the former administration, the
Governor of
Grenada claimed to rule the island by prerogative; and
Sir Hugh Palliser,
21 at
Newfoundland, arrogated the monopoly of the fisheries to
Great Britain and
Ireland.
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The strength of the ministry was tested on their
chap. XXIV.} 1766.
April. |
introducing a new tax on windows.
‘The
English,’ said
Grenville, ‘must now pay what the colonists should have paid;’
22 and the subject was referred to a committee by a diminished majority.
Great Britain not only gave up the
Stamp Tax, but itself defrayed the expenses
23 of the experiment out of the sinking fund.
The treasury asked what was to be done with the stamps in those colonies where the Stamp Act had not taken place?
24 and they were ordered to be returned to
England,
25 where the curious traveller may still see bags of them, cumbering the office from which they were issued.
At the same time the merchants of
London wrote to entreat the merchants of
America to take no offence at the declaratory act, and in letters, which
Rockingham and
Sir George Saville26 corrected, the ministers signified to the dissenters in
America, how agreeable the spirit of gratitude would be to the dissenters in
England, and to the Presbyterians to the north of the Tweed.
27
A change of ministry was more and more spoken of. The nation demanded to see
Pitt in the government; and two of the ablest members of the cabinet,
Grafton and
Conway, continued to insist upon it. But
Rockingham, who, during the repeal of the Stamp Act, had been dumb, leaving the brunt of the battle to be borne by
Camden and Shelburne, was determined it should not be so;
28 and
Newcastle and Winchelsea
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and Egmont concurred with him.
29 To be pre-
chap. XXIV.} 1766.
April. |
pared for the change, and in the hope of becoming, under the new administration, secretary for the colonies,
Charles Townshend assiduously courted the
Duke of
Grafton.
Pitt, on retiring to recruit the health which his unparalleled exertions in the winter had utterly subverted, made a farewell speech, his last in the House of Commons, wishing that faction might cease, and avowing his own purpose of remaining independent of any personal connections whatsoever; while the ships bore across the
Atlantic the glad news of the repeal, which he had been the first to counsel, and the ablest to defend.
The joy was, for a time, unmixed with apprehen-
sion.
South Carolina voted
Pitt a statue; and
Virginia a statue to the king, and an obelisk, on which were to be engraved the names of those who, in
England, had signalized themselves for freedom.
‘My thanks they shall have cordially,’ said
Washington, ‘for their opposition to any act of oppression.’
The consequences of enforcing the Stamp Act, he was convinced ‘would have been more direful than usually apprehended.’
Otis, at a meeting at the
Town Hall in
Boston, to fix a time for the rejoicings, told the people that the distinction between inland taxes and port duties was without foundation; for whoever had a right to impose the one, had a right to impose the other; and, therefore, as the parliament had given up the one, they had given up the other; and the merchants were fools if they submitted any longer to the laws restraining their trade, which ought to be free.
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A bright day in May was set apart for the display
of the public gladness, and the spot where resistance to the Stamp Act began, was the centre of attraction.
At one in the morning the bell nearest
Liberty Tree was the first to be rung; at dawn, colors and pendants rose over the housetops all around it; and the steeple of the nearest meeting-house was hung with banners.
During the day all prisoners for debt were released by subscription.
In the evening the town shone as though night had not come; an obelisk on the Common was brilliant with a loyal inscription; the houses round
Liberty Tree exhibited illuminated figures, not of the king only, but of
Pitt, and
Camden, and
Barre; and
Liberty Tree itself was decorated with lanterns, till its boughs could hold no more.
All the wisest agreed that disastrous consequences would have ensued from the attempt to enforce the Act, so that never was there a more rapid transition of a people from gloom to joy. They compared themselves to a bird escaped from the net of the fowler, and once more striking its wings freely in the upper air; or to Joseph, the Israelite, whom
Providence had likewise wonderfully redeemed from the perpetual bondage into which he was sold by his elder brethren.
The clergy from the pulpit joined in the fervor of patriotism and the joy of success.
‘The
Americans would not have submitted,’ said
Chauncy.
‘History affords few examples of a more general, generous, and just sense of liberty in any country than has appeared in
America within the year past.’
Such were
Mayhew's words; and while all the continent was calling out and cherishing the name of
Pitt, the greatest
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statesman of
England, the conqueror of
Canada and
the
Ohio, the founder of empire, the apostle of freedom;—‘To you,’ said
Mayhew, speaking from the heart of the people, and as if its voice could be heard across the ocean, ‘to you grateful America attributes that she is reinstated in her former liberties.
The universal joy of
America, blessing you as our father, and sending up ardent vows to heaven for you, must give you a sublime and truly godlike pleasure; it might, perhaps, give you spirits and vigor to take up your bed and walk, like those cured by the word of Him who came from heaven to make us free indeed.
America calls you over and over again her father; live long in health, happiness, and honor.
Be it late when you must cease to plead the cause of liberty on earth.’
end of vol.
V.
