We may perhaps wonder that a British Parliament should have been prevailed on to pa.s.s such audacious acts as these, and by large majorities. But we must remember that in those days the English system of representation was so imperfect, and had come to be so overgrown with abuses, that an act of Parliament was by no means sure to represent the average judgment of the people. The House of Commons was so far under the corrupt influence of the aristocracy, and was so inadequately controlled by popular opinion, that at almost any time it was possible for an eloquent, determined, and unscrupulous minister to carry measures through it such as could never have been carried through any of the reformed Parliaments since 1832. It is not easy, perhaps, to say with confidence what the popular feeling in England was in 1767 with reference to the policy of Charles Townshend. The rural population was much more ignorant than it is to-day, and its political opinions were strongly influenced by the country squires,--a worthy set of men, but not generally distinguished for the flexibility of their minds or the breadth of their views. But as a sample of the most intelligent popular feeling in England at that time, it will probably not be unfair to cite that of the city of London, which was usually found arrayed on the side of free government. No wiser advice was heard in Parliament, on the subject of the New York dispute, than was given by Alderman Beckford, father of the ill.u.s.trious author of Vathek, when he said, "Do like the best of physicians, and heal the disease by doing nothing." On many other important occasions in the course of this unfortunate quarrel, the city of London gave expression to opinions which the king and Parliament would have done well to heed. But even if the House of Commons had reflected popular feeling in 1767 as clearly as it has done since 1832, it is by no means sure that it would have known how to deal successfully with the American question. The problem was really a new one in political history; and there was no adequate precedent to guide the statesmen in dealing with the peculiar combination of considerations it involved. As far as concerned the relations of Englishmen in England to the Crown and to Parliament, the British Const.i.tution had at last reached a point where it worked quite smoothly. All contingencies likely to arise seemed to have been provided for. But when it came to the relations of Englishmen in America to the Crown and to Parliament, the case was very different. The case had its peculiar conditions, which the British Const.i.tution in skilful hands would no doubt have proved elastic enough to satisfy; but just at this time the British Const.i.tution happened to be in very unskilful hands, and wholly failed to meet the exigencies of the occasion. The chief difficulty lay in the fact that while on the one hand the American principle of no taxation without representation was unquestionably sound and just, on the other hand the exemption of any part of the British Empire from the jurisdiction of Parliament seemed equivalent to destroying the political unity of the empire. This could not but seem to any English statesman a most lamentable result, and no English statesman felt this more strongly than Lord Chatham.
[Sidenote: Representation of Americans in Parliament]
[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone and the Boers]
There were only two possible ways in which the difference could be accommodated. Either the American colonies must elect representatives to the Parliament at Westminster; or else the right of levying taxes must be left where it already resided, in their own legislative bodies. The first alternative was seriously considered by eminent political thinkers, both in England and America. In England it was favourably regarded by Adam Smith, and in America by Benjamin Franklin and James Otis. In 1774, some of the loyalists in the first Continental Congress recommended such a scheme. In 1778, after the overthrow of Burgoyne, the king himself began to think favourably of such a way out of the quarrel.
But this alternative was doubtless from the first quite visionary and unpractical. The difficulties in the way of securing anything like equality of representation would probably have been insuperable; and the difficulty in dividing jurisdiction fairly between the local colonial legislature and the American contingent in the Parliament at Westminster would far have exceeded any of the difficulties that have arisen in the attempt to adjust the relations of the several States to the general government in our Federal Union. Mere distance, too, which even to-day would go far toward rendering such a scheme impracticable, would have been a still more fatal obstacle in the days of Chatham and Townshend. If, even with the vast enlargement of the political horizon which our hundred years" experience of federalism has effected, the difficulty of such a union still seems so great, we may be sure it would have proved quite insuperable then. The only practicable solution would have been the frank and cordial admission, by the British government, of the essential soundness of the American position, that, in accordance with the entire spirit of the English Const.i.tution, the right of levying taxes in America resided only in the colonial legislatures, in which alone could American freemen be adequately represented. Nor was there really any reason to fear that such a step would imperil the unity of the empire. How mistaken this fear was, on the part of English statesmen, is best shown by the fact that, in her liberal and enlightened dealings with her colonies at the present day, England has consistently adopted the very course of action which alone would have conciliated such men as Samuel Adams in the days of the Stamp Act. By pursuing such a policy, the British government has to-day a genuine hold upon the affections of its pioneers in Australia and New Zealand and Africa. If such a statesman as Gladstone could have dealt freely with the American question during the twelve years following the Peace of Paris, the history of that time need not have been the pitiable story of a blind and obstinate effort to enforce submission to an ill-considered and arbitrary policy on the part of the king and his ministers. The feeling by which the king"s party was guided, in the treatment of the American question, was very much the same as the feeling which lately inspired the Tory criticisms upon Gladstone"s policy in South Africa.
Lord Beaconsfield, a man in some respects not unlike Charles Townshend, bequeathed to his successor a miserable quarrel with the Dutch farmers of the Transvaal; and Mr. Gladstone, after examining the case on its merits, had the moral courage to acknowledge that England was wrong, and to concede the demands of the Boers, even after serious military defeat at their hands. Perhaps no other public act of England in the nineteenth century has done her greater honour than this. But said the Jingoes, All the world will now laugh at Englishmen, and call them cowards. In order to vindicate the military prestige of England, the true policy would be, forsooth, to prolong the war until the Boers had been once thoroughly defeated, and then acknowledge the soundness of their position. Just as if the whole world did not know, as well as it can possibly know anything, that whatever qualities the English nation may lack, it certainly does not lack courage, or the ability to win victories in a good cause! All honour to the Christian statesman who dares to leave England"s military prestige to be vindicated by the glorious records of a thousand years, and even in the hour of well-merited defeat sets a higher value on political justice than on a reputation for dealing hard blows! Such incidents as this are big with hope for the future. They show us what sort of political morality our children"s children may expect to see, when mankind shall have come somewhat nearer toward being truly civilized.
[Sidenote: Death of Townshend]
In the eighteenth century, no such exhibition of good sense and good feeling, in the interest of political justice, could have been expected from any European statesman, unless from a Turgot or a Chatham. But Charles Townshend was not even called upon to exercise any such self-control. Had he simply taken Alderman Beckford"s advice, and done nothing, all would have been well; but his meddling had now put the government into a position which it was ruinous to maintain, but from which it was difficult to retreat. American tradition rightly lays the chief blame for the troubles which brought on the Revolutionary War to George III.; but, in fairness, it is well to remember that he did not suggest Townshend"s measures, though he zealously adopted and cherished them when once propounded. The blame for wantonly throwing the apple of discord belongs to Townshend more than to any one else. After doing this, within three months from the time his bill had pa.s.sed the House of Commons, Townshend was seized with a fever and died at the age of forty-one. A man of extraordinary gifts, but without a trace of earnest moral conviction, he had entered upon a splendid career; but his insincere nature, which turned everything into jest, had stamped itself upon his work. He bequeathed to his country nothing but the quarrel which was soon to deprive her of the grandest part of that empire upon which the sun shall never set.
[Ill.u.s.tration: George III]
[Signature: George R]
[Sidenote: His political legacy to George III.]
[Sidenote: Character of George III.]
If Townshend"s immediate object in originating these measures was to curry favour with George III., and get the lion"s share in the disposal of the king"s ample corruption-fund, he had doubtless gone to work in the right way. The king was delighted with Townshend"s measures, and after the sudden death of his minister he made them his own, and staked his whole political career as a monarch upon their success. These measures were the fatal legacy which the brighter political charlatan left to the duller political fanatic. The fierce persistency with which George now sought to force Townshend"s measures upon the Americans partook of the nature of fanaticism, and we shall not understand it unless we bear in mind the state of political parties in England between 1760 and 1784. When George III. came to the throne, in 1760, England had been governed for more than half a century by the great Whig families which had been brought into the foreground by the revolution of 1688.
The Tories had been utterly discredited and cast out of political life by reason of their willingness to conspire with the Stuart pretenders in disturbing the peace of the country. Cabinet government, in its modern form, had begun to grow up during the long and prosperous administration of Sir Robert Walpole, who was the first English prime minister in the full sense. Under Walpole"s wise and powerful sway, the first two Georges had possessed scarcely more than the shadow of sovereignty. It was the third George"s ambition to become a real king, like the king of France or the king of Spain. From earliest babyhood, his mother had forever been impressing upon him the precept, "George, be king!" and this simple lesson had const.i.tuted pretty much the whole of his education. Popular tradition regards him as the most ignorant king that ever sat upon the English throne; and so far as general culture is concerned, this opinion is undoubtedly correct. He used to wonder what people could find to admire in such a wretched driveller as Shakespeare, and he never was capable of understanding any problem which required the slightest trace of imagination or of generalizing power.
Nevertheless, the popular American tradition undoubtedly errs in exaggerating his stupidity and laying too little stress upon the worst side of his character. George III. was not dest.i.tute of a certain kind of ability, which often gets highly rated in this not too clear-sighted world. He could see an immediate end very distinctly, and acquired considerable power from the dogged industry with which he pursued it. In an age when some of the n.o.blest English statesmen drank their gallon of strong wine daily, or sat late at the gambling-table, or lived in scarcely hidden concubinage, George III. was decorous in personal habits and pure in domestic relations, and no banker"s clerk in London applied himself to the details of business more industriously than he. He had a genuine talent for administration, and he devoted this talent most a.s.siduously to selfish ends. Scantily endowed with human sympathy, and almost boorishly stiff in his ordinary unstudied manner, he could be smooth as oil whenever he liked. He was an adept in gaining men"s confidence by a show of interest, and securing their aid by dint of fair promises; and when he found them of no further use, he could turn them adrift with wanton insult. Any one who dared to disagree with him upon even the slightest point of policy he straightway regarded as a natural enemy, and pursued him ever afterward with vindictive hatred. As a natural consequence, he surrounded himself with weak and short-sighted advisers, and toward all statesmen of broad views and independent character he nursed the bitterest rancour. He had little faith in human honour or rect.i.tude, and in pursuing an end he was seldom deterred by scruples.
[Sidenote: English parties between 1760 and 1784]
Such was the man who, on coming to the throne in 1760, had it for his first and chiefest thought to break down the growing system of cabinet government in England. For the moment circ.u.mstances seemed to favour him. The ascendancy of the great Whig families was endangered on two sides. On the one hand, the Tory party had outlived that idle, romantic love for the Stuarts upon which it found it impossible to thrive. The Tories began coming to court again, and they gave the new king all the benefit of their superst.i.tious theories of high prerogative and divine right. On the other hand, a strong popular feeling was beginning to grow up against parliamentary government as conducted by the old Whig families. The House of Commons no longer fairly represented the people.
Ancient boroughs, which possessed but a handful of population, or, like Old Sarum, had no inhabitants at all, still sent their representatives to Parliament, while great cities of recent growth, such as Birmingham and Leeds, were unrepresented. To a great extent, it was the most progressive parts of the kingdom which were thus excluded from a share in the government, while the rotten boroughs were disposed of by secret lobbying, or even by open bargain and sale. A few Whig families, the heads of which sat in the House of Lords, thus virtually owned a considerable part of the House of Commons; and, under such circ.u.mstances, it was not at all strange that Parliament should sometimes, as in the Wilkes case, array itself in flat opposition to the will of the people. The only wonder is that there were not more such scandals. The party of "Old Whigs," numbering in its ranks some of the ablest and most patriotic men in England, was contented with this state of things, upon which it had thrived for two generations, and could not be made to understand the iniquity of it,--any more than an old cut-and-dried American politician in our time can be made to understand the iniquity of the "spoils system." Of this party the Marquis of Rockingham was the political leader, and Edmund Burke was the great representative statesman. In strong opposition to the Old Whig policy there had grown up the party of New Whigs, bent upon bringing about some measure of parliamentary reform, whereby the House of Commons might truly represent the people of Great Britain. In Parliament this party was small in numbers, but weighty in character, and at its head was the greatest Englishman of the eighteenth century, the elder William Pitt, under whose guidance England had won her Indian empire and established her dominion over the seas, while she had driven the French from America, and enabled Frederick the Great to lay the foundations of modern Germany.
[Portrait: Edmund Burke.]
[Sidenote: George III. as a politician]
Now when George III. came to the throne, he took advantage of this division in the two parties in order to break down the power of the Old Whig families, which so long had ruled the country. To this end he used the revived Tory party with great effect, and bid against the Old Whigs for the rotten boroughs; and in playing off one set of prejudices and interests against another, he displayed in the highest degree the cunning and craft of a self-seeking politician. His ordinary methods would have aroused the envy of Tammany. While engaged in such work, he had sense enough to see that the party from which he had most to fear was that of the New Whigs, whose scheme of parliamentary reform, if ever successful, would deprive him of the machinery of corruption upon which he relied. Much as he hated the Old Whig families, he hated Pitt and his followers still more heartily. He was perpetually denouncing Pitt as a "trumpeter of sedition," and often vehemently declared in public, and in the most offensive manner, that he wished that great man were dead. Such had been his eagerness to cast discredit upon Pitt"s policy that he had utterly lost sight of the imperial interests of England, which indeed his narrow intelligence was incapable of comprehending. One of the first acts of his reign had been to throw away Cuba and the Philippine Islands, which Pitt had just conquered from Spain; while at the same time, by leaving Prussia in the lurch before the Seven Years" War had fairly closed, he converted the great Frederick from one of England"s warmest friends into one of her bitterest enemies.
[Sidenote: His chief reason for quarrelling with the Americans]
This political att.i.tude of George III. toward the Whigs in general, and toward Pitt in particular, explains the fierce obstinacy with which he took up and carried on Townshend"s quarrel with the American colonies.
For if the American position, that there should be no taxation without representation, were once to be granted, then it would straightway become necessary to admit the principles of parliamentary reform. The same principle that applied to such commonwealths as Ma.s.sachusetts and Virginia would be forthwith applied to such towns as Birmingham and Leeds. The system of rotten boroughs would be swept away; the chief engine of kingly corruption would thus be destroyed; a reformed House of Commons, with the people at its back, would curb forever the pretensions of the Crown; and the detested Lord Chatham would become the real ruler of a renovated England, in which George III. would be a personage of very little political importance.
In these considerations we find the explanation of the acts of George III. which brought on the American Revolution, and we see why it is historically correct to regard him as the person chiefly responsible for the quarrel. The obstinacy with which he refused to listen to a word of reason from America was largely due to the exigencies of the political situation in which he found himself. For him, as well as for the colonies, it was a desperate struggle for political existence. He was glad to force on the issue in America rather than in England, because it would be comparatively easy to enlist British local feeling against the Americans as a remote set of "rebels," with whom Englishmen had no interests in common, and thus obscure the real nature of the issue.
Herein he showed himself a cunning politician, though an ign.o.ble statesman. By playing off against each other the two sections of the Whig party, he continued for a while to carry his point; and had he succeeded in overcoming the American resistance and calling into England a well-trained army of victorious mercenaries, the political quarrel there could hardly have failed to develop into a civil war. A new rebellion would perhaps have overthrown George III. as James II. had been overthrown a century before. As it was, the victory of the Americans put an end to the personal government of the king in 1784, so quietly that the people scarcely realized the change.[1] A peaceful election accomplished what otherwise could hardly have been effected without bloodshed. So while George III. lost the fairest portion of the British Empire, it was the st.u.r.dy Americans who, fighting the battle of freedom at once for the Old World and for the New, ended by overwhelming his paltry schemes for personal aggrandizement in hopeless ruin, leaving him for posterity to contemplate as one of the most instructive examples of short-sighted folly that modern history affords.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See my _Critical Period of American History_, chap. i.
CHAPTER II
THE CRISIS
[Ill.u.s.tration: LORD NORTH]
Townshend was succeeded in the exchequer by Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guildford, a young man of sound judgment, wide knowledge, and rare sweetness of temper, but wholly lacking in sympathy with popular government. As leader of the House of Commons, he was sufficiently able in debate to hold his ground against the fiercest attacks of Burke and Fox, but he had no strength of will. His lazy good-nature and his Tory principles made him a great favourite with the king, who, through his influence over Lord North, began now to exercise the power of a cabinet minister, and to take a more important part than hitherto in the direction of affairs. Soon after North entered the cabinet, colonial affairs were taken from Lord Shelburne and put in charge of Lord Hillsborough, a man after the king"s own heart. Conway was dismissed from the cabinet, and his place was taken by Lord Weymouth, who had voted against the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Earl of Sandwich, who never spoke of the Americans but in terms of abuse, was at the same time made postmaster-general; and in the following year Lord Chatham resigned the privy seal.
[Signature: North]
[Sidenote: John d.i.c.kinson]
While the ministry, by these important changes, was becoming more and more hostile to the just claims of the Americans, those claims were powerfully urged in America, both in popular literature and in well-considered state papers. John d.i.c.kinson, at once a devoted friend of England and an ardent American patriot, published his celebrated Farmer"s Letters, which were greatly admired in both countries for their temperateness of tone and elegance of expression. In these letters, d.i.c.kinson held a position quite similar to that occupied by Burke.
Recognizing that the const.i.tutional relations of the colonies to the mother-country had always been extremely vague and ill-defined, he urged that the same state of things be kept up forever through a genuine English feeling of compromise, which should refrain from pushing any abstract theory of sovereignty to its extreme logical conclusions. At the same time, he declared that the Townshend revenue acts were "a most dangerous innovation" upon the liberties of the people, and significantly hinted, that, should the ministry persevere in its tyrannical policy, "English history affords examples of resistance by force."
[Portrait: John d.i.c.kinson]
[Sidenote: The Ma.s.sachusetts circular letter]
While d.i.c.kinson was publishing these letters, Samuel Adams wrote for the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly a series of addresses to the ministry, a pet.i.tion to the king, and a circular letter to the a.s.semblies of the other colonies. In these very able state papers, Adams declared that a proper representation of American interests in the British Parliament was impracticable, and that, in accordance with the spirit of the English Const.i.tution, no taxes could be levied in America except by the colonial legislatures. He argued that the Townshend acts were unconst.i.tutional, and asked that they should be repealed, and that the colonies should resume the position which they had occupied before the beginning of the present troubles. The pet.i.tion to the king was couched in beautiful and touching language, but the author seems to have understood very well how little effect it was likely to produce. His daughter, Mrs. Wells, used to tell how one evening, as her father had just finished writing this pet.i.tion, and had taken up his hat to go out, she observed that the paper would soon be touched by the royal hand. "More likely, my dear,"
he replied, "it will be spurned by the royal foot!" Adams rightly expected much more from the circular letter to the other colonies, in which he invited them to cooperate with Ma.s.sachusetts in resisting the Townshend acts, and in pet.i.tioning for their repeal. The a.s.sembly, having adopted all these papers by a large majority, was forthwith prorogued by Governor Bernard, who, in a violent speech, called them demagogues to whose happiness "everlasting contention was necessary."
But the work was done. The circular letter brought encouraging replies from the other colonies. The condemnation of the Townshend acts was unanimous, and leading merchants in most of the towns entered into agreements not to import any more English goods until the acts should be repealed. Ladies formed a.s.sociations, under the name of Daughters of Liberty, pledging themselves to wear homespun clothes and to abstain from drinking tea. The feeling of the country was thus plainly enough expressed, but nowhere as yet was there any riot or disorder, and no one as yet, except, perhaps, Samuel Adams, had begun to think of a political separation from England. Even he did not look upon such a course as desirable, but the treatment of his remonstrances by the king and the ministry soon led him to change his opinion.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A List of Names of _those_ who AUDACIOUSLY continue to counteract the UNITED SENTIMENTS of the BODY of Merchants thro" out NORTH-AMERICA; by importing British Goods contrary to the Agreement.]
[Sidenote: Lord Hillsborough"s instructions to Bernard]
The pet.i.tion of the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly was received by the king with silent contempt, but the circular letter threw him into a rage. In cabinet meeting, it was p.r.o.nounced to be little better than an overt act of rebellion, and the ministers were encouraged in this opinion by letters from Bernard, who represented the whole affair as the wicked attempt of a few vile demagogues to sow the seeds of dissension broadcast over the continent. We have before had occasion to observe the extreme jealousy with which the Crown had always regarded any attempt at concerted action among the colonies which did not originate with itself.
But here was an attempt at concerted action in flagrant opposition to the royal will. Lord Hillsborough instructed Bernard to command the a.s.sembly to rescind their circular letter, and, in case of their refusal, to send them home about their business. This was to be repeated year after year, so that, until Ma.s.sachusetts should see fit to declare herself humbled and penitent, she must go without a legislature. At the same time, Hillsborough ordered the a.s.semblies in all the other colonies to treat the Ma.s.sachusetts circular with contempt,--and this, too, under penalty of instant dissolution. From a const.i.tutional point of view, these arrogant orders deserve to be ranked among the curiosities of political history. They serve to mark the rapid progress the ministry was making in the art of misgovernment. A year before, Townshend had suspended the New York legislature by an act of Parliament. Now, a secretary of state, by a simple royal order, threatened to suspend all the legislative bodies of America unless they should vote according to his dictation.
[Sidenote: The "Ill.u.s.trious Ninety-Two"]
When Hillsborough"s orders were laid before the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly, they were greeted with scorn. "We are asked to rescind," said Otis. "Let Britain rescind her measures, or the colonies are lost to her forever."
Nevertheless, it was only after nine days of discussion that the question was put, when the a.s.sembly decided, by a vote of ninety-two to seventeen, that it would not rescind its circular letter. Bernard immediately dissolved the a.s.sembly, but its vote was hailed with delight throughout the country, and the "Ill.u.s.trious Ninety-Two" became the favourite toast on all convivial occasions. Nor were the other colonial a.s.semblies at all readier than that of Ma.s.sachusetts to yield to the secretary"s dictation. They all expressed the most cordial sympathy with the recommendations of the circular letter; and in several instances they were dissolved by the governors, according to Hillsborough"s instructions.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FANEUIL HALL, "THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY"]
[Sidenote: Impressment of citizens]
While these fruitless remonstrances against the Townshend acts had been preparing, the commissioners of the customs, in enforcing the acts, had not taken sufficient pains to avoid irritating the people. In the spring of 1768, the fifty-gun frigate Romney had been sent to mount guard in the harbour of Boston, and while she lay there several of the citizens were seized and impressed as seamen,--a lawless practice long afterward common in the British navy, but already stigmatized as barbarous by public opinion in America. As long ago as 1747, when the relations between the colonies and the home government were quite harmonious, resistance to the press-gang had resulted in a riot in the streets of Boston. Now while the town was very indignant over this lawless kidnapping of its citizens, on the 10th of June, 1768, John Hanc.o.c.k"s sloop Liberty was seized at the wharf by a boat"s crew from the Romney, for an alleged violation of the revenue laws, though without official warrant. Insults and recriminations ensued between the officers and the citizens a.s.sembled on the wharf, until after a while the excitement grew into a mild form of riot, in which a few windows were broken, some of the officers were pelted, and finally a pleasure boat, belonging to the collector, was pulled up out of the water, carried to the Common, and burned there, when Hanc.o.c.k and Adams, arriving upon the scene, put a stop to the commotion. A few days afterward, a town meeting was held in Faneuil Hall; but as the crowd was too great to be contained in the building, it was adjourned to the Old South Meeting-House, where Otis addressed the people from the pulpit. A pet.i.tion to the governor was prepared, in which it was set forth that the impressment of peaceful citizens was an illegal act, and that the state of the town was as if war had been declared against it; and the governor was requested to order the instant removal of the frigate from the harbour. A committee of twenty-one leading citizens was appointed to deliver this pet.i.tion to the governor at his house in Jamaica Plain. In his letters to the secretary of state Bernard professed to live in constant fear of a.s.sa.s.sination, and was always begging for troops to protect him against the incendiary and blackguard mob of Boston. Yet as he looked down the beautiful road from his open window, that summer afternoon, what he saw was not a ragged mob, armed with knives and bludgeons, shouting "Liberty, or death!" and bearing the head of a revenue collector aloft on the point of a pike, but a quiet procession of eleven chaises, from which there alighted at his door twenty-one gentlemen, as sedate and stately in demeanour as those old Roman senators at whom the Gaulish chief so marvelled. There followed a very affable interview, during which wine was pa.s.sed around. The next day the governor"s answer was read in town meeting, declining to remove the frigate, but promising that in future there should be no impressment of Ma.s.sachusetts citizens; and with this compromise the wrath of the people was for a moment a.s.suaged.
[Portrait: Fra. Bernard]
Affairs of this sort, reported with gross exaggeration by the governor and revenue commissioners to the ministry, produced in England the impression that Boston was a lawless and riotous town, full of cutthroats and blacklegs, whose violence could be held in check only by martial law. Of all the misconceptions of America by England which brought about the American Revolution, perhaps this notion of the turbulence of Boston was the most ludicrous. During the ten years of excitement which preceded the War of Independence there was one disgraceful riot in Boston,--that in which Hutchinson"s house was sacked; but in all this time not a drop of blood was shed by the people, nor was anybody"s life for a moment in danger at their hands. The episode of the sloop Liberty, as here described, was a fair sample of the disorders which occurred at Boston at periods of extreme excitement; and in any European town in the eighteenth century it would hardly have been deemed worthy of mention.
[Sidenote: Statute of Henry VIII. concerning "treason committed abroad"]