CHAPTER V.

PHILANTHROPIC TREASON.1

THE idea apparently entertained by some writers that the American Revolution was a contest between Great Britain and her colonies without any material division of sentiment on either side, of course, is erroneous. But few seem to realize that, in fact, it was a civil war, with a well-defined line of cleavage drawn through both countries, though armed hostilities were confined to one of them. Large numbers of the inhabitants of Great Britain, and substantially all those of Ireland, took the part of the Revolutionists, and as large a proportion of the colonists took the part of Great Britain.

The part played in the drama of the American Revolution by the great Whig chiefs of England was by no means an unimportant one. From the beginning of the Disunion agitation until the signing of the treaty of peace they did their utmost to further the plan of independence formed by the Disunion chiefs of America. With untiring perseverance and without scruple they built up a party in Great Britain that abetted them in all they said and did, though they overstepped the verge of treason. They affiliated with the Disunion party in America, encouraging its leaders in their opposition to the Government with the assurance that their friends across the Atlantic would not permit them to be coerced. They pledged them their support, and assured them that their only fear was that there might be a "fatal yielding to the claims of the Government on the part of the colonists.2

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When in office these eminent friends of America' yielded to all the demands made by the Disunion chiefs

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demands, as wrote an English pamphleteer of the day, made with a loud voice, full of anger, defiance and denunciation ;"* demands founded upon no constitutional basis-and thus prepared the way for greater and still more unconstitutional demands, which, had they been granted, would have transformed the dependence of the colonies upon the general Government into a sort of quasi alliance with Great Britain, determinable at their pleasure.

When in Opposition they opposed every measure of the Government intended for the pacification of the colonies already in insurrection. After armed hostilities had been begun they cast aside all their obligations as citizens and subjects, neglecting no opportunity to give aid and comfort to the enemies of their country. With shameless audacity they proclaimed their advocacy of rebellion in the Houses of Parliament and at the foot of the throne. With superlative insolence they threatened the ministers with speedy and condign punishment for their loyalty to their king and country.3 No fact relating to the American Revolution is more amazing than the malignant and daringly outspoken treason of the English Whigs. They declared the valid claims of Parliament to be unconstitutional and tyrannical, and the pretensions of the revolted colonists to be lawful and just; that these " true and genuine sons of the earth" -three millions of them-animated as they were by the glorious spirit of Whiggism, were invincible; that such was their fierce spirit that, rather than submit to the dominion of Parliament, they would retreat to their woods and liberty, or retire over the Appalachian Mountains, there to become hordes of English Tartars, ever ready to pour down, an irresistible cavalry, upon the habitations of the "slaves" who adhered to the Government. They were likened to a band of wolves that the ministers had attempted to shear, mistaking them for

*Dean Tucker, in Good Humour.

†See Parliamentary History, Vol. XIX., pp. 620, et seq.: Wraxall's Historical Memoirs of My Own Time, Vol. II., p. 228.

sheep.* In the Commons no opportunity was neglected that would encourage the Disunion leaders to continued opposition. Truly was it declared that "the seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to factions in this House."+

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No action was too base or cruel to be attributed by the Whig leaders to the ministers. They were a committee of darkness," "black conspirators," who plotted the destruction of the British Empire, and "fomented the American revolt in order to create a decent apology for slaughter, conquest and unconditional submission."§ No act of the revolted colonists and their British abettors savored so much of treason as to fail of the commendation of the Whig orators.

In the Commons they unblushingly declared the insurgent army to be "our army." In that House Benjamin Franklin and Henry Laurens-both then engaged in an attempt to induce European powers to make war upon Great Britain-were eulogized as exalted patriots.** Richard Montgomery, lately an officer in the British army, who had resigned his commission in pique because he was not promoted to as high a rank as he conceived himself qualified to fill, had deserted his colors, joined the enemy in arms, and at the head of a body of insurgents invaded territory at peace under the British flag with the avowed purpose of conquest. In this attempt he had lost his life, and his death in arms against his country gave an opportunity to the Whig chiefs to pronounce his eulogy and denounce the deep damnation of

*Speeches of Chatham and Burke in the Lords and Commons. +Speech of George Grenville in the House of Commons in reply to Chatham in the debate on the repeal of the Stamp Act. From a speech of General Conway in debate in the House of Commons.

§Speech of Lord Camden, November 18, 1777: Parliamentary Register, Vol. X., pp. 30. 31.

Wraxall's Historical Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 228; Lady Minto's Life of Sir Gilbert Elliott.

**Wraxall's Historical Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 2.

his taking off. It was there asserted, in open debate, by a loyal member, that information regarding the weakness of the Government had "been exposed or pointed out to the rebels" by members of that House, and even that similar information had been transmitted to the Court of Versailles. "Every support," said this gentleman, "has been given the Americans, who have placed their confidence in the encouragement extended to them within these walls."*

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Every report of the success of the British arms came to these ill-fashioned patriots as a "dismal piece of news," and was declared by them to be "ruinous to liberty." Every disaster was made a subject for their rejoicing.4 They plotted together to clog" the war5 waged by the Government against rebels in arms. They were not ashamed to confer with the emissaries of these rebels, to act as their spies, and to furnish them with information that might be used with disastrous effect upon their country and countrymen.6 They opposed, by every available means, the enrollment of an army fit to cope with the insurrectionists; at one time offering pretended constitutional objections to enlistments, at others exhorting their countrymen to refrain from enlisting in an army to be employed for the coercion of their fellow Whigs across the Atlantic, who were contending for their freedom as well as their own; that the British forces sent to the colonies were inevitably doomed to defeat; but, even in the unlikely event of their success in suppressing the insurrection, that success would result in enslaving Englishmen as well as Americans. They appealed to the cupidity of the merchants by assuring them that the war against the colonies would be destructive of commerce and leave them bankrupt.† The natural result of these patriotic efforts was that "the common people," as wrote Lord Camden, "held the war

*Annual Register, 1777, p. 211. Wraxall's Historical Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 228.

†See Burke's speeches to his constituents at Bristol.

in abhorrence, and the merchants and tradesmen, for obvious reasons, were likewise against it."*

Further to antagonize the people against the Government, they brought unfounded charges against its officers of venality, treason, and even insanity.†

Indeed, so extravagant were the utterances of these illustrious Whig statesmen and their supporters that they seemed, like the famed " Bulls of Borodale," to have been driven mad with the echoes of their own bellowings. Edmund Burke characterized as "sacrilegious" the action of the ministry in ordering a blockade of the insurgent ports, at a time when these insurgents, for several months, had been making war upon the Government by land and sea. Charles James Fox missed no opportunity publicly to express his delight at the defeat of his country's arms. The Duke of Richmond, who had declared his intention to depart from Great Britain, given over to slavery, and to seek an asylum in the free and progressive monarchy of France, joined the chorus of his brother Whigs in casting odium upon the ministry and in lauding the revolting colonists. This noble democrat, upon learning that a thousand British seamen had perished in a storm, "with joy sparkling in his eyes,"-" parricide joy" one of his hearers, not inaptly, styled it-expressed the satisfaction he felt at the catastrophe. "Not one escaped!" he declared in an ecstasy of delight.§ So many there were the less to be used in coercing the blameless Americans.

Nor were the utterances of the dimmer lights of English Whiggism one whit less extravagant. The objurgations of Wilkes and his henchmen were many and scandalous. One William Baker, a prominent Whig and a supporter of Burke, declared that if the utter ruin.

*Chatham, Correspondence, Vol. IV., p. 401.

+William Baker to Burke, October 22, 1777: Burke's Works, Vol. I., p. 353.

Burke to Champion, December 15, 1775: Burke's Works, Vol. I., p. 302.

Life of Sir Gilbert Elliott, Vol. I., pp. 76, 77.