stores to America. It was soon followed up in New CHAPTER Hampshire. Instigated by Paul Revere from Boston, XXX and led by John Sullivan, a leading lawyer, late a dele- 1774. gate to the Continental Congress, and by John Langdon, Dec. 13. a principal merchant of Portsmouth, a large party entered the fort at that place, which was only guarded by four or five men, and carried off a hundred barrels of powder, some cannon and small arms. The doings of the Continental Congress were approved Dec. 8. by a convention in Maryland, and the several counties took measures for enforcing the Association. The Convention. of Maryland assumed, in fact, the powers of government; they ordered the militia to be enrolled, and voted £10,000 to purchase arms. The Assembly of Pennsylvania also approved the doings of Congress, and appointed delegates Dec. 15. to the new one. In South Carolina, delegates to the 1775. new Congress, and committees of inspection to enforce Jan. 11. the Association, were appointed by a provincial convention, of which Charles Pinckney was president, called together by the committee of ninety-nine. Some of the members of this convention, particularly the indigo planters from the upper counties, took great offense at the exception of rice from the non-exportation agree. ment, regarding it as a piece of unjustifiable partiality. A motion was made to instruct the new delegates to use their endeavors at the ensuing Congress to cause this exception to be stricken out. Gadsden, one of the late delegates, disclaimed any responsibility in this matter, the very proposal of which had occasioned, he said, great disgusts, and a cessation from business for several days, to give the South Carolina delegates time to recollect themselves. It had only been yielded at last for the sake of preserving the union of America. He was in favor of striking it out. John Rutledge alleged, in XXX. CHAPTER defense of himself and his three colleagues, that without this exception the Association would have operated with 1775. particular severity on South Carolina; and he proposed to equalize matters by a compensation to the indigo planters. A committee was appointed on that subject, but the plan of compensation proved unsatisfactory. The question then recurred on the original motion, when the rice planters prevailed by a very close vote—a vote, however, which tended not a little to increase the disaf fection in the upper counties. Among other powers conferred by the South Carolina Convention upon the local committees was that of granting extensions upon all debts, security being given; nor could any suit be brought without their permission. The Assembly of New Jersey, in spite of Governor Jan. 24. Franklin's efforts, approved the doings of Congress, which Jan. 25. were ratified also in New Hampshire by a convention of delegates. The temper of the Pennsylvania Assembly, though the action of Congress had been approved by that body, seemed too moderate to the warmer spirits. They Jan. 23. called a Provincial Convention; and, besides taking effectual means for enforcing the Association, adopted a resolution, that "if the British administration should determine to effect by force a submission to the late acts of Parlia ment, in such a situation we hold it our indispensable duty to resist such force, and, at every hazard, to defend the rights and liberties of America." The president of this convention was Joseph Reed, a young lawyer of Presbyterian origin, who had married a daughter of De Berdt, the late Massachusetts agent in London. leading spirit in it was Thomas Mifflin, a young Quaker distinguished for energy of character, and gifted with a remarkable flow of popular eloquence. But the Quakers generally did not share Mifflin's enthusiasm. They had A XXX. declined to have any thing to do with enforcing the As- CHAPTER sociation. While the Convention was sitting, the Quak er yearly meeting, assembled at Philadelphia, put forth a 1775. "testimony," in which their members were called upon "to unite in abhorrence of every measure and writing" "tending to break off the happy connection of the colonies with the mother country, or to interrupt their just subordination to the king." The religious sentiments of the other leading sects were not without a certain effect on politics. The Congregational ministers of New England, an intelligent and very influential body, headed at this period by Chauncy and Cooper, of Boston, cherished a traditionary sentiment of opposition to British control-a sentiment strengthened, of late years, by the attempts of the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to build up Episcopacy in New England by supporting there some thirty Episcopal missionaries. An unseasonable revival of the scheme for a bishop in the colonies had recently excited a bitter controversy, in which, since Mayhew's death, Chauncy had come forward as the Congregational champion a controversy which could only tend to confirm the Congregational body in hostility to the extension of English influence. The larger part of the Presbyterians, the most numerous sect in the middle colonies, derived their origin from the dissenting sections of the Scottish Church. For the most part, they had the same political sympathies with the Congregationalists of New England. Measures had been taken, of late years, to give concentration and unity to this sect by the establishment of an annual synod at Philadelphia. Witherspoon, an eminent Scottish clergyman, who had arrived some years before to take charge of the College of New Jersey, was presently sent a dele XXX. CHAPTER gate to Congress, of which body he became an active member. The native-born Presbyterians were almost 1775. all stanch Whigs; but the Scotch traders and merchants, numerous in the southern colonies, adhered generally to the Tory side. The Episcopal clergy throughout the colonies leaned, with very few exceptions, to the support of the crown; and in the middle and northern provinces their flocks were chiefly of the same way of thinking. In the southern colonies, where episcopacy was the established and prevailing form of worship, religion, uninflamed by sectarian contention, seems to have exercised very little influence over political opinions. The scheme, indeed, for an American bishop, so far from meeting with any countenance in Virginia, was denounced by the Assembly as "the pernicious project of a few mistaken clergymen." The Episcopalians were more numerous and influential in New York than in any other northern province; and, for some years past, New York had evinced a degree of backwardness. The moderate Assembly, chosen in 1769, and still in existence, declined to sanction the Jan. 16. proceedings of the late Continental Congress, or to apFeb. 23. point delegates to the new one. Yet they did by no means abandon the colonial cause; a petition to the king, a memorial to the House of Lords, and a representation and remonstrance to the Commons, were forwarded to their agent, Edmund Burke-documents not materially different in their tone from those adopted by the Continental Congress. In Georgia, the committee of Christ Church parish Jan. 18. called a Convention to meet at the same time with the Assembly. But only seven out of the twelve parishes were represented; and the influence of Governor Wright was still sufficient to prevent the adoption by that province of the American Association. VIEWS AND MEASURES OF THE BRITISH MINISTRY AND XXXI. ENCOURAGED by information from America, de- CHAPTER rived from officials whose opinions were greatly influenced by their wishes, Lord North and his colleagues be- 1774. lieved that a little firmness and energy on the part of the mother country would shake the resolution and break up the apparent union of the colonies. Even in New England and Virginia a considerable number of the wealthy and respectable were known to be warmly attached to the mother country, though overborne and silenced, for the present, by the violence of the opposite party. In New York the friends of the crown were strong; many landed proprietors and merchants adhered to that side; a considerable part of the inhabitants consisted of recent emigrants, whose habits of loyalty were less easily shaken; while among those born in the province there prevailed a strong prejudice against the people of New England, sufficient, it was believed, to prove a serious obstacle to any hearty co-operation. The Quakers, so numerous and influential in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and not without weight in North Carolina, were known to be generally |