Читать книгу Revolution An Uncommon Chronicle of the American War for Independence - Kenneth JD Samcoe - Страница 17

George III

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: July, 1775. The London Coffee House, on Front Street in Philadelphia, overlooks a row of wharves and warehouses built along the Delaware River, where the coffee house receives a good portion of its business. Merchants, traders, dockworkers, captains and crews of the great ships lying at anchor frequent the London, where under a thick cloud of tobacco smoke and over the sweet and pungent smells of spilt rum and Madeira wine, they might be served a dinner of pork with a party of friends at one of the large tables near the center of the establishment’s main room.

More patrons are crowded around smaller tables along the London’s walls, where they indulge in heated conversations about independence and the war about to happen. Still other groups are huddled together behind doors of the London’s upstairs rooms. They are recent guests in Philadelphia. Every afternoon around 3 o’clock they walk from the State House and make their way to several of the city’s taverns where they eat and converse more urgently than the other patrons, because as delegates to the rebel Congress they are responsible for the war that’s about to happen.

Mr. A, or Anonymous, may be found in any of these rooms. We might also see him with the British in Boston or at rebel headquarters at Cambridge. His comments are the reflections of men who agree and who disagree with each other about the war and independence, many for motives not likely to be discussed in public or put down in print.

Mr. A., the British and their American colonies got along fairly well for a century and a half. How did this recent conflict come about?

It began years ago when the royal governors began losing control over here and Parliament paid no attention to them. The Provincial legislatures pretty much ran things for themselves until George Grenville was named Prime Minister by George III in 1763. Grenville better understood how much England depended on the colonies than his predecessors did.

We understand it is the other way around.

Maybe a hundred years ago it was. Today, the colonies provide England with roughly 20 percent of her imports and they purchase 40 percent of her exports. Grenville realized if England lost control of her trade over here, it could cripple her financially. Grenville wants England to reinforce her sovereignty over these people. This contest isn’t as much about taxes or representation, as it is about power and authority.

Is that why Grenville persuaded Parliament to pass the Stamp Act?

Parliament wants to maintain a large army west of the colonies to hold the French at bay and keep the settlers off Indian lands that are set out by treaties. England’s war chest is pretty thin. Grenville argued that the colonies should take on some of the expense. The Stamp Act was a method he devised for paying.

And the colonies responded by forming a Congress and declaring the Act unconstitutional.

Interesting enough, the Molasses or Sugar Act passed back in 1733 could have been called unconstitutional, but it was the Stamp Act that caused the riots and brought the colonies together.

Why the Stamp Act and not the Sugar Act?

The Sugar Act didn’t affect all the colonies. The tax was mostly imposed on molasses which is used in rum and there are no distilleries south of Pennsylvania. The Stamp act was universal. It hit everyone’s pocketbook.

We understand the riots over here brought down Grenville’s ministry.

They helped, but Grenville was on his way out even before the riots. He offended George III when he advised him not to recommend his mother to the regency council because he felt the House of Commons wouldn’t accept her. King George took his advice and then was embarrassed when Parliament revised a bill to include her. The King tossed Grenville out and brought Rockingham in.

What is the Regency Council?

It is a group of people selected by Parliament to rule England if the King becomes too ill.

Rockingham was also a disappointment to George III, wasn’t he?

Rockingham was a compromise between Pitt, who favors reconciliation with the colonies, and Grenville, who believes in a military solution. Rockingham is young and, for better or worse, he heads the Whig party. He’s also sympathetic to the colonies. He actually argued for reconciliation, but Pitt apparently wanted his job and didn’t back him.

Then George III fired Rockingham and put Pitt in power.

I’ve wondered, along with others, why Pitt took the job. Why he would leave the House of Commons for that of the Lords. Pitt is revered by all of Britain as the “Great Commoner.” His power is rooted in the Commons.

Parliament repealed the Stamp Act under Pitt’s ministry.

Yes, but under a Declaratory Act that reasserts Parliament’s sovereignty over the colonies, including the right to tax at a later time; in 1767 to be exact, when the Townshend Acts were passed and the colonies boycotted British products.

Townshend was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He proposed an import tax on wine, fruits, paper products, lead and glass. Items that weren’t consumed by the general public and he thought shouldn’t raise too much ire over here.

Townshend died recently.

Yes, and King George appointed Lord North to succeed him because North was adamant about collecting those taxes

Apparently the boycott was successful because the Townshend Acts were repealed.

Not all that successful. Parliament still asserts its right to tax, and the tea duties remain on the books.

And when Parliament attempted to enforce the tea duties, it unwittingly gave a few Bostonians a masquerade party in their harbor one night.

That event, which happened two years ago, still enrages much of England. It’s one thing to refuse to unload the tea like they did in New York. It’s another thing to masquerade as Indians, trespass on a private vessel and dump its contents overboard.

Lord North convinced Parliament to answer with the Coercive Acts.

People here call them the Intolerable Acts. Parliament is finally getting tough under North. It closed the port of Boston and wrote the colonists out of government by giving George III the right to appoint his people in the colonies’ upper houses of government. The colonies discussed the Acts with each other through their Committees of Correspondence and then answered England by declaring the Acts unconstitutional.

Wasn’t the so-called Boston “Tea Party” condemned here, too?

You bring up a very good point. There’s more than one power struggle going on over here. Gage’s war with the New England militia is more visible, but its potential for bloodshed isn’t any more threatening than the dissension between those who call themselves “Patriots” and those who call themselves “Loyalists.” Some of these people are militant and they hate each other’s politics with a passion.

Why so much open bitterness?

For one thing they’re encouraged to from the pulpit. Preachers on both sides of the conflict claim God has given them the nod. Loyalists swear by the divine right of kings and they site scripture to prove their case. Patriots pull out their own passages from the same Bible to argue that King and Parliament have no rights over them at all. Many Patriots are convinced they’ve been chosen by God to declare their independence from England.

Some have called this conflict a rebellion and others call it a revolution. How do you see it?

Of course it’s a revolution to the Patriots. King George’s England, however, would label it a nasty little rebellion.

How do you mean?

He’s convinced that the radicals are small in number and the Loyalists will rise up and fight with his troops, much like this whole country did in the French and Indian wars.

Do you think they will?

I’m not sure at this point. There are over 10,000 Patriot militia around Cambridge right now and I haven’t seen one armed Loyalist yet. They may come out when Gage moves his army on the mainland but right now the Patriots seem to have the leverage nearly everywhere.

In what way?

They’ve gained control over most of the colonies by usurping the local and provincial governments the King and Parliament put in place. Here in Massachusetts they’ve literally thrown politicians who don’t agree with them out of office. They’ve formed so-called Committees of Safety all over the colonies. These Committees have run many Loyalists off. Of course, all this could change when the militia come up against Gage and his armies again.

He wasn’t too successful the last time, was he?

Well, he can’t pull back when he has them running. Clinton’s reserves might have mopped them up at Cambridge.

Washington is considered a farmer rather than a military man. Was his appointment purely political?

Whoever came up with the notion that Washington isn’t a career officer hasn’t done his homework. The man has been in and out of the military since the age of 20. In fact, he ordered the shots that began the French and Indian War. He’s requested an officer’s commission from the British at least three times that I know of.

And he never received one?

That’s right. They turned him down on all three occasions and now they just might live to regret it, because he has to feel he has something to prove. He wanted command and he courted Congress for it. Showed up at every session in uniform. He was the only delegate who looked military. Did a great job of selling himself.

Do you think these people can beat the British?

They’ve shown they can damage them more than anyone expected. If the Loyalists stay in the background and this becomes a long, drawn out war, it’s anybody’s guess.

Can Washington make a decent army with the men you’ve seen?

Hard to say. They are a very unruly bunch and they aren’t about to put themselves or their muskets under just anyone’s authority.

Do you think the independence movement will take hold over here?

Unless England is willing to let them govern themselves under some sort of commonwealth, I can’t imagine these people heading in any other direction but toward independence. It may take a long, bitter, bloody while, though.

Is there a chance England might relinquish any power in order to avoid a war?

I doubt it. The English have a distorted view of these people. They look on a colonist as though he was a child, very dependent on England for his livelihood and protection. In reality, these people have carved good lives for themselves out of some very rugged land over the years, and with very little help. And they aren’t accustomed to being told where to put their money. They’ve never been shot at by their own government either. Then again, England’s never had her authority, much less a good part of her empire threatened by her settlers.

You’ve more or less painted a picture of an England about to plunge into a war she could avoid simply by yielding a few powers she’s found next to impossible to hold on to.

Well, when we talk of England we’re talking about King George III, a man with a large ego, a good sense of history and absolutely zero tolerance for anyone who disagrees with him. He’s not going to the grave as the monarch who lost 20 percent of the British Empire to what he views as a gang of rebels sitting in Philadelphia.

Thank you, Mr. A., for your observations.

You’re welcome.