Chapter XIV: Part 14

The sudden and surprising victories of Pontiac were being rapidly undone. The great Ottawa chief saw his partially accomplished scheme withering into ignominious failure. Sullen, disappointed, consumed with humiliation and revenge, he withdrew from active prominence to his forest wigwam. He sought the banks of the Maumee, the scene of his birth and the location of the villages of many tribes who were his sympathetic adherents. He did not participate in any of the councils held by Bradstreet and the chiefs. "His vengeance was unslaked and his purpose unshaken." But his glory was growing dim and his power was withering into dust. From the scenes of his promising but short-lived triumphs, he retired into the country of the Illinois and the Mississippi. He tried to arouse the aid of the French. He gathered a band of four hundred warriors on the Maumee, and with these faithful followers revisited the Western tribes, in hopes of creating another confederation.[54] Not even would the southern tribes, however, respond to his appeals. All was lost. His allies were falling off; his followers, discouraged, were deserting him. Again and again he went back to his chosen haunts and former faithful followers on the Maumee. But his day had passed.

In the spring of 1766 Pontiac met Sir William Johnson[55] at Oswego. In his peace speech at that time he said: "I speak in the name of all the nations westward, of whom I am the master. It is the will of the Great Spirit that we should meet here to-day; and before him I now take you by the hand. I call him to witness that I speak from my heart; for since I took Colonel Croghan[56] by the hand last year, I have never let go my hold, for I see that the Great Spirit will have us friends.

"Moreover, when our great father, of France, was in this country, I held him fast by the hand. Now that he is gone, I take you, my English father, by the hand, in the name of all the nations, and promise to keep this covenant as long as I shall live."

But he did not speak from the heart; on the contrary, only from the head. Leaving the Oswego conference, "his canoe laden with the gifts of his enemy," Pontiac steered homeward for the Maumee; and in that vicinity he spent the following winter. From now on for some two years the great Ottawa chief disappeared as if lost in the forest depths.

In April, 1769, he is found at Fort St. Louis, on the west side of the Mississippi, where he gave himself mainly to the temporary oblivion of "fire-water," the dread destroyer of his race. He was wont to cross the "Father of Waters" to the fort on the British side at Cahokia, where he would revel with the friendly creoles. In one of these visits, in the early morning, after drinking deeply, he strode with uncertain step into the adjacent forest. He was arrayed in the uniform of a French officer, which apparel had been given him many years before by the Marquis of Montcalm. His footsteps were stealthily dogged by a Kaskaskia Indian, who in the silence and seclusion of the forest, at an opportune moment, buried the blade of a tomahawk in the brain of the Ottawa conqueror, the champion of his race.

The murderer had been bribed to the heinous act by a British trader named Williamson, who thought to thus rid his country (England) of a dangerous foe. The unholy price of the assassination was a barrel of liquor. It was supposed that the Illinois, Kaskaskia, Peoria, and Cahokia Indians were more or less guilty as accomplices in the horrible deed. That an Illinois Indian was guilty of the act was sufficient. The Sacs and Foxes, and other Western tribes friendly to Pontiac and his cause were aroused to furious revenge. They went upon the warpath against the Illinois Indians. A relentless war ensued, and, says Parkman, "over the grave of Pontiac more blood was poured out in atonement than flowed from the veins of the slaughtered heroes on the corpse of Patroclus."

The body of the murdered chief was borne across the river and buried near Fort St. Louis. No monument ever marked the resting-place of the great hero and defender of his people.

FOOTNOTES:

[45] Estimate of Sir William Johnson in 1763: Iroquois, 1950; Delawares, 600; Shawnees, 300; Wyandots, 450; Miamis and Kickapoos, 800; Ottawas, Ojibwas, and other wandering tribes of the Northwest "defy all efforts at enumeration." The British population in the colonies was then about 1,000,000; the French, something like 100,000.

[46] Rogers called this river Chocage. Rogers' camp was on the present site of the city of Cleveland.

[47] Parkman says he was about fifty years old when he met Major Rogers, which was in 1760.

[48] Chief Richardville also asserted that Pontiac was born of an Ottawa father and a Miami mother. The probability of this tradition is allowed by Knapp, and accepted by Dr. C.E. Slocum, of Defiance, a very careful and reliable authority. Dodge says some claimed Pontiac was a Catawba prisoner, adopted into the Ottawa tribe.

[49] Detroit was first settled by Cadillac, July 24, 1701, with fifty soldiers and fifty artisans and traders. So it had been the chief Western stronghold of the French for one hundred fifty years. Detroit at this time (1760) contained about two thousand inhabitants. The centre of the settlement was a fortified town, known as the "Fort," to distinguish it from the dwellings scattered along the river-banks. The Fort stood on the western bank of the river and contained about a hundred small wood houses with bark or thatch-straw roofs. These primitive dwellings were packed closely together and surrounded and protected by a palisade about twenty-five feet high; at each corner was a wooden bastion, and a block-house was erected over each gateway. The only public buildings in the enclosure were a council-house, the barracks, and a rude little church.

[50] There are many versions of the divulging of the plot; one that it was by an old squaw; another that a young squaw of doubtful character told it to one of the subordinate officers; still another, that it was by an Ottawa warrior. Parkman seems to favor the Ojibwa girl, called Catherine, and said to be the mistress of Gladwyn.

[51] True to his Indian nature, Pontiac determined to assume a mask of peace and bide his time. Gladwyn wrote as follows to Lord Jeffrey Amherst: "This moment I received a message from Pontiac telling me that he should send to all the nations concerned in the war to bury the hatchet; and he hopes your excellency will forget what has passed."--ED.

[52] This post of St. Joseph was the site of a Roman Catholic mission founded about the year 1700. Here was one of the most prominent French military posts.

[53] There were several forts called Miami in those early days. This one was built in 1749-1750 by the French commandant, Raimond.

[54] Pontiac sought the aid of the Kickapoos, Piankishaws, Sacs, Foxes, Dakotas, Missouris, and other tribes on the Mississippi and its head-waters.

[55] Sir William Johnson was at this time superintendent of Indian affairs in the North (of the colonies) by appointment from the King. Johnson was a great favorite with the Indians, and exerted great power over them, especially among the Six Nations. He married a sister of Brant, the Mohawk chief; he was, moreover, adopted into the Mohawk tribe and made a sachem.

[56] George Croghan was a deputy Indian agent under Sir William Johnson. In 1765, at the instance of Johnson, Croghan proceeded from Fort Pitt down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash, up which he journeyed and thence across the country to Detroit, treating with the Indians as he passed. On this journey Croghan met Pontiac, who made promises of peace and friendship.

AMERICAN COLONIES OPPOSE THE STAMP ACT

PATRICK HENRY'S SPEECH

A.D. 1765

JAMES GRAHAME GEORGE BANCROFT

Although the Stamp Act passed by the English Parliament in 1765 was
repealed in the following year, the opposition which led to its
repeal became also one of the principal causes of the American
Revolution. The passage of this act and the laying of its
impositions upon the colonies formed the climax of England's
mercantile policy there, where irritating revenue laws had already,
as in Massachusetts, for some years been in force.

In 1763 England determined to levy upon the colonies direct taxes,
not only for their own military defence, but also as a contribution
to the payment of the British war debt. George Grenville, who, says
Macaulay, knew of "no national interests except those which are
expressed by pounds, shillings, and pence," became prime minister in
1763. His first measure was that known as the "Molasses or [Sugar]
Act," reviving an old law for enforcement in the American colonies.
The act was meant to "protect" West Indian sugar-planters, and it
laid a heavy duty upon all sugar and molasses imported into North
America from the French West Indies.

The outbreak of indignation, especially in New England, against this
imposition was a prelude to the more general and determined
resistance to the Stamp Act, which was Grenville's second obnoxious
measure. The history of "Grenville's Stamp Act" is adequately set
forth by Grahame and Bancroft, whose respective accounts present its
most important features and its fate in the hands of American
patriots.

JAMES GRAHAME

The calamities of the French and Indian War (1755) had scarcely ended when the germ of another war was planted which soon grew up and produced deadly fruit. At that time sundry resolutions passed the British Parliament relative to the imposition of a stamp duty in America, which gave a general alarm. By them the right, the equity, the policy, and even the necessity of taxing the colonies were formally avowed. These resolutions, being considered as the preface of a system of American revenue, were deemed an introduction to evils of much greater magnitude. They opened a prospect of oppression, boundless in extent and endless in duration. They were, nevertheless, not immediately followed by any legislative act. Time and an invitation were given to the Americans to suggest any other mode of taxation that might be equivalent in its produce to the Stamp Act; but they objected not only to the mode, but the principle; and several of their assemblies, though in vain, petitioned against it.

An American revenue was, in England, a very popular measure. The cry in favor of it was so strong as to silence the voice of petitions to the contrary. The equity of compelling the Americans to contribute to the common expenses of the empire satisfied many who, without inquiring into the policy or justice of taxing their unrepresented fellow-subjects, readily assented to the measures adopted by the Parliament for this purpose. The prospect of easing their own burdens at the expense of the colonists dazzled the eyes of gentlemen of landed interest, so as to keep out of their view the probable consequences of the innovation. The omnipotence of Parliament was so familiar a phrase on both sides of the Atlantic that few in America, and still fewer in Great Britain, were impressed, in the first instance, with any idea of the illegality of taxing the colonists.

Illumination on that subject was gradual. The resolutions in favor of an American stamp act, which passed in March, 1764, met with no opposition. In the course of the year which intervened between these resolutions and the passing of a law grounded upon them, the subject was better understood, and constitutional objections against the measure were urged by several, both in Great Britain and America. This astonished and chagrined the British ministry; but as the principle of taxing America had been for some time determined upon, they were unwilling to give it up. Impelled by partiality for a long-cherished idea, Grenville, in March, 1765, brought into the House of Commons his long-expected bill for laying a stamp duty in America. By this, after passing through the usual forms, it was enacted that the instruments of writing in daily use among a commercial people should be null and void unless they were executed on stamped paper or parchment, charged with a duty imposed by the British Parliament.

When the bill was brought in, Charles Townshend concluded a speech in its favor with words to the following effect: "And now will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence, till they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms--will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?" To which Colonel Barre replied: "They planted by your care? No, your oppressions planted them in America! They fled from tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable; and, among others, to the cruelty of a savage foe the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say the most formidable, of any people upon the face of God's earth! And yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country from the hand of those that should have been their friends.

"They nourished up by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them! As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them, in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members in this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them: men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them; men promoted to the highest seats of justice--some who to my knowledge were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own.

"They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, have exerted a valor, amid their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And, believe me, that same spirit of freedom which actuated these people at first will accompany them still: but prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows I do not at this time speak from any motives of party heat. I deliver the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me, in general knowledge and experience, the respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you; having seen and been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the King has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated: but the subject is too delicate. I will say no more."

During the debate on the bill, the supporters of it insisted much on the colonies being virtually represented in the same manner as Leeds, Halifax, and some other towns were. A recurrence to this plea was a virtual acknowledgment that there ought not to be taxation without representation. It was replied that the connection between the electors and non-electors of Parliament, in Great Britain, was so interwoven from both being equally liable to pay the same common tax as to give some security of property to the latter: but with respect to taxes laid by the British Parliament, and paid by the Americans, the situation of the parties was reversed. Instead of both parties bearing a proportional share of the same common burden, what was laid on the one was exactly so much taken off from the other.

The bill met with no opposition in the House of Lords; and, on March 22, 1765, it received the royal assent. The night after it passed, Dr. Franklin wrote to Charles Thomson: "The sun of liberty is set; you must light up the candles of industry and economy." Thomson answered, "I was apprehensive that other lights would be the consequence"; and he foretold the opposition which shortly took place. On its being suggested from authority that the stamp officers would not be sent from Great Britain, but selected from among the Americans, the colony agents were desired to point out proper persons for that purpose. They generally nominated their friends, which affords a presumptive proof that they supposed the act would have gone down. In this opinion they were far from being singular.

That the colonists would be ultimately obliged to submit to the Stamp Act was at first commonly believed, both in England and America. The framers of it, in particular, flattered themselves that the confusion which would arise upon the disuse of writings, and the insecurity of property which would result from using any other than that required by law, would compel the colonies, however reluctant, to use the stamped paper, and consequently to pay the taxes imposed thereon. They therefore boasted that it was a law which would execute itself. By the term of the Stamp Act, it was not to take effect till November 1st--a period of more than seven months after its passing. This gave the colonists an opportunity of leisurely canvassing the new subject and examining fully on every side. In the first part of this interval, struck with astonishment, they lay in silent consternation, and could not determine what course to pursue. By degrees they recovered their recollection. Virginia led the way in opposition to the Stamp Act. Patrick Henry, on May 29, 1765, brought into the House of Burgesses of that colony vigorous resolutions, which were substantially adopted. [See Bancroft's account.]

They were well received by the people and immediately forwarded to the other provinces. They circulated extensively and gave a spring to the discontented. Till they appeared, most were of opinion that the act would be quietly adopted. Murmurs, indeed, were common, but they seemed to be such as would soon die away. The countenance of so respectable a colony as Virginia confirmed the wavering and emboldened the timid. Opposition to the Stamp Act, from that period, assumed a bolder face. The fire of liberty blazed forth from the press. Some well-judged publications set the rights of the colonists in a plain but strong point of view. The tongues and the pens of the well-informed citizens labored in kindling the latent sparks of patriotism. The flame spread from breast to breast till the conflagration became general. In this business, New England had a principal share. The inhabitants of that part of America, in particular, considered their obligations to the mother-country, for past favors, to be very inconsiderable. They were fully informed that their forefathers were driven by persecution to the woods of America, and had there, without any expense to the parent state, effected a settlement on bare creation. Their resentment, for the invasion of their accustomed right of taxation, was not so much mitigated by the recollection of late favors as it was heightened by the tradition of grievous sufferings to which their ancestors, by the rulers of England, had been subjected.

The heavy burdens which the operation of the Stamp Act would have imposed on the colonists, together with the precedent it would establish of future exactions, furnished the American patriots with arguments calculated as well to move the passions as to convince the judgments of their fellow-colonists. In great warmth they exclaimed: "If the Parliament have a right to levy the stamp duties, they may by the same authority lay on us imposts, excises, and other taxes without end, till their rapacity is satisfied or our abilities are exhausted. We cannot, at future elections, displace these men who so lavishly grant away our property. Their seat and their power are independent of us, and it will rest with their generosity where to stop in transferring the expenses of government from their own to our shoulders."

It was fortunate for the liberties of America that newspapers were the subject of a heavy stamp duty. Printers, when uninfluenced by government, have generally arranged themselves on the side of liberty, nor are they less remarkable for their attention to the profits of their profession. A stamp duty, which openly invaded the first and threatened a diminution of the last provoked their united zealous opposition. They daily presented to the public original dissertations tending to prove that if the Stamp Act were suffered to operate, the liberties of Americans were at an end, and their property virtually transferred to their transatlantic fellow-subjects. The writers among the Americans, seriously alarmed for the fate of their country, came forward with essays to prove that, agreeably to the British Constitution, taxation and representation were inseparable; that the only constitutional mode of raising money from the colonists was by acts of their own legislatures; that the crown possessed no further power than that of requisition; and that the Parliamentary right of taxation was confined to the mother-country, where it originated from the natural right of man to do what he pleased with his own, transferred by consent from the electors of Great Britain to those whom they chose to represent them in Parliament.

They also insisted much on the misapplication of public money by the British ministry. Great pains were taken to inform the colonists of the large sums annually bestowed on pensioned favorites and for the various purposes of bribery. Their passions were inflamed by high-colored representations of the hardship of being obliged to pay the earnings of their industry into a British treasury, well known to be a fund for corruption.

While a variety of legal and illegal methods were adopted to oppose the Stamp Act, November 1st, on which it was to commence its operation, approached. At Boston the day was ushered in by a funereal tolling of bells. Many shops and stores were shut. The effigies of the planners and friends of the Stamp Act were carried about the streets in public derision, and then torn in pieces by the enraged populace. It was remarkable that, though a large crowd was assembled, there was not the least violence or disorder.

At Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, the morning was ushered in with tolling all the bells in town. In the course of the day notice was given to the friends of Liberty to attend her funeral. A coffin, neatly ornamented and inscribed with the word "Liberty" in large letters was carried to the grave. The funeral procession began from the State House, attended with two unbraced drums. While the inhabitants who followed the coffin were in motion, minute-guns were fired, and continued till the coffin arrived at the place of interment. Then an oration in favor of the deceased was pronounced. It was scarcely ended before the coffin was taken up; it having been perceived that some remains of life were left, on which the inscription was immediately altered to "Liberty revived." The bells immediately exchanged their melancholy for a more joyful sound; and satisfaction appeared in every countenance. The whole was conducted with decency and without injury or insult to any man's person or property.

The general aversion to the Stamp Act was, by similar methods, in a variety of places, demonstrated. It is remarkable that the proceedings of the populace on these occasions were carried on with decorum and regularity. They were not ebullitions of a thoughtless mob, but for the most part planned by leading men of character and influence, who were friends to peace and order. These, knowing well that the bulk of mankind are more led by their senses than by their reason, conducted the public exhibitions on that principle, with a view of making the Stamp Act and its friends both ridiculous and odious.

Though the Stamp Act was to have operated from November 1st, yet legal proceedings in the courts were carried on as before. Vessels entered and departed without stamped papers. The printers boldly printed and circulated their newspapers, and found a sufficient number of readers; though they used common paper in defiance of the acts of Parliament. In most departments, by common consent, business was carried on as though no Stamp Act had existed. This was accompanied by spirited resolutions to risk all consequences rather than submit to use the paper required by law. While these matters were in agitation, the colonists entered into associations against importing British manufactures till the Stamp Act should be repealed. In this manner British liberty was made to operate against British tyranny. Agreeably to the free Constitution of Great Britain, the subject was at liberty to buy or not to buy, as he pleased. By suspending their future purchases on the repeal of the Stamp Act, the colonists made it the interest of merchants and manufacturers to solicit for that repeal. They had usually taken so great a proportion of British manufactures that the sudden stoppage of all their orders, amounting, annually, to two or three millions sterling, threw some thousands in the mother-country out of employment, and induced them, from a regard to their own interest, to advocate the measures wished for by America. The petitions from the colonists were seconded by petitions from the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain. What the former prayed for as a matter of right, and connected with their liberties, the latter also solicited from motives of immediate interest.

In order to remedy the deficiency of British goods, the colonists betook themselves to a variety of necessary domestic manufactures. In a little time large quantities of common cloths were brought to market; and these, though dearer and of a worse quality, were cheerfully preferred to similar articles imported from Britain. That wool might not be wanting, they entered into resolutions to abstain from eating lambs. Foreign elegancies were laid aside. The women were as exemplary as the men in various instances of self-denial. With great readiness they refused every article of decoration for their persons and luxuries for their tables. These restrictions, which the colonists had voluntarily imposed on themselves, were so well observed that multitudes of artificers in England were reduced to great distress, and some of their most flourishing manufactories were in a great measure at a stand. An association was entered into by many of the "Sons of Liberty"--the name given to those who were opposed to the Stamp Act--by which they agreed, "to march with the utmost expedition, at their own proper costs and expense, with their whole force, to the relief of those that should be in danger from the Stamp Act or its promoters and abettors, or anything relative to it, on account of anything that may have been done in opposition to its obtaining." This was subscribed by so many in New York and New England that nothing but a repeal could have prevented the immediate commencement of a civil war.

From the decided opposition to the Stamp Act which had been adopted by the colonies, it became necessary for Great Britain to enforce or to repeal it. Both methods of proceeding had supporters. The opposers of a repeal urged arguments, drawn from the dignity of the nation, the danger of giving way to the clamors of the Americans, and the consequences of weakening Parliamentary authority over the colonies. On the other hand, it was evident, from the determined opposition of the colonies, that it could not be enforced without a civil war, by which event the nation must be a loser. In the course of these discussions Dr. Franklin was examined at the bar of the House of Commons, and gave extensive information on the state of American affairs, and the impolicy of the Stamp Act, which contributed much to remove prejudices and to produce a disposition that was friendly to a repeal.

Some speakers of great weight, in both Houses of Parliament, denied their right of taxing the colonies. The most distinguished supporters of this opinion were Lord Camben, in the House of Lords, and William Pitt, in the House of Commons. The former, in strong language, said: "My position is this; I repeat it; I will maintain it to my last hour: taxation and representation are inseparable. This position is founded on the laws of nature. It is more; it is itself an eternal law of nature. For whatever is a man's own is absolutely his own. No man has a right to take it from him without his consent. Whoever attempts to do it attempts an injury. Whoever does it commits a robbery."

Pitt, with an original boldness of expression, justified the colonists in opposing the Stamp Act. "You have no right," said he, "to tax America. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of our fellow-subjects, so lost to every sense of virtue as tamely to give up their liberties, would be fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." He concluded with giving his advice that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately; that reasons for the repeal be assigned; that it was founded on an erroneous principle. "At the same time," said he, "let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever, that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent."

The approbation of this illustrious statesman, whose distinguished abilities had raised Great Britain to the highest pitch of renown, inspired the Americans with additional confidence in the rectitude of their claims of exemption from parliamentary taxation, and emboldened them to further opposition, when, at a future day, the project of an American revenue was resumed. After much debating, two protests in the House of Lords, and passing an act, "For securing the dependence of America on Great Britain," the repeal of the Stamp Act was carried, in March, 1766. This event gave great joy in London. Ships in the River Thames displayed their colors, and houses were illuminated all over the city. It was no sooner known in America, than the colonists rescinded their resolutions, and recommenced their mercantile intercourse with the mother-country. They presented their homespun clothes to the poor, and imported more largely than ever. The churches responded with thanksgivings, and public and private rejoicings knew no bounds. By letters, addresses, and other means, almost all the colonies showed unequivocal marks of acknowledgment and gratitude. So sudden a calm after so violent storm is without a parallel in history. By the judicious sacrifice of one law, the Parliament of Great Britain procured an acquiescence in all that remained.

GEORGE BANCROFT

Virginia received the plan to tax America by Parliament with consternation. At first the planters foreboded universal ruin; but soon they resolved that the act should recoil on England, and began to be proud of frugality; articles of luxury of English manufacture were banished, and threadbare coats were most in fashion. A large and embarrassing provincial debt enforced the policy of thrift.

Happily the Legislature of Virginia was then assembled; and the electors of Louisa County had just filled a sudden vacancy in their representation by making choice of Patrick Henry. He had resided among them scarcely a year, but his benignity of temper, pure life, and simplicity of habits had already won their love. Devoted from his heart to their interest, he never flattered the people and was never forsaken by them. As he took his place, not yet acquainted with the forms of business in the House, or with its members, he saw the time for the enforcement of the Stamp Tax drawing near, while all the other colonies, through timid hesitation or the want of opportunity, still remained silent, and cautious loyalty hushed the experienced statesmen of his own. More than half the assembly had made the approaching close of the session an excuse for returning home.

But Patrick Henry disdained submission. Alone, a burgess of but a few days, unadvised and unassisted, in an auspicious moment, of which the recollection cheered him to his latest day, he came forward in the committee of the whole House, and while Thomas Jefferson, a young collegian from the mountain frontier, stood outside of the closed hall, eager to catch the first tidings of resistance, and George Washington, as is believed, was in his place as a member, he maintained by resolutions that the inhabitants of Virginia inherited from the first adventurers and settlers of that dominion equal franchises with the people of Great Britain; that royal charters had declared this equality; that taxation by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to represent them, was the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom and of the constitution; that the people of that most ancient colony had uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed by their own laws respecting their internal polity and taxation; that this right had never been forfeited, nor in any other way given up, but had been constantly recognized by the King and people of Great Britain.

Such was the declaration of colonial rights adopted at his instance by the Assembly of Virginia. It followed from these resolutions--and Patrick Henry so expressed it in a fifth supplementary one--that the General Assembly of the whole colony have the sole right and power to lay taxes on the inhabitants of the colony, and that any attempt to vest such power in any other persons whatever tended to destroy British as well as American freedom. It was still further set forth, yet not by Henry, in two resolutions, which, though they were not officially produced, equally embodied the mind of the younger part of the Assembly, that the inhabitants of Virginia were not bound to yield obedience to any law designed to impose taxation upon them, other than the laws of their own General Assembly, and that anyone who should, either by speaking or writing, maintain the contrary, should be deemed an enemy to the colony.

A stormy debate arose and many threats were uttered. Robinson, the speaker, already a defaulter; Peyton Randolph, the King's attorney, and the frank, honest, and independent George Wythe, a lover of classic learning, accustomed to guide the House by his strong understanding and single-minded integrity, exerted all their powers to moderate the tone of "the hot and virulent resolutions"; while John Randolph, the best lawyer in the colony, "singly" resisted the whole proceeding. But, on the other side, George Johnston, of Fairfax, reasoned with solidity and firmness, and Henry flamed with impassioned zeal. Lifted beyond himself, "Tarquin," he cried, "and Cæsar, had each his Brutus; Charles the First, his Cromwell; and George the Third----" "Treason!" shouted the speaker, "treason, treason!" was echoed round the house, while Henry, fixing his eye on the first interrupter, continued without faltering, "may profit by their example!"

Swayed by his words, the committee of the whole showed its good-will to the spirit of all the resolutions enumerated; but the five offered by Patrick Henry were alone reported to the House, and on Thursday, May 30th, having been adopted by small majorities, the fifth by a vote of twenty to nineteen, they became a part of the public record. "I would have given five hundred guineas for a single vote," exclaimed the attorney-general, aloud, as he came out past young Jefferson, into whose youthful soul the proceedings of that day sank so deeply that resistance to tyranny became a part of his nature. But Henry "carried all the young members with him." That night, thinking his work done, he rode home, but the next day, in his absence, an attempt was made to strike all the resolutions off the journals, and the fifth, and the fifth only, was blotted out. The Lieutenant-Governor, though he did not believe new elections would fall on what he esteemed cool, reasonable men, dissolved the assembly; but the four resolutions which remained on the journals, and the two others, on which no vote had been taken, were published in the newspapers throughout America, and by men of all parties, by royalists in office, not less than by public bodies in the colonies, were received without dispute as the avowed sentiment of the "Old Dominion."

This is the "way the fire began in Virginia." Of the American colonies, "Virginia rang the alarum bell. Virginia gave the signal for the continent."

WATT IMPROVES THE STEAM-ENGINE

A.D. 1769

FRANÇOIS ARAGO

No greater service has been rendered to the world through mechanical
invention than that performed by James Watt in his improvement of
the steam-engine. Watt was born at Greenock, Scotland, in 1736.
During the eighty-three years of his life much progress was made in
mechanics and engineering in different countries, but the name of
Watt remains the most brilliant among contemporary workers in these
departments of practical science.

The first contriver of a working steam-engine is supposed to have
been Edward, second Marquis of Worcester (1601-1667). No complete
description of his engine is known to exist, and conjectures about
it disagree; but it is not questioned that he made important
contributions to the great invention, upon which others at the same
time were engaged. The construction of the first actual working
steam-engine is usually credited to Thomas Savery, born in England
about 1650. He devised a "fire-engine," as he called it, for the
raising of water, but, owing to the want of strong boilers and a
suitable form of condenser, it imperfectly served its purpose, and
was soon superseded by the better engine of Thomas Newcomen, here
referred to by Arago.

Newcomen was an English inventor, born in 1663. With Savery and
Cawley, he invented and in 1705 patented the atmospheric
steam-engine by which he is known, and which, as told by Arago, gave
place to the superior invention of Watt.

Arago was an eminent French physicist and astronomer (1786-1853),
who is even better known through his biographies of other great
workers in science. His account of "the fruitful inventions which
will forever connect the name of Watt with the steam-engine" is all
the more valuable for preservation because written while the
steam-engine was still in an early stage of its development. Of its
later improvements and varied uses, numerous descriptions are within
easy reach of all readers.

In physical cabinets we find a good many machines on which industry had founded great hopes, though the expense of their manufacture or that of keeping them at work has reduced them to be mere instruments of demonstration. This would have been the final fate of Newcomen's machine, in localities at least not rich in combustibles, if Watt's efforts had not come in to give it an unhoped-for degree of perfection. This perfection must not be considered as the result of some fortuitous observation or of a single inspiration of genius; the inventor achieved it by assiduous labor, by experiments of extreme delicacy and correctness. One would say that Watt had adopted as his guide that celebrated maxim of Bacon's: "To write, speak, meditate, or act when we are not sufficiently provided with _facts_ to stake out our thoughts is like navigating without a pilot along a coast strewed with dangers or rushing out on the immense ocean without compass or rudder."

In the collection belonging to the University of Glasgow there was a little model of a steam-engine by Newcomen that had never worked well. The professor of physics, Anderson, desired Watt to repair it. In the hands of this powerful workman the defects of its construction disappeared; from that time the apparatus was made to work annually under the inspection of the astonished students. A man of common mind would have rested satisfied with this success. Watt, on the contrary, as usual with him, saw cause in it for deep study. His researches were successively directed to all the points that appeared likely to clear up the theory of the machine. He ascertained the proportion in which water dilates in passing from a state of fluidity into that of vapor; the quantity of water that a certain weight of coal can convert into vapor; the quantity and weight of steam expended at each oscillation by one of Newcomen's engines of known dimensions; the quantity of cold water that must be injected into the cylinder to give a certain force to the piston's descending oscillation; and finally the elasticity of steam at various temperatures.

Here was enough to occupy the life of a laborious physicist, yet Watt found means to conduct all these numerous and difficult researches to a good termination, without the work of the shop suffering thereby. Dr. Cleland wished, not long since, to take me to the house, near the port of Glasgow, whither our associate[57] retired, on quitting his tools, to become an experimenter. It was razed to the ground! Our anger was keen but of short duration. Within the area still visible of the foundations ten or twelve vigorous workmen appeared to be occupied in sanctifying the cradle of modern steam-engines; they were hammering with redoubled blows various portions of boilers, the united dimensions of which certainly equalled those of the humble dwelling that had disappeared there. On such a spot, and under such circumstances, the most elegant mansion, the most sumptuous monument, the finest statue, would have awakened less reflection than those colossal boilers.

If the properties of steam are present to your mind, you will perceive at a glance that the economic working of Newcomen's engine seems to require two irreconcilable conditions. When the piston descends, the cylinder is required to be cold, otherwise it meets some steam there, still very elastic, which retards the operation very much, and diminishes the effect of the external atmosphere. Then, when steam at the temperature of 100° flows into the same cylinder and finds it cold, the steam restores its heat by becoming partially fluid, and until the cylinder has regained the temperature of 100° its elasticity will be found considerably attenuated; thence will ensue slowness of motion, for the counterpoise will not raise the piston until there is sufficient spring contained in the cylinder to counterbalance the action of the atmosphere; thence there will also arise an increase of expense.

No doubt will remain on the immense importance of this economical observation, when I shall have stated that the Glasgow model at each oscillation expended a volume of steam several times larger than that of the cylinder. The expense of steam, or, what comes to the same thing, the expense of fuel, or, if we like it better, the pecuniary cost of keeping on the working of the machine, would be several times less if the successive heatings and coolings, the inconveniences of which have just been described, could be avoided.

This apparently insolvable problem was solved by Watt in the most simple manner. It sufficed for him to add to the former arrangement of the engine a vessel totally distinct from the cylinder, and communicating with it only by a small tube furnished with a tap. This vessel, now known as "the condenser," is Watt's principal invention.

Still another invention by Watt deserves a word, the advantages of which will become evident to everybody. When the piston descends in Newcomen's engine, it is by the weight of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is cold; hence it must cool the sides of the metal cylinder, which is open at the top, in proportion as it expands itself over the entire surface. This cooling is not compensated during the whole ascension of the piston, without the expense of a certain quantity of steam. But there is no loss of this sort in the engines modified by Watt. The atmospheric action is totally eliminated by the following means:

The top of the cylinder is closed by a metal cover, only pierced in the centre by a hole furnished with greased tow stuffed in hard, but through which the rod of the piston has free motion, though without allowing free passage either to air or steam. The piston thus divides the capacity of the cylinder into two distinct and well-closed areas. When it has to descend, the steam from the caldron reaches freely the upper area through a tube conveniently placed, and pushes it from top to bottom as the atmosphere did in Newcomen's engine. There is no obstacle to this motion, because, while it is going on, only the base of the cylinder is in communication with the condenser, wherein all the steam from that lower area resumes its fluid state. As soon as the piston has quite reached the bottom, the mere turning of a tap suffices to bring the two areas of the cylinder, situated above and below the piston, into communication with each other, so that both shall be filled with steam at the same degree of elasticity; and the piston being thus equally acted upon, upward and downward, ascends again to the top of the cylinder, as in Newcomen's atmospheric engine, merely by the action of a slight counterpoise.

Pursuing his researches on the means of economizing steam, Watt also reduced the result of the refrigeration of the external surface of the cylinder containing the piston, almost to nothing. With this view he enclosed the metal cylinder in a wooden case of larger diameter, filling the intermediate annular space with steam.

Now the engine was complete. The improvements effected by Watt are evident; there can be no doubt of their immense utility. As a means of drainage, then, you would expect to see them substituted for Newcomen's comparatively ruinous engines. Undeceive yourselves: the author of a discovery has always to contend against those whose interest may be injured, the obstinate partisans of everything old, and finally the envious. And these three classes united, I regret to acknowledge it, form the great majority of the public. In my calculation I even deduct those who are doubly influenced to avoid a paradoxical result. This compact mass of opponents can only be disunited and dissipated by time; yet time is insufficient; it must be attacked with spirit and unceasingly; our means of attack must be varied, imitating the chemist in this respect--he learning from experience that the entire solution of certain amalgams requires the successive application of several acids. Force of character and perseverance of will, which in the long run disintegrate the best woven intrigues, are not always found conjoined with creative genius. In case of need, Watt would be a convincing proof of this. His capital invention--his happy idea on the possibility of condensing steam in a vessel separate from the cylinder in which the mechanical action goes on--was in 1765.

Two years elapsed without his scarcely making an effort to apply it on a large scale. His friends at last put him in communication with Dr. Roebuck, founder of the large works at Carron, still celebrated at the present day. The engineer and the man of projects enter into partnership; Watt cedes two-thirds of his patent to him. An engine is constructed on the new principles; it confirms all the expectations of theory; its success is complete. But in the _interim_ Dr. Roebuck's affairs receive various checks. Watt's invention would undoubtedly have restored them; it would have sufficed to borrow money; but our associate felt more inclined to give up his discovery and change his business. In 1767, while Smeaton was carrying on some triangulations and levellings between the two rivers of the Forth and the Clyde, forerunners of the gigantic works of which that part of Scotland was to be the theatre, we find Watt occupied with similar operations along a rival line crossing the Lomond passage. Later he draws the plan of a canal that was to bring coals from Monkland to Glasgow, and superintends the execution of it. Several projects of a similar nature, and, among others, that of a navigable canal across the isthmus of Crinan, which Rennie afterward finished; some deep studies on certain improvements in the ports of Ayr, Glasgow, and Greenock; the construction of the Hamilton and Rutherglen bridges; surveys of the ground through which the celebrated Caledonian Canal was to pass, occupied our associate up to the end of 1773. Without wishing at all to diminish the merit of these enterprises, I may be permitted to say that their interest and importance were chiefly local, and to assert that neither their conception, direction, nor execution required a man called James Watt.

In the early part of 1774, after contending with Watt's indifference, his friends put him into communication with Mr. Boulton, of Soho, near Birmingham, an enterprising, active man, gifted with various talents. The two friends applied to Parliament for a prolongation of privilege, since Watt's patent, dated 1769, had only a few more years to run. The bill gave rise to the most animated discussion. The celebrated mechanic wrote as follows to his aged father: "This business could not be carried on without great expense and anxiety. Without the aid of some warm-hearted friends we should not have succeeded, for several of the most powerful in the House of Commons were opposed to us." It seemed to me interesting to search out to what class of society these Parliamentary persons belonged to whom Watt alluded, and who refused to the man of genius a small portion of the riches that he was about to create. Judge of my surprise when I found the celebrated Burke at their head. Is it possible, then, that men may devote themselves to deep studies, possess knowledge and probity, exercise to an eminent degree oratorical powers that move the feelings, and influence political assemblies, yet sometimes be deficient in plain common-sense? Now, however, owing to the wise and important modifications introduced by Lord Brougham in the laws relative to patents, inventors will no longer have to undergo the annoyances with which Watt was teased.

As soon as Parliament had granted a prolongation of twenty-five years to Watt's patent, he and Boulton together began the establishments at Soho, which have become the most useful school in practical mechanics for all England. The construction of draining-pumps of very large dimensions was soon undertaken there, and repeated experiments showed that, with equal effect, they saved three-quarters of the fuel that was consumed by Newcomen's previous engines. From that moment the new pumps were spread through all the mining counties, especially in Cornwall. Boulton and Watt received as a duty the value of one-third of the coal saved by each of their engines. We may form an opinion of the commercial importance of the invention from an authentic fact: in the Chace-water mine alone, where three pumps were at work, the proprietors found it to their advantage to buy up the inventor's rights for the annual sum of sixty thousand francs (two thousand four hundred pounds). Thus in one establishment alone, the substitution of the condenser for internal injection had occasioned an annual saving in fuel of upward of one hundred eighty thousand francs (seven thousand pounds).

Men are easily reconciled to paying the rent of a house or the price of a farm. But this good-will disappears when an _idea_ is the subject treated of, whatever advantage, whatever profit, it may be the means of procuring. Ideas! are they not conceived without trouble or labor? Who can prove that with time the same might not have occurred to everybody? In this way days, months, and years of priority would give no force to the patent!

Such opinions, which I need not here criticise, had obtained a footing from mere routine as decided. Men of genius, the "manufacturers of ideas," it seemed, were to remain strangers to material enjoyments; it was natural that their history should continue to resemble a legend of martyrs!

Whatever may be thought of these reflections, it is certain that the Cornwall miners paid the dues that were granted to the Soho engineers with increased repugnance from year to year. They availed themselves of the very earliest difficulties raised by plagiarists, to claim release from all obligation. The discussion was serious; it might compromise the social position of our associate: he therefore bestowed his entire attention to it and became a lawyer. The long and expensive lawsuits that resulted therefrom, but which they finally gained, would not deserve to be now exhumed; but having recently quoted Burke as one of the adversaries to our great mechanic, it appears only a just compensation here to mention that the Roys, Mylnes, Herschels, Delucs, Ramsdens, Robisons, Murdocks, Rennies, Cummings, Mores, Southerns, eagerly presented themselves before the magistrates to maintain the rights of persecuted genius. It may be also advisable to add, as a curious trait in the history of the human mind, that the lawyers--I shall here prudently remark that we treat only of the lawyers of a neighboring country--to whom malignity imputes a superabundant luxury in words, reproached Watt, against whom they had leagued in great numbers, for having invented nothing but ideas. This, I may remark in passing, brought upon them before the tribunal the following apostrophe from Mr. Rous: "Go, gentlemen, go and rub yourselves against those untangible combinations, as you are pleased to call Watt's engines; against those pretended abstract ideas; they will crush you like gnats, they will hurl you up in the air out of sight!"