* THE ORIGIN OF YANKEE DOODLE.
Once on a time old Johnny Bull flew in a raging fury,
And swore that Jonathan should have no trials, sir, by jury;
That no elections should be held across the briny waters:
And now said he, "I'll tax the tea of all his sons and daughters."
Then down he sate in burly state, and bluster'd like a grandee,
And in derision made a tune call'd "Yankee doodle dandy."
"Yankee doodle"—these are facts—"Yankee doodle dandy:
My son of wax, your tea I'll tax; you—Yankee doodle dandy."
John sent the tea from o'er the sea, with heavy duties rated;
But whether hyson or bohea I never heard it stated.
Then Jonathan to pout began—he laid a strong embargo—
"I'll drink no tea, by Jove 1" so he threw overboard the cargo.
Then Johnny sent a regiment, big words and looks to bandy,
Whose martial band, when near the land, play'd "Yankee doodle dandy."
"Yankee doodle—keep it up—Yankee doodle dandy—
I'll poison with a tax your cup; you—Yankee doodle dandy."
A long war then they had, in which John was at last defeated,
And "Yankee doodle" was the march to which his troops retreated.
Cute Jonathan, to see them fly, could not restrain his laughter;
"That tune," said he, "suits to a T. I'll sing it ever after."
Old Johnny's face, to his disgrace, was flush'd with beer and brandy,
E'en while he swore to sing no more this "Yankee doodle dandy."
Yankee doodle—ho, ha, he—Yankee doodle dandy,
We kept the tune, but not the tea—Yankee doodle dandy.
I've told you now the origin of this most lively ditty,
Which Johnny Bull dislikes as "dull and stupid"—what a pity!
With "Hail Columbia" it is sung, in chorus full and hearty—
On land and main we breathe the strain John made for his tea party.
No matter how we rhyme the words, the music speaks them handy,
And where's the fair can't sing the air of "Yankee doodle dandy!"
Yankee doodle, firm and true—Yankee doodle dandy—
Yankee doodle, doodle doo, Yankee doodle dandy.
Landing of the Troops.—Imposing Military Display.—Exasperation of the People.—Non-importation Associations.
of the guns of the ships, the troops, about seven hundred in number, landed with charged muskets, fixed bayonets, colors flying, drums beating, and every other military parade usual on entering a conquered city of an enemy. A part of the troops encamped on the Common, and part occupied Faneuil Hall and the town-house. Cannons were placed in front of the latter; passengers in the streets were challenged, and other aggravating circumstances attended the entrance of the troops. Every strong feeling of the New Englander was outraged, his Sabbath was desecrated, his worship was disturbed, his liberty was infringed upon. The people became greatly exasperated; mutual hatred, deep and abiding, was engendered between the citizens and the soldiers, and the terms rebel and tyrant were daily bandied between them.
All Americans capable of intelligent thought sympathized with Massachusetts, and the engine of non-importation agreements, which worked so powerfully against the Stamp Act, was put in motion with increased energy. * These associations became general in all the colonies, under the sanction of the Assemblies. An agreement, presented by Washington in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, was signed by every member, and the patriotism of the people was every where displayed by acts of self-denial. **
* The non-importation agreement of the people of Boston was, substantially, that they would not import any goods for the fall of 1768, except those already ordered; that they would not import any goods from Great Britain from the 1st of January, 1769, to the 1st of January, 1770, except salt, coals, fish-hooks and lines, hemp and duck, bar lead and shot, wool cards and card wires; that they would not import on their own account, or on commission, or purchase from any who should import, from any other colony in America, from January, 1769, to January, 1770, any tea, paper, glass, or painters' colors, until the aet imposing duties on those articles should be repealed.
** A letter from Newport, published in a New York paper in January, 1768, remarks that, at an afternoon visit of ladies, "It was resolved that those who could spin ought to be employed in that way, and those who could not should reel. When the time arrived for drinking tea, bohea and hyperion were provided, and every one of the ladies judiciously rejected the poisonous bohea, and unanimously, to their very great honor, preferred the balsamic hyperion." The hyperion here spoken of was of domestic manufacture—the dried leaves of the raspberry plant. In Boston a party of some forty or fifty young ladies, calling themselves Daughters of Liberty, met at the house of the Rev. Mr. Morehead, where they amused themselves during the day with spinning "two hundred and thirty-two skeins of yarn, some very fine, which were given to the worthy pastor, several of the party being members of his congregation." Numerous spectators came in to admire them. Refreshments were indulged in, and "the whole was concluded with many agreeable tunes, anthems, and liberty songs, with great judgment; fine voices performing, which were animated, in all their several parts, by a number of the Sons of Liberty." It is added that there were upward of one hundred spinners in Mr. Morehead's society.
The Duke of Grafton.—The King's Speech, and the Response.—Proposed Re-enactment of a Statute of Henry VIII.
Let us consider for a moment the acts of the British Parliament at this juncture. It assembled on the 8th of November. Pitt was ill at his country seat, Townshend was dead, and the Duke of Grafton, who had been one of the Secretaries of State in the Rockingham administration, was really at the head of this unpopular ministry. He was an able, straight-forward politician, a warm admirer and friend of Pitt, and a firm supporter of his principles. *
The king, in his speech from the throne, alluded to fresh troubles in America, and denounced, in strong terms, the rebellious spirit evinced by Massachusetts. The response of ministers assured the king of their determination to maintain "the supreme authority of Great Britain over every part of the British empire." The address was adopted in the House of Lords, but met considerable opposition in the Commons, where the oppressive acts of the government toward America were severely criticised.
Early in January the consideration of American affairs was taken up in Parliament. The petition from the Boston Convention was contemptuously rejected; the Lords recommended, in an address to the king, the transmission of instructions to the Governor of Massachusetts to obtain full information of all treasons, and to transmit the offenders to England, to be tried there under a statute of the 35th of Henry VIII., which provided for the punishment of treason committed out of the kingdom. The address was opposed in the Commons by Pownall (who had been Governor of Massachusetts (a)), Burke, Barré, and a 1757 Dowdeswell. The latter denounced the measure as "unfit to remedy the disorders," and as "cruel to the Americans and injurious to England." He also censured Hillsborough for taking the responsibility, during the recess of Parliament, of ordering colonial governors to dissolve the Assemblies. Burke thundered his eloquent anathemas against the measure. "At the request of an exasperated governor," he exclaimed, "we are called upon to agree to an address advising the king to put in force against the Americans the Act of Henry VIII. And why? Because you can not trust the juries of that country! Sir, that word must convey horror to every feeling mind. If you have not a party among two millions of people, you must either change your plan of government, or renounce the colonies forever." Even Grenville, the author of the Stamp Act, opposed the measure as futile and unjust. Yet the January 26, 1769 address and resolutions accompanying it were concurred in by a majority of one hundred and fifty-five against eighty-nine. **
On the 8th of February Mr. Rose Fuller moved to recommit the address, for he saw in the proposed rigor toward the Americans the portents of great evil to the nation. He alluded to the miserable attempts to collect a revenue in America, and the monstrous evils growing out of them. "As for money," he said, "all that sum might be collected in Lon-
* The Duke of Grafton was the nobleman to whom the celebrated "Junius" addressed eleven of his scorching letters. In these he is represented as a most unscrupulous libertine in morals. He succeeded his grandfather in the family honors in 1757. He died on the 11th of March, 1811, aged seventy-five years.
** Cavendish's Debates.
Lord North.—Colonel Barré's Warnings.—General Gage in Boston.—No Co operation—Dissolution of Assemblies.—Bernard
don at less than half the expense." * Pownall, after alluding to the early settlement of America, the privations of the people, their virtues and courage, perseverance and enterprise, remarked, "But now that spirit, equally strong and equally inflamed, has but a slight and trifling sacrifice to make; the Americans have not a country to leave, but a country to defend; and have not friends and relatives to leave and forsake, but friends and relatives to unite with and stand by in one common union." But all efforts to avert the evil were vain; Mr. Fuller's motion was negatived by a majority of one hundred and sixty-nine against sixty-five.
Lord North had succeeded Charles Townshend as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he began his long career of opposition to the Americans by offering a resolution, on the 14th of March, that a respectful petition or remonstrance from the people of New York should not be received. This proposition, which was adopted, called up Colonel Barré. He reminded the House that he had predicted all that would happen on the passage of the Stamp Act, and he now plainly warned ministers that, if they persisted in their wretched course of oppression, the whole continent of North America would rise in arms, and those colonies, perhaps, be lost to England forever. But the British Legislature, blinded by ignorance of Americans when the Stamp Act was passed, seemed now still more blind, because of films of prejudice generated by a false national pride. The motion of Lord North prevailed—the petition was refused acceptance.
Gage went to Boston in October, to enforce the requisitions of the Quartering Act. But he found none to co-operate with him except Governor Bernard, whose zeal in his majesty's service had procured him a baronetcy, at the king's expense. The Council and the select-men declined to act, and Gage was obliged to hire houses for the troops, and provide many articles for them out of his own military chest Thus matters remained until spring, when intelligence of the several acts of Parliament against Massachusetts aroused the fiercest sentiments of opposition, short of actual rebellion, throughout the colonies. Legislative Assemblies spoke out boldly, and for this crime they were dissolved by royal governors. Yet amid all the excitement the colonists held out the olive branch of peace and reconciliation.
The Massachusetts Assembly convened in May and resolved that it was inconsistent with their dignity and freedom to deliberate in the midst of an armed force, May 31, 1769 and that the presence of a military and naval armament was a breach of privilege. They refused to enter upon the business of supplies, or any thing else but a redress of grievances, and petitioned the governor to remove the troops from Boston. He not only refused, but adjourned the Assembly to Cambridge, when he informed them that he was going to England to lay a statement of the affairs of the colony before the king. The House unanimously voted a petition to his majesty, asking the removal of Bernard forever; and adopted a resolution, declaring that the establishment of a standing army in the colony, in time of peace, was an invasion of natural rights, a violation of the British Constitution, high-
* It has been said that when Charles Townshend's project of taxation was in agitation, the English merchants offered to pay the taxes, or an equivalent for them, rather than run the risk of provoking the Americans and losing their trade.—Pictorial History of the Reign of George III., i., 72.
** Frederic, Earl of Guilford, better known as Lord North, was a man of good parts, sincerely attached to English liberty, and conscientious in the performance of all his duties. Like many other statesmen of his time, he utterly misapprehended the character of the American people, and could not perceive the justice of their claims. Devoted to his king and country, he labored to support the dignity of the crown and the unity of the realm, but in so doing he aided in bringing fearful misery upon the Americans for a time. He was a persuasive orator, a fair logician, amiable in private life, and correct in his morals. He was afflicted with blindness during the last years of his life. He died July, 1792, aged sixty years.
Departure of Governor Bernard for England.—Effect of the Non-importation Agreements.—Hillsborough's Circular Letter
ly dangerous to the people, and unprecedented. The governor, finding the members incorrigible, dissolved the Assembly, and sailed for England,1 leaving the colony in charge August 1, 1769. of his lieutenant, Thomas Hutchinson.
The effects of the non-importation agreements upon English commerce again brought ministers to their senses. The English merchants were really more injured by the acts of Parliament than the Americans, and they joined their petitions with those of the colonists for a repeal of the noxious acts. ** Under the direction of Lord North, Hillsborough sent a circular letter to the colonies, intimating that the duties upon all articles enumerated in the late act would be taken off, as a measure of expediency, except on tea. This would be a partial relief from the burden, but not a removal of the cause of complaint. The principle was the same whether duties were exacted on one article or a dozen, and so long as the assumed right of Parliament to tax the colonies was practically enforced in the smallest degree, so long the Americans felt their rights infringed. Principle, not expediency, was their motive of action, and, therefore, the letter of Hillsborough had no effect in quieting the disturbed ocean of popular feeling. The year 1769 closed without any apparent approximation of Great Britain and her American colonies to a reconciliation.
* Francis Bernard was Governor of New Jersey after Governor Belcher, in 1756. He succeeded Pownall as Governor of Massachusetts in 1760, and held the office nine years. The first years of his administration were satisfactory to the inhabitants, but, associating himself with ministers in their taxation schemes, he became odious to the Massachusetts people. His first false step was the appointment of Hutchinson chief justice instead of the elder Otis. When difficulties arose under the Stamp Act and kindred measures, Bernard was unfit for his position, for he had no talent for conciliation, and was disposed to use British power more prodigally than British justice in maintaining the supremacy of the laws. He was created a baronet in the summer of 1769. He never returned to America after leaving it, and died in England in June, 1779.
** The exports from England to America, which in 1768 had amounted to $11,890,000, $660,000 being in tea, had fallen in 1769 to $8,170,000, the tea being only $220,000.—Murray's United States, i., 352. Pownall, in the course of a speech in Parliament, also showed that the total produce of the new taxes for the first year had been less than $80,000, and that the expenses of the new custom-house arrangements had reduced the net profits of the crown revenue in the colonies to only $1475, while the extraordinary military expenses in America amounted, for the same time, to $850,000.—Hildreth, ii.. 552.
Secret Workings of the Spirit of Liberty.—Brief Review.—Alternative of the Colonies.—The Newspaper Press.