** Congress issued a proclamation, declaring that "whatever punishment shall be inflicted upon any persons in the power of their enemies for favoring, aiding, or abetting the cause of American liberty, shall be retaliated in the same kind, and in the same degree, upon those in their power, who had favored, aided, or abetted, or shall favor, aid, or abet the system of ministerial oppression." This made the Tories and the British officers cautious in their proceedings toward patriots in their power.
*** This drawing is the size of the medal. It was struck in Paris, from a die cut by Duvivier. The device is a head of Washington, in profile, with the Latin legend "Georgio Washington, supremo duci exercituum adsertori libertatis comitia Americana;" "The American Congress to George Washington, commander-in-chief of its armies, the assertors of freedom." Reverse: troops advancing toward a town; others marching toward the water; ships in view; General Washington in front, and mounted, with his staff, whose attention he is directing to the embarking enemy. The legend is "The enemy for the first time put to flight." The exergue under the device—"Boston recovered, 17th March, 1776."
Denunciations by John Wilkes.—The King tensed.—Boldness of the Common Council.—Governor Penn.—John Home Tooke
in which it was asserted that it was plainly to be perceived that government intended to establish arbitrary rule in America without the sanction of the British Constitution, and that they were also determined to uproot the Constitution at home, and to establish despotism upon the ruins of English freedom. The address concluded by calling for an instant dismissal of the ministers. The king was greatly irritated, and refused to receive the address, unless presented in the corporate capacity of "mayor, aldermen, livery," &c. This refusal Wilkes denounced as a denial of the right of the city to petition the throne in any respectful manner it pleased; "a right," he said, "which had been respected even by the accursed race of Stuarts." Another address, embodying a remonstrance and petition, was prepared, and inquiry was made of the king whether he would receive it while sitting on the throne, it being addressed by the city in its corporate capacity. The king replied that he would receive it at his next levee, but not on the throne. One of the sheriffs sent by Wilkes to ask the question of his majesty, assured the king that the address would not be presented except when he was sitting upon the throne. The king replied that it was his prerogative to choose where he would receive communications from his subjects. The livery of London declared this answer to be a denial of their rights, resolved that the address and remonstrance should be printed in the newspapers, and that the city members in the House of Commons should be instructed to move for "an impeachment of the evil counselors who had planted popery and arbitrary power in America, and were the advisers of a measure so dangerous to his majesty and to his people as that of refusing to hear petitions." * The common council adopted a somewhat more moderate address and remonstrance, which the king received, but whether sitting upon the throne or at his levee is not recorded. **
On the 23d of August, the government, informed of the events of the 17th of June 1775at Charlestown, issued a proclamation for suppressing rebellion, preventing seditious correspondences, et cetera. Wilkes, as lord mayor, received orders to have this proclamation read in the usual manner at the Royal Exchange. He refused full obedience, by causing it to be read by an inferior officer, attended only by a common crier; disallowing the officers the use of horses, and prohibiting the city mace to be carried before them. The vast assembly that gathered to hear the reading replied with a hiss of scorn.
A few days afterward the respectful petition of the Continental Congress was laid before the king by Richard Penn. Earl Dartmouth soon informed Penn that the king had resolved to take no notice of it; and again the public mind was greatly agitated, particularly in London, at what was denominated "another blow at British liberty." The strict silence of ministers on the subject of this petition gave color to the charge that they had a line of policy marked out, from which no action of the Americans could induce them to deviate short of absolute submission. The Duke of Richmond determined to have this silence broken, and procured an examination of Governor Penn before the House of Lords. That examination brought to light many facts relative to the strength and union of the colonics which ministers would gladly have concealed. It revealed the truth that implicit obedience
* Pictorial History of England, v., 235.
** It was about this time that the celebrated John Horne Tooke, a vigorous writer and active politician, was involved in a proceeding which, in November, 1775, caused him to receive a sentence of imprisonment for one year, pay a fine of one thousand dollars, and find security for his good behavior for three years. His alleged crime was "a libel upon the king's troops in America." The libel was contained in an advertisement, signed by him, from the Constitutional Society (supposed to be revolutionary in its character), respecting the Americans. That society called the Lexington affair a "murder" and agreed that the sum of five hundred dollars should be raised "to be applied to the relief of the widows, orphans, and aged parents of our beloved American fellow-subjects" who had preferred death to slavery. This was a set-off against subscriptions then being raised in England for the widows and orphans of the British soldiers who had perished. The sum raised by this society was sent to Dr. Franklin, who, as we have seen, paid it over to the proper committee, when he visited the army at Cambridge, in October, under the direction of Congress. Out of the circumstance of Horne Tooke's imprisonment arose his letter to Counselor Dunning, which formed the basis of his subsequent philological work, The Diversions of Purley, published in 1780.
Strength of the Americans.—Political Change in the London Common Council.—Persecution of Stephen Sayre.
to Congress was paid by all classes of men; that in Pennsylvania alone there were twenty thousand effective men enrolled for military service, and four thousand minute men; that the Pennsylvanians perfectly understood the art of making gunpowder; that the art of casting cannon had been carried to great perfection in the colonies; that small arms were also manufactured in the best manner; * that the language of Congress was the voice of the people; that the people considered the petition as an olive branch; and that so much did the Americans rely upon its effect, that if rejected, or treated with scorn, they would abandon all hope of a reconciliation.