Nothing illustrates better the conditions of mind in the long, bitter turmoil, than an incident, infuriating the people of Boston, which happened March 5, 1770. A number of young men and boys, probably fifty or sixty of them, gathered on Boston Common to throw snowballs. A company of militia being near, offered too tempting an object, and they began to pelt the soldiers. The claim was that some of the snowballs contained rocks, though no one was seriously injured. The soldiers charged the bunch of boys, not with weapons, but with fists, and put them to flight. This was not enough for the victors, and so the soldiers pursued the flying enemy. Seeing this, some citizens rang alarm bells. A mob assembled around the custom house and was ordered away. The troops were assailed with clubs and stones. They fired into the crowd and killed four, wounding several others. The town was aflame with wrath and the troops were removed to the barracks outside to prevent further bloodshed. Though it was hardly disastrous enough to deserve the name, “Boston Massacre,” yet there was no doubt that nothing in the early days of the revolution, had more effect in setting the minds of the people against England. It was a sign of the times, and was like a little word that may sometimes mean as much as a whole discourse, especially when a social group of minds is unified in one interest of opposition or defense.
It was during these stirring times in the North that Washington was prevailed on by the Colonial government to visit the Indian tribes on the Ohio for a better understanding of the right of each side under the existing treaties. His journey to the site of old Fort Duquesne, renamed Fort Pitt, where Pittsburg now stands, was full of romantic memories, and was met with many assurances of friendship among the now reconciled Indians.
Through the many interesting scenes, still somewhat perilous from the uncertainty of Indian friendship, he arrived at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. It was at this place where Washington was visited by an old Indian Sachem, who approached him with great reverence as if he were in the presence of a very superior being. Through the interpreter, the Indian chief said that he had heard of his coming to their country and had come a long way to see him. He explained his unusual interest by saying that he had led his warriors against the English under General Braddock. It was he with his band of braves who had lain in ambush on the banks of the Monongahela and had done such deadly slaughter to the English troops. But his reverence for Washington had a special reason. The Indians saw Washington as one of the boldest, riding fearlessly over the battlefield, carrying the General’s orders. The chief and his warriors had singled Washington out as one they must kill. They had tried their best but their bullets never found him. At last they would not waste their bullets on him because he had a charmed life, under the protection of the Great Spirit. And who knows about these things! Everything may not be of inevitable physical order! The simple Indian may have been nearer the truth than would be any psychological or scientific explanation.
The Indians very generally believed that the Great Spirit exercised power over bullets, and, in many instances, faced death fearlessly in the faith raised by their “medicen-man” that the enemy’s bullets could not harm them. Religious assurance of some kind is the consolation of every mind.
II. THE DOUBLE-QUICK MARCH TO REVOLUTION
That Washington could be righteously indignant and unmercifully sarcastic may be inferred from a letter written to Colonel George Muse, who had been Washington’s military instructor at Mount Vernon in 1751. Colonel Muse had been accused of cowardice in the campaign with Washington to the Ohio in 1754, and Washington had with difficulty obtained for him a grant of ten thousand acres of land in the Ohio territory, as was given to the other officers in the expedition. Colonel Muse was dissatisfied and so wrote a letter to Washington, the contents of which we can surmise only from Washington’s reply.
“Sir,—Your impudent letter was delivered to me yesterday,” he wrote. “As I am not accustomed to receive such from any man, nor would have taken the same language from you personally, without letting you feel some marks of my resentment, I advise you to be cautious in writing me a second of the same tenor; though I understand you were drunk when you did it, yet give me leave to tell you that drunkenness is no excuse for rudeness.”
After describing what had been done for the ungrateful man, Washington closed his letter by saying, “All my concern is that I ever engaged myself in behalf of so ungrateful and dirty a fellow as you are.”
Meanwhile, the King of England was searching for means to wear down the opposition of the colonies to his assertion of the right to personal rule over them through Parliament. So complete was the refusal of the colonies to use tea, that the warehouses of the East India Company were full of tea, and their profit dwindled. A happy suggestion was made to the King. Let the tea go free duty, and so cheap on account of the surplus, to the colonies, that they will buy it and thus not only relieve the warehouses but also establish the principle of the right to tax articles sold in the colonies. The proposition was put into effect. The contents of the warehouses were emptied into ships and sent to various ports in the American colonies. The King depended on human nature as he understood it to be. Like many another ruler who believes he can rule by juggling ideas and manipulating minds, he deceived himself. The people were starving for tea! They had long lived without tea like foolish children who would play no way but their own way. Now, they would tumble over one another to get the long desired tea. There would be a carnival carousal of tea drinking in America! But somehow the thing didn’t work. There was still a wonderful perverseness in the half-civilized subjects of the King in the American wilderness. They seemed suddenly to be all alike. No doubt there were many who would gladly have profited by the King’s contempt for principle, but profit was timid and principle was bold.