The news of this event aroused the greatest joy all over the country. Congress determined to cause a gold medal, bearing the relief of Washington, to be coined in commemoration of the liberation of Boston. With a humble heart the General thanked God for the victory that had been won. He was happy in the conviction that this event would strengthen the confidence of the patriots. He would have been glad to dispense with the honor, which was to be paid him, for he foresaw full well that the road to complete success in the establishment of independence was to be a long and arduous one.
Chapter XI
The Declaration of Independence
As all their representations and petitions for just treatment had been made in vain, the Americans felt that the time had come to declare this to the world and to explain that they considered themselves absolved from all their duties to England and resolved to form a State of their own. It was a solemn moment when the announcement was made to the people assembled before the house of Congress in Philadelphia, on the fourth of July, 1776, that the thirteen colonies of America had voted for the Declaration of Independence and the bell rang out, upon which were engraved the words, “Liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants!” The pealing of this bell awakened the neighboring bells to life, and these still others, so that they echoed and reëchoed from village to village, from town to town, and thus within a short time the whole expectant country learned that the great and momentous step had been taken that separated it completely and irrevocably from the mother country; a step to which English tyranny had forced the American people.
Everywhere festivities were held to celebrate this great event. The inhabitants of Savannah organized a funeral procession and the effigy of George the Third was buried in front of the State House. One of the citizens pronounced a formal funeral oration in which he said, among other things: “The King has broken his oath to the crown in the most shameless fashion. He has trodden the constitution of our country and the sacred rights of man under foot. For this we lay his political body in the grave—the corrupt to corruption—in the confident hope that it will remain buried forever and ever, and never be resurrected to reign again over these free and independent States of America.” All freedom-loving people in Europe were in sympathy with the struggle across the ocean. Timid souls, to be sure, believed that this example would raise a storm everywhere against the monarchical form of government, although the Americans had been an example of long-suffering patience. Had they not striven to maintain the monarchical form with admirable devotion? What had they asked of the King? Only that the laws of the land should be respected. Laws are the foundation pillars of all government, even the monarchic. It is certainly true that it was King George the Third and his ministers who broke the tie which bound the colonies to England, and that the colonies did not declare themselves an independent nation until all their sincere efforts for just legislation had failed, owing to the obstinacy of the English government. Instead of giving them bread it offered them a stone. Tyranny answered their respectful petitions with powder and lead, instead of a conciliatory recognition of their rights.
The Declaration of Independence is a masterpiece in style and contents. The Americans did not invite others to follow their example; indeed they deprecate this, for it says: “Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes”; but, on the other hand, the intention is evident, from the beginning of the document, of justifying their step before the whole world, while setting forth the true principles of government. It says, among other things:
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their pretended acts of legislation:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences;
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government;
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever;
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections among us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind—enemies in war—in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
This Declaration of Independence, as well as the whole conduct of the Congress, won the admiration of the most brilliant thinkers of Europe, among them some who occupied thrones, but were watching without prejudice the progress of affairs. We shall mention only Frederick the Great, who, in his “Observations on the Condition of the European Governmental System,” had given utterance to ideas on the aims of government which were in complete accord with those being promulgated in the forests of America.
Chapter XII
Trying Times
“The star-spangled banner” had been raised; thirteen white stars, to represent the thirteen States, shone upon its blue field. The patriots must now win freedom beneath its folds or fall with honor. Many difficulties had been overcome, but still greater ones remained to be conquered. England was gathering all her strength together to subjugate the so-called rebels. New troops were sent to General Howe, including German subjects whom Great Britain had bought to use as executioners in America. The sale of subjects as mercenaries was of common occurrence during the heyday of the small principalities in Germany. The Princes of Hesse-Bayreuth-Anspach, Braunschweig, and Anhalt-Zerbst were engaged in this traffic. Hesse provided the greatest number, so that the German mercenaries in America were generally called Hessians. In Hesse a man who tried to get out of trouble by running away and fell into the hands of the elector’s spies was handcuffed and gagged. Complaints by his parents were answered by putting the father in irons and the mother in prison. In the market-place in Cassel, English agents bought Hessian subjects for one hundred dollars apiece. Frederick the Great said with bitter irony: “Let the lords of the country not forget to raise the duty on cattle also!” “No one,” relates the celebrated Seume, “was safe from these traders in souls [the princes]. They tried all methods—persuasion, strategem, deception. Even strangers of all kinds were attacked, locked up, and exported.” While his subjects were being marched on board ship, Alexander of Bayreuth-Anspach stood on the banks of the Main ready to shoot down any one who made an attempt to escape. In this way twenty-nine thousand Germans were sold to the English as “food for cannon.” “The thoughtful traveller,” says an English lord, “cannot look upon the magnificent gardens of ‘Wilhelmsberg’ at Cassel without a sigh, for the blood money of the citizens of Cassel and other places has been expended upon them.”
As we know, General Howe had been obliged to take refuge, with his troops, on the ships in Boston Harbor. It was his intention to land in another part of the country. Washington suspected that Howe had selected New York. Therefore he had sent the second officer in command of the American forces thither and he followed him in haste. Howe’s fleet had in the meantime joined the new fleet, so that the enemy was greatly in excess of the Americans in numbers. Howe landed on Long Island near New York. His object was to take that city and from thence cut off communications between the North and the South. A battle took place in which the Hessians especially greatly distinguished themselves by their bravery. They attacked the Americans with such desperation that it seemed as though these men, so brutally torn from their homes, were seeking death. The Americans were defeated. They were even in danger, during the next few days, of being surrounded on the island and taken prisoners. Therefore Washington determined under cover of night to embark with his little army. But while he was preparing, at dusk, for the execution of his plan and had given instructions to keep the campfires burning, in order to deceive the enemy, no one suspected that treason was already at work to destroy the American army. A lady of English sympathies had sent a slave to the British to carry them word of the movements of the Americans. Fortunately the slave fell into the hands of Hessian soldiers who stood guard at the outpost. It availed him nothing to declare that he had a very important message for General Howe. The Hessians did not understand a word of the language of the frantically gesticulating negro. They thought he might be a spy, so bound him and took him into custody, not turning him over to headquarters until next morning. By this time, however, his message, which would have been worth a fortune to General Howe the night before, had lost its importance, for the embarkation was completed and the enemy, whom he thought he had caught securely in a trap, had disappeared. Under the existing conditions Washington had acted for the best, and he carried out the plan of retreat with admirable skill. He had been on horseback for forty-eight hours—until all the army was embarked.