A single tub will catch all the rain that falls over a very wide roofed house, if the gutters are rightly adjusted. The little tub of England caught all the waters that ran from the wide American slopes. Then she had them all around her. She has many still; an East India tub, a West India tub, an Australian tub, etc. The bore of the tubes which lead to these are not, perhaps, as great now as formerly; but now the waters are distilled before they are sent through, and so run a much more profitable stream. Of course she labels them all with very fine names, “Philanthropy,” “Free Trade,” “Justice,” etc. It matters little, however, what the name is: the stuff in the tub is of the same color, a buff yellow, and of the same metallic ingredients.
Her little North American tub, at the period of which we speak, was continually changing,—a larger one being substituted every few years, as new gutters were laid down, and new ways found to enlarge the water-sheds. In 1732, for example, the colonists were forbidden to sell hats to each other,—a felt grievance which made the fur fly for a time; but, as usual, it only flew from, although for, England. The next year, another gutter was put down by the parliamentary tin-man. Hatters were only allowed two apprentices,—a provision which, although very merciful now, considering the short work and manners and very long pay of employees,—was then English disinterestedness. A few years later, the spirits and sweetening of the colonists were taxed, of course not to raise the former or increase the latter, but all for the benefit of that little Anglo-American tub. Manufactories of various kinds were prohibited to be set up, the profits arising from the sales in America of the articles manufactured in England dripping through the philanthropic tubes into the tight English vat. At last some patriotic and far-seeing colonist, getting out through the scuttle-way upon the wide American roof, discovered not only pipes leading in all directions over it, but, on looking sharply around with a half-prying Yankee curiosity, also remarked some curiously contrived parliamentary ladders of rope, hemp, leather, and other material, placed on the rear of the house, and cunningly attached to the pipes by patented clasps, stamped “Revenue”; so that, by an arrangement peculiarly English, and invented by some benevolent gentleman over there, an official friend inside could, for example, cut off a yard from every piece five yards long, or take out two quarts from a bushel of wheat, or a pint from a gallon of molasses or sack, and pass these clippings down the back ladders and so off home to England, while the colonists were meanwhile entertained by an argument, solidly supported by figures, and looking as convincing as a six-barrelled revolver pointed at you, to prove that there was no loss incurred, but that, on the contrary, it was the very way to make the remainder more valuable.
As long as France stayed in the American schoolhouse there were two big, full-grown bullies, whose mutual jealousy and antagonism were the best protection of the children from either; but after the overthrow of M. Jean Crapeau in 1763, Mr. Bull thought that he could have things just as he pleased, could sit down where he liked, in such gear as he chose to make himself comfortable in,—shirt-sleeves or hunting-coat, muddy or indecently short,—could eat up any one’s lunch if he fancied, and munch the choicest fruit that the youngsters were keeping for their own use at play-time. And so, by a law of bullyism,—which is human nature ossified by success,—the moment of the triumph over the one standing champion, was the moment when the intoxication of fancied supreme power, producing a vertigo of insolence, brought out around the object of the championship rivals never before suspected.
In a word, by slow and painful training, the Colonies had become their own champions.
The very year that saw the treaty of peace signed between France and England, by which the former gave up all her American possessions east of the Mississippi, and resigned the belt of North America to the latter, George Grenville, the English minister, gave notice that he should introduce into Parliament a bill to oblige every colonist, who used in any way receipts, notes, drafts, leases, deeds, mortgages, or any such crafty documents, to buy from the British government and put upon them stamps, the proceeds of which sale was to be spent, of course, not among the colonists themselves, but in England, in paying the national debt or in some other facetious way. Of course, Americans did not object to stamps in themselves, provided they helped to make or to hold the die which printed them, and had a hand in grooving and directing the channels in which the pay for them should flow. But they did object—and as the event proved most sanguinarily—to the slicing of their family loaf by a parliamentary knife called a stamp act, sharpened on a London stone, and whittling off their living even with the sparing charity of the Bull family. They did not think it either safe or right for any Taurian, or Teutonic, or Gallic chap, however gentlemanly in manners or benevolent in professions, to be trusted in the pantry, there to use to any extent what he might find, whether articles of luxury, as pies or other poisons, or necessities, as bread, butter, cider, or other field distillations.
The bill of Mr. Grenville was a little one,—very small and very timid,—but there was a bird behind it, as large as all the English crows and jackdaws put together. The bird was not introduced until the next year, 1764, when it was tricked off with some bright beads and spangles around its neck, to disguise its genus. But many in England discovered immediately that it belonged to the family Falco Britannicus, the genuine old-fashioned British falcon, with strong, sharp claws and curved short bill to seize, and long, powerful wings to bear away across seas, the colonial prey. It is a bird now shot at by every philosophic, well-charged English muzzle whenever it makes its appearance; but at the time of which we speak there were public game-keepers of the Grenville kind, not only in England but in other countries, who believed in training and keeping up the breed of parliamentary or royal falcons for colonial and also for home service. These well-fed keepers stoutly maintained that it was right for these fowls, deigning to leave their royal perches in Hesse or Hanover, to alight for their royal pleasure upon private barn-yards and in granaries, and that the people were proper game and profitable sport, and should even feel honored by the eagle-like visits.
It was thought best, however, by the English huntsman of state to send across the Atlantic and exhibit here specimens of the fowl. Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, James Otis, Richard Henry Lee, and others, well acquainted with the game and domestic birds of North America, at once pointed out and denounced the cruel spurs which this short-billed, sharp-clawed British falcon wore. Others, if possible more outspoken, declared their opinion that this bird never could be domesticated on this side the water, but would get its spurs cut away and perhaps its well-feathered neck wrung, whenever it was sent over for real use among the colonists.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bull declared that the colonists should not have any molasses to lick, unless he himself brought it and sold it to them. Of course from that time forward New England people got to love molasses with patriotic obstinacy, and above all things liked to tickle it with a straw out of those very solemn-looking and otherwise forsaken casks, lying in the neglected custom-houses at Boston, Salem, Newport, and New Haven.
In 1765, the new bird was brought over full-fledged, guarded by numerous fowl-fanciers, who watched it vigilantly on both sides, as the lion and unicorn are represented watching the British crown. But as usual, American quickness to its own interests was quite equal to British selfishness, and, ere the heavy guardians could turn around to see who of the many spectators was teasing and worrying the bird, his feathers were dreadfully plucked, and the poor thing left with exposed claws and crooked bill to the keen ridicule of the by-standers.
On the 1st of November, when the Stamp Act was to go into effect, most of the bales of stamped paper, kindly sent out to emblazon colonial writings, had either been destroyed or shipped back to their parliamentary manufacturers. Colonial pluck went further. It agreed upon total abstinence from everything foreign-made, until the Stamp Act should be repealed. In 1766, after hot debate, the Stamp Act was repealed by the British Parliament; but not before its offensive sting was pulled out and pettishly thrown across the water in the form of a resolution, declaring the right of the London law manufactory to tax the Colonies whenever they wanted any money.