BOSTON, WITH ITS ENVIRONS, IN 1775 AND 1776
MEDAL GRANTED TO WASHINGTON FOR HIS CAPTURE OF BOSTON
[Washington seizes Dorchester Heights March 4, 1776] Washington chose for his decisive movement the night of the 4th of March. Eight hundred men led the way, escorting the wagons laden with spades and crowbars, hatchets, hammers, and nails; and after them followed twelve hundred men, with three hundred ox-carts, carrying timbers and bales of hay; while the rear was brought up by the heavy siege-guns. From Somerville, East Cambridge, and Roxbury, a furious cannonade was begun soon after sunset and kept up through the night, completely absorbing the attention of the British, who kept up a lively fire in return. The roar of the cannon drowned every other sound for miles around, while all night long the two thousand Americans, having done their short march in perfect secrecy, were busily digging and building on Dorchester Heights, and dragging their siege-guns into position. Early next morning, Howe saw with astonishment what had been done, and began to realize his perilous situation. The commander of the fleet sent word that unless the Americans could be forthwith dislodged, he could not venture to keep his ships in the harbour. Most of the day was consumed in deciding what should be done, until at last Lord Percy was told to take three thousand men and storm the works. But the slaughter of Bunker Hill had taught its lesson so well that neither Percy nor his men had any stomach for such an enterprise. A violent storm, coming up toward nightfall, persuaded them to delay the attack till next day, and by that time it had become apparent to all that the American works, continually growing, had become impregnable. Percy’s orders were accordingly countermanded, and it was decided to abandon the town immediately. It was the sixth anniversary of the day on which Hutchinson had yielded to the demand of the town meeting and withdrawn the two British regiments from Boston. The work then begun was now consummated by Washington, and from that time forth the deliverance of Massachusetts was complete. Howe caused it at once to be known among the citizens that he was about to evacuate Boston, but he threatened to lay the town in ashes if his troops should be fired on. [The British troops evacuate Boston March 17, 1776]The selectmen conveyed due information of all this to Washington, who accordingly, secure in the achievement of his purpose, allowed the enemy to depart in peace. By the 17th, the eight thousand troops were all on board their ships, and, taking with them all the Tory citizens, some nine hundred in number, they sailed away for Halifax. Their space did not permit them to carry away their heavy arms, and their retreat, slow as it was, bore marks of hurry and confusion. In taking possession of the town, Washington captured more than two hundred serviceable cannon, ten times more powder and ball than his army had ever seen before, and an immense quantity of muskets, gun-carriages, and military stores of every sort. Thus was New England set free by a single brilliant stroke, with very slight injury to private property, and with a total loss of not more than twenty lives.
EVOLUTION OF THE UNITED STATES FLAG[8]
The time was now fairly ripe for the colonies to declare themselves independent of Great Britain. The idea of a separation from the mother-country, which in the autumn had found but few supporters, grew in favour day by day through the winter and spring. [A provisional flag]The incongruousness of the present situation was typified by the flag that Washington flung to the breeze on New Year’s Day at Cambridge, which was made up of thirteen stripes, to represent the United Colonies, but retained the British crosses in the corner. Thus far, said Benjamin Harrison, they had contrived to “hobble along under a fatal attachment to Great Britain,” but the time had come when one must consider the welfare of one’s own country first of all. As Samuel Adams said, their petitions had not been heard, and yet had been answered by armies and fleets, and by myrmidons hired from abroad. [Effect of the hiring of “myrmidons”]Nothing had made a greater impression upon the American people than this hiring of German troops. It went farther than any other single cause to ripen their minds for the declaration of independence. Many now began to agree with the Massachusetts statesman; and while public opinion was in this malleable condition, there appeared a pamphlet which wrought a prodigious effect upon the people, mainly because it gave terse and vigorous expression to views which every one had already more than half formed for himself.
Thomas Paine had come over to America in December, 1774, and through the favour of Franklin had secured employment as editor of the “Pennsylvania Magazine.” He was by nature a dissenter and a revolutionist to the marrow of his bones. Full of the generous though often blind enthusiasm of the eighteenth century for the “rights of man,” he was no respecter of the established order, whether in church or state. To him the church and its doctrines meant slavish superstition, and the state meant tyranny. Of crude undisciplined mind, and little scholarship, yet endowed with native acuteness and sagacity, and with no mean power of expressing himself, Paine succeeded in making everybody read what he wrote, and achieved a popular reputation out of all proportion to his real merit. Among devout American families his name was for a long time a name of horror and opprobrium, and uneducated free thinkers still build lecture-halls in honour of his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday, with speeches full of harmless but rather dismal platitudes. The “Age of Reason,” which was the cause of all this blessing and banning, contains, amid much crude argument, some sound and sensible criticism, such as is often far exceeded in boldness in the books and sermons of Unitarian and Episcopalian divines of the present day; but its tone is coarse and dull, and with the improvement of popular education it is fast sinking into oblivion. There are times, however, when such caustic pamphleteers as Thomas Paine have their uses. There are times when they can bring about results which are not so easily achieved by men of finer mould and more subtle intelligence. [“Common Sense”]It was at just such a time, in January, 1776, that Paine published his pamphlet, “Common Sense,” on the suggestion of Benjamin Rush, and with the approval of Franklin and of Samuel Adams. The pamphlet contains some irrelevant abuse of the English people, and resorts to such arguments as the denial of the English origin of the Americans. Not one third of the people, even of Pennsylvania, are of English descent, argues Paine, as if Pennsylvania had been preëminent among the colonies for its English blood, and not, as in reality, one of the least English of all the thirteen. But along with all this there was a sensible and striking statement of the practical state of the case between Great Britain and the colonies. The reasons were shrewdly and vividly set forth for looking upon reconciliation as hopeless, and for seizing the present moment to declare to the world what the logic of events was already fast making an accomplished fact. Only thus, it was urged, could the States of America pursue a coherent and well-defined policy, and preserve their dignity in the eyes of the world.