[686] Works, vii. 391.
[687] Reflections, etc., p. 102.
[688] Before this decision was reached, however, Congress, in 1774, made this tentative effort to recognize the unity of the empire in the extending through it of some sovereign power while holding to a local independence, in this form: "From the necessity of the case and a regard to the mutual interests of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British Parliament as are bonâ fide restricted to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members, excluding every idea of taxation, internal and external, for raising a revenue, on the subjects in America, without their consent." This was a seemingly candid and sincere suggestion to harmonize the positions taken by the respective parties in the controversy. Britain, the mistress of the seas, protected the great highways of commerce, and so might regulate the trade of her colonies by the ocean, as she did her own. But these colonies had constitutional charter assemblies with exclusive powers for raising and disposing of their own revenues.
[689] A very admirable and faithful digest of the proceedings of Congress, the materials and incidents being gathered by wide and diligent research, may be found in the ninth chapter of The Rise of the Republic of the United States, by Richard Frothingham (Boston, 1872).
[690] History of England in the XVIIIth Century, iii. p. 377.
[691] A very significant reference to the mixed qualities recognized in Paine by his contemporaries is found in Men and Times of the Revolution; or Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, etc. (New York, 1856). Mr. Watson, a native of Plymouth, was patriotic in his sentiments, and was on mercantile business in Europe during the war, honored with the friendship of Dr. Franklin and John Adams in Paris. His brother, Benj. Marston Watson, of Marblehead, was a noted loyalist. (See a "Memoir" of him in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Oct., 1873.) When Elkanah was at Nantes in 1781, Paine arrived there as secretary of Colonel Laurens, "and took up his quarters at my boarding-place. He was coarse and uncouth in his manners, loathsome in his appearance, and a disgusting egotist. Yet I could not repress the deepest emotions of gratitude towards him, as the instrument of Providence in accelerating the declaration of our independence. He certainly was a prominent agent in preparing the public sentiment of America for that glorious event."
A very fair estimate of the qualities in Paine's pamphlet which adapted it for popular effect is the following, by the English historian Adolphus: "His pamphlet was replete with rough, sarcastic wit, and he took, with great judgment, a correct aim at the feelings and prejudices of those whom he intended to influence. Writing to fanatics, he drew his arguments and illustrations from the holy Scriptures; his readers, having no predilection for hereditary titles, distinctions to them unknown, received with applause his invectives and sneers at hereditary monarchy; a notion of increasing opulence, and false calculations on their population and means of prosperity, had rendered them arrogant and self-sufficient, and consequently disposed them to relish the arguments he employed to prove the absurdity of subjugating a large continent to a small island on the other side of the globe. To inflame the resentment of the Americans, every act of the British government towards them was represented in the most ungracious light", etc. (Adolphus, ii. 400). A most thoroughly candid and discriminating estimate of the character and abilities, the good and the bad elements in Paine, may be found in a letter, not for publication, by Joel Barlow to Cheetham, Paine's biographer (Life and Letters of J. Barlow, by Charles Burr. Todd, 1886, pp. 236-239). Cheetham meanly published this letter.
[692] Dr. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, sought to be an oracle alike on its commercial and political bearings. He had well informed himself about the history and condition of the colonies. He thought it a mistake that Britain had broken the power of the French, and, by withdrawing the threat of their presence over the English colonists, had left them to set up for independence. The idea that their disaffection began with the Stamp Act he repudiated, as disproved by their restiveness and truculency from their first settlements, and from the occasion there had always been for the interposition of sharp measures of government for restraining them. His opinion of their general character was highly unfavorable, but he was thoroughly satisfied with the impossibility of subduing them, and even of the inexpediency of retaining a forced relation to them. His advice was that Britain should at once give over its attempts at subjugation, and even acquiesce in leaving them to take care and govern themselves, at least till they should repent of their folly. He anticipated, as the solution of wisdom, the complete abandonment of any interference with the recusant Americans, maintaining that the methods of profitable commerce, which would secure English interests and supremacy, would be more effective than a fretting interference with them. His views—which, looked at in the retrospect, appear thoroughly sagacious—were, to most of his contemporaries, either visionary or exasperating. Tucker set forth the positive facts, that while war was most ruinous to the interests of commerce, those interests ought to serve to the security of peace. The war of England against the Spanish right of search had won no benefit, but had added sixty millions sterling to the debt of the realm. The late French war had cost ninety millions more, and by relieving the colonists of all dread of the French had encouraged them to set up for independence.
[693] For further account of Galloway as a controversialist, see post, the section on the Loyalists.
[694] Introduction to the Hist. of the Revolt, and in his preface to his Opinions of eminent lawyers. Cf. J. R. Seeley on the accountability of the old colonial system for the revolt of the American colonies. Expansion of England, lecture iv. Cf. W. T. Davis's Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth, p. 75. On religious causes, see B. Adams's Emancipation of Mass. (last chap.).