Saint Croix Courier, St. Stephen, NB
February 23, 1893
GLIMPSES OF THE PAST
Contributions to the History of Charlotte County and the Border Towns.
LV – THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS.
[Rev. W. O. Raymond, M. A.]
2- Causes of the Revolution.
It is impossible in the limits of such an article as this to do more than indicate the leading causes of the war between the colonies and the mother country. That the colonies had serious grievances in undeniable; that they showed a proper amount of forbearance under strong provocation is at least a debatable question.
To understand the state of parties at the breaking out of the war, reference must be made to a few points of early history.
The year 1620 was rendered memorable in New England by the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Eight years later, John Endicot established a settlement at Salem. The next colony, under Winthrop, settled in Massachusetts Bay in 1630. The Puritan element in New England at the outset was supreme, and it continued to control public affairs of the old colony for years.
The Puritans were undeniably a most self-denying and conscientious class of people. The sacrifices made and the privations patiently endured by them challenge our admiration. Nevertheless, they were intolerant and narrow minded. In his history of New England, Neal, the Puritan historian, admits:
It must be allowed that when the Puritans were in power they carried their resentments too far.
Dr. E. E. Beardsley, of New Haven, in a recent historical work says:
When men talk of the sufferings and sacrifices and self denial of the Puritans, they should consider the spirit and principles of the age, and remember how those who were thus persecuted turned persecutors and practiced the rigors from which they sought to escape.
That eccentric clergyman, Dr. Samuel Peters, in his exaggerated and sensational history of Connecticut, makes the sweeping assertion:
The proceedings of the ecclesiastical courts were marked with much severity. In the course of 160 years, they have bored the tongues with hot needles, cut off the ears, branded on the forehead, and banished, imprisoned and hanged more Quakers, Ranters, Episcopalians, for what they call heresy, blasphemy and witchcraft, than there are instances of persecution in Fox’s book of martyrdom.
The Puritan prejudices against the established church of England were exceedingly strong, and their prejudices against monarchy scarcely less so.
They warmly sympathized with the republican party in England, and welcomed the establishment of the Commonwealth, notwithstanding the rather curious fact that it was under Cromwell, in 1651, that the famous Navigation Act was passed, which, a century later, became a leading factor among the causes of the American Revolution.
Early in the reign of Charles II., a resolute effort was made to apprehend Whally and Goffe, two of the judges of Charles I., who had fled to New England for protection. The provincial governor, Puritan clergy and the people united in protecting and screening the fugitives, who by their aid eventually baffled all attempts to secure them.
The seeds of rebellion were thus sown in the early New England settlements and nurtured through their history. The spirit of ‘independency’ found its origin in the principles of the Puritan exiles, whose passion for religious freedom combined with innate dislike of monarchy created a longing for civil independence.
The preponderating power of Puritanism made itself felt throughout New England, but it was the aggressive Puritan faction of Massachusetts Bay which was mainly responsible for the hostility that grew up by degrees against the mother country. The Pilgrim fathers of Plymouth were as a rule tolerant, nonpersecuting and loyal to the king; but the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay were intolerant persecutors of all religionists who did not conform to their mode of worship1 and disloyal from the beginning to the government from which they held their charter. We need not be surprised, therefore, that it was in the ‘old Bay State’ that the Revolution had its origin.
In Virginia and the South the Episcopalians were much divided by the war, Washington and many prominent leaders of the American party being members of that church; but in New England and the Middle States, the Episcopalians and their clergy were, as a rule, loyal to the crown. This latter fact is quite consistent with the antipathy existing between the Church of England and the old Puritan party. John Adams wrote, ‘If parliament could tax us they could establish the Church of England, with all its creeds, articles, tests, ceremonies and titles, and prohibit all other churches as conventicles and schism-shops.’ The writings of Samuel Adams abound in like expressions.
The proposition of sending out English bishops to the British Provinces, although designed solely for the benefit of the Episcopalians, whose members could not be confirmed or ministers ordained without crossing the Atlantic, aroused the hostility of the Puritans, who could not patiently contemplate the establishment among them of ‘prelacy,’ as they termed it. Puritan hostility to the Church of England was a not unimportant factor in the causes of the American Revolution.
In the eighteenth century, the great majority of English people knew little and cared less about the affairs of the colonists in America. Some idea may be gathered from the following words, written in England in December, 1776, by Curwen, a refugee, as to the way in which America was regarded by the average Englishman:
It piques my pride, I confess, to hear us called ‘our colonies,’ ‘our plantations,’ in such terms and with such airs as if our property and persons were absolutely theirs, like the villians and cottagers in the old system, so long since abolished, though the spirit or leaven is not totally gone, it seems. It is my earnest wish the despised Americans may convince these conceited islanders that our continent can furnish brave soldiers and expert and judicious commanders.
The ignorance and general indifference of the British public regarding America gave opportunity for selfish and interested parties to use parliament as a means to promote their own ends. Hence it came to pass that imperial legislation for years was entirely in the interests of the mercantile classes of England. Restrictions of the most harassing nature crippled the trade and enterprise of the growing colonies.
The distribution of public offices chiefly amongst those of English birth, to the neglect and exclusion of native talent, was a natural ground of complaint. The denial of promotion to colonial officers of distinguished ability, and the injustice of placing a captain of the regular army as superior in rank to a colonel in the provincials, was a further source of irritation.
But in addition to these grievances which afflicted the pride and sensitiveness of the colonists, there were no less than twenty-nine laws2 which restricted and bound down colonial industry. They forbade the use of water-falls, the erection of machinery, of looms and spindles, and the working of wood and iron. Colonial vessels were forbidden to engage in commerce, and could only trade with England and her possessions. For years these laws affecting trade were a dead letter; and the same might be said of the revenue laws, since, up to 1763, nine-tenths of all the tea, wine, fruit, sugar and molasses consumed in the American colonies was smuggled.
A financial crisis, brought about chiefly by the long French war, led the home government to take special steps to enforce the payment of duties on goods imported into the colonies. It was claimed, not without some show of reason, that the colonies should assist in defraying the cost of a war which had been fought mainly in their interests. When, however, twelve ships of war were sent to Boston to be employed in the revenue service, the merchants of the New England seaports immediately assumed a hostile attitude towards the ministry of Great Britain.
The intense interest in the matter manifested by the merchants and ship owners is indicated by the fact that one quarter of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were engaged in trade or commanded ships. Some of them were smugglers. John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration, was at the outbreak of the war the defendant in suits brought by the crown to recover nearly $500,000 of penalties for wilful infractions of the law.
The immediate and ostensible causes of the Revolution were the Stamp Act of 1765 and the tea duty of 1773; but these acts only brought to a climax the feud that had for years been brewing.
1Dr. Ryerson (Loyalists of America, vol. 1) shows by unquestionable evidence that the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay were professed members of the Church of England when they came to America.
2No one who has read these twenty-nine acts will recommend their perusal to another. Apart from their volume, the construction is difficult. Special students like Bancroft, Palfrey and Scott have failed in stating their effect with exactness and precision; and trained lawyers are not by any means agreed as to their interpretation.-Justin Winsor.
The second sentence in the thirteenth paragraph of the last article should have read thus:-
Our neighbors in the great republic have learned by
experience, and in a way never to be forgotten, that
‘loyalty’ may be a virtue, the supporters of ‘the
powers that be’ may be worthy of honor, the upholders of a
united nation may be true patriots.