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Full text of "<a href="/details/commonwealthnat00tablgoog">The Commonwealth of Nations: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Citizenship in ...</a>"
</h1>
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\
THE COMMONWEALTH
OF NATIONS
PART I
I-'
iil
THE COMMONWEALTH
OF NATIONS
PART I
»
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADKAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK . BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
m ■•
THE.--, f WV:
• • • •
COMMONWEALTH
OF NATIONS
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF
CITIZENSHIP IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE,
AND INTO THE MUTUAL RELATIONS OF
THE SEVERAL COMMUNITIES THEREOF
PART I
EDITED BY L. CURTIS
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
J918
- • • • . ' • • : : • .• • '
COPYRIGHT
/''irsl Edition 1916
Reprinted 1917, 1918
^'^ /
PREFACE
In 1910 groups were formed in various centres in Canada,
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa for studying the
nature of citizenship in the British Empire, and the mutual
relations of the several communities thereof. In course of
time others were constituted in the United Kingdom, India
and Newfoundland, and they all came to be known
informally as * Round Table Groups,' from the name of the
quarterly review instituted by their members as a medium
of mutual information on Imperial affairs.
The task of preparing or editing a comprehensive report
on this subject was undertaken by the present writer.
Preliminary studies were distributed to the groups for
criticism, and their criticisms, when collected, were printed
and circulated for their mutual information. On the basis
of materials so gathei-ed, the final report was projected in
three principal parts. In Part I. it was proposed to deal
with the question how and why the British Commonwealth
came to exist, to trace the causes which led to its disruption
in 1788, and to the establishment of a separate common-
wealth in America. The subsequent growth of the dis-
membered Commonwealth was to be dealt with in Part II.
In Part III. it was proposed to examine the principles upon
which, and the means whereby, the members of its widely
RRQIfS.Q
VI PREFACE
scattered communities can hope to retain their present status
as British citizens in a common state.
Part I. was prepared in five instalments, four of which
were completed before the war. Each instalment was
printed and circulated to the groups as it was finished. The
text was revised in the light of the corrections and criticisms
sent in, and at the close of 1914 was reprinted for private
circulation under the title of ^Fhe Project of a Commonwealth^
Part I.
Meanwhile, in view of the situation created by the war, it
was decided to anticipate the completion of the main report
by a brief study of that aspect of the subject which most
nearly concerns the self-governing Dominions. This short
volume has now been published under the title of The
Problem of the Commonwealth. Part I. of the larger work is
now given to the public in order that students may examine
the foundations upon which the conclusions adduced in The
Problem of tfie Commonweaitk are based. To avoid confusion
with the smaller volume, the title of the main report has
been changed to The Commonwealth of Nations.
The Round Table groups were organized for the purpose
of study, and men representing every shade of opinion
joined them, on the understanding that they would not be
committed to conclusions of any kind. The only way in
which this understanding can be observed in the spirit, as
well as in the letter, is for the editor to make himself solely
responsible for producing these reports, and for all they
contain. They must not be presumed to express the
opinions of any Round Table group, or member of such
group, other than himself. On the other hand, it must be
emphatically stated that the main report is the work of
various brains and pens. It is the product not of one
writer but of many working in close collaboration. No
single brain could master the facts required for an adequate
PREFACE Vll
survey of the complicated polity which embr^U^s a quarter
of the human race. However, for the reasons given above,
the editor must be treated as the sole taiget of criticism.
For further information with regard to these reports the
reader is referred to the preface of TTie Problem of the
Commonwealih already published.
L. Curtis.
NOTE OxN THE DESIGN OF THE COVER
At the comers are insignia of the four parts of the United
Kingdom. On the top is the Star of India, at the bottom
the sphinx, symbolic of Egypt. On the left, the cod-fish
typifies Newfoundland, the maple leaf Canada, the fleur-de-lis
Quebec, the five-starred Southern Cross Australia, while the
palm tree, shell and pine apple suggest the numerous islands
in the West Indies and the Southern Seas. On the right,
the negro^'s head is to signify Tropical Africa. The four-
starred Southern Cross is the crest of New Zealand, and the
trek- wagon that of the Transvaal. The anchor, as repre-
senting the Cape of Good Hope, together with the Southern
Cross, stands for South Africa, while Rhodesia is signified by
the Zimbabwe bird. A number of these ancient figures were
found sculptured on the top of soap-stone posts on the ruins
of Zimbabwe in Rhodesia, and there can be little doubt that
they formed a link with the ancient civilization of Northern
Africa. Some were brought to Capetown and one was placed
in the Chamber where the Cabinet sat ; and the councillors
were at times reminded by Rhodes that they spoke in the
presence of three thousand years. Wooden reproductions of
these birds were introduced by the designer of this cover as
terminals on the great staircase of Grootschuur, the famous
house which Rhodes built at the Cape and afterwards left
as a residence for the Prime Minister of a future South
African Union.
The enveloping sea is expressed by a wave pattern,
familiar to students of Maori art, and this also encircles the
Commonwealth crown. Its numerous islands are represented
by pearls. The ships are a reminder of the disciplined
power which has given security to the Commonwealth and
maintained law upon the sea. In place of the usual cushion
at the base, a fringe of sharp points denotes what manner
of crown it is that citizens of a true Commonwealth must
wear. On the back is shown another aspect of the Crown.
Some of the symbols, like those used for Rhodesia and
Newfoundland, are not the official insignia of the countries
for which they stand. Symbolism and decorative art have
nowhere been sacrificed to the technical rules of heraldic lore.
L. C.
Vlll
CONTENTS
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
PAOB
The Britisli Empire. Its size, character, and poBition in the
world 1
Cantaias all levels of society ....... 2
Tribes distiDguished from states 8
Theocratic state developed in Asia ...... 4
Afaeolute daim of the state on its members .... 6
Connection of theocracy with despotism 7
Force in relation to government ...... 7
Petrifying effect of theocracy on Asia .... 8
European progress due to belief In free-will and ethical basis
of society . . . . . . . . . 9
Commonwealths the product of this view . . .10
The commonwealth and freedom correlative ideas . .11
Contact of Europe with other continents and its results . . 18
Disruptive effect of European on older societies • .13
British Empire produced by this contact . . .14
The British Empire a state 14
A commonwealth including all levels of civilisation . . 16
Bespects in which that character is unrealised . . .16
Plan of the inquiry 16
CHAPTER I
EsJiLiXB Belatioivs or East akd Wbst
Large states a natural product of theocracy . .19
First appearance of commonwealths in Greece . , .19
Pericles and Socrates on mutual duty as the basis of common-
wealths 20
Law moulded by experience the basis of freedom . .23
The Greek commonwealth, its effect on history .24
Its miniature size - ........ 25
ix b
CONTENTS
Consequent inBtability of Greek society .....
Conflict of freedom with despotism opened by the Persian wars
Commonwealths In Asia Minor enslaved by Persia, 646-546 b.g.
Their revolt, 499 RC
Their naval defeat at Lade due to disunion, 494 ac,
Their submission to Asiatic civilization .
Marathon, 490 b.0
Thermopylae, 480 B.C
Dependence of Xerxes on sea power
Salamis, 480 b.c. ....
Plataea and Mycale, 479 B.C
Greece saved by free spirit especially of Athens
But imperilled by want of national organization
League of Delos, 477 ao
The League a sham state ....
Its perversion into an empire subject to Athens
True and sham states distinguished
Downfall of Athens, 404 B.a
Recrudescence of Persian domination
Macedonian domination, Chaeronea, 338 b.g. .
Alexander's conquest of Asia, 326 B.c. .
His attempt to correlate East and West .
City commonwealths too weak to maintain freedom
Rise of Rome and conflicts with Asia
Athenian, Roman, and British Empires compared
Rome becomes a despotism ....
Extension of Roman citizenship
Contribution to freedom of the Roman Empire
Reversion of Roman despotism to theocracy .
Destroyed by inroads from Asia
Capital moved to Constantinople, a.d. 330
Division of Empire and Church
Destruction of Western Empire, a.d. 476, and rise of Franks
Rise of Islam, a.d. 622
Arab invasion defeated at Poitiers by Charles Martel, a.d. 732
Pepin crowned King of Franks, a.d. 761
Charlemagne crowned Emperor of the Romans, A.D. 800
The Holy Roman Empire ....
The German failure to realize statehood .
Consequent failure to realize freedom
Growth of national states on the Continent .
National commonwealth developed in England
NoTB A. — Reverdon of Rome to theocracy
Note B. — Survival of Republican tradition in Roman law
PAOX
26
27
28
29
30
32
32
34
35
36
37
37
38
40
43
46
48
49
60
62
63
63
64
55
66
57
67
68
60
64
64
64
64
66
67
68
69
69
71
76
77
79
80
82
CONTBNTS
Note C. — The mediaeval belief in universal monarchy
Note D. — Survival of the theocratic idea in modem Europe
XI
PAGE
83
84
CHAPTER II
The Engubh Commonwealth
IiiBular character of England and its consequences
Disimion of Saxons leading to feudalism
Statehood imposed by Normans
Development of law
Supremacy of law
British constitution produced thereby
Power of altering law acquired from Crown by people
Principle of representation developed from Teutonic custom
Writ of Edward I
' fiepresentation ' defined ....
Acquisition by Parliament of legislative power
And of executive control ....
Conditions determining enlargement of commonwealths .
Separate Parliament granted to English colonies in Ireland
Fissiparous tendency of commonwealths
Note A — The Rule df Law : its nature and general amplication
Note B. — Recent attempts in the United Kingdom to anticipate
Acts of Parliam£nt
89
90
91
93
95
96
97
97
100
101
102
106.
107-
107
108
108
121
CHAPTER m
I. The Opening of the Seas
Conflict of freedom with autocracy precipitated by struggle for
world power .......
Turkish conquest of Constantinopft, 1453
Closure of land routes between Europe and Asia
Henry the Navigator, 1418
His development of ocean shipping ....
Opening of Cape route to India, 1498 .
Cruelties of Portuguese
Discovery of South America by Columbus, 1492
Of North America by Cabot, 1497
Spanish Empire founded by Cortes, 1520, and Pizarro, 1532
pircumnavigation of the globe, 1520 .
Division of the world between Spain and Portugal by the Pope,
1514
Their monopoly of the sea and the issues raised thereby .
123
125
126
126
127
129
131
132
133
133
134
134
136
xu
OONTBNTS
PAGK
The monopoly disputed by England . .139
Sea power. Ite effect on the struggle .141
The Spaniflh Armada, 1588 ' . 142
II. Thb Opening of the Seas : its Effect in the East
Dutch East India Company 143
English East India Company . .144
Struggles of Dutch, English, and Portuguese . .145
Struggle of England and France . . .147
Why the Company passed from trade to government in India . 147
Transfer of Indian government from company to state . 150
Incorporation of India in the Commonwealth .152
Motives and character of British rule . . .155
British responsibilities for backward races measured and ex-
plained 157
Wliy the Commonwealth's rule has been accepted . .163
Why commonwealths rather than despotisms should govern
backward races ........ 164
The rule of law. Its importance to these races . .167
Fabrigas v. Mostyn 168
Success of British Empire due to institutions, not race 173
Duty o{ the Commonwealth to backward races . .173
Its need of strength and time to dischaige that duty 176
III. The Opening of the Seas : its Effect in the West
How Britain has borne the burden ....
Its incapacity to bear it permanently ....
Importance that burden should l^e shared by new countries
English colonization of North American coast
French occupation of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi
Struggles of Britain and France for America .
Their relative capacities for colonization
Rigidity of Spanish methods .....
And also of the French autocracy .....
French skill in handling Indians .....
Motives of English colonization . . • . •
Freedom accorded by English to private enterprise .
Free institutions reproduced in America
Instinctive hostility of Spanish autocracy
Unsuitable character of first settlers ....
The Pilgrim Fathers land in New England, 1620 .
Their Constitution. Its nature considered
Foundation of Massachusetts, 1629 ....
Roman Catholic foundation in Maryland, 1632
178
180
181
182
183^
185 '
187
188
191
194
195
197
197
198
200
201
202
205
205
CONTENTS XIU
PAOB
Keligious toleration in English colonies. Its results . 206
Success of the English due to liberty 210
Sterilizing effect of ^French system in Canada . .213
Power of adaptation in English colonies 214
General results compared ., . 216
Success and £Bkilure of English in realizing fireedom . .220
Absence of Qermany from these struggles . . . .221
Note A. — Interdependence of order and liberty. Duffertn and
Cromer thereon ....... 222
Note B. — Paton on results of unregulated contact of Europeans
with a primitive society . . . .223
Note C. — Bourne on methods of Spanish colonization . .227
Note D. — Freeman^s dislike of government of dependencies by
commonvjealths .... ... 227
Note K — Realpolitik as expounded by Mostyn*s counsel, the
Athenians, and the Oerman Chancellor . 230
CHAPTER IV
The Commercial Stbtem
Economic and religious motives of colonization . . .238
Attitude of English Goyemment towards colonial projects 240
Mediaeval guilds and companies ...... 240
Companies formed for oversea trade .241
Companies formed for colonization .242
Monopolies demanded by these companies from the state . 244
Their dependence on state protection outside England . . 244
The state's interest in revenue levied on colonial imports. 245
Growth of contractual relations between Goremment and
companies ......... 246
Contractual relations with colonies embodied in Acts of Parlia-
ment, circa 1660 848
Principles of old colonial system ... 249
Effect thereon of transfer of sovereignty from King to Parlia-
ment .......... ,260
Restrictions involved by commercial system .251
Mutual character of system . . .252
The policy of defence underlying it . .253
Scottish, Irish, and colonial legislatures. Parliament's different
relation to the executive . . . . .253
Note A — Origin of the old colonial system . . .257
Note B. — Fiscal relations of colonies to England thereunder . 257
XIV
NOTB C-
NoTi D..
CJONTBNTS
Virginia Company's attempt to open foreign trads
-GrowUi of the idea that England and the coUmiee
could be united by a commercial bond .
rAOB
267
268
CHAPTER V
Thjb Inclusion op Scotland in the British Commonwealth
Ci«ationof Scottish Parliament, 1314
Union of English and Scottish Crowns, 1603 ....
The Solemn League and Covenant, 1643
Events leading to execution of Charles I. by English Parlia-
ment, 1649 .........
Charles II. crowned by Scottish Parliament. Their forces
defeated at Dunbar, 1660, and at Worcester, 1661 .
Parliamentary union of Cromwell ......
Dissolution thereof at the Restoration, 1660 ....
Scottish Parliaments of Charles II.
James acknowledged as heir to the Crown by Scottish Parliament,
1681
The Bevolution and the Bill of Rights .....
Control of external affairs claimed by both Parliaments .
Consequent deadlock ........
Impoverishment of ScoUand after the Union of the Crowns
Attempts of Scottish Parliament to remedy this after the Re-
volution .......
The Darien scheme . .
The scheme sanctioned by the Scottish Parliament .
Supported in London by rivals of the English East
Company .......
The scheme thwarted by the English East India Company
Fletcher demands separate ambassadors for Scotland
Dependence of Scotland on British sea power .
The Darien colony destroyed by Spain .
Control of foreign affairs assumed by Scottish Parliament,
Fletcher's proposal to separate the Crowns
War with England contemplated by Scottish Parliament
The Act of Security dividing the Crowns passed, 1703
Negotiations for a parliamentary union opened
A * Foederal Union ' desired by Scotland
Fletcher's proposed solution .
Seton of Pitmadden in favour of union .
The Union carried, 1707. Its results .
Its effect in creating a new state .
India
1703
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
266
266
267
268
270
271
273
274
276
277
278
279
280
281
283
286
287
288
289
289
290
291
292
294
CONTENTS XV
PAOB
Whj the English and Scottish PEirlianients were not preserved
as provincial organs 295
NoTB A. — Scotland and the Seottith Parliament in the Middle
Age$ 296
Note B. — Excltuion of Scotland before the Union from trade
with the Englith colonies ..... 300
NoTB C. — Attitude of English commercial interests to^oard
Spanish territorial claims in seventeenth century 302
CHAPTER VI
Thb Ambrioan Colonies
Summary of previous chapters . .303
Adaptable character of English colonization .... 304
Incapacity of colonial assemblies to handle Imperial interests . 305
Their incapacity to control American interests . 305
Consequent fjEulure to develop American patriotism . 306
Imperial policy vitiated by commercial conceptions . . .307
Imperial relations conceived by colonists as contractual . 303
Acceptance by colonists of commercial system .... 309
Its effects on British policy ....... 309
{1} In creating a preference for slave colonies . . .311
(2) In fostering smuggling in Northern Colonies .313
Difficulty of enforcing trade regulations in British Empire 314
Treasonable trade with the enemy . . .315
Indifference of colonial opinion thereto . .316
False psychology of the commercial system . . .318
Patriotism weakened by want of exercise . .320
Impracticable doctrines the product of irresponsibility . . 322
Connection of patriotism with taxation . . . . .322
Imperial and provincial distinguished from Dominion interests. 323
The Olney despatch, 1895 324
Not Imperial but American interests and chaiges the matter in
dispute ^ . 326
Incapacity of colonial asBemblies to settle boundary disputes 326
Or to handle the Indian question . .327
American constitution produced by the Albany Conference, 1754 330
This proposal ignored by the colonial assemblies . .332
Franklin urges enactment of Albany constitution by British
Parliament 333
Particularism of colonies noted by Kalm .... 334
Pitt subsidises colonial assemblies with British money . .335
General results summarized by Beer 336
XVI CONTENTS
PAOK
Maladminiatratlon the cause of Pontiac's rifling, 1703 . 337
Cost of suppressing the Indians imposed on British tax-payer . 340
Dilemma of British Gtovemment 340
Importance of organic connection between executive and
legislature ......... 342
Defect in solution attempted by British Gk)vemment .343
Grenville's measures for taxing America, 1764 . . . 345
Failure of colonial assemblies to suggest a practicable alternative,
1765 346
Distinction of American from Imperial and Colonial interests
not apprehended . . . . . .347
Colonial representation in Parliament. Its possible effects . 348
Advocated by Otia, Franklin, Smith, and Gi-enville . . 349
Burke's declared objections thereto . . . . .351
His real objections . . . . ... . . 356
Effects of colonial representation considered . . . .357
The Stamp Act passed, 1764. Its effect on American opinion 364
The Stamp Act Congress at New York, 1764 . 365
Hart on the methods of secessionists . . . . .365
Their anxiety to prevent American representation in Parliament 366
Principles of the commercial system adverse to an American
Union 367
Loyalist scheme for an American government frustrated . . 368
Repealof the Stamp Act, 1766 369
Distinction of internal and external taxation accepted by Towns-
hend. His taxes, 1767 370
Connection of sovereignty with the power of taxation . . 871
Townshend's taxes imposed. Congress of Philadelphia, 1774,
Lexington, 1775 372-
Declaration of Independence, 1776 . . . . .373
Americans assisted by France . ... . . .373
Saratoga, 1777. The French Alliance, 1778. English Act of
Renunciation, 1778 374
Desperate condition of British affairs, 1780 .... 375
Yorktown, 1781. Britain acknowledges American independ-
ence, 1782 . ' 376
Claim of Americans to remain neutral disregarded by com-
batants 375
Nature of citizenship and its inexorable claim . . .377
Note A. — Influence of commercial ideas on colonial policy 378
Note B. — Attitvde of American colonies towards Navigation Laws 380
Note C. — Tendency of English statesmen to discourage growth of
New England colonies . . .383
Note D. — Evasion of Navigation Acts by New England merchants 384
00NTKNT8
Note E. — Difficulty of mforcing Navigation ActSy cmd institution
of Admiralty Courts .....
Note F. — Gorruption of Imperial customs ofUsrs in the colonies
Note G. — Beer on colonial trade mth the enemy
Note H. — British reply to the Olney despatch .
Note I. — Lines of division amongst colonists in the war
Note J. — Act of Parliament renouncing the claim to tax the
colonies ........
PAQB
366
887
388
414
416
418
CHAPTER VII
Ireland and the British Commonwealth
Prime cause of American Reyolution the colonial system . 419
Results of the same system in Ireland ..... 420
I. The Irish Colony and its Claim to Independence
Irish isolation. Its consequences in early times . .420
Survival of the tribal system . . . . .422
Strongbow's conquest in twelfth century . . .422
Henry II. acknowledged by Strongbow as overlord . . .423
Nominal character of English rule . . . .423
The English Pale 424
Attempts to maintain English ascendency .... 425
First Irish Parliament, 1296 426
Yorkist sympathies in Ireland. Rebellions fomented there . 426
Poyning's Law, 1495 427
English colonization of Ireland in Tudor period . . 427
, Quarrel between levels of civilization embittered by Reformation 429
The Irish assisted by Spain ....... 431
Irish tenures ignored by the English . . . .431
Scottish plantation of Ulster, 1609-12 433
Strafford in Ireland, 1633-9 433
The Irish Rebellion, 1641 434
Charles I. relies on Irish support; 1642-9 .... 434
Atrocities of parliamentary generals . . . .435
Ireland conquered by Cromwell, 1649 ..... 436
CromwelFs confiscations . . . . .437
Cromwell's parliamentary union reversed by Charles II. . 438
James II. supported by the Irish against William of Orange,
1689 439
Battle of the Boyne, 1690 439
Composition of Irish society examined ..... 439
Trade and industry developed by Cromwellian settlers .441
Colonial system applied to Irish trade . . . . 44 1
xvm
oosTssn
PAOS
Selfishness of commercial classes in Britain' . .442
Ireland helpless to resist commercial system . . . .444
Irish contributions to military defence ..... 446
Decline of Irish industries and emigration of industrialists . 445
Protestant emigration in the eighteenth century . . . 446
Hatred of England by all classes ...... 447
Legislative independence advocated by Molyneux, 1698 . 449
Resolution of Irish Parliament in favour of union ignored, 1707 449
Reversion to policy of Catholic repression. The penal laws . 4&0
Effect on Irish character ....... 462
Disabilities of Protestant Dissenters .463
Means by which British Gk)vemment controlled Irish Parlia-
ment .......... 463
Failure of all these methods but corruption . . .456
The Irish army a departure from the colonial system 456
Townshend as Viceroy, 1767-72 468
Agrarian discontent ........ 468
Pasturage and rural depopulation in Ulster .459
Sympathy in Ulster with American Revolution .461
North's proposals to relieve Irish trade . .463
Enrolment of the Irish Volunteers, 1779 .... 464
Repeal of commercial restriction and of the Test Act secured
by Qrattan 464
The French fleet provisioned from Cork, 1780 .465
Qrattan's motion for legislative independence defeated, 1781 . 466
The Dungannon Convention, 1782 . . . . .467
Grattan*8 independence resolutions carried, 1782 . .468
Surrender of Shelbume and Fox to Grattan . .469
II. The Irish Colony : from Indbpendencb to Union
Gi-attan's faith in co-operation . . . . . .470
Shelbume's proposal to settle Anglo-Irish interests rejected by
Grattan . . . . . .471
Grattan's advice to disband ignored by volunteers . . .472
Flood demands an Act of Renunciation . . .473
Act of Renunciation passed by British Parliament, 1783 . . 474
Volunteers demand parliamentary reform . . .476
Reform refused by Irish Parliament . . . . .476
Fiscal relations of England and Ireland . . . .478
Pitt's proposed settlement . . . . . . .479
The naval contribution denounced . . . . . .481
Irish navy advocated ........ 482
Pitt's scheme accepted by Irish Parliament . . . .483
Objections raised by British merchants and manufacturers . 484
J
CONTENTS
Pitt's amended proposals
Fox's opposition .....
Pitt's amended proposals opposed by Grattan
Demand for a separate Irish executive
Irish navy demanded by Flood
Pitt's proposals dropped
The Regency dispute ....
Pitt begins to think of legislative union .
Dreams of an Irish Republic .
The French Revolution. Its effects on Ireland
Project for uniting republicans with Catholics
Wolfe Tone and the Nootka Sound incident, 1789
Irish neutrality in British wars advocated by Tone
* United Irishmen' founded byTon^, 1791
Catholic relief mishandled by Fitzwilliam, 1795
Tone's intrigue with French Directory, 1795 .
Disturbed condition of Ireland. Defenders and Orangem
Failure of Hoche to land at Bantry Bay, 1796 ' .
Grattan's irresponsible criticism of Government
Growth of terrorism ......
The Nore and Spithead mutinies, May and June 1797
Camperdown, October 8, 1797
Outbreak of rebellion, 1798 .
Humbert's invasion of Ireland, 1798
Tone's suicide ....
The rebellion suppressed
The Union of England and Ireland carried, 1801 .
Promise of Catholic emancipation unredeemed
Incapacity of one Crown to unite two Parliaments .
Time needed to cement union ....
Anglo-Irish relations prejudiced by Irish divisions .
True foundations of patriotism ....
Radical defect in Anglo-Irish relations .
Note A« — GrattanU argument compared with EdtDard
NoTB B. — Lechfi account of the Nootka Sound incident
NoTB C. — Toners pamphlet in favour of Irish neutrality
en
Blake
8
XIX
PAOK
486
486
487
490
491
492
493
495
495
496
497
497
498
500
501
502
502
504
504
508
508
509
509
510
511
512
513
515
515
617
518
519
520
521
523
527
CHAPTER VIII
Thb American Commonwealth
Relations of Scotland, Ireland, and the American colonies to
England compared 540
Theory of voluntary co-operation advanced by the colonists 541
XX
CONTENTS
PAOS
Colonists committed by seceseion to testing the theory . .542
The tea thrown overboard at Boston, December 16, 1773^ . 542
Lexington, April 19, 1775 643
Washington appointed General by Congress of Philadelphia,
May 10, 1775 643
Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775 545
Weakness of American patriotism ...... 545
Washington's dependence on Irish recruits .... 546
Disillusionment of Washington . . . . .548
Evaciuition of Boston by Howe, March 1776 . . . . 549
Washington driven from New York . .549
Washington's escape, November 1776 ..... 560
Constitutional weakness of Congress . .550
Marshall on the failure of the co-operative system . .552
Failure of the continental levies ...... 553
Failure of requisitions on states. Paper money . . .564
Dependence of Congress on French and Spanish subsidies 556
New Jersey recovered by Washington, January 1777 566
Brandy wine, September 11, 1777. Philadelphia occupied by
Howe .......... 556
Saratoga, October 16, 1777. The French Alliance. 657
Valley Forge 567
Jealousy of Washington ....... 559
Howe superseded by Clinton, May 1778 660
Yorktown, October 19, 1781 561
Washington the essential condition of American success . .561
American society as criticised by Washington and others . .562
American objection to taxation . . • . .565
Effect on army of political disorganization .... 566
Washington's efforts to correct these evils .568
Washington's forced requisitions ...... 669
Resentment of the army against Congress .570
Mutiny of Pennsylvanian contingent, January 1781 571
Monarchical power refused by Washington, October 1781 671
Failure of states to pay off the army 673
Washington's fidelity to the principle of the commonwealth 573
America's debt to Washington . . . .674
Articles of Confederation ratified by States, February 1781 . 577
Futility of the Confederation 677
Refusal of States to concede customs to Congress . .579
The national debt Default of Congress .... 580
Scheme to ear-mark taxes . . . . . . .581
Taxation of individuals by Congress advocated by Hamilton . 581
Scheme adopted by Congress without Hamilton's amendment . 583
CONTENTS 2X1
PAOB
Washington's address on resigning his office, June 1783 . . 584
Bankruptcy of Congress, Fehruary 1786 . . .589
Financial scheme defeated by New York . . .590
Washington's comments on the situation .... 590
Terms of peace ignored by the States ..... 592
Growth of anarchy and Washington's comments thereon . 592
Washington's lesson misunderstood by Freeman . .594
Proceedings which led to the Philadelphia, Convention . . 596
Influence as distinguished from Government by Washington 599
Federal Constitution produced by Philadelphia Convention, 1787 601
The Constitution contrasted with the Articles of Confederation 602
Nature of sovereignty 603
Nature of states ......... 604
The basis of states not compact, but dedication . .605
Expression of these principles in the Constitution . . 606
Principle of representation realized therein . .607
Federalism a further extension of the principle of the common-
wealth 607
Provision for incorporation of future colonies . .618
Federalism ; its real character .615
Fissiplirous tendency corrected in the American Constitution 617
Constitution-making derided by Burke . . . .618
Burke's argument examined . . . . . .619
Bufke's error demonstrated by American experience 621
Anglo-Scottish Union ignored by Burke 622
Public opinion still dominated by Burke's attitude . .623
Growth of one commonwealth distinguished from union of two
or more commonwealths . .624
Two conditions necessary to the union of commonwealths . 626
Why in settling their relations the Dominions must be treated
as separate commonwealths . .628
Danger of attempting * incipient and creeping ' unions .630
The ultimate sanction of the American Constitution . 633
The conflict of freedom with slavery . .633
The Missouri compromise and its effects ..... 684
Election of Lincoln as president, 1860 . . .635
Revival of the contractual theory by the Southern States . . 635
Secession of South Carolina . . . .636
Ldncoln's doctrine of individual dedication opposed to con-
tractual theory 637
Virginian view of the situation portrayed .638
Why force was necessary for the maintenance of American
liberty 641
The choice presented to Vii^nians . . .642
XXU CONTENTS
PAOB
The attitude of Robert E. Lee 643
Increase of public spirit in America 644
This increase the result of the Union ..... 645
Lincoln's Gettysburg speech ....... 646
Note A. — Washington on the need of a permanent army . 648
Note B. — Mohan on seor power as the determining factor in the
War of Independence ...... 650
Note C. — The Articles of Confederation 653
Note D. — The Goristitution of the United States of America 660
CHAPTER IX
The Schism of the Commonwealth in its after Effects
The union of the American colonies, not their secession, a step
towards freedom ......... 678
. 679
. 679
. 681
. 681
. 683
. 685
The real check to autocracy the British Commonwealth
Recrudescence of autocracy in Germany .
German union the achievement of monarchy .
State control of public opinion in Germany .
Reappearance of conflict between freedom and autocracy
German and British ideals contrasted
Freedom jeopardized by the schism of the Commonwealth . 687
The British Commonwealth saved by the Industrial Revolution 689
Inclusion of backward races in the Commonwealth . .689
Americans divorced from responsibility for backward races 692
The Monroe doctrine ........ 692
British sea power and its eflfect on America .... 695
AmericauB divorced from ultimate problem of politics 696
American ideas limited to the national commonwealth .697
The British Empire an international commonwealth .697
The weakening effect of the schism ..... 698
Results to freedom if the schism had been avoided . . 699
The world's peace prejudiced by the schism .... 700
The Imperial problem and what it is . .701
Importance of extending responsibility for peace and war to
the Dominions ........ 702
Danger of ignoring these truths ...... 703
Conclusion of the whole matter ...... 705
Note A- — Recognition of the Commonwealth by backward races
as necessary to their freedom .... 707
Note B. — Message of President Monroe to Congress, December 2,
182S 708
INDEX OF NAMES 711
LIST OF PLATES
PLATJB PACC PAOB
I. Population of the World divided according to states . 1
II. Map of the World on Mercator's Projection, to show the
populations and actual areas occupied by the various
states represented in Plate I. . , At end of volume
III. The British Empire .At end of volume
IV. Diagram to illustrate contrast between British and
Chinese Empires . . , At end of volume
y. Map to illustrate relations of Greece and Persia 27
VI. Map to illustrate the Roman Empire and the Holy
Roman Empire 56
VII. Map to show relative areas of the English and Athenian
Commonwealths . . . . .107
VI 1 1. Diagram to illustrate responsibility for backward races
as assumed by British Commonwealth and other
European states . 157
IX. The World divided into Land and Water Hemispheres . 1 79
X. North America . , At end of volume
XL Ireland 419
XIL Growth of the Commonwealth (A) .647
XII I. Growth of the Commonwealth (B) .... 706
xxui
• •
, • • • .
. • • • •
•• • • •
• • •
• • •
•
• •••
• • •
• • • •
• •••
•• •
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
|n the sheet opposite this page the population of
le globe, represented iu graphic form, is divided
ito the communities which are recognized by each
^her as sovereign states. Upon opening this diagram
reader is at once impressed by the fact that two
^h states contain between them no less than half
ikind. The Chinese Empire includes about one
irter of the human race, and the British Empire
lother quarter.^
Here, however, the resemblance ends, and the
mtisl diflference in the character of the two Empires
clearly shown by a glance at the map of the world as
jsented in Plate 11.^ The people of China are one race
ihabiting one country. They constitute, as it were,
important wing of the social edifice. In the British
tmpire, on the other hand, are comprised people of
rery gradation in the human scale. The point is
^ore clearly brought out by Plate III., which repre-
its in some detail the various elements of which it
composed.
In Plate IV. the squares shown on the first diagram
redistributed so as to appear in the same relative
dtious as they occupy in the map on Plate 11. , with
result that the Chinese Empire still appears as a
^lid wing of the human race, while the British Empire
|U8t be compared rather to a framework wrought from
See Note on page opposite.
PUtae II., III., and IV. will be found at the end of the volume.
1 B
INTRO-
DUCTION
The
Chinese
Empire
and the
British
Empire
contain
each one
quarter of
mankind.
But the
one is uni-
form and
the other
lietero-
geneous.
The
destruction
of the
Britisli
Empire
would
dislocate
human
society.
INTRODUCTORY
INTRO
DUCTION
as vanous
in its com
position as
all its materials and ramifying through every part of
its compli3jited stj^uHnJA/ The disruption of China
would geripu^y .affect ^e. ifest of the world ; but the
collap^\o4**tK'6'Bl'i'tnsh**Enip1re would be followed by
results incalculably greater, and it is no exaggeration
to say that it would convulse the whole fabric of human
society. If the dismemberment of Turkey be thought
to endanger the peace of the world, what consequences
are to be looked for if an Empire, so much more orderly
as it is more vast and widely spread, were suddenly to
be broken up ?
BriUsh ^^^ ^^^ special feature of this great international
Empire state, upon which it is desired to dwell for the moment,
is the variety of the elements which it connects. Man-
kind may be compared to a stratified formation con-
raankind sistiug of a scrics of graduated layers. The Chinese
Empire is a state cut from the thickest of these layers.
The British Empire is a section of humanity cut from
top to bottom, and a sample of every typical layer is
contained in its jurisdiction. As the map before us
shows, it includes the native inhabitants of every con-
tinent. In the light of modern discoveries it can be
stated without hesitation that the earth has contained
intelligent human beings for not less than 500,000
years. It is only in the brief centuries at the close of
this 8Bon that means have been devised of establishing
regular intercourse between the continents. For
ages longer than the human imagination can picture
the inhabitants of the different continents have lived
in water-tight compartments, developing apart and in-
fluencing each other little or not at all in the process.
In the main, therefore, the different stages of human
development coincided, and to some extent still co-
incide, with continents or groups of continents. The
tribal system is typical of the aborigines of Africa,
Oceana, and America. The ancient monarchies of
Mexico and Peru represent a sporadic advance beyond
INTRODUOTOKY 3
that system, which owinff to their extinction failed intro-
• • • DUCTION
to aflPect the course of history. Another exception is
Egypt, whose ancient civilization, isolated by desert
frontiei© in the west, has a nearer affinity to the social
system of Asia than to that of Africa. Apart from
these exceptions the organization of the state had not
been realized in the three more backward continents
whose inhabitants had failed to advance beyond the
tribal stage of society. The British Empire is com-
posed of people in both these stages of development,
and also of Europeans whose ideas have produced a
type of state essentially different from that evolved
by Asia. It is necessary to consider, therefore, what
the tribal system means, how it differs from the state,
and how the Asiatic conception of the state differs
from that peculiar to Europe. For the effect which
these types of society have had on each other when
brought into contact is one of the principal causes
which have led to the creation of the Empire.
The bond which unites the tribe or clan is that of Tribal and
the family on an extended scale, the chief exercising or^n?za-
a parental authority in virtue of his inherited position tjn^ished.
as head of the house. * It needs no argument,' as
Lecky remarks, * to show how incompatible with all
national unity'^ is this primitive principle of organiza-
tion, and the races which have not advanced beyond
it are correctly described as ' uncivilized.' Asia, on
the other hand, is regarded as the home of civilization,
and * the state,' in its primitive form 6f theocracy, has
been its characteristic type of political organization.
The great Semitic and Mongolian races have perhaps
no closer affinity to each other in descent than to the
natives of America or Africa. But in the course of
their development the peoples of Asia have so in-
fluenced each other as to produce certain characteristics
common to Asiatic society. In spite of all that has
* Lecky, History of England in the Bigkteenih Century, vol. ii, p. 267.
4 INTBODUCTOBY
ixTBO- been said and written to the contrary, the popular habit
^^^^^^^^^^ of applying the term ' Oriental ' to all the races who
live between the Pacific and the Levant is justified
by the facts. It bears witness to the existence of
some common feature which differentiates them from
the natives of Africa, Oceana, and America on the one
hand, and from the natives of Europe on the other.
Deveioi>- The Biblical writings, which render the ordinary
Asia of the reader more familiar with the social conditions of the
pHmitWc* ^^^ than he is apt to realize, reveal one of its races
form of emerging from the tribal condition and reorganizing
theocracy. , .Jr . ^ • i i •
itself on the principle of a typical theocratic state.
The children of Israel are represented in the Book of
Judges as conscious of a certain unity by reason of
their common descent from Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. But already they have grown too numerous
to render obedience to any one descendant or repre-
sentative of the common patriarchs. They are split
into twelve tribes named after the sons of Israel, and
already one of these tribes, that of Joseph, has sub-
divided into two others named after his sons Ephraim
and Manasseh. These tribes, having no government
in common, are given to internecine feuds with each
other, and are likewise exposed to periodic conquest
and oppression by peoples like the Philistines or
Amalekites, who have already succeeded in organizing
themselves as states. From time to time they are
delivered by some hero whose individual genius or
prowess enables him temporarily to command the
obedience of several tribes. Gradually they are driven
by internal disorder and external pressure to realize
a national organization, and to establish it on a
permanent footing by recognizing Saul the Benjamite
as King over all Israel. By the author of the Book
of Samuel the creation of the Hebrew^ monarchy is
represented as a concession to popular clamour. But
that concession having been made, the kingship is
INTEODUCTORY 5
founded from first to last on divine authority. * Is intro-
DUCTION
it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be
Captain over his inheritance ? ' cries the seer, as he
pours the consecrated oil on Saul's head. The whole
duty of the Hebrew is comprehended in his unbounded
obligation to obey the God of Israel. It is only as
his vicegerent that the kings are entitled to their
obedience, and it is their duty to God which unites
them as a people and enables them to rise above their
tribal organization and to constitute themselves as
a state,
A religious consciousness so strong as sometimes Orientals
to overwhelm him is indeed the distinctive mark of obedience
the Oriental. He stands like one who, gazing into the Jj^f^^nd
sun, becomes almost blind to the world about him, law by
and to the ground beneath his feet. His sense of feeling.
his relation to the spiritual world is so vivid as to
obscure the reality of mundane things in which the
typical European is often preoccupied overmuch. He
is so absorbed in the thought of his duty to God that
he partly forgets, to identify it with his duty to his
fellow-men other than those united to him by caste,
family or similar ties.^ Throughout the East the force
which united peoples in obedience to their govem-
,ment has been mainly religious. And this is true of
races so distant and different from the Semitic people
as the Chinese and Japanese. In China, as a well-
informed writer in The Times has remarked, * the
permanency of birth privileges is allowed to the
Royal Family, not because it fulfils the functions of
an autocracy, but because it embodies the concep-
tion of the nation as one family with a permanent
relation to the will of Heaven, which so ordained
the social nature of man.' ^ In Japan the Mikado
is revered by the majority as a visible deity. The
* Meredith Townshend, Asia aiul Europe, pp. 14*15.
* " Confacianism and the Republic in China," The Times, Sept. 24, 191L>.
INTRODUCTORY
INTRO-
DUCTION
Absolute
claim to
obedience
the dis-
tinctive
principle
of the
state.
devotion with which he is served is unbounded, but
it is not to be entirely identified, as it often is,
with patriotism as understood by Western peoples.
Throughout the East obedience has been rendered to
authority primarily as a religious duty. Rulers )vhen
not revered as actually divine have been regarded
as vicegerents of Grod appointed to enunciate His
mandates and to enforce them. * Rebellion is as the'
sin of witchcraft' — the deliberate service of God's
enemy the devil. To unfaithful kings God ceases to
reveal His commands. This silence is the first punish-
ment inflicted on Saul for disobedience. Driven to
despair for want of guidance in his difiiculties, he
invokes the aid of a witch, and cries to the ghost of
Samuel summoned by incantations from his grave :
* God is departed from me and answereth me no
more, neither by prophets nor by dreams : therefore
I have called thee that thou mayest make known
unto me what I shall do.' ^
Briefly we may say that the theocratic state is
the distinctive product of the peoples of Asia, and
represents an important advance on the merely tribal
organization of primitive man. The state differs
from any other form of human organization in that
the authority which it claims over the conduct of its
members is unlimited. It assumes the right to
deprive them in the public interest of their property,
of their liberty, and of their lives, and it is only
while that claim is admitted to a sufficient extent
by a sufiicient number of its members that the state
can exist. For, to put the matter in a nutshell,
government can only continue so long as it can
depend upon the willingness of a sufficient number
of its subjects to sacrifice their lives to the enforce-
ment of its commands. The tribe is an embryonic
state limited by the fact that its essential bond of
^ 1 SamuM xxviii. 15.
INTRODUCTORY T
blood relation arrests its development at the point intro-
beyond which its members cease to be sensible of
their kinship. The overpowering sense of religion
developed in Asia made it possible to unite any
number of tribes in obedience to a ruler accepted as
the appointed instrument and mouthpiece of the
divine authority and recognized as entitled to the
absolute obedience of each and all. Such unions were
usually effected by the sword of a conqueror. But
the conqueror's power was regarded as the manifest
token of divine authority behind him. The sword
might collect the elements of a state, but until some
sense of a duty to obey was developed they could
not cohere. The belief that physical power was the
evidence of divine authority has enabled the people
of Asia to emerge from the tribal stage and constitute
states on the primitive basis of theocracy.
To the Oriental mind the wisdom of rulers was, as Theocratic
in the case of King Solomon, less the product of ex- ten^to
perience than a gift from on high. The idea of theTom^'
the people themselves through their representatives ofstate
attaining to a right judgment in matters of state in Asia.
the light of their own experience was foreign to Eastern
thought. Nowadays the theocratic tradition may some-
times be seen at work behind the thin veil of a Western
constitution. On several occasions the Japanese
Government has silenced parliamentary opposition
by declaring that it disturbed the Emperor's ancestors,
and when this expedient failed the parliament has
been overruled by an Imperial rescript which the
people regarded as much more binding upon them
than the acts of their own representatives. It is easy
to see how theocratic ideas tend to the government
of one man. Autocracy has therefore been the form
of government natural to Asia.
On the other hand, it is necessary to avoid the
fallacy of supposing that an autocracy, as con-
8 INTBODTJOTORY
INTRO- trasted with a commonwealth, is based upon force.
^^^^^^.^^^^^^ To argue that the government of one man over
states, millions can rest upon force is an absurdity from the
Tiito.^^* outset. Force is the sword of government, but what
craciesor ^erves the hand that wields the sword is not and
corniDon- , , ,
wealths, cauuot in the last analysis be force. And this is just
reaum ^ BS truc of a dcspotism as of a republic. The quicken-
on w'lf^**' ing principle of a state is a sense of devotion, an
interest or adequate recognition somewhere in the minds of its
force. ^ o , IT
subjects that their own interests are subordmate to
those of the state. The bond which unites them
arid constitutes them collectively as a state is, to use
the words of Lincoln, in the nature of dedication.
Its validity, like that of the marriage tie, is at root
not contractual but sacramental. Its foundation is
not self-interest, but rather some sense of obligation,
however conceived, which is strong enough to over-
master self-interest. Amongst the peoples of Asia
the necessary motive was, and still is, supplied by
their overpowering sense of man's duty to God.
Why the It is a commouplacc that states had developed
West has ^^^ civilizatious were flourishing in Asia at a period
amenable ^hen Europc was Still plunged in a barbarism as
to change ^ .,. . ,
while the primitive as that prevailing in the other contments.
resisted it European history comes well within the limit of the
last three thousand years ; but if the social conditions
of Asia at the beginning and end of that period were
to be described, the difference in the two descriptions
would not be great, and that difference would be
largely due to the effect of Europe on Asia. A
similar comparison in the case of E\irope would show
an immeasurable change in social conditions between
then and now. The Balkan Peninsula, where this
change would be least remarkable, is the one portion
of Europe which has fallen under the influence of an
Oriental race. That Asia lias remained almost
stationary while Europe has been changing beyond
INTRODUCTORY 9
recoffnitioD is one of the great facts of the world, the intro-
. DUOTION
significance of which we cannot evade and must
endeavour bo understand. It is a fact which, indeed,
is not unrelated to the political conceptions of the
East which we have just been discussing. Custom
and law are the framework of society, and, in so far as
they are held to be divine, the idea of changing them
is regarded as impious. The Medes and Persians were
typical Orientals in their idea that the law cannot be
altered even in response to the experience which
people subject to the laws have gained. In India the
difficulty of altering the sacred law constantly
impedes the reforming zeal of the government. * In
Turkey, the Sultan, though Sovereign, is subject to
the Sheriat or Sacred Law, which he cannot alter ;
and which no power exists capable of altering. A
good deal may be done in the way of interpretation ;
and the desired Fetwa or solemnly rendered opinion
of the Chief Mufti or Sheik-ul-Islam can generally
be obtained by adequate extra-legal pressure on the
Sultan's part. But no Sultan would venture to ex-
tort, and probably no Mufti to render, a Fetwa in the
teeth of some sentence of the Koran itself, which, with
the Traditions, is the ultimate source of the Sacred
Law, binding all Muslims always and everywhere/^
The natural fatalism of the Oriental is thus fostered
by the notions underlying theocracy. Whatever form
his religion takes he tends to regard himself and his
kind as puppets of forces which are entirely beyond
human control. Believing himself to be the slave of
destiny he does in fact become so. The consequence
is that any society inclines to be static so far as it
rests on ideas which are narrowly religious rather
than moral.
The outlook of modern Europe diflfers from that
of the East especially in the greater emphasis which
* Bryce, Studies in History awl Jurispru^denee, vol. ii. pp. 58-r)9.
1 INTRODUCTORY
INTRO- it lays on the duty of men to themselves and to
DUCTION
^^^^.,,^,.^^^ each other. This divergence has doubtless been
Euioi)e fostered by a religion which sprang from Asia itself,
enUated J^t fouud its cougenial soil not there but in Europe,
twn o"*"^^ and it may almost be said that the difference
free-will between the Mosaic law and the Sermon on the Mount
uieii'sduty mcasurcs the difference between Eastern and Western
^ "*^"' ideals. Men cannot feel, and go on feeling, a sense
of responsibility for the society in which they live,
unless they are also conscious of some power to
alter its condition and their own for better or worse.
Some deeply rooted belief in the efficacy of free will
has delivered Europe from what Bryce calls *the
isolation and narrowness and general exclusiveuess
which has checked the growth of the earlier civiliza-
tions of the world, and which we now see lying like
a weight upon the kingdoms of the East.' ^
There is perhaps in literature no phrase which
conveys more perfectly the distinctive Western
outlook on life than that put by Shakespeare into
the mouth of Cassius : —
Men at some time are masters of their fates :
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
This confidence of the European in his own power
to control circumstance has encouraged exercise
of the power and led to its development. The
Oriental regarding the framework of society as
divinely ordained has treated man as though he
were made for the law : the European has treated
the law as though it were made for man, as a
framework which must not be allowed to cramp social
methods and habits, but which must, when necessary,
be modified to suit, and indeed to foster, change.
The idea that the law is human and subject to
* Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 433.
INTRODUCTORY 1 1
aJfrejr^tion has necessarily led to a conception that intro-
. duction
the <^lianges naust be eifected iu accordance with the ^^^^^^^,^^.
exf>^xrience of the people it affects, determined so Theprin-
&r c^s possible by themselves, and ultimately in comm^^on-*
accojrciance with their will. But the essence of a ^^*„*^\^^®
lav- is that it is a rule controlling the conduct of a product
nucici^X>er of people, and it obviously cannot be modi- attitnde
fiei -fco suit the interest, or in response to the will, of ^^ °"°*^*
eaalx eeparate individual. The European conception
of sc:)vemment, therefore, assumes the possibility
of ^ public opinion which is as much entitled to
pr^^j^^il over individual wills as the edict of an
Autooxat to command the unhesitating obedience
^f Ixis subjects. But, to command obedience, public
^P^^ion must be capable of formulation in terms as
Vy^cise as those of an edict. The further assump-
^^^ti is therefore involved that a certain number of
^^Uzens are capable of formulating public opinion
^ the light of experience. To do this they must
tave some intellectual capacity for judging the
public interest, and, what is no less important, some
moral capacity for treating it as paramount to their
owD. It follows that all citizens who have the
necesdary qualifications ought, in the interests of
the whole community, to be admitted to a share
in the work of formulating public opinion. The
principle is one which travels in the direction of
democracy as naturally as the theocratic principle
travels towards despotism.
This briefly is the principle of the commonwealth. Freedom
and its fundamental notion is that society is at its pHncipk
best when able and free to adapt its own structure °^ *^®
-t ^ common -
to conditions as they change, in accordance with wealth are
its own experience of those conditions. Freedom ideas,
is the power of society to control circumstance, and
that is why freedom and the institution of the
commonwealth are linked inseparably, and together
1 2 INTRODUCTORY
INTRO- constitute the distinctive ideal of Western civilization.
^^^^^^^^^ Blazing forth in the morning of history with a
startling but transitory brilliance, the principle of the
commonwealth has with many vicissitudes gradually
prevailed over that of theocracy in Europe, and
already shows promise of extending the contest to
Asia itself. This struggle of principles, each nobler
than that which it superseded, is in truth the ultimate
theme of history.
Europe by The recognition of Europe as a continent separate
^njiging £^^^ ^^j^ ^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^j^^^ ^^^ nearly
continents ^^ altogether divided by sea, as are Africa, America
into touch and Australia from both of them. Eurasia is one
raised the . iiii. n tt«i' ••
problem of great Continent, and the habit of subdividing it into
inVt^eir *wo is duc to consciousncss of something which
relations diflfcrentiates the society at its western area from
that east of the Ural Mountains, The consciousness
of this difference is comparatively speaking a recent
one. For the last few thousand years the people of
Europe have displayed a continuous energy coupled
with a peculiar capacity for collecting experience and
bringing it to bear upon the conditions of human life.
Climate and the conformation of the shores surround-
ing the Mediterranean were amongst the causes which
fostered the development of these faculties. For our
purpose, however, it is sufficient to note that when
history opens we find in Greece a people whose ideas
and habits have begun to differ from those of Asia,
and have brought into being institutions for which
no counterpart can be found in the East. The Greeks
developed the faculty of change, and the Romans
created conditions which have enabled it to spread in
a greater or less degree to the races west of the
Ural Mountains. The history of Europe deals with
the series of struggles in which this peculiar faculty
asserted itself and produced the civilization which
has distinguished the people of Europe from those of
INTRODUCTORY 1 3
Asia. But history is something more than the history intro-
' . duction
of Europe, and no view of politics can be final which ,,^^^.^^,.,^^
does not include the whole of mankind. The human
race is spread over five continents, each of which has
its own history and level of development ; and how
to adjust their relations to each other is the ultimate
problem of politics. The problem arises from the
fact that one has become versatile while the rest
have remained comparatively static. While the
faculty of progress was still fighting for existence in
Europe, Europe itself was continually called upon
to fight for existence against some power which
threatened it firom Asia. Numbers were on
the side of Asia, but the increasing control which
Europe achieved over moral as well as over physical
forces in the end secured her against destruction.
But the same increasing control over nature began to
open a new and wider range of problems. By the
close of the Middle Ages practical improvements in
navigation had converted the oceans from barriers
into highways, and in the next few centuries Europe,
which had touched Asia on one side only, began to
invade the monarchies of the further East and the
primitive communes of Africa, America, Australasia,
and the Pacific Isles. Nay more, she brought them
into touch with each other, and in a few centuries the
primeval seclusion of the most ancient societies was
broken up. Partitions which had ever divided the
families of mankind were rapidly breached, and it
needs no argument to prove that the fundamental
problem of the age arises from the necessity of adjust-
ing the relations of the one to the other.
Frankly, we must realize that the first effect of pisturb-
European civilization on the older societies is dis- of^con^wt
ruptive. In the course of this inquiry we shall see thl^cea
how the ancient despotisms of the East corrode when of the
world
they come into contact with Western commerce and
14 INTRODUCTORY
INTRO, finance, and how civilized conceptions of law dislocate
■>°™<»' the eoma.un.1 systeo,. n.t,™l to primitive m.-.
The older societies, hard and dry with age, burst when
the still-fermenting wine of European civilization is
suddenly poured into them. The contents, moreover,
of the old bottles are poured into each other and
mixed together. The races of Africa are transplanted
wholesale to the Americas. In Africa, and on the
shores and islands washed by the Pacific, the peoples
of Asia begin to establish colonies of their own, and
on new ground the old struggle for existence between
the civilizations of Europe and Asia begins again.
The The magnitude and delicacy of the problems raised
Empire ^7 chaugcs which rapidly brought into touch with
**^® , , each other the isolated races of mankind is evident,
product
of these and we have only to look at the composition of the
pro ems. gj,jj.jgjj^ Empire to see that its structure is a practical
attempt to supply a solution of some of them. It
consists of separate territories which together cover
more than one-fifth of the land surface of the planet,
and contain about a quarter of its population. These
are distributed amongst some fifty subordinate states
in which are represented all the races and gradations
of human society, and all these it correlates within
the jurisdiction of one paramount state.
The But are we justified in describing the British
British Empire as a state ? To answer that question we
Empii-e IS *^ ^
recognized must ask ourselvcs what the attributes of a state are.
state^by ^ Human life is mainly concerned with adjusting the
sidTit?"* relations of men, or communities of men, to each other.
When the interests or ideals of two individuals or
communities conflict beyond the hope of agreement,
they may be settled either by the strength of the
stronger, that is to say by violence or the threat of
violence, or else by the authority of law. The state
is an institution designed to adjust the relations of its
component members or communities without violence.
INTRODUCTORY , 1 5
or at least by the use of only so much as may be intro-
DUCTION
necessary to enforce the authority of law. The
British Empire determines by the peaceful methods
of law the relations of a large number of races and
communities, and in this sense it is a state. It does
in practice secure that none of its component states
shall engage in war with any other, whether inside or
outside the limits of its jurisdiction. No foreign
state can make war on any of them without being at
war with all of them together. Any attempt, for
instance, on the part of China to invade Fiji would
involve the arrest of Chinese ships which happened at
the moment when war was declared to be lying in the
ports of Canada or South Africa. This empire, in-
cluding a quarter of the human race, is in fact a state
from the international point of view.
The obedience which these various communities it is also
representing the successive stages of human progress ?^tl^ ^n
severally yield to the Imperial sovereignty is con- ^i*®^"/{'|je
ceived in a manner natural to the social ideas of common-
each of them. To the tribes of America, Africa, and though
the Pacific Islands, with their patriarchal ideas, it ^ajSty^
was natural to speak of Queen Victoria as 'The ^f}^
, citizens
Great White Mother.' By the people of India the cannot as
monarchy is thought of 'as a divine institution, a Jund^imt
sacred office, not to be assailed or criticized without l^^^^^^
a tinge of impiety.' ^ And yet the supreme govern- f^j- them-
ment of the state is based upon principles typical of
Europe in direct antithesis to those understood by the
races from which seven-eighths of its subjects are
drawn. The British monarch is, in fact, neither
patriarch nor autocrat, but the hereditary president
of a commonwealth. But in this commonwealth the
governing power is practically restricted to citizens
of European origin. It is not extended, even for
local purposes, to any of the Dependencies great or
* "Th? Purbar and After," Round Table, No. VII. vol. u. p. 397.
16 , INTRODUCTORY
INTRO- small, for the sufficient reason that the institutions
of a commonwealth cannot be successfully worked by
peoples whose ideas are still those of a theocratic or
patriarchal society. The premature extension of
representative institutions throughout the Empire
would be the shortest road to anarchy. But this
present restriction of the franchise to the people
of European origin no more deprives the Imperial
state of its essential character of a commonwealth
than the analogous restriction of the franchise to
adults. In order to alter the system of government
familiar to the East the ideas and customs out of
which that system has grown must be altered first,
and it is safe to assume that the masses of India
will not have so changed their habits of life as to
enable them within the period of the present genera-
tion to assume a complete responsibility for the
management of their own domestic affairs. But this
obviously they must do before attempting to assume
the still higher and more difficult responsibility
for the affairs of the Empire as a whole. It
is not therefore within the scope of an inquiry,
exclusively practical in its object, to consider how or
when the Dependencies are to be associated in the
government of the Imperial Commonwealth.^
But when The exclusion of an increasing portion of the
YrTrn^ European citizens of the Empire from a share in
British *^^ its stupcndous responsibilities is the importunate
Empire questiou whosc settlement must precede all others.
los&s tho
character One quarter of them are distributed between the
and fans' Dominious of Canada, Australia, South Africa, New
to realize Zealand, and Newfoundland. Within the limits of
the pnu- ' . II-
cipioofa those territories their several populations control
common- . i • • . i /y» • t j.i_ i
wealth. then: own internal anairs. in the general govern-
^ Since visiting India I have seen reasons to modify tlie view expressed
in this sentence, which was written in 1912. I hope to give those reasons
in the next volume.— Editor, Delhi, March 1917. .
INTEODUCrrORY ' 1 7
ment of the Empire, however, they exercise no voice intbo*
. . DUCTION
whatever, and, contrariwise, the Imperial Government
has no power in fact of commanding their resources
for the maintenance of the Imperial Commonwealth.
Viewed from without, the British Empire is a single
state with a single government, in practice just as
competent to commit all its subjects to peace or war
as the Governments of Russia, Germany, or the
United States. But it cannot, like them, command
the resources of all its subjects and territories in the
discharge of its responsibilities. As the people of the
Dominions have no voice in the government of the
Empire, so are they not subject to contribute to its
necessities. Viewed from within, the Empire lacks
that property of states by which they proportion the
expenditure of their resources to the responsibilities
which the possession of those resources involves. It
is a commonwealth which excludes from a share in
its government an increasing proportion of citizens in
no way less qualified for the task than those whom
it admits to it. It is a state, yet not a state; a
commonwealth, yet one which fails to realize an
essential condition of the principle which inspires it.
Can it continue in this condition, and if not, is it to
develop the structure of a state and to fulfil the
conditions of a commonwealth, or is it to be broken
up into a number of states? And if so broken
up, can the parent state continue single-handed to
maintain a stable equilibrium between these multi-
tudinous races and civilizations, and to adjust their
relations with the other three-quarters of the human
race? No question more momentous has ever been
proposed, for upon its solution depends the stability,
not merely of this Empire itself, but of the whole
structure of the world's society through which it
extends. To attempt an answer to this question
without first inquiring what the British Empire is
c
1 8 INTRODUCTORY
INTRO- and what function it fulfils is to court failure from
DUCTION ^^^ outset. For as with every institution, it is only
to be understood in the light of history and especially
of events which caused and therefore preceded its
creation. It will be necessary, then, to take a rapid
glance at the history of Europe, more especially in its
relations to Asia, before the British Empire itself
appeared upon the scene.
Plan of the The first part of this inquiry traces the growth of
dMcriid. *^^ Commonwealth to the great schism which so nearly
destroyed it at the close of the eighteenth century.
The second, dealing with the subsequent growth of
the British Empire, is an attempt to see India, Egypt,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
as they now are. In these two parts an endeavour
is made to understand the various parts of the
Empire, and how they are related to each other
and the whole. Whether those relations are satis-
factory, and how far they now require to be changed,
are questions to be discussed in the third and final
part of the inquiry.
CHAPTER I
EARLIER RELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST
A TRIBAL society is highly unstable, because each chap.
tribe tends to split up as soon as it outgrows the
limits of a magnified family. Where, however, the The tueo-
chief sanction of government is religion, the community principle
can continue to expand so long as the territories it tends to
* o the crea-
covers are not too wide for the ruler's commands to tion of
be conveyed to his subjects. Asia thus became the a great
home of enormous states; it was a continent in ^^^^'
which vast multitudes were ruled by a few despots.
European history begins with the Greeks, and the The
opening pages of their literature tell of a people who tio^ o"*^'^"
differ not in defin*ee but in kind from those of Asia Europe
because they are no longer dominated by habit. The first took
frontispiece of that literature is a portrait of Odysseus, amongst
of a man living by his wits, a man to whom the ^j^Jf^the
things of this world matter, and are in some sort new type
of state
amenable to control The typical Greek hero is no they
slave of destiny, but one who masters it by the ®^®°p®^-
resources of an unconquerable mind. But the Asiatic
idea that authority must rest on a supernatural basis
survives amongst the Homeric Greeks, for their kings
are always in some way descended from the gods.
So strong is the religious idea indeed that they can
think of themselves as united in the siege of Troy, as
m later times they were never united, by common
loyalty to a paramount king.
At a later period, when legend gives way to history,
19
20 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, these theocratic ideas have abeady receded into the
.^^^,^^^^,^/ background, and the Greeks have moved on to
political conceptions of their own for which no
precedent was to be found in Asia. These were the
product of the small communities centreing round
fortified cities, into which the Greeks were divided
by their mountains and seas. In these small
neighbourhoods was developed an esprit de corps
that bound society by ties dififerent from the feeling
that to question the authority of * powers and
principalities ' is impious. The Greek was religious,
but the dominating factor in his political life was
not religion but enthusiasm for his city, which to
his eye was made, not of waUs, but of his fellow
citizens. And to the welfare of that city so con-
ceived he was prepared to dedicate not merely his
property and his energy but life itself. It was in
Athens that the Greek spirit reached its typical de-
velopment ; and as one of their enemies said of the
Athenians, *They spend their bodies, as mere ex-
ternal tools, in the city's service, and count their
minds as most truly their own when employed on
her behalf.'^
The Greek The specch delivered by their greatest statesman,
o^the Pericles, at the funeral of some of them who had
dedication j^^^ foy ^j^^j^ ^\^y jg instiuct with this Spirit of
of men to ^ ^ -^ , -^
each other, dedication. * Such were the men who lie here and
such the city which inspired them. We survivors
may pray to be spared their bitter hour, but must
disdain to meet the foe with a spirit less triumphant.
Let us draw strength, not merely from twice-told
arguments — how fair and noble a thing it is to show
courage in battle — but from the busy spectacle of
our great city's life as we have it before us day by
day, falling in love with her as we see her, and
remembering that all this greatness she owes to
> Thucydides i. 70.
EAST AND WEST 21
men with the fighter's daring, the wise man's under- chap.
standing of his duty, and the good man's self-disci- . ^^ _^^
pline in its performance — to men who, if they failed
in any ordeal, disdained to deprive the city of their
services, but sacrificed their lives as the best offerings
on her behalf. So they gave their bodies to the
commonwealth and received, each for his own memory,
praise that will never die, and with it the grandest
of all sepulchres, not that in which their mortal
bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men,
where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or
action as the occasion comes by. For the whole
earth is the sepulchre of famous men ; and their
story is not graven only on stone over their native
earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol,
woven into the stuff of other men's lives.' *
Here is a spirit of devotion no less absolute than civic duty
that which inspired the obedience rendered by an "i^S by
Asiatic to a monarch whom he thought of as the »Greek.
delegate of Grod. But in Athens that obedience was
rendered by the citizen to the -will not of a despot
but of his fellow citizens. How absolute was a
Greek's conception of the obedience due from himself
to the state may be gathered from the reasons given
by the greatest of Athenian citizens for declining to
evade an unjust sentence of death. ' Consider it in
this way : Suppose the laws and the Commonwealth
were to come and appear to me as I was preparing
to run away, perhaps they would say, ^' Socrates,
wonder not at our words, but answer us ; you your-
self are accustomed to ask questions and to answer
them. What complaint have you against us and
the city, that you are trying to destroy us? Are
we not, first, your parents ? Through us your father
took your mother and begat you. Tell us, have you
^ Thuoydides ii. 43, translation from Zimmern, The Greek Common'
weaUk, p. 202.
22 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, any fault to find with those of us that are the laws
of marriage ? " '* I have none," I should reply. " Or
have you any fault to find with those of us that
regulate the nurture and education of the child,
which you, like others, received? Did not we do
well in bidding your father educate you in music
and gymnastic ? " " You did," I should say. " Well
then since you were brought into the world and
nurtured and educated by us, how, in the first place,
can you deny that you are our child and our slave,
as your fathers were before you ? And if this be so,
do you think that your rights are on a level with
ours ? Do you thiuk that you have a right to retaliate
upon us if we should try to do anything to you ?
You had not the same rights that your father had,
or that your master would have had, if you had been
a slave. You had no right to retaliate upon them if
they ill-treated you, or to answer them if they reviled
you, or to strike them back if they struck you, or
to repay them evil with evil in any way. And do
you think that you may retaliate on your country
and its laws ? If we try to destroy you, because we
think it right, will you 'in return do all that you
can to destroy us, the laws, and your country, and
say that in so doing you are doing right, you, the
man, who in truth thinks so much of virtue? Or
are you too wise to see that your country is worthier,
and more august, and more sacred, and holier, and
held in higher honour both by the Gods and by
all men of understanding, than your father and
your mother and all your other ancestors ; and
that it is your bounden duty to reverence it, and
ta submit to it, and to approach it more humbly
than you would approach your father, when it is
angry with you ; and either do whatever it bids you
to do or to persuade it to excuse you ; and to obey
in silence if it orders you to endure stripes or
EAST AND WEST
23
imprisonment, or if it sends you to battle to be
wounded or to die? That is what is your duty.
You must not give way, nor retreat, nor desert
your post. In war, and in the court of justice,
and everywhere, you must do whatever your city
and your country bids you do, or you must
convince them that their commands are unjust.
But it is against the law of God to use violence
to your father or to your mother; and much more
so is it against the law of God. to use violence to
your country. " What answer shall we make Crito ?
Shall we say that the laws speak truly or no ? ' ^
Here is presented the duty of the citizen as conceived
by the greatest interpreter of Greek ideas. For him
the authority of government still rests on Man's duty
to God But Man's duty to God is inseparably
connected with his duty to his fellow men. To them
he is bound by an obligation to which he can recognize
no limits, an obligation which requires him to sacrifice
everything — ^property, and, if necessary, life itself —
in the interests of the commonwealth. It is in the
general good of the community that his own particular
good is to be sought. His relation to society is that
of a limb to the body ; for the health of a limb must
not be sought for itself, but only as a product of the
health of the body as a whole. To neglect the public
interest in the pursuit of his own is to grasp at a
shadow and to ignore the substance. It is the prin-
ciple exactly expressed in the divine paradox, * Who-
soever shall seek to save his own life shall lose it ; and
whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.' ^
We now begin to see what a Greek commonwealth
was and where it differs from an Asiatic theocracy.
It is a body of men animated by a sense of mutual
enthusiasm — of duty to each other — so strong as to
^ OritOt 60, translation from Ohuroh, Trial and Death qfSocreUes, pp. 98-90.
* St Lnke zvii. 33.
CHAP.
I
24 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, enable them to subordinate their own interests to that
^^^^.^^^^^^ of their fellow-citizens, and to render an absolute
The rule obedieuce to public opinion expressed, for the purpose
oipabie of ^^ 8^^^ obcdiencc, in the laws. The rule of law as
raoufded Contrasted with the rule of an individual is the distin-
in accord- guishiug mark of the commonwealth. In despotisms
experience govemmeut Tcsts on the authority of the ruler or of
guishing" t^e invisible and uncontrollable power behind him.
th"^ ^^ ^^ ^ commonwealth rulers derive their authority from
common- the law, and the law from a public opinion which
is competent to change it In the Greek common-
wealth public opinion found expression in the resolu-
tions passed by the citizens themselves meeting in
the market-place, round which the community had
grown up. It was they and they alone who were
competent to modify the law in accordance with the
experience they had gained or their needs as they
judged them from day to day. Here is a form of
society essentially capable of adapting its framework
to changing conditions. It is a progressive society,
one in which men can adapt themselves to conditions
as they find them, and so dominate circumstance
instead of being controlled by it.
Effect of This newprinciple was one which profoundly affected
common-^ the structuTC of Greek And, indeed, that of European
wcAithon society, and differentiated it from that of Asia.
European •''
history. Eastern prophets had apprehended that man s duty
towards God implied men's duty towards each other.
But the Greeks had used the principle as the basis of
practical government. They had made the common
things of this material world amenable to its rule.
They had brought it from the realm of abstractions,
and had made it incarnate in the facts of their life.
'As the literature of Greece is the groundwork of all
later literature, as the art of Greece is the groundwork
of all later art, so in the great Democracy of Athens
we recognize the parent state of law and justice and
EAST AND WEST
25
freedom,the wonder and the example of every later age.
. . . Never could we have been as we are, if those
ancient commonwealths had not gone before us.
While human nature remains what it has been for two
thousand years, so long will the eternal lessons of the
great '* Possession for all Time/' the lessons which
Perikles has written with his life and Thucydides with
his pen, the lessons expanded by the more enlarged
experience of Aristotle and Polybios, the lessons which
breathe a higher note of warning still as Demosthenes
lives the champion of freedom and dies its martyr —
so long will lessons such as these never cease to speak
with the same truth and t^e same freshness even to
countless generations. The continent which gave
birth to Kleisthenes and Cains licinius and Simon of
Montfort may indeed be doomed to be trampled under
foot by an Empire based on Universal Suffrage ; but
no pseudo-democratic despot, no Caesar or Dionysios
ruling by the national will of half a million of bayonets
will ever quite bring back Europe to the state of a
land of Pharaohs and Nabuchodonosors, until the
History of Thucydides, the Politics of Aristotle, and
the Orations of Demosthenes, are wholly forgotten
CHAP.
I
among men.
M
The Greeks were indeed the first to realize the
principle of the free commonwealth, but in a form
too slight and delicate to survive. It was a great
thing to have discovered that the public opinion of a
community can be so focused as to become the
directing as well as the driving principle of its
government. But it never occurred to them that
this could be done otherwise than by the citizens
themselves meeting in the market-place to legislate,
and it was impossible, so they believed, for a state to
Failure of
the Greeks
to realize
the prin-
ciple of the
common-
wealth
except ill
miniature
states.
' Freeman, History of FedercU Oovemment in Greece and Italy , pp. 67-68.
The anthor was writing when Louis Napoleon had established the Second
Empire on the basis of uniyersal suffrage.
26 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, include more citizens than might listen to the voice
of a single orator.^ The enthusiasm which inspired
them at one time for Hellas — as the whole Greek
people were called — might have made them one
Hellenic commonwealth if they had understood how
the public opinion of a people, too numerous and
scattered to meet in one place, can be collected,
formulated, and made to shape the law. An auto-
cracy may include as many subjects as the edicts of
the central government <ian reach, and up to this
limit it tends to absorb all smaller and weaker
states on its frontiers; with a commonwealth it is
otherwise. To frame an edict at all the state must
first know how to collect the wishes and experiences
of a number of citizens, to distil from them that
essence which may be described as public opinion
and then to crystallize it into the form of a written
resolution or law. The extent to which this com-
plicated operation can be effected will determine
how far the principle of the commonwealth can be
realized in practice. The smaller the community the
easier the process. The natural tendency of the
principle is to small communities. It is exceedingly
difficult to combine two commonwealths into one.
But it is a mistake to assume that because a tend-
ency is natural it is also sound ; for, left to run riot,
this tendency would destroy the commonwealth
itself by rendering the whole society to which it is
applied as unstable as it would be if organized on. the
tribal principle.
The muiti- Hclleuic socicty was highly unstable. The nation,
o/smaii" i^ direct contrtist to those of Asia, was divided
re^'^ted ^^*^ * multitudc of sovercigu states, and the result
in intef- was auarchy. ' When each town is perfectly inde-
neoine -i . i • i i i •
warfare, pendent and sovereign, acknowledgmg no superior
upon earth, multitudes of disputes, which in a great
* Aristotle, PolUicSj iv. (vii.) 4.
•••'•
• b •
^^
fc-
mi
60°
r
\
EAST AND WEST 27
monarchy or a Federal republic may be decided by chap.
peaceful tribunals, can be settled by nothing but an ,^^^
appeal to the sword. The thousand causes which
involve large neighbouring states in warfare all
exist, and all are endowed with tenfold force, in the
case of independent city - commonwealths. Border
disputes, commercial jealousies, wrongs done to
individual citizens, the mere vague dislike which
turns a neighbour into a natural enemy, all exist,
and that in a form condensed and ini^nsified by the
very minuteness of the scene on which they have to
act. A rival nation is, to all but the inhabitants of
a narrow strip of frontier, a mere matter of hearsay ;
but a rival whose dwelling-place is within sight of
the city gates quickly grows into an enemy who can
be seen and felt. The highest point which human
hatred can reach has commonly been found in the
local antipathies between neighbouring cities. . . .
A system of Free Cities, therefore, involves a state of
warfare, and that of warfare carried on with all the
bitterness of almost personal hostility. The more
fervid the patriotism, the more intense the national
life and vigour, the more constant and the more
unrelenting will be the conflicts in which a city-
commonwealth is sure to find itself engaged with its
neighbours.' ^ As the Greek city-state was the pro-
totype of the modem nation, so Hellas was the pro-
totype of Europe; but with international enmities
multiplied and aggravated to an intense degree.
The Greek states were the dangerous enemies of each
other.
They were threatened, however, with an even
greater danger from outside Hellas. Great auto-
cracies, as we have said, naturally tend to absorb
small states as soon as they touch them. But to the
^ Freeman, HiUcry of Federal Government in Greece and Italy^ pp.
42-48.
28 EAST AND WEST
GHAP. Oriental theocracy the Greek commonwealth was in
,^^,^..,^^^,^^ its essential idea an offence. One commonwealth
Conflict of may enslave another, but in doing so, the less com-
with Persia mon Wealth it. But a theocracy enslaves more men
of *t£r^^^^ '^y virtue of the principle upon which it is based.
inherent A despot who regards himself as at once the oracle
between and vicegerent of his God, and is so regarded by
re^^^tive his subjccts, is but exccutiug more perfectly his
^^^^} mission in compelling more subjects to submit to his
tions. delegated authority. The Oriental conception of
government was incompatible with the principle of
the Greek state. The two systems were bound to
come into conflict as soon as they came into touch.^
Persia The fiist volume of European history was written
the^ t)y Herodotus to record and interpret this conflict.
Eastern ^q JjJj^ j^ ^^g definitely a conflict between Greek
common- •'
wealths and * Barbarian ' — a phase of * that Eternal Question
of Hellas , . , , ^ . , , . , .
and con. which ueeds no reopenmg because no diplomacy has
them^into ®^®^ closcd it, the qucstiou between light and dark-
despotisms. ^ggg^ between West and East ' ; ^ and he traces its
origin right back to the legendary days of the Trojan
War and before it. But the climax came when
Cyrus, prince of the warlike hill-state of Persia,
conquered the Medes, who shared with Babylon the
old Empire of Assyria, pushed on into Asia Minor
and crushed Croesus, the king of Lydia, who had
exercised a suzerainty over the Greek towns of the
Aegean seaboard, and acted as a buffer for them
against the East. The East in the shape of Cyrus
and his victorious Persians was for the first time
actually threatening the independence of the West.
While Cyrus returned to cope with Babylon, his
general, Mazares, proceeded to attack the Greek
seaboard towns, which, with the exception of Miletus,
^ The reader should here unfold the map of Greece and Persia, Plate V.,
and keep it before him while reading the following pages.
' Freeman, Greater Greece a/nd Greater BrUain^ p. 76.
EAST AND WEST 29
whose great commercial position had enabled her to chap.
obtain special terms, had one and all refused to ^,^^..,^^,.^
submit to Persian rule. Their gallant resistance
was futile against the numbers of the Persians. One
after another they were reduced. Their autonomy,
not altogether lost under the benevolent suzerainty
of Croesus, was now finally abolished ; their constitu-
tions were swept away, and tyrants set up as the
vassals of Cyrus. Most of the Greek islands off the
coast submitted to the conqueror, but one or two
remained independent, and it was not till some thirty
years later that the second in succession to Cyrus on
the Persian throne, King Darius, completed the
conquest of the lonians, who formed the most
important section of the coastal and island Greeks,
by the capture of Samos. It is sad but not un-
instructive to reflect that Samos was still, in the year
1912, the scene of the same historic struggle between
Western and Oriental peoples and ideas.
The great Asiatic Empire had thus absorbed the Bat Persia
European settlements which fringed the coast of e^SgfJ^
Asia Minor : but the lust for conquest and expansion *^ s°"^^"
^ J r ®™ Russia
was not exhausted. Cambyses, the predecessor of they re-
Darius, had moved into Africa and annexed Egypt ; were soon
and Darius now crossed the Bosphorus and invaded ^^f*^
Europe. He marched north, crossed the Danube,
and attacked the Scythian tribes of South Russia :
but, owing to the difficulties of supply and the
elusive tactics of the Scythian horsemen, the Great
King was unable to come to grips with his enemy,
and was finally compelled to retreat from European
soil without achieving anything. The failure of this
Scythian expedition told heavily against Persian
prestige, and the Ionian Greeks, who had found the
rule of their philo-Persian tyrants and the payment
of tribute to Darius intolerable to their inborn feeling
for freedom, took the opportunity, a few years later,
30 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, to revolt. They appealed for aid to the Greeks of
^^^^^^^^^^ the mother-country across the Aegean. Of the two
leading states, Sparta, always afraid to embark on
expeditions far from home, declined to help ; Athens,
on the other hand, sent nearly half of her available
fleet, and that despite the fact that she was in grave
trouble with a strong and hostile neighbour, Aegina.
The revolt was at first successful. It spread all
round the coast and reached as far as Cyprus. But
it was foredoomed to failure in the end, for the simple
reason that no belt of sea protected the continental
towns from the enormous forces which Darius could
send against them ; and even on the sea the Ionian
fleet was not decisively superior to the Phoenician
fleet in the service of Persia. Hence it only needed
time for the Persian armies to mobilize, and then
gradually the revolt collapsed. The final and decisive
battle was fought at sea. The leading Ionian town
Miletus was besieged by land ; but as long as sea-
power was still hers, she could prolong her desperate
resistance.
The It is possible that the command of the sea might
atotes* have been retained, if, as so often, the Ionian states
have* ^^^ ^^^ shown at this critical juncture their char-
retained acteristic inability to act in concert. There seems to
troi of the havc bccu somc slight bond of union, but the evi-
their^cUs^^ deucc is too scauty to enable us to state its exact
union. character. There was some body, apparently, which
issued coins for the use of the rebel states as a whole
and could send envoys in the name of all the lonians.
But of any joint military or naval authority we hear
nothing, and the fleet which gathered for the last
fight at Lade was under no single supreme com-
mander; the contingent of each town obeyed its
native admiral and no one else.
The Persians, who were no sailors, relied on the
navy of Phoenicia which they had conquered and
EAST AND WEST 31
added to their Empire. As a fighting unit, a ship chap.
manned by these Phoenician vassals was by no means s^^.^^^^^
8 match for a ship manned by free and adventurous Defe&t by
Greeks. But the Phoenician ships, commanded by nicians^of
a single admiral, had been trained to manoeuvre floet^^*^
together. With the Greeks it was otherwise. Their ^^ ot
navy reproduced the multiplicity of the common- soiiadrons
wealths from which it was drawn. Each separate noUearned
squadron had its own commander. But there was no ^™^^°®'^
government common to them all, and therefore no ceaTres.
admiral in chief competent to train the different
squadrons to play their part in the evolutions of a
combined fleet. The Phoenician navy was. like a
football team of indifferent players who have been
long and carefully trained together, matched against
better men who will not even appoint a captain and
obey his lead. One of the Greek admirals, Dionysius
of Phocaea, saw the danger, and atfirst persuaded the
whole fleet to submit to tactical training under bis
direction. The plan worked excellently for a while,
but soon they tired of the strict discipline and the
loss of independence, and threw over their allegiance
to the one man who could have saved them. * From
the day on which the lonians discarded Dionysius,
their camp became a scene of disunion and mistrust.
Some of them grew so reckless and unmanageable
that the better portion despaired of maintaining any
orderly battle.' * Worse than that, early in the fight,
the strong Samian contingent, undermined before-
hand by the intrigues of the former philo-Peisian
tyrant of their state, abandoned the cause and sailed
away for home. Many other contingents followed
their disgraceful example. Some, notably the ships
of Dionysius, fought on heroically against odds, but a
decisive victory for Persia was now inevitable. The
battle broke Ionian sea power to pieces.
^ Grote, History of Oreeegf p. 130.
32
BAST AND WEST
CHAP.
1
AiUtic
civiUza-
tion
imposed
on the
Greeks in
consequence
Persian
attack on
Athens
and their
defeat at
Marathon.
' The defeat of the lonians at Lade was complete
as well as irrevocable. . . . The capture of Miletus, in
the sixth year from the commencement of the revolt,
carried with it the rapid submission of the neighbour-
ing towns in ELaria ; and during the next summer —
the Phoenician fleet having wintered at Miletus — the
Persian forces by sea and land reconquered all the
Asiatic Greeks, insular as well as continental. Chios,
Lesbos, and Tenedos — the towns in the Chersonese —
Selymbria and Perinthus in Thrace — Prokonnesus
and Artake in the Propontis — all these towns were
taken or sacked by the Persian and Phoenician fleet.
. . . The threats which had been held out before the
battle of Lade were realized to the fulL The most
beautiful Greek youths and virgins were picked out,
to be distributed among the Persian grandees as
eunuchs or inmates of the harems. The cities, with
their edifices, sacred, as well as profane, were made a
prey to the flames ; and in the case of the islands,
Herodotus even tells us that a line of Persians was
formed from shore to shore, which swept each territory
from north to south, and drove the inhabitants out of
it. . . . Samos was made an exception to the rest, and
completely spared by the Persians, as a reward to its
captains for setting the example of desertion at the
battle of Lade; while Aeakes, the despot of that
island, was reinstated in his Government.'^ The
Samians had committed that fundamental treachery
known to the Greeks as Medizing, the abandonment'
of the ideals of Hellas for those of the Asiatic Medes.
Submission to despotism was one of the natural
results.
But, as Herodotus says, this was only the beginning
of trouble for the Greeks. Darius had reduced the
Greek rebels in Asia Minor, but the insult offered
him by Athens in sending them help was still un-
* Grote, History of Oreecey pp. 130-133.
EAST AND WEST S3
punished, and he at once began his preparations for ohap.
an expedition across the Aegean. He was encouraged ^^^^^^
and assisted in this design by the old despot Hippias,
who, nearly twenty yeats before this, had been
expelled from Athens when despotism was put down
and democracy established. He hoped that Darius
would easily overcome the resistance of the little
city-state he had once ruled, and restore him as the
vassal -despot of an enslaved ccnmnonwealth. Two
years after Lade, in 492 B.C., a Persian army, accom-
panied by a fleet, attempted to reach Oreece by land,
but the difficulties of the route were too great and
the expedition returned after definitely establishing
the suzerainty of Darius over the coasts of Thrace
and Macedon. The next blow was more direct. In
490 B.O., a famous year in the long annals of the
struggle between East and West, the Persian fleet
crossed the Aegean and landed a Persian army on
the coast of Attica at Marathon. The Athenian
army, a mere fraction of the Persian force in numbers,
was drawn up on the slopes, ready to oppose a march
by the invaders upon Athens. After a few days of
anxious waiting the battle came on. By one brilliant
charge down the slope and a bout of hand-to-hand
fighting in the plain the well-trained, heavy-armed
Athenians broke the Persian invaders and drove
them to their ships. Immediately after the battle
the Athenian general marched his force back across
the slopes to Athens ; for the Persian fleet, warned
by a signal from the friends of Hippias that the town
itself was undefended, had doubled round the cape
and was threatening to deliver a second blow. Find-
ing, however, that the victorious Athenian army was
already back and prepared to meet him, the Persian
commander returned to Asia with his task unfulfilled.
Marathon was the most inspiring event in Athenian
history, and the golden age of Athens in the fifth
D
34
EAST AND WIST
CHAP.
I
Import-
ftnce of
Marathon.
In48lB.c.
the
PersianB
invaded
Greece in
over-
powering
nnmberB.
Heroic
defence of
Thermo-
pylae by
the
Spartans.
centurj would have been impoesible without it. It
not only saved the Athenian commonwealth from
destraction at the hands of a restored Hippias, and
all the ideals of liberty from the deadening pressure
of Oriental rule ; but it had also given that common-
wealth and those ideals their proof and justification
in the eyes of Greece.
Darius died before completing the preparations
he at once put in hand for avenging Marathon.
They were continued, however, by his successor,
Xerxes, who in 481 B.a set in motion a far hnger
force, which for its very size was obliged to try again
the route of the Thracian coast Stirred to action
by a peril which now visibly threatened all Hellas,
Sparta at length assumed her traditional position as
military leader of the Greek states and garrisoned
the narrow defile of Thermopylae, through which the
invading armies must pass before they could pene-
trate further south than Thessaly, whidi, since its
aristocratic rulers were pro -Persian and it had no
easily defensible frontier, had perforce submitted.
Through the treachery of a Medizing Greek the
position was turned; but rather than quit his post
Leonidas the Spartan king preferred to perish with
his three hundred men. They were buried where
they fell in the narrow pass, on whose rocky wall
were engraved the words —
Go tell Sparta thou that passeth by,
That here obedient to her laws we lie —
an epitaph which shows where obedience in a
commonwealth is due, and how glorious the obligation
of rendering it without reserva Such acts bear
witness to the only principle by which men can
be bound immutably to men, the principle which
denies any limit to the obligation due from the
citizen to the state. It is the one relation between
EAST AKD WEST * 35
them that bo shifting of interests can aifect — an ohap.
uncovenanted bond based upon an nncalculating s^..^.,^,.,^^
motive. There is no bargain to break between men
bound by absolute dedication, and so bound they
constitute a state, the one form of society which can
be rendered stable, the noblest that man will ever
achieve for himself.
The road to Athens was now open, and Xerxes why the
marched upon it, his fleet accompanying him round amy*°
the coast. The reason for this is obvious. His army ^!5!?^i®^
J upon sea
was large enough to sweep Greece from shore to power,
shore, as the Persians had swept the Islands. But it
was far too large to support itself on so poor a country,
and for provisions depended absolutely upon the
command of the sea. The Delphic oracle had advised
the Athenians to ' trust to their wooden walls,' and it
was to their ships that they retired when the Persian
occupied their city. There, in the sheet of water
enclosed by the coast of Attica and the island of
Salamis, where the women and children of Athens had
taken refuge, the nascent civilization of Europe turned
to bay. 'The combined fleet which had now got
together consisted of 366 ships. Of these no less than
200 were Athenian, twenty among which, however,
were lent to the Chalkidians and manned by them.
Forty Corinthian ships, thirty Aeginetan, twenty
Megarian, sixteen Lacedaemonian, fifteen Sikyonian,
ten Epidaurian, seven from Ambrakia and as many
&om Eretria, five from Troezen, three from Hermione,
and the same number from Leukas ; two from Keos,
two from Styra, and one from Kythnos ; four from
Naxos, despatched as a contingent to the Persian
fleet, but brought by the choice of their captains and
seamen to Salamis, — ^all these triremes, together with
a small squadron of the inferior vessels called pente-
konters, made up the total' ^
^ Grote, History of Greece, p. 206.
36 • EAST AIO) WEST
CHAP. Themistocles the Athenian admiral saw that the
^^^^^^^^.^^^ salvation of Hellas lay in using her ships not as walls
Defeat of but as weapons. A majority of the allies were in
Peraians f&vour of falling back to protect the Peloponnesus,
Constamjy' where they would have been inevitably overwhelmed
of the in the open sea by the superior numbers of the Asiatic
Armada. By a trick Themistocles precipitated a
battle in the narrow waters of Salamis. A disastrous
defeat was inflicted on the Persian fleet. Its imme-
diate effect was to cut off" the sea-borne food supplies by
which alone the vast army of Xerxes could be supported
in Greece. The greater part of it was compelled to re-
treat forthwith, with Xerxes at the head of it, leaving
Mardonius with an army no larger than could be
supported on the com supplies of Boeotia and Thessaly,
but inadequate for a real conquest of Greece, By him,
Alexander, King of Macedon, was sent to seduce the
Athenians in their ruined city and devastated country
by offers of material reparation. Their answer was
such as to close for ever the hope that they would
betray the cause of Hellas to the Persians. * Cast not in
our teeth that the power of the Persian is many times
greater than ours : we, too, know iJiat as well as thou :
but we nevertheless love freedom well enough to resist
him in the best manner we can. Attempt not the vain
task of talking us over into alliance with him. Tell
Mardonius that as long as the sun shall continue in his
present path wewill never contract alliance withXerxes :
we will encounter him in our own defence, putting our
trust in the aid of those Gods and heroes to whom
he has shown no reverence, and whose houses and
statues he has burnt. Come thou not to us again
with similar propositions, nor persuade us, even in
the spirit of goodwill, into unholy proceedings : thou
art the guest and friend of Athens, and we would
not that thou shouldst suffer injury at our hands.' ^
^ Grote, History of Oreecet p. 222.
EAST AND WEST 87
On receiving this message Mardonius— -who had chap.
now been joined by all his Greek auxiliaries and by s.^^..,^^,,^
fresh troops from Thrace and Macedon — marched on The
Athens which appealed to Sparta for help in vain. enlbied\y
Once more the Peloponnesian states, entrenched ^j^^^^^"
behind the Isthmus of Corinth, were thinking of them- Greek
selves alone, and failed to respond to the unshaken more to
fidelity shown by the Athenians in the cause of ^tffi.
Hellas. They allowed Mardonius to reoocupy Athens
in May or June 479 B.O. ; her indignant people again
retreating behind their ships to Salamis.
But Sparta was now frightened by fear of treachery Mardonius
on the part of her own allies, for Mardonius was and siafn
intriguing with Argos to block the Isthmus against ^n/p^f**
the exit of Spartan forces. The Spartans anticipated sian forces
their possible intentions, and Mardonius, apprised of Asia Minor,
their movement by the Argives, evacuated Attica and
retired to Boeotia. There Pausanias the Spartan
king followed at the head of the combined forces
of Greece, and inflicted upon him a signal defeat
at Plataea« Mardonius himself fell in the act of
attempting to rally his broken ranks. The reputation
of Sparta was thus retrieved. On the same day
forces landed at Mycale on the coast of Asia Minor
and inflicted a crqshing defeat on the Persian armies,
and in this battle the first honours were accorded to
the Athenians.
The Persian wars had revealed the strength and The energy
weakness of Greece. ' The strug^e had brought into teiiigence
strong relief the contrast between absolute monarchy ^^^^ ^^
and constitutional freedom. This appeared in two geiiaswas
â– '"'*â– , the pro-
things : the Greek strategy was superior ; and the duct of her
Greek troops fought better. Athens, in particular, tiaions/
had shown how both the intelligence and the spirit of
citizens are raised by equal laws. The mistakes of
the invaders — which, to a Greek mind, might well
have seemed the work of Ate — were such as are
38 lAST AND WB3T
CHAP, natural when a vast force is directed by the in-
^^^^^^^^^ temperance of a single wilL' *
But these But Greek patriotism, which was the froit of
^ ^^ freedom, had been almost neutralized by the absence
neâ„¢tni[i- ^^ *^ equivalent organization. Hellas was broken
izedby into a multitude of parts each of which might
disorgaa- jeopardize the safety of the whole. The nobles of
izBtioD. Theasaly had shown that they were eager to establish
the supremacy of their order with the help of Asiatic
despotism. To them their own power in Thessaly
counted more than the ideals of all Hellas. Through
hatred of their neighbours Argos and Thebes had
betrayed the common cause. Even Sparta and her
Peloponnesian allies had been disposed to confine
themselves to the defence of their own peninsula,
leaving Athens and the Northern states to their fate,
scarcely perceiving that in that fate their own would
be involved.
United The War had proved that the safety of Hellas
knd^and^ depended on the co-operation of land and sea forces.
sea forces ^o maintain the control of the sea was the primary
wasneeded , n t r t i -i- •
to preserve Condition of her freedom, though victories must also
dom. be won by land before her soil could be freed from
the invader. Thus Salamis was more decisive than
Plataea, but neither could have availed dione to rid
Greece of the Persians. Nor was either of them the
work of a single state. Athens had snatched her
victory at Marathon single-handed; but, glorious as
it was, the forces engaged were very small compared
with those required to defeat Xerxes. Athens, single-
handed, was as powerless to win Salamis as to defend
Attica from invasion. Sparta, in the same way,
could not alone have won Plataea, nor would the
victory have availed her if Persian ships had been
free meanwhile to land a force in Laconia to overrun
her native valley. The war, in fact, had shown that
^ Professor R. C. Jebb, Article on * Greece,* Mq/, Brit. vol. xi p. 100.
BAST AND WBST 39
no Greek state was strong enough to stand alone ohap.
against the jealousy of an Oriental power. Some ^^
larger combination was essential if Hellenic ciyiliza-
tion was to survive a second attack.
' In the heat of the conflict, when the barriers of During the
city patriotism were broken down and Greeks found ^mm^on
themselves fighting, to their astonishment, not against ^^/^aJft^^
but with their neighbours, they had dreamed for a seemed
moment of making Greece a single state. " Surely," eiX^ to
they argued round thdr camp-fires, " she has all the HeUen^
makings of a nation. What is there between you and common.
o ^ J wealth.
me ? We have the same blood in our veins, from Zeud
and Father Hellen. We speak the same language,
else we could not be chatting, albeit with difficulty,
round thiy fire. We worship the same Gods, as we
remember when we go to Delphi or Olympia; and
we have much the same habits and understand one
another's ways. When we have finished with these
barbarians let us form a common state."
' But these dreams soon faded ; for what centuries Former
have put asunder two summers' fighting cannot bind ievived*^'
fast. There was quarrelling even during the fighting, "^^^^
though men made light of it at the time ; but When
the campaigns were over and the time for reorganiza-
tion arrived, all the old differences revealed themselves,
and the *^ Panhellenic confederacy " disappeared into
the limbo of forgotten things.
* Yet things in Greece could never again be what
they had been before the trial came. The Greeks
had learnt that, though love of country may make
men brave, it is only organization that can make them
strong. Moreover, for the liberated cities of Asia
Minor, still technically part of the Persian Empire,
and liable to be dunned any day by a satrap for
tribute, some concerted system of defence was
urgently necessary. Sparta had neither the men nor
the money to meet this need. So she retired from a
40 BAST AND WBST
OHAP. position where, aft^ all, her fftmoiis land forces
s.,^^^^^,^^ would have been of very little good to her, and left
Bat the the field open for the newly made sailors of Athens.
n^ity Within half a decade, almost before slow Spartan
iMgOTMm- ^*® ^^ *^°^^ *^ grasp what was going on, "the
bination alUancc of the Athenians" had been provisionally
induced . _ i t /• ••ft
the Ionian Organized, and the first great ctvtltzea aUempt to
attempt form a state of many cities was an accomplished
*^.^°™» fact
joint state
on the ' Like other great things the Athenian Empire was
alliance or the child of neccssity, and its creators did not know
contract ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ j^ j^ -^ ^^^^ j^ ^^
IZ^^ alliance drawn up between the Athenians and the
brought lonians in the familiar traditional terms. " In the
about. third year after the sea-fight at Salamis, when
Timosthenes was chief Grovernor, Aristeides (com-
mander of the Athenian forces) swore an oath to
the lonians to have the same friends and enemies
as they, to seal which they cast lumps of lead into
the sea." How innocent it all sounds { But let us
see what it implies, and think out the l(^c of the
situation.
Its object, < What was the object of the alliance ? Not merely
from to be ready to repel the Persians if they renewed the
dom^a- attack. This was too tame a mood for the men who
^uS-eT ^^^ J^®^ ^^^* them flying at Salamis and Mycale.
ships and Its watchword was not Defence but Freedom. They
^^^^y* wished to push the war into the enemy's country, to
revenge and indemnify themselves by plundering
for the losses they had sustained, and (to use a
phrase familiar to the Athenian leader-writers of
to-day) to complete the liberation of their enslaved
brothers. They were ready and eager to be led to
the attack.
' But campaigning costs money ; for soldiers
cannot live on plunder alone, certainly not when
they are engaged in " liberating." And if half the
EAST AND WEST 41
allies are islanders and warfare is to be waged by chap:
sea, ships will be needed too. How were these s.^^,,,,^,^^^
two immediate needs to be met ?
* Few of the members of the new alliance had But the
any ships to offer. Many of them had lost their not want
navies twice over in the last twenty years, first in t^dsMpa
the ill-starred "Ionian Eevolt," and then again, ^J*^"**"^
after they had been forced to beat up contingents
against thdr own kinsmen, at Salamis and Mycale.
It was npt easy for them to build new ones, for,
unlike the Phoenicians, they had not the forests of
Lebanon just behind them. Moreover, such ships
as they had were not of much use, for the Athenians
had been introducing improvements in the armament
and construction of triremes with which they had
not kept pace. So, with the exception of the big
islands, Samos, Lesbos, and Chios, which had a naval
tradition to maintain, the allies gave up the idea
of supplying ships, and were driven back on to a
substitute for their share in the enterprise.
• Nor ' were they very anxious to give their
personal service on the other allies' ships, nor, if the
truth must be told, to serve by their side in the
field. They had never beaten the Persians in fair
fight, like the Greeks across the water. Artemisium
and Mycale to them called up very different
memories : and at Lade, which might have been
their Salamis, there was no Themistocles to over-
come their jealousies and want of discipline. So
the Athenians were not over-urgent in pressing them
to take the field. They preferred comrades more
accustomed to the hardship and discipline of naval
service.
'There was one natural way of settling these
difficulties. The smaller allies were to pay the piper,
while Athens and the large islands could call the
tune. This was the plan which was adopted, on the
42 RAST AND WEST
€HAP. suggestion of Aristeides, to settle the immediate
.,_^^,^^^„^^ needs of the first campaign. As the island of Delos
So tijey had been fixed as the rendezvous of the allied forces
w^th'^tho *b® Delian temple of Apollo formed a convenient
Athenians bank, and the first contributions were paid in there.
to pay *^
them for The schcmc pleased both parties, and it was deter-
andmal- mined to regularize it. Aristeides "the upright"
sh?^*^^ was entrusted with the task of fixing a scale of
contributions. " It was a long business, necessitating
much travelling" and (unless the Greeks have
utterly changed their nature) even more tact than
uprightness ; also " in the absence of precedents,
many difficult inquiries, for only the cities which
had formed part of the Persian Empire for some
considerable time had a census of wealth which he
could use." But by 470 the work was done. The
total sum needed annually for the operations of the
Alliance had been fixed at 460 talents. Aristeides
divided this out on a proportional scale amongst the
two hundred or so allies, and the scale was faithfully
adhered to, as the charter of membership, until Cleon
turned financier in 425.
' Thus the allies had, without knowing it, slipped
into financial centralization and established the first
Greek Imperial Exchequer. Moreover, it was
centralization of a peculiarly insidious kind, for the
predominant partners, and especially Athens, who
did most of the work and bore the chief responsibility,
did not contribute a penny to the costs.
* Who controlled the spending of the money ?
Officially, of course, the allies themselves. For this
purpose ifiey elected representatives to a Parliament
at Delos, which, like the Ecclesia or any otlier city
assembly, wo^ to discuss and decide upon all Tnatters
of policy. But in practice little importance attached
to its deliberations, for its executive officers^ the
Athenian generals, were themselves responsible to
EAST AND WBST 43
their own Sovereign people : so if the two sovereigns chap.
decided differently ^ a deadlock would ensue. The s...^,^.,^^
Imperial Parliament, therefore, could do little more The
than ratify, or, if it wished to be zealous, anticipate, wm^^us
the decisions of the Athenians. Moreover, the money ^°°^}J^.
itself was put into the hands of the Athenian officials, ian officers
who took
Clearly it could not be husbanded by all the allies their orden
together. One treasurer would be suspect, but a go^^ro"
commission of ten was more than enough. They "thens^
bore an Imperial title, " Stewards of the Greeks,'' but not from
they were Athenians by nationality and elected by League.
the Athenian people.' ^
Had the lonians really succeeded in this ' attempt The state
to form a state of many cities ' ? The state, as was ^nLTtion
noticed in the Introduction, differs from any other ciaim^the
form of human organization in that the authority absolute
which it claims over the conduct of its members is undivided
unUmited. It assumes the right to deprive them, in of iu*"^^
the interests of the community, of their property, of ^^^'^ers.
their liberty, and of their lives ; and it is only while
that claim is admitted to a {Sufficient extent by a
sufficient number of its members that the state can
exist. Government can only contimie so long as it
can depend upon the willingness of a sufficient
number of its subjects to sacrifice their lives in order •
to secure obedience to the law. Nay more, the state
can only thrive in so far as it can depend upon the
subordination by the citizen of his private interests
to those of the public in the ordinary things of daily
life. Amongst the people of Athens at its prime this
spirit of devotion was as widely realized as in any
state that has ever existed. A state in which all
the citizens were actuated by the patriotism of a
Socrates would be completely organic, and the use of
force to constrain the obedience of its citizens would
* Zimmern, The Greek CoinmontoeaUh, pp. 179-183. The italics are not
the author's.
44 EAST AND WEST
OHAP. be unnecessary^ because their devotion would be
y^^,,^^^.^,^ as absolute as the claim which the state made
upon it.
And it was But this claim to unlimited devotion which a state
J^yera^ niakes — ^a commonwealth no less than a despotism —
to*tS"°* carries with it one consequence which it is im-
Leagne, possiblc to evadc.* It precludes the rendering of such
Greek dcvotiou to any other state. No man can serve two
prepared** inasters. Cyrus could not admit that any one of his
such^tu- ^^'^j®^^ could render to another authority, whether
glance. satrap or tribal chief, the unquestioning allegiance
he claimed as due to himself. Nor more could the
commonwealth of Athens admit it Such devotion
as it claimed, and as Socrates realized to perfection,
could not be rendered by its citizens to any other
human authority. No man can be the subject of
two states, and the man who feels the immeasurable
obligation which his citizenship lays upon him and
sets out to fulfil it had best be clear in his mind first
of all where that obligation is due. No Athenian
would have doubted fliat that obligation, so far as he
was concerned, was due to the laws of Athens. But
what was true of Athens was true no less of Samos,
ChioSy Lesbos, and the hundreds of other communities
which joined in ^ this first great civilized attempt to
form a state of many cities.' Each and all of them
would have claimed the absolute devotion of their
citizens, and to each and all of them those citizens
would have confessed their ultimate allegiance to be
due. In the last analysis it was to Athens, Samos,
Chios, and Lesbos that the individual citizen felt
himself to be dedicate, from the cradle to the grave,
^ There may be cases in which the citizen is called npon to resist the
government and even the law in the interests of the state itself, but how or
when they arise is a question irrelevant to the point at issue. Normally, the
duty of the citizen to obey his state is clear, and it is therefore of crucial
importance that he should know what his state is. He cannot evade this
question by discussing whether a particular law is so immoral that he ought
to resist it.
BAST AND WEST 45
It was for his city-state that he could make the final chap.
sabmiBsioD and the supreme sacrifice — not Hellas.
But the Persian wars had forced him to realize the They
unpalatable fact that his beloved city-state was too therofore,
small to maintain its separate existence. Even tiie ^"^00"
largest of them — Athens — was forced to recognize tract be-
tween
that it could not live in isolation, and that all the sovereiffn
Ionic states which bordered on the Aegean had a pro^Ln
common danger and a common interest in uniting to ^^^^Jjy*^^ '
avert it. What was more natural than to think that was too
«vk weftK to
with such identity of interest the whole difficulty mamtain
could be met by these states contracting with each ^^'**®®^^-
other for their mutuaL protection ? To the general
defence each city was to contribute according to its
means and also in the manner which best suited its
convenience. Actual experience of war had taught
them the folly of separate armaments. There was to
be one army, one navy, and a common ehest. It
followed, therefore, that there must also be one body
to command these forces, and also to control the
foreign policy of the League. * For this purpose^' says
Zimmern, * they elected representatives to a Pc^lia-
ment at Delos, whichy like the Ecclesia or any other
city assembly y was to discuss and decide v/pon all
matters of policy.'
Amongst the allied states politicians were doubtless But the
found to talk as though this Delian synod were the wm dUs-
federal counterpart of the ecclesia which governed a J^®^^
Greek democracy. Btft before we accept their opinion govem-
we must examine it somewhat more closely. Let us his sute
therefore consider the position of a delegate at Delos Jeered
bound, 9& he certainly must often have been bound, by from the
instruction from the state that sent him there. What the League,
"I • *j^* 1. • -1 j^T 11-1 which had
was his position when a majority on the synod resolved no means
on a course contrary to his instructions ? Where in fo/^°^°
this case was his obedience due, — to his state or to the ^o«i°« ^^
_. authority.
League ? And, should his state withhold the tribute
46
BAST AKD WEST
CHAP.
I
Athens
undertook
to enforce
the
authority
of the
League on
the states,
and by
abusing
her power
alienated
their
devotion.
they were pledged to pay until their wishes had been
met, was the League justified in enforcing that pay-
ment ? Or, when the fleets of the League were called
out to enforce payment on a recalcitrant state, what
was the duty of an individual citizen in that state,
the captain perhaps of a ship belonging to it ? Was
it his duty to aid the League in exacting the promised
payment, or to obey the call of the state government
to resist the exaction ? The truth is that the Delian
synod was neither an ecclesia nor a parliament of
repreaentatives, but a congress of delegates like that
which the thirteen American states established in
1781, and which collapsed because the delegates felt
themselves bound, not by the vote of the majority, but
by the instructions of the state which had sent them.
It differed not in degree but in kind from the ecclesia
of a Greek democracy, from the congress^ of repre-
sentatives established in Washington in 1789, and
from the parliament of a British Dominion. It is
either in the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, in the
Congress of 1781, or in the Imperial Conference that
its true counterpart must be sought. If * little irnpart-
ance attached to its deliberations ' it was because, like
the proceedings of these other bodies, they could
settle nothing and effect nothing in practice.
But the danger from Persia was still imminent,
and the need for united action too obvious for
dispute. It must therefore have been with the
general approval of the allies that Athens, which had
undertaken to build and man the ships, should like-
wise undertake to direct policy and to collect by
^ See footnote to page 138 of Freeman's Greater Greece and Greater Britain,
*The use of the word Congress for the Federal Assembly of the United
States, is a curious instance of the survival of a word when a thing ex-
pressed by it has wholly changed its nature. Up to 1789 the United States
had a body which had naturally borrowed the name of Congress from the
diplomatic gatherings from which it had much in common. In 1789 this
mere Congress gave way to a real Federal Parliament. But the Federal
Parliament kept the name of the imperfect institution which it supplanted.'
BAST AND WEST 47
^ ^e the contributions due from defaulting states, chap.
-^^Izbtless they assumed, as did the Americans on
the morrow of their victory over England, that each
state could be trusted spontaneously and con-
tinuously to fulfil the terms of the compact. But,
as ckll experience shows, it is in practice impossible
to rely on a number of parties (the Delian League
included at its fullest well over 200) spontaneously
to fulfil the terms of a bargain. The failure of
aay one of them was an injustice to the rest, pro-
voking and excusing a similar failure on the part of
others. But the failure of a number jeopardized the
safety of the whole, and if the League was really to
secure -its. members against Persia, recusant states
had to be compelled to furnish the contributions they
^^re pledged to pay.
To begin with, and so long as the danger from
P^raia continued, the Athenians were only enforcing
justice to the majority when they exercised the
executive powers entrusted to them to exact from
the minority the fulfilment of their obligations.
^he alhes who took no part in the active administra-
^on of their external affairs ceased to understand
^tein, or to realize the dangers by which they were
threatened and the necessity for the continued
existence of the League. Lack of direct responsibility
Diust have infallibly undermined their loyalty to
the League and have made them less ready to
contribute their quota, except under the pressure
of a constraining executive. On the other hand,
the executive power of the Athenians inevitably
grew with its exercise until, when the danger from
Persia seemed to have abated, Athens was in a
position to dominate the League. Not only did the
^ynod cease to exist, but the Imperial treasury was
transferred to Athens. The allies ceased to be
pftrtners and became subjects. To Athenian officers
48
BAST AND WBST
CHAP.
I
The ex-
periment
proved that
a state
cannot be
based on
a balance
of interests
between
separate
communi-
ties, but
must rest
on the
direct
loyalty
of indi-
viduals.
Athens and not the Confederacy was the state to
which their ultimate loyalty was due, and when the
Athenian Democracy required the money of their
allies to be spent on themselves, their officers,
the so-called 'stewards of the Greeks/ acquiesced,
and so spent it. Amongst the allies there was a
growing sense of injustice. Their devotion to the
League, instead of being fostered, was ali^iated.
It had, in fact, ceased to be a league without be-
coming a state. It had become an Empire in which
one state dominated the rest for its own aggrandize-
ment.
Such were the results of the first, but by no
means the last attempt to found a stable society on
the principle of contract, — on a balance of interests
between separate states, and to dispense with the
only bond by which a society can be rendered stable ;
one which binds the individual man to the whole
society by a tie stronger than that which unites
him to any separate part of it, — by the strongest
tie by which men can be bound at all — that of
absolute and final dedication. It is the only human
relation which cannot shift; for interests, however
well balanced they may seem to begin with, invariably
shift, and when they do so the whole structure,
which depends on the maintenance of their balance,
is thrown awry. In the League of Delos the
interests shifted the moment the allies felt that their
independence was more nearly threatened by the
power of Athens than by that of Persia. But by
that time Athens had grown used to the luxury of
spending the contributions of the allies, and had
also established her power to enforce them. Thence-
forward the interests of the League diverged from
those of the subordinate states, and all their citizens
were placed in a false position by the conflicting
claims made on their loyalty. And so it must ever
XA8T AND WUST 49
be with every device which confuses the direct chap.
relation of the citizen to his state, and puts him in ^^^^^
doubt as to what his state is and where his allegiance
is due. As Freeman has weightily declared, 'the
Staatenhimd has never yet really worked well under
any circumstances ' ; ^ and in practice such devices
have invariably yielded some monstrous results.
The chapter of Greek history which Herodotus
wrote tells how Hellas was saved from Persian
despotism by her most brilliant commonwealth. In
the next chapter Thucydides tells us how Sparta,
Corinth, and other Hellenic states combined to
attack that very commonwealth, because, so they
claimed, her despotism was no less intolerable thau
that of Persia.
l?he paradox of the position was that it was Athens,
precisely daring these years that Athens was creating de^„d
the ideal city-state patriotism described above, and {o^^ty^of
planting in her citizens a devotion to the common- iier allies,
WAS
wealth transcending and inspiring all the other conquered
emotions of their lives. But, just at the same time afdecfb^
as she was thus perfecting the idea of a common- ^JJI**"
wealth limited in scope to the city-state, she was
&iling to grasp the idea of a wider Imperial Common-
wealth. It was a tragic paradox. The combined
attack was successful. After a war of twenty-seven
years' duration (431-404), Athens in the end was
beaten, her fleet destroyed, and the * subjects of
Athens ' set free.
Had she only succeeded in unifying the organiza-
ti<m and the sentiment of the Delian League there
can be little doubt that the League would have
maintained its control of the sea and defeated Sparta.
As it was, she could extort more * tribute ' from her
'subjects' and build more ships with it, but she
could not force those subjects to man those ships and
^ Freenuui, Oreater Ofreece and OreaUt Britain, p. 185.
E
60 SA8T AND WEST
CHAP, fight side by side with her own citizens in defence of
a common state and a common ideal. Indeed, she
could not trust them if trained to arms not to bear
them against herself. The time came when she had
barely enough crews to keep a strong fleet at sea,
and when the enemy faced her on her own element
she was crushed at last and her sea-power brok^i.
And the loss of the command of the sea spelt ruin.
Like modem England she depended for the bulk of
her food on supplies from oversea, and not long after
the last sea-fight she was starved into surrender.
Thereafter With the fall of Athens the great age of Greece
^i^nioa CA^6 to its closc, and the sequel is a story of decline.
enabled jhe Voluntary union of the Greek world had ceased
Persia once *'
more to to be possiblc. In the fourth century the divisions
Hellas. between the Greek states grew deeper than ever.
There was constant war, and each state avowedly
fought for its own hand. The renewal of the Persian
advance no longer evoked a common sentiment of
hostility and a common determination to resist it. It
was Persian gold that enabled Sparta to maintain the
fleet which had beaten Athens, and presently she was
guilty of an even blacker treachery to Hellenic ideals.
The fall of Athens did not really free the Aegean
states from external domination. Sparta professed to
have made war to restore their autonomy ; but they
soon found that her little finger was thicker than the
Athenian thigh. Spartan rule was far more despotic
and even less organic than Athenian. And now it
was Persia's chance at last. She began to play
a double game with consummate skill and a single
eye to the restoration of her despotic power over
the Greek states of Asia Minor. After helping
Sparta to crush Athens, she changed sides, attacked
Sparta, and set Athens on her feet once more. It
was the Persian fleet, commanded by the exiled
Athenian admiral Conon, that won the battle of
EAST AND WEST 5 1
Cnidus in 394, closed Sparta's brief tenure of sea- chap.
power, and released the island states from her control.
It was the Persian fleet, with a Persian sdtrap on
board, that appeared in the same year off the coast
of Attica — actually within sight of Salamis — and
enabled the Atheniahs by its protection to rebuild
the long walls. It was Persian intrigue, moreover,
which now brought about a coalition of Athens,
Thebes, Argos, and Corinth, a strange medley of old
friends and foes, and launched against Sparta the
Corinthian War. Then, after some six years' desultory
fighting, Persia, seeing that it was time to change sides
once more, negotiated a peace in pursuance of which
the following rescript was issued to the Greek world :
'King Artazerxes thinks it just that the cities in
Asia, and the islands of Olazomenae and Cyprus, shall
belong to him. ... If any refuse to accept this
peace, I shall make war on them, along with those
who are of the same purpose, both by land and sea,
with both ships and money.' Persia and Sparta
together were strong enough to enforce these dis-
graceful terms, and a great part of Hellas was
abandoned once more to the despotism of Asia.
Thus closed this phase of the long conflict between
East and West. The tables had been turned indeed
on the victors of Marathon and Salamis, Plataea and
Mycale. And the miserable reversal was not due to
any essential change in the relative strength of Greek
and Persian. The disciplined Greek hoplite was
still a match for any number of despot-ridden sub-
jects of the Great King. A properly equipped Greek
fleet could still have scattered his Phoenician ships.
The cause was simply the failure of the Greeks to
unite, to extend their noble ideal of local city-state
patriotism into a wider and greater field, and to
oi^anize Hellenic patriotism for the task of preserving
the heritage of Hellas.
52
EAST AND WS8T
CHAP.
I
Disunion
next
enabled
IfiicedoniA
to domin-
ate the
Greek
states.
Conquest
of Asia
Minor
rojected
y Philip.
I
Through the one remaining chapter of Greek
history that must here be told mns the same paradox
of Greek politics. In the internal life of the city-state
Hellenic civilisation was still at its height. At
Athens it was the age of Plato and AriBtotle» Demos-
thenes and Isocrates, Praxiteles *and Scopaa ; and the
domestic policy of the restored Athenian democracy
was moderate and wise. But in external politics
it is still the same story of bitter rivalry and conflict.
Sparta's military supremacy was at last overthrown
by the newly developed power of Thebes. But
Thebes produced generals, not statesmen ; she made
no permanent use of her advantage, and at the battle
of Mantinea lost what she had gained at the battle
of Leuctra. Athens recovered her old command of
the sea, but made no use of it for the delivery of
Hellas. And in the meantime a new power was
developing in the North which was soon to overshadow
the petty conflicts of the Greeks and destroy for ever
the reality of their autonomy. Macedon was oalj
a half-Hellenized country, but it had an inunense
advantage over the more cultivated Greeks. It was
a unified national state with a single army under a
single ruler ; and it was not a very difficult task for
Philip II., the Macedonian king, to make himself the
dominant power in the Balkan Peninsula. The
Greeks, who had failed to combine against Persia,
were little disposed to combine against a master,
himself half Greek His victory at Chaeronea in
338 closes the career of the city-states of Hellas as
independent powers.
Now for the first time all Greece was united, but
united in subjection. Philip summoned delegates
from all the states to a congress, and at its second
meeting proposed that the confederate Greek world
should undertake its long-shirked national duty and,
with himself at its head, attack Persia and rescue
EAST AND WEST 53
the Greek states of Asia Minor from the domination chap.
of the Great King. The expedition was voted, but
with little enthusiasm. The Greeks still looked on
Macedon as an outsider; they did not want Philip
for their leader ; and under any leader they did not
care to renew the old struggle with Persia. How
little Philip trusted in Greek union or loyalty is
shown by the fact that he had to leave three strong
Macedonian garrisons in Greece when at last he
started for the great campaign.
His plans were interrupted by his death, but only Asia con-
fer a moment. Alexander, one of the most brilliant l^xandw
soldiers in history, was even more competent than his Jj/**^**
father to carry them to an issue. In 834 he crossed the Punjab.
Hellespont at the head of an army, and by 3 26 had
become master of Asia from the Aegean to the Punjab.
Asia Minor was thoroughly Hellenized, and remained
Greek until its civilization was wiped out by the
Turks in the eleventh century. Alexander was
planning the conquest of Arabia, which would almost
certainly have been followed by that of Carthage
and Rome, when he suddenly died at the age of
thirty-two. The vast Empire which he had not lived
to organize quickly fell to pieces and made way for
the enduring work of Rome.
From the standpoint of the present inquiry the Hisat-
conception which underlay this Empire is of the unTte^Eaat
deepest interest. Alexander's idea had been, by P^^^est
conquering the entire known world, to correlate state by
within the bosom of one state the civilizations of tothe"'^
Europe and Asia. Seeking for some political idea o"theo.^*
common to both, by which to unite them, he fell ^'"^y-
back on the primitive belief of the Homeric Greeks
that the authority of rulers is derived from the
divinity of their origin. It is this which explains his
strange visit to the Oracle of Ammon whose priests
were constrained to greet him as the son, not of
54 EAST AND WEST
CHAP. Philip, but of God. Thenceforward he exacted from
^^^^^^ hifl followers an acknowledgment of his divinity.
His purpose, so the latest German authority believes/
was to secure some title by which he could command
the obedience of the East as well as the West, and
this, like the Roman Emperors, he could only do by
making the West revert to the Oriental idea of
theocracy. The racial fusion of East and West was
also part of this policy of world-empire. Ten thousand
of his Macedonians were wedded to Persian women of
the same standing at Susa, and Alexander himself
married the daughter of Darius. The scheme next
provided for transplantations of Greeks into Asia and
Asiatics into Europe ; and the first part of this was
carried olit in the countless Greek settlements which
the conqueror dotted over the East. In the third
place, there was to be military service on equal terms.
Greek military schools were established in each
province, and in five years' time an army of 30,000
Asiatics, trained and armed in Macedonian fashion,
was ready to take the field. Persians were actually
incorporated by the young conqueror in the veteran
ranks of his Macedonian army. It is fortunate
indeed that he did not live to realize his dreams, for
his Empire would have been one in which the Asiatic
elements would have so outweighed the European,
that Eastern conceptions and habits would probably
have extinguished the nascent ideals of the West.
This, in truth, was the danger from which Rome was
destined to save Europe.
The It is unnecessary for our purpose to trace the
w^th, as history of the Greek states until they were finally
the^Greeks incorporated in the Roman Empire and vanished.
was too jjew confederations were attempted, but never on a
slight to . 1. ^
survive, footing wide or firm enough to enable the Hellenes
to become the masters of their own fate. The
^ E. Meyer, Kleine Schrifien.
EAST AND WEST 55
greatest of all political ideas had been theirs, and chap,
they had been able to explain as well as to realize it
— but only in miniature. The republics they pro-
duced did not contain more citizens than could
listen to the voice of a single orator. As they
believed, it was impossible for a larger community
than this so to formulate public opinion that it could
be used as the governing principle of the state.
But if history had justified this belief, communities
developed on the principle of the commonwealth
must always have been as fissiparous as primitive
tribes. No more than the tribal system could this
principle have produced a stable society. Had
Athens, and states no larger than she was, proved to
be the only possible expression of free institutions,
and Europe had been parcelled out into a multitude
of tiny republics, she and her civilization would have
perished, as Hellas perished, in their internecine
struggles. 'The one word city-state explains the
catastrophe which overtook the whole eastern side
of the antique world. The city-state is necessarily
no match in war for the organized country-state.
That the western side escaped this fate is due to the
union of Italy under the strong leadership of Rome.' ^
Like Athens, Rome was a city republic superior Rome,
in energy to those around her; but those energies oity-Btate,
were concentrated in fitness for war, and were not, ^y®"^
like those of Athens, partly diverted to culture.
Like other city-states she was in perpetual conflict
with neighbours, and always ended by conquering
them, until she was mistress of Italy. In the Roman
character there existed a certain love of order, and
it was the comparatively settled conditions which
followed her conquests that reconciled men to her
rule.'
* Seeleji Tntroduciion to Political Science^ p. 366.
* The reader shonld here unfold the map of the Roman Kmpire, Plate VI.
56
EAST AND WEST
CHAP.
I
She then
crushed
the
Phoenician
fleets and
consoli-
dated the
Mediter-
ranean
littoral
into one
state
which was
permeated
by Greek
culture.
Conflicts
of Rome
with Asia.
The
Athenian,
Roman,
and
British
Empires
compared.
No sooner was the position of Rome in Italy
secured than she found herself committed to a
struggle for existence with the one Oriental people
which has acted as a link between Eastern and
Western ideas. The Phoenician branch of the Semitic
race was beginning to outflank Europe from the
south. Rome, howerer, became a sea-power, mastered
the Mediterranean, and in 146 B.c. the destruction
of Cartilage left her incomparably the strongest
power on its shores. All the varied races inhabiting
the Mediterranean were rapidly brought beneath her
rule, and thus for the first time were kneaded into
one political lump. Greece was part of the lump,
and rapidly leavened the whole.
A process, however, which extended the Roman
Empire into Asia Minor, inevitably brought it face
to face with the ancient powers of the East. From
the necessities of the case some frontiers had to be
established between them and Rome, and no thought-
ful student of history will agree with Ferrero in
regarding the campaigns of Sulla, of LucuUus, of
Pompey, of Caesar, of Antony and of Augustus,
mainly as plundering expeditions organized for the
advancement and profit of themselves and their
political satellites. It was the same necessity which
drove Caesar and his successors to master, so far as
the means at their disposal enabled them to do so,
the barbarian powers which threatened the Empire
from the North.
Their organizing genius had enabled the citizens
of Rome to conquer vast dominions which they
inclined to treat as though half the world could
be handled as their municipal commonage, or rather
as the estates of the ruling oligarchy. Thus in the
last century before the Christian era, the city-state
of Rome had achieved, by very difierent means and
upon a scale enormously larger, a po^ition similar to
EAST AND WEST
57
that of Athens. But unlike Athens the communities
over which she ruled were not of one race, language,
religion, and civilization. In their diversity they, in
fact, resembled those now included in the British
Empire. It was the first attempt to correlate in
one system the many and various families of mankind.
Like Athens she began by treating them as posses-
sions, and ruled them primarily in the interests of
the city republic of Borne.
Just as the lonians had revolted from Atfiens so
the Italians revolted from Roma But Rome survived
and had the wisdom to admit the Italians to her
citizenship. In the Roman as in the Greek republics
the ultimate sovereignty vested in the citizens them-
selves assembled in the market-place of the town.
But the assembly of this multitude in the Roman
forum was impossible. The republican constitution
of Rome became a farce, and government rapidly
passed into the hands of whatever Roman general
was able to command the most powerful army. It
was mainly in the great Asiatic wars that such
armies were disciplined, till Caesar in Oaul, by a
series of conquests over its turbulent tribes, forged
a weapon by means of which he became the master
of Rome.
Caesar proceeded to extend the citizenship from
Italy to races beyond its borders. He even included
Gauls in the Roman Senate, which was rapidly
degraded to a body for registering the Imperial
decrees. His policy in effect was so to extend the
Roman republic as to make it include the whole
Empire. The world was no more to be exploited for
the sole benefit of the inhabitants of Rome or even of
Italy, as it would have been if Rome had preserved
her ' liberties ' on the old footing which the assassins
of Caesar attempted to restore. This extension of
the Roman franchise was steadily continued by
CHAP.
I
Extension
of Roman
citizenship
to the
Italians
rendered
the con-
stitution
unwork-
able, and
led to
military
despotism.
By Caesar
and his
successors
citizenship
was
gradually
opened to
all free
inhabitants
of the
Empire.
58 EAST AND WEST
CHAP. Caesar's successors. By Nero's time we find that a
.^^^^^.^^^^^^ Levantine Jew had been able to bequeath the
Boman citizenship to his son Saul. Eventually
it was extended to all the subjects of the Empire
other than slaves. ' It was/ as Bacon said, ' not the
Bomans that spread upon the world ; but it was the
world that spread upon the Bomans, and that was
the sure way of greatness.' ^
Autocracy If the cxteusion of the Boman franchise to the
bMame Italians had rendered impossible the election of
iitemative oflSccrs and the ratification of laws by the citizens
to anarchy, assembled in the Forum, much more was it so when
Caesar extended it to races beyond the borders of
Italy. The arbitrary restriction of citizenship to the
inhabitants of Bome was contrary to the principle of
the commonwealth. Its extension to all men equally
fit for it, irrespective of locality, was a vindication of
that principle. But it was a measure which precluded
the method of direct legislation by the citizens ; and
that, as we have seen, was the only method understood
in the ancient world by which public opinion could
be so formulated as to take effect as the principle
of government. *In Italy,' says Freeman, *a
representative system would have delivered Bome
from the fearful choice which she had to make
between anarchy and despotism.' ^ But it certainly
would not have saved her from the choice when
she undertook to order an empire which included
Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Germans, Serbs, Greeks,
Asiatics, and Africans, as well as Italians. We have
only to imagine a parliament composed of the
representatives of all these peoples, some of them
barbarian, others half civilized, and none of them, save
. the Bomans and Greeks, understanding the principles
of respect for law and devotion to the commonwealth
1 Bacon, Essay XXIX,
' Freeman, History of Federal Oovemment, p. 52.
EAST AND WEST
59
on which the Republic was founded, to realize its
impossibility. The only plan which had the least
chance of working in practice was to concentrate in
the hands of those who did understand those principles
all the offices of the city-state and to back them with
an army strong enough to enforce the general law
against all the diverse races of which the Imperial-state
was compounded. The function of force, as Mahan has
well observed, is to give moral ideas time to take root.
The habit of order could no more be acquired by all
these jarring elements than it could by the numerous
races of India, until they had been constrained for a
period to the practice of it. Later on, after the
backward peoples had grasped the principles of the
commonwealth, it might have been possible, had the
representative system been invented, to have ex-
tended the responsibility for the maintenance of the
Empire to an ever-widening circle of citizens until in
the end it became once more a republic. The genius
of Rome did not rise to the level of its opportunity.
It preferred to concentrate the sovereignty on the
shoulders of one man, and to clothe him with a
divine authority entitling him to the unquestioning
obedience of his subjects. The rule of the Caesars,
however, had one merit. They employed the
force embodied in the armies whose generals they
were, to create an order which, because it was
systematic, was capable in ages to come of being
established on a basis other than despotism.
For Rome, she alone in her victories, has clasped to her bosom
her foes,
She has suckled mankind as her children, and the title to rule
that she shows
Is the right of a mother, not mistress. The far-off peoples she
tamed,
With fetters of love she shackled, and not subjects but citizens
named.^
CHAP.
I
> Olaudian, Dt aeewndo cantulatu SHlichcnU, v. 150-158.
60 EAST AKD WEST
CHAP. So sftDg of Rome in the Soman tongue an Egyptian
poet. Stilicho, the subject of this poem, whose
prowess and fidelity had staved off the ruin of the
Empire, was himself a Vandal by race.
The What the Roman Empire accomplished will be
1^^ better understood if we compare the condition of
TObrti. Europe before and after it. Throughout the period
oiKantzft- when miniature states were blossommg on the snores
sute^for * <>f Greece and Italy the rest of Europe was inhabited
thrtribai ^y people who had not emerged from a tribal state
mtem in of socicty. They had attained no such civilization
as had long existed throughout the greater part of
Asia for thousands of years. In one century Rome
schooled the inhabitants of Southern Europe to the
conditions of a state far in advance of any that Asia
had produced. And before she fell she had made
statehood a social habit of the whole continent. The
importance of this will be better realized when at a
later jBtage of this inquiry we come to examine one
remote corner of Europe where the sword of Rome
was never felt. Ireland was never freed from the
habits of tribalism by Roman rule. She retained
them to fester like an organ whose uses have long
been outgrown, — an abscess torturing Ireland herself
and sending its poison throughout the Commonwealth.
In a word, Caesar and his successors never com-
mitted the fundamental mistake of creating a sham
state.
Despotic Now that the citizens of Rome had grown too
of *he ^'^ numerous to legislate for themselves resort was had
Empire to the theorv that the Emperor held their power of
revealed .
byitsim- attomcy. Their legislative and executive authority
were concentrated in him. This was the theory, but
in reality the Emperor was an autocrat. And even
principles, bcforc the dcspotic character of the Empire was
admitted in the West, the Asiatic provinces hastened
to invest Augustus with the halo of divinity. ^ * The
mediate
reversion
to theo-
cratic
BAST AND WEST
61
Asiatic towns were not content to adore the president
of the Latin republic : they wished to advertise their
devotion in every direction, as though to urge other
nations to sanctify their subjugation by making their
subservience a religious duty. Thus the sceptical
politician of a decadent republic, the grandson of a
money-lender, was adored as the equal of Zeus, of
Ares, and of Hera, and this in Asia Minor.' ^ Even
in the coast districts, as this historian goes on to
point out, the Greek communities were already deeply
tinged with Oriental ideas. In the interior ' were
none but barbarous and hardy races, made to endure
the domination of men, and gods in every form, in-
capable of independent action, ready for slavery, for
military service, for obedience to their sovereigns,
their priests and their gods. The mental habits of
these races excluded all possibility of political under-
stasiding or intellectual culture, and chiefly consisted
in a rude and violent mysticism, stimulated by two
vast religions, monotonous ba the plateau which their
votaries inhabited — :two of those mystical and vague
cosmopolitan religions which crush the minds of men
beneath the weight of infinity and have contributed
at every age to form mixed races and prepare them
for slavery. The younger of these worships was the
cult of Mithras, which the Persian power had intro-
duced and spread t>ver the plateau of Asia Minor. It
was an austere worship, formed by a fusion of primi-
tive Mazdeism with the Semitic doctrines of Babylon,
in which Mithras was worshipped as Justice and as
the Sun, the sublime and almost inaccessible source
of life and virtue. It was a worship which professed
to lead feeble humanity to this inaccessible source
by a host of ritual ceremonies and obscure symbols.
The kings were regarded as human incarnations of
this principle, and the monarchy as the poor but
«
^ Ferrero, The Chreatnesa and Dedine of Eome, voL v. p. 12.
CHAP.
I
62 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, venerable image of the divine.' ^ But how easily the
^^^^^.^^^^^ West yielded to theocratic ideas may be seen from
the literature of the Augustan age. Virgil and
Horace were content to deify Caesar and Augustus in
their poems, even while Augustus, with whom they
were intimately acquainted, was moving in Roman
society.*
Greek Subsequent emperors graduaUy dispensed with
pubUcan the republican disguise with which Augustus had
J^*^^ studiously veiled the system he founded. But the
the Imperial despotism waa accepted by a world per-
mfluence mcatcd by Greek culture which yearned for the
Imperial Comparative repose it secured for them. And that
^der'*^^' culture, penetrating to the furthest limits of the
which Empire, rescued Europe from the petrefaction which
§^/ed. despotism had brought upon Asia. Roman law never
became a sacred code like the Koran, never quite lost
the tradition of its republican origin or the capacity
for adaptation which the principle of the common-
wealth imparts. The general extension of civic rights
throughout the IJmpire had carried with it the law
which governed the relations of Roman citizens to
one another. In the process of diffusion the law
itself was developed and elaborated. The pacifica-
tion and opening up of the communities surrounding
the Mediterranean promoted commerce and industry
on a scale before unknown to the world, and the
legal system of Rome kept pace with its growth.
That the Imperial courts were able to develop rules
of law suited to the changing conditions of business
instead of cramping business to fit the ancient and
customary rules, as an Asiatic power would have
done, was largely due to the liberating influence of
the Greek ideas which vitalized the Roman world.
But it was the genius of Rome which systematized
^ Ferrero, The Oreatnesa amd Decline of Rome^ vol. v. p. 16.
^ See Note A at end of this chapter, p. 80.
EAST AND WEST
63
the dictates of common sense into a code of rules^
and made them generally applicable throughout the
Empire. Unlike the codified customs of Asia the
Boman Law never lost the power of adapting itself
to the changing needs of society. It was something,
too, that it retained in some of its forms the re-
publican tradition that law is ultimately based on the
will of the people.^ Though the Romans spoke of their
emperor as divine, the laws he made or codified were
never regarded, like Eastern systems, as too sacred to
change. Whatever good was done by the Bom an
Empire for future generations was accomplished in
80 far as it preserved the principle of a commonwealth.
But in so far as it developed into a despotism it
destroyed the spirit from which alone the state, as
understood by the Greeks, can derive its vitality.
In losing the character of a commonwealth it failed
to cultivate the spontaneous enthusiasm of ordinary
citizens. * The real evil was a moral evil, the decay
of civic virtue. . . . Unless (the Boman provincial)
could enter the privileged ranks of the army or the
higher civil service, he had no opportunities of study-
ing, still less of helping to decide, the questions of
policy and administration with which his welfare was
closely though indirectly Unked.'* He was not
enlisted in the cause of government, taught by
experience to exercise it, and identified with its
mission. Government relied increasingly on con-
centrated force, and the ordinary citizen learned to
regard the state as an enemy instead of a friend. It
failed, in a word, to foster patriotism. As men grew
to think less and less of the interests of the state
they grew, to think more and more of their own, and
to put them first. The root of the temporal no less
than of the spiritual commonwealth is within men.
CHAP.
I
^ See Kote B at end of this chapter, p. 82.
* Dayis, Mediaeval Ewrope, pp. 18*19.
64
EAST AND WEST
CHAP.
I
Forces set
in motion
from Asia
worked
the de-
struction
of the
Roman
Empire.
BemoYal
of the
capital to
Constan-
tinople
resulted
in the
division
of the
Empire
into
Eastern
and
Western
halves.
Division
of the
Empire
followed
by the
schism of
the Greek
and Latin
Churches.
and as the citizens of Rome lost the habit of sub-
ordinating their own interest to that of the state, so
did the state lose its character of a commonwealth,
seek to found its authority on supernatural sanctions,
and to enforce that authority with the lash, the
halter, and the sword.
Visible decay at the extremities revealed the
disease which was silently sapping the vitality of the
Roman state. No longer proof against the forces of
chaos which surrounded it, a disintegration of the
frontiers set in. The inroads of barbarians and
Orientals ate deeper and deeper, until at length they
reached the vital organs themselves and the Roman
Empire perished. It collapsed beneath the pressure
of attacks on its Northern and Eastern frontiers set in
motion by disturbances in the distant regions of Asia.^
As the Roman power declined it became increase
ingly difficult to hold the Eastern frontiers of the
state, and in 330 A.D. Constantine moved the seat of
Government to Byzantium, which was known hence-
forth as Constantinople. There he erected a fortress
to guard the narrow straits which divide Southern
Europe from Asia Minor. The capital of the Empire
was thus removed from the centre of the Latin to the
centre of the Greek section of Europe.
Constantine, however, effected a change of even
greats importance by abolishing paganism and
adopting Christianity as the religion of the state.
For the Church this official recognition involved the
most serious consequences, for presently it became
impossible to hold the Western or Latin half of the
Empire, which split off, and was governed by separate
Emperors from Rome. The division of the Empire
thus led to the division of the Church between the
Greek and the Latin worlds.
North of the Western Empire lay the vast shifting
^ Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Errqnre, chap. xxti.
EAST AND WEST 65
masses of Teutonic tribes, still in the condition of chap.
barbarism from which the Greeks and Romans had ^^^^^^^^^^^
emerged some thousand years before. As the Empire Destruc-
decayed these tribes overran Britain, Gaul and Spain, WMtorn^*
crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and established Empire by
' GermaDB.
themselves in the north of Africa. Eventually they Rise of the
occupied Italy itself In 476 Odoacer, at the head of p^wer.
German troops who had served as Roman mercenaries,
dethroned the Emperor Romulus Augustulus, and the
Western Empire came to an end. Various Germanic
kingdoms were established upon its ruins, but for the
purpose of this inquiry it will suffice to note that
of the Franks, which developed in the north of Gaul.
This name, importing * freedom,' had been applied by
the Romans to the Germanic tribes who inhabited the
banks of the Rhine. Towards the close of the fifth
century the Frankish king, Clovis, who became an
orthodox Christian, consoUdated beneath his rule a
kingdom which by 507 included the whole of Gaul.
In this way it happened that the name of a
German people was imposed upon a race which was
mainly Celtic, and Gaul was known henceforward as
France. The successors of Clovis, who were called
the Merovings, did not inherit his ability. They
degenerated into puppet kings who were content to
leave the royal authority in the hands of officials styled
the Mayors of the Palace. In 7 1 9 this office was held
by a powerful military leader called Charles Martel.
On this German noble was imposed the task of The rise of
averting the greatest danger which had threatened reHgiin™'°
Europe since Themistocles defeated the Persians at ?nd state
* . in Arabia.
Salamis. To understand how this befell it is necessary
to go back to events which had happened a century
before in a distant comer of Asia. Christianity,
though itself the product of the Semitic race, found
in Asia but little congenial soil in which to take root.
Some six centuries after its foundation there appeared
66 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, in Arabia, amongst another branch of the same race,
a religion which was destined to awake the fiercest
enthusiasm of the East. The creed preached by
Mahomet was a pure monotheism, and as such was
a great advance upon the paganism it replaced. So
intense was its recognition of the transcending power
of God that all human creatures seemed to be reduced
to a common level of insignificance before him.
There is no room in the religion of Mahomet for the
Hindu system of caste ^ and it acts wherever it goes
as a levelling force. The development of elaborate
rituals, with which the institution of caste is con-
nected^ is at variance with its central idea. Its
moral code has more in common with the doctrines of
Moses than those of Christ, for Mahomet sanctioned
a restricted polygamy, and women were accorded a
position much lower than that claimed for them by
Christianity. On the other hand, Mahomet forbade
his followers to use wine. He differed, moreover,
from Moses in the stress he laid on a future life,
though the rewards and punishments held out to the
faithful in this world and the next were much less
spiritual than those promised by the Christian
religion. He adopted the ten commandments, but
the only ceremonial prescribed was prayer, fasting,
alms, pilgrimage, washing. When a holy war was
proclaimed, fighting was regarded as a religious duty.
God is presented as a king rather than as a father,
a *king to whose service the faithful are absolutely
dedicated, and who rewards those who die in it with
delights which appeal to the sensuous imagination.
Death on the battle-field is, according to Mahomet,
followed by the immediate translation of the believer
to Paradise. Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were each
^ AmoDgst the Moslems of India converted from Hinduism caste divisiona
have in some measure survived. Such divisions are none the less contiary
to the spirit of Islam.
EAST AND WEST 6 7
recognized as Prophets, but Mahomet claimed to have chap.
superseded them all, and after his death his authority ^
was handed on to successors. * Islam,' the name
attached to this creed, connotes an absolute dedication
to the will of God, and * Moslem ' denotes a person so
dedicated. Mahomet, as the sole interpreter of the
divine will, was able to claim the unlimited obedience
of those who accepted him as such. Islam was there-
fore a state as well as a religion. It was, in fact,
a theocracy whose doctrines were to be propagated
by the sword, and the armies of Mahomet and his
successors quickly became the masters of South-
western Asia.
The Byzantine Empire, based upon the tremendous Arab
fortress which Constantine had founded on the to^X^^
Bosphorus, guarded the eastern gate of Europe, ©pntreof
But the armies of Islam, quickly conquering the Thepos-
Levant and Egypt, swept along the northern coast sequen^s
of Africa as far as the Straits of Gibraltar. In 711 ^l^^l^
they crossed to Spain and overthrew Roderic, the extension.
King of the Visigoths. Within ten years the soldiers
of the Caliph had mastered Spain, and began to
turn their attention to France. By 732 they had
overrun Aquitaine under the leadership of their
Emir, Abderrahman, and in October of that year
their hosts were confronting the Franks under Charles
Martel before the walls of Poitiers. 'A victorious
line of march had been prolonged above a thousand
miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the
Loire ; the repetition of an equal space would have
carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and
the Highlands .of Scotland ; the Rhine is not more
impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the
Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval
combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps
the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught
in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might
68
EAST AND WEST
CHAP.
I
Defeat of
the Arabs
by the
Franks
under
Charles
Martel at
the battle
of Poitiers,
Oct 782.
Pepin, son
of Charles
Martel,
anointed
King of
the Franks
by the
Papacy,
761.
Recru-
descence
of the
theocratic
idea.
demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity
and truth of the revelation of Mahomet,' *
But as at Marathon the tide of Oriental invasion
was stayed by the armoured ranks of the Europeans.
For seven days each army waited for the other to
move; but on the eighth the Arabs attacked, and
dashed themselves in vain against the close -locked
lines of Frankish shields which withstood their onset
' like a wall of ice/ Hurled back in disorder, their
broken ranks were borne down by the sheer weight
and strength of the advancing Franks. Both armies
encamped on the field ; but next morning the Arabs
fled, and Charles Martel, who had rolled back this
scorching tempest from the deserts of Arabia beyond
the Pyrenees, was recognized as the saviour of
Christendom. His successors came to be regarded
as the champions of the Roman Church.
When the last of the Western Emperors was
dethroned in 476, the Bishop of Rome, as head of
the Latin Church, very quickly began to realize how
great was his need of some arm strong enough
to protect the Church in an age of increasing
violence. The Frankish mayors of the palace had
the strongest arm in Europe, and Pope Zacharias
undertook to give the sanction of divine authority
to the transfer of the crown from the head of the
Meroving Childeric to that of Pepin, the son of
Charles Martel. With his queen Bertrada he was
solemnly anointed by Boniface at Soissons in 751.
Amongst the Christians of the East, kings had long
been accustomed to receive their crowns from bishops.
It had also been so with the kings of the Visigoths,
but never with the Merovings. But anointing after
the old Jewish fashion was quite new to Christendom.
The next Pope, moreover, Stephen II., went a step
further, and undertook to absolve Pepin from the
} Gibbon, pecline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. tu. pp. 18-19.
EAST AND WEST 69
oath he had sworn to the deposed Childeric.^ The chap.
Carlovingian dynasty was thus represented to Europe ^^^,^^„^^
as deriving its authority from divine right after the
manner of Oriental monarchs.
The enemy against whom the Papacy at first The
required a champion was the Byzantine Emperor K^nga**^
who had reconquered Italy some time before and still J^^°^cU^i^
clung to the fortress of Ravenna. From this strong- protectors
hold the Empire was ejected by Aistulf, King of the western
Lombards, who proceeded, however, to deprive the Pope "^ '
himself of his temporal dominions. Pope Stephen 11.
therefore appealed to Pepin, who broke the Lombard
power, and restored and extended the sovereignty of the
Pope over the territories in the neighbourhood of Rome.
Pepin's son, Charles the Great, known to the Charles
French as Charlemagne, consolidated practically the Pepin's* *
whole of the Teutonic tribes outside Britain under ^JV,,^^d
his rule. By force of arms his Empire was extended Western
1 1 XT 1 11 T Europe
to mclude Hungary on the east, and to the south- in one
west France and Spain, which he conquered from hu^covo-
the Arabs as far as the Ebro. Italy he dominated V^,^^" J^^
in the interests of the Pope. By 800 his Empire of the
liom&ns
included all the territory which had once been com- iusoo.
prised in the Western Empire, and the whole of
Germany as well. On Christmas Day 800, Charles
the Great was crowned * Emperor of the Romans'
by Pope lieo IIL, in St. Peter's basilica at Rome.
So began the Holy Roman Empire, which in one The
form or another endured for more than a thousand Enlpir^
years until it was extinguished by Napoleon in 1806. ^^^^ ,
•^ o J IT ^ created
Its creation in 800 was directly due to the tradition the i<iea of
of a world state which the real Roman Empire had state.
left behind. Greece had divided one comer of Europe
into hundreds of miniature states. Rome had gone
to the opposite extreme, and collected a great part of
Europe with the adjacent parts of Asia and Africa
» C. R. L. Fletcher, The Making of Western Europe, pp. 226-227.
70 KAIST AHO WBST
CHAP, into one state, which seemed to its citizens to be
coterminous with the world itself. From the
accession of the Emperor Nerva in 96 A.D., Rome
had for nearly a century maintained such a condition
of repose as civilized Europe has never before or
since enjoyed. It established, moreover, a tradition
of just and orderly government which, through all the
centuries of violence that followed its faU, the people of
Europe never forgot. The Greeks had been unable to
conceive a state larger than the walls of one city could
hold. The Roman Empire impressed Europe with
the idea that there should, by rights, be one universal
state which should include the whole human race.
The con- Throughout the centuries of political chaos which
rworir^ followed the downfall of the Western Empire, the
fMterwi Church helped to remind Europe of the 'unity which
by Chris- Rome had once given her. This cosmic conception of
^*"*^' the state received a decided impetus from Christian
morality which enjoined on the individual an absolute
subordination of his own interests, not to fBimily^
friends, or race, but to all mankind. The Kingdom
of Heaven was a spiritual commonwealth which
included the living as well as the dead, and the
recognition of its infinite claim to the obedience of
its members was exemplified in the life and death
of the Founder Himself A& the subjects of the
Roman Empire came to imbibe these doctrines they
coloured them by their own political conceptions.
They thought of the Empire as that province of
the Kingdom of Heaven which contained the living
portion of mankind, of the Emperor as its divinely
appointed administrator on earth, and of the in-
dividual as the subject bound to accord to Imperial
sovereignty the unquestioning obedience which was
due from man to God Himself.^ This deeply rooted
belief in a universal and divinely ordered State
^ See Note C at end of this chapter, p. 83
BAST AND WEST 71
survived the division of both Empire and Church, ohap.
and even imposed itself upon the Teutonic barbarians
who destroyed the Western Empire. Its disappear^
ance in 476 fostered the idea of the Church as a
spiritual state ; but the Papacy quickly felt the want
of some secular arm to enforce its mandates and to
protect the Church against rebellion from within as
well as the assaults of paganism from without. It
required an Emperor as well as a Pope to secure the
obedience of kings and rulers as well as their subjects
to papal decrees. Laity and clergy alike began to ask
why the Empire should not be irevived in the person
of the most powerful ruler that Europe had produced
since the age of Constantine, and the coronation of
Charles by the Pope in 800 was the natural result.
The force behind the new system was the Teutonic The power
people which had destroyed the Western Empire Hoiy"^'^"
and had then saved Europe from the Arab invasion. S^â„¢?'^
*^ Empire
When first these races threatened Rome, they were was
living after the manner of tribal societies in a instability
perpetual state of warfare and flux, the one constantly gJc?e^ty?*"
merging into the other. They were, as Stubbs Their free
describes them, 'singularly capable of entering into described
new combinations ; singularly liable to be united ^
and dissolved in short-lived confederations.' * On
the other hand, amongst these tribes were pre-
served the same primitive customs as existed amongst
the progenitors of the Greeks when they branched
southwards and settled in the peninsula which bears
their name. Tacitus, in his account of the Germans,
fcella how 'their love of Uberty makes them inde-
pendent to a fault : they do not assemble all at
once as though they were under orders: but two
or three days are wasted by their delay in arriving.
They take their seats as they come, all in full armour.
Silence is demanded by the priests, to whom are
' Stabbs, ConstUiUUmal History, p. S6.
72
EAST AND WEST
OHAP.
I
Failare of
the Holy
Roman
Empire to
organize
the
Germans
as a state,
and con-
sequent
t'auare
of the
Germans
to develop
the
principle
of the
common-
wealth
implicit
in their
primitive
customs.
granted special powers of coercion. Next, the king,
or one of the chief men, according to claims of
age, lineage, or military glory, receives a hearing,
which he obtains more by the power of persuasion
than by any right of command. If the opinion ex-
pressed displeases them, their murmurs reject it; if
they approve they clash their spears. Such applause
is considered the most honourable form of assent.' ^
In customs such as these may be discerned the
seed from which the commonwealths of Europe have
sprung. Mountains and seas combined to divide
Greek society into a number of small neighbourhoods,
and kept them from merging into one another, so
that each developed a corporate sense of its own.
But the home of the Teutonic race in the forests of
Northern Europe was not so divided into pockets
where small societies could collect, solidify, and
develop the esprit de corps which is the necessary
basis of the organic state. In the absence of
physical frontiers the only bond by which these
tribes could be united in a state was race, not locality ;
and until the tribal organization had yielded to that
of the state it was impossible that the principle of
the commonwealth should begin to develop. It was
in this that the German Emperors signally failed.
Several of Charles's successors were powerful rulers,
and had their energies been confined to organizing
Germany, they would have created a state capable
of commanding not only the obedience but also the
loyalty of the German people. Order would have
been established, and the free Teutonic spirit as in
England would have developed the monarchy into
a commonwealth in which sovereignty was based
on the popular will. Once accustomed to obey a
German government the Teutonic tribes would have
become a German nation.
^ Tar.it lis. Oemiaiiia, ti*ans. W. H. Fyfe, p. 96.
BAST AND WEST 73
As it was, the successors of Charles, lured by the chap.
glamour of this adopted title, exhausted their energies .^^^^^^^^^
in endeavouring to realize their position as Emperors chaos
of Rome by the conquest of Italy. In Germany fTOm\hf
itself a condition of disorder was allowed to continue, Jj*j|^\|jg
until the weak were driven to barter their freedom govem-
to the strong in exchange for protection. The feudal . the Holy
system which Germany now developed was nothing |^*°
)ire
more nor less than the attempt of a society which oj^coi^-
*^ "f tract or
had failed to organize itself as a state to make feudalism.
contract do the work of patriotism. The Emperors
themselves accepted the principle, distributing their
sovereignty amongst their princes and nobles in
exchange for support in their Italian wars. The
result was that the rank and file served as the
retainers of the feudal potentate, not as the subjects
of the Emperor. While the attention of the
Emperor was absorbed in Italy, the feudal lords
were the de facto governments of their respective
principalities in Germany, and the Emperor never
established a direct relation of sovereignty with
the German people themselves. As Emperor he
never attained the right to tax the people direct.
It was to the local prince that they paid their
taxes and looked for orders. It was him they followed
when he chose to disobey the orders of the Emperor.
Against the disobedience of a prince the only remedy
of the Emperor was war. In taking sides for or
against the Emperor the other princes were guided
by their own interests, and not by those of the
Empire, still less by the interests of Christendom or
mankind. The Grerman monarchs, in masquerading
as the Emperors of humanity, were diverted from
establishing a government for the German people.
The Holy Roman Empire was not even a fiction. It
was a sham which actually deceived men and hid
from their eyes the less pretentious but more valuable
74 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, reality which might have been achieved. In theory,
the Emperor was the temporal Vicegerent of God,
the King of Bangs, from whose authority the princes
of Europe derived their own. In practice, many of
these princes, like those of England (Richard I. was
an unwilling exception), repudiated his authority.
Those who acknowledged it persistently disregarded
it whenever they saw a chance of aggrandizing them-
selves at the expense of their neighbours ; and the
Emperor had no means of enforcing it, except those
he controlled by virtue of his own inherited posses-
sions. His election as Emperor added nothing to the
actual power he already possessed as an hereditary
prince. His authority, therefore, was similar to that
of a foreman who secures obedience from the members
of his gang only so far as he is able to coerce them
with his own fiats, a system which makes for peace
only when the foreman is a person of gigantic strength.
When the practice was established amongst the
German princes of electing the Emperor, the electors
were careful to avoid the choice of a sovereign strong
enough to coerce them. Society was supposed to be
constructed in accordance with a lofty conception
which had grown fix)m the habit of idealizing the
Roman Empire. The Emperors of the Middle Ages
accepted the style and functions of Empire without
the Imperium. They were given the right to com-
mand all men without the actual power to enforce
obedience. In practice they did little to cure the
intestine disorders of Europe and nothing to defend it
from the encroachments of Asia. That all-important
task was left to the Eastern remnant of the real
Roman Empire, which guarded the Bosphorus till the
close of the Middle Ages. German sovereigns who
claimed to be the champions of European civilization
were unable to marshal one soldier to save from
the Turk the very countries in which it had been
KAST AND WEST 75
cradled In the Balkan Peninsula centuries of misery chap.
have commemorated the failure of the Holy Eoman .,^.„.,^^„^^
Empire to justify the title and traditions it assumed.
After the fall of the Roman Empire the Teutonic Hence the
races who had destroyed it were the strongest element were ule
of European society. If Charles and his successors I'^^^^f
had confined themselves to the task of consolidating ^^ ^^^
1 • 1 • ^ r^ 1 J European
their own people into a state, the Germans would race to
have been the first people to realize nationality in the uaVonai ^
modem sense of the term. As it was, they were the J^^*®' *"*^
last, and the penalty they paid for this failure was a ^^*^f J^^
thousand years of fratricidal strife in which Europe at ccnvuised
large was repeatedly involved. Till the time of Luther * "'^^^^
it would be difficult to point to any period in which
German armies were not fighting each other on
German soil. In the seventeenth century Germany
was devastated by the Thirty Years' War. In the
eighteenth century the German States were involved in
the quarrels of Austria and Prussia. At the beginning
of the nineteenth century Germany was trampled
under foot by Napoleonic armies largely reinforced by
German troops. In the struggle between Austria and
Prussia of 1866 the States of Northern Germany were
at war with those of the South. Had Charles the Great
and his successors united Germany as the Norman and
Plantagenet kings united England, it is not too much
to say that most of the wars which have since dis-
tracted not only Germany but Europe itself might
never have been fought. Up to the year 1870, the
Germans might still have been described in the words
applied by Stubbs to their primitive ancestors as being
* singularly capable of entering into new combina*
tions : singularly liable to be united and dissolved in
short-lived confederations.' And the process was one
of incessant violence, which was constantly spreading
to the whole continent of Europe.*
* Bryce, Th€ Holy Rortum Empire, chap. xx.
76 EAST AND WEST
CHAP. In the course of ages of violence the rudimentary
^^^^^^^^^^^ institutions of freedom, to which Tacitus bears
Miiiury evidence, were for the most part extinguished by
ven^tecUhe *^® neccssitics of military rule. ' The Diet, originally
orthe^^^ an assembly of the whole people, and thereafter of
common- the feudal tenants -in -chief, meeting from time to
from time like our early English Parliaments, became in
developing. ^^ jgg^ ^ permanent body, at which the electors,
princes, and cities were represented by their envoys.
In other words, it was not so much a national Parlia-
ment as an international congress of diplomatists.
Where the sacrifice of imperial, or rather federal,
rights to state rights was so complete, we may
wonder that the farce of an Empire should have been
retained at all. A mere German Empire would
probably have perished; but the Teutonic people
could not bring itself to abandon the venerable
heritage of Rome.' ^ Except in some isolated cities
personal authority backed by force was the only
kind of government which counted. And, as usual
with despotic governments, a supernatural baais
was claimed for its authority. The idea of the
commonwealth atrophied ; and if it has flourished on
the continent of Europe for the last century, it is
rather as a growth transplanted from England than
as one indigenous to the soil itself. 'Throughout
Europe reformers have copied English political
arrangements.' ^ But in spite of this imitation and of
real progress made by the nations of continental
Europe in remodelling their institutions on the prin-
ciple of the commonwealth, the theocratic conception
of government survives to an extent hardly realized
by the people of the British Empire or by those of
its product, the United States of America.^ Belief in
^ Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire^ chap. xx. pp. 391-392.
'^ Woodrow Wilson, The State, p. 435.
' See Note I) at end of this chapter, p. 84.
EAST AND WEST 77
force as the ultimate basis of government is the natural chap.
consequence of the protracted violence into which ,^^^^
Europe was plunged by the failure of Grermany till
1870 to realize for herself the unity of a state.
Throughout the continent of Europe from the down-
fall of the Roman Empire there was no period during
which order was maintained long enough to create the
tradition that the law is above the visible ruler and
more entitled than him to the ultimate obedience of
the citizen. The upshot has been that, with the
partial exception of Switzerland and Holland, the
principle of the commonwealth failed to re-establish
itself on the continent of Europe with sufficient
strength to counteract the theocratic and despotic
tradition of government which the Eoman Empire
left behind it. The ideas of government which pre-
vailed in Germany to the first decades of the nineteenth
century were, no less than those of the Latin peoples,
inherited from Rome. The shade of that vanished
Empire rose from its grave to haunt its destroyers.
Hovering before their eyes, this phantom beguiled
them into the morass of Italian politics at the outset
of their march towards Grerman union and freedom.
From the one sure path their footsteps strayed, never
to refind it for a thousand years.
Voltaire uttered the epitaph of this mighty sham states
when he wrote that it was neither Holy, nor Roman, §^eioped
nor yet an Empire. It is the greatest example ^^^hr^
which history offers of the mischief done by false basis of
coin, of the frightful power of vain deceits to lead
men to their own undoing. Civilization was only
saved for the world by the gradual development, in
spite of it, of a system of society less ambitious, but
more firmly founded even than the original Empire
itself The Roman Empire at its prime had enforced
Older, eain^d the respect and even the gratitude of its
^tjibjects, 39it it was too large and too comprehensive
78 BAST AND WEST
CHAP, to wake the spirit of patriotism which the Athenians
at Marathon, the Spartans at Thermopylae, or the
Romans themselves, had shown. Still less was a revival
so vague and feeble as the Holy Roman Empire calcu-
lated to arouse this kind of enthusiasm. The command
of the elected Emperor of Christendom left men cold
who would spring to arms at the call of a chief or
a prince who really meted out some kind of justice
amongst themselves, especially if he were of their
own blood and was felt to personify their common
kinship with one another. Gradually, different tribes
in England, France and Spain were consolidated into
kingdoms much larger than the city states of the
ancient world, which yet evoked from their citizens
the same kind of spontaneous patriotism. The Holy
Roman Empire appealed to ideas which had not pene-
trated to the heart and rooted themselves in the habits
of ordinary men. Government, to be stable, must be
founded not only on respect, but on the affection and
enthusiasm of the people themselves. If men could
not be brought in masses to dedicate their lives to
mankind, it was an immense step that they should be
willing to lay them down for so limited a section
of the race as England, France, or Spain contained.
Appear- Whilst, therefore, the organs of universal govern -
Franro, mcut wcrc atrophied for want of exercise, the peoples
of Europe were gathering into units of government
according to neighbourhood and race. France, with
its population still mainly Celtic, emerged as a separate
kingdom in 843. Under a succession of powerful
monarchs the French rapidly acquired a national
consciousness of their own, which was greatly stimu-
lated by the leading part which they took in the
Crusades against the Saracens. From the w^elter
of Christian and Moorish kingdoms in the Iberian
Portugal, Peninsula the Portuguese nation emerges in the
Spain, twelfth ceutury and the Spanish in the fifteenth.
BAST AND WEST 79
In all three fragments of the Roman Empire the
traditions of despotic government were preserved
intact. Italy, where the position of the Pope 1^1^^
was an insuperable bar to the establishment of a
national monarchy or unity of any kind, remained
under the nominal suzerainty of the German Emperor,
a patchwork of princedoms and republics. In the
valleys of the Alps, commonwealths were formed, gwitzer-
which ultimately succeeded where the Greeks had ^*"^»
failed, in uniting aa a federal state. By their long
and heroic struggle with Spain the Teutonic cities
which grew up at the mouth of the Rhine were
united by the genius of William the Silent as the The
Dutch Republic in the sixteenth century. But even lands^'
these commonwealths were deeply embued with the
law and traditions of the Roman Empire.
Meantime, in the islands on the western coast of Reappear-
Europe, which certain of the Teutonic tribes had p?^cipie ^
partly conquered and occupied, was appearing the common,
state which forms the subject of this inquiry. It J®*'^'^*^
was there, and not in Romanized Germany itself,
that the Teutonic tradition of freedom was able to
take root, and reproduce once more the principle of
government which had first blossomed in Greece and
almost vanished in the Roman Empire. In England
was planted a commonwealth destined to spread
until it included races more numerous and diverse
than ever obeyed Rome.
In the foregoing chapter the principle of the Recapitu-
commonwealth has been traced from ancient Greece ^^^^^'
where the idea found its fullest expression in the
republic of Athens. It is still further developed by
the Roman Empire in the vertebrae given to European
society by Roman law, even though liberty itself is
gradually obscured by the reversion of the Empire to
purely autocratic and military rule. Then, with the
collapse of the Empire, it is lost for nearly a thousand
80 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, years in the death-struggles of the Roman system
against the successive waves of barbarians from the
North, which are partly repelled, and partly absorbed,
by the powerful monarchies gradually founded in
Spain, in France and in central Europe. But mean-
while the idea of liberty, first realized in Greece and
Rome, was sleeping, not dead. It still breathed —
though under a great weight of established customs
and forms— in the notions of law which the Hbly
Roman Empire had inherited from its great proto-
type. Gradually, as neither the separate autocracies
nor the great European theocracy proved equal to
human needs, it flickered to life in the communes
which united to form the Swiss Confederacy and the
commercial communities of northern Germany and
the Netherlands. Then with the Reformation and
the Renaissance it recovered its position in the fore-
front of European ideals, and has been gradually
extended, now by one community, now by another,
but chiefly by the community founded in the dark
ages by Teutonic invaders of the British Isles.
NOTE A
REVERSION OF ROME TO THEOCRACY
See i)age - ' While to the educated classes in old Rome the Emperor's
^'^' legal Sovereignty bore the guise of a devolution from that of the
people, his provincial subjects, who knew little or nothing of
these legal theories, regarded it as the direct and natural
consequence of Conquest By the general, probably the universal,
law of antiquity, capture in war made the captured person a
slave de iure. Much more then does conquest carry the right of
legal command. Conquest is the most direct and emphatic
assertion of de facto supremacy, and as the de fado power of the
Romans covered nearly the whole of the civilized world, main-
tained itself without difficulty, and acted on fixed principles in
a regular way, it speedily passed into Legal Right, a right not
unwillingly recognized by those to whom Roman power meant
Roman peace. This idea is happily expressed by Virgil in the
line applied to Augustus :
EAST AND WEST 81
" Victorque volentes
Per populoB dat iura/'
while the suggestion of a divine power encircling the irresistible
conqueror, an idea always familiar to the East, appears in the
words : ,
'* viamqne adfectat Olympo/'
which complete the passage.
' The feeling that the power actually supreme has received
divine sanction by being permitted to prevail, that it has thereby
become rightful, and that it has, because it is rightful, a claim
to obedience, is clearly put in writings which were destined,
more than any others, to rule the minds of men for many
centuries to come.
* ** Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For
there is no power but of ( = from) God : the powers that be are
ordained of Gkxl. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power,
resisteth the ordinance of God : and they that resist shall
receive to themselves damnation {lU, judgment). For rulers are
not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not
be afraid of the power 1 Do that which is good, and thou shalt
have praise of the same ; for he is the minister of God to thee
for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid ; for he
beareth not the sword in vain : for he is the minister of God,
a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil " (Bom.
xiii. 1-5).
• " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's
sake; whether it be to the Emperor, as supreme, or unto
Governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punish-
ment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For
8o is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence
(W. bridle) the ignorance of foolish men" (1 Pet. ii. 13-15).
' Here the authority of the Emperor is not only recognized
as being de iure because it exists and is irresistible, but is
deemed, because it exists, to have divine sanction, and thus a
religious claim on the obedience of the Christian, while at the
same time, in the reference to the fact that the power of the
magistrate is exercised, and is given by God that it be exercised,
for good, there is contained the germ of the doctrine that the
Power may be disobeyed (? resisted) when he acts for evil ; as
St. Peter himself is related to have said, " We ought to obey
God rather than men " (Acts v. 29).' ^
* Biyee, Studies in History owid Jurisprudence^ vol. ii. pp. 78-79.
G
82 EAST AND WEST
NOTE B
SURVIVAL OF REPUBLICAN TRADITION IN ROMAN LAW
See page < Justinian and his successors had in the fullest sense of the
' word complete, unlimited, and exclusive legal sovereignty ; and
the people of old Rome who are talked of in the Digest^ by the
lawyers of the second and third centuries, as the source of the
Emperor's powers, were not in A.D. 533, except in a vague de
iure sense, actual subjects of Justinian, being in fact ruled by
the Ostrogothic king Athalarich (grandson of the great Theo-
dorich). But it is noteworthy that the lawyers also assigned to
the people as a whole, entirely apart from any political organiza-
tion in any assembly, the right of making law by creating and
following a custom, together with that of repealing^a customary
law by ceasing to observe it, i.e. by desuetude, and that they
justify the existence of such a right by comparing it with that
which the people exercise by voting in an assembly. "What
difference," says Julian, writing under Hadrian, " does it make
whether the people declares its will by voting or by its practice
and acts, seeing that the laws themselves bind us only because
they have been approved by the people ? " In the Institutes of
Justinian the Emperor's legislative power, though complete, is
still grounded on a delegation formerly made by the people.
' It need hardly be observed that if Tribonian and the other
commissioners employed by Justinian to condense and arrange
the old law had, instead of inserting in their compilation sen-
tences written three or four centuries before their time, taken it
upon themselves to state the doctrine of legislative sovereignty
as it existed in their own time, they would not have used the
language of the old jurists, language which even in the time of
those jurists represented theory rather than fact, just as Black-
stone's language about the right of the Crown to " veto '* legis-
lation in England represents the practice of a period that had
ended sixty years before. But those who in the Middle Ages
studied the texts of the Roman law cared little and knew less
about Roman history, so that the republican doctrine of popular
sovereignty which they found in the Digest may have had far more
authority in their eyes than it had in those of the contemporaries
of Tribonian, to whom it was merely a pretty antiquarian fiction.
* These were the legal notions of Sovereignty with which the
modern world started — the sharply outlined Sovereignty of an
autocratic Emperor, and the shadowy, suspended, yet in a sense
concurrent or at least resumable, Sovereignty of the People,
expressed partly in the recognition of their right to delegate
legislation to the monarch, partly in their continued exercise of
legislation by Custom.' ^
* Bryce, Shidies in History aiid Jurisprudence, vol. ii. pp. 76-77.
EAST AND WEST . 83
NOTE C ^^j^^-
THE MEDIAEVAL BELIEF IN UNIVERSAL MONARCHY T"''^"'^
' In the earlier Middle Ages Europe, still half-barbarous, was See page
the prey of violence. Its greatest need was Justice, and a 70.
power strong enough and pious enough to execute justice as
the minister of God. The one force that confronted violence
and rapacity was Religion. All had one religion, and though
many by sinfulness of life belied their faith, none doubted its
truth. Neither did any one doubt where the seat of authority
lay. Rome, whence the Caesars had ruled the world — Rome,
where the chief of the Apostles had exercised the pastorate
given him by God when God walked the earth — was the divinely
appointed source of all lawful power. Whether that power was
to be J wielded by two rulers, each directly representing the
Almighty, or whether the secular monarch was to be the servant
of the spiritual — this was a question on which men were divided.
But that the power of the secular ruler was consecrated by a
Divine commission, and, being so consecrated, was appointed
for all time and for all mankind — upon this they were at one.
It was a small Christian world, which reached only from the
TaguB to the Vistula: so a universal monarchy seemed less
strange then than it does now. Nations were as yet scarcely
conqpious of themselves, and the strife that desolated Europe
was more frequently within than between its countries. The
disobedience of some rulers to the Emperor shook the theories
of those who took dreams for realities hardly more than did
the disobedience of a knot of heretics to the Pope.' ^
The idea of a universal monarchy ordained by Divine wisdom is
reflected in a letter addressed by Petrarch to the Roman people.
* When was there ever such peace, such tranquillity, such
justice,- such honour paid to virtue, such rewards distributed to
the good and punishments to the bad, when was ever the state
so wisely guided, as in the time when the world had obtained
one head, and that head Rome ; the very time wherein God
deigned to be bom of a virgin and dwell upon earth. To every
single body there has been given a head ; the whole world there-
fore also, which is called by the poet a great body, ought to be
content with one temporal head. For every two-headed animal
is monstrous ; how much more horrible and hideous a portent
must be a creature with a thousand different heads, biting and
fighting against one another ! If, however, it is necessary that
there be more heads than one, it is nevertheless evident that there
ought to be one to restrain all and preside over all, that so the •
peace of the whole body may abide unshaken. Assuredly both in
heaven and in earth the sovereignty of one has always been best.' ^
* Bryce, Tlie Holy Homan Empire, p. 500. ^ Jll^l p, 266.
84 SAST AND WEST
^^P- NOTE D
^"^^"^"^^ SURVIVAL OF THE THBOCRATIC IDEA IN MODERN EUROPE
See page Lecky testifies to the hold which theocratic ideas still had on
public opinion in England up to the close of the seventeenth
century. ' The doctrine of non-resistance in its extreme form
was taught in the Homilies of the Church, embodied in the oath
of allegiance, in the corporation oath of Charles II., and in the
declaration prescribed by the Act of Uniformity, enrolled by
great Anglican casuists among the leading tenets of Christianity,
and persistently enforced from the pulpit. It had become, as
a later bishop truly said, " the distinguishing character of the
Church of England." At a time when the Constitution was
still luiformed, when every institution of freedom and every
bulwark a^nst despotism was continually assailed, the authorized
religious teachers of the nation were incessantly inculcating this
doctrine, and it may probably be said without exaggeration that
it occupied a more prominent position in the preaching and the
literature of the Anglican Church than any other tenet in the
whole compass of theology. Even Burnet and Tillotson, who
* were men of unquestionable honesty, and who subsequently
took a conspicuous part on the side of the Revolution, when
attending Russell in his last hours, had impressed upon him in
the strongest manner the duty of accepting the doctrine of .the
absolute unlawfulness of resistance, and had clearly intimated
that if he did not do so they could feel no confidence in his
salvation. The clergy who attended Monmouth at his execution
told him he could not belong to the Church of England unless
he acknowledged it. The University of Cambridge in 1679,
and the University of Oxford on the occasion of the death of
Russell, authoritatively proclaimed it, and the latter university
consigned the leading Whig writings in defence of freedom to
the flames, and prohibited all students from reading them. The
immense popularity which the miracle of the royal touch had
acquired, indicated only too faithfully the blind and passionate
loyalty of the time : nor was there any other period in English
history in which the spirit of independence and the bias in favour
of freedom which had long characterized the English people
were so little shown as in the years that followed the Restoration.
. . . Had the old dynasty adhered to the national faith, its
position would have been impregnable, and in the existing dis-
position of men's minds it was neither impossible nor improbable
that the free institutions of England would have shared the fate
. of those of Spain, of Italy, and of France. Most happily for the
country, a bigoted Catholic, singularly destitute both of the tact
and sagacity of a statesman, and of the qualities that win the
affection of a people, mounted the throne, devoted all the
EAST AND WEST 85
energies of his nature and all the resources of his position to CHAP,
extending the religion most hateful to his people, attacked with I
a strange fatuity the very Church on whose teaching the
monarchical enthusiasm mainly rested, and thus drove the most
loyal of his subjects into violent opposition. . . . The doctrine
of the indefeasible right of the legitimate sovereign, and of the
absolute sinfulness of resistance, was in the eyes of the great
majority of Englishmen the cardinal principle of political
morality, and a blind, unqualified, unquestioning loyalty was
the strongest and most natural form of political enthusiasm.
This was the real danger to English liberty. Until this tone of
thought and feeling was seriously modified, free institutions
never could take root, and even after the intervention of William
it was quite possible, and in the eyes of most Englishmen
eminently desirable, that a Government should have been estab-
lished so nearly legitimate as to receive the support of this
enthusiasm — the consecration of this belief/ ^
In Prussia the belief in Divine right was as vigorous as ever
in the first half of the nineteenth century. * To the nobles and
peasants, criticism of, or opposition to, the Ring had in it some-
thing of sacrilege ; the words " by the Grace of God " added to
the royal title were more than an empty phrase. Society was
still organized on the old patriarchal basis : at the bottom was
the peasant; above him was the gnddiger Herr;^ above him,
Unser allergnddigste Herr ^ the King, who lived in Berlin ; and
above him, the Herr Gott^ in Heaven.** A German electorate
when appealed to by the Crown has usually supported the
monarch against their own representatives. This explains (what
Englishmen find it so difficult to understand) why German
legislatures have never, as in all communities of British origin,
obtained control of the executive.
The political creed of Bismarck had, as Mr. Headlam shows,
its roots in theocratic ideas. ' It is not at first apparent what
necessary connection there is between monarchical government
and Christian faith. For Bismarck they were ever inseparably
bound together ; nothing but religious belief would have recon-
ciled him to a form of government so repugnant to natural
human reason. " If I were not a Christian, I would be a
Republican,'' he said many years later ; in Christianity he found
the only support against revolution and socialism. He was not
the man to be beguiled by romantic sentiment ; he was not a
courtier to be blinded by the pomp and ceremony of royalty ;
be was too stubborn and independent to acquiesce in the arbi-
trary rule of a single man. He could only obey the king if the
king himself held his authority as the representative of a higher
^ Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century , vol. i. pp. 10-14.
^ Gracious Lord. ' Our all-Gracioui Lord the King.
* Lord God. ' Headlam, Bismarekf p. 13.
86 SA8T AND WEST
CHAP power. Bismarck was accustomed to follow out his thought to
I its conclusions. To whom did the King owe his power 1 There
was only one alternative : to the people or to God. If to the
people, then it was a mere question of convenience whether the
monarchy were continued in form ; there was little to choose
between a constitutional monarchy where the king was appointed
by the people and controlled by Parliament, and an avowed
republic. This was the principle held by nearly all his con-
temporaries. He deliberately rejected it He did not hold that
the voice of the people was the voice of God. This belief did
not satisfy his moral sense ; it seemed in public life to leave all
to interest and ambition and nothing to duty. It did not
satisfy his critical intellect ; the word " people " was to him a
vague idea. The service of the people or of the King by the
Grace of God, this was the struggle which was soon to be fought
out' 1
It is this conception of government which underlies a speech
which Bismarck addressed to the Prussian Chamber in 1848.
'The strife of principles which during this year has shattered
Europe to its foundations is one in which no compromise is
possible. They rest on opposite bases. The one draws its law
from what is called the will of the people, in truth, however,
from the law of the strongest on the barricades. The other
rests on authority created by God, an authority by the grace of
God, and seeks its development in organic connection with the
existing and constitutional legal status. . . . The decision on
these principles will come not by Parliamentary debate, not by
majorities of eleven votes ; sooner or later the God who directs
the battle will cast his iron dice.'^ The tradition which in-
spired these words was not Teutonic but Eoman, and not in
truth Roman but Oriental. Indeed we have the authority of a
German historian for believing that Frederick William, the
monarch whom Bismarck served at this time, actually regarded
himself, like a Hebrew King, as the mouthpiece of Divine
commands. 'The royal crown seemed to him surrounded by
a mystic radiance, which became for him who wore it the source
of a divine inspiration not vouchsafed to other mortals. He
said once, in 1844, to Bunsen : ''You all mean well by me, and
are very skilful in executing plans ; but there are certain things
that no one but a king can know, which I myself did not know
when I was Crown Prince, and have perceived only since I
became King." ' ^ Many of the speeches of his great nephew,
the present Emperor of Germany, have been distinctly tinged
by the same idea, e,g, his speech at the unveiling of the
Coligny statue at Wilhelmshaven on October 19, 1912. 'I
^ Headlam, Bismarck^ pp. 31-32. * Ibid, p. 58.
^ Quoted from Pretiss. Jahrhudier^ iv. vol. 63, p. 528 in Von Sybel's The
Foujiding of the Oerman Empire, vol. i. pp. 113-114.
EAST AND WEST 87
hope then that this statue maj give each of you who passes OHAP.
by, young and old, strength and vigour on his path through I
lUe, and that each of you may be minded to remain loyal,
body and soul, to his King and may remember that he will
be ready to do that only if he remains loyal to his Heavenly
King/
But perhaps the crudest expression which the theocratic idea
has ever received in modem times was on the morrow of the
battle of Waterloo, when the leading powers of continental
Europe leagued themselves in the 'Holy Alliance 'and announced
' that they " in consequence of the great events (those leading to
the defeat of Napoleon) . . . and of the blessings which it has
pleased Divine Providence to shed upon those states . . . declare
solemnly, that the present act has no other object than to show
. . . their unwavering determination to adopt for the only rule
of their conduct . . . the precepts of their holy religion, the
precepts of justice, of charity, and of peace. . . ."* Considering
themselves "only the members of one Christian nation'' they looked
upon themselves as "delegated by Providence to govern three
branches of the same family, to wit: Austria, Prussia, and Eussia."
They confessed that there was really no other sovereign than
" Him to whom alone power belongs of rights" etc. The title of
the league is derived from the closing paragraph of the treaty
(September 26, 1815) : —
* " Article III. — ^All powers which wish solemnly to profess
the sacred principles which have delegated this act, and who
shall acknowledge how important it is to the happiness of nations,
too long disturbed, that these truths shall henceforth exercise
upon human destinies all the influence which belongs to them,
shall be received with as much readiness as affection, into this
Holy Alliance."
' Into this combination France, Spain, Naples, and Sardinia
entered. ... At Verona the allies signed a secret treaty
(November 22, 1822) to which only the names of Metternich,
Chateaubriand, Bemstet (Prussia), and Nesselrode appear. The
first two articles of this instrument are of especial interest.
' " The undersigned, specially authorized to make some
additions to the treaty of the Holy Alliance, after having
exchanged their respective credentials, have agreed as follows : —
* " Article I. — The high contracting powers, being convinced
that the system of representative government is equally as
incompatible with the monarchical principles as the maxim of
the sovereignty of the people with the divine right, engage
mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts
to put an end to the system of representative governments, in
whatever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its
being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known.
* " Article II. — As it cannot be doubted that the liberty of
88 EAST AND WEST
CHAP, the press is the most 'powerful means used by the pretended
^ supporters of the rights of nations, to the detriment of those
Princes, the high contracting parties promise reciprocally to
adopt all proper measures to suppress it^ not only in their own
states, but also in the rest of Europe." ' ^
^ Henderson, Amgriean JHplomalic Questiane, pp. S07, 308, 814.
CHAPTER II
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
When the great body of the German people first chap.
attained their national unity in 1870, their kinsmen, s^.^^^.,,^
by whom Britain had been colonized in the dark ages, Teutonic
CQSbOID
had already been united for eight centuries. State- atuined
hood, not anarchy, is the road to freedom, and only deveiop-*^*
when it has been reached can the principle of the EnffLnd
commonwealth begin to be realized. Hence it was instead of
in the island and not on the mainland that the *""■"'""•
instinct of freedom which is implicit in the customs
of the Germanic race first developed that principle.
This, however, was in no way due to any special
merit of the tribes which invaded Britain but only
to the insular character of their new home. In
Greece the states had grown up behind mountain
walls. The straits which separated England from the
Continent, secluded there, as by a moat, a section of
Grermanic people not too large to develop a social
will which they could use as the actuating principle
of their government. 'In all ages and among all
changes of inhabitants the insular character of Britain
has been one of the ruling facts of its history. Its
people, of whatever race or speech, whatever their
political condition at home or their political relation
to other countries, have been above all things pre-
eminently islanders. This must be borne in mind
through the whole of British history. We are not
dealing with Celts, Romans, Teutons simply as such,
89
90 THE ENGLISH CX)MMON WEALTH
CHAP, but with Celts, Romans, Teutons, modified by the fact
'^ that they dwelled in a great island, which was cut oflF
in many ways from 'the rest of the world, and which
acted in many things as a separate world of itsel£' ^
Their The Tcutouic tribes which invaded Britain in the
situation third and fourth centuries were almost entirely free
protected f^^^ ^^ie influence of Rome.' To what extent they
Teutonic spared and assimilated the Romanized Britons can
conquerors + . i ' i in i
of Britain ncver bc asccrtamcd and would not greatly concern
Romanizing the present inquiry if it could. That Roman civiliza-
inftuence. ^-^j^^ ^^^ displaced by the custom, language, and
religion of the Germanic invaders is the really
important fact and one which is fortunately beyond
dispute. *A germ of political and social life was
brought into Britain which, changing from generation
to generation but never itself exchanged for any
other system, borrowing from foreign sources but
assimilating what it borrowed with its own essence,
changing its outward shape but abiding untouched
in its true substance, has lived and grown through
fourteen hundred years into the law, the constitution,
the social being of England.' * But the roads which
the Romans had built remained long after their
civilization was blotted out and exercised a certain
unifying influence on the Saxon conquerors. In
Ireland as in Germany the growth of statehood in
the dark ages was choked for want of those physical
arteries with which her engineers had equipped the
provinces of Rome.
Failure of In spitc of this advantage, however, the Teutonic
to untte"^ invaders of Britain may be described no less than
Eng^jn^i their kinsmen in Germany as * singularly capable of
drifted entering into new combinations ; singularly liable to
feudaUsm. be United and dissolved in short-lived confederations.'
It was only when in the ninth century they had
* Freeman, ' History of England/ Bncy. Brit, 10th ed. vol. Tiii. p. 264.
2 Ibid. p. 266. « Ibid, pp. 276-277.
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH 91
to face a further invasion of their Norse kinsmen that chap.
some kind of * unity began to be forced on England.
* The first half of the tenth century gave the West-
Saxon kings a position in Britain such as no English
kings of any kingdom had held before them.
Dominant in their own island, claiming and, when-
ever they could, exercising a supremacy over the
other princes of the island, their position in the island
world of Britain was analogous to the position of the
Western emperors in continental Europe. It was in
fact an imperial position. As such it was marked by
the assumption of the imperitj title, monarcha^
imperator, hasileus, Augustus ^ and even Caesar.
These titles were meant at once to assert the imperial
supremacy of the English kings within their own
world, and to deny any supremacy over Britain on
the part of either of the lords of the continental
world. When we remember that some, both of the
Teutonic and Celtic princes of Britain, had been the
men of Charles the Great, the denial of all supremacy
in the Caesars of the mainland was not needless.
Indeed that denial was formally made over and over
again at various times down to the reign of Henry
VIII. ... If the king of the English was looked on
as the emperor of another world, the primate of all
England was also looked on, and was sometimes
directly spoken of, as the Pope of another world.' ^
But as in Europe so in England disunion dogged the
footsteps of the Teutonic race. The Saxons never
finally established the principle of one paramount
authority for all citizens of all degrees. As a natural
consequence life and property were never really secure,
and the contractual principle of feudalism began to
obtain a hold over English society.
It was William the Conqueror who laid the
* Freeman, ' History of England/ Ency, Brit. lOth ed. vol. viii. pp. 284-
285, 295.
92 THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, foundations of statehood in England. He, through
^^^^^^^^^^ the native vigour of his character, and his minister
How Lanfranc through his training in the law-schools of
w"ir
the ^*°^ Pavia, had grasped, as the Germanic Emperors never
Conqueror grrasped, the esscutial principle of Roman government.
imposed or' r r o
statehood ' When Domesday was finished in 1086, William
England, gathered all the landowners of his kingdom, great
and small, whether his tenants-in -chief or the tenants
of an intermediate lord, and made them all become
his men. No one act in English history is more
important than this. ... It established the principle
that, whatever duty a man might owe to any inferior
lord, his duty to his sovereign lord the king came
first. When this rule was once established, the
mightiest earl in England could never be to William
what William himself was to his own lord, the king
of the French. . . . The notion that William intro-
duced a " feudal system " into England is a delusion
which shows utter ignorance, both of the position of
William and of the general history of Europe. If by
a "feudal system" is meant the state of things in
Germany and Gaul — a state of things in which every
great vassal became a rival to the king — Willianj took
direct care that no such " feudal system " should ever
be introduced into his kingdom. But if by a " feudal
system" is meant merely the holding of land by
military tenure subject to the burthens of reliefs,
wardships, marriage, and the like, though William
certainly did not introduce such a " system " ready-
made, yet the circumstances of his reign did much to
promote the growth of that kind of tenure, and of
the whole class of ideas connected with it. Such
tendencies were already growing in England, and his
coming strengthened them. Under him the doctrine
that all land is a grant from the crown became a
fact. . . . The doctrine that a man was hound to
follow his immediate lord had destroyed the roycd
THE BNOLISH OOKMONWSALTH 93
power in other lands. William, hy making himself chap.
<Ae immediate lord of all his subjectSy turned that
doctrine into the strongest support of his crown. . . .
Justice became more centralized in EDgland than
anywhere else. All the weightier causes came to be
tried either in the king's own courts or by judges
immediately commissioned by him. The local chiefs
gave way to the king's representatives. . . . Teutonic
notions of right and common sense were never wholly
driven out.' ^
William thus began by asserting his claim to the Factors
obedience of every Englishman irrespective of rank or Noman
position. Apart from deliberate policy the Couquest ^^kin^"for
had other features which helped to impose statehood unity.
on England. The dialects of Saxon spoken in various
districts were so different as to require translation
before they could be mutually understood. England
was, therefore, at the Conquest, for practical purposes,
a country of many tongues. Th^ Normans, though
Teutons by race, spoke French, and imposed it on
the country as the official language, which, strange
as it may seem, tended to unify England as a simUar
use of English itself is tending to unify India. That
the Saxons should absorb their Teutonic invaders was
inevitable. But the diflference in language delayed
the process, and held the Normans together long
enough to act as a roller, and solidify the conquered
race. Their temporary aloofness did for England
what Crown Colony government has done for some
of the Dominions.
As with their cousins in Germany, however, the Develop-
disturbed conditions of the Continent had prevented saTon law
the Normans from producing a law of their own. jn^erthe
•*■^ Normans
1 Freeman, 'History of England,' Bn&y. Brit, 10th ed. vol. viii. pp. 295, tagenets.
296, 298, 299. The italics are not the author's. Later historians aiQ dis-
posed 4x) minimise the importance of the Salisbury gathering and of the oath
there administered. See Davis, England under the Normans aivd Angevins^
p. 37.
94 THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. The English, on the other hand, were the one branch
" of the Teutonic race which had developed their
native customs into a legal system, and this was
adopted by William's son, Henry L, as the law of
the land. But, as on the Continent, the Barons
undertook to interpret and enforce the law, each
for himself in his own manner, so that his vassals
might regard him rather than the King as the
dispenser of justice and source of authority. The
weakness of Stephen had almost undone the work
of William the Conqueror when Henry II. came to
the throne and by means of his legal reforms placed
it on a surer footing than ever. This he accomplished
by establishing a system of Royal justice which was
intrinsically better than that of the Barons. In
questions affecting possession or the title of lands,
he substituted trial by jury for the barbarous ordeal
of battle which obtained in manorial courts. Justice
was administered in his own court which was con-
stantly on the move. But in order to bring his
justice to the people's door, instead of waiting for
them to come to his own, he sent his judges through-
out the country, and in places they held no less
than four assizes a year. He saw, moreover, that
their judgments were duly enforced, and so popular
did their jurisdiction become, that in 1305 the
Northern counties, which always tended to stand
aloof, petitioned the King for more frequent assizes.
The King's justice won on its merits, and was sought
in preference to that of the Barons. Henry II.
thus established in the hearts of his people the
principle initiated by his grandfather, that every
Englishman should look to the King, and not as in
Germany to some local princeling, as the sovereign
authority to whom his allegiance was due. The
native law of England flourished under his hand,
and that English instead of Eoman law is now being
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH 95
administered at Melbourne, Vancouver, and San chap.
Francisco, is due to the obscure assizes of the first .^^^^^^^^^
Plantagenet. Edward I. completed his work by
making the King's writ run through every part of
his realm but Ireland, that tragic exception to every
phase in the growth of the English Commonwealth.
The attitude which Englishmen developed towards
their government is accurately expressed in the
phrase 'Every subject's duty is the King's, but
every subject's soul is his own.' ^ Throughout the
Empire the terms * King ' or * Crown ' are now used
as the legal equivalent of the * State.' So modified,
the formula is one which Socrates himself would
have accepted as expressing his own relation to the
commonwealth of Athens.
The result was that the primitive Teutonic idea, Develop-
that every man has his value, flourished and grew ^f\"he
to be one of the two great systems of civilized law. snpremacy
o J of law as
The notion, which Socrates held so strongly, that thcdistin-
the ultimate obedience of the subject is due to law mark^of
and not to any individual, was rapidly developed gtitiitionfl.
in the English mind, and 'the rule, predominance,
or supremacy of law' became *the distinguishing
characteristic of English institutions.' ^ By the reign
of Henry VI. it had become a maxim of the English
courts that 'the law is the supreme inheritance of
the King: for by the law he himself and all his
subjects are governed, and without the law neither
King nor inheritance would exist.' ^ And this maxim
was no empty phrase. Time and again, kings like
the Stuarts, parliaments like that which imprisoned
Wilkes, or ministries like those which in recent
years assumed the right to collect taxes before they
were voted, have sought to ignore or evade it.* But
* Henry V., Act I v. Sc. i.
» Dicey, TU Law oftht OonatUtUion, p. 183. » Ibid. p. 179.
* See Note B at end of this chapter, p. 121.
96 THE BJTOLISH OOHUONW&ALIV
CHAP, in the end the supremacy of law has always been
^^„^^^ vindicated by the courts, and confinned as the vital
and distinguishing mark of British civilization. It
is the corner-stone of the constitution upon which
government throughout the Empire is baaed. It
means in the first place that British subjects are
ruled by laws and not by men. The law is above
the ruler, and it is by virtue of the law alone that
he rules. A British subject may be punished for
breach of law but for nothing else. It means equality
before the law, which is one and the same for all
men. It 'excludes the idea of any exemption of
officials or others from the duty of obedience to the
law which governs other citizens, or &om the juris-
diction of the ordinary tribunals. . . . The notion
which lies at the bottom of the " administrative law "
known to foreign countries is, that affairs or disputes
in which the government or its servants are concerned
are beyond the sphere of the civil courts, and must
be dealt with by special and mote or less official
bodies.' ' The continental idea of administrative law
is fundamentally at variance with English traditions
and customs.
Tiie Dicey, in his work on the Law of the Constitution
cTi^utu. (&om which the above quotations are made), goes
the" ro'"^ on to poiut out that all the main principles of the
JuctofihB British Constitution rest upon the supremacy of law.
^n^reniaoy j^ ^ geries of chapters he shows how personal freedom,
ort^u*""^* the rights of discussion and of public meeting, the
the rights and duties of the army,
izpenditure of public revenue, and
it ministeia, are ultimately based
e ordinary courts of law.^ 'An
imarks, ' naturally imagines that
I the sense in which we are now
a trait common to all civilized
yommvtim, p. 108. Ibid. |). 190.
THE ENGLISH OOMMOK WEALTH 97
societies.' But this supposition is erroneous. . . . chap.
It is even now far from universally true that in ^^^.^
continental countries all persons are subject to one
and the same law, or that the courts are supreme
throughout the state.' * This failure to recognize the
distinguishing feature of their own institutions which
this author remarks in the mother country is, if any-
thing, more noteworthy in the oversea DominionSi
owing to their distance from the continent of Europe.
And yet the issues in the long struggle between
Britain and Europe for the control of the new
continents opened by the labours of Henry the
Navigator cannot be understood unless the signifi-
cance of this principle is realized. Without it the
place which the British Empire has filled in the world
cannot possibly be grasped. The extract from the
Law of the Constitution appended to this chapter is
particularly instructive upon this point, but a study
of the book itself will repay the labour of any reader
who is not aheady acquainted with it.^
The common authority which the English were Tranaferof
learning to obey was a body of principles, and not of c£mg'
the will of an individual. At the same time they j^^f^m
were acquiring the faculty, which the people of the Grown
Athens had exercised through their ecclesia, of people,
moulding those principles in accordance with their
own experience. The function of changing old laws
and of making new ones was, indeed, passing from
the successors of William the Conqueror to the people
themselves. From the point of view of the present
inquiry this transfer of sovereignty had consequences
which were all-important; and to understand these
consequences it is necessary to see how the transfer
was made.
When the Saxon invaders settled on the lands
' Dicey, The Law of the Consiitutionj p. 190.
' See Kote A ftt end of this chapter, p. 108.
98 THE SHGLI8H COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, which they had won they retained and reproduced
^^^^.^^^^^^ to a very large extent the primitive organization
Primitive which Tacitus had encountered in GermaJiy. A
fn rxrn^ habit of consultation between the chief and the
fiTl^te^ men of his tribe, was, as Tacitus shows, prescribed
effect on by the primitive customs of the race. In Saxon
Norman England this habit was widely recognized and obeyed.
monarchy. (Government in the boroughs was conducted by an
assembly of the inhabitants called the borough-moot,
presided over by a reeve. The smallest unit of rural
government was the township, and the freemen who
cultivated the landa within the district assembled in
the town-moot to conduct its local a£fairs. The next
largest area was the hundred, a district supposed to
contain a hundred families, the heads of which could
meet to discuss their local affairs with the reeve.
These were assemblies of a kind which the Americans
would call primaries, and in principle resembled the
ecclesia of Athens. Finally the local organization
of England assumed approximately its modern form
in the ninth and tenth centurie& The little king-
doms of the south, consolidated under the rule of
Wessexi became units of local government, while
the reconquest of the Danelaw by the House of
Alfred further extended the division of the country
into shires. The folk-moot of Tacitus, which decided
questions of peace suid war, is to be found in the
shire-moot, presided over by the ealdorman, which
was in theory an assembly of the freemen of the
shire. While, during Saxon times, the demo-
cratic spirit of the Teutons declined before the
encroachments of feudalism, it was of inunense
importance that the democratic forms remained.
The representative system sprang directly from these
ancient forms of local government, survivals of the
Saxon conquest, which, when combined with the
Norman institution of juries, prepared the way for
THE SNQLISH COMHOKWEALTH 99
popular representation in a national assembly. The chap.
juries of id quest and assessment elaborated into a v,...,,^^^.^
definite system by Henry 11. were elected in these
ancient courts and contained the germ of national
representation. Great as was their importance from
the purely legal point of view, their political import-
ance was even greater. The reeve and four men who
assessed their neighbours' property, and formed an
elected committee with purely local duties, prepared
the way for representatives of the electors with the
task of assenting to or refusing the financial demands
of the King. But while tiie folk-moots of the
tribal age became the shire-moots of the Saxon
Kingdom, the witanagemots, the assemblies of chiefs
described by Tacitus, were absorbed into one body,
attached to the person of the King. When Egbert
consolidated the Heptarchy into one kingdom, his
witan was no more than an aristocratic council of
state which failed altogether to satisfy the national
tradition of popular government. It failed, therefore,
to give any real unity to England, and consequently
it was upon a congeries of loosely connected com-
munities that statehood was forcibly imposed by
the sword of William the Conqueror. After his
death the reviving power of the feudal lords led
Henry L to court an alliance with the people, in
porsuauoe whereof he restored to them the Saxon
laws. Their common danger was illustrated by the
anarchy of the following reign, when Stephen proved
too weak to curb the power of his nobles.
Thereafter, the restoration of the 'good laws of principle
King Edward the Confessor' was the favourite ^„te^t5on.
promise of a new king, and in this way the ita growth
Plantagenets followed the example of Henry L in Pianta-
paying unconscious homage to the principle of ^^^^
government by assent. No vestige, however, of
popular government had yet reappeared. The
100 THE ENGLIBH COMMOKWEAI/TH
CHAP. Common Council was a purely feudal body, a
^^^^^ gathering of nobles and bishops, the tenants in chief
of the King. In 1215 it was ordained in Magna
Carta that no new taxation should be imposed
except by the Common Council of the realm, the
constitution of which was defined. The nobles and
bishops were to be personally summoned to it by the
King, and the lesser tenants in chief by a general
writ issued through the sheriff. But the crucial
step was taken in the next reign when Simon de
Montfort, supported by the towns, clergy, universities,
and large numbers of the commonalty, overthrew
the King at Lewes and proclaimed a new constitution.
He summoned to the Common Council not only
the nobles and the bishops, but also two burgesses
from every town and two knights from every shire.
Simon de Montfort was defeated and slain by Edward
I. at the battle of Evesham. But the principles
of the rebel earl survived him and prevailed over
the victor himself, who in 1295 summoned to the
* model parliament' two burgesses from each city,
borough, and leading town, and from every shire
two knights, chosen by the freeholders at the shire
court
Importance In the history of the Commonwealth there is no
iMuedV document of greater importance than the summons
Edward I. issued bv Edward I. to the sheriflF of Northampton-
summoning shirc, which reads as follows : * The King to the
tivesT<r SheriflF of Northamptonshire. Since we intend to
Parliament. ^^"^^ a cousultatiou and meeting with the earls,
barons, and other principal men of our kingdom with
regard to providing remedies against the dangers
which are in these days threatening the same king-
dom : and on that account have commanded them
to be with us on the Lord's Day next after the
feast of St. Martin in the approaching winter, at
Westminster, to consider, ordain, and do as may be
TH£ ENGLISH GOMMOH^ElLtH 101
necessary for the avoidance of these dangers : we chap.
strictly require you to cause two knights from the v,.^,.,.^^.,,^
aforesaid county, two citizens from each city and
two burgesses from each borough, of those who are
especially discreet and capable of labouring, to be
elected without delay, and cause them to come to
us at the aforesaid time and place. Moreover^ the
said knights are to have full and sufficient power
for themselves and for the community of the afore-
said county^ and the said citizens and burgesses
for themselves and the communities of the aforesaid
cities and boroughs separately^ there and then^
for doing what shall then be ordained according
to the Common Council in the premises^ so that
the aforesaid business shall not remain unfinished
in any way for defect of this power. And you
shall have there the names of the knights, citizens,
and burgesses, and this writ.'
The document is one that bears on its face the Trae
stamp of a mind in touch with realities. Its author ^ re°pre?
recognized that he was dealing with a people who ^^'tts^^
must be identified with their own government before ^onse-
they could be prepared generously to contribute effect on
to its maintenance. For their ruler to meet and ml^toi
address them in accordance with ancient practice ^^®
* common-
had long been impossible, and he called upon them, wealth.
therefore, to send representatives, no more than
could assemble in one place, to consider, assent to, or
refuse the supplies which he deemed necessary for
the public safety. But while bowing to the national
instincts, he studiously insisted on the only condition
by which they could be reconciled with the actual
necessities of government, and warned his subjects
that they must expect to be committed by their
delegates no less than if they themselves had been
present. The delegates were told in advance that
they must come prepared, not only to discuss the
• ! .'.
• • «
102
, • ' - • •
• • •
' fH£ BIfOLlSH COMMONWBALTH
OHAP. affairs of the realm, but to settle them ; and farther,
II
that they must regard themselves and their con-
stituents as bound by the settlement. For they and
their electors were from first to last one, and there
could in the end be but one government for them all.
This indeed was the final condition of statehood,
the only foundation upon which the commonwealth
could rest.
Edward I. was no politician versed in the art of
evading or veiling issues, but a statesman who went
out to meet them. The plenary power of the deputy
to commit his constituents is the essence of repre-
sentation, and it was in this that the Parliaments
henceforward established in England difi'ered from
the Synod of Delos and the Diet of the Holy Boman
Empire. An idea had been realized in the machinery
of an actual government which made it possiWe,
even in that rude age, for a community, vastly too
great to listen to the voice of a single orator, to
formulate the general will in terms precise enough
to become the actuating principle of its government.
No sooner was Parliament assembled than the
men t*of its inhabitants of the towns and counties b^an to use
the burgesses and knights they had sent to it, as
vehicles for petitions to the King, asking for the
removal of abuses, and also demanding changes in
the law. Before granting supplies required by the
King, Parliament adopted the habit of awaiting his
reply to such petitions until he was pledged to adminis-
trative and legal reforms demanded by public opinion.
In 1322 a statute was issued by the King declaring
that ' the matters to be established for the estate of
the King and of his heirs, and for the estate of the
realm and of the people, should be treated, accorded,
and established in Parliament, by the King, and by
the assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and the
community of the realm, according as had been before
Assertion
exclusive
right to
alter the
law.
THX ENOLI8& OOMHONWBALTH 1 S
aoeustomed/ A further step waa taken when, in 1327, ohap.
Edward 11. waa depoBed, and Parliament assumed the ^^^^^
right of appointing his son, Edward III., to reign
in his place. Whenever his BQceesaors might olaim,
as they afterwards did, to rest their authority on
divine right, the Fing1ii>vh people could henceforward
point to a monarch whose right to reign was founded
expressly on the popular will In the reign of
Edward IIL it came to be recognized that no altera^
tion in the law was to be made by the King on his
own authority and without the consent of Parlia-
ment.
The exclusive right of the people to alter the law How thia
was thus established in principle. But as Dicey nndereT
shows it was characteristic of the English to place effective.
but little value on principles until they had secured a
machinery for giving effect to them in practice. To
begin with, the Parliaments, were content to vote
supplies as soon as the King had assented to their
petitions, leaving it to him to give effect to his
promises. When the King had agreed to change the
laws or make new ones, statutes were framed by ihe
judges and enrolled by his authority after the Parlia-
ment had been prorogued. But it was often found that
the new statutes differed in material respects from
the petitions of Parliament actually granted by the
King. Henry V. promised ' that nothing should be
enacted to the petitions of the commons, contrary to
their asking, whereby they should be bound without
their assent.' But so long aa the actual statute was
not framed until Parliament had been prorogued
there could be no security against abuse.. In the
reign of Henry YL Parliament therefore adopted the
plan of attaching to their petition a draft of the law
which they desired the King to enact. This draft or
bill became the subject of discussion in Parliament
before it was submitted to the King, and in these dis-
104 THE SNOLISH OOMMOKWEALTH
CHAP, cusfiions was developed a method of translating public
opinion into law which has become the basis of
parliamentary procedure throughout the civilized
world. Since the reign of Queen Anne no sovereign
has ventured to withhold assent from any bill pre-
sented by Parliament, so that the power of altering
the law has finally passed from the Crown to the
representatives of the peopla With the single ex-
ception of the veto this transfer of sovereignty had
been effected in principle by the reign of Henry VI.
In the fifteenth century, however, Parliamentary
government had outgrown its strength. It had
succeeded in weakening the authority of the crown
without being strong enough to replace it with the
authority of Parliament. A new feudalism arose,
more dangerous than any other that had hitherto
subsisted in England. Constitutional development
was summarily checked by the Wars of the Roses,
a series of dreary dynastic struggles lasting nearly to
the dose of the century. When Henry VII. won the
Crown on Bosworth field he was faced with a position
not dissimilar from that with which Henry II. had had
to cope more than three centuries before. The popular
despotism of the Tudors was the prelude to the con-
stitutional development which took place under the
Stuarts, and which drew its inspiration very largely
from the precedents set by the earlier movement
which began with de Montfort's Parliament and ended
with the fall of Henry VI. The victory of Parliament
in the Great Rebellion was followed by a military
dictatorship, but neither that nor the Restoration of
Charles II. could obliterate the lessons which had
been learnt in the school of Hampden and Pym.
With the expulsion of James II. firom the kingdom
the throne was established once more on a parlia-
mentary title, and the doctrine of divine right re-
vived by the Tudors and Stuarts received its final
THE ENQLI8H COMMONWEALTH 105
death-blow.^ Lord John Russell, when asked by chap.
Queen Victoria whether he did not believe in that
doctrine^ was able to reply, * As a loyal supporter of
the House of Hanover I am obliged to tell your
Majesty that I do not'
The exclusive right of altering the law was thus Difficulties
transferred, step by step, from the Crown to the f^"par-
representatives of the people. But even when }jjj.™°/'
Parliament had asserted the right to frame the very power to
words in which new laws were enacted, it still found execution
that the control which it exercised over national i^tmade*^'
affairs was extremely limited, so long as the duty
of executing the law remained with the King. Laws,
especially those granting money (and they are the
most important laws of all) can at best declare the
will of the community in general terms. Without
any violation of their letter such laws may be
executed in different ways, and different policies
may be involved in their execution, according to the
disposition of the executive entrusted with the. task.
It was only in the nature of things that the policy
of the King should at times differ from that which
Parliament or the nation would have preferred, and
in such cases the only remedy open to Parliament
was to refuse to vote supplies until their wishes were
observed. But a control which can only be exercised
by paralysing government is a precarious control.
It does not follow that a ship will stay where it is
if the stokers refuse to shovel the coal until the
navigating officer has agreed to steer the course they
desire ; for while the controversy is proceeding the ship
may drift on the rocks. If some such system has so
far worked in the United States it is merely because
it happens to be far removed from hostile shores.
It was in order to solve this diflSculty that the
Crown attempted in the seventeenth and eighteenth
^ See Note D at the end of Chapter I.
106
TH£ ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
II
Transfer
from
Crown to
Parlia-
ment of
execatiTe
control.
centuries to recover control of the legislature, partly
by packing the House of Commons with its own
nominees, and partly by buying the votes of its
members. Rotten boroughs, or sham constituencies,
in which the electors were so few as to be amenable to
the influence of the Crown, were created. Patronage
and money were freely used to influence votes in
Parliament itself. These practices were gradually
stopped by a series of reforms which removed the
members from the influence of the Crown, and
rendered them more accountable to the constituencies
which elected them. But the solution of the problem
was only reached when the sovereign ceased to dis-
charge the functions of the executive, and trantrferred
them to the minister who, for the time being, was
regarded as their leader by the majority in the
House of Commons. Thus at last the organ of the
general will was able not only to make the laws, but
to determine the manner of their execution, and the
constitutional conflict was ended. The sovereign,
however, retained an all-important function. He still
held the pow^ of attorney for the Commonwealth,
by means of which, in the last resort, the nation
could be enabled to declare whether a parliament or
government were rightly interpreting its will. The
prerogative of the Crown had, as Dicey declares,
become the privileges of the people, and sovereignty
had passed from the monarch to a popular assembly.
The monarch had, in fact, become the hereditary
president of a republic, and whatever her private
views may have been on the subject of divine right,
the momentous change was finally consummated
by the tact and statesmanship of Queen Victoria
hersel£ No president holding oflSice by the votes
of a dominant party could ever identify himself so
completely with the nation as the monarchy has
done since Queen Victoria ascended the throne.
'LATE VII
THE BNOLISH COMMON WBALTH 10*7
Edward I. can scarcely have realized when he chap.
II
issued his famous writ that he, a powerful despot, „.^.,.^^,.^^
was laying the foundation of commonwealths greater with each
than the ancients had ever conceived. By the device ^ntTn
of representation the principle of government based ^^â„¢g"^'
on the experience of the governed was destined to larger
"LJiTiT 11 common-
be rendered applicable to states more populous than wealths
the Boman Empire. But even so its extension p^â„¢fe.
depended on gradual improvements in physical means
of communication ; and it was not perhaps till the
last half century that it became possible for the prin-
ciple of the commonwealth to be applied to territories
so large as those of Australia, Canada, or the present
area of the United States.
In the Middle Ages constituencies evaded the Edward i.
writs whenever they could, and knights and burgesses exclude
made pathetic attempts to avoid election. To collect ^^® .
^ p, colonies
m one place representatives from every part of a from the
country no larger than England was in that rude p^ia*
age a bold idea, and, no doubt, contemporary wise- ™°^*
acres argued that because it was novel and difficult, it
was therefore impossible. The event proved otherwise ;
but if Edward had summoned representatives from
his oversea dominions to meet him at Westminster,
the experiment must almost certainly have failed.
The words * oversea dominions ' suggest the remark a separate
that the age of colonization did not begin three nTentT
hundred years later, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, ^^^^
but had already begun in the reign of Henry 11. , some English
four centuries and a half before Virginia was planted, in Ireland.
When Edward I. summoned the model Parliament
in 1295, the English had actually been conqyiering
and founding colonies in Ireland for more than a
century. But though the Plantagenets claimed sove-
reignty over the whole island, their rule had never
been extended beyond the English colonies, which
clustered round the ports, to the natives themselves.
108 THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. Their actual authority over Ireland was indeed
scarcely greater than that exercised by James I.
over North America. The Irish Channel was then
more dangerous and difficult to cross than the
Atlantic to-day, and instead of calling upon the
colonists to send representatives to Westminster,
Edward I. instructed his Viceroy to convene a
separate parliament at Dublin. At the very outset,
the fissiparous tendency, which prevented the creation
of a national state in Greece, imposed itself on the
man who must rank as the founder of the national
commonwealth in the modern world.
NOTE A
See page By speci&l leave of the distinguished author, which is here gratefully
97. acknowledged, Chapter IV. of The Law of the OonstUuiion, by Prof. A. V.
Dicey, together with its notes and references, is appended in frill.
THE RULE OF LAW: ITS NATURE AND GENERAL
APPLICATION
The Rule Two features have at all times since the Norman Conquest
of Law. characterized the political institutions of England.
The first of these features is the omnipotence or undisputed
supremacy throughout the whole country of the central
government This authority of the state or the nation was
during the earlier periods of our history represented by the
power of the Crown. The King was the source of law and the
maintainer of order. The maxim of the Courts, tout fuit in luy
et vient de lui al commencement,^ was originally the expression of
an actual and undoubted fact. This royal supremacy has now
passed into that sovereignty of Parliament which has formed the
main subject of the foregoing chapters.^
The second of these features, which is closely connected with
the first, is the rule or supremacy of law. This peculiarity of
our polity is well expressed in the old saw of the Courts, ^La Uy
est la plus haute inheritaTice, que le ray ad ; car par la ley il mSme et
torn ses sujeis sont ruU$^ et si la ley ne fuit^ nvl roi, et nvl inheri-
tance sera,' *
^ Year Books, xxir. Edward III. ; cited Gneist, Englische V^erwaltungs-
rechtf i. p. 454.
2 See Part I.
* Year Books, xix. Henry VI. , cited Gneist, Englisehe Vervoaltungsreckt^
i. p. 455.
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH 109
This supremacy of the law, or the security given under the CHAP.
English constitution to the rights of individuals looked at from H
various points of view, forms the subject of this part of this '*--'-v-«^^
treatise.
Foreign obsei*vers of JBnglish manners, sueh for example as The rule
Voltaire, De Lolme, Tocqueville, or Gneist, have been far more ^ ^*^ ^J
struck than have Englishmen themselves with the fact that no^ced
England is a country governed, as is scarcely any other part of by foreign
Europe, under the rule of law ; and admiration or astonishment ooeervera.
at the legality of English habits and feeling is nowhere better
expressed than in a ciunous passage from Tocqueville's writings,
which compares the Switzerland and the England of 1836 in
respect of the spirit which pervades their laws and manners/
' I am not about,' he writes, ' to compare Switzerland ^ with Tocque-
the United States, but with Great Britain. When you examine ^^* ^^
the two countries, or even if you only pass through them, yQu ^f respect
perceive, in my judgment, the most astonishing differences for law in
between them. Take it all in all, England seems to be much f'^^"'^ j
more republican than the Helvetic Republic. The principal contrant
differences tfre toxfnd in the institutions of the two countries, and with
especially in their customs (moBurs). England.
' 1. In almost all the Swiss Cantons liberty of the press is a
very recent thing.
' 2. In almost all of them individual liberty is by no means
completely guaranteed, and a man may be arrested administra-
tively and detained in prison without much formality.
'3. The Courts have not, generally speaking, a perfectly
independent position.
* 4. In all the Cantons trial by jury is unknown.
*6. In several Cantons the people were thirty-eight years
ago entirely without political rights. Aargau, Thurgau, Tessin,
Vaud, and parts of the Cantons of Zurich and Berne were in
this condition.
*The preceding observations apply even more strongly to
customs than to institutions.
*i. In many of the Swiss Cantons the majority of the
citizens are quite without taste or desire for self-govemmtnt, and
have not acquired the habit of it In any crisis they interest
themselves about their affairs, but you never see in them the
thirst for political rights and the craving to take part in public
affairs which seem to torment Englishmen throughout their lives.
* ii. The Swiss abuse the liberty of the press on account of
its being a recent form of liberty, and Swiss newspapers are much
more revolutumary and much less practical than English news-
papers.
^ Many of Tooqueville's remarks are not applicable to the Switzerland of
1902 : tl^ey refer to a period before the creation in 1848 of the Swiss Federal
Constitution.
110 THE ENGLISH COMMOKWKALTH
CHAP. 'iii. The Swiss seem still to look upon associations from
n much the same point of view as the French, that is to say, thej
^-^^'v^'^^ consider them as a means of revolution, and not as a slow and
sure method for obtaining redress of wrongs. The art of
associating and of making use of the right of association is but
little understood in Switzerland.
* iv. The Swiss do not show the love of justice which is such
a strong characteristic of the English. Their Courts have no
place in the political arrangements of the country, and exert
no influence on public opinion. The love of justice, the peaceful
and legal introduction of the judge into the domain of politics,
are perhaps the most standing characteristics of a free people.
' V. Finally, and this really embraces all the rest^ the Swiss
do not show at bottom that respect for justice, that love of law,
that dislike of using force; without which no free nation can
exist, which strikes strangers so forcibly in England.
' I sum up these impressions in a few words.
' Whoever travels in the United States is involuntarily and
instinctively so impressed with the fact that the spirit of liberty
and the taste for it have pervaded all the habits of the
American people, that he cannot conceive of them under any
but a Republican government In the same way it is impossible
to think of the English as living under any but a free govern-
ment. But if violence were to destroy the Eepublioan institutions
in most of the Swiss Cantons, it would be by no means certain
that after rather a short state of transition the people would not
grow accustomed to the loss of liberty. In the United States
and in England there seems to be more liberty in the customs
than in the laws of the people. In Switzerland there seems to
be more liberty in the laws than in the customs of the country.' ^
Bearing of Tocqueville's language has a twofold bearing on our juresent
Tocc^ue- topic. His words point in the clearest manner to the rule,
remarks predominance, or supremacy of law as the distinguishing
on mean- characteristic of English institutions. They further direct
ingofrule attention to the extreme vagueness of a trait of national
character which is as noticeable as it is hard to portray.
Tocqueville, we see, is clearly perplexed how to define a feature
of English manners of which he at once recognizes the existence ;
he mingles or confuses together the habit of aelf-govemment, the
love of order, the respect for justice and a legal turn of mind.
All these sentiments are intimately allied, but they cannot with-
out confusion be identified with each other. If, however, a
critic as acute as Tocqueville found a difficulty in describing one
of the most marked peculiarities of English life, we may safely
conclude that we ourselves, whenever we talk of Englishmen as
loving the government of law, or of the supremacy of law as
being a characteristic of the English constitution, are using words
^ See Tocqueville, (Euvres cmnpUtes, viii. ])p. 455-457.
THE SHGLISH COMMONWEALTH 111
which, though they possefis a real aignificance, are nevertheless OHAP.
to most persons who employ them full of vagueness and IK
ambiguity. If therefore we are ever to appreciate the full '^-^v-'*^
import of the idea denoted by the term ' rule, supremacy, or
predominance of law/ we must first determine precisely what we
mean by such expressions when we apply them to the British
constitution.
When we say that the supremacy or the rule of law is a Three
characteristic of the English constitution, we generally include â„¢amng8
under one expression at least three distinct though kindred i^^^,
conceptions.
We mean, in the first place, that no man is punishable or can Absence of
be lawfully made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct arbitrary
breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before ^^^ofUie
the ordinary Courts of the land. In this sense the rule of law is govern-
contrasted with every system of government based on the °^®'^^*
exercise by persons in authority of wide, arbitrary, or dis-
cretionary powers of constraint.
Modern Englishmen may at first feel some surprise that the Contrast
* rule of law ' (in the sense in which we are now using the term) ^®*^®®^
should be considered as in any way a peculiarity of English and the
institutions, since, at the present day, it may seem to be not Continent
so much the property of any one nation as a trait common to ^^ present
every civilized and orderly state. Yet, even if we confine our *^'
observation to the existing condition of Europe, we shall soon be
convinced that the 'rule of law' even in this nisrrow sense is
peculiar to England, or to those countries which, like the
United States of America, have inherited English traditions. In
almost every continental community the executive exercises
far wider discretionary authority in the matter of arrest, of
temporary imprisonment^ of expulsion from its territory, and the
like, than is either legally claimed or in fact exerted by the
government in England ; and a study of European politics now
and again reminds English readers that wherever there is •
discretion there is room for arbitrariness, and that in a republic
no less than under a monarchy discretionary authority on the
part of the government must mean insecurity for legal freedom
on the part of its subjects.
If, however, we confined our observation to the Europe of
the twentieth century, we might well say that in most European
countries the rule of law is now nearly as well established as in
England, and that private individuals at any rata who do not
meddle in politics have little to fear, as long as they keep the
law, either from the Government or from any one else ; and we
might therefore feel some difficulty in understanding how it ever
happened that to foreigners the absence of arbitrary power on
the part of the Crown, of the executive, and of every other
authority in England, has always seemed a striking feature, we
112
THE ENGLISH CX)MMONW£ALTH
CHAP.
II
Contrast
between
England
and Con-
tinent
daring
eighteenth
century.
might almost say the essential characteristic, of the English
constitution.^
Our perplexity is entirely removed by carrying back our
minds to the time when the English constitution began to be
criticized and admired by foreign thinkers. During the
eighteenth century many of the continental governments were
far from oppressive, but there was no continental country where
men were secure from arbitrary power. The singularity of
England was not so much the goodness or the leniency as the
legality of the English system of government When Voltaire
came to England — and Voltaire represented the feeling of his
age — his predominant sentiment clearly was that he had passed
out of the realm of despotism to a land where the laws might be
harsh, but where men were ruled by law- and not by caprice.*
He had good reason to know the difference. In 1717 Voltaire
was sent to the Bastille for a poem which he had not written, of
which he did not know the author, and with the sentiment of
which he did not agree. What adds to the oddity, in English
eyes, of the whole transaction is that the Eegent treated the
affair as a sort of joke, and, so to speak, ' chaffed ' the supposed
author of the satire ' / have seen ' on being about to pay a visit to
a prison which he 'had not seen.'^ In 1725 Voltaire, then the
literary hero of his country, was lured off from the table of a
Duke, and was thrashed by lackeys in the presence of their noble
master; he was unable to obtain either legal or honourable
redress, and because he complained of this outrage, paid a second
visit to the Bastille. This indeed was the last time in which he
was lodged within the walls of a French gaol, but his whole life
was a series of contests with arbitrary power, and nothing but
his fame, his deftness, his infinite resource, and ultimately his
wealth, saved him from penalties far more severe than temporary
imprisonment. Moreover, the price at which Voltaire saved his
property and his life was after all exile from France. Whoever
wants to see how exceptional a phenomenon was that supremacy
^ ' La liberty est le droit de faire tont ce qne les lois pennettent ; et si nn
citoyen pouvoit faire ce qu'elles d^fendent, il n'auroit pins de liberty, paroe
que les autres auroient tout de m^me ce pouvoir.' — Montesquieu, De VesprU
des lois, livre XI. chap. ill.
' II 7 a aussi une nation dans le monde qui a pour objet direct de sa con-
stitution la liberty politique.' — Ibid. chap. v. The English are this nation.
' ' Les circonstances qui contraignaient Voltaire k chercher un refuge chez
nos Toisins devaient lui inspirer une grande sympathie pour des institutions
oil il n*7 avait nulle place k I'arbitraire. ' * La raison est libre ici et n'y connatt
point de contrainte." On y respire un air plus g^n^reuz, Ton se sent an
milieu de citoyens qui n'ont pas tort de porter le front haut, de marcher
fi^rement, siirs qu'on n'e^t pu toucher a un seul cheveu de leur tSte, et
n'ayant k redonbter ni lettres de cachet, ni captivity immotiv^.' —
Desnoiresterres, VoUairet i. p. 866.
' pesnoiresterres, i. pp. 844-364.
THE SIVOIiISH OOMMOK WEALTH 113
of law which existed in England daring the eighteenth century CHAP,
should read such a book as Morley's l^e cf Diderot The effort H
lasting for twenty-two years to get the Encifclopidie published
was a struggle on the part of all the distinguished literary men
in France to obtain utterance for tfajsir thoughts. It is hard
to say whether the difficulties or the success of the contest bear
the strongest witness to the way wacd arbitrariness of the French
QoYemment
Royal lawlessness was not peculiar to specially detestable
monarchs such as Louis the Fifteenth : it was inherent in the
French system of administration. An idea prevails that Louis
the Sixteenth at least was not an arbitrary, as he assuredly was
not a cruel rulw. But it is an error to suppose that up to 1 789
anything like the supremacy of law jossted under the French
monarchy. The folly, the grievances, and the mystery of the
Chevalier D'Eon made as much noise little more than a century
ago as the imposture of the Claimant in our own day. The
memory of these things is not in itself wortb reviving. What
does deserve to be kept in remembrance is that in 1778, in t^
days of Johnson, of Adam Smith, of Gibbon, of Cowper, of
Burke, «nd of Mansfield, during the continuance of the American
war and within eleven years of the assembling of the States
Greneral, a brave officer and a distis^ished diplomatist could
for some offence still unknown, without trial and without con-
viction, be condemned to undergo a penance and disgrace which
could hardly be rivalled by the fanciful caprice of the torments
inflicted by Oriental despotism.^
Nor let it be imagined that during the latter part of the
eighteenth •century the government oi France was more arbitnury
than that of other countries. To entertain such a supposition
is to misconceive utterly the condition of the Continent In
France, law and public opinion counted for a great deal more
than in Spain, in the petty States of Italy, or in the Principalities
of (xermany. All the evils of despotism which attracted the
notice of the world in a great kingdom such as France existed
under worse forms in countries where, just because the evil was
so much greater, it attracted the less attention. The power
of the French monarch was criticized more severely than the
lawlessness of a score of petty tyrants, not because the French
King ruled more despotically than other crowned heads, but
because the French people appeared from the eminence o| the
nation to have a ^lecial claim to freedom, and because the
ancient kingdom of France was the typical representative of
despotism. This explains the thrill of enthusiasm with which
^ It is worth notice that even after the meeting of the States General
the King was apparently reluctant to give np altogether the powers exercised
by UUres de cachet. See 'Declaration des intentions dn Roi,' art. 15,
Plonard, Lu CtmUUvJiions frcm^aise», p. 10.
116
THE BHQLI8H COMMON WSAI/TH
CHAF.
II
Contrast
between
the
English
constitu-
tion and
Forei^
conatitu-
tions.
has not been made but has grown.' This dictum, If taken
literally, is absurd. 'Political institutions (however the
proposition may be at times ignored) are the' work of men, owe
their origin and their whole Bjdstence to human will. Men did
not wake up on a summer morning and find them sprung up.
Neither do they resemble trees, which, once planted, are '* aye
growing" while men ''are sleeping." In every stage of their
existence they are made what they are by human voluntary
agency/ ^
Yet^ though this is so, the dogma that the form of a govern-
ment is a sort of spontaneous growth so closely bound up with
the life of a people that we can hardly treat it as a product of
human will and energy, does, though in a loose and inaccurate
fashion, bring into view the fact that some polities, and am<Hig
them the English constitution, have not been created at one
stroke, and, far from being the result of legislation, in the
ordinary sense of that term, are the fruit of contests carried on
in the Courts on behalf of the rights of individuals. Our con-
stitution, in short, is a judge-made constitution, and it bears
on its face all the features, good and bad, of judge-made law.
Hence flow noteworthy distinctions between the constitution
of England and the constitutions of most foreign countries.
There is in the English constitution an absence of those
declarations or definitions of rights so dear to foreign con-
stitutionalists. Such principles, moreover, as you can discover
in the English constitution are, like all maxims established by
judicial legislation, mere generalizations drawn either from the
decisions or dicta of judges, or from statutes which, being
passed to meet special grievances, bear a close resemblance
to judicial decisions, and are in efieot judgments pronounced
by the High Court of Parliament. To put what is really the
same thing in a somewhat different shape, the relation of the
ri^ts of individuals to the principles of the constitution is not
quite the same in oountries like Belgium, where the constitution
is the result of a legislative act, as it is in En^and, where the
constitution itself is based upon legal decisions. In Belgium,
which may be taken as a type of countries possessing a con*
stitution formed by a deliberate act of legislation, you may say
with truth that the rights of individuals to personal liberty
flow from or are secured by the constitution. In England the
right to individual liberty is part of the constitution, because
it is secured by the decisions of the Courts, extended or confirmed
as they are by the Habeas Corpus Acts. 'If it be allowable to
apply the formulas of logic to questions of law, the difference
in this matter between the constitution of Belgium and the
English constitution may be described by the statement that
in Belgium individual rights are deductions drawn from the
^ Mill, RepreaevUative Owemmtid, p. 4.
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH 117
principles of the constitution, whilst in England the so-called CHAP,
principles of the constitution are inductions or generalizations H
based upon particular decisions pronounced by the Courts as to
the rights of given indiyiduals.
This is of course a merely formal difference. Liberty is as
well secured in Belgium as in England, and as long as this is so
it matters nothing whether we say that individuals are free from
all risk of arbitrary arrest, ^because liberty of person is guaranteed
by the constitution, or that the right to personal freedom, or in
other words to protection from arbitrary arrest, forms part of the
constitution because it is secured by the ordinary law of the land.
But though this merely formal distinction is in itself of no
moment, provided always that the rights of individuals are really
secure, the question whether the right to personal freedom or
the right to freedom of worship is likely to be secure does depend
a good deal upon the answer to the inquiry whether the persons
who consciously or unconsciously build up the constitution of
their country begin with definitions or declarations of rights, or
with the contrivance of remedies by which rights may be en-
forced or secured. Now, most foreign constitution-makers have
begun with declarations of rights. For this they have often
been in nowise to blame. Their course of action has more often
than not been forced upon them by the stress of circumstances,
and by the consideration that to lay down general principles of
law is the proper and natural function of legislators. But any
knowledge of history suffices to show that foreign constitu-
tionalists have^ while occupied in defining rights, given insuffi-
cient attention to the absolute necessity for the provision of
adequate remedies by which the rights they proclaimed might
be enforced. The Oonstitution of 1791 proclaimed liberty of
conscience, liberty of the press, the right of public meeting, the
responsibility of government officials.^ But there never was a
period in the recorded annals of mankind when each and all of
these rights were so insecure, one might almost say so completely
non-existent, as at the height of the French Revolution. And
an observer may well doubt whether a good number of these
liberties or rights are even now so well protected under the
French Bepublic as under the English Monarchy. On the other
band, there runs through the English constitution that insepar-
able connection between the means of enforcing a right and the
right to be enforced which is the strength of judicial legislation.
The saw, ubijus ibi remedium^ becomes from this point of view
something much more important than a mere tautologous pro-
position. In its bearing upon constitutional law, it means that
tbe Englishmen whose labours gradually framed the complicated
set of laws and institutions which we call the Constitution, fixed
^ See Flonard, Les GonsUtiUioms fran^iaes^ pp. 14-16 ; Duguit and
Monnier, LtB CofutUutians de la France (2iid ed.), pp. 4, 5.
118 THE EHGUSH OOMMONWSALTH
CHAP, their minds far more intently on proTiding remedies for the
n enf<»oement of particalar rights or (what is merely the same
thing looked at from the other side) for arerting definite wrongg,
than upon any declaration of the Ri^ts of Man or of Englishmen.
The Habeas Carpus Acts dedare no principle and define no ri^ts,
but they are for practical purposes worth a hundred constitu-
tional articles gnanmteeing individual liberty. Nm* let it be
supposed that this connection between rights and remedies which
depends upon the spirit of law pervading English institutions is
inconsiBtent with the existence of a written constitution, ix even
with the existence of constitutional declarations of rights. The
Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the
separate States are embodied in written or printed documents,
and contain declarations of rights.^ But the statesmen of
America have shown unrivalled skill in providing means for
giving legal security to the rights dedared by American constitu-
tions. The rule of law is as marked a feature of the United
States as of England.
The fact, again, that in many foreign countries the rights of
individuals, e.g. to personal freedom, depend upon the constitu-
tion, whilst in En^and the law of the constitution is littie else
than a generalization of the rights which the Courts secure
to individuals, has this important result. The general rights
giutfunteed by the constitution may be, and in foreign countries
constantly are, suspended. They are something extraneous to
and independent of the ordinary course of the law. The declara-
tion of the Belgian constitution, that individual liberty is
'guaranteed,' betrays a way of looking at the rights of indi-
viduals very different from the way in which such rights are
regarded by English lawyers. We can hardly say that one right
is more guaranteed than another. Freedom from arbitrary
^ The Petition of Bight, and the Bill of Bights, as also the American
Declarations of Bights, contain, it may be said, proclamations of general
principles which resemble the declarations of rights known to foreign consti-
tutionalists, and especially the celebrated Declaration of the Bights of Man
{DidarcUion des Droits de V Homme et du Citoyen) of 1789. But the English
and American Declarations on the one hand, and foreign declarations of
rights on the other, though bearing an apparent resemblance to each other,
are at bottom remarkable rather by way of contrast than of similarily. The
Petition of Bight and the Bill of Bights are not so much ' declarations of
rights ' in the foreign sense of the term, as judicial condemnations of claims
or practices on the part of the Crown, which are thereby pronounced illegal.
It will be found that every, or nearly every, clause in the two celebrated
documents negatives some distinct claim made and put into force on behalf
of the prerogative. Ko doubt the Declarations contained in the American
Constitutions have a real similarity to the continental declarations of rights.
They are the product of eighteenth-century ideas ; they have, however, it is
submitted, the distinct purpose of legally controlling the action of the
legislature by the Articles of the Constitution.
THE XNGLI8H COMMONWEALTH 119
arrest) the right to express one's opinion on all matters subject OHAP.
to the liability to pay compensation for libellous or to suffer II
pomshment for seditious or blasphemous statements, and the ^--*v^<i^-^
right to enjoy one's own property, seem to Englishmen all to
rest upon the same basia^ namely, on the law of the land. To
say that the ' constitution guaranteed ' one class of rights more
than the other would be to an Englishman an unnatural or a
senseless form of speech. In the Belgian constitution the words
have a definite meaning. They imply tliat no law invading
personal freedom can be passed without a modification of the
constitution made in the special way in which alone the constitu-
tion can be legally changed or amended. This, however, is not
the point to which our immediate attention should be directed.
The matter to be noted is, that where the right to individual
freedom is a result deduced from the principles of the constitu-
tion, the idea readily occurs that the right is capable of being
suspended or tak^i away. Where, on the other hand, the right
to individual freedom is part of the constitution because it is
inherent in the ordinary law of the land, the right is one which
can hardly be destroyed without a thorough revolution in the
institutions and manners of the nation. The so-called ' suspen-
sion of the Hidfeas Corpus Act ' bears^ it is true, a certain similarity
to what is called in foreign countries ' suspending the constitu-
tional guarantees.' But^ after all, a statute suspending the Habeas
Corpus Act falls very far short of what its popular name seems to
imply ; and though a serious measure enough, is not, in reality,
more than a suspension of one particular remedy for the prote<^on
of personal freedom. The Habeas Corpus Act may be suspended
and yet Englishmen, may enjoy almost all the rights of (AtAzena,
The constitution being based on the rule of law, the suspension
of the constitution, as far as such a thing can be conceived
possible, would mean with us nothing less than a revolution.
That *rule of law,' then, which forms a fundamental principle
of the constitution, has three meanings, or may be regarded
from three different points of view.
It means, in the first place, the absolute supremacy or Summary
predominance of regular law as opposed to the influence of of
arbitrary power, and excludes the existence of arbitrariness, ^^^1°^
of prerogative, or even of wide discretionary authority on the of Law.
part of the government Englishmen are ruled by the law, and
by the law alone ; a man may with us be punished for a breach
of law, but he can be punished for nothing else.
It means, again, equality before the law, or the equal sub-
jection of all classes to the ordinary law of the land administered
by the ordinary Law Courts; the 'rule of law' in this sense
excludes the idea of any exemption of officials or others from
the duty of obedience to the kw which governs other citizens
or from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals; there can
120
THE EHGLISH COMMOOfrWEALTH
OHAP.
II
be with ufl nothing really eorrefiponding to the ' administrative
law' (droit administrai^) or the ' administratiye tribunals'
{trUmnauz adminutraiifs) of France.^ The notion wkieh ties at
the bottom of the ' administratiye law' known to foreign
countries is, that affairs or disputes in which the gorMmmmt
or its servants are concerned are beyond the sphere of the civil
Courts and must be dealt with by special and more or less
official bodies. This idea is utterly unknown to the law of
England, and indeed is fundamentally inconsistent with our
traditions and customs.
The 'rale of law,' lastly, may be used as a formula for
expressing the fact that with us the law of the constitution,
the rules which in foreign countries naturally form part of a
constitutionid code, are not the source but the consequence
of the rights of individuals, as defined and enforced by the
Courts ; that, in short, the principles of private kw have with
us been by the action of the Courts and Parliament so extended
as to determine the position of the Crown and of its servants ;
thus the constitution is the result of the ordinary law of the
land.
Influence General propositions, however, as to the nature of the rule
of * Rule of qI \^yf carry us but a very little way. If we want to understand
leading what that principle in all its different aspects and developments
provisions really means, we must try to trace its influence throughout
^tt^S ^otb^ of the main provisions of the constitution. The best
mode of doing this is to examine with care the manner in
Which the law of Ikigland deals with the following topics,
namely, the right to personal freedom ; ^ the light to freedom
of discussion ; ^ the right of pnblio meeting ; ^ the use of martial
law ; ^ the rights and duties of the artny -, ^ the collection and
expenditure of the public revenue;^ and the responsibility of
Ministers.^ The true nature, further, of the rule of law as it
exists in England will be illustrated by contrast with the idea
of droU administraiify or administrative law, which prevails in
many continental countries.^ These topics will each be treated
of in their due order. The object, however, of this treatase, as
the reader should remember, is hot to provide minute and ifull
information, e.ff. as to thd Habms Corpus Acts, or other enact-
ments protectitig the liberty of the subject; but simply to
show that these leading heads of constitutional law, which
have been enumerated, these 'articles,' so to speak, of the
constitution, are both governed by, and afford illustrations of,
the supremacy throughout English institutions of the law of
* See chap. xii.
* Chap. tii.
â– ^ Ohap. X.
* Chap. y.
Chap. viii.
^ Chap. xi.
» Chap. yi.
• Chap. ijc.
' Chap. xii.
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH 121
the land.^ If at Bome future day the law of the constitution CHAP,
should be codified, each of the topics I have mentioned would n
be dealt with by the sections of the code. Many of these
subjects are actually dealt with in the written constitutions of
foreign countries, and notably in the articles of the Belgian
constitution, which, as before noticed, makes an admirable
summary of the leading maxims of English constitutionalism.
It will therefore often be a convenient method of illustrating
our topic to take the article of the Belgian, or it may be of
Bomh other constitution, which bears on the matter in hand, as
for example the right to personal freedom, and to consider
how far the principle therein embodied is recognized by the
law of England ; and if it be so recognized, what are the means
by which it is maintained or enforced by our Courts. One
reason why the law of the constitution is imperfectly understood
is, that we too rarely put it side by side with the constitutional
provisions of other countries. Here, as elsewhere, comparison
is essential to recognition.
NOTE B
RECENT ATTEMPTS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM TO ANTICIPATE
ACTS OF PARLIAMENT
' By the statute 1 William and Mary, usually known as the See page
Bill of Rights, it was finally settled that there could be no ^^'
taxation in this country except under authority of an Act of
Parliament. The Bill of Rights still remained unrepealed,
and no practice or custom, however prolonged or however
acquiesced in on the part of the subject, could be relied on
by the Grown as justifying any infringement of its provisions.
It followed that with regard to the powers of the Crown to
levy taxation no resolution, either of the Committee for Ways
and Means or of the House itself, had any legal effect whatever.
Such resolutions were necessitated by a Parliamentary procedure
adopted with a view to the protection of the subject against the
hasty imposition of taxes, and it would be strange to find them
^ The rule of equal law is in England now exposed to a new peril. * The
Legislature has thought fit/ writes Sir F. Pollock, 'by the Trade Disputes
Act, 1906, to confer extraordinary immunities on combinations both of
employers and of workmen, and to some extent on persons acting in their
interests. Legal science has evidently notliing to do with this violent
empirical operation on the body politic, and we can only look to jurisdictions
beyond seas for the further judicial consideration of the problems which
our Courts were endeavouring (it is submitted, not without a reasonable
measure of success) to work out on principles of legal justice.' — Pollock,
Law of Torts (8th ed.), p. v.
122 THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, relied on as justifying the Crown in levying a tax before such
n tax was actually imposed by Act of Parliament
'His Lordship did not^ however, understand that the
Attorney-General on behalf of the Crown really dissented from
this position/ ^
The Attorney-General having failed to convince the Court
that the tax had been authorized by law at the time of levying
it, judgment was given against the Crown.
' Mr. Justice Parker in Bowles v. Bank of England^ Times Law Keports,
Not. 5, 1912.
CHAPTER III
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
As soon as the Greeks had learned to base govemment chap.
• III
on the experience of the governed, European society v.^^,,,,^^
began to progress. Asia, on the other hand, clinging Results of
to the idea that the existing order was divinely f^^^us
ordained, remained stationary, so that civilization chapters
was parted into two camps, each of which contended ized. The
for mastery with the other. But Greece developed ^^d""'"**'
the commonwealth in a form too delicate to survive ^^
the struggle, and Rome, in organizing a state strong jjj^^^^
enouorh to save her own civilization, resorted to cjonflict
by the
despotism, under which the patriotism essential to its opening of
vitaUty perished. Eventually its Western half was ^^^^^^^^
destroyed by German barbarians. They, however,
revived the Empire in a form which prevented them
from realizing the unity of a state, and failed, there-
fore, to develop a national law of their own, to
recognize law as the supreme authority, or to learn
how to mould it by the general experience of the
community. The seed of the commonwealth, inherent
in Grerman custom, failed to fructify in mediaeval
Europe, and was overgrown and stifled by the despotic
law and tradition inherited from Rome. This was
the theme of the first chapter of this inquiry, and the
second chapter has explained how German custom
came to take root in the British Isles and there
developed a law and a polity which were essentially
128
124 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP. Teutonic. It was in England that the principle of
the commonwealth, which had perished with the
Greek and Roman republics, was once more realized,
but in a form which transcended the narrow limitations
imposed upon it, as the ancients believed, by Nature
herself Their inherent capacity for change — the
necessary condition of growth — never deserted the
people of Europe, and saved them from reverting to
the condition of Asiatics. But the kind of state
which not merely admits but actually stimulates
growth was revived in England and not on the
Continent. European civilization differs from that
of Asia as one genus from another. In England the
fundamental characteristics of the European genus
were so developed as to form a distinctive species.
Thus, at the close of the Middle Ages, the West had
produced two main varieties of civilization which
might have lived side by side without mutual conflict
if new oceans and continents had not suddenly been
opened as a field in which the exclusive claims of the
one imposed upon the other a struggle for existence.
The apple of discord which fell into the garden of the
Hesperides and roused the nations to contend for its
possession was the Wcwrld itself.
Opening Throughout the Middle Ages the people of Europe,
World ignoring the regions and races that lay beyond it,
ab^ut^by thought of themselvcs as the universe.^ Meantime,
Europe's howcvcr, their increasing; control over physical
increasing i • t i i i
control nature was destined, by enlarging their outlook and
physical revolutionizing the conditions of life, to bring the
Middle Ages to a close. They suddenly discovered
how to navigate the high seas, reached the continents
that lay beyond them, and became conscious of their
own capacity to dominate them. But in extending
to a larger world their now diverging systems they
found themselves in collision.
* See p. 83,
over
phy£
nature.
THE OPSNINO OF THE HIG^ SEAd 125
This world-wide revolution was introduced by chap.
Ill
another most dangerous attempt from Asia to ^^,,„.,^^.^^
submerge Europe. The events which precipitated changes
the struggle between Europe and England for the SiS^by
mastery of the world were themselves but a phase encroLh-
of * that Eternal Question between West and East ' ^ ^^i^
which was opened by the wars between Greece and on the
Persia. It was the destruction of the last remnants ^^
of the Eastern Roman Empire by the Turks which
more than anything else drove Europe to the mari-
time enterprise by which every ocean and shore on
the face of this planet have in the last four centuries
been exposed to the action of its civilization. Whether
that influence was to be exerted in its Continental or
in its Anglo-Saxon form was a matter which affected
the other continents more vitally, perhaps, than
Europe itself.
The Holy Roman Empire did little enough to keep Fail of
order in Europe ; but it did even less to protect tmopie
Christendom against invasion jBcom without. Happily *u^^^"
for Europe, its gate was long guarded by the Eastern ^^?f^^°
or Byzantine portion of the Roman Empire which £|r
survived for almost 1000 years after Odoacer ex-
tinguished the original Empire of the West. In
1204 the Crusaders paused in their advance against
the Infidel to inflict on their fellow -Christians at
Constantinople a blow from which the Byzantine
Empire never recovered. In 1453 its capital was
stormed by the Turks, and the last of the Caesars feU,
buried beneath the bodies of his subjects. As when
the Persians passed Thermopylae, and as when the
Franks con&onted the Saracens in the heart of
France, so again the invading hordes of Asia swept
across the natural frontiers of Europe to the gates of
Vienna. Greece, the Aegean Islands, and the whole
Balkan Peninsula were ground beneath their heel, and
^ 'Bee page 28.
126 THE OPENIKO OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP. Christendom, which had long wrestled with Islam for
the sanctuary of her faith, now abandoned to that
militant creed countries which had been the cradle
of her civilization. To this hour the position of the
Turk in Europe has remained the most difficult and
dangerous of the problems which divide the world
into armed camps.
ThefaUof In all the history of Roman rule no event was
tinopie iraught with consequences more far-reaching than
stimulated j^g ^^^ extinction at Constantinople. Byzantine
Kenaia- scholars fled, with such of their manuscripts as they
Reforma. could Carry, to the schools of Europe where the
cimedthe literature of ancient Greece was now being studied
*â„¢;^? Jf â„¢" anew. Western civilization was stirred by a freshet
munica- •^
tionswith from its primitive source which produced the
the Blast. .
Renaissance in art and the Reformation in morals
and religion. Still greater was the revolution which
followed in the sphere of practical affairs. The
Turkish invasion had blocked the routes by which
precious, and therefore portable, articles of com-
merce had been brought from the East. While the
statesmen and soldiers of Europe were consider-
ing how the tide of Asiatic invasion could be
stemmed, her mariners and merchante were asking
whether there was no other route by which this
ancient and most profitable commerce might be
restored
Naval Both thesc objects were ultimately achieved by a
against revolutiou of a different order from the social,
jtctecFby J^^ligi^^s, or political movements which had deflected
Henry the humau affairs in the past. Europe had now reached
the stage when an increasing control over physical
forces was beginning to influence the course of history,
and her problems, political as well as commercial, were
to find their solution in the enterprise of a royal
inventor. Henry the Navigator was the fifth child
of John I., King of Portugal, by his English queen,
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 127
Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt. On coining chap.
of age he won his spurs in 1415 at the capture of
Ceuta, a stronghold of Islam opposite Gibraltar,
There he gained the applause of Europe by quelling
a Moorish sortie single-handed, and the Pope, the
Emperor, and the kings of England and Castile vied
with each other in offering him distinguished com-
mands. But the fall of Ceuta had turned his
thoughts in another direction. Gold, ivory, and
tropical products, drawn from the regions of the
Niger, furnished the means by which the Moors made
war on Christendom. The idea of reaching these
countries by sea so as to take the Moors in the rear
and divert their wealth to Christian uses was con-
ceived by Prince Henry ; and, as his biographer
Azurara adds, he greatly desired to plant the Catholic
faith among the heathen there lying in a state
of perdition. History reveals him striding like a
colossus with one foot planted in the Middle Ages
and the other on the world of to-day. His aims
were those of a crusader, but his methods those
of modern invention and research. *The three
motives of Prince Henry — enmity to the Moslems,
mercantile enterprise, and missionary zeal — profoundly
influenced the whole history of the Portuguese in
the East. As he aimed at outflanking the Moors in
Africa by exploring down its western coast, so his
greatest successors aimed at outflanking the Ottoman
Empire by dominating the Red Sea.' * In solving the
problems of their age they created those peculiar to
our own.
Up tt) the time of Henry the Navigator mariners His work
had mainly relied upon the oar, regarding sails merely ["g the art
as an auxiliary mode of propulsion for use only when ^foS*^^"
the winds were moderate and favourable. The art
of sailing, especially against head winds, was but
* Hunter, A History of British India^ vol. i. p. 73.
128 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, little developed, for it was not possible to design a
ship really suited for the purpose so long as it had
also to be pierced for oars. The development of
sails was just as &tal to the retention of oars as the
development of steam power to the retention of yards
and rigging. Ships built for rowing are dangerous
craft in high seas, and so long as their motive power
was furnished by human sinews a relatively large
crew had to be carried and a corresponding space
reserved for their necessary victual. For this reason
it was difficult for the rowed galley to go any great
distance from ports where supplies could be obtained.
Galleys had long braved the ocean off the coasts of
Spain, France, and Britain within measurable reach
of civilized harbours. But the project now proposed
by the Prince required ships which could face
Atlantic storms off savage and inhospitable shores
and dispense with frequent access to friendly ports.
For such voyages a type of vessel which was in-
dependent of oars was essential. Not content, more-
over, that his mariners should depend upon the sight
of land for the direction of their course, he set to
work to devise instruments and methods wherewith to
recc^nize their position on the open sea and find a
path across it. To these objects he dedicated his life
when in 1418, at the ag^ of twenty-four, he turned
his back on the world and * retired to the wind-swept
promontory of Sagres at the southern extremity of
Portugal. On that barren spur of rocks and shifting
sands and stunted juniper, with the roar of the ocean
for ever in his ears, and the wide Atlantic before him
inviting discovery from sunrise to sunset, he spent
his remaining forty-two years, a man of one high
aim, without wife or child. Amid its solitudes he
built the first observatory in Portugal, established
a naval arsenal, and founded a school for navigation,
marine mathematics, and chart-making. Thither he
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 129
invited the most skilful pilots and scientific sailors chap.
of Christendom, from Bruges near the North Sea to "^
Grenoa and Venice on the Mediterranean. Thence,
too, he sent forth at brief intervals exploring expedi-
tions into the unknown South : expeditions often
unfruitful, sometimes calamitous, even denounced
as folly and waste, but which won the African coast
as an outlying empire for Portugal. He died at
Cape St. Vincent in 1460, having expended bis own
fortune together with his splendid revenues as Grand
Master of the military Order of Christ on the task,
and pledged his credit for loans which he left as a
debt of honour to his nation. His tomb, in the same
beautiful chapel where his English mother rests at'
Batalha, bears by the side of his' own arms as a royal
prince of Portugal, the motto and device of the
Garter conferred on him by our Henry VL, and the
cross of the Portuguese Order of Christ. On the
frieze, entwined with evergreen oak, runs the motto
which he solemnly adopted in young manhood —
Talent de hien /aire, the resolve to do greatly.
The king, wrote Diogo Gomez, *' together with all
his people mourned greatly over the death of so
great a prince, when they considered all the expedi-
tions which he had set on foot" — in the words of
his monument on the gateway of Fort Sagres, *' to
lay open the regions of West Africa across the sea,
hitherto not traversed by man, that thence a passage
might be made round Africa to the most distant
parts of the East."''
His squadrons, however, continued their explora- Result of
tions under three successive sovereigns of his house, woric7*
and rapidly pushed their way down the African coast. J/^q^**
In 1471 they passed the equator, and in 1484 reached Hope
the Congo. In 1486 Bartholomew Dias was carried by Dias,
by a storm beyond the sight of land, round the
* Hnnter, A History cf Briiish Indian vol. i. pp. 62-4.
K
130 THE OPENING OF TH^ HIGH SEAS
CHAP, southern point of Africa, and reached the Great Fish
ITT
River, north of Algoa Bay. On his return journey
he saw the prpmontory which divides the oceans, as
the narrow waters of the Bosphorus divide the
continents of the East and West. As in the crowded
streets of Constantinople, so here, if anywhere, at
this awful and solitary headland the elements of
two hemispheres meet and contend. As Dias saw
it, so he named it, 'The Cape of Storms.' But his
master, John IL, seeing in the discovery a promise
that India, the goal of the national ambition, would
be reached, named it with happier augury ' The Cape
of Good Hope.' No fitter name could have been
given to that turning-point in the history of
mankind. Europe, in truth, was on the brink of
achievements destined to breach barriers, which had
enclosed and diversified the nations since the making
of the World, and commit them to an intercourse
never to be broken again so long as the World
endures. That good rather than evil may spring
therefrom is the greatest of all human responsi-
bilities, and one which rests and must long continue
to rest with Europeans. Nor can they, in leaving
Europe, leave it behind. It follows them wheresoever
they go — a task which needs for its fulfilment a faith
unshakable as that mighty Cape.
India In 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed from the little
^co^da^ chapel built by Prince Henry on the Tagus that
Gamam mariners might receive the Sacrament as they came
Crusading and Went. Kounding the Cape, on Christmas Day he
of his sighted the Bluff" which now shelters Durban, and
expedition. ^^^^^ ^hc couutry Terra Natalis. In 1498 he reached
Calicut on the coast of India, and founded the
Eastern Empire of the Portuguese. * The expedition
struck, however, a chord of Portuguese national
feeling. Both King and people regarded it as a
continuation of the Crusades : a crusade on a larger
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 131
scale and with better prospects of plunder. Camoens chap.
opens the seventh Book of his Lusiad by reproaching .^^.^^^^.^
Germany, England, France and Italy for their cold-
ness to the sacred cause; calls them once more to
Holy War; and shames their silence by declaring
that Portugal will single-banded fight the battle of
God/^
In the long straggle for the mastery of their own Oraeitiea
soil the Iberian Crusaders had caught from Islam the Portu-
fierce fanaticism of its spirit. Among the 1200 ^®^
warriors sent by King Emmanuel to follow up the .
discovery of Vasco da Gama were included a band of
friars, and the commander of the expedition received
the following instructions: 'Before he attacked the
Moors and idolators of those parts with the material
and secular sword, he was to allow the priests and
monks to use their spiritual sword, which was to
declare to them the Gospel . . . and convert them to
the faith of Christ. . . . And should they be so con-
tumacious as not to accept this law of faith . . . and
should they forbid commerce and exchange ... in
that case they should put them to fire and sword, and
carry on fierce war against them.' ^ Gentler counsels
were, however, not wholly wanting. Bishop Osorio
blamed Almeida, who commanded the Portuguese
forces from, 1503 to 1509, for the torture and
massacre of prisoners after the battle of Diu, and
censured a captain who in 1507, ignoring the
Portuguese passport which they carried, seized an
Arab crew, sewed them up in sails, and threw them
into the sea. But little was done to mitigate the
horrors of the struggle. 'Almeida "blew his prisoners
from guns before Cannanore, saluting the town with
their fragments." On the capture of Brava, the
Portuguese soldiers "barbarously cut off the hands
' Hunter, A History of BrUith India, toI. i. p. 90.
* IHi, vol. i p. 188, quoting from De B&itob, decade i lib. v. cap. i
132
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP.
Ill
Attempt
of
Columbus
to reach
Asia by
the West
led to liis
discovery
of West
Indies
1492, and
presently
of
America,
which he
mistook
for Asia.
and ears of women, to take off their bracelets and
earrings, to save time in taking them off." These
were not exceptional' barbarities. The permanent
attitude of the Portuguese to all Asiatics who resisted
was void of compunction. To quote a few examples
from contemporary manuscripts ; a letter to the King
of Portugal in 1518 speaks of the people of Dabul as
" dogs " who " do not want but the sword in hand."
In 1535, at the capture of the petty island of Mete
near Diu, " aU were killed, without allowing a single
one to live, and for this reason it was henceforward
called the Island of the Dead." In 1540 the
Zamorin was compelled to agree to cast out of his
dominions all who would not accept the terms
imposed, " and if they should not wish to go, he will
order them to be killed." In 1546, says the official
report of the siege of Diu, " we spared no life, whether
of women or children." ' ^ The kings of Portugal
claimed to be lords of the East; but their actual
conquests in India were in fact limited to the tiny
area of Goa which the Portuguese Republic holds
to-day. Their real and substantial achievement was
the dominion of the Eastern Seas.
While Portugal was opening the route to Asia
by sea, Spain, in search of the same object, had
stumbled upon the New World. Coluipbus, by his
marriage to the daughter of one of Prince Henry's
commanders, got access to bis nautical journals, maps,
^ Hunter, A History of British India, vol. L pp. 139-40. The allegations
of cruelty are based on the following original authorities : Stanley's Three
Voyages of Vasco da Gama, xxix.-zxxii, Hakluyt Society, 1867. Damiao de
Goes {Chronica do Felicissimo Bey Dom Manoet, Lisl^on, 1566-1567, Stanley, tU
supray xxxiii.). Asia Portuguesa, Lisbon, 3 vols., 1666-1675 (The Portuguese
Asia of Manuel de Faria y Sousa, translated by Captain John Stevens,
London, 3 vols., 1695, voL i. p. 116). Letter from Joao de Lima for the
King, dated Cochin, December 22, 1518 (India Office MSS.). Contract
between the King of Gujarat and Nuno da Cunha, Captain -General and
Governor of India, dated October 25, 1585, footnote (India Office MSS.).
Contract between the Viceroy Dom Garcia and 'the King of Calicut^' dated
January 1, 1540 (India Office MSS.). Letter of Manuel Rodrigues for the
King, dated Diu, November 24, 1546 (India Office MSS.).
THE OPENINQ OF THE HIGH SEAS 133
and instruments. Rightly conceiving the world to chap.
be a sphere, he concluded that Asia might be reached
by way of the West. Failing, however, to secure the
support of the Portuguese king, he placed his services
at the disposal of 8pain, and in 1492 discovered in
the West Indian Islands the outworks of the American
continent. In a series of voyages covering the next
twelve years he reached the coast of South America
and founded a Spanish Empire there and in the West
Indies.
Columbus always believed himself to have dis- c^bot's
covered the west coast of Asia, and died without of North
knowing that in searching for an old continent he f^^^,
had brought to light a new one. It was in the ^^^^
same quest that Cabot had in 1497 discovered North Pacific
America for England on behalf of certain Bristol byBBiboa
merchants holding a patent from Henry VII. His r^' i.
contemporaries believed that he had gained for her V^^ of
' a great part of Asia, without a stroke of the sword.' ^ as a
The real character of the discovery was realized when wB^in^t.
in 1513 Vasio Nunez de Balboa (not Cortes, as Keats
supposed), surmounting the Isthmus of Panama —
stared at the Pacific — and all hie men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. «
Then, at length, Europe realized that America was
not the extremity of the ancient world. It was as
though some new planet had swum into her ken.
By plunging into the sea, Balboa sought to annex the
ocean itself to the kingdom of Spain.
In 1519 Cortes landed with about 700 men on Conquest
the coast of Mexico, and in scarcely more than a pacifi"*^^'
year was master of the Mexican Empire. Some J|^"®^^^
twelve years later Pizarro landed in Peru, and the 1620.
Empire of the Incas collapsed before an invasion of navigation
of the
> Hunter, A History of BrUWi India, vol. i. p. 195, quoting letter from ^^^^^^^^
Raimondo de Soncino to the Duke of Milan, 18th December 1497. shins
134
THE OPBNING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP,
in
Depend-
ence of
Continen-
tal dis-
coverers
on govern-
ment sup-
port. Divi-
sion of
their dis-
coveries
between
Spain and
Portugal
by the
Papacy.
183 men. Seldom has the mastery over physical
forces achieved by Europe been exhibited with more
startling eflfect. The native civilizations of America
shivered at the first blow. 'Whether the pitcher
touches the iron or the iron the pitcher, it is bad for
the pitcher/ as the Spaniards say, and no earthen-
ware vessel, however great it may be, will long
withstand the blows of a hammer. Europe conquered
America by reason of the same qualities which had
enabled it to repel the successive hordes which
swarmed against it from Asia. Helps and Frescott
have recounted the barbarities of these conquests,
which were worse even than those perpetrated in the
East by the Portuguese. It is needless to dwell upon
them here. Meantime the belief of Columbus that
Asia could be reached by the West had been justified,
for in 1520 Magellan had passed the straits which
now bear his name, crossed the ocean upon which
Balboa had looked, and reached the Philippines.
There he perished ; but one of his ships, the Vittoria^
returned by the Cape of Good Hope, and thus
demonstrated the theory held by Columbus that the
World was round.
It is important to note the absolute dependence
on royal patronage of explorers like Vasco da Gama,
Columbus, and Magellan. Their fleets were provided
by kings, who, in financing these expeditions, had
no thpughts of opening new trade routes for any
but themselves. The lands discovered, as well as
the wealth to be drawn from them, they not un-
naturally regarded as a prize, to be shared with
their subjects perhaps, but certainly not with aliens.
The title claimed by the Crown of Portugal over
Africa and the East, and by that of Spain over
America and its adjacent islands, was an exclusive
one. Their claims, moreover, had received a sanction
which mediaeval Europe accepted as the ultimate
THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS
135
source of all human authority. In a Bull dated the ^^ap.
4th of May 1493, Pope Alexander VI. assigned to
the kings of Spain * All the main lands and islands
found or to be found, discovered or to be discovered,
toward the west and south, drawing a line from the
Arctic pole to the Antarctic pole, that is, from the
north to the south, Containing in this donation,
whatsoever main lands or islands are found or to be
found toward India, or toward any other part whatso-
ever it be, being distant from, or without the aforesaid
line drawn a hundred leagues toward the west and
south from any of the islands which are commonly
called De los Azores and Cape Verde. All the
islands therefore, and main lands, found and to be
found, discovered and to be discovered, from the said
line toward the west and south, such as have not
actually been heretofore possessed by any other
Christian King or Prince, until the day of the nativity
of our Lord Jesus Christ last past, from the which
beginneth this present year, being the year of our
Lord M.CCCC.LXXXXIII., whensoever any shall be
found by your messengers and captains, We by the
authority of Almighty God granted unto us in Saint
Peter, and by the office which we bear on the earth
in the stead of Jesus Christ, do for ever by the
tenour of these presents', give, grant, and assign unto
you, your heirs and successors (the Kings of Castile
and Leon), all these lands and islands, with their
dominions, territories, cities, castles, towers, places,
and villages, with all the right and jurisdiction there-
unto pertaining : constituting, assigning, and deputing
you, your heirs and successors, the lords thereof, with
full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction. . . .
We furthermore inhibit all manner of persons, of
what state, degree, order, or condition soever they be,
although of Imperial and regal dignity, under the
pain of the sentence of excommuniccUion which they
136 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
OHAP. shall incur if they do to the contrary^ that they in
no case presume, without special licence of yOu, your
heirs and successors, to travel for merchandise or for
any other cause, to the said lands or islands, found or
to be found, discovered or to be discovered, towards
the west and south/ ^
A year later Spain and Portugal agreed in a treaty
(for which they asked and received the sanction of
the Pope) to move the line 270 leagues further West,
with the result that Brazil ultimately fell to the
share of Portugal. The subsequent voyage of
Magellan, though proving the necessity of a second
line to divide the Eastern frontiers of the two
empires, did nothing to impair the effect of the Papal
awards in appropriating Africa, America, and Asia to
the two Iberian kingdoms. The other nations of
Euro4)e were legally limited thereby to their own
territorial waters. From the high seas the English
were excluded with the rest, except in so far as they
might dare to ignore sanctions which were then
regarded as binding on Christendom.
Authority In the theory of the Middle Ages inherited from
Papacy in- Imperial Rome the Pope was regarded as the inter-
8 iQand ^**i^^^l lawgiver, and the Emperor as the secular
Portugal authority whose function it was to enforce the Papal
to them- commands. How far Europe accepted the latter side
monop^^y ^^ ^^^^ theory has already been seen. But the fall
of their q£ Constantinople had stimulated influences which
coveries. were leading the Northern races to question it
why this The study of Greek originals gave rise to a question-
quâ„¢ ^*" i^g ^^ accepted canons and was an important factor
tionecL \j^ ^jje wholc Renaissance movement. At the same
juncture the unity of the Church was broken by
Luther, who, in 1517, published his theses at Witten-
berg. In 1534 an Act was passed in England
repudiating the authority of Rome, and in 1536
* Weare, Cabot* s Discovery of North AmeHca, pp. 67-8.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 137
Calvin published the Institutio Christianae religionis. ohap.
Protestantism spread to the Netherlands, and in 1568 s..^.,..^^.^^
led to their revolt from Spain. The Papal award
ceased, so far as England, Holland, and the Northern
States of Germany were concerned, to possess the
sanction of international law, and thereafter its
validity depended on the physical forces which could
be marshalled to support it — on the fleets which
Spain or Portugal could oppose to those of Holland
and Britain.
To the Spaniards and Portuguese of the sixteenth Natm-e of
I century, their right to reserve to themselves the at stXi!^
continents they had opened must have appeared too
plain for argument. The claims advanced by the
mariners of other nations to share the fruits of their
I enterprise must indeed have seemed to violate the
fundamental religious and political conceptions of
the age; for were they not contrary to the verdict
of the court divinely instituted for the final adjudica-
tion of human affairs ? It was a conflict, not merely
of interests, but of ideals. The cause for which the
Portuguese and Spaniards fought with such^ valour
was even more sacred to them than the opposite cause
to their EngUsh opponents. Had wealth alone been
the object of the struggle, compromise might have
been possible; for wealth, at any rate, is capable
of division. But more than wealth was at stake.
In the course of ages two sections of Europe had
developed their social structures on principles so
different as to be mutually incompatible as soon as
both were committed to a common field of activity.
The Spanish right to monopolize the newly opened
world was justified by the political theory of the
Continent. England had rejected that theory and
challenged the monopoly based upon it, because it
would have closed to her enterprise the resources
which alone could enable so small a state to survive
138 THS OPSNIKG OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, in the straggle for existence. Either party was
^^^ contending for the trade of the world, the one to
eugross it, the other to share it. But the passion
men have for maintaining or extending their own
manner of life was the ultimate motive behind the
contest, and the rivalry for trade was really a
struggle for the resources required to realize a
cherished ideal. Spaniards and Englishmen seized
wealth wherever they could find it; but to Drake
and his captains the liberties of their country were
dearer than life, and so also to the Spaniards were
the ideals and traditions of Spain. Of necessity the
champions of ideals fight for the material resources
or physical positions by which alone those ideals can
be held. To us it is clear as day that the question
which mattered was how far the future inhabitants
of the World were to inherit the principles of auto-
cracy or freedom. But the combatants who met in
the twilight of the dawn can scarcely have discerned
the vastness of the issues their valour would decide.
The issues It is instructive to compare these issues with those
to"t^^ which, three centuries later, brought the South of the
of the United States into conflict with the North. There,
Amencan . -m n i • • • i
Civil War. as lu Europc, two mutually destructive principles,
the one based on freedom, the other on slavery, had
in separate though adjacent territories brought into
being two systems of society which might long have
continued side by side without serious consequences
if the opening of the West had not raised the question
whether its vacant territories were to be developed
on the basis of free or slave labour. The two prin-
ciples then came into collision in a way that admitted
of no compromise. Each side believed itself to be
right with such sincerity that thousands were ready
to die for their belief. The wars, indeed, which have
shaped human destiny cannot be simply represented
as struggles between right and wrong, for the real
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 139
antagonists who had to be reckoned with on either ohap.
side have been men who deemed certain principles of ,^^^,^^^.,,^
greater value than their lives. But the issues which,
in truth, cause such wars are generally obscured by
the trivial and often sordid interests which are the
occasion of the actual outbreak. This was often the
case in the three centuries of contest between Europe
and England for the dominion of the new continents
and seas which followed the discoveries of Vasco da
Gama and Christopher Columbus.
. In the Middle Ages, which were now closing, The
England had taken her part in the scramble of con- plSm^o
tinental nations for territory at the cost of her ^°?^\he
nearest neighbours. From the sixteenth century she Ji^®^^^^^^
abandoned these ambitions once for all. * Clear- by
sighted persons at Court advised, as early as the "^*^ *
reign of Henry VIII., a policy of colonial enterprise
in place of interference in the continental wars.
" Let us," they said, " in God's name, leave off our
attempts against the terra jirma^ as the natural
situation of islands seems not to suit with conquests
of that kind. Or, when we would enlarge ourselves,
let it be that way we can, and to which, it seems the
eternal providence has destined us, which is by sea.
The Indies are discovered, and vast treasure brought
from thence every day. Let us, therefore, bend our
endeavours thitherwards ; and if the Spaniards and
Portuguese suffer us not to join with them, there
will yet be region enough for all to enjoy." ' ^ But
these clear-sighted persons were ignoring the terms
of the Papal Bull of 1514, in accordance with which
all the continents opened to Europe by the discoveries
of Columbus and Vasco da Gama were closed except
to Spain and Portugal. That monopoly had first to be
^ Hunter, A History of British IndiOj vol. i. p. 223. The quotation is
from Maopherson's Annals, svh anno 1611, ii. 89, on the anthority of Lord
Herbert.
140 THE OPBNINO OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, broken, and when in 1580 Portugal was absorbed by
^^^ Spain the issue lay between England and that country.
To Philip of Spain, England by her final separation
from Rome had become ' the necessary object of
another Holy War/^ While renouncing their spiritual
allegiance to Rome, the Tudor sovereigns for a time
shrank from challenging her authority in international
law. But the Protestant spirit of England was rising,
and in 1578 Drake, openly disregarding the Papal
award, rounded Cape Horn, burst into the Pacific,
visited the Moluccas, and returned to England by the
Cape of Good Hope. An open rupture with Philip
was now inevitable, and in order to challenge the
Spanish monopoly, Elizabeth was at length forced to
deny the validity of the Pope's award, which she
presently described as a disputed 'donation of the
Bishop of Rome.' 'Prescription,' she asserted in
1580, 'without possession availeth nothing.'^ In
words that anticipate the dawning problem of aerial
navigation she argued that ' the use of the sea and
air is common to all ... as neither nature, nor public
use and custom permitteth any possession thereof.'^
And, in truth, no smaller principle than the freedom
of the high seas was at stake. For in forbidding the
ships of any nation but Spain and Portugal to visit
countries, whether known or unknown, across the
seas opened by Henry the Navigator, the Papacy
practically closed the ocean beyond the territorial
waters of Europe. All seas but those three miles
from the land (with the exception of certain recognized
maria clausa) have so long been regarded as a
common heritage and a pathway open to all, that
men are prone to forget that the right was ever
denied. It is a principle now rooted in the moral
* EgertoD, British Colonial Policy^ p. 16. * Ihid. p. 16.
' Hunter, A History of British India, vol, i. p. 207, quoting Oamden,
HisUyry of Elizabeth, p. 256 fed. 1675).
THB OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 141
habits of mankind, but to make it so the principle chap.
had once to be asserted by force, v-^i-^^-.^
How came it that so small a people as the English whv Eng-
were able to assert this freedom for themselves in iweto"
successive contests against the greatest powers of wsertthe
o G r ^ freedom
Western Europe ? Again the answer to this question of the sea.
must be sought in the insular character of their home, her navy.
The sea, which sheltered them from the armies which fh^J^r-
were devastating the Protestant states of Europe and ^^^^^ °^
o i sea-power.
conserved their energies, had also accustomed them
to the handling of ships. Henry the Navigator had
inaugurated an epoch in which that kind of skill was
to count for more than the power of great autocracies
to pour troops into the field. Before the sixteenth
century was half spent the English were the people of
Europe who knew best how to cross the ocean and
hold their own against any power which sought to
oppose them on that element. Henry VIII. created
the English navy, and scarcely a year of his reign
passed without seeing fresh improvements in the build
and armament of his ships. Capacity to devise new
means to meet changing needs is the natural fruit
of freedom. It now began to tell in favour of the
English as against the Spaniards, and ere Henry VIII.
closed his reign his navy was the most powerful on
the seas. The struggle for world power was to be
fought on an element where the wealth and daring
of an island race, inspired by the enterprise and
patriotism which free institutions beget, outbalanced
the advantage which their vastly superior numbers
gave to the continental kingdoms. In conquests by
land the mere number of soldiers available is of
paramount importance, for troops must be detached
to hold the roads behind an invading army so that it
shrinks at every stage of its advance into an enemy's
country. With maritime warfare it is otherwise.
Th^ combatants are confined to the decks of ships,
142
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SBA8
CHAP.
Ill
Defeat of
the
Spanish
Atmada.
The secret
of sea-
power
ignored by
Spain.
and the ships can be moved at will to any part of the
ocean, so that the stronger navy can hunt down t^e
weaker and destroy it. In doing thiB a fleet is not,
like an army, continuously weakened by having to
shed part of its forces to protect the route behind it.
Without diminishing its fighting strength, it can
search out the opposing fleets to destroy them, and if
it succeeds it is then free to transport troops where it
will, and to prevent the enemy reinforcing or supplying
its armies beyond the sea. A small people should be
able to find crews for any number of ships that it can
afibrd to build and maintain. Then, as now, it was
a type of conflict bound in the end to be determined
by wealth rather than by numbers. In contending
for the wealth of the newly opened continents each
side knew instinctively that it was fighting for the
means essential to victory.
The claim to the fireedom of the seas was advanced
by Elizabeth in 1580. In 1588 Philip marshalled all
his maritime resources for the destruction of England
and launched the Armada against her in vain. Out-
manoeuvred by the English sailors, riddled by their
shot, and battered by storms, a few beaten hulks
returned to Spanish ports, and the monopoly of the
high seas was broken, never to be renewed.
It was in this struggle that the British captains
realized the essential conditions of maritime defence.
Drake had urged on Queen Elizabeth that the right
way to protect Her Majesty's shores was not by
remaining near them, but by seeking o.ut the fleets of
Philip and destroying them* even in his own ports.
Thenceforward this principle was recognized as the
basis of British strategy. In the Spanish Eknpire
there were some who perceived its vital importance,
for in 1624 Manoel Severim de Faria, a Portuguese
writer, ^in a treatise which anticipates the modem
philosophy of sea-power, urged that the one course
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 143
capable of arresting the rapid decline of the Iberian chap.
Empire was that the capital should be transported
from Madrid to Lisbon, and that the total maritime
strength of the monarchy should be employed in the
British Channel upon the destruction of the Dutch
and English navies. Such bold and drastic counsels
were thrown away upon the Spanish Court.' ^
II
THE OPENING OF THE SEAS ! ITS EFFECT IN THE EAST
The expeditions sent out by Henry the Navigator The Dutch
and his successors had from the outset been military, company*
They were Crusades upon which had been grafted poiitj^j"
aims of a commercial character. The merchandise ^^a^^ter.
most eagerly sought was spice which, until the trade
routes were cut by the Turks, had reached Europe
in small and precious parcels borne across Asia on
the backs of camels. A ship-load of spices was worth
a king's ransom, and even if trade had been the only
object of the Portuguese, no one would have dared
to entrust such cargoes to crews unable to protect
their vessels from robbery. Single ships, however
powerfully armed, ran fearful risks, and throughout
the sixteenth century the trade with the Far East
was as a matter of course carried on by fleets which
were as ready to fight as to trade. From first to
last the enterprise was an affair of state conducted
by the king, and when in 1580 Portugal and Spain
were united under one crown the East Indian trade
became the monopoly of the King of Spain. Hitherto
' Fisher, PolUical l/nimu^ P- 14) quoting Manoel Severim de Faria, Dis-
cursos varios polUicas, Evora, 1624.
144 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, the Portuguese had confined themselves to the whole-
sale trade with India, leaving to the merchants of
the Netherlandfl the lucrative business of distributing
the cargoes to the ports of Europe. Antwerp was
the great emporium for Eastern wares ; but when
Spain absorbed Portugal and took over the Indian
trade the Netherlands were in open revolt against
her rule. Cut off from the business of distribution,
the Dutch merchants determined to assert their right
to bring spices direct from the islands of the Malay
Archipelago and generally to trade with the East.
A company closely associated with the state was
constituted for this purpose. The charter granted
to it by the States General ' reads like a Protestant
counterpart of the privileges granted to Portugal by
the Bull of 1493, except that religious proselytism
drops out of view, a commercial company takes the
place of the King, and instead of the poena excom-
municationis latae against rivals or intruders, we
have the direct arbitrament of the sword.' ^ The
object aimed at by Holland * was not, as Portugal's
had been, to take vengeance on the nefandissimi
Machometi secta for the loss of the Holy Places in
Palestine, or to swell the pride of a Royal House by
new Asiatic titles, and to bring the kingdo^as of the
East within the Christian fold, but by establishing
a sufficient degree of sovereignty over the islands
to prevent them from selling their spices to any
European nation but herself. Where she found a
stringent supremacy needful she established it ; where
a less control sufficed, she was at first willing to leave
the princes and peoples very much to themselves.' *
The In 1600 the first English East India Company
Eaft^india was formcd. But *it was in no sense a national
Ftono^"^* enterprise, or a semi-national association like the
political
character. * Hunter, History of British India, voL i. pp. 239-240.
2 Ibid. i. p. 342.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 145
Dutch East India Company. The Queen allowed a chap.
private group of her subjects to adventure their
capital in the East India trade, and granted them
such privileges as did not interfere with her own
foreign policy. When their interests clashed with
her foreign policy, she did not hesitate to withdraw
her support.** The aims of this company were
exclusively commercial. For the first ninety years
of its existence the directors were steadfast in their
resolve to avoid the acquisition or government of
territory, [notwithstanding the pressure put upon
them by their agents. In 1616 their policy was
announced by Sir Thomas Roe in emphatic terms.
* A war and traffic are incompatible,' he wrote. * By
my consent you shall in no way engage yourselves
but at sea, where you are like to gain as often as to
lose. It is the beggaring of the Portugal, notwith-
standing his many rich residences and territories
that he keeps soldiers that spend it, yet his garrisons
are mean. He never profited by the Indies, since
he defended them. Observe this well. It hath been
also the error of the Dutch, who seek Plantation here
by the sword. They turn a wonderful stock, they
prowl in all places, they possess some of the best ;
yet their dead payes (payments) consume all the
gain. Jiet this be received as a rule that if you
will profit, seek it at Sea, and in quiet trade ; for
without controversy, it is an error to affect garrisons
and land- wars in India.' ^
Four years later l^he directors, in pursuance of
this poHcy, repudiated a proclamation dated from
Saldanha Bay, by which two of their captains had
annexed Table Bay. The two harbours enclosed by
the Cape peninsula were, in truth, the key to the
^ Hunter, Hittoty of British India, vol. i. p. 256.
* Ibid, vol. ii. pp. 241-242, quoting Foster, Evibassy of Sir l^komcis lioe^
vol. i. p. xliil.
L
effects.
146 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH 8SA8
CHAP. Eastern trade. But however pacific the intentions
^^^^^^^^^^ of the London merchants, their right to navigate
The the Indian seas had to be asserted by powder and
Comply shot, and after a series of battles the Portuguese were
the^^u- fi^*% beaten by Dounton at Surat in 1615. The
gue8e,and, Netherlands, however, had in the course of their long
eluded by Struggle with Spain developed their maritime power,
from^^^ and the Dutch East India Company was now dominant
^^. in the East. Their jealousy of English intrusion into
estab* the Spice Islands culminated in 1623 in the torture
their pod- and massacrc of the English settlers at Amboyna,
in^ an island from which the Portuguese had been ejected
^K f ^^ *^® Dutch in 1609. Indirectly this outrage led
exdusion to the fouudatiou of the Indian Empire, for the
fatai^ English Company, withdrawing to the mainland,
developed the power which afterwards enabled them
to dominate it. The Dutch, meantime, intent upon
monopolizing the whole trade of the Spice Islands,
were occupied with driving out the Portuguese.
They were neither the first nor the last to believe
that dependencies can be made a close preserve, or
to realize too late that they languish when every
aperture is closed against commerce with the world
outside. 'The rapid and signal downfall of the
Dutch colonial empire is to be explained by its short-
sighted commercial policy. It was deliberately based
upon a monopoly of the trade in spices, and remained
from first to last destitute of the true imperial spirit.
Like the Phoenicians of old, the Dutch stopped short
of no acts of cruelty towards their rivals in com-
merce ; but, unlike the Phoenicians, they failed to
introduce a respect for their own higher civilization
among the natives with whom they came in contact.' '
Spain had already sapped her own vitality by yield-
ing to the same exclusive instinct, and had ceased
to be the dominant power of Europe. That position
* Hunter, Eney. Brit., vol. xiv. p. 406, 11th ed.
THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS 14*7
was now assumed by France, and the menace of chap.
this powerful neighbour handicapped Holland in her
struggle for naval supremacy with a rival whose
territories were shielded by the sea. Exclusion was
a game at which two could play, and England, by
the Navigation Acts, ruined the carrying trade of the
Dutch. These measures in turn became the basis
of the * Commercial System ' which cost England the
allegiance of her American colonies.
William of Orange ascended the English throne The
in 1689, and established a peace with Holland which wiSi**
lasted for little short of a hundred years. The fâ„¢^^^;
struggle for the empire of the sea and of the con- conditions
tinents beyond it now lay between France and determined
England, and only ended with the battle of Trafalgar. '^ '''^^•
The smaller nation prevailed (at times against Europe
in arms), mainly because it was able to concentrate
its energies on the maritime contest, while those of
France were consumed in land wars with neighbouring
powers.^ The genius of Olive and Wolfe would have
been of little use had England not been able to
dominate with her fleets the routes which led to Asia
and America.^ It was from these distant continents
that she drew the wealth which enabled her to main-
tain the supremacy at sea which was the condition of
her existence. Without it she would have perished,
and with her the civilization for which she stood.
In challenging the determination of the strongest Reaaons
power in Europe to exclude them from the oversea compelled
trade, the English became masters of the sea and the ^^n^i^
strongest power in India at the very moment when ^^
native rule in India was finally breaking down. The Company
English East India Oompany started, as has been the task ^
pointed out, with the deliberate purpose of confining menr^^"^
itself to trade and of avoiding government. It took
* Mahan, Influence of Sea Power on History^ p. 226.
« Ibid, pp. 306-307.
148 THE OPENING OF TEE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, close upon a century's experience to teach the
directors that the kind of trade upon which they
were embarking could not be developed unless they
accepted the task of territorial adniinistration. Up
to the middle of the fifteenth century the diflSculty
of transport had limited the commerce between
Europe and the Far East to articles of small size
and great value. Silk, jewels, and spice filtered in
slender quantities through Alexandria, Smyrna, or
Constantinople, to the warehouses of Venice, Cadiz,
Lisbon, Bordeaux, Amsterdam, Antwerp, or London,
for distribution over Europe. Between these European
ports a commerce of a different kind was carried on
in wine, grain, wool fabrics, and other bulky articles
which had to be warehoused at the ports in sufficient
quantities to make up the cargoes of the ships which
carried them. But such massing of wealth was only
possible under the conditions of order which had
come into being in Europe. The moment that fleets
were sent to find cargoes on the coast of India,
European merchants began to discover that for trade
on such a scale a certain degree of protection for
property on land is essential in both the countries
which are taking part in it. They were obliged to
appoint agents in India to collect cargoes in depots,
or factories as they were called, against the arrival of
their fleets. The problem was much the same as that
which English and Russian merchants are facing in
Persia at the present day.
Gradual Thcsc Operations began in Northern India just
tSnâ„¢y ^^^^ ^^^ Moslems had established a vigorous and
the Com- despotic Sovereignty under the Mogul Emperor
political Akbar in that part of the sub-continent. Before the
responsi-
bilities, close of the seventeenth century the rule of the
Mogul Emperors had followed the usual course of
Oriental despotisms established by conquest. The
Mohammedan bigotry of the Emperor Aurangzeb
THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS
149
•
I
turned his subjects into foes, the Mogul Empire broke
down, and India was left without any central control
or union. There ceased to be any Qovemment which
could protect the factories of the Company either
against the Portuguese, Dutch, or French, or from the
rapacity of the native rulers themselves. But it was
not till the closing years of the seventeenth century
that the Company recognized the impossibility of
continuing to act on the maxims of Eoe. Even so
late as 1681, the Governor in London wrote: 'AH
war is so contrary to oiH* constitution as well as our
interest, that we cannot too often inculcate to you
our aversion thereunto.' ^ But three years later they
had changed their tone, and in 1684 the directors
recorded the remark that 'though our business is
only trade and security, not conquest, yet we dare
not trade boldly or leave great stocks where we have
not the security of a fort.'* In 1685 they ordered
the Black Town of Madras to be fortified, and on the
16th March 1686 a letter was despatched abandoning
the policy of Roe and accepting the conclusion which
had been forced by hard facts upon their agents in
India, * namely, that since the native governors have
taken to trampling upon us, and extorting what they
please of our estate from ns, by the besieging of our
Pactorys and stopping of our boats upon the Ganges,
they will never forbare doing so till we have made
them as sensible of our Power, as we have of our
Truth and Justice. And we, after many Deliberations
are firmly of the same Opinion, and resolve with God's
blessing to pursue it.' ^ The factories had therefore
to be equipped as forts. But a fortified settlement
depends for its sustenance as well as for its trade on
the people and country immediately surrounding it,
' Hunter, ffidory ofBrituh IndiOy vol. ii. p. 246, quoting letter from the
Court of Directors to the Bombay Council of 22nd April 1681.
a Ibid, vol. ii p. 246. » Ibid, vol. \L p. 241.
CHAP.
Ill
160 THE OPEIHNG OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, and is driven in time to protect them as well as itself.
Protection involves administration, and administration
the raising of taxes and revenue. By an inevitable
sequence of events the fortified factories of Bombay,
Madras, and Calcutta each became a nucleus of
government, arbitrary, perhaps, as compared with
that in the British colonies of America, hpt just,
moderate, and humane as compared with the rule of
the native despots. It was no idle boast when the
Company claimed that the Indians 'do live easier
under our government than under any government in
Asia.' ^ When in 1763 the French power was beaten
and practically withdrawn from India, the Mogul
Empire had already broken down, and the country
plunged once more into a series of internecine wars
between its various races and dynasties. From these
wars it was impossible that the East India Company
with its vast and rapidly growing interests should
stand aside. Quickly it became the sovereign power
of India, for precisely the same reason that Rome
secured and long maintained the sovereignty of
Europe, because it was the one eflFective power capable
of creating and maintaining order,
jhe But for the organization provided by the Company,
SSaUy ^rade with the East could not have existed on any
displaced gerious scale, and the Company claimed an exclusive
British right to it. By a series of steps the British Govern-
ment" ment assumed control of this powerful corporation,
defecteof *^^ gradually opened the Indian trade to other
company British subjects, and finally to all the world, on
equal terms. Eventually the Company was ex-
propriated and abolished, and the British Government
took upon itself the task of governing India. The
principles underlying trade and government are so
fundamentally different as to impose upon those who
try to combine them a dual and sometimes conflict-
' Hunter, History of British India^ vol. ii. p. 272.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 151
ing responsibility. Legitimate trade, as distinguished chap.
from plunder in all its various forms, depends on a
community of material interests, and can only be
established where such a community exists. Such
community is found where two or more parties each
have something which the other wants, so that an
exchange suits all of them. The motive of trade
is frankly and properly self-interest. Grovemment
rests on a motive the exact antithesis of this. Its
ultimate authority is bom, not of self-interest, how-
ever enlightened, but of that still small voice which
moves men to place the interest of the community
before their own. It is in fact the organ through
which the collective conscience of a community is
imposed upon its members, constraining each to
subordinate his private good to that of all, and
enabling all to sacrifice their present good to the
welfare of those that follow them. The interest of
each individual is concerned with the present or the
immediate future : of the distant future government
is the sole trustee, and, properly to discharge that
trust, its agents should be men who can view with
a single eye the duties committed to them. But if
those agents are primarily responsible to a company
whose business it is to earn dividends for its share-
holders within a limited time, they are likely to
find themselves sooner or later in a false position.
And in actual practice the officials of chartered
companies are pften faced by a conflict of duties,
for the measures that best serve the interest of
their shareholders cannot always be those which
are best for the countries they rule. Would any
one, for instance, dare to assert that the interests of
the company which was formed to realize the natural
resources of Nigeria, and was formerly responsible for
its administration, were always identical with those
of the present and future inhabitants? Admirable
152 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, work has been done by chartered companies in laying
the foundations of law and order where the Imperial
government was not yet ready for the task. Seldom
have natives been governed with greater humanity
than they now are in Northern Bhodesia. The defects
of the system have often been neutralized by a more
than commercial enthusiasm for doing things well, by
the watchful supervision of the supreme government,
or by a reasonable expectation that that government
will take over the administration and reimburse the
shareholders for the expenditure incurred. The genius
of Englishmen for makeshifts is one of the secrets of
their practical success. The defect of that quality
lies in their frequent neglect to replace the makeshift
before its inherent weakness has endangered the whole
structure of government. No single expedient has
done more to faciUtate the growth of the British
Commonwealth than the free hand given at various
times to chartered companies. Nor is there any valid
objection to the practice, if provision is made in time
to put in their place an authority which can view the
task entrusted to it with a single eye to the benefit
"^ of the country it controls.
Inclusion \\ The British East India Company was the first and
hi the by far the most important example of this method
c"mmon- ^^ administering a subject race. The rivalries,
wealth, conflicts, and intrigues of Western nations carried
on in the heart of Eastern society aggravated to an
intense degree disorders which, though favourable
to plunder and exploitation in all their forms, were
fatal to the growth of a genuine commerce. The
London directorate of the British East India Company
and the best of their agents in India really desired
legitimate trade, and in order to secure it were
gradually forced to establish some kind of order for
themselves. In doing so they developed a govwn-
ment, and the British Government, from which their
THE OPEKING OP THE HIGH SEAS 153
powers were derived, was obliged to watch and chap.
control the experiment. That control was gradually ^^^
strengthened until at length the Company was
expropriated and its charter cancelled. In this way
the British Commonwealth, except in the tiny areas
left as a matter of sentiment to Portugal and France,
assumed an unlimited authority over the relations
of all the people of India to each other ; and in doing
so it also became responsible for their relations not
only with other parts of the Empire but with the
rest of the world. The Indians thus became subjects
of the British Crown. But by this time the
sovereignty had passed once for all from the Crown
to Parliament, or rather to the voters who elect it —
to the citizens, that is to say, recognized by law as
qualified to choose representatives for the purpose
of administering and changing the law. It is they,
not the King, Cabinet, or Parliament, who are the
mainspring of government in the United Kingdom,
and it is essential to the present inquiry that no
legal formula or rhetorical phrase should be suffered
to obscure the fact that they are also the actual as
well as the legal mainspring of government in India,
as in all the dependencies of the British Crown. It
is they who are responsible for adjusting the relations
of a vast portion of the East with the West. The
allegiance of the people of the United Kingdom and
of all its dependencies is due to the same paramount
^authority. All of them are citizens of one com-
prehensive state, and that a state in which autocracy
has been finally discarded and government consciously
based on the principle of the commonwealth. How-
ever despotic the power of the Viceroy, and however
prone the Oriental to regard such power as evidence
of divine authority, that power is in fact derived
from the British Parliament, not by virtue of its
sovereignty over the United Kingdom, still less by
154 THE OPEKING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, virtue of its sovereignty over India, but by virtue
of its sovereignty over the greater state of which
both are integral parts. Its authority rests on the
duty of the British and Indian peoples to see to it
that both may fare better rather than worse by
reason of their mutual intercourse. The responsibility
for effecting this object must long continue to rest
with the European community, merely because in
realization of that duty, as well as in fitness to
discharge it, the European community is far in
advance of the Asiatic. These things are a matter
of degree, and must be gauged by actual as well as
by ideal standards. A glance at the attitude of
Turkish or other Oriental rulers towards their
dependencies will suggest that, wanting as the
British have been, and still are, in a due sense of their
responsibility to India, the sense is there. It is
strong enough to secure that in most respects the
government of India shall be determined by Indian
and not by British interests so far as its purely
domestic affairs are concerned, and in Imperial
matters by Imperial interests. It is idle to assert
that the vast mass of Indians have as yet had time
to rise to a correlative sense of responsibility in
Indian affairs, still .less in those of the general
Commonwealth of which India is a part.^ The
^ These words have been left to stand as they were first printed in 1913.
The devotion of India to the Imperial Commonwealth is not the least
remarkable of the revelations brought about by a war which threatens its
existence, a revelation no less surprising, perhaps, to Indians themselves
than to their British fellow-citizens. The following extract from a poem
by a distinguished Judge, Nawab Nizamut Jung of the High Court of
Hyderabad, printed in the Tiines of October 2, 1914, with reference to the
landing of the Indian contingent at Marseilles, is a fine expression of the
value which Indians have come to attach to their citizenship in a world-
state greater even than India itself : —
Though weak our hands, which fain would clasp
The warrior's sword with warrior's grasp
On Victory's field ;
Tet turn, O mighty Mother I tarn
Unto the million hearts that bum
To be thy shield !
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 155
principle of that Commonwealth rests upon mutual chap.
responsibility, but such responsibility is seldom dis-
tributed equally. It rests with those that have more
knowledge rather than with those that have less, on
the strong rather than the weak. Power must ever
go hand in hand with responsibility. The ultimate
sovereignty of the general Commonwealth has not
been extended to include the people of India, for no
other reason than this, that if it were, government
itself would cease. Of all tyrannies the worst is
anarchy, the one in which no visible authority can be
held responsible for wrong done.^ The British people
have included communities drawn from every level of
human society within the circle of one comprehensive
commonwealth, without, like the Bomans, destroying
its character as such ; and in doing so have done
more than Rome itself towards solving the most
fundamental of human problems.
In noting this obvious fact there is no sugges- The
tion that the British, any more than the Greeks or and ^
Romans, deliberately addressed themselves to the ^f*^*^^
task of establishing an equilibrium between Europe, ^^twh
. t* 1 • 1 r\ dominion
Asia, and the primitive races of mankind. 'One in India.
reason why British aims in India have never been
Thine equal Justice, mercy, grace,
Have raade a distant alien race
A part of thee !
Twas thine to bid their sotiln rf^olce,
When flrMt they heard the living voice
Of liberty!
Unmindful of their ancient name,
And loat to Honour, Glory, Fame,
And Bunli in strife
Thou found 'at them, whom thy touch hath made
Men, and to whom thy breath conveyed
A nobler life !
Thoy whom thy love hath guarded long,
They, whom thy care hath rendered strong
In love and faith.
Their heart-strings round thy heart entwine ;
They are, they ever will be thine,
In Ufe— in death !
^ See Note A at end of this chapter, p. 222.
156 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, reduced to precise formulae is that they were in-
voluntary in their inception and very gradual in their
growth. No one who has studied history will dream
of contending for a moment that the British went to
India intent upon the moral and material regenera-
tion of its inhabitants. The pioneers were not even
inflamed by the proselytizing zeal which formed one-
half of the dual motives of the Portuguese. They
slowly assumed the task of administration because
they found it imperative for the development and
stability of their trade. They drove out their
European competitors, they upset ineflScient indigenous
administrations, they made and unmade dynasties,
from the same compelling reason. They extended
their rule because every fresh conquest confronted
them with new diflSculties and new menaces upon
their frontiers. Nothing was more unmethodical, or
inore automatic and inevitable, than the British
conquest of India. . . . Yet, though there is little
substantial evidence of high initial moral purpose of
a far-reaching kind, there can be no doubt that it
existed in varying and often obscure forms almost
from the very beginning. In a race with the
traditions and the ideals held by the English it was
bound to be early manifested, and to impart some
infusion of unselfish beneficence into their acts. The
time came at last when it grew very rapidly, until in
the end it became a dominating consideration. The
annexation of Oudh would never have been under-
taken if Oudh had been humanely governed. The
conquest of the Punjab would never have been
entered upon if the death of Ranjit Singh had
not plunged the province into a welter of dismal
strife. The character of the English counted for
more in the long run than the material purpose which
first took them to India, and they committed them-
selves, almost without realizing it, to a task the full
•• •
• •
,• • •
• • •
• • •
• • •
• .a
• • • •
• ••■••
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 157
magnitude of which is only now being perceived. . . . chap.
The real fact is, of course, that Great Britain has
never held India solely by. the sword, but also by the
acquiescence, sometimes expressed, generally tacit, of
the Indian peoples. If that acquiescence were ever
withdrawn, the 75,000 white troops upon whom in
the last emergency we must rely could not long
uphold British rule unaided.' ^
The force of this last observation will be realized The
more vividly if the reader will refer to Plate III. and of British
note the tiny square which represents the European J^uJ^"*'"
civil and military population resident in India. The
statement is no less applicable to the other depend-
encies in which by the same process the Commonwealth
has taken upon itself, in addition, the guardianship of
some 56,000,000 natives of Asia, Africa, America, and
Oceana. Popular maps of the world serve to disguise
the magnitude of this responsibility, because, as
explained on Plate 11. , they exaggerate the area of
territory in proportion to its distance from the
equator, and minimize by comparison the area of the
densely peopled tropics where for the most part these
races live. But the fundamental problems of politics
cannot be seen in their true proportions so long as
they are measured in miles rather than men. Plate
IV. is designed to give these measurements their real
relative values, but while reading the following pages
the student should keep Plate VIII. spread out before
him. In round numbers the total population of the
world may be taken at about 1,721,000,000.^ The
native populations of Asia, Africa, America, and
Oceana represent about 1,164,000,000, or more than
two-thirds of the whole. Between the races which
go to make up this figure there is hardly any feature
^ India and the Durbar, reprint from the Times, pp. 63, 64, 69.
' A& stated in the note facing page 1 these figures I'equired to bo modified
in the light of more recent estimates of the population of China. The
modificationB, however, would rather strengthen the argument.
158 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS ,
CHAP, which they share in common. Some, as in India and
Egypt, have civilizations older than that of Europe,
and differ from the savage races more than they differ
from the European. But in this one feature all are
alike, that their social systems begin to crumble
the moment they come into contact with European
civilization. Asia, Africa, America, and Oceana have,
as compared with Europe, marked time during the
long march of history. Europe has developed to an
exceptional degree the faculty of change and growth.
Her peoples are the active element in human society,
and it is impossible for them to touch or mix with
any of the passive elements without deranging their
structure. The moment the enterprise initiated by
Henry the Navigator brought the various continents
into touch with each other, the question arose how
far the passive and stationary peoples would be able
to readjust themselves to the sudden change produced
by contact with Europe. With some, of course, the
disintegrating action has l)een more rapid than with
others ; but the only important race of non-European
descent which has yet shown signs of innate capacity
to control and keep pace with it is Japan, and it
is still too early to declare her capacity proved.
Assuming it for the moment, however, and deducting
her population of 69,000,000, there remain some
1,095,000,000 human beings upon whom Europe has
had, and is still having, a profoundly disturbing effect.
Of these the people of China have been least sus-
ceptible to its action, and for obvious reasons. They
are one race inhabiting one vast empire. No coasts
are more remote from Europe than those of China,
and, except along the banks of its mighty rivers,
Europeans have permeated its vast interior but little.
The order maintained by England in India has helped
to delay the process of disintegration in China. Since,
however, European civilization has taken permanent
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 159
root on the opposite coast of the Pacific, and Russia chap.
has brought China into contact with Europe by the .,^,^,^^..,^
Siberian Railway, the disintegration of its society has
proceeded at a headlong pace, and it yet remains to
be seen whether a native government will succeed in
controlling it. If not, the problem of regulating the
relations of 434,000,000 Chinese with the other three-
quarters of mankind may set the world by the ears
before it is solved. In addition to the great Mongolian
races there are about 67,000,000 people living in
states which may be classed as non-European, and
independent of European control.^ These states,
together with China and Japan, contain about
570,000,000 souls. The remaining non -European
races may be put at 594,000,000. Upon most of
these the disturbing influence of Europe began to act
long before it made itself felt in China, and the effects
were such that the peoples of Europe have become
directly responsible for their government. But in
respect of 373,000,000 — more than three-fifths of this
balance, nearly one-third of the non-European races,
and much more than one*fifth of human society — the
responsibility has been assumed by the government
of the British Commonwealth.
Of this stupendous total, 312,000,000, or nearly Cauaes
five-sixths, are natives of India, which is the part of annexf-
Asia most readily accessible to ships approaching it ^°° °^
from Europe by the Cape route. Its inhabitants endesby
are as diverse as those of China are uniform, and states!^^
owing to the peninsular shape of the country are
comparatively easy to reach from the coast. When
Vasco da Gama had opened the way there, India
was quickly overrun by European adventurers in
search of wealth, armed with the knowledge, weapons,
^ Turkey in Asia, 18,000,000 ; Afghanistan, 6,900,000 ; Persia, 9,500,000;
Siam, 6,250,000; Nepal, 5,000,000; Abyaainia, 8,000,000 ; Liberia, 1,500,000;
Central American Republics, 5,010,000; Colombia, 4,320,000; Ecuador,
1,500,000; Haiti, 2,020,000. Total, 67,000,000.
162 THB OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, discoveries of Columbus and Vasco da Gama. The
.^^^^..^^^^^ natives who perished by hunger, massacre, and
mutilation, that the king and his satellites might
reap the wealth of their forests, are reckoned in
millions. No other remedy could be devised than
that a civilized government, that is to say, the
government of Belgium itself, should assume respon-
sibility for the administration of the Congo. Once
more the rubber tragedy is repeating itself in Putu-
mayo, and again no effective remedy is in sight unless
Peru can be made responsible for the effective ad-
ministration of the district. In Egypt, Morocco,
Swaziland, New Guinea, Samoa, and Fiji, the same
story has been repeated. The institutions of native
society are powerless to resist the influences which
Europeans in search of wealth bring to bear on them.
The corruption they engender threatens to infect the
world beyond, until at last it awakens both the
conscience and the fears of Europe, and it is recognized
that some European state must be made responsible
for enforcing justice between man and man. Nor
wiU any thoughtful person deny that it is for the
more advanced civilization to enforce justice between
its own children and the weaker races of the other
continents. But it is too little recognized that such
work can only be done effectively by a state, or that
for a civilized state to enforce justice in a native
territory means annexation, by whatever diplomatic
fiction the reality of Empire may be disguised.^
Magnitude Incomparably the heaviest share of this respon-
sibiiities sibility has fallen on the British Commonwealth,
byBritish which is uow responsible for the peace, order, and
ment^^ govemmeut of some 373,000,000 of human beings,
drawn from races other than those of Europe. The
magnitude of the function can be realized by imagining
the result if the ability of the Imperial Government
^ See Note B at end of this chapter, p. 229.
THE OPBNINO OF THE HIGH SEAS 163
to discharge it were destroyed. Suppose that India ohap.
with its manifold religions and races, Ceylon, the
Straits Settlements, Egypt,^ East A&ica, and Nigeria
—not to mention a multitude of smaller native
communities scattered over the face of the globe —
were suddenly left exposed to the machinations of
adventurers in quest of wealth, and called upon to
set up for themselves governments competent to keep
some sort of internal order. How many rulers could
the East produce fit to control the commerce of its
people with European traders ? How many could
be trusted to handle the loans which European
financiers are ready to lend ? And how many tribal
chiefs would be found proof against the enterprise
of adventurers in search of concessions ? The history
of Egypt, China, Persia, Morocco, and Swaziland in
tihe last few decades shows all too clearly the future
in store for a backward community which is left
without protection against Europeans with all the
material resources of their civilization behind them.
It is only by calling to their aid the moral forces of
civilization that the contact of Europeans with races
less advanced than themselves can be rendered other-
wise than disastrous to both. Those relations must
be controlled ; control can only be exercised by the
higher civilization and never becomes effective until
in some shape or form the actual responsibility of
government is assumed.
Afi soon as the other continents were opened to British de-
Europe, the government of great parts of them by S^uu^d^^
European states was inevitable. Europe had, as ^^^^^
explained in the first two chapters, developed two superior
varieties of civilization, one continental, the other force.
insular. England, the nation which had produced
the latter, had by reason of its insular position
secured the mastery of the ocean routes in defiance
^ See Note A at end of this chapter, p. 223.
164 THE OPSNIKG OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, of continental Europe, and as her trade with the
other continents was greater than that of all Europe,
so there fell to her a lion's share of the dominion to
which trade inevitably led. The secret of superior
sea - power sufficiently explains why it was that
England and not Spain, France, or Holland prevailed
in Asia. But to the question why a state representing
so small a section of Europe has retained its dominion
over peoples vastly more numerous than itself it
offers no key. The truth is, as stated by the writer
quoted above,^ that the allegiance of these myriads
has not been secured by the material forces of England,
but rests on the acquiescence of the subject races
themselves. But the question remains why they
have so acquiesced.
The Conservatives are apt to talk as though autocracies
merits^of wcrc better adapted than commonwealths to the task
andT^^^^^ of governing backward communities, because the
(»mmon. principle of autocracy is alone intelligible to them.
the Radicals are apt to arrive at the same conclusion by
ment of ^ different road, and tOvspeak as though the task were
de^nd- qj^q which it ill befits a commonwealth to attempt.^
The present inquiry is concerned with facts, and with
theories only in so far as they square with them ; and
in this case it is indisputable that a vast proportion
of the backward races when left to themselves fall
into the power of irresponsible Europeans, who use
that power for their own ends, to the undoing of
those over whom it is used.' The only hope for these
communities lies in government by Europeans re-
sponsible to civilized states, and it is important,
therefore, to inquire by what kind of civilized state
they are best governed. Is it, as a question of fact,
by states which cling to the principle of autocracy ?
* See pp. 166-7.
" See Note D at end of this chapter, p. 227.
' See Note B at end of this chapter, p. 224.
THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS 165
Will any one really suggest that the Indian members chap.
of the Legislative Council would after careful inquiry
prefer to see their country transferred to the rule of
any continental state ? Does any dispassionate critic
question the comparatiye success of British govern-
ment in India, Ceylon, Egypt, the Malay States or
Nigeria, or of the United States in the Philippines ?
It is impossible, indeed, to resist the conclusion that
as a rule civilized states have succeeded in the
government of dependencies in so far as the principle
of the commonwealth has been realized in their own
institutions. But that dependencies should prosper
when ruled by a state whose principle is unintelligible
to them better than under one whose principle they
understand is a paradox that calls for careful
examination. In reducing a native territory to
submission, and in organizing an administration, an
autocracy will often show greater eflBciency and act
more rapidly than a constitutional state.^ But pro-
vided always that the paramount government is able
to enforce its commands, its ultimate success will
depend upon how far it maintains the balance of justice
between the natives of the dependency, those of
Europe, and its own officers. A government must have
power over private citizens, and must also entrust the
exercise of that power to officers who, owing to the
defects of human nature, are liable to abuse it. To
prevent such abuse is one of the standing problems
of government The difficulty is increased ten-
fold where the officers of government are far from
the seat of sovereignty, and entrusted with powers
over a race whose language and condition place
almost insuperable difficulties in the way of appeal.
In the absence of effective supervision their powers
must tend gradually to demoralize all but the
naturally upright, and even in those to foster an
* Bourne, Spain in America^ p. 297.
166 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, arbitrary habit of mind. The earlier essays of
European states, whether continental or British, in
the government of dependencies have been marked
by serious abuses. British institutions themselves
were menaced in the eighteenth century when Clive
and his contemporary nabobs used the wealth they
brought from India to control a number of seats in
Parliament. But the evils of British rule in India
were slight compared to those which developed in
the American dependencies of Portugal and Spain.
England and Holland as well as the Latin monarchies
treated the natives of Africa as chattels without rights
and as instruments for their own ends, and revived
slavery in a form and upon a scale more cruel than
any practised by the ancients. The employment of
slaves on her own soil has worked the permanent
ruin of Portugal. The slave trade with America was
an important source of English wealth, and the
philosopher John Locke did not scruple to invest
in it. There is no European race which can afford
to remember its first contact with the subject peoples
otherwise than with shame, and attempts to assess
their relative degrees of guilt are as fruitless as they
are invidious. The question of real importance is
how far these various states were able to purge
themselves of the poison, and rise to a higher realiza-
tion of their duty towards races whom they were
called by the claims of their own superior civilization
to protect. The fate of that civilization itself hung
upon the issue.
The When the different principles underlying the various
^ce^of governments of Europe are examined, is it possible to
^"ndent ^^^ *^** ^^® morc than another was likely to develop
review in a high scnsc of responsibility in its citizens and
ingahigh ofiicers towaids the native races over which they
of>espon- ruled ? To auswer this question it is first necessary
sibiiity. ^q consider how in general such a sense is cultivated
THB OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS 167
in any pnblic or private administration. It is cer- chap.
tainly not by denying its officers the power to act
except upon instructions asked and given in each
individual case. The agents of a government or
business who are never allowed to act on their own
initiative will cease to have any. Every banker
knows this, but he also knows the supreme importance
of making his local managers accountable for every-
thing they do after they have done it. If inspection
and audit were relaxed or abolished the standard of
responsibility throughout the departments of any
great business, whether private or public, would
rapidly decline. The efficacy of audit does not lie in
the threat of punishment which mainly affects the
feebler natures who at best only lean on the standards
that others create. Fear appeals but little to the
sturdier minds who create and' maintain these stan-
dards. With such it is rather that inspection, and
still more the prospect of inspection, induces a habit
of seeing their conduct as others would see it. It
provides them with a set of standards not falsified by
the constant handling of daily use by which their
moral weights and measures may be tested and
corrected from time to time. In art the value of
criticism does not depend on the artist's fear that the
critic may injure the sale of his productions. In the
maintenance of wholesome standards audit does for
business what criticism does for art.
The principle, in truth, applies to the whole sphere The rule
of human conduct, and it is clear that in the govern- j^ts e^un
ment of dependencies the standard of responsibility f^^l
will be highest where every act of government is p«ndent
review of
subject to review by an independent authority. Now acu of
Dicey has shown the characteristic which distinguishes me^nUn
British institutions from those of the Continent to be ^^^ ^5.
the automatic provision of an independent review to enciee.
which government is subject in all its acts. The
168 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
OHAP. establishment of the liability of its officers to the
jurisdiction of the same courts as administered justice
to private individuals was the essential step in the
creation of the British Commonwealth. The product
not of the legislature, but of the courts, it was
gradually extended in the ordinary course and by the
same means to the dependencies which Britain annexed.
Their native inhabitants were actually incorporated
in the fabric of the Commonwealth by a series of legal
p \ decisions in the ordinary courts.
Fabrigas The history of these decisions would be a valuable
«. Mostyn. g^u^y^ j^^^ qj^q quito bcyoud the compass of this
inquiry. It is instructive, however, to glance at one
of them. The case of Fabrigas v. Mostyn arose in
1773, during the occupation by British forces of the
Island of Minorca. The fact that the case should
relate to an island Inhabited by Europeans, which
was only for short periods a dependency of Great
Britain, in no way lessens its value as an illustration
of the principle under discussion. Fabrigas, a native
of Minorca, was regarded by Lieutenant -General
Mostyn, the Governor, as a seditious, turbulent,
and dissatisfied person, and he resolved to deport him
to Spain, believing that he had a right to do so in
accordance with the ancient laws of the island.
Fabrigas was arrested, imprisoned, and transported
to Spain without any form of trial An action for
assault and false imprisonment tvas brought hy
Fabrigas in the Court of Common Pleas in London.
The case was heard there, and counsel in defending
Governor Mostyn remarked that 'liberty' was the
privilege which the English had secured for them-
selves by their own patriotism. But the maintenance
of that liberty, which they prized above all things,
depended upon their trade, and the trade of the
Mediterranean depended upon the possession of
Minorca by Britain. He argued that if equality
THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS 169
before the law, upon which Englishmen insisted for chap.
themselves, were extended to Minorca, it would be v-^.^^-^.^
impossible to hold that dependency. With a logic
which after -events proved to be unanswerable,
he urged that such a doctrine would lead to the
abolition of slavery in the plantations.^ Arrest,
imprisonment, and deportation without trial might
indeed be contrary to the principles of the British
constitution ; but the constitution existed for the
benefit of the British people, and could not be
maintained if its principles were extended to the
countries they annexed as necessary to that trade
which was the bulwark of their own liberty. The
dependencies must be enslaved in order that Britain
might be £ree. The illegal deportation of Fabrigas
was in fact to be justified as an act of state
essential in the interests, not of the people of the
British Empire, but only of the people of Great
Britain. The people of the dependencies were to be
considered not as ends in themselves but as a means
to the ends of the dominant race. It was in essence
the very doctrine applied by the Athenians to another
Mediterranean island in the Peloponnesian War — the
claim of the strong to dominate the weak for their
own safety merely by virtue of their superior
strength.^
Mr. Justice Gould, who heard the case, left it to Thejudg-
the jury to say 'whether the plaintiflTs behaviour iteeffwjtin
was such as to afford a just conclusion that he was e^*«i»ding
J ^ ^ to natives
about to stir up sedition and mutiny in the garrison, of depend-
or whether he meant no more than earnestly to press status of
his ,mt .Bd U, e.d«vour to obfm red«« for what ftf^f
seemed to him to be a grievance.'* If they thought ^^2^'""
that the latter was the case the Judge informed the
^ See p. 231.
' See note G at end of this chapter, p. 230.
> Howell, Stati TriaU, xx, p. 174.
170 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, jury that the plaintiff was entitled to recover in the
"^ action. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiflF
with £3000 damages. An appeal by General Mostyn
for a new tria] was heard by the whole court and
refused. Thereupon Governor Mostyn brought a
writ of error in the King's Bench ; but the judgment
of the Court of Common Pleas was confirmed and the
following remarks were delivered by Lord Mansfield
upon the legal responsibility of a governor: — •To
make questions upon matters of settled law, where
there have been a number of actions determined,
which it never entered into a man's head to dispute
— to lay down in an English court of justice such
monstrous propositions as that a governor, acting
by virtue of letters patent under the great seal, can
do what he pleases ; that he is accountable only to
God and his own conscience — and to maintain here
that every governor in every place can act absolutely ;
that he may spoil, plunder, affect their bodies and
their liberty, and is accountable to nobody — is a
doctrine not to be maintained; for if he is not
accountable in this court, he is accountable nowhere.
The king in council has no jurisdiction of this
matter; they cannot do it in any shape; they
cannot give damages, they cannot give reparation,
they cannot punish, they cannot hold plea in any
way. Wherever complaints have been before the
king in council, it has been with a view to remove
the governor ; it has been with a view to take the
commission from him which he held at the pleasure
of the crown. But suppose he holds nothing of the
crown, suppose his government is at an end, and that
he is in England, they have no jurisdiction to make
reparation to the party injured ; they have no jurisdic-
tion to punish in any shape the man that has committed
the injury : how can the arguments be supported,
that, in an empire so extended as this, every governor
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 171
in every colony and every province belonging to the chap.
crown of Great Britain, shall be absolutely despotic,
and can be no more called in question than the king
of France ? and this after there have been multitudes
of actions in all our memories against governors, and
nobody has been ingenious enough to whisper them,
that they were not amenable/ ^ In these momentous
words there was once for all secured to the native of
a dependency the same access to the ordinary courts
as a native of Britain. It was there and there only
that any cause at issue between him and the govern-
ment or its representatives was to be tried.
To appreciate fully the significance of the case it Position of
is necessary to consider what remedy would have in sSS^r
been open to Fabrigas if he had been banished by a f^^
French governor while the island was annexed to ^^\
that power. The following remarks of counsel for mie.
Greneral Mostyn throw a flood of light on the matter :
*Do not be astonished, gentlemen, nor let it fright
you, when I tell you, that the governor has an
absolute right to do it, and is accountable to nobody
but the privy- council. The government of that
island is, in many respects, an arbitrary government,
and as despotic, in many instances, as any of the
governments in Asia, particularly in the part now in
question.' ^ The case would have been one of droit
dchninistratify and the civil courts of France would
have been closed to Fabrigas. He would have had
to draw the attention of the French king or his
ministers to his complaint' against their own officer.
Had he been fortunate enough to get access to them
and to convince them that there was a prima facie
case for believing that the royal representative had
abused his powers, the case would then have been
heard by an administrative court which in its con-
* Howell, StaU Trials, xx, p. 231.
« Md. p. 114.
172 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, stitution would have resembled a court-martial rather
than an ordinary court of law. His suit would not
have been heard by a jury of civilians and a judge
independent of the administration, but by some
board of naval, military, or civil officials, before whom
the plea that the principles of civil law must yield to
administrative necessity would have been urged by
the Grovemor with every prospect of success.
Gradual It was thus the rule of law, gradually asserting
of the rule itsclf through the decisions of the ordinary courts,
through- which prevented the British, as in the struggle for
B^V^h existence they extended their dominions, from lapsing
dominiona into principles the negation of those which underlie
their constitution. The legal habits springing from
the earliest traditions of the race and confirmed
centuries before by the vigour of certain kings in
enforcing the judgments of their courts, and especially
by the excellence of the procedure devised by Edward
I., restrained them in their hour of danger and
temptation from diverging down the broad and easy
road which led the Athenians to destruction. It is
far from the truth, however, that the rule of law
prevailed always and everywhere throughout the
dominions of the British Commonwealth. There
were serious gaps in it : one appeared in the closing
years of the eighteenth century in Ireland ; slavery
was another. But the rule of law, instead of con-
tracting, steadily extended the area of its operation
and continued to assert itself until the gaps were
closed. The essence of slavery is that the slave is
not regarded as an end in himself but merely as a
means to the well-being of his master, and it means
that he stands outside the laws which regulate the
relations between one citizen and another. Long
before the institution itself was formally abolished,
legal rights were gradually given one by one to the
slave, some by legislative enactment and some by
THE OPBNINO OF THE HIGH SEAS 173
decisions of the conrts, till at last the foundations chap.
Ill
of the servile status were undermined, • v^-.^,^-,.^
It is, of course, possible to point to more than one BntiBh
reason why extensive and populous dependencies ^^^i^
acquiesced in the rule of a country so small and ^®^^^^\.
distant as Britain. The control of its executive by tnbutabie
Parliament, and the public discussion of its policy noebutto
there, have gone far towards securing that that policy Jjo^'
would bear discussion. But the^ parliamentary
system is itself the product of the rule of law. Still
more perhaps was due to the peculiar temper of
officials educated in a country where a greater im-
portance was attached to individual rights than any-
where on the Continent. But this characteristic is
itself the product of the system rather than of the
race, and there is no reaaon to suppose that Austrians
bred in England would not acquire it to the same
degree, or that Englishmen bred in Austria would
not be as arbitrary in their temper as the Austrians
themselvea The British Commonwealth and the
type of citizen it has produced are alike the results of
the rule of law which must, therefore, be recognized
as the ultimate reason why native races have on the
whole fared better under British rule than any other.
That so vast a proportion of them were brought under
it was due to the supremacy of Britain at sea. But
that these myriads should have acquiesced in a
dominion which so small a country could never have
kept inviolate if they had not, is due to the essential
quality of its institutions.
If, then, there are populous communities which, The doc-
having to be governed from Europe, fare best under common*
states which have themselves best realized the principle J^^
of the commonwealth, are such states to be urged to a^oid
avoid the task ? Does the cause of freedom demand examined.
that that portion of humanity which cannot govern
itself should be left to be ruled by the civilized states
174 THE OPKNING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, that least undeistaud what freedom means ? Is this
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ reaUy a • task which the citizens of a commonwealth
should blush to touch, should if possible avoid touching,
or having touched, should seek to abandon ? ^ Such
an attitude is largely due to a wholesome reoognition
of the fact that no race can rule one weaker than
itself without being exposed to fearful temptations,
and that, in doing so, none has fully risen to the
trust imposed upon it. But is it to be recognized
as a principle of private conduct that men who value
their own virtue are to refuse all trusts in order to
avoid the temptations to which trustees are notoriously
exposed? What virtue in a commonwealth is this
that shrinks from the tasks that most need to be done
— that it is most fitted to do ? Surely but * a fugitive
and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed,
that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but
slinks out of the race where the immortal garland is
to be run for, not without dust and heat.' ^
Paradox The story is told that the Indian government once
British disputed the right claimed by a native community
^th^"' ^^^^ *^® lands it cultivated, and the Supreme Court
when to which the case was eventually carried decided it
to non. in favour of the government. The tribe was a primi-
^^pean ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ members may well have assumed
in their disappointment that the government had
itself determined the ca^e in its own favour. Their
legal advisers, however, decided to carry the case
from the Indian courts to the Judicial Conmoiittee
of the Privy Council, with the result that the
decision was reversed in favour of the tribesmen,
who suddenly found all the rights for which they
had contended restored by some invisible authority,
whose nature they could not apprehend and before
which the Viceroy himself unquestioningly bowed.
> See Note D at end of this chapter, p. 228.
* Milton, Are^pagitiea, p. 46.
J
THE OPBNING OF THE HIGH SEAS
175
After the manner of primitive humanity they flew
to the conclusion that this power, mysterious as it
was beneficent, must be divine, and the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council became the object of
religious ceremonies amongst them. The story aptly
illustrates the paradox of the British Commonwealth.
It is based upon principles which are unintelligible
to the majority of its subjects. Ultimately its power
rests upon a sufficient realization by those who wield
it of the civic duty of man to man. That sense
of mutual duty has been developed sufficiently,
not only to convert the English monarchy into a
commonwealth, but to render that conmionwealth
the greatest power in the Eastern world. To the
Oriental power is an evidence of divine authority.
Thus far he believes (and believes rightly) that
power rests on the duty of man to God. But he
has yet to rise to the conception that his duty to his
neighbour is so bound up with it that he can only
fulfil the one by discharging the other. The principle
of autocracy will yield to that of the commonwealth
in so far as this conception of duty is realized in the
field of practical politics.^ But how far a common-
wealth is capable of extension will depend upon the
answer which its citizens give to the eternal question
'Who is my neighbour?' By the Greek it was
limited to those who lived in or near the same city
as himself ; by the European, till close upon modern
times, to those of his own race ; by the American of
to-day, to those of his own level of civilization. But
in so far as men rise to the conception that the weak
who stand in need of their protection are their
neighbours by reason of that need, so far will
commonwealths transcend the boundaries of locality,
race, and civilization which men in the hardness of
their hearts and the blindness of their eyes have
^ See Note A at end of this chapter, p. 222.
CHAP.
Ill
176 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
OHAP. sought to impose on their continuous expansion.
Such a conception faintly dawning in the hearts of
a dominant race has rendered possible this stupendous
Commonwealth embracing one quarter of mankind
and including every degree of civilization and
barbarism.
DeUcate The Oriental feels the reality of its power, and in
the^taak accordaucc with immemorial habit regards it as divine
^^^ and obeys it as such. But were some questioning
Common- spirit Suddenly to destroy the divinity which hedges
need of the British throne in India, order would quickly yield
a^m^*^^ to anarchy. Yet as surely as day follows the night
piiahment ^]^^ jjjjj^g must comc whcu, as knowledge spreads in
India, the aureole which envelops and sanctions its
authority will be dispelled. A despotic government
might long have closed India to Western ideas. But
a commonwealth is a living thing. It cannot suffer
any part of itself to remain inert. To live it must
move, and move in every limb. It must quicken
with the principle of its own vitality every substance
that it incorporates in its system, and though it
must control and guide the process, it must not
resist it. Under British rule Western ideas will
continue to penetrate and disturb Oriental society,
and whether the new spirit ends in anarchy or leads
to the establishment of a higher order depends upon
how far the millions of India can be raised to a
fuller and more rational conception of the ultimate
foundations upon which the duty of obedience to
government rests. Some beginning of representative
institutions has been made; but their further
development will depend upon how far and how
fast Indians rise to a sense of their duty to their
fellow-citizens, and realize it in the practice of daily
life. The work which the British Commonwealth
has to do for them includes that which Rome did
for the peoples of Europe; but it includes much
THI OI>BKINO OF THE HIGH SEAS IV*?
more. It is, in its nature, far more delicate, and chaI>.
• . Ill
if it is to last it needs a mncb longer period in which
to confirm its results. Had Oaesar and Augustus
never lived, had Rome perished at the Christian era
and Europe then reverted to anarchy, the world
would have lost all that it has inherited from Greece
and Rome, because the principles for which they
stood would never have become rooted in the habits
of any important section of mankind. But Rome's
work was easier and more quickly done because the
ancestco's of modem JEktropeans were mx)re primitive
and more plastic than the peoples of the East. In
Asia the British Commonwfeahh has to deal with
the rigid and deeply rooted traditions of a civilization
fer moire ancient than its own. Were the British
Commonwealth to be dissolved in the course of the
next century there would follow a period of world-
wide cataclysm, more terrible than any which occurred
in the centuries after the opening of the seas. Before
the subject raees it now includes could change masters,
a struggle would ensue in the course of which the
habits of law and order which the British Common-
wealth is planting in India would perish as corn in
the blade wheB trampled beneath the feet of contend-
ing hosts. The work done would be but a tale that
is told, and its effe^ on the future not more than
that of the moral to which it points. It needs for
firuition not years nor decades but centuries, unless
it is to perish as a harvest that has never been
ripened and reaped. This project of a commonwealth
is the noblest enterprise yet conceived in the cause
of liberty, for it has played a part greater than any
before it in joining together without binding in
ehains the divers families of mankind. Never before
was known such an element of stability as that which
it gives to the enrtire fabric of human society. But
to maintain it the project must be carried to its issue,
N
178
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP.
Ill
a work for which much time is needed, a strength
growing with the burden of the task, an understand-
ing deeper and an aim higher than have ever been
brought to bear on it in the past.
Ill
Peculiar
oharacter-
isticB
which
have
enabled
so small
a country
as Britain
to carry
such yast
responsi-
bilities.
THE OPENING OF THE SEAS : ITS EFFECT IN THE WEST
The English Commonwealth was thus led by the
opening of the seas in the sixteenth century to iassume
responsibilities destined to become greater than any
which have yet rested on the shoulders of a single
state. Hardly any commensurate area in the world
is capable of carrying a larger population than the
British Isles, because, as may be seen from Plate IX.,
their position makes them for purposes of commerce
and manufacture the centre of the world. The exact
centre of the land hemisphere is at 47 J^ N., 2^ W.,
a point on the sea just outside the mouth of the
Loire. For ships coming from the south and west
the coasts of Britain are scarcely lesel central. Its
numerous harbours are singularly convenient for
maritime trade, and the very smaUness of the islands
facilitates transport by means of coasting vessels
between its various centres of commerce and industry.
It contains, moreover, deposits of excellent coal, large
enough to furnish more than a quarter of the world's
present supply. Nature has in fact made this little
territory the best place in the world for working and
combining materials collected from ail the continents
into goods for redistribution to all their inhabitants.
Whether as an emporium or a centre of manufacture,
the natural advantage of these islands is unique.
Pol*
;
THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS 1*79
Not are they dependent upon their own soil for the ohap.
support of the people engaged in these occupations,
because a very large part of their food is brought
to them by ships returning from oversea. When
the oceans were first opened to traffic the English
population numbered about 8,000,000, and English-
men of that age can no more have realized how
large a population their island could carry than
they can have foreseen the load which their little
commonwealth was destined to take upon itself.
It is this, indeed, which has hitherto enabled so
small a section of Europe to support so overwhelming
a share of the burden of government created by the
history of Europe as a whole.
The late Lord Salisbury advised students of Popuia-
foreign politics to use large maps. But it is even of United
more important that they should also use maps ^nnot'â„¢
drawn upon a scale small enough to enable them fiopoto
^ o keep pace
to compare the countries whose relations they study, with
and the reader should look once more at fhe map ^^nsi-
of the world on Plate 11.^ For reasons explained Sl^^
in the notes thereto, the Northern territories are upon it
greatly exaggerated by Mercator's Projection, so that
the British Islands, when compared with countries
nearer the equator, appear much larger than they
really are. A correct comparison can, however, be
made by glancing at the dotted rectangles which
show the areas of the several countries in their
true proportions. Wherever these rectangles are
smaller than the coloured squares, as for example
in the case of India, the population is denser than
that of China, and in none of them, except Belgium,
is it so dense as in the Britist Isled. When every
allowance is made for the peculiar advantages they
enjoy, a limit must sooner or later be reached in
the numbers which territories with so small an area
' This map will be found at the end c^ the volume.
180
THE 0?£NINO OP THS filGH 8BA8
OHAP.
Ill
Danger to
a common-
wealth of
reducing
too far
the pro-
portion
of citizens
capable
of govern-
ment
can support. The water uequired for the purposes
of their health and industry is but one of the factors
which set bounds to the indefinite growth of an
island community. As a matter of fact there now
remains but one watersJbed of importance whioh
has not as yet been tapped by one or other of the
great cities. This, like every other restricting
factor, reflects itself in the rate of wages and the
cost of living; and the growing pace at which
emigration flows from this densely populated country
shows that it is approaching the point of saturation.
Now that the empty parts of the world have all
been opened to settlement, their populations will
continue to increase by leaps and bounds, and in
any case the inhabitants of these little islands must
represent a steadily dwindling proportion of the
white race, that is to say, of the governing faculty
of the world. Will any one venture to assert that
this diminishing section of Christendom can continue
indefinitely to control the fiiture of one-fifth of the
human race ? The 'force of thia poioat will be better
understood by reference to Plate VIIL, where the rela-
tive proportions of the existing popuJatioois of the
world and of the areas, they severally inhabit are
shown. ^
The previous pages have shown how the British
Commonwealth has been led to include within its
bounds an enormous section of the non - Eiuropeaiu
races, not because they were fit to ahwe in its
government, but for the opposite reason that eontact
with Europe has made them unable to govern them-
selves in their own primitive way. Under these
conditions, inclusion in the British Commonwealth,
where the rule of law was better understood and
observed than by any continental state, was the
best alternative open to them, and that Conunon*
1 Plate VIII. will be found fifing pi 157.
THB OPiariKG 07 THK HIGH SEAS 181
wealth has been able to admit them without, like qha?.
ITT
the Republic of Rome, destroying its own character
as such. The idea that the principle of the common-
wealth implies universal suffrage betrays an ignorance
of its real nature. That principle simply means
that government rests on the duty of the citizens
to each other, and is to be vested in those who
are citable of setting public interests before their
own. In human affairs the application of principles
is always a rough business; but the faict that men
rarely approach perfection in practice must not be
allowed to obscure the principles upon which they
should endeavour to act. The principle of the
commonwealth means entrusting sovereignty to all
those whose sense of duty to their fellow- citizens
is strong enough to justify the trust. But if they
be too few to enforce obedience the state will
collapse. It is the fear of such a catastrophe which
makes Americani^ shrink from the idea of including
countries like Cuba and Mexico in the United States.
But the prospect would lose many of its terrors
if at the same time they coald count on including
the people of Canada.
Herein lies the key to the problem raised for the conse-
British Commonwealth by the opening of the seas. ponLVcT
That stupendous revolution in human affairs was to °^ ^^^.
•^ . . , question
extend its dominion over vast communities incapable, whether
for the present at any rate, of sharing the burden of of Eu^pe^
government. But its dominion was also to spread ing"}^e
over empty continents and to implant in them the ^®^ ^â–
system and institutions through which that dominion were to
was exercised. These vacant lands were to inherit the burden
the principle of the commonwealth, not that of auto- ^l^^^^'
cracy, and receive population not only from the British dej)end
Isles but to an even larger degree from continental
Europe. How far were these people as they entered
the circle of the commonwealth to assume their share
encies.
182 THE OPENING OF THS HIGH SEAS
CHAP, in the gigantic burdens which were heaping upon it ;
or were the inhabitants of the British Isles to remain
for ever responsible for the equilibrium of mankind ?
How far, in a word, were the new worlds to be called
in to redress the balance of the old ? These questions
are indeed the gist of this inquiry, and for their answer
it is necessary to turn from the East to the West and
to trace the results which followed the discoveries of
Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The map of
North America on Plate X. is designed to illustrate
the following pages and should now be unfolded.^
Coioniza- The narrative of the Western discoveries paused at
Engii^^of ^^^ conquests of Cortes and Pizarro, and Spanish
the North names in the South and West of the United States
American
coast still show how far that nation was able to assert its
1519. claim to the exclusive possession of North America.
1588. When, however, by the destruction of the Armada,
the Spanish monopoly of the high seas was broken,
the English had already determined to put * a byt
into the anchent enymye's mouth '^ by occupying
some of the American mainland. Various attempts
at colonization made in the reign of Elizabeth, first
1578. by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and afterwards by Sir
1585. Walter Raleigh, failed in their object. Raleigh's
attempt, however, led to the formal annexation by
England of part of the coast under the title of Virginia.
The first real settlement was efi^ected by the Virginia
Company under a patent granted by James I. to Sir
Thomas Gates and others in which the whole of North
1606. America between parallels 34 and 45 was claimed by
the king, that is to say, the eastern coast from the
southern boundary of North Carolina to the point
which now divides the State of Maine from the
Province of New Brunswick. The Royal Council of
Virginia was organized for the manetgement of this
' See especially map (c) on Plate X. at the end of this volttme.
^ Dale to Winwood, June 1616. Brown, Genesis of the United States of
America^ vol. ii. p. 783.
THB OPBHINO OF THE HIOH SEAS 183
, territory, which, together with certain extensions, ohap.
was occupied' in the course of the next 125 years by
the colonies of Virginia, Massachusetts, ' Maryland,
New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, North
Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Delaware, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Greorgia. It must be
noted, however, that the continuity of the English
possessions was broken by the plantation of Dutch
colonies round New Amsterdam, until they were 1622.
seized by England and the name of New Amsterdam
changed to New York. Henceforward, Holland, 1664.
i except for a moment, ceased to play any part in
the struggle for North America, for .her power was
paralysed by the growing "pressure of France on her
I frontiers.
The French, however, had anticipated the English occupa-
in securing a footing on the Northern continent, and FrancJof
were destined to prove the rivals with whom they ^^^^^"1
had to reckon. After the discovery of Newfoundland behind uie
and the coast of Canada by John Cabot the value of colonies.
the fisheries in those waters was quickly realized, and 1497.
in the early years of the sixteenth century fishermen
firom Western Europe began to frequent them.
Jacques Cartier, a fisherman of St. Malo, was sent 1534.
by Francis I. to explore the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and ventured as far as the present site of Montreal. 1535,
But little was done to follow up the discovery till
Samud de Champlain sailed up the great river in leos.
search of furs. Presently he founded Port Royal on leos.
the present site of Annapolis and established a post
at Quebec, a point whose natural strength enables
its possessor to command the navigation of the St. leos.
Lawrenca To the south he discovered Lake
Champlain, and, in searching the west for China,
explored the lakes Huron and Ontario. Port Royal leis.
and Quebec were taken by the English, but restored 1629.
to France by Charles I. Meantime, the Company of 1682.
184 THK OP8HING OF TH£ BIOH SJEAS
OHAF. New Fraace was formed, under the aegis of Cardinal
^^^^^^^^^ Bicheliea, to which waa granted for fifteen years a
1627. monopoly of the trade of the Stu Lawrence valley.
It was to settle the country with Catholics, but in
thirty years it only succeeded in planting 2000
1664. French. Its charter was cancelled and a new Company
formed, which was not much more successful. The
population was indeed trebled, but mainly by the
energy of the French Grovernment. Ten years later
1674. this Company was abolished, and thereafter 'New
France became a royal province, with governor,
intendant, etc., on the model of the provinces of
1666. France.'^ The French meantinae had established a
mission on Lake Superior, from which two of their
explorers, Joliet and Marquette, reached the head-
1673. waters of the MissiaeippL Cavalier de la Salle
1681-82. presently descended that river to its mouth in the
Gulf of Mexico and claimed the whole valley for
France under the title of Louisiana. Thus, while
the English were founding settlements on the Atlantic
coast, the French were establishing claims in the
hinterland of the English colonies to the five lakes
and the two mighty rivers which rise from or near them
—in &ct, to the great system of waterways by which
the interior of the continent might be opened to
settlement. By an encircling mov^ooient from the
mouth of the St. Lawrence on the north to that
of the Mississippi on the south, the French had
completely surrounded the English settlements along
the seaboard. So long as they commanded the inland
waterways the English colonies were limited in their
growth to a strip down the coast which represented
a fraction of the present territory of the United
States. The policy of the French was to narrow this
strip by advancing eastwards up the Ohio and its
tributaries, and to pjress the English settlements back
1 Wrong, i&wy. Brii, voL v. p. 157, 11th Ed.
THE OPENING OF THB HIGH SEAS 185
towards the coast. The policy of the English was chap.
to connter this move by striking at the French com-
munications on the St. Lawrence. In the seventeenth
century no conspicuous success rewarded their efforts,
and an attack on Quebec from New England was i69o.
repulsed by the Canadian governor, Frontenac.
Though the estuary of the St. Lawrence River was struggle
the key to the inland water system, no government England
in Europe eould hold that key unless its communica- ^^^^ ^^^
tions across the Atlantic were secure. The failure of '^®^'
French fleets to command the Atlantic was bound to ultimate
neutralize the success of French armies in America ; ^^^
for the system of centralization which enabled France
to concentrate such powers as she had there was also
fatal to their local development. In the War of the War of the
Spanish Succession Britain seized Nova Scotia, which suction,
had been held by the French under the title of ^702-i3.
Acadia. By the Peace of Utrecht, which ended the
war, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the territories
surrounding Hudson Bay were permanently secured
to the British Crown. The French, however, kept
Cape Breton Island, and to replace their losses
fortified at immense expense the ice-free port of
Louisbourg, from which in the next war, that of the
Austrian Succession, they were able to harry the warofthe
trade of New England. On the proposal of Governor si^^on,
Shirley the colony attacked the fortress and took it, i7*o-48.
with the support of four British warships under the
command of Admiral Warren. *The achievement
stands by itself as the only considerable warlike
enterprise undertaken and carried through by the
American colonists without the instigation, help or
leadership of the mother-country, other than such
assistance as Warren's ships rendered in keeping the
coast clear/ ^ On the opposite side of the globe
the French had taken Madras, and when temporary
^ Biadlej, Cambridge Modem Siaiory, vol. vii p. 116.
186 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, exhaustion drove both sides to negotiate for peace at
^,,^^^^^^^^^ Aix-la-Chapelle, it was agreed that the territories
1748. conquered by each should be handed back to their
original owners. The English had decidedly the best
of the exchange.^ *But the Colonies could not be
expected to see things in the same light. All that
they saw was that their own trouble and valour had
been given in vain, and that others entered into the
fruits of their success.' ^ The cost of the expedition,
however, was repaid to the colony by England.*
The ink on this treaty was scarcely dry before the
French began to press on the western hinterland of
Pennsylvania and Virginia. The efiForts made by
Dinwiddie, the Governor of Virginia, and his emissary,
George Washington, to check their advance, were
not supported by the colonial assemblies, and Fort
Duquesne was established on the site where Pittsburg
now stands. Reinforcements under Braddock were
despatched by the British Government, but his defeat
1755. on the Monongahela exposed the settlers along the
colonial frontiers to massacre by the Indian tribes
let loose upon them by the French. Meanwhile, the
English Government ejected from Nova Scotia the
French inhabitants who, at the instance of the Canadian
Government, had refused to recognize the sovereignty
of Britain. The struggles on American soil between
French and English forces, while the two countries
were still formally at peace, inevitably led to the
The Seven Outbreak of the Seven Years' War. The British
^aâ„¢ forces were worsted at almost every point till Pitt's
1756-68. advent to power changed the course of the struggle.
Louisbourg was recaptured, and Fort Duquesne,
abandoned by the French on the approach of Forbes,
was re-named Pittsburg in honour of the great
1 Mahan, Inflxunce of Sea Power on History, p. 277.
* Egerton, Short History of British Colonial Policy, p. 146.
* Bradley, Cambridge Modem History, vol. vii. p. 166.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 187
minister. Quebec yielded to Wolfe, and after the chap.
surrender of Montreal, Canada was for ever severed ,,,^^^„^^^^^
from France by the Peace of Paris, which closed the 1759.
war. The opinion of historians is divided on the i^es.
question how far by that peace Britain sacrificed
some of the most valuable fruits of victory. Voices
were raised in favour of abandoning CSanada in order
to secure Guadeloupe. Some there were who per-
ceived how far the fear of conquest by France had
reconciled the English colonies to the sovereignty of
the parent commonwealth. Canada, however, was
retained, and as Louisiana was ceded to Spain, the
dominion of France in America practically came to
an end. The British had conquered the New World
for their institutions, but not, as the event was to
prove, for themselves. Their struggle for the right
to colonize North America opened its doors to the
people of Europe while closing them to the system of
government for which the Continent stood, and as
they poured into the mould, they took the shape
which Britain had impressed on it.
How little this result was due to any foresight Success
or purpose on the part of the English is apparent entwpri^r
when the motives which prompted them to seek a ^^^^^^^^'
footing in America are examined. From the language dependent
of modem diplomacy it might almost be inferred that of those
the nations of Europe value possessions in the other *n^ to
continents mainly as markets for their own wares. mo<iifyojd
11 1 11 ideas and
The simpler and less industrialized society of the methods
sixteenth century thought less of the goods which conditions.
such countries would consume than of the wealth they
could be made to yield, and in that age gold was
looked upon as almost synonymous with wealth.
Naturally their statesmen believed that what other
nations gained from America would be lost to their
own. Kings, captains, and merchants sent their
agents from Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, and
188 THfi OPBNtNG OF THE HIGH SKAS
CHAP. England to gather the spoilfi of the West, and each
^^.^.^^^.^^ fought to exclude the others. Kepresentatives of all
of them remained and took root in various parts of
the new continent, and quickly there sprang into
being communities which drew their vitality from its
soil. They began to produce the raw materials of
wealth, and to o£fer them in exchange for the products
of civilized life which the industries of Europe alone
could supply. The merchants and artificers of
Europe thus came to regard their several colonies as
markets which they were entitled to treat as their
own preserves. The possibility that they might
actually do better by opening them to the world at
large had yet to be recognized, and statesmen of that
age are no more to be blamed for not perceiving it
than astronomers before Ciopernicus for assuming that
this earth was the centre of the Universe. Economics
had not then been conceived as a science, and the
commercial conditions from which its more obvious
conclusions have been drawn were still in embryo.
Only in the light of experience can the principles of
human society be discerned, and the best political
system is that which makes it easiest for people to
mark the lessons of their own experience and turn
them to account. Inevitably the nations of Western
Europe approached the problems of the new era
under the influence of mediaeval ideas, and the
failure or success of each in the novel enterprise
of colonization was destined to depend upon their
relative capacity for adapting their systems to
conditions different from those which had produced
them in Europe.
Rigidity Gold, as already noticed, was in that age identified
hiap^iy. with wealth, and a country held wealthy in so for
insti^u^- as it contained gold. It was not without difficulty
th'^N^ that the English East India Company got leave to
World, export gold in limited quantities for the purchase of
TRR OPBNING OF TBS HIGH SBAS 189
Indian goods. In England, however, the immediate chap.
and obvious interest of the merchants, coupled with ^^^
the national habit of leaving things to take their
course, averted the more mischievous results of a
&Ise eeonomie idea. It was otherwise with the
Spaniards, whose more military habits made it easier
for them to mistake gold, the natural object of
plunder, for wealth. To the ^aniflh autocracy
colonizatkm was a political enterprise mainly under-
taken with the object of obtaining gold for tibe stata
' To plant active and self-dependent societies in the
lands which she had conquered was an ambition alien
to her genius and her history. In some respects
her conception of colonization was narrower than
that of any other people of her time. All sought
to utilise the resources of the new lands for the
upbuilding of their own strength; but Spain con-
tinued to concentrate her attention on, and measure
her succeed by, the volume of treasure transported to
her from the New World. Learning little and for-
getting little, though the art of colonization was
b^g rapidly transformed, she pursued throughout
these years her historic course, adding new territory
by the sword, exploiting principally its mineral
resources, and seeking to administer it in such a
manner that it would yield an ample revenue to the
Crown. ... At Lima and Mexico the Viceroys ruled
in state^ endowed with abadlute authority, though
unable always to exercise it in the remoter parts of
their vast dcNDoiniona . . . The powers possessed by
the cahUdoSy or town councils,, and the consuladoSy or
commiercial chambers, of Mexico and Lima, were too
slight to enable these bodies to modify the character
BfjoA spirit of so carefully organized a systaEn of
absolute government. The life of the country was
quiet, even stagnant; it moved in fixed channels,
and. lacked the elasticity of develo|Hnent that often
190 THE OPENINO OF THE HIGH SEAfi
CHAP, marks the first stages of a young society's progress.
... It was difficult also, owing to the wee^ness of
Spain at sea, to protect the coasts from the raids of
enemies and to prevent contraband trading. But as
the Spanish population was comparatively small, and
the greater part lived in towns, which were generally
well garrisoned, the authority of the Viceroys over
their subjects was maintained unquestioned. Equally
unquestioned was the submission of the colony to the
mother country. This was partly a result of Spanish
methods of colonization and of the attention lavished
on the problem of governing dependencies. Without
faith in her own offspring, Spain was more concerned
to weaken ihan to strengthen her colonies, and pre-
cautions were redoubled to ensure their attachment
to the empire. The authority of the Crown, the
Church, and the nobility, the three principal agents
in Spanish colonization, followed swiftly in the foot-
steps of the conquering generals ; and the political
conditions of the mother country were speedily
reproduced in the colony. A despotic government,
so organized that its different parts should act as a
check upon each other, suspected by the Crown and
suspicious of the Creole, laboured to raise a large
revenue for transmission home. A wealthy Church,
with numerous clergy and monastic establishments
and magnificent buildings, pressed upon the pro-
ductive resources of the country. The tribunal of the
Inquisition, enjoying great power, sat in the capital
cities, supervised conduct, and repressed heresy. A
needy nobility shared out large portions of the land
in huge estates. Amongst the people in general, law
and custom combined to stereotype a caste division,
which fixed the social position of a man and his legal
rights according to the shade of colour which his skin
exhibited. The mother country encouraged the
antagonism which thus separated the various classes
THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS 191
of her subjects, and felt her authority the more secure chap.
on this account. But it was impossible to build a
strong and progressive community by setting the
home-bom white against the native white, the white
against the half-breed, the coloured man against the
white man, the negro against the Indian. . . . But
what was really more unfortunate for Spain was the
dwindling away of her colonial trade. In its broadest
features her commercial policy had not been illiberal
towards her colonies. No systematic ejBfbrt had been
made to shackle their indnatrial and agricultural
progress in favour of producers at home. Skilled
artisans were permitted to migrate to America, and
the province of Quito numbered an industrial element
in its population. If the Spanish colonies were
economically backward, it was their social organiza-
tion and the character of their people that placed
the greatest restraints on their productive powers.
None the less, the manner in which the mother
country conducted her commerce with her de-
pendencies was most injurious both to herself and to
them. The Casa de Contratotdon, which administered
the economic affairs of America, pushed its regula-
tions into the minutest details. Never perhaps has
a government lavished so much care only to repress
the energies of its subjects and to ruin their com-
merce.' ^
By the French Court, on the other hand, which character-
had not as yet become so hide-bound as the Spanish autocracy
autocracy, some disposition to give play to individual JS^^]p?^h
enterprise was shown. The funds for the Canadian methods of
'â– ' , coloniza-
settlements were first supplied by merchants, but ' an tion.
indication of an early intention on the part of the
Crown to treat the colonies on imperial principles
appears in the title ** Viceroy," long before given to
* Benian, Cambridge Modem History, vol. v. pp. 680, 681, 682, 683, 684.
See also Note C at the eud of this chapter, p. 227.
I
192 THE OPBNING OF THE HIOH SEAS
CHAP. Soberval and now again to Cond^, as whose agent
Champlain acted from 1612 with the title ''Lieutenant-
General." ' ^ After the first forty years the efforts of
indiridual enterprise were swept aside by the state,
and as Professor Wrong has observed, Canada was
organized as ' a royal province, with governor,
intendant, etc., on the model of the provinces of
France.' 'At first it seemed likely that municipal
institutions would develop^ In 1668 a meeting of
the habitants of Quebec and its hanlieu was con-
voked to proceed by election to the choice of a mayor
and two bailiff. The election threateuied to becomie
a reality ; whereupon the system was cancelled, and
the municipal idea was rooted out from Canada.
De Tracy urged TaLon to avoid any "balance of
authority among subjects," which might lead to a
dismemberment of the community.' * At this time,
when the Court wsfi endeavouring to exterminate the
Huguenots or to ejeet them from France, 'One of
the ablest of Canadian governors, La Galissoni^re,
seeing the feebleness of the colony compared with
the vastness of its claims, advised the King to send
ten thousand peasants to occupy the vaUey of the
Ohio, and hold back the Britii^ swarm that was just
then pushing its advance-guard over the All^hanies.
It needed no effort of the King to people lus waste
domain, not with ten thousand peasants, but with
twenty times ten thousand Frenchmen of every
station, — the most industrious, most instructed, most
disciplined by adversity and capable of self-rule, that
the country could boast.' ^ ' When some Huguenots
made application to join the colony, Louis XIY.'s
reply was that he had not chaaed the heretics from
his kingdom in order to found a republic for them
^ Batesou, Cambridge Modem History, vol. viL p. 72.
* Ibid, vol. vii. p. 81.
' Parkman, Montcalm cuid fFoffe, vol. i. pp. 28-4.
THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEAS 193
in America.' ^ * While La Galissoni^re was asking chap.
Ill
for colonists, the agents of the Crown . . . were
pouring volleys of musketry iiito Huguenot con-
gregations, imprisoning for life those innocent of all
but their faith, — the men in the galleys, the women
in the pestiferous dungeons of Aigues Mortes, —
hanging their ministers, kidnapping their children,
and reviving, in short, the dragonnades. Now, as
in the past century, many of the victims escaped to
the British colonies, and became a part of them.
The Huguenots would have hailed as a boon the per-
mission to emigrate under the fleur-de-lis, and build
up a Protestant France in the valleys of the West.
It would have been a bane of absolutism, but a
national glory ; would have set bounds to English
colonization, and changed the face of the continent.' *
'The contesting forces which at this epoch were to
settle the destinies of North America were numerically
insignificant; and it is possible that ten thousand
sturdy Huguenot settlers sent up the Mississippi at
this moment might have changed the history of the
world.' • * The opportunity was spurned. France
built its best colony on a principle of exclusion, and
failed ; England reversed the system, and succeeded.'*
Afi in the Spanish colonies, the system of centraliza-
tion natural to a despotism checked the growth of
any local sense of responsibility. * Canada was the
prey of official jackals, — true lion's providers, since
they helped to prepare a way for the imperial beast,
who, roused at last from his lethargy, was gathering
his strength to seize her for his own. Hbnesty could
not be expected from a body of men clothed with
arbitrary and ill-defined powers, ruling with absolute
sway an unfortunate people who had no voice in their
' Bateson, Cambridge Modem History ^ vol. vii. p. 88.
' Parkman, Montcalm amd Wo\fey yoI. 1. p. 24.
* Bateson, Cambridge Modem History ^ vol. vii. p. 114.
* Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe^ vol. L p. 24.
194 THE OPENING OP THE HIGH SEA8
CHAP, own destinies, and answerable only to an apathetic
master three thousand miles away.' ^ When Canada
was irretrievably lost to France a public inquiry in
Paris brought to light the manner in whic^ the
officials had plundered the French Government and
the people of the colony. Too late the King dis-
covered that the stcnres which might have enabled the
colony to resist Wolfe had been sold for their own
profit by the intendant and his accomplices.
Superior- The French system, however, secured to their
French^ Icadcrs a power of concentration in policy and war
handling which almost made up for the weakness of their
Indians, tesources. In no direction was this advantage more
marked than in the handling of native a£fair8, for the
centralized and despotic government of Canada was
able to maintain a uniform control of its own
colonists in their dealings with the Indian tribes.
In the English territories a dozen democracies were
all handling the natives in different ways, or, to be
more accurate, were failing to handle them at all or
to establish any orderly relations between the two
races. Here as elsewhere had begun the inevitable
conflict between civilized and tribal notions of tenure.
To the Indians, with their communal ideas, their
hunting grounds were regarded as tribal pix)perty.
What was every man's land the colonist deemed to be
no man's land, of which each new-comer was free to
appropriate so much as he needed for his own use.
The communal system of a primitive people was
ignored, and the Europeans imposed on the country
their own system of individual ownership. That
pathetic cry, long heard in Ireland and destined to
be re-echoed wherever men bred under the individual*
istic laws of civilized states have invaded the com-
munes of tribal societies, was now raised in America.
' We don't know what you Christians, En^ish and
^ Parkman, Monicalm and Wolfe^ vol. ii. p. 33.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 195
French, intend/ said one of the Indians. *We are chap.
80 hemmed in by you both that we have hardly a ^"
hunting-place left. In a little while, if we find a
bear in a tree, there will immediately appear an
owner of the land to claim the property and hinder
ua from killing it, by which we Uve. We are so
perplexed between you that we hardly know what to
say or think.' ^ The problems were such as the
autocratic French government could control far better
than the weak and numerous governments of the
English colonies. It is never so hard for a people
who have learnt how to govern themselves to mete
out justice to those who have not, as where they have
rooted themselves and made their home in the soil of
a more backward society. It is this which accounts
for the contrast between England's success in India
and her failure in Ireland. In mixed societies the
subject race may fare worse than under autocracies
such as those which Spain and France established.
In North America, however, the French and English
had a direct motive for enlisting the aid of the natives
against each other, and in bidding for their support
the centralized French Government had a great
advantage. It was only when the power of the
French began visibly to fail that the majority of
the Indians definitely transferred their allegiance to
the other side.
This same unity of control in all the operations Methods
of war nearly enabled the French to defeat the ^lonwa^
divided councils and forces of the English who out- ^^fica^i^
numbered them by more than twelve to one. Their opmmer-
disunion, indeed, was due to methods of colonization religious
as diverse and casual as those of Spain and France ™°^^^®*'
were uniform and systematic. Visions of the fabled
El Dorado and of the boundless supplies of wealth
^ New York Colonial Doewnania, vi 818, qootdd by Parkman, MorUccUm
and Wolft^ vol i. pp. 178-9.
196 THE 0PEKIK6 OF THE HIGH SBAB
CHAP, to be drawn therefrom in the form of gold had figured
largely even in the mind of Raleigh. But the growth
of commerce and the experience it brought suggested
other and sounder reasons for securing a footing on
the American continent. The Government as well
as the merchants of England had begun to realize
that its safety as well as material prosperity had
come to depend on sea -borne traffic They foresaw
the risk of an attempt, such as Napoleon actually
made two centuries later, to starve England into
submission by closing the ports of Europe against
her. From the Continent she drew not merely the
wealth to pay for the ships that defended her shores,
but also the actual materials from which they were
built. Then, as in the days of Nelson, she depended
on the Baltic for tar, pitch, rosin, flax, cordage,
masts, yards, timber, and other naval stores.^ The
idea was conceived that all these stores, and many
other things as well, notably wines, for which England
was dependent on Southern Europe, could be drawn
from America. Both these motives, political and
material, find expression in the words of a pamph-
leteer of the time : ' We shall reare again such
marchants shippes both tall and stout, as no forreine
sayle that swimmes shall make them vaile or stoope,
whereby to make this little northerne comer of the
world the richest storehouse and staple for mar-
chandize in all Europe.' * But that motives were at
work other than those of policy or trade is evident
from a prayer which appears in a contemporary
pamphlet to ' That merciful and tender God who is
both easie and glad to be entreated, that it would
please Him to bless and water these feeble beginnings,
and that as He is wonderful in all His workes, so to
nourish this graine of seed that it may spread till
1 Egerton, A ShoH History of BrUisk Colonial Policy, p. 23.
» Ibid, p. 41.
THE OPENING OF THE HYGH SEAS 197
the people of this earth admire the greatnesse and ohap.
aeeke the shade and fruits thereof/ ^ v..-,..^^,^
Thus, the religious as well as the commercial Private
* feelings of the people sympathized with the national and^inde-
instinct to put 'a byt into the anchent enymye's p^^^^*^
mouth.' Individual enterprise was less trammelled awistance
in England than in any part of the Continent, and gaishinx
English adventurers were readier, even than thpse ^gf
of Holland, to rely on their own eflForts to gain their enterprise
own ends. They were not so much concerned to
secure active assistance from government as guarantees
that it would leave them a free hand to carry through
whatever they undertook. The successive patents
granted by the Grown were rather of the nature of
licences defining the limits within which private
adventurers were free to act. As in the case of the
East India Company, the sinews of the enterprise
were furnished by private individuals or associations.
The incorporators of the Virginia Company consisted 16O6.
of 56 City Companies and 659 private persons, of
whom 21 were peers, 96 knights, 11 professional men,
53 captains, 28 esquires, 58 gentlemen, 110 merchants,
and 282 citizens.^ At least 2,000,000 square miles
had been claimed by England in the patent granted
to Raleigh, but of this tract not more than one-
hundredth was allotted to two Corporations, one of
which was the Virginia Company. For the super-
vision of the whole territory there was called into
being a second edition of the Privy Council, styled
' The Royal Council of Virginia.'
The freedom with which the regulations for the
government of the colony in Virginia were varied
in the earlier years of its existence suflSiciently reveals
the habit already formed by Englishmen of feeling
their way little by little as experience might suggest.
^ Egerton, A Short History 0/ British Colonial Policy , pp. 41-2.
' Ibid. p. 25.
198
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP.
Ill
Reproduc-
tion in
New World
from the
outset of
principles
under-
lying the
institu-
tions of
mother
countries ;
autocracy
in the
colonies
of France
and Spain,
and tne
spirit of
the
common-
wealth
and local
control in
those of
England.
Spanish
hostility
to the
settlement
of Virginia
and to the
principle
for which
it stood.
In the colonies of Spain and France the institutions of
autocracy reproduced themselves and crushed any
faint attempts towards individual enterprise which
appeared at the outsetw Absolutism was ultimately-
fatal whether to private experiments in the practice
of government or to the growth of municipal in-
stitutions. In exactly the same way the principles
which underlay the institutions of the Englirfi
Commonwealth began to assert themselves after the
first few years. *In 1619 ... a new order of
things was set on foot by the summoning of a
popular Assembly, which met on the 30th of July of
that year. Hutchinson speaks of it as "breaking
out," and Professor Seeley has repeated the ex-
pression. But, in fact, it was duly summoned
by Yeardley, according to the instructions which
he had received from home. The Assembly was
to be composed of the Governor and his Council,
together with Burgesses, elected by the freemen
from each plantation, each county and hundred
returning two members. The Assembly was to
have power to make and ordain whatsoever laws
and orders should by them be thought good and
profitable.' ^
* That the settlement of Virginia had given great
dissatisfaction to Spain is of course certain. The
very valuable collection of Simanca documents first
collected in Mr. Brown's Genesis of the United States,
enables us to follow in detail the intrigues and plots
of Spain against the young Colony, for the first ten
years of its existence. We now recognize that a
ceaseless diplomatic war was carried on by Spain
against the interests of the Colony. She is found
screwing up her courage to make an end, once and
for all, of the intruder, but for one reason or another
postponing the effort. It was hoped in Spain that
* Egerton, A Slwrt History of British Colonial Policy, pp. 31-2.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 199
the death of Prince Henry ^ would make the business chap.
TTT
grow cooler, while at another time, the Colony appears
dying of itself. In 1613 we hear of a formal claim
made to Virginia under the Papal Bull, and a hot dis-
pute between the English ambassador and the Spanish
Secretary of State. And an expedition from Lisbon
to destroy the Colony was on the point of starting.
* The author of the pamphlet, " A perfect description
of Virginia," published in 1649, states that *'it is
well known that our English plantations have had
Httle countenances, nay, that our statesmen, when
time was, had store of Gondemore's ^ gold to destroy
and discountenance the plantation of Virginia ; and
he effected it in a great part, by dissolving the
Company, wherein most of the nobility, gentry,
corporate cities, and most merchants of England
were interested and engaged; after the expense of
some hundreds of thousands of pounds. For Gunde-
more did affirm to his friends that he had commission
from His Master to ruin that plantation. For, said he,
should they thrive and go on increasing as they have
done, under the government of that popular Lord
of Southampton, my master's West Indies and his
Mexico would shortly be visited by sea, and by
land, from those planters of Virginia. And Marquis
Hambleton told the Earle of Southampton that
Gundemore said to King James that the Virginia Courts
were but a seminarie to a seditious Parliament."'^
Something more was afoot than a struggle of states
for the possession of America. Behind it was a
mortal conflict of principles, inevitable as soon as
both were applied to a new and common sphere.
The despotism of Spain instinctively felt that the
active little democracy which had entered its preserve
^ Elder brother of Charles I. and an enUiusiast for English colon issation.
' Spanish Ambassador at the Court of St. James.
' Egerton, A Short History of British Coloiiial Policy^ pp. 35-6.
200
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP.
Ill
Failure of
YirginiA
Comi)any
to select
suitable
colonists.
Causes
which led
to colon-
ization of
English
territories
in America
by
religious
refugees.
was the embodiment of an ideal fatal to its own.
' In the bottom of its cold heart it was afraid/ and
history has proved that its fears were just. ' Happily
for the world, the misfortunes of the Colony were
such as to enable the Spanish power half to delude
itself into the belief that it was rather the unimport-
ance of Virginia than its own inherent incapacity,
which allowed the egg to be hatched from which was
to arise a cockatrice to Spain's American Empire/ ^
The importance of the Virginia Company lies
chiefly in the fact that the English Government was
led by its enterprise to make formal claim to the
coast belt of North America. Where the Company
failed was in finding settlers of character, and many
of those sent out were described as ' unruly gallants,
packed thither by their friends to escape ill-destinies.' ^
In order to obtain quick profits its efforts were con-
centrated on the planting of tobacco, and labourers
were sought for the plantations without any regard to
their fitness to form the nucleus of a future com-
munity. Very early in the history of chartered
companies the inherent conflict between their duty to
their shareholders and their duty to the * unborn
millions ' ^ who would people their territories began to
assert itself.
But other forces already at work were soon to
supply the material from which the real fibre of the
national character was to be drawn. The English
Reformation in the sixteenth century was a revolt
against that spirit of uniformity which was the legacy
to Europe of the Roman Empire. It was, however,
but the first of many steps towards toleration in
matters of religion. So far as the intentions of
Government were concerned it meant that in England,
^ Egerton, A Short HiMory of British Colonial Policy^ p. 86.
« Ibid. p. 30.
' Sir George Grey's favourite phrase when addressing the people of New
Zealand.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 201
church and state once for all repudiated the authority chap.
of Rome. Such a step was, of course, rendered
possible by the spirit of Protestantism which had been
growing amongst the lower ranks of the people from
the time of Wyclif onwards. But what Henry VIII.
denied to Bome, he and his successors claimed for
themselves. Freedom had many battles to win before
the English Government was willing to allow English-
men the right to adopt what form of religion they
chose. As the Catholic sovereigns had persecuted
those who denied the authority of Rome, so their
Protestant successors persecuted those who denied
their own authority as heads of the English Church.
But in heading the secession from Rome they had
released elements of revolt against all authority in
matters of faith too strong for themselves to suppress ;
and for more than two centuries dissenters and papists
were ali^e the victims of official persecution.
James L was especially zealous in asserting his The
claim to religious obedience, and certain noncon- FaSera.
formists of Scrooby, near Nottingham, took refuge at ^gXte
Leyden from his vexatious measures, but after some character
eleven or twelve years it seemed better to them to ^^^^'
move to some place where their little community would
not be in danger of merging its identity and character
in an alien race. * Amongst many other inconveni-
ences,' they considered 'how hard the Country was
where we lived, how many spent their estate in it,
and were forced to return for England, how grievous
to live from under the protection of the State of
England ; how like we were 'to lose our language, and
our name of English ; how little good wee did, or were
like to do to the Dutch in reforming the Sabbath ;
how unable there to give such education to our
children, as wee our selves had received, etc.' ^ A con-
cession was obtained from the Virginia Company, and
* Winslow, Hypocrme Uhmaskedy p. 89.
202 THE OFEKIK6 OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, on the 6th September 1620, the Mayflower started
on her famous Toyage with aboot 120 of them on
board. Through stress of weather and the unwilling-
ness of the ship's company to carry them farther, they
were forced in December to land in the harbour which
lies behind Cape Cod, on the coast of New England.
Within a few hours of going ashore the first party
were obliged to defend themselves with firearms
against an attack from Indians. Half their number
died of scurvy in the first few months. ^ It is not
with us,' wrote their leader, *as with other men
whom small things can discourage, or small discon-
tentments cause to wish themselves at home again.' ^
Founda- The spot whcrc th^ landed was North of the
New"* region granted to the Virginia Company, from which
ofN^w^ they held their concession, and in the territory
Plymouth, allotted by royal charter a month before to the
• written Plymouth Company lately established * for the
tion. * " planting, ordering, ruling, and governing of New
England in America.'* From it they obtained a
concession in 1621, and three years later were able
to purchase the rights of the Company itself * I
shall a litle returne backe,' says their chronicler, Brad-
ford, the second governor of the colony, * and begine
with a combination made by them before they came
a shore, being the first foundation of their govem-
mente in this place ; occasioned partly by the
discontented and mutinous speeches that some of
the strangers amongst them had let fall from them
in the ship ; That when they came a shore they
would use their owne libertie; for none had power
to command them, the patente they had being for
Virginia, and not for New england, which belonged
to an other Goverment, with which the Virginia
Company had nothing to doe. And partly that
^ Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, p. 42.
2 Ihid. p. 42.
THE OPKNINO OF THE HIGH SEAS 203
shuch an aete by them done (this their condition chap.
considered) might be as firme as any patent, and
in some respects more sure.
* The forme was as foUoweth.
' In the name of God, Amen. We whose names
are underwriten, the loyaU subjects of our dread
soveraigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God,
of Great Britaine, Franc, and Ireland king, defender
of the faith, etc.
* Haveing undertaken, for the glorie of God, and
advancemente of the Christian faith, and honour
of our king and countrie, a voyage to plant the
first colonic in the Northerne parts of Virginia,
doe by these presents solemnly and mutualy in
the presence of God, and one of another, covenant
and combine our selves togeather into a civill body
politick, for our better ordering and preservation
and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by vertue
hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame shuch just
and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions,
and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought
most meete and convenient for the generall good
of the Colonic, unto which we promise all due sub-
mission and obedience. In witnes whereof we have
hereunder subscribed our names at Cap-Codd the
11 of November, in the year of the raigne of our
soveraigne lord, King James, of England, France,
and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the
fiftie fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.' '
This document has often been described as the Nature
first written constitution, and for the purpose of the document
present inquiry it is of interest to consider wherein aXVcd.
consisted its efficacy as a basis for the government
of New Plymouth. It is usual .to describe it as
a 'compact of government,'^ and in form it un-
* Bradfoi-d, History of Plymouth Plantatianj pp. 189-91.
' Egerton, A Short History of British Colo7tial Policy, p. 42.
204 THK OPENIKO OF THE HIGH SKAS
CHAP, questionably was so. But if its value depended
on compact, its force must have expired with those
who signed it. In essence it was a confession of
purpose and faith, a dedication for all time and all
purposes by the founders of the community to its
general interest, not only of themselves, but of all
who should hereafter come within its jurisdiction.
In practice [its efficacy depended on a sufficient
recognition by a sufficient number of colonists of
their duty to uphold the government it established,
whether by restraining enemies who threatened its
existence from without, or by constraining to
obedience those who might question its authority
from within. Even in this small and heroic company
there were already some, as the narrative shows, who
had declared their intention of putting their own
interests before those of the community, and the
document originated in the determination of the
others to suppress such conduct by force. There
were dangers from without, moreover, to be reckoned
with, and Bradford indicates that the necessity of
acme military organization was recognized from the
outset. ' After this they chose, or rather confirmed,
Mr. John Carver (a man godly and well approved
amongst them) their Govemour for that year. And
after they had provided a place for their goods, or
comone store, (which were long in unlading for want
of boats, foulnes of the winter weather, and sicknes
of diverce,) and begune some small cottages for their
habitation, as time would admitte, they mette and
consulted of lawes and orders, both for their civill
and military Governmente, as the necessitie of
their condition did require, still adding therunto as
urgent occasion in severall times, and as cases did
require.
* In these hard and difficulte beginings they found
• some discontents and murmurings arise amongst
« THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 205
some, and mutinous speeches and carriages in other ; ohap.
but they were soone quelled and overcome by the
wisdome, patience, and just and equall carrage of
things by the Gov(enio)r and better part, which
clave faithfully togeather in the maine. ' ^ The narrative
by its very simplicity lays bare the foundation of the
state. Freeman himself might have learned from it
that even a commonwealth cannot escape the necessity
of constraining unwilling subjects.^ States are not
based on force and cannot be founded on self-interest.
On the contrary, they originate in the truth that men
cannot live by bread alone, together with all that
that truth implies. As no state can rest on force so
none can exist without using it to impose the con-
science of the community upon those who repudiate
its demands. If no limit can be allowed to the duty
owed by the citizen to his commonwealth, that
boundless duty may require him to exercise force
when summoned by law to vindicate its claim.
Further settlements were made by the Puritans in Founda-
New England, the most important being that of the fisher
Massachusetts Bay Company under a charter secured ^J[}^°
by John Winthrop. Thus from the original stock of menta at
English radicalism, which was destined henceforward chusetta
to play so large a part in the life of the British ^fXere,
Commonwealth, were planted communities which ^^^9.
aspired at the outset to be virtually independent of
the British connection."
Their example was followed by Roman Catholics, Roman
who sought to find in a new country freedom from ^etUement
the annoyance to which they were subjected at home. i^n^^'Jgg
One of their leaders, Lord Baltimore, obtained a
charter for the colonization of Maryland, the practical
1 Bradford, Hi$tory of PlymnUh Plantation 16X0-1647, pp. 189-98.
* See Note D at end of this chapter, p. 228.
3 Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, p. 45. See also
Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, vol. iii. p. 512,
and Winthrop's Journal, vol. ii. pi 301.
206 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS .
CHAP, effect of which was to allow the exercise of the
Eoman Catholic religion. As the next Lord Baltimore
wrote, his father * had absolute liberty to carry over
any from his Majesty's dominions willing to go. But
he found very few but such as for some reason or
other could not live in other places, and could not
conform to the laws of England relating to religion.
These declared themselves willing to plant in this
province, if they might have a general toleration
settled by a law, by which all, of all sorts, who
professed Christianity in general might be at
liberty to worship God in the manner most agreeable
to their conscience without being subject to i^ny
penalties. ' ^
Result of In the patents granted in the last century to
i^^E^gr4 Gilbert and Raleigh, conformity with the Church of
colonies in EnjDfland had been prescribed in terms. Professor
fostering ^ ^
their Egcrtou shows that Charles I., while attempting to
Sntrasted cuforcc confomiity in England, deliberately sanctioned
TofiliiM' *^^ policy of leaving the American settlers to use
^fCon- what form of worship they chose. Nothing could
states. better illustrate the contrast between the tendencies
at work on the Continent and in England. The
Inquisition planted at the outset in the Spanish
colonies gnawed their vitality from within. The
French Court closed Canada to the Huguenots who
sought to escape its persecution. In England the
very kings who contested the claims of Parliament
and endeavoured to enforce conformity to the
established church were fain to wink at dissent in all
its forms when practised beyond the Atlantic. The
traditions of the national life were too strong for
them, and the consequence was that some of its more
vigorous elements poured into the colonies and
flourished there. After them entered kindred elements
from countries which denied to the spirit of in-
^ Egei-tou, A SKori History of British Colonial Policy, pp. 47-8.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 207
dependence an asylum even in their own colonies, chap.
The Huguenots shut out from Canada found freedom
and safety beneath the English flag. Religious
persecution there was, but it was instituted not by
the English Government but by the colonists them-
selves and was soon extinguished by public sentiment.
From Virginia the Anglicans sought to exclude
dissenters. In New England the Puritans were
equally hostile to Quakers and to English and Eoman
Catholics. The latter had their headquarters in
Maryland where, however, there was a large dissent-
ing population. At a later date Pennsylvania came
into existence as the outcome of Penn's Holy
Experiment. It was ' a conglomerate of creeds
and races, — English, Irish, Germans, Dutch, and
Swedes; Quakers, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Roman-
ists, Moravians, and a variety of nondescript sects.
The Quakers prevailed in the eastern districts ; quiet,
industrious, virtuous, and serenely obstinate. The
Germans were strongest towards the centre of the
colony, and were chiefly peasants ; successful farmers,
but dull, ignorant, and superstitious. Towards the
west were the Irish, of whom some were Celts, always
quarrelling with their German neighbors, who de-
tested them ; but the greater part were Protestants
of Scotch descent, from Ulster; a vigorous border
population.' '
In New York, * the English, joined to the Dutch,
the original settlers, were the dominant population ;
but a half-score of other languages were spoken in
the province, the chief among them being that of the
Huguenot French in the southern parts, and that of
the Germans on the Mohawk. In religion, the
province was divided between the Anglican Church,
with government support and popular dislike, and
numerous dissenting sects, chiefly Lutherans, In-
^ Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i. pp. 33-4.
208 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, dependents, Presbyterians, and members of the Dutch
"^ . Reformed Church.'^
The general result is summed up by Parkman in
the following words : * The thirteen British colonies
were alike, insomuch as they all had representative
governments, and a basis of English law. But the
differences among them were great. Some were
purely English ; others were made up of various
races, though the Anglo-Saxon was always predom-
inant. Some had one prevailing religious creed ;
others had many creeds. Some had charters, and
some had not. In most cases the governor was
appointed by the Crown ; in Pennsylvania and Mary-
land he was appointed by a feudal proprietor, and in
Connecticut and Rhode Island he was chosen by the
people. The differences of disposition and character
were still greater than those of form.^
'. . . The attitude of these various colonies towards
each other is hardly conceivable to an American
of the present time. They had no political tie
except a common allegiance to the British Crown.
Communication between them was difficult and slow,
by rough roads traced often through primeval forests.
Between some of them there was less of sympathy
than of jealousy kindled by conflicting interests
or perpetual disputes concerning boundaries. The
patriotism of the colonist was bounded by the lines
of his government, except in the compact and kindred
colonies of New England, which were socially united,
though politically distinct. The country of the New
Yorker was New York, and the country of the
Virginian was Virginia. The New England colonies
had once confederated; but, kindred as they were,
they had long ago dropped apart. William Penn
proposed a plan of colonial union wholly fruitless.
^ Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe^ vol. i. pp. 34-5.
* TWd. vol. i. pp. 27-8.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 209
James II. tried to unite all the northern colonies chap.
under one government; but the attempt came to
naught. Each stood aloof, jealously independent.
At rare intervals, under the pressure of an emergency,
some of them would try to act in concert ; and, except
in New England, the results had been most discourag-
ing. Nor was it this segregation only that unfitted
them for war. They were all subject to popular legisla-
tures, through whom alone money and men could be
raised; and these elective bodies were sometimes
factious and selfish, and not always either far-sighted or
reasonable. Moreover, they were in a state of cease-
less firiction with their governors, who represented
the King, or, what was worse, the feudal proprietary.
These disputes, though varying in intensity, were
found everywhere except in the two small colonies
which chose their own governors; and they were
premonitions of the movement towards independence
which ended in the war of Revolution. The occasion
of difference mattered little. Active or latent, the
quarrel was always present. In New York it turned on
a question of the governor's salary ; in Pennsylvania
on the taxation of the proprietary estates ; in Virginia
on a fee exacted for the issue of land patents. It
was sure to arise whenever some public crisis gave
the representatives of the people an opportunity of
extorting concessions from the representative of the
Crown, or gave the representative of the Crown an
opportunity to gain a point for prerogative. That
is to say, the time when action was most needed was
the time chosen for obstructing it.
* In Canada there was no popular legislature to
embarrass the central power. The people, like an
army, obeyed the word of command, — a military
advantage beyond all price.
* Divided in government ; divided in origin, feelings,
and principles ; jealous of each other, jealous of the
p
210 THE OPENIHG OF TH£ HIGH SKA8
CHAP. Crown ; the people at war with the executive, and,
"^ by the fermentation of internal politicB, blinded to
an outward danger that seemed remote and vague,
— ^Buch were the conditions under which the British
colonies drifted into a war that was to decide the
fate of the continent.
' This war was the strife of a united and concentred
few against a divided and discordant many. It was
the strife, too, of the past against the future ; of the
old against the new ; of moral and intellectual torpor
against moral and intellectual life; of barren
absolutism against a liberty, crude, incoherent, and
chaotic, yet full of prolific vitality.'^
SnoceMof No cAudid ethnologist would hesitate to declare
^^^^ that a natural superiority has enabled the people of
tion due JJurope rather than those of Africa to discover and
to supenor * ^
capacity posscss America. It would be difficult, however, to
tion ^ point to qualities inherent in the English which
secured by ^ty^g^igj^ them abovc their neighbours on the
Inhe^^ Continent. The materials from which the nations of
common- Europe are drawn are too closely akin, and in Britain,
^^ ' at any rate, these materials are so mixed that it is
impossible to establish any theory of racial supmority.
English success in planting North America, and in
the comparative failure of their rivals must, in fact,
be traced to the respective merits not of breed but of
' institutions. In the course of the last few thousand
years the peoples of Europe have distinguished
themselves &om those of Asia, Africa, America, and
Oceana by their higher capacity for adaptation.
Nowhere had this capacity such free play as in the
islands protected by the British Channel, with the
result that it developed there a society which differed
specifically from that of the Continent. The English
had advanced further than the other nations of
Europe in replacing the personal authority of rulers
^ Parkman, Montcalm and Wolft, vol. i. pp. 36-8.
THIS OPENING OF THB HIOH SEAS 211
by laws based on the experieiice of those who obeyed ohap.
them and subject to reykiion in thie light of theii
future experience. From its nature such a system
was bound to succeed better tiian a less flexible one
when apjdied to conditions that were entirely new.
In the Middle Ages the rule of Law, by lisiitiDg the
activity of personal rulers, made a larger call on the
initiative of the subject, while it left him with greater
freedom of action. In private enterprise the English
adventurers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
surpassed those of Europe in mueh the same way
as the Athenians had surpassed the Spartans two
thousand years bef(»:e. When the methods of the
English and thair Continental rivals are examined
thiJs difference will be £Dund in many directions.
Spanish cdonization depended from the outset on the
support as well as the direction of the Court. For
a time the French monarchy used the agency of
companies under the aegis of some minister hke
Richelieu ; but so disappointing were tibe results that
ere long the government swept the companies aside
and took the task into its own hands. On the surface
the Ccmtinental system might seem to have every-
thing in its favour. It meant thsM} a colonial enter-
prise had behind it the whole resources of the state,
and it might naturally be supposed that an organized
govemm^it with its power of general control would
be able to apply these resources to the best purpose.
' Private purses are cowlde oompforters to adventurers
and have been founde £atall to all enterprises hitherto
undertaken by the English by reason of ddaies and
jeloces and unwiUingnes to backe that project, which
succeeded not at the first attempt.'^ These words,
quoted £rom a pamphlet of the time, show how feeble
the resources of English adventurers must hav« looked
^ 'Reasons for raising a Fund for the Support of a Colony at Virginia,'
quoted by £gerton, A Short History of British Colonial Polieyy pp. 24-5.
212 ; THE 0PBNIH6 OF THS fflGH SSAS
CHAP, when first matched against enterprises backed by the
"' treasuries of Spain and France. Thinkers of that age
may well have felt that the planting of colonies, no
less than the conduct of war, was essentially a task
for organized govemmenta But various as were
the problems of military science, they were not so
various as those of colonization, and indeed no
practical problem could be wider than one which
related to the construction of human society. In
war there were certain methods and principles,
recognized as the result of long experience, which
governments had to go upon. But at the close of
the Middle Ages the problem of planting civilized
societies in countries differing widely from those in
which their own civilization had been developed was
practically a new one. The compensating merits of
the English system were to appear more gradually,
as the novelty of the conditions which Europe was
trying to handle began to assert itself These
conditions were extremely diverse and the principles
to be followed in dealing ^th them less ob^ous
than those which govern war. Ultimate success in
an untried region of enterprise can only be secured
as the fruit of experience. Many different attempts
must be made and remade until the right principles
and their appropriate methods are recognized in the
few survivals from many failures. 'Planting of
Countries,' says Bacon, ' is like Planting of Woods ;
For you must make account, to leese almost Twenty
yeeres Profit, and expect your Recompense, in the
end.' ^ He might have added that, in other respects,
it is like sinking for mines. The greater the number
of trials that are made, the more likely are a few
successes in the end to outweigh the loss involved
in all the failures. The most likely places for
settlement and the methods applicable to each will
^ Bacon, EMsaya, zxxiL
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 213
gradually reveal themselves where the attempts are ohap.
sufficiently numeroua and varied. In this respect "»
the English system gained by the freedom it left to
private adventures, for schemes were launched by
a number of people for a variety of motives at many
diflFerent points and in many diflferent ways. The
state was not identified with the success or failure of
any particular venture, and in case of disaster the
loss was limited in extent. Settlements took root
wherever the choice of the district and method was
happy, and once established were capable of an
indefinite growth in time to come.
It was natural and inevitable that all the mother Policy of
states should set out to reproduce in the New World xiv* in
their own social, religious, and political systems, and y!^^
this was true of England no less than of the others, i^stitu-
■Tfc 1 • • • £• r« • 1 -n tions on
But the mstitutions of Spam and France were Canada.
riveted on the infant communities like plates of
armour too strong for them to burst as they grew.
Cramped into the harness of Spanish and French
society which was quite out of keeping with their
new conditions, they were crippled in the process.
The system of nobility was transferred to the soil of
America. Nothing could have been less suited to a
new and growing society than the feudal system of
land tenure evolved by Europe in the Dark Ages,
yet it was forced on Canada in all its rigidity by
Louis XIV. Its fundamental principles prevailed
everywhere in France ; but while the monarchy was
still weak the various provinces had developed their
own local customs, and in certain provinces these
customs had been reduced to codes of which the clearest
and most concise was the * Custom of Paris.' The
fact that most of the officials, priests, and merchants
in Canada came from the capital is the most likely
reason why this particular code was prescribed as
the system of land tenure for Canada. Most of the
214
THE OPENINO OF THE HIGH SEAS
OHAr.
Ill
Power of
self-adap-
tation
secured to
colonies
bv the
English
system.
habitants, however, were used to the Custom of
Normandy from which they eame^ a code adapted to
suit the rural conditions of that province. The
Custom of Paris, of which they knew nothing, was
a code framed to suit the conditions of a thickly
populated and highly developed district. * Again
and again the colonial courts and the administrative
officials found themselves called upon to settle dis-
putes which, but for the almost entire ignorance of
the custom on the part of the disputants, would not
have arisen.'^ Canada was but the wicket of a
continent, the threshold of a vast untravelled
solitude, and lay within the call of its mysterious
voice. Nature herself forbade the attempt to establish
there the relations of a feudal tenant to his lord.
* Successive governors and intendants adverted to
the great difficulty experienced in persuading the
habitants to stay on their farms. The fascination
of forest life appealed especially to the young men,
who went off to the western wilderness by the score
almost every year.' ^ The more glaring inconveniences
were gradually modified, but the process of adjust-
ment was incomparably slower than in the English
colonies, where local assemblies were year by year
at work transforming the laws in accordance with
the experience they had gained.
' The physiognomy of a government,' as Tocque-
ville remarked, * may be best judged in its colonies,
for there its features are magnified and rendered more
conspicuous. When I wish to study the merits and
faults of the administration of Louis XIV., I must go
to Canada ; its deformity is there seen as through a
microscope.'® Whether applied to the colonies of
France or England this observation is equally just.
1 Munro, The SH^wiorial System in Canada^ p. 10.
» nnd, p. 46.
* Tocqueville, The Old Hdgime and the lUvolution, p. 299, quoted by Munro,
The Seigniorial System in Canada^ p. xiv.
, THB OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 215
The centtalized system natural to the French auto- chap.
crac j was repeated and emphasized in Canada. With
no less fidelity the institutions of the commonwealth
were reproduced, and in certain directions were
developed by the customs which the colonists carried
from England to their new homes. With them they
brought their habit of obedience to law, spontaneous
because the law was amenable to the collective will
of those who obeyed it. Its burden they felt as that
of a stafF carried in the hand rather than as gyves
riveted on their feet. Cut and shaped by the experi-
ence of their fathers to meet the needs that had been
theirs, it was yet within the competence of themselves
and their children to refashion it in accordance with
their own experience to meet the changes of place and
time. Law-making was work they understood, and
what is more they knew the tools essential to the
craft. From the outset each settlement developed
an organ for gathering the experience of the little
community and transforming it into law. Such a
system was fatal to institutions which were the
natural growth of European conditions and history,
but unsuited to the climate of the New World.
Projects for colonial aristocracies were mooted in
England but never took root in the colonies them-
selves. Under the Canada Act of 1791 such a pro-
ject was actually passed into law ; but even in the
one colony accustomed to distinctions of rank no
attempt was made to enforce its provisions.^ Thp
autonomy of the English colonies, moreover, pre-
vented the wastage of their local resources, for the
assemblies had absolute control of their internal
revenues. An authority centralized in France, how-
ever absolute, was powerless to check the peculations
of local officials who silently devoured the public
1 Egerton, A Short History of BrUiah Colonial Policy, p. 251. See also
pp. 187 and 821.
216
THE OPKNING OF TH8 HIGH SSAS
CHAP.
' III
The
general
result;
in French
territory,
uniformity
accom-
panied by
stagna-
tion ; in *
English
territory,
diversity
accom-
panied by
vigorous
growth.
funds. Doubtless the revenues of the English colonies
would have shared the same fate had they lain at the
disposal of the Government in London where, for
reasons given in the previous chapter, corruption was
a recognized institution.^ But the jealous parsimony
of the colonial assemblies, though carried to a point
which often jeopardized the public safety, was an
effective antidote to the poison which sapped the
vitality of the French colony. It was not till the
nineteenth century that corruption infected the public
life of America. But the pest was of native growth,
and England had then purged herself of it in the
throes of her great struggle for existence with France.
Thus, while France was founding one great
dependency under a single organization, which
enabled the French colonists to move and act as one
concentrated force against their enemies, the enter-
prise of the English adventurers, subjected to a
minimum of state control, was scattering along the
Atlantic a dozen communities, alike mainly in the
liberty they enjoyed of differing from each other as
well as from the country whose children they were.
Then, as now, flags were portable, but how far the
English or Continental system was to extend in
America was to depend, not upon claims pegged by
explorers, but on the ability of the competing
societies to people them. In the earlier stages of the
struggle what most determined the issue was the
relative capacity of the different colonies to draw
from Europe the best of its emigrants and the largest
share of them, and here the number and the diversity
of their settlements gave to the English their greatest
advantage over Spain and France. To men with
capital the tobacco plantations of Virginia or the
Carolinas offered a highly remunerative investment.
The yeoman or labourer could find his natural place
1 See p. 106.
THE OPSNIKQ OF THE HIGH SEAS 217
in any of the Northern colonies. In one or other of ,chap.
them an asylum was open to those whose need was v,^^,^,^,.,,^
liberty to worship after some fashion of their own.
Spain and France closed their colonies to all who
failed to conform to the religious and political
pattern prescribed by the state. Those of England
were open to the more independent inhabitants, not
merely of the British Isles, but of all Europe. The
volume of emigrants directed from France to Canada
depended on the energy of its centralized government,
but wherever a nucleus of civilization was established
in the domain of the English Commonwealth, there
population began to flow from a variety of sourcea of
its own accord. Canada, however, by the prosperity
it began to enjoy from the moment of its transfer,
was to o£fer the best evidence that the English
system rather than that of the Continent was suited
for transplantation to new countries. Before the
Seven Years' War was over, Haldimand, by descent
a Huguenot, by birth a Swiss, who had taken service
in the British army, reported to Amherst that there
was nothing the Canadians dreaded so much as the
return of French rule.^ Never, indeed, from the i76i.
close of that war till the present have the Canadians
evinced the slightest desire to revert to the sove-
reignty of France. More significant still was their
absolute refusal to join the forces sent from France
to assist the English colonies in expelling Britain from
America. The general result may be briefly stated in
the words of Parkman : * At the middle of the century
the English colonies numbered in all, from Greorgia to
Maine, about 1,160,000 white inhabitants. By the
census of 1754 Canada had but 55,000.^ Add those
of Louisiana and Acadia, and the whole white popula-
1 Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, p. 286.
* Oenstues of Canada, iv. 61. Rameau {La France aiia Colonies, ii. 81)
estiinates the Oanadian populatioD, in 1775, at 66,000, besides vayageurs,
Indian traders, etc. Vaudreuil, in 1760, places it at 70,000.
218
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP.
Ill
The con-
clusion of
the whole
matter.
tion under the French flag might be something more
than 80,000. Here is an enonnons disparity; and
hence it has been argued that the success of the
English colonies and the failure of the French was not
due to difference of religious and political systems, but
simply to numerical preponderance. But this pre-
ponderance itself grew out of a difference of systems.' *
It is a commonplace of history, yet abundantly
true, that the English system prevailed by virtue of
its freedom. That word is too often used of con-
ditions that resemble freedom only as ferocity
resembles courage, or lust love. Of all good things
freedom is the most easily confounded with its
correlative evil, and hence it is that so often men
acting in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity
have achieved the negation of all three. The world
gains by the freedom of men or societies only in so
far as they themselves are liable to the consequences
of what they were free to do or to leave undone, and
are capable of reading, however slowly, the lesson
of results. True freedom means that men, by reaping
what they sow, shall learn with what seeds and how
best to sow again and again. * Good and evil we
know in the field of this world grow up together
almost inseparably ; and the knowledge of good is so
involved and interwoveii with the knowledge of evil,
and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be dis-
cerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed
on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and
sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was
from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the know-
ledge of good and evil as two twins cleaving together
leapt forth into the world. And perhaps this is
that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good
and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil.' *
* Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i. pp. 22-8.
' Milton, Areopagitica, p. 45.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 219
Freedom is the principle by which nature is left, chap.
as far as possible, to attach the appropriate
penalties to error and crime and, by an automatic
system of punishment, to enable men to distinguish
the true from the false and the right from the wrong.
The value of liberty lies in its discipline, in its power
to confront men with facts and to teach them
what are the tasks, always the same yet ever chang-
ing, that they are called upon to face from time
to time. It was this which freedom had done for
Europe, and for England in an even higher degree.
There, under the guidance of statesmen like Simon
de Montfort and Edward I., a machinery of govern-
ment had been devised whereby experience could
be gathered from a country and a population larger
than that of any previous commonwealth, from a
nation instead of from a city, in such a manner
that it could be formulated into law and so made the
directing as well as the driving power of the state.
For men educated to the system there was no great
diflSiculty, as they spread to the continents oversea,
in reproducing that machinery for similar areas.
The colonists were thus able to control the immediate
problems with which they themselves were faced,
and, what is more, they became responsible for
controlling them and so developed a sense of duty in
respect of their own local affairs. Within certain
limits they were left to make their own mistakes
and to suffer by what they did, and so by hard
experience to learn to distinguish good from evil.
The domestic laws which they themselves made they
were as ready to obey as the most law-abiding
community in England itself. Hence, while the
colonies of 8pain and France languished, those of
England grew and prospered. But at the moment
when the final seal was given by Edward I. to
the principle of representation a new problem came
220 THK 0PEKIN6 OF THS HIGH 8KAS
CHAP, into being. By that principle he rendered the
affairs of England amenable .to the control of the
English people and at the same moment rendered the
affairs of the English colonists in Ireland amenable
to their own control Bnt as experience had already
proved, and was to prove again and again, the in-
habitants of England and Ireland had interests which
could not be dealt with apart. And this was true of
Scotland also, as Edward I. had reason to know, for
he had caused the Scots to send representatives
to the British parliament. There were interests
common to the people of the British Isles which, if
the principle of the Commonwealth were to be applied
to them, must be rendered amenable to their in-
habitants as a whole. For these interests (and they
included those of national life and death) no pro-
vision was made. By the opening of the seas and
the consequent establishment of English colonies
in America this defect in the structure of the
Commonwealth was greatly increased. In the long
struggle with Europe which ensued the existence of
the Commonwealth in Britain, Ireland, and America
was equally at stake. The task of self-preservation
was the task of all. At the same time and owing to
the same cause destiny was placing on the shoulders
of this Commonwealth an overwhelming share of
the duty imposed on Europe — that of controlling
its relations with races more backward than its
own. But how were the citizens of the Common-
wealth in Scotland, Ireland, and the American
colonies to be brought to recognize tasks as much
more hard to discern as they were more vital tiian
those involved in their local affairs ? Some plan as
pregnant with future results as that conceived by
de Montfort and Edward I., some act not less
creative than the institution of Parliament itself, was
needed if the principles of the commonwealth were to
seas.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 221
be realized to meet the far-reaching changes wrought OHiiP.
by the work of Henry the Navigator. Were statesmen ^-^v-w
again to be found with the eye to see and the hand
to shape ? The destiny of the Commonwealth hung
and yet hangs on the question. ' He that keepeth the
law, happy is he/ But to make the law there must
first be vision, and in the same place it is written
that ' Where there is no vision, the people perish.' ^
Such were the issues raised by the opening of Absence of
the seas, but before closing that part of the narrative fr^the
which deals with this epoch it is well to remark the X^^
absence from this chapter of a name which fignired arose from
conspicuously in the previous two. Portugal, Spain, ing ofthe
France and Holland all took part in the struggle
with England, which lasted for three centuries, 'and
was to decide how far the other continents were to
be brought under the influence of their respective
systems; but amongst the rivals in this titanic
contest was not included that power which is now
the greatest in Western Europe. Still raking in
the ruins of the Empire they had overthrown the
Grermans had as yet no eyes for the crown of state-
hood, and the name at which Rome trembled and
fell had ceased to be more than a geographical ex-
pression. Not till the close of the nineteenth
century was their belated union to restore to the
Grerman people the position in Europe due to their
vigour and their virtue. But the world beyond it had
limits, and those limits had been reached. It was
then too late for them to secure an adequate place
in the regions opened by Henry the Navigator, with-
out convulsing the framework of human society.
Those who think to interpret the present without
pausing to interrogate the past will do well to reflect
on these facts, for the situation which the World is
now facing hinges upon them.
^ Proverbs xxix. 18.
222 TH£ OFKNINQ OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP.
Ill
^^^ NOTE A
INTERDEPENDENCE OP ORDER AND LIBERTY. VIEWS OF
LORD DUFFERIN AND LORD CROMER ON THE SUBJECT
See page * In the meanwhile, in deference, to a great extent, tx> British
155. public opinion, a certain development of free inBtijUitions wtua
pressed. But Lord Dufferin appears to have had little con-
fidence that he would succeed in "creating a vitalised and
self -existent organism, instinct with evolutionary force." "A
paper constitution," he said, "is proverbially an unsatisfactory
device. Few institutions have succeeded that have not been
the outcome of slow growth, and gradual development ; but in
the Elast, even the germs of constitutional freedom are non-
existent. Despotism not only destroys the seeds of liberty, but
renders the soil, on which it has trampled, incapable of growing
the plant A long-enslaved nation instinctively craves for the
strong hand of a master, rather than for a lax constitutional
regime. A mild ruler is more likely to provoke contempt and
insubordination than to inspire gratitude."
' It was, without doubt, desirable to make some beginning in
the way of founding liberal institutions, but no one with any
knowledge of the £ast could for one moment suppose diat the
Legislative Council and Assembly, founded under Lord Dufferin's
auspices, could at once become either important factors in the
government of the country, or efiicient instruments to help in
administrative and fiscal reform.
* Where Order deigns to come,
Her aifiter, libeity, cannot be far.^
*What Egypt most of all. required was order and good
government. Perhaps, lofngo ijUervaUoj liberty would follow
afterwards. No one but a dreamy theorist could imagine that
the natural order of things could be reversed, and that liberty
could first be accorded to the poor ignorant representatives of
the Egyptian people, and that the latter would thefn be aUe to
See page evolve order out of chaos. In the early days of the struggles
^^^- which eventually led to Italian unity, Manzoni said that " his
country must be morally healed before she could be politically
regenerated." * The remark applied in a far greater degree to
Egypt in 1882 than it did to Italy in 1827. Lord Du&rin was
certainly under no delusion as to the realities of the situation.
In the concluding portion of his report, he said that one of the
main points to consider was " how far we can depend upon the
* Akenside, Pleasures of the ImagiTiatian.
' Bolton King, History of Italian Unity , voL i. p. 112.
TH£ OFfiNINQ OP TH£ HIGH S£AS 223
eontinued, steady, and frictionlefis operation of the machinery CHAE.
we ahall have set up. A great part of what we are about to HI
inaugurate will be of necessity tentative and experimental . . . '^^-^'^n^^---^
Before a guarantee of Egypt's independence can be said to exist,
the administrative system of which it is the leading characteristic
must have lime to consolidate, in order to resist disintegrating
influences from within and without, and to acquire the use and
knowledge of its own capacities. . . . With such an accumulation See page
of difficulties, native statesmanship, even though supplemented ^^^'
by the new-born institutions, will hardly be able to cope, unless
assisted for a time by our sympathy and guidance. Under these
circumstances, I would ventui'e to submit that we can hardly
consider the work of reorganisation complete, or the responsi-
bilities imposed upon us by circumstances adequately discharged,
until we have seen Egypt shake herself free from the initial
embarrassments which I have 'enumerated above." In other
words, Lord Dufferin, without absolutely stating that the British
occupation must be indefinitely prolonged, clearly indicated the
nuiintenance of the paramount influence of the British Govern-
ment for an indefinite period as an essential condition to the
execution of the policy of reform.' ^
NOTE B
RESULTS OF UNREGULATED CONTACT OF EUROPEANS WITH
A PRIMITIVE SOCIETY
The following extracts from the life of John, Paiony a See {lage
missionary < in the New Hebrides, afford some glimpses of the ^^^*
conditions which come into existence where no European state
has made itself responsible for controlling the relations of
primitive people with European traders : —
'We found the Tannese to be painted Savages, enveloped
in aU the superstition and wickedness of Heathenism. All the
men and children go in a state of nudity. The older women
wear grass skirts, and the young women and girls, grass or leaf
aprons like Eve in Eden. They are exceedingly ignorant, '
vicious, and bigoted, and almost void of natural affection.
Instead of the inhabitants of Port Resolution being impi*oved
by coming in contact with white men, they are rendered much
worse ; for they have learned all their vices, but none of their
virtues, — if such are possessed by the pioneer traders among
such races ! The Sandalwood Traders are as a class the most
godless of men, whose cruelty and wickedness make us ashamed
to own them as our countrymen. By them the poor, defenceless
^ Cromer, MoAem Egypt, pp. 266-7.
164.
224 THE OPSNINa OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP. Natives are oppressed and robbed on every hand ; and if they
ni offer the slightest resistance, they are ruthlessly silenced by
^—""v-^*-^ the musket or revolver. Few months here pass without some
of them being so shot, and, instead of their murderers feeling
ashamed, they boast of how they despatch them. Such treatment
keeps the Natives always burning under a desire for revenge,
so that it is a wonder any white man is allowed to come among
them. Indeed, all Traders here are able to maintain their
position only by revolvers and rifles ; but we hope a better
state of affairs is at hand for Tanna. . . .
See pages ' Thousands upon thousands of money were made in the
161 and sandalwood trade yearly, so long as it lasted ; but it was a trade
steeped in human blood and indescribable vice, nor could God's
blessing rest on the Traders and their ill-gotten gains. . . .
Sandalwood Traders murdered many of the Islanders when
robbing them of their wood, and the Islanders murdered many
of them and their servants in revenge. White men, engaged in
the trade, also shot dead and murdered each other in vicious and
drunken quarrels, and not a few put end to their own lives.
I have scarcely known one of them who did not come to ruin
and poverty ; the money that came even to the shipowners was
a conspicuous curse. . . .
' One morning, three or four vessels entered our Harbour and
cast anchor in Port Resolution. The Captains called on me;
and one of them, with manifest delight, exclaimed, " We know
how to bring down your proud Tannese now ! We41 humble
them before you ! "
' I answered, " Surely you don't mean to attack and destroy
these poor people ? "
* He replied, not abashed but rejoicing, " We have sent the
measles to humble them ! That kills them by the score !
Four young men have been landed at different ports, ill with
measles, and these will soon thin their ranks."
* Shocked above measure, I protested solemnly and denounced
their conduct and spirit; but my remonstrances only called
forth the shameless declaration, "Our watchword is, — Sweep
these creatures away and let white men occupy the soil ! "
* Their malice was further illustrated thus: they induced
Kapuka, a young Chief, to go off to one of their vessels,
promising him a present. He was the friend and chief supporter
of Mr. Mathieson and of his work. Having got him on board,
they confined him in the hold amongst Natives lying ill with
measles. They gave him no food for about four-and-twenty
hours ; and then, without the promised present, they put him
ashore far from his own home. Though weak and excited,
he scrambled back to his Tribe in great exhaustion and terror.
He informed the Missionary that they had put him down
amongst sick people, red and hot with fever, and that he feared
THE OPBNIKG OF THE HIOH SEAS 225
their sickness was apon him. I am ashamed to say that these qhaP.
Sandalwood and other Traders were our own degraded country- III
men ; and that they deliberately gloried in thus destroying the
poor Heathen. A more fiendish spirit could scarcely be imagined ;
but most of them were horrible drunkards, and their traffic of
erery kind amongst these Islands was, generally speaking,
steeped in hUBian blood.
* The measles, thus introduced, became amongst our Islanders
the most deadly plague. It spread fearfully, and was accom-
panied by sore throat and diarrhoea. In some villages, man,
woman, and child were stricken, and none could give food or water
to the rest. The misery, suffering, and terror were unexampled,
the living being afraid sometimes even to bury the dead. . . .
* The sale of Intoxicants, Opium, Fire-arms and Ammunition,
by the Traders amongst the NewHebrideans, had become a terrible
and intolerable evil. The lives of many Natives, and of not a
few Europeans, were every year sacrificed in connection there-
with, while the general demoralization produced on all around
was painfully notorious. Alike in the Oolonial and in the Home
Newspapers, we exposed and condemned the fearful consequences
of allowing such degrading and destructive agencies to be used
as barter in dealing with diese Islanders. It is infinitely sad to
see the European and American Trader following fast in the wake
of the Missionary with opium and rum ! But, blessed be Qod,
our Christian Natives have thus far, with very few exceptions,
been able to keep away from the White Man's Fire- Water, that
maddens and destroys. And not lesr cruel is it to scatter fire-arms
and ammunition amongst Savages, who are at the same time to
be primed with poisonous rum ! This were surely Demons' work.
' To her honour, be it said, that Great Britain prohibited all
her own Traders, under heavy penalties, from bartering those
dangerous and destructive articles in trade with the Natives.
She also appealed to the other trading Nations, in Europe and
America, to combine and make the prohibition '^ International,"
with regard to all the still unannexed Islands in the Pacific
Seas. At first America hesitated, owing to some notion that it
was inconsistent with certain regulations for trading embraced
in the Constitution of the United States. Then France,
tempcnrising, professed willingness to accept the prohibition when
America agreed. Thus the British Trader, with the Man-of-War
and the High Commissioner ready to enforce the laws against
him, found hhnself placed at an overwhelming disadvantage,
as against the neighbouring Traders of every other Nationality,
free to barter as they pleased. More especially so, when the
things prohibited were the very articles which the masses of
the Heathen chiefly coveted in exchange for their produce ; and
where keen rivals in business were ever watdbful to inform and
to report against him. If illicit Trading prevailed, under such
Q
226 THB OPSNIKG OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, conditions, no one that knows average Human Nature can feel
HI any surprise.
'^— "v^-^ * By-and-bye, the Australian New Hebrides Company^ with two
Steamers plying betwixt Sydney and the New Hebrides, took
up the problem. Having planted Traders and Agents on the
Islands, they found themselves handicapped in developing
business, and began a brisk agitation in the Australasian and
English Press, eiUier to have the Prohibition applied all round,
or completely rescinded. We have never accepted that alter-
native, but resolutely plead for an International Prohibitive law,
as the only means under Ood to prevent the speedy sweeping
off into Eternity of these most interesting Races by the tide of
what is strangely styled Civilization.
* At length Sir John Thurston, Her Majesty's High Commis-
sioner for the Western Pacific, whose sympathies aU through
have been on our side, advised that the controversy in the
Newspapers cease, and that our Missions and Churches send a
deputation to America to win the assent of the United States.
Consequently, the next Federal Assembly of the Australasian
Presbyterian Churches instructed two of its Professors in the
Divinity Hall of Victoria, who were then visiting Britain, to
return by America, and do everything in their powen to secure
the adhesion of the United States Government to the Inter-
national proposal Lest^ however, these Deputies found them-
selves unable to carry out their instructions, the same Assembly
appointed me as Deputy, with identical instruotibns, to under-
take the task during the suooeeding yestf. . . .
* We reached Honolulu, the Etawaiian Capital, on the 25th,
and spent nearly a whole day on shore. . . . The Queen had
been deposed or deprived of power. National interests were
See pa^ sacrificed in self-seeking and partisanship^ One could not but
162. ^^^^ ^^^ some strong and righteous Government They are a
people capable of great things. Everything seems to invite
America to annex the group ; and it would be for the permanent
welfare of all concerned.' ^
These words were written by John Paton in 1892, but the
control of the New Hebrides is still shared by ikigland and
France, with the consequences which usually attend a divided
responsibility. The complaints that the prohibition againat the
sale of fire-arms and intoxicants are only enforced by one nation
continue. The condition of the islands is one of anarchy which
would at once become a danger to the peace of the world if a
re-grouping of European powers should again remove the present
necessity which is laid on Britain and France to preserving at
all costs a united front. The Hawaiian Group annexed by the
^ John Q. PaUm, Missionary to ihe New Hebrides, pp. 86, 87, 180, 150, 151,
448, 449, 450, 451.
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 227
United States shortly after Paton's visit now afford an instructive CHAP.
contrast to the conditions which still prevail under dual control III
in the New Hebrides. v.-ii-v-i*^
NOTE C
METHODS OF SPANISH COLONIZATION
Mr. E. G. Bourne defends the methods of Spanish coloniza- See page
tion with much learning in the volume entitled Spain inAmericay ^^^'
of the series edited by Professor Hart under the title of The
American Nation, A History, By a minute examination of the
colonial laws enacted in Spain^ Mr. Bourne proves the excellent
intentions of the Spanish Court. His book contains, however
but little evidence to show how far these good intentions were
translated (or were indeed capable of translation) into the
results they were intended to produce in the American colonies,
thousands of miles from Madrid. He writes almost as though
he were an admirer of the system under which the Spanish
Court endeavoured to regulate the domestic affairs of the colonies
through a strong council located in Spain.^ When, moreover,
he argues that the Spanish Empire was comparable rather to
the Indian than to the colonial Empire of England, he fails to
realize the ruin which would have overtaken India if the English
Government had endeavoured to regulate in London details
similar to those which in America the Spanish Government
attempted to control from Madrid. To any one with experience
of colonial administration the facts collected in this book are
sufficient to explain the comparative failure of Spanish colonial
methods as judged by their results at the present day. Mr.
Bourne shows little perception of the truth conveyed by the
remark made in New Zealand by Godley, who was afterwards to
become the head of a department in Whitehall, ' I would rather
be governed by Nero on the spot^ than by a board of archangels
in London.'
NOTE D
PROFESSOR freeman's EXPRESSION OF THE FEELING THAT
THE GOVERNMENT OF DEPENDENCIES IS NOT IN
HARMONY WITH THE DKVELOPMBNT OF THE PRINCIPLE
OF THE COMMONWEALTH
' " Empire " forsooth ; there is something strange, nay some- See page
thing ominous, in the way in which that word and its even more ^^^*
threatening adjective seem ready to spring to every lip at every
moment. The word sounds grand and vague; grand, it may
^ See pp. 229-30.
228 THK OPENING OF THE HIGH SXA3
CHAP. ^^> beoause of its vagueness. To those who striTe that every
III word they utter shall have a meaning; it oslls up mighty and
''-'^0's/-'^^ thrilling memories of a state of things which has passed away
for ever. Its associations are far from being wholly evil. It
calls up indeed pictures of the whole civilized world bowing
down to one master at one centre. But it caUs up thoughts of
princes who bound the nations together by the tie of a just and
equal law; it calls up thoughts of princes who gathered the
nations round them to do the work of their day in that Eternal
Question which needs no reopening because 'no diplomacy has ever
closed it, the question between light and darkness, between West and
East. But the thought of Empire is in all shapes the thought,
not of brotherhood but of subjection ; the word implies a master
who commands and subjects who obey ; '' Imperium et Libertas *
are names either of which forbids the presence of the other.
The thought of ^Empire/' alike in its noblest and its basest
forms, may call up thoughts of nations severed in blood and
speech, brought together, for good or evil, at the bidding of a
common master ; it cannot call up the higher thought of men of
the same nation, scattered over distant lands, brought together,
not at the bidding of a master, but at the call of brotherhood,
as members of a household still one however scattered. In the
gatherings of the Hellenic folk around the altars of the gods of
Hellas the thought of Empire was unknown. . . .
See page ' That this now familiar name of '* Empire '' expresses a fact,
^^^' and a mighty fact, none can doubt. The only doubt that can be
raised is whether the fact of Empire is a wholesome one, whether it is
exactly the side of the position of our island in the world which we
sh^mld specially pick out as the thing whereof to boast ourselves.
See pages Empire is dominion ; it implies subjects ; the name may even
205 an^ g^ggest unwiUing subjects. . . .
^ The fact of Empire then cannot be denied. The burthens
of Empire, the responsibilities of Empire, cannot be denied.
They are burthens and responsibilities which we have taken on
ourselves, and which it is far easier to take on ourselves than to
get rid of. Hie only guesHon is whether ^is our Imperial position
is one on which we need at all pride ourselves^ one about which it is
Seepage wise to be ever blowing our trumpet and calling on all the
^^^- nations of the world to come and admire us. Is there not a more
excellent way, a wa/y which, even if it is too late to follow it, we may
at least mourn thai we ham not foUewedf Is it wholly hopeless,
with this strange, yet true, cry of " Empire " daily dinned into
our ears, to rise to the thoughts of the old Greek and the old
Phoenician, the thought of an union of scattered kinsfolk bound
together by a nobler tie than that of being subjects of one Empire
or "peoples" of one sovereign ? Will not the memories of this day ^
' The birthday of Washington. The singular infelicity of this panegyric
will be seen by reference to pp. 594 and 615.
THB OPBKINO OF THE HIGH SEAS 229
lift 118 above this confused babble about a British Empire cHAP.
patched up out of men of everj race and speech under the sun, lit
to the higher thought of the brotherhood of the English folk, '--••v^-*-^
the one English folk in all its homes t Surely the bnrthen
of barbaric Empire is at most something that we maj school
ourselyes to endure ; the tie of English brotherhood is something
that we may rejoice to striTe after. Cannot our old Hellenic See page
memories teach us that that brotherhood need be none the less ^^^*
near, n<me the less endearing, between coBftmunities whose
political connexioii has been severed — alas, we may cry, that
ever needed severing 1 ' ^
The generalizati<m that ^ " Imperium et Libertas " are names
either of which forbids the presence of the other ' comes strangely
from a historian who has done so much to explain the early
growth of the English C(»nmonweaIth. As Freeman himsetf
remariced in a passage quoted on page 9^ of this enquiry 'no
one aet in English history is more important than ' that of
William the Conqueror in exacting the claim of the central
government todireet obedience from every inhabitant of England.
The reason why the liberty implicit in Tentonic custom perished
in Germany, was due to the fact that the German Emperors
&iiled to establish a genuine 'Imperium.' The student need
go no further than IVeeman's own writings to learn that the
growth of thtt English Commonwealth was only made possible
because kings like the first William and Edward, unlike the
Qerman Emperors, had first made the sovereignty of the state
a fack The tmth
Where Ord«r deigns to come
Her sister, Liberty, cannot be far
is written broadcast over his own pages. The condemnation of
Empire on the ground that it implies ' dominion ' and ' subjects '
and ' may even suggest unwilling subjects ' ignores the obvious
fact that a commonwealth no less than any other kind of state
assumes the right to the unlimited obedience of its citizens. Its
laws, once promulgated, are presumed to be just as binding as
the rescripts of an autocracy. In the matter of obedience the
citizens of a commonwealth are no less subjects than those of
an autocracy, despite the fact that in the formulation of the
laws they may occupy a different position. The conception of
d(miiniork, of irnperivm, of sovereignty is no less vital to a common-
wealth than to any other class of state. No commonwealth
ever eodstad which did not contain unwilling subjects, nor will
such a commonweahh ever exist till human nature is perfect.
The existence of a criminal law in every commonwealth is incon-
trovertible proof that they all contain unwilling subjects. The
* Freeman, Cheater Greece and CfneUer Britain^ pp. 76, 77, 78, 79, 83, 84,
The italics are not the author's.
230 THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS
CHAP, necessity of compulsory education is a sufficient proof that the
ni most enlightened commonwealths cannot depend upon all their
**— '^v^"^^ citizens, even those which exercise the franchise, willingly and
continuously to respond without compulsion to the duties laid
upon them by the state in the interests of their own children^
No one knew better than Freeman, when not carried away by
his own eloquence or prejudice, that no state, however republican,
can ever exist as a voluntary association.
Another curious feature in the passage above quoted ;s the
frank recognition of the overmastering importance of the problem
arising from contact between different levels of civilization,
'that Eternal Question which needs no reopening because no
diplomacy has ever closed it.' He speaks with seeming admira-
tion 'of princes who bind the nations together by the tie of a
just and equal law/ Did he really mean that this supreme
function was one which should be left to autocrats for fear that
commonwealths should injure their own character by touching
It f To turn from the abstract to the concrete, what did he
think should be done with India) Did he honestly believe
that its population were capable of governing themselves, and
if not, would he really have been in favour of leaving them to
anarchy or of transferring them from the British to the Russian
Empire 1 The whole passage suggests that his views on imperial
policy were the result of preconceived ideas which had never
been tested by reference to the facts to which they were applied.
His natural dislike of the word 'Empire' prevented him from
grasping the fact that the dependencies are incori)orated in the
Commonwealth, and are not something which stands outside it.
They and Britain are from every point of view one international
state, and that a state organized on the principle of the common-
wealth.
NOTE E
DEFENCE OF GOVERNOR MOSTYN'S ACTION IN THE ISLAND OF
MINORCA COMPARED WITH THE ATHENIAN DEFENCE OF
THEIR CONDUCT TOWARDS THE ISLAND OF MELOS, AND
WITH THE GERMAN DEFENCE OF THEIR INVASION OF
BELGIUM
Eidradfrom Argument on behalf of Governor Mostyn A.D. 1773.
Seepage 'Of all the Minorquins in that island perhaps the plaintiff
169. stands singularly and most eminently the most seditious,
turbulent, and dissatisfied subject to the crown of Great Britain
that is to be found in the island of Minorca. Gentlemen, he is,
or chooses to be, called the patriot of Minorca. Now, patriotism
is a very pretty thing among ourselves, and we owe much to it ;
TW& ovwsma of the htoh sms 231
we owe our liberties to it; but we should have but little to CHAP,
value, and perhaps we should have bat little of the liberty we HI
now enjoy, were it not for our trade. And for the sake of our ^^^"^^^-^-^y
trade it is not fit we should encourage patriotism in Minorca ;
for it is there destructive of our trade, and there is an end to
our trade in the Mediterranean if it goes there. But here it is
very well ; for the body of the people of this country they will
have it : they have demanded it ; and in consequence of their
demands they have enjoyed liberty which they will continue to
posterity, — ^and it is not in the power of this government to
deprive them of it. But they will tc^e care of all our conquests
abroad. If that spirit prevailed in Minorca, the consequence
of it would be the loss of that country, and of course our
Mediterranean trade. We should be sorry to set all our slaves See page
free in our plantations.' * 1^^«
Argument of Athenian Envoys wUh Mdiaai Commissmwrs KC. 416.
<The Athenians also made an expedition against the isle of
Melos with thirty ships of their own, six Chian, and two Lesbian
vessels, sixteen hundred heavy infantry, three hundred archers,
and twenty mounted archers from Athens, and about fifteen
hundred heavy infantry from the allies and the islanders. The
Melians are a colony of Lacedaemon that would .not submit to
the Athenians like the other islanders, and at first remained
neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon
the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory,
assumed an attitude of open hostility. Cleomedes, son of
Lycomedes, and Tisias, son of Tisimachus, the generals, en-
camping in their territory with the above armament, before
doing any harm to their land, sent envoys to negotiate. These
the Melians did not bring before the people, but bade them state
the object of their mission to the magistrates and the few ; upon
which the Athenian envoys spoke as follows : —
' Athenians, — " Since the negotiations are not to go on before Procedure
the people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on ^ ^
without interruption, and deceive the cans of the multitude by ^ ^^® *
seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we
know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the
few), what if you who sit there were to pursue a method more
cautious still ! Make no set speech yourselves, bv^t take us up
at whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any
farther. And first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you."
' The Melian commissioners answered : —
' Melians. — " To the fairness of quietly instructing each other
as you {MTopose there is nothing to object; but your military
* Howell, 8t€ae Triahf vol. xx. p. 106.
232
THI OPBTIKO OF TOB HIGH BIAS
CHAP.
Ill
Candour
of the
Athenians.
preparatioiis are too far advanced to agree with what you aay, as
we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and thai
all we can reavonaUy expect from this negotiation is war, if we
prove to hare ri^t on our side and refuse to submit^ and in the
contrary case, skrery/'
* A^umans. — " If you have met to reason about presentiments
of the future, or for anything else than to consult for the safety
of your state upon the facts that you see before you, we will
give over; otherwise we will go on.*'
'MdioMS. — *' It is natural and excusable for men in our position
to turn more ways than one both in thought and utterance.
However, the question in this conference is, as you say, the
safety of our country; and the discussion, if you please, can
(HTOoeed in the way which you propose."
' Athenians. — " For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with
specious pretences — either of how we have a right to our empire
because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you
because of wrong that you have done us — and make a long
speech which would not be believed ; and in return wo hope
that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you
did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or
that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible,
holding in view the real sentiments of us both ; since you know
as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question
between equals in power, while the strong do what they can
and the weak suffer what they must.*'
* AWtaTW.-— " As we think, at any rate, it is expedient — we
speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone
and talk only of interest — that you should not destroy what is
our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger
to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments
not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current And
you are as much interested in this as aay, as your fall would
be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the
world to meditate upon."
' Athenians. — " The end of our empire, if end^it should, does
not frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if
Lacedaemon was our real antagonist^ is not so terrible to the
vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower
their rulers. This, however, is a risk that we are content to take.
We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in the
interest of our empire^ and that we shall say what we are now
going to say, for the preservation of your country ; as we would
fain exercise that empire over yoa without trouble, and see you
preserved for the good of us both."
' Melians, — *" And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us
to serve as for you to rule 1 "
THS OPSKINa OF THE HIGH SBAS 233
* Athemms. — "Because you would have the advantage of ohap.
submitting before suffering the worsts and we should gain by m
not destroying you." s-^-n/--*^
^Mdians. — "So that you would not consent to our being
neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side."
^Athemam. — "No ; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us Attitude
as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our ^ ^ ^"^
weakness, and your enmity of our power." neutrals.
' MeUam» — " Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those
who have nothing to do with you in the same category with
peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some
conquered rebels ? "
^Athenians, — "As far as right goes they think one has as
much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their
independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do
not molest them it is because we are afraid ; so that besides
extending our empire we should gain in security by your
subjection ; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than
others rendering it all the more important that you should not
succeed in baffling the masters of the sea."
*MeUans, — " But do you consider that there is no security in
the policy which we indicate 1 For here again if you debar us
from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest^
we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two
happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all
existing neutrals who shall look at our case and conclude from
it that one day or another you will attack them ? And what
is this but to make greater iht enemies that you have already,
and to force others to become so who would otherwise have
never thought of it 9 "
' Athenians. — " Why, the fact is that continentals generally give Hope
us but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long ^^^^^^^^
prevent their taking precautions against us ; it is rather islanders
like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under
the yoke, who would be the most likely to take a rash step and
lead themselves and us into obvious danger."
^Melians, — "Well then, if you risk so much to retain your
empire, and your subjects to get rid of it, it were surely great
baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to try every-
thing that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke."
' AthemoM.-^^" Not if you are well advised, the contest not
being an equal one, with honour as the prize and shame as the
penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not resisting
those who are far stronger than you are."
' MelicMS. — " But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes
more impartial than the disfHroportion of numbers might lead one
to suppose ; to submit is to give ourselves over to despair, while
action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect."
234
THK OPEKINO OF THE HIGH SBAS
CHAP.
Ill
The godfl
favour the
strong.
The
prospect
of help
from
Lacedae-
mon.
' Atheniang, — " Hope, danger's comforter, may be indulged in
by those who have abundant resources, if not without loss at
all events without ruin ; but its nature is to be extravagant,
and those who go so far as to put their all upon the venture see
it in its true colours only when they are ruined ; but so long
as the discovery would enable them to guard against it^ it is
never found wanting. Let not this be the case with yon, who
are weak and hang on a single turn of the scale ; nor be like
the vulgar, who, abandoning such security as human means may
still afford, when visible hopes fail them in extremity, turn to
invisible, to prophecies and oracles, and other such inventions
that delude men with hopes to their destruction."
' Mdians, — ** You may be sure that we are as well aware as you
of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune,
unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may
grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men
fighting against unjus^ and that what we want in power will be
made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound,
if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred.
Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational."
* Athenians. — " When you speak erf the favour of the gods, we
may as fairly hope for that as yourselves; neither our pre-
tensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what
men believe of the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the
gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law
of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as
if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when
made : we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to
exist for ever after us ; all we do is to make use of it, knowing
that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have,
would do the same as we do. Thus, as far as the gods are
concerned, we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall
be at a disadvantage. But when we come to your notion
about the Lacedaemonians, which leads you to believe that
shame will make them help you, here we bless your simplicity
but do not envy your folly. The Lacedaemonians, when their
own interests or their country's laws are in question, are the
worthiest men alive; of their conduct towards others much
might be said, but no clearer idea of it could be given than by
shortly saying that of all the men we know they are most
conspicuous in considering what is agreeable honourable, and
what is expedient just. Such a way of thinking does not
promise much for the safety which you now unreasonably count
upon."
* Mdians, — " But it is for this very reason that we now trust
to their respect for expediency to prevent them from betraying
the Melians, their colonists, said thereby losing the confidence of
their friends in Hellas and helping their enemies."
THE OPBKING OF THK HIGH SEAS
235
^Athenians. — "Then yoa do not adopt the view that ex- CHAP,
pediency goes with security, while justice and honour cannot be III
followed without danger; and danger the Lacedaemonians ^<-^-v^^<*^
generally eourt as little as possible.''
* Mdkms. — "But we believe that they would be more likely to
fiice even danger for our sake, and with more confidence than
for others, as our nearness to Peloponnese makes it easier for
them to act, and our common blood insures our fidelity."
* Athenians. — " Yes, but what an intending ally trusts to, is
not the goodwill of those who ask his aid, but a decided superi-
ority of power for action ; and the Lacedaemonians look to this even
more than others. At least, such is their distrust of their home
resources that it is only with numerous allies that they attack a
neighbour ; now is it likely that while we are masters of the
sea they will cross over to an island f "
^Melians. — "But they would have others to send The
Cretan sea is a wide cme, and it is more difficult for those who
command it to intercept others, than for those who wish to elude
them to do so safely. And should the Lacedaemonians mis-
carry in this, they would fall upon your land, and upon those
left of your allies whom Brasidas did not reach ; and instead of
places which are not yours, you will have to fight for your own
country and your own confederacy."
' Atheniafis, — " Some diversion of the kind you speak of you
may one day experience, only to learn, as others have done, that
the Athenians never once yet withdrew from a siege for fear of
any. But we are struck by the fact^ that after 8a3dng you
would consult for the safety of your country, in all this dis-
cussion you have mentioned nothing which men might trust in
and think to be saved by. Your strongest arguments depend
upon hope and the future, and your actual resources are too
scanty, as compared with those arrayed against you, for you to
come out victorious. You will therefore show great blindness
of judgment, unless, after allowing us to retire, you can find
some counsel more prudent than this. You will surely not be« Sub-
caught by that idea of disgrace, which in dangers that are mission to
disgraceful, and at the same time too plain to be mistaken, yoiy^VcT
proves so fatal to mankind ; since in too many cases the very dishonour.
men that have their eyes perfectly open to what they, are
rushing into, let the thing called disgrace, by the mere influence
of a seductive name, l^d them on to a point at which they
become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall wilfully into
hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more disgraceful as the
companion of error, than when it comes as the result of
misfortune. This, if you are well advised, you will guard
against ; and you will not think it dishonourable to submit to
the greatest city in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate
offer of becoming its tributary ally, without ceasing to enjoy the
236
THE OPENING OF THK HIGH SEAS
CHAP.
Ill
Refusal
of Melians
to submit.
The
Melians
extermin-
ated.
country that belongs to you; nor when you have the choice
given you between war and security, will you be so blinded as
to choose the worse. And it is certain that those who do not
yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and
are moderate towards tiieir inferiors, on the whole succeed best.
Think over the matter, therefore, after our withdrawal, and
reflect once and again that it is for your country that you are
consulting, that you have not more than one, and that upon this
one deliberation depends its prosperity or ruin."
' The Athenians now withdrew from the conference ; and the
Melians, left to themselves, came to a decision corresponding
with what they had maintained in the discussion, and answered,
" Our resolution, Athenians, is the ssme as it was at first We
will not in a moment deprive of freed<»n a city that has been
inhabited these seven hundred years ; but we put our trust in
the fortune by which the gods have preserved it until now, and
in the help of men, that is, of the Lacedaemonians ; and so we
will try and save ourselves. Meanwhile we invite you to allow
us to be friends to you and foes to neither party, and to retire
from our country after making such a treaty as shall seem, fit to
us both."
' Such was the answer of the Melians. The Athenians now
departing from the conference said, ^ Well, you alone, as it seems
to us, jigging from these resolutions, regajrd what is future as
more certain than what is before your eyes, and what is out of
sight, in your eagerness^ as already coming to pass ; and as you
have staked most on, and trusted most in, the Laeedaenonians,
your fortune, and your hopes, so will you be most completely
deceived."
* The Athenian envoys now returned to the army ; and the
Melians showing no signs of yielding, the generals at once
betook themselves to hostilities, and drew a line of circum-
vallation round the Melians, dividing the work among the
different states. Subsequently the Athenians returned with
most of their army, leaving behind them a certain number of
their own citizens and of the allies to keep guard by land and
sea. The force thus left stayed on and besieged the place.
' . • . Meanwhile the Melians attacked by night and took the
part of the Athenian lines over against the market, and killed some
of the men, and brought in corn and all else that they could
find useful to them, and so returned and kept quiet, while the
Athenians took measures to keep better guard in future.
* Summer was now over. . . . The Melians again took another
part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned.
Beinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence,
under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was
now pressed vigorously ; and some treachery taking place inside,
the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who pat
THE OPENING OF THE HIGH SEAS 237
to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the CHAP,
women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five HI
hundred colonists and inhabited the place themselves.' ^
The argument in both these passages might be quoted as
classic examples of what in modern phraseology is known as
realpolUik,
• ••••■•
Since these last words were written in 1913 the same
argument has been used by the Chancellor of the German
Empire to justify the invasion of Belgium.
* Gentlemen, we are now in a state of necessity, and necessity
knows no law! Our troops have occupied Luxemburg, and
perhaps (as a matter of fact the speaker knew that Belgium
had been invaded that morning) are already on Belgian soil.
Gentlemen, that is contrary to the dictates of international law.
It is true that the French Government ha0 declared at Brussels
that France is willing to respect the neutrality of Belgium as
long as her opponent respects it. We knew, however, that
France stood ready for the invasion. France could wait, but
we could not wait. A French movement upon our flank upon
the lower Bhine might have been disastrous. 80 we were
compelled to override the just protest of the Luxemburg and
Belgian Governments. The wrong — I speak openly — that we
are committing we will endeavour to make good as soon as our
military goal has been reached. Anybody who is threatened,
as we are threatened, and is fighting for his highest possessions
oan have only one thought — how he i\ to hack his way
through (toie er sich dwrchkaut) ! ' ^
If the words here underlined are compared with those
similarly marked on p. 232, and with the argument on behalf
of Governor Mostyn on p. 230, the essential similarity of the
reasoning will be seen.
^ ThucydideB, Pshponnetian fVar, translated by Bldiard Orawley, voL
ii pp. 58-67.
^ Speech of the German Chancellor, delivered in the Reichstag on 4th
Angost 1914. Eztraoted from the TinuSf Tuesday, August 11, 1014,
p. $, col. 1<
CHAPTER IV
THE COMMERCIAL SYSTEM
CHAP. Contact with worlds both older and younger than
.^^^^.^^^^^^ herself led to deep and far-reaching changes in the
Social and internal condition of Europe. At the time of Henry
^uiT^^ the Navigator the soil wai parcelled out in great
m^Eoro^ estates held by nobles and by religious foundations,
by the and, as their produce could not be marketed and
t£eT^ ^ turned into cash, it was mostly consumed on the spot
p^ecte^f i^ supporting large bodies of feudal retainers. His
coioniza- inventions, however, greatly improved the facili-
ties for exchange. Articles of value were multiplied,
the materials of i)oinage were increased, and the desire
of the wealthy to possess them was stimulated. As
in the present age the standard of living was rapidly
raised. Landowners learned that it was possible to
divert the bulky produce of their estates from the
entertainment of their dependents to purchasing
objects of luxury for themselves. Many sought,
moreover, to increase their wealth by investing it in
trade with the newly opened continents. In England
the diversion of agricultural produce from feudal
hospitality to manufactures and exchange was
hastened by the dissolution of the monasteries. A
great part of their wealth was applied to the creation
of a new nobility, who spent it not on the poor but
on themselves, or else invested it in foreign or colonial
enterprises. ' It is generally recognized that, from
288
I THE COMHEfiCIAL STSTBM 239
the latter half of Elizabeth's leign until the outbreak chap.
of the Civil War, England was in a flourishing con-
i dition. In fact this very prosperity implied economic
distress among some classes. As civilization advances,
I it becomes more complex, and economic progress,
! while denoting an absolute increase in wealth, has
hitherto implied a more uneven distribution thereof
and greater extremes of riches and poverty. Such a
period of progress, almost tantamount to an economic
revolution, dates from the latter years of Elizabeth's
reign. Wealth increased greatly, but at the same
time pauperism became a permanent evil. . . . For
virtually the first time Englishmen beheld as an
i every -day sight " the spectacle of Dives and Lazarus
existing side by side."'^ Where society is divided Rich and
into the very rich* and very poor there naturally S^oa^^
appears a host of adventurers who aspire to wealth ^e^in
which they know cannot be accumulated merely by distant
the work of their own hands. The opening of the
seventeenth century thus saw a decided increase of
men eager to enrich themselves further by investing
their property in foreign and colonial trade, and also
of penniless adventurers ready to seek their fortunes
across the seas, usually with the hope of returning
home to enjoy their gains.
This world-wide revolution had also helped to RoUgioua
disturb the balance of religious ideas. Western Sso^^
Europe was now divided into contending camps, and ^^^
nowhere more than in England itself Hence there ^^™®
i was a third class disposed to seek in the new countries Projects of
not wealth, but a home where, in spite of physical uon^th^
hardship, they might enjoy the liberty to worship as ^^"^t
they chose. Unlike the adventurers such emigrants
> Beer, The Origins of the British Colmial SysUm, 1578-1660, pp. 44-6. .
From the fiuboequent pages of this inquiry will be seen how deeply it is indebted
to the recent researohes of this eminent American historian. The thanks of
those interested in the inquiry are due to Mr. Beer and his publishers, for
permiscnon to print the copious extracts made from his works.
240
THB COMMBSOIAL 8TSTBH
OHAP.
IV
Attitude
of English
Govern-
ment
towards
these
projects.
Tendency
of medi-
aeval
corpora-
tions
formed to
control
territorial
areas to
develop,
according
to circum-
stances,
into(l)
organs of
local
govern-
ment ; (2)
separate
states.
went to America meaning to stay there. They
settled for the most part in the Northern colonies,
and it was from them that the bulk of the American
colonists were drawn.
Thus in the beginning of the seventeenth century
there were two influences at work, the one economic,
the other religious, disposing Englishmen to found
communities in the New World. The object of the
present chapter is to examine the attitude of those
in charge of English public affairs towards the various
enterprises projected by those who sought wealth or
freedom in America. As shown in Chapter III. the
colonizing movement was one in which rulers followed
rather than led their subjects. Even for English
rulers, however, it was necessary that they should
ask themselves in what relation the new communities
were to stand to the old. With the powers of Europe
struggling for possession of the New World, English-
men, whether mercantile adventurers or religious
refugees, were unable to found colonies entirely
beyond the protection and control of the English
Commonwealth, even had they desired to do so.
The sanction and authority of the English Govern-
ment had to be obtained ; and when application was
made to the King and his ministers it was natural
for them to consider how these ventures could be
turned to the advantage of tho State.
It is important to remember the form in which
these projects were submitted to them. In the
Middle Ages mechanics and merchants had developed
the practice of forming guilds or corporations for
the management of such aspects of their business
as each individual could not control for himsell
Guilds, like the Goldsmiths and Merchant Taylors,
were formed to regulate the conduct of the several
crafts, neither needing nor asking, to begin with at
-least, any authority from the State. Craftsmen of
THE GOHHEBCIAL SYSTEM 241
all kinds and the meschants who deal in their wares chap.
TV
naturally tend to congregate together for the purpose
of exchange.
Such a congregation of human beings introduces
certain dangers to health and social order to which
agriculturists, from the more scattered nature of their
occupation, are less exposed. Two thousand people
collected in a town have common needs which do not
arise in the life of a population distributed on farms.
The principle of association already used in the regu-
lation of individual trades was applied to meet these
needs. Corporations were created to protect the town
against internal disorder or external attack. Such
corporations, therefore, soon found themselves called
upon to fulfil certain functions appropriate to a
government, and the powers derived from voluntary
association were insufficient for the task. They tended,
therefore, to develop in one of two directions, accord-
ing to the nature of the country in which they were
established. In parts of Germany and Italy, where
no effective government was established, these cor-
porations assumed the powers they needed and grew
into city states. In a country like England, where
the conditions of statehood had been realized, the
corporation met the difficulty by obtaining from
the central Government a delegation of its powers
for local purposes. Powers of government were in fact
delegated to the corporation in the form of charters.
Thus in England corporations had developed, not
into separate states, but into organs of local govern-
ment.
The opening of the seas brought within the cjorpora-
range of adventurers tasks which were usually too fimedfor
large for one individual. Such enterprises were of ^'^^^t
two kinds. Unlike the Portuguese the English at countries
/» . 1 1 "L'l- I* • f .1 forced to
first had no ambition for possessing or ruung the apply to
Far East. They merely desired to trade with it, but for prhd^
R loges.
242
THE COUMERCUL 8YSTBH
CHAP.
IV
Corpora-
tions
formed for
coloniza-
tion
necesaarilv
demanded
territorial
rights, and
thus were
the trade was too risky for single adventurers or ships,
for * it was an accepted maxini that there was *' no
peace beyond the line." ' ^ The result was the associ-
ation of merchants desiring to engage in the Indian
trade into a company whose business it was to
organize fleets large enough to protect themselves.
The possibility, if not the certainty, that such fleets
would have to fight the navies of the Spanish king
was foreseen, and it was essential that they should
obtain beforehand some guarantees that their own
Qovernment would not disown them as pirates. The
new business, unlike that of a guild of craftsmen or
of a municipal corporation, was such as was sure to
provoke foreign complications, and hence arose the
necessity of obtaining the authority of Government
in some shape or fonn. Quite naturally such advent-
urers assumed that those who contributed to the cost
of the venture would alone enjoy the benefits to be
reaped from it. Obviously it would have been
inequitable if merchants who would not subscribe
to the company had been allowed to send their ships
under the protection of its convoys. Accordingly,
what such companies asked for and got firom the
Grown was a monopoly of the trade which they
engaged to open ; nor could they, indeed, have raised
the capital necessary for the purpose on any other
terms. To understand the relations of England to
Scotland and to the Irish and American colonies in
the period under review, it is essential to remember
that the whole Eastern trade was in the hands of a
company, and also to realize how and why that
company had acquired this vast monopoly.
In searching, moreover, for new routes to the
populous and civilized East, Europe had stumbled
across a continent largely vacant, and in the parts
nearest to Europe inhabited by savages unfit for any
> Beer, The Origins <tf the BrUieh Colonial SysUm, 1678-1660, pp. 7-8.
THE COMMERCIAL SYSTEM 243
employment but hunting and war. In order to chap.
realize the virgin wealth of America it was necessary s.^^,,,,^^^,^^^
to possess and to people it. The movement to destined
J "I j.*i« J jj. j.a.to develop
acquire these territones seemed, and to some extent mtoor^ns
was, no more than a repetition of the movement ^^^.
which had once brought to England the Saxons and pent or
Normans, and had subsequently led Strouffbow and separate
hi« companions to IrelwS Just as Stronibow had '^^^
been granted by Henry II. such Irish lands as he
might conquer, so were territories in North America
granted by the Crown to the adventurers who applied
for them. * These grants were distinctly feudal in
nature, in that governmental rights were treated like
private property, and were bestowed together with
the soil upon the patentea' ^ The earliest of these
grants which led to effective colonization was made,
not to an individual, but to a corporation, controlled
by a court elected from the members and presided
over by an official who was called, as is the chairman
of the Bank of England at the present day, a
Governor.* In the light of after events it is plain
that these corporations could not, like the Merchant
Taylors or Bank of England, retain their original
character. They might have become, like the English
municipal corporations, organs of the State, provided
that their members could be made to share the
responsibilities of the Commonwealth as a whole.
Failing that, it was natural that their devotion to
the Commonwealth should languiBh, and that their
members should come to regard themselves as dedi-
cated first and foremost to the corporation in the
control of whose fast-increasing interests they shared.
In the latter case it was inevitable that a corporation
* Beer, The Origins qfihe British Colonial System, 1678-1660, p. 297.
' The accident of this title is lai^pely responable for the wholly misleading
idea of a satrapy which clings to theae goyemonhipe. In origin they were
the head officials of a corporation, and in the case of at least one colony
remained so till tiie lasti
244 THE COMMERCIAL SYSTEM
CHAP, of men imbued with the principles of English society
should develop into separate states.^ Presently, when
English colonization had secured a footing on
American soil, grants were made to individuals like
Lord Baltimore, in whom was vested the power to
make and enact laws ^ of and with the Advice, Assent,
and Approbation of the Free-men of the same Pro-
vince, or of the same part of them, or of their
Delegates or De|)uties/ ^ To the settlers in these
proprietary colonies were given rights similar to
those bestowed on men who held their lands under
chartered companies, like those of Virginia or Massa-
chusetts. The result was the same. Both contained
the germ of an institution which must* necessarily
develop either into an organ of local government .or
else into the legislature of an independent common-
wealth.
Element of It is important to realize further that in the grants
inThSe^ made to these corporations there was, from the ter-
ritorial nature of the privileges sought from the
English Government, an ekment of monopoly. The
intrinsic value of the rights secured by the Virginia
Company and its successors from the Crown lay in
the exclusive title secured to them under their patent
to the ownership of land within certain wide limits.
This element of monopoly is further obscured by the
fact that they developed into states so completely
that after generations have forgotten that originally
they were no more than corporations.^
Colonizing Something more, however, was granted by the
tioM^* Crown under its patent to these companies than a
demand monopolv in land or trade. The very existence of the
protection r ^ j
against settlements they founded was menaced by France and
BtateT Spain, and the shipping which brought their produce
^ Beer, The Old Colonial System, Part I. vol. ii. pp. 284-6.
s Maodonald, Select Charters iUustratine of Ameriean History, 1606^1776,
p. 56.
» Beer, ITie Origins qfthe British OoloniaZ System, 1678-1660, p. 324.
territorial
grants.
THE GOMMBRCIAL SYSTEM 245
from America to England was exposed to attack chap.
by the fleets of both these powers, and also by those
of the pirate states of North Africa. The Moslems
had now been driven from Spain across the Straits of
Gibraltar, but they still held their own in Morocco.
There they had learned that the bridle with which
Henry the Navigator had curbed Islam might be
used as a scourge for the loins of Christendom. The
Moors became a maritime people, and between 1609
and 1616 their corsairs captured 466 vessels, whose
crews and passengers were taken as slaves to Algiers
and Morocco.^
That the Glovernment should expect some benefit interest
for the State from these ventures in return for the Eng^ub
valuable rights demanded and the onerous duties Q^^®™-
, . T , , meat in
assumed in grantmg them was only natural. Anxiety foetoring
to make England independent of continental Europe ^oniza-^
in respect of shipping and of certain raw materials, ^'°^*
more especially those of the shipbuilding industry,
was the motive that prompted English statesmen
to favour projects of American colonization. Her
shipping was to England like the hair of Samson, the
secret of her national strength. But the principal
materials for shipbuilding were drawn from Northern
Europe, and the possibility that she might be denied
them was the nightmare of English Governments.
From the Southern colonies they hoped that a
substitute for the products of Southern Europe might
in time be produced.^ The customs levied on goods
imported from foreign countries were, however, an
important source of public revenue. Till Charles I.
ascended the throne, tonnage and poundage had been
^ Trevelyan, England under the StuariSy p. 182. See also Beer, 77^ Old
Colonial System, Part I. voL i. pp. 122-3. So kte as 1784 the disoovery of
their own incapacity to deal with the Barbaiy pirates, when no longer pro-
tected by British fleets, was a factor in impelling the States after secession
into forming an effective union. Marshall, The Lift of Qtorgt WaehingUm^
vol. ii. p. 81.
* See above, p. 196.
246 THE OOMMEBCIAIi SYSTEM
CHAP, granted by Parliament to the King for his life, and
^^ neither he nor his ministers were likely to welcome a
policy which would tend to diminish these sources of
revenue. While, therefore, they favoured projects
which, as they hoped, might enable England to
furnish her necessities from countries controlled by
herself instead of from those which were or might
be controlled by her enemies, it was assumed by all
parties from the outset that the change must be made
without diminishing the public revenue levied on the
goods.
Contrac- That the colonies would export [their products to
reiationB England alone and that these products would be
b^twwln ^ taxed on arrival there, was from the first taken as a
colonizing matter of course, alike by Government, adventurers,
tions and and colouists.^ lu this there was no idea of treating
mentT^ the colouicB as foreign states, for they were allowed to
J^®^r draw from England supplies which might not under
binding o x'r ©
nature English law be exported to any foreign state.* Thus
English from the outset the grant of the patent under which
the colony was founded was the subject of bargaining
between the Government and the person or persons
applying for it ; and the bargain when made was
binding on the Government itself. A continental
autocracy could have changed or cancelled the terms
of a patent with a stroke of the pen. In England
not the Government but the law was supreme,
and the individual stood on an equal footing
with the Government in subordination to the law.
Thus the patent when granted was a contract with
the State, ' and could be legally revoked only by the
courts on suit brought by the Crown, showing that
their provisions had been violated by the patentees.' '
In 1677 the judges pronounced the New England
^ See Note A at end of this chapter, p. 257.
^ See Note B at end of this chapter, p. 267.
3 Beer, 7%« Origins of the British Colonial System, 1578-1660, p. 304.
law.
THE COMKBBOUL SYSTEM 247
colony's charter of 1629 valid, and held that it made ohap.
' the Adventurers a corporation upon the place/ ^ a
decision which defeated a scheme to abrogate the
Massachusetts charter in order to establish direct
government of the colony by the Crown.
From th^ first, therefore, the relations of the Relations
Grovemment with corporations which they regarded J^fh*^^*"*^
as purely commercial were dominated by the idea ^^^^^^
^ •' .^ '' one of
of compact. Wherever, as frequently happened, bsi^pin
terms of the contract were found unsatisfactory by tract from
either party, it was a question of bargaining to alter ^^® ^^^^
them. In 1620, for instance, James L, finding that
he was not receiving an adequate revenue on tobacco
from the Virginia Company, persuaded them to ac-
quiesce in the payment of an increased duty in
virtue of a promise on the part of the King to
prevent the growing of tobacco in England iteelf.^
The bargain was faithfully carried out in 1636, and
again in 1661, when regiments of soldiers were sent
to destroy tobacco crops which had been raised in
the counties of Gloucest^, Worcester, and Hereford.'
A year later the Company was found to have started
a warehouse in a foreign country. Such a course
was scarcely calculated to commend itself to the
Gk)vemment which in granting the Company their
concession hoped that produce might be raised in
America for England, and yield revenue to the King
when landed there.* The wrangle which followed
was ended by the Virginia and Bermuda Companies
agreeing not to sell tobacco in foreign countries on
condition that they should enjoy the sole right of
importing tobacco into His Majesty's dominions.
'The agreement was distinctly in the nature of a
> Beer, T?ie Old Colonial System^ Part I. vol. ii. p. 271.
* Beer, Th4 Origins qfVu British CfoUmial System, 1678^ieS0, pp. 112-18.
* Ibid, pp. 166-8. See also Beer, The Old Colonial System, Part I.
vol. i. p. 140.
* See Kote at end of this chapter, p. 257.
248 THE COMMEBOIAL SYSTEM
CHAP, bargain/ ^ The rapidly growing importance of
commerce due to vastly increased facilities for
marine transportation between peoples and continents
led to relations between the new communities and
the old which seemed from the first to be based
on bargain and contract. An age had opened when
the policy of statesmen began to be regulated by
the maxims of the counter.
To begin To begin with, adventurers applied to the Crown
Sngalted ^^ their concessions, and it was with the King, in
Stete ^*^* ^ ^^^ ^ ^^ name, that their bargains were
When made. James L and his successor denied that
Parlia-
ment Parliament had any jurisdiction in the matter, and
Kinglihe^ hopod, HO doubt, to dcvclop a revenue for themselves
^nh^^mi ^^7^^^ *^^ reach of parliamentary control. It was
tractuai the Crowu, therefore, which legislated for the colonies
waa ren- by Order in council. Here again was exemplified the
de^te^r truth that no permanent compromise is possible
^r p^°i^ between the principle of autocracy and that of the
ment Commonwealth. No people is assured of the control
superseded of any of their public affairs until they have assumed
patente*^ the coutrol of all of them. Any powers of govern-
ment which the Crown retained, the King was certain,
sooner or later, to enlarge and use as a substitute for
those he had lost. The struggle was one which could
never end until Parliament had asserted its right to
control all the powers of the Crown, including those
of granting patents. With the execution of Charles
I. and the suspension of the monarchy, the King's
power to legislate for the colonies by order in council
without reference to Parliament vanished, and was
not reasserted by Charles II. Henceforward the
commercial relations of England with the colonies
were determined by Acts of Parliament. But Parlia-
ment represented the people of England alone, and
was as much disposed as ever the King or his
1 Beer, The Origins of the BrUish Colofwd System, 1678-1660, p. 195.
THE COMMERCIAL SYSTEM 249
ministers had been to view the matter from a stand- chap.
point which was primarily English. Instead of s.,^^^,^^,,,^
reversing the contractual principle which inspired the
policy of the kings and their ministers, Parliament
accepted that principle as the basis of its own
statutes. The famous Navigation Act of 1660
Hook less than a month to pass the House of
Commons, there being virtually no opposition, since
the bill embodied principles that were then uni-
versally accepted, and which already formed part of
England's traditional policy.' ^ The colonial system,
or * le pacte colonial ' as the French have accurately
called it, was embodied in more than one hundred
statutes, of which the principal were the Navigation
Act of 1660, the Staple Act of 1663, and the Planta-
tion Duties Act of 1673. For the purpose of this
inquiry it will suffice to indicate the broad principles
which inspired this volume of fiscal legislation, noting
at the outset that in the detailed application of these
principles there were many exceptions which may be
studied by those who are interested to pursue the
subject in the masterly researches of Beer.
The original motive of the policy was to make Principles
English shipping and industries independent of foreign Mng the
states. Hence the colonies were to be excluded from gH^""^
trade with foreign states, and were to trade with
England alone. The outlying parts of the Empire
were to pour their products into England like
tributaries into a common stream. England was to
be the estuary through which all trade with foreign
nations was to go out and to come in. There was,
moreover, an ever-increasing tendency to make
England the emporium of trade between the differ-
ent parts of the Empire. Scotland and the Irish
and American colonies were forbidden to trade
direct with the East. England was the sole channel
^ Beer, The Old Colonial System^ Part I. vol. L p. 58.
250 THE 0OMM£B€IAL SYSTBM
CHAP, through which all traffic between the colonies and
IV
dependencies must pass.^
Effect on The hope of developing sources of revenue which
cofoniai WCFC then less subject to the control of Parliament
system of ^]^^j^ internal taxes had been one of the motives
transfer- ,
ring its which influenced James I. and his successor in creating
from King the systcm. But when their system passed to the
ment ^"^ coutrol of Parliament this particular motive ceased
to operate. Parliament, on the other hand, was
swayed by the influence of merchants whose chief
concern was to protect their business from com-
petition.^ The protective motive superseded the
desire of raising revenue, and according to Beer's
calculations the system can scarcely have yielded
£6000 a year to the public revenue at the time of
the Seven Years' War.' It was the alarming growth
of public indebtedness and of the cost of defence
which led Parliament, after the Peace of Paris, to
treat the system as a serious source of revenue. Up
till then the ruling motive of the English Parliament
had been the protection of English industries, and
their policy towards Scottish, Irish, and colonial
industries, as well as towards foreign industries, was
influenced by that motive. The English Parliament
deliberately set itself to crush the nascent manu-
factures of Ireland and the colonies, justifying its
action in doing so on the ground that English
industries were called upon to meet all but a negligible
fraction of the cost of Imperial defence. England
was to undertake the defence of the Empire as a
whole, and to defray the cost from its industries.
The Irish and American colonies were to confine
themselves to producing the raw material of those
industries. Of the sister kingdom of Scotland no
1 Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1764-1765, p. 125.
a Ibid, p. 234.
' Ibid, Chap. iii.
THE OOMMEBOIAL SYSTEM 251
particular account was taken in the system. She ohap.
must regard herself as compensated for finding no
appropriate place in it by the gratuitous protection
of the British fleets.
Such was the underlying idea ; and the innumerable Adminia-
restrictions which grew up rose from the diflBculty of difficulty
giving effect to it in practice. Up to the time of enforcing
the Commonwealth, for instance, a great part of the ^^^^
trade between England and the colonies was, through increase of
the lack of a sufficient number of English ships, tions, (i)
carried in Dutch bottoms. The practical difficulty f[^^^
of securing that a Dutch vessel, when once it had sWpe from
c&rrvin&r
quitted a colonial port, should discharge its cargo in trade.
England instead of diverting it to the Continent, was
one of the motives of the first Navigation Act passed
by the Eump Parliament in 1651.^
The outlying parts of the Empire were at first (2) Re-
permitted to trade freely with each other. While the onTnter-*
English Parliament had assumed the right to control ^e!*^
by legislation the mutual relations of the various
parts of the Empire, it possessed nowhere, except in
England, an effective machinery of administrative
control. In certain parts of the King's dominions
such control was conspicuously lacking, especially in
the sister kingdom of Scotland « and the colonies of
New England. It was difficult, if not impossible, for
the English Government to prevent merchants in
Glasgow or Boston from trading with the Continent
if they chose to do so. The inevitable consequence
was that merchants in Ireland and the other colonies,
who desired to trade with the Continent, were tempted
to send their goods to those other parts of the Empire
which had special facilities for illicit trade with foreign
states. The result was a serious loss to the English
^ Beer, The Old Colonial Sygtem, Part I. vol. i. p. 61.
' Keith, CommerciallUlaiionB rf England and SeoUand^ 1603-1707 ^ pp. 71,
67-8.
252
THE OOMMERCIAL SYSTEM
OHAP.
IV
(8) Re-
striction
on
Scottish
and Irish
trade.
The
system
devised in
interests
of colonial
as well as
of English
trade.
customs, and an even more serious disadvantage to
those merchants who conducted their trade in accord-
ance with the law, and it was to remedy these evils
that a series of restrictions were imposed on the trade
between different parts of the Empire. The Acts of
1660 and 1663 had practically excluded Scotland
from the legitimate plantation trade. In 1673 an
Act was passed imposing duties on intercolonial trade,
and a growing tendency set in to exclude Ireland
from the trade as well. The administrative difficulty
of enforcing the law in a decentralized Empire led in
fact to a general tendency between the middle of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to tighten the
system, and to insist on the idea that England was to
be the general clearing-house of commerce, through
which must pass, not only the foreign trade of the
Empire, but the trade of one part of the Empire with
another ; though, as noted already, there were
numerous exceptions in detail.
It is a mistake, however, as Beer has shown, to
treat the policy as one devised entirely in the interests
of the English people. * A large number of colonial
products received especial advantages in the British
market by a system of preferential duties, by direct
bounties, or by a combination of both, with the
result that in a number of instances they acquired a
monopoly thereof at the expense of foreign goods,
with which under normal conditions they could not
compete.' ^ In the case of tobacco the law went even
further in absolutely prohibiting the English farmer
from cultivating a singularly profitable crop, a prohi-
bition which was effectively enforced. * It would be
difficult,' says Beer, *to estimate whether colony or
metropolis was called upon to bear a greater propor-
tion of the sacrifice demanded by the prevailing ideal
of a self-sufficient commercial Empire.' ^
1 Beer, British Col<mial Policy, 1754-1765, p. 194. « Ihid. p. 201.
THE COMMERCIAL SYSTEM 253
It was believed, however, in the colonies that the chap.
IV
commercial advantage of the system lay with England, s.^^^,^,.,^
and the English Government intended that it should The
be so. The colonies were supposed to be compensated ^^^
by the immunity which they enjoyed from the Fiâ„¢a"iy
burdens of Imperial defence. The conception which enriching
inspired the policy of the colonial pact is put in a in order
nutshell by two seventeenth-century writers quoted Jj^nd^**^
by Beer. ' " The true Interest of England is its Trade ; "^^f^^^
if this receives a Baifle, England is neither able to bear the
*" ^ whole
Support its Self, nor the Plantations that depend charge of
upon it, & then consequently they must crumble into dTfenol^!^
So many distinct independ*^ Govern** & thereby
becoming weak will be a Prey to any Stronger Power
w"* shall attacque them."
*From the very nature of the Empire's political
organization it followed inevitably that the main
burden of its defence had to be assumed by England.
As was said in 1683, " small divided remote Govern-
ments being seldom able to defend themselves, the
Burthen of the Protecting them all, must lye upon
the chiefest Kingdom oi England. ... In case of war
with forraign Nations, England commonly beareth
the whole Burthen and chsirge, whereby many in
England are utterly undone." ' ^
The Imperial Government, in fact, undertook to ThePariia-
secure the whole of the King's dominions, including w^t-*
Scotland and the Irish and American colonies, against ^^^^
external aggi?ession in an epoch when actual conquest g^iahed
by foreign states was a real and constantly recurring Scottish,
danger. The immense charge involved was before ^on\l\
1765 met by taxes lunited to the inhabitants of ^^^"^
the area which sent representatives to Westminster, different
These conditions account for one fact which it is to the
executive.
* Beer, The Old Colonial System^ Part I. vol. i. p. Ill, quoting John Carey,
and also England's Guide to Indvstry (London, 1683), pp. 75-7. See also
Note D at end of this chapter, p. 258.
254 THE OOMMBfiOIAL SYSTEM
CHAP, essential to hold in mind when examining the
IV .
relations of England to Scotland, Ireland, and the
colonies. In these countries the relations of the
executive and legislature were totally different from
those developed at Westminster. In Chapter II. the
inquiry has traced the gradual process by which the
principle of autocracy was eliminated in England,
and the State was reconstituted on the principle
of the commonwealth. Teutonic tradition required
that the King should rule his people in accordance
with their customs, and before changing their customs
he was expected to obtain the consent of the people
themselves. When the people grew too numerous
to assemble in one place, the assent was given
through representatives who became a clearly defined
legislative organ. This was a great step in the
development of the Commonwealth ; and down to the
close of the eighteenth century the separation of the
legislature and the executive, ' a free and independent
parliament,' was regarded by political thinkers as
the final and sufficient condition of liberty. In a
commonwealth, however, government is simply the
administration of the law, and the facts to which
laws apply are constantly changing. The raising
and spending of revenue, essential conditions of all
civilized governments, must in a commonwealth be
made the subject of laws, and the facts with which
they deal are so fluctuating as to require constant
revision from year to year. The state cannot continue
without government, nor government without the
recurring activity of the legislature. Government
must be able to secure the funds and obtain certain
necessary changes in the law, or otherwise the state
will perish. The executive and legislature could
only exist as separate and independent organs on the
assumption that they could always be trusted to
agree before catastrophe overwhelmed the common •
THE OOMMXaOIAL SYSTEM 265
wealth. The unvaried experience of the British ohap.
Commonwealth has gone to disprove this assump-
tion, and to show that however the legislative and
executive functions may be distinguished for the
purposes of theory, in practice they are inseparable
aspects of one indivisible whole— Government.
In its victory over Charles I. Parliament had Estebiish-
asserted, once for all, its position as the sole organ of ^^kf
leffislation. For the next two centuries there ensued reUtions
. , . i» "I • between
a half-unconseions struggle, in the course of which the legislature
King began by controlling Parliament, which in ao far *^Ltive
as it yielded to such control, ceased to be answerable to J^i^^r.
the people. Gradually, however, Parliament acquired
control of the Crown and became increasingly answer-
able to the people themselves The change was
unconsciously effected by a legal fiction. Govern-
ment was conducted by the leaders of Parliament
more and more in deference to its views and less and
less in deference to the views of the King. The legal
fiction worked because successive monarchs gradually
acquiesced in the practice of allowing their names to
be used for policies with which they personally dis-
agreed. The executive was in fact not separated
from the legislature, but reunited to it, as it had been
when, centuries before, the King himself ordained the
laws. Had the two remained really separate, govern-
ment would have come to a standstill and the State
would have foundered.
In Scotland and the colonies, on the other hand, J^ ^^^
none of the assemblies acquired the power of chang- Ireland,
ing and therefore of controlling their own executives, colonies
Neither were their executives in reality appointed by tilfnr^
the King, for the governors and other oflScials who legislature
. 7' - - " . . _- T T 1 T 1 and execu-
constituted the executives, except m Rhode Island and tive were
Connecticut, held their appointments at the will of R^n^^'
ministers who held their own offices at the will of the ^V ^^®^
so long
Parliament at Westminster. The reason why such remained
•' in this
condition.
266 . THE COMMBBGUL SYSTBM
CHAP, an arrangement continued so long as it did is obvious.
^ The real responsibility for national life or death
remained with the Government at Westminster and
never rested on these minor assemblies. The functions
of local government assigned to them were not such
as, if undischarged, brought them straightway face to
face with destruction. They felt, and had by the
commercial system been taught to feel, that the
British Government stood behind them. In several
of the American colonies government was paralysed
by the disputes of the legislature with the executive
when French armies were crossing their frontiers.
Sooner or later, however, it began to appear that
the system would only work in the long run if the
local assemblies abdicated their functions and bowed
to executives whose authority was ultimately derived
from the Parliament at Westminster.
There was in fact one executive in the Common-
wealth and many legislatures, representing many
communities. The Parliament at Westminster con-
trolled the executive, and asserted the right to
control the relations of all these communities with
one another and with foreign states. The control was
avowedly exercised in the interests of English com-
merce on the plea that the cost of the system was to
be treated as a charge on that commerce. The
relations of England to the other parts of the Common-
wealth were to be based on a balance of material
interests. In the following chapters it will be necessary
to see how far it was possible in a rapidly changing
world to preserve the balance, and what happened to
relations between the different parts of the Common-
wealth when the interests upon which they rested
began to change, shift, and alter their centre of
gravity.
THE COMMERCIAL SYSTEM 257
NOTE A • ^^iv^'
ORIGIN OF THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM
' From the very earliest days of the British Empire, it was See page
clearly understood that the dependencies were to be outside the ^^^'
barriers of the English fiscal system, and that merchandise
exported to the colonies or imported from them should pay
customs duties. The prospective increase in this revenue, as a
result of colonization, was used by Hakluyt in 1584 as an
argument in favor of a policy of expansion, and in all the
colonial charters it was distinctly specified that duties were to
be levied on this trade.' ^ ^ If the colonial trade had been left
completely uncontrolled, the colonies would still necessarily
have been more or less affected by these duties, but the English
fiscal regulations would not have been integrally connected with
the colonial system proper.' *^
NOTE B
FISCAL RELATIONS OF COLONIES TO ENGLAND UNDER
THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM
' Parliamentary statutes and royal proclamations prohibited See page
the exportation from England of a number of commodities. 246*
Some of these were essential to the development of new settle-
ments, and accordingly, it was customary to insert in the letters
patent a clause, permitting the exportation of such articles.
The Virginia charter of 1606 permitted the shipment from
England of all commodities necessary for the proposed colonies.
Similarly the New England charter of 1620 allowed the
patentees to export weapons, victuals, clothing, utensils, furniture,
cattle, horses, and " all other things necessary for y* s^ planta^on,
& for their use & defense & for trade w^ the people there."
Provisions to the same effect were inserted in the other charters.' ^
NOTE C
VIRGINIA company's ATTEMPT TO OPEN FOREIGN TRADE
^The Privy Council ... on October 24, 1621, issued an Seepage
order, which stated that the King had granted large immunities ^^^*
1 Beer, The Origins of the British Colonial System, 1578-1660, p. 101.
' Beer, The Old Colonial SysUm, Part I. voL i. p. 128.
» Beer, The Origins of the British Colmial System, 1678-1660, pp. 105,
106.
258 THE OOMMERGIAL SYSTEM
CHAP. ^^^ privileges to the colony in the expectation that it would
IV apply itself '^ unto such courses as might mos( firmly incorporate
^— ^v^*-^ y* Plantation unto His Commonwealth & be most bene-
ficiall to the same, w^ will best be done if the Comodities
brought from thence were appropriated unto his Ma*^ subjects
& not communicated to fforeign Countries but by way of
Trade & Commerce from hence only"; that the Yii^nia
Company had settled a magazine in a foreign country, which
course could not be permitted, " neither in policy nor for the
hon' of ye state (that being but a Colony derived from thence)
as also for that it may be a Loss unto his Ma^ in His Customs,
if not the hazarding of y* Trade w*^ in future times is well
hoped may be of much profitt use & importance to this
Commonwealth." Therefore the Privy Council ordered that
tobacco and all other products of Virginia should be first landed
in England and the customs thereon paid, before being shipped
to foreign countries. Thus, on the first organized attempt to
establish a direct trade from Virginia to a foreign country, the
English government categorically asserted the principle, that
the colony's export trade should be exclusively confined to the
metropolis.' ^
NOTE D
GROWTH OF IDEA THAT ENGLAND AND THE COLONIES COUIiD
BE UNITED BY A COMMEROLAL BOND
Seepage As early as 1623 'a leading member of the Virginia
2^3- Company asserted that if the colony sought a foreign market
for its produce, this would in time, "produce an independence
vpon this Kingdome mutuall comerce beinge the strongest bond
yt will vnite Virginia to this State." ' * A memorial prepared
by Robert Mason the proprietor of New Hampshire in 1665»
illustrates the tendency of Englishmen in ihe seventeenth
century on both sides of the Atlantic to rely upon a balance
of interests to unite the colonies to England. Mason urges the
Grovernment to send commissioners to New England 'who
should "endeavor to show the advantages which may arise to
them by a better confidence and correspondence with England
and by their cheerful submission to those ordinary duties,
customs, and regulations, which are set upon trade in all other
His Majesty's dominions, colonies, and plantations." These
commissioners were further to point out how inconsistent
exemption from these rules would be with the fact that the
King of England " in all Treaties, and by his Fleets at Sea takes
* Beer, The Origins of the British Colonial Systenty 1678-1660, pp. 191, 192.
« Ibid, p. 177.
THE COMMERCIAL SYSTEM 259
New-England into the Common Protection, and provides for CHAP.
its Safety as belonging to this Growne, and may therefore expect IV
some Measure out of the benefitt that arises to them in their
Trade by their being English and happy subjects of this Crowne."
... In the eyes of the statesmen and publicists of the day,
England was fully justified in restricting colonial commerce in
return for the burden assumed in defending and policing the
Empire. If there existed any doubts on this point, they were
more than quieted by the preferential treatment accorded to
colonial products in the English market. While the enumerated
articles could not be shipped to any place in Europe but
England, in return competing commodities of foreign nations
were virtually excluded from this market. The reciprocal
nature of the old colonial system is manifest not only in the
scheme of imperial defence, but to an even more marked degree
in the preferential features of England's fiscal system.' ^
^ Beer, The Old Colonial System, Part I. vol. i. pp. 108, 109, 127.
CHAPTER V
THE INCLUSION OP SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH
COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. In the Middle Ages Scotland had been united to
.^^.^^^^^^^ England by the conquests of Edward I. , who actually
Conquest summoued Scottish members to his Parliaments.
?and by This uuiou, howevci, was destroyed at Bannockburn,
mTand ' ^^^ ^^^ *^® present it is sufficient to notice two
1298. results which followed the severance of the two
and the kingdoms. Robert the Bruce, who had sat in the
5^W ' Parliaments of Edward L, copied his example on
ascending the Scottish throne, by instituting a Parlia-
ment in his own kingdom, which maintained a some-
what shadowy existence till the eighteenth century.
The second result of Bannockburn was a deep
antagonism of the two kingdoms, leading to a close
alliance of Scotland with France. To England, as
Shakespeare's Henry V. says, the Scot was * a giddy
neighbour ' :
For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France
But that the Scot on his unfumish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force,
Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns ;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood.^
' Shakespeare, King Henry V, Act i. Scene iL
260
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 261
The marriage of Margaret, daughter of Henry VIL, chap.
with James IV. was destined to unite the two Crowns, ,„^^^.,^^^^
just when their common revolt £rom Eome was Results of
beginning to reconcile the two peoples. Scotland was fomation
alienated from France by the Reformation, which led l^^^^^'
to the establishment of the General Assembly of the umon of
Presbyterian Kirk, a body which gave the Scots what crowns,
their phantom Parliament had never given them, a ^^^'
real organ of the popular will. In 1603 the great-
grandson of Margaret and James IV., who in 1567 i567.
had been crowned James VI. of Scotland, peacefully
succeeded to the English throne.^
The accession of the Scottish dynasty to the Effect of
English throne had curiously diflFerent results in the of ti^^^°
two kingdoms. In Scotland the King found himself, ^otUnd!**
for the first time, backed by forces drawn from
England, strong enough to repress the elements of
disorder and to exact some semblance of a general
obedience to the national Government. Four years
after the union of the Crowns, King James said to his
English Parliament, * I write and it is done, and by a
Clearke of the Councell I goveme Scotland now,
which others could not do by the sword.' ^
In England, on the other hand, the accession of a Effect of
dynasty accustomed to the subservience of Scottish of the"*°"
Parliaments hastened the crisis which transferred the Engknd?"
sovereignty from the King to the people. To James
his Scottish Estates were * the model of what Parlia-
mentary institutions ought to be : "If any man doe
propound or utter any seditious or uncomely speeches,
he is straight interrupted and silenced. Only such
bills as I allowe of are put into the Chancellor's hand
to be propounded to the Parliament. When they
have passed them for lawes, they are presented unto
^ For a more detailed account of Scotland and the Scottish Parliament
before the Union of the Crowns see Note A at end of this chapter, p. 296.
* Rait, Scotlandy p. 166. See alap Keith, Commercial Relations of Engiand
and Seotlandy 1603^1707, pp. 20-1.
the ecclesi-
astical
262 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, me, and ... I must say : * I ratifie and approve
all things done in this present Parliament.' And if
there bee anything that I dislike, they rase it out
before." ' '
English Finding himself the recognized head of the Epis-
s^ttish copal Church of England, he proceeded to enforce
mente conformity with its tenets on his subjects in both
united in kingdoms. This policy, continued by his uncompromis-
a solemn x. >/ * j x.
league and ing SOU, forccd the General Assembly of the Presby-
to q?pose terian Church and the Parliament of England, itself
largely Presbyterian, to combine against him. In
of negotiating such an alliance, however, it was natural
1643. *' that the English Parliament should prefer to deal
with a civil body which like itself could claim to
represent the nation as a whole, than with the
Assembly of the Scottish Presbyterian Church.
Henceforward the Scottish Parliament began to over-
shadow the ecclesiastical body which had done so
much more than itself for the national unity of
Scotland. Quickened by the example and vitality of
the English Parliament, it now began to speak as the
real mouthpiece of the Scottish nation, and to be
recognized as the one authority competent to do so.
The result was a solemn league and covenant between
the two Parliaments which ' bound the three nations
of England, Scotland, and Ireland to swear "each
one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the
Most High God," to " endeavour to bring the Churches
of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunc-
tion and uniformity in religion, confession of faith,
form of Church government, directory for worship
and catechizing *' ; to " endeavour the extirpation "
of Popery, Prelacy, and schism ; to " preserve and
defend the King's Majesty's person and authority in
the preservation and defence of the true religion, and
liberties of the kingdoms " ; and to bring to trial and
1 Rait, Scotland, p. 167.
INCLUSION OP SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 263
"condign punishment" all enemies of the Solemn chap.
League and Covenant. It was ratified by the Parlia- ,,^^..^^^,^
ment and by the Assembly of Divines at West-
minster and " ordained to be solemnly taken in all
places throughout the Kingdom of England and the
Dominion of Wales." The General Assembly saw to
its subscription in Scotland.' ^
As has happened so often before and since, an Attempt
attempt was made to control Britain through Ireland, if in iLT
and to support his tottering cause Charles now fell Engiimd^
back on forces recruited from the Catholic Irish. J"^, ,
Scotlana
But the attempt was viewed by Protestant England with Irish
and Scotland in much the same light as the burghers leading
of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal thirty ^ecution
years ago would have regarded an attempt by England ^^ i^^^-
to subdue them by forces recruited from the Zulu and
Basuto tribes. In Aberdeen, where the Irish were
left by Montrose * " killing, robbing, and plundering
... at their pleasure. . . . The wife durst not cry
nor weep at her husband's slaughter before her eyes,
nor the mother for her son, nor daughter for father ;
if they were heard, they were presently slain also."
For three days the ** savage Irish " worked their will,
even while Montrose, at the market cross of this
Royalist town, was making proclamation of letters
patent which promised pardon to penitent subjects of
the King.'* Montrose, however, was defeated by
Leslie at Philiphaugh, where *A butchery "more
horrible than any that had followed upon any of
Montrose's victories" stained Leslie's laurels on his
great day. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth would have been a code of mercy at Philip-
haugh. The defenders of Christ's Crown and
Covenant slaughtered in cold blood 300 Irish women
and children, and fifty soldiers whose lives they had
1 Rait, Scotland, p. 216.
« lUd, pp. 220-1.
264 INCLUSIOK OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP,] promised to spare. Provocation had not been want-
^^^^^^^^ iug, for Montrose's Irish had alain men "with no
more feeling of compassion and with the same careless
neglect that they kill a hen or capon for their supper,"
and the Ulster massacres had created a feeling against
Irish Roman Catholics similar to that which in more
recent days the massacre of Cawnpore aroused against
the Sepoys.' ^ The King surrendered to the Scottish
•- 1646. army near Newark, and was handed over to the
English Parliament on condition that no harm should
befall his person. The Irish card having failed,
Charles began to intrigue with die Scots, seeking with
their aid to regain his liberty and the mastery of
England. The growing importance of their Parliament
had now attracted to its benches the flower of the
Scottish nobility, who were thoroughly alarmed by the
growth of the Republican movement in England.
Charles treacherously promised to establish by force the
Presbyterian Church in England ; and the Scottish
Parliament by a large majority resolved to invade
1648. England, and sent Hamilton with 10,000 men across
the border, but only to be destroyed by Cromwell
1649. near Preston. The execution of the King was the
immediate result.
Execu- Horrified at this act, the Scottish Parliament
ow^i. hastened to proclaim Charles II., not merely as King
denounced q£ Scotland, but also as King of England and Ireland.
Scottish Cromwell, returning from Ireland,* where he had gone
wMchâ„¢^" to reassert the authority of the English Common-
waron^ Wealth, iuvadcd Scotland and defeated Leslie at
England. Duubar. Charlcs 11. , however, was crowned at Scone,
Leslie and marched on England with an army furnished by
afi^^bar, ^^^ Scottish Parliament. At Worcester his forces were
1650 ^' defeated and destroyed by Cromwell on the anni-
Charies II. vcFsary of Duubar. Charles fled the country, and in
defeated at
Worcester i Rait, Scotland, p. 224, quoting Gardiner, OrecU Civil War, vol. ii. p.
?«?i' ^' 356.
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 265
Scotland as well as in England the monarchy for the chap.
time being ceased to exist. The bond established
between the two countries by the union of the Crowns
was gone.
Recent events, however, had proved that the Pariia-
lives of the two nations were inseparably con- un^no^
nected, and some new bond had to be found for two ^nl^*^^
communities which were now Commonwealths not Scotland
merely in substance but also in name. ' The English Cromweii.
Parliament at first spoke of asserting the right of
conquest over " so much of Scotland as is now under
the power of the Forces of this Commonwealth." ' ^ * It
is not for the honour of the English nation to have
foreigners to come and have a power in the legislature.
They are but provinces at best. In justice you ought
not to admit any other to have an equal power with
your own nation.' These words, uttered by Thomas
Go wen, the member for Launceston in 1659, show
that in the Rump there were not wanting men who
would have treated the Scots as they had treated the
Irish, and as Athens had once treated her Ionian
allies. When, however, the whole country lay at
England's feet, wiser counsels prevailed, and it was *
determined to incorporate England and Scotland as
one Commonwealth. Hence it was felt that some
form of assent should be obtained from the Scottish
people themselves, and representatives from the shires
and burghs were assembled at Dalkeith for the pur-
pose. Scotland was accorded thirty members in the
* British Parliament. The second Protectorate Parlia-
ment, which included three Scottish peers in the
House of Lords, formally ratified the Uuion.
Cromwell died soon after, and the Rump, which Death of
reassembled in the following May, declined to less!^^ '
recognize the legality of the measure, but was itself
' Rait, Scotland^ pp. 237-8, quoting C. S. Terry, The Cromwellian
Union (Scottish Historical Society).
266 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, dissolved by Monk before it had perfected a new
^^^^^^^^^^^^ Bill to ratify the Union. Monk proceeded to
Dissoiu- summon a separate Parliament for Scotland, which
tiiTunion ^^^ hailed the restoration of Charles II. as a deliver-
i66o^T^d *^^® from subjection to the English Commonwealth.
restoration The Uniou was far from popular in England itself,
II. where for the moment it had seriously increased
the cost of government to the tax- payers.*
Obsequious- Charlcs 11. began by appointing an obsequious
ScSt^h Privy Council, and a new Parliament, in which the
summwied* elcctivc members as well as the temporal and spiritual
in 1661 by peers wcrc allowed to choose their own Lords of the
Articles,' was summoned and met at Edinburgh.
By judicious packing Charles 11. was able to maintain
in Scotland Parliaments as obsequious as his Privy
Councils. But the necessity of packing his Parlia-
ments points to the fact that the King could no
longer hector them as his grandfather had done.
The English system, under which changes in the
law required the consent of Parliament, - had come
to stay. In Scotland as in England the legislative
power, at any rate, had once for all passed from
King to Parliament, and the effect on their mutual
relations began to appear.
James Jamcs, Dukc of York, who was the heir to the
inmo throne, was a bigoted Catholic, and the prospect of
^dusion his succession was increasingly distasteful to the
^»y <^he English people. To exclude Jiim, a Bill was introduced
Parliament into Parliament, the supporters and opponents of
English^ which, first known as ' Petitioners ' and ' Abhorrers,'
induct ^®^^ afterwards called Whigs and Tories. The Bill
tiie passed the Commons, but was rejected in the Lords.
Parliament Jamcs, howcvcr, fearing that his right to the English
in 1680 t0/->i •• jjij."j^ i_*
ratify his Crowu was lu jcopardy, determined to secure his
to the ancestral title to the Northern kingdom. For seven
Scottish
throne. * Keith, Commercial delations of England and Scotland ^ 1608-1707, p. 59.
- See Note A at end of this chapter, p. 299.
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 267
years no Scottish Parliament had sat, but James, as chap.
his brother's Royal Commissioner (a position answering
to that of Viceroy in Ireland), proceeded to convene
a Parliament, which in obedience to his wishes passed
an Act declaring that any one who attempted to alter lesi.
the succession was guilty of perjury and rebellion.
When James 11. succeeded to the throne the James ii.
Scottish Parliament, not pliable enough to repeal the thet^rone,
penal laws against Catholics at his bidding, was dis- scotuah
solved. No other was called, and the King ffoverned P^^'i^r
mcnt 18
through the Privy Council, which he filled with dissolved
members of that religion. His attempt to pursue a to supi^rf
similar policy in England so alienated all Protestant cathoii«
sections of opinion that the leaders of both parties v^^^y>,
wliicli in
invited William of Orange, Stadholder of the Dutch England
Republic, who had married James's daughter, Mary, [if " '°
to come over and assume the government. William wiiHMn*^"
landed at Torbay, and James fled to France. and Mary
In England the Revolution was consummated by the throne
the Bill of Rights, an Act of Parliament which began "^ ^^^^"
by declaring that James had abdicated the throne, and The Bill
that William and Mary were now joint sovereigns of °|^^^^8^^*
England, Ireland, and the Dominions thereunto belong- ultimate
ing. After their death the Crown was to go to the transferring
descendants of Mary, or, failing such descendants, to of external
th«e of James', ieond d.o|hter, Anne, who .« £^.
married to Prince George of Denmark. Papists, King to
" "*â– ministers
or persons marrying Papists, were for ever excluded responsible
from the succession. * It hath been found by experi- Eiigiisii
ence,' so ran one of the articles, ' that it is inconsistent n*^|[*^"
with the safety and welfare of this Protestant Kingdom,
to be governed by a Popish Prince or by any King
or Queen marrying a Papist.' ^ In a document which
aimed a deadly, blow at the doctrine of divine right,
this frank appeal to experience deserves to be noted.
Occasion was also taken in this statute to codify
* Bill of Rights, sec. ix.
268 IirCLUSION OF SCOTLAin) IN THE BBITISH OOMMONWSALTH
CHAP, certain principles now recognized as essential to the
constitution, such as the exclusive control of Parlia-
ment over legislation and supply. In one respect,
however, the Bill of Bights went further, for up to
the Revolution 'an express law declared the whole
power of the militia, and immemorial custom admitted
the general control of the army, to lie solely with
the King/^ The Bill of Rights now abrogated
custom and law by enacting 'that the raising or
keeping a standing army within the Kingdome in
time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parlyament,
is against the law.'^ As a standing army was
essential to the safety of the kingdom, this meant
that its existence in future depended on the sanction
of Parliament, a sanction since maintained by pass-
ing the Army Annual Act for one year only. The
control of defence is inseparable from the control of
foreign policy. It is not a separate function, but
merely one aspect of the primary function of govern-
ment, that of controlling the issues of national life
and death. Parliament, by securing the control of
the forces, had secured the power of paralysing the
foreign policy of the King. And this in fact was
what it did. The King, taught by his supreme
responsibility for the safety of the State, saw that
the maintenance of English liberties depended upon
checking the steadily increasing power of France.
Parliament and the nation, not feeling that re-
sponsibility, were blind to the danger, and denied
William the troops necessary to support his policy.
William now hit upon the device of choosing his
ministers only from the leaders of the largest party
in the House of Commons. He himself was in some
measure able to dominate his ministers ; but his less
forceful successors rapidly drifted into the position
* Temi»erley, Cambridge Modem History^ vol. v. p. 252.
' Bill of Rights, sec. i.
J
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 269
of accepting the policy of whatever leaders could for chap.
the time being undertake to control Parliament. ^^,.,,^^.„^^
The final control of external as well as of other
executive business thus passed (though in the case of
foreign affairs rather more gradually than in the case
of domestic aflfairs) from the King to leaders whom
Parliament could change just as the electorate could
change Parliament itself. Henceforward candidates
began to appeal to their constituents on the ground
that if elected they would support a particular leader
identified with a particular policy. Ministers, members,
and electors began to realize that the responsibilities of
national life or death now rested on themselves, and
therefore began to develop some understanding of
the issues for which they were responsible. Thus in
England during the period under review, the Crown,
having lost already the power of making the law, was
now. fast losing the power of administering it. Parlia-
ment through its leaders was acquiring an undisputed
control over foreign as well as over domestic policy.
More rapidly, because more consciously, the The
Scottish Parliament was advancing the same claim paru^ent
for itself. When James II. fled, it brushed aside the ?°^ "i°^®
' importu-
pretence put forward in the English Bill of Eights natethan
that James had abdicated the throne, and frankly English
asserted its right to uncrown a king who had violated |^*J[^erting
the laws which ParHament had made. In other ^^. ^
claun to
respects the measure which it passed coincided with control the
the Bill of Rights. For the moment, indeed, the two ^^^^^ ^^^'
kingdoms were animated by the common and over-
mastering desire to rid themselves for ever of
sovereigns who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome.
The next act of the Scottish Parliament, however,
was to secure William's assent to the abolition of
the practice of delegating business to a committee
which was practically beyond its control, and once
for all the Lords of the Articles were abolished, ' At
270 INCLUSION OP SCOTLAVD IN TBB BBITISH OOHMOITWKALTH
CHAP, one bound the Estates adopted the conetitutioDal
.__^_.^__, prineiples for which English ParliamentB had fonght
since the fourteeDth centiuy. The Scottish constitn-
tionaliBm of the reign of William of Oiange was the
gif^ of England ; it had bat small roote in the past
of a country where freedom' had not broadened from
percedent to precedent. The Scottish Parliament
bad plajed an insignificant part in the making of
the nation, but the mere existence of parliamentary
institutions is always potentially a menace to any
Government nOt founded on the will of the people.
If the Estates had not fought for power it was
equally true that they had never been beaten, and
they could reasonably argue that what they had not
dared to oppose had depended upon their sanction
and concurrence. If constitutionalism was young,
it was ako vigorous, and the Scottish Convention
went beyond the English in its assumption of
complete and uncontrolled power.' '
T)>c im- Id both kingdoms the principle was now established
l^'diTidi4 t'bat the succession to the throne was based on laws
t^^i^tV- 'fbich, like all others, could be changed only by the
mentathB ^jj] q£ (Jie pcoplc themsclvcs. And, as in the
control of . , , i . . ,
the policy American colonies, the claim to control the executive
toSra was urged more importunately in the younger
Ind^y assembly than in the older one. But history had
offireat conclusively proved that the two peoples were now
inseparably connected by common interests. Of
lese the fiist and greatest was the maintenance of
le pctx Britannica in its strictest sense, — the interest
I both in avoiding a war with each other. Plainly
ich a struggle must expose Britain to the growing
3wer of France, which would be used to force upon it
dynasty to whose religious and political principles
le majority in both commonwealths were averse.
enturies of experience had proved that under
' Eait, Scotland, pp. 278-7.
INCLUSION OF SCOTIiAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 271
separate Governments war between Scotland and chap.
England could not long be avoided. As against ^
Europe, moreover, and in the interests of the system
for which the entire island now stood, there was
room for only one policy. But if there were two
Governments independent of each other, by whom
was that policy to be controlled ? To entrust it to
their common King was to remove it from the control
of either Parliament. To leave it to the larger of the
two Parliaments was to tempt the stronger to neglect
the interests of the weaker. Unschooled by responsi- .
bility, the vassal state would in any case believe that
its interests were neglected. Vassalhood, more-
over, would deprive it of the experience and contact
with vital facts which alone enabled the people of
a commonwealth to face the sacrifices required of
citizens in the interests of the State.
For more than a century, from the Eeformation Ruin of
to the Revolution, Scotland had been preoccupied trade^and
with religious aflFairs. Under the influence of James f^'J^^eriah
I. and VI. attempts at colonization had been made ment
which were not without subsequent importance, on the
Nova Scotia, where one such attempt had been made SJe^crow
in 1621, was practically abandoned to the French by
Charles I. in 1632. Of greater importance was the
settlement of Scots afi'ected by James in Ulster,
Donegal, Tyrone, and Fermanagh, which was destined
to leave an indelible mark alike on Irish and American
history. But the nation at this period was too intent
upon religious issues, and too much weakened by the
struggles they produced, to attend as closely as its
Southern neighbour to far-reaching projects of industry
or commerce. In England, throughout this period,
the subtle influence of the continents opened by
Henry the Navigator was rapidly afi'ecting the
economic condition of the people, and modifying the
whole course of national policy. The vigorous policy
rns.
272 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, of Cromwell strengthened the hands of the great
^^^^^.^^^^^^ East India Company, and a further impetus was
given to its trade when Charles II. renewed its
charter. In twenty-three years the annual value of
imports from Bengal alone increased from £8000
to £300,000, and shares worth £70 in 1664 had risen
to £300 in 1681.^ Except during the brief period
when Cromwell united the two countries, the Scots
were excluded by the navigation laws from the
lucrative trade with America, and by the monopoly
of the East India Company from sharing the wealth
which flowed from Asia.^ James I. had failed to
secure the assent of the English Parliament to a
treaty establishing free trade with Scotland in all
articles except wool, cattle, hides, and linen yam,
though by an unconstitutional exercise of the Royal
prerogative the boon was granted ' till it was cancelled
1650. by Parliament in 1650. Free trade between the two
countries, however, was re-established by Cromwell's
Union, but withdrawn once more when the Scots at
the Restoration reasserted their right to a separate
Parliament, which, failing to secure a zoUverein,
retaliated by passing navigation laws of its own.*
Further negotiation in 1668 and 1685 was abortive.
The reduction of her ancient commerce with France
and the Netherlands after the union of the Crowns,
and the disorders of the seventeenth century had
combined with the absorption of her national energy
in religious affairs to reduce Scotland to the depths
of poverty. * A report on the Scottish Burghs, drawn
up in 1692, shows that in Glasgow " near five hundred
houses were standing waste," that the Harbour of
Ayr was ruinous, and that the High Street of
^ Mathieson, Scotland and the Union, 1695-1747, p. 26.
^ See Note B at end of this chapter, p. 800.
3 Mathieson, Scotland amd the Union, 1696-1747, p. 21. See also Keith,
Commercial ItelcUions of England a7id Scotland, 1603-1707, p. 17.
* Keith, Commercial Relations of Ejigland and Scotland, 1603-1707, p. 90.
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BEITISH COMMONWEALTH 273
Dumfries contained scarcely a habitable house/ ^ .chap.
* The poverty, the abject misery of the country, was
such that every bad season produced a literal famine.
In 1698 and the three preceding years the harvests
were very bad, and Fletcher of Saltoun — one of the
greatest intellects and one of the most ardent patriots
of Scotland — wrote a discourse on the state of the
nation which throws a vivid light on the material
wretchedness and the moral anarchy that prevailed.
" Many thousands of our people," he said, " are at this
day dying for want of bread. . . . Though perhaps
upon the great want of bread, occasioned by the
continued bad seafions of this and the three preceding
years, the evil be greater and more pressing than at
any time in our days, yet there have always been in
Scotland such numbers of poor, as by no regulations
could ever be orderly provided for ; and this country
has always swarmed with such numbers of idle
vagabonds as no laws could ever restrain." " There
are at this day," he adds, ^^in Scotland (besides a
great many poor families very meanly provided for
by the church-boxes, with others, who by living upon
bad food fall into various diseases) two hundred
thousand people begging from door to door." ' ^
It was at. this juncture that the 'Revolution took Effect
place, and that the Crown of Scotland was offered ^voiu-
by its Parliament to William and accepted by him Vp° ^i?
J - r J diverting
on condition that ?the Presbyterian Church should the
be established in Scotland. The struggle with of Scotland
Episcopacy as well as with Papacy was thus closed ^i^on to
by the Revolution, and, suddenly released from 551^^5®^^^;^
religious controversies, the nation found itself free scheme.
to think of mundane affairs. ' By an unforeseen and
unexpected change of the genius of this nation, all
1 Rait, Scotlandy p. 282.
^ Locky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century ^ voL ii. pp. 178-9,
quoting Fletcher, Political Works, pp. 122-3, 144.
274 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COBOiDNWEALTH
CHAP, their thoughtjs and inclinations . . . seem to be
^^^^^^^^ turned upon trade.' ^ In matters of business as well
as in matters of State, the history of Scotland had
been one of arrested development. Hoping to equal
at one stroke the commercial as well as the con-
stitutional achievements of the English, the Scots
hastened to stake their slender resources on a single
venture, which, as they believed, would enable them
to share in the wealth now pouring into England
across the seas. The scheme itself cannot be under-
stood without some notice of the personalities and
interests of which it was the joint product. Of
these personalities the most important was William
Paterson, son of a Lowland farmer, who, having
tried his fortune as a pedlar in England, migrated to
the West Indies. There he made the acquaintance
of certain pirates who knew the track first opened
by Balboa across the Isthmus of Darien and * re-
counted with transport the ease with which they
had passed and repassed from the one sea to the
other, sometimes in hundreds together, and driving
strings of mules before them loaded with the plunder
1694. of friends and foes.'^ Returning to England, he
proved his aptitude for practical affairs by founding
the Bank of England, and while doing so must have
realized how vast were the profits which the English
East India Company derived from their trade with
the East. His next project wa^ one which, had it
been realized, would have destroyed the monopoly
of the English Company. This was to connect
Europe with Asia by planting an international colony
whose business it would be to open and maintain a
route across the Isthmus of Darien. Avoiding the long
and dangerous voyages by the Horn or the Cape of
' Fletcher, Political fVorks, p. 82, * First Discourse concerning the Affairs
of Scotland.'
* Scott, Tales of a Ora/ndfaiher^ vol. iv. p. 28, quoting Daliymple, History^
vol. ii. p. 90.
INCLUSION OF 8CX)TLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 2*75
Good Hope, the wealth of the East was to be shipped chap,
across the Pacific, transported across the Isthmus by
the colony and reshipped across the Atlantic to
Europe. 'The isthmus of Darien or Panama was,
in his estimation, the '' door of the seas and the key
of the universe " ; a Scottish colony planted on this
neck of land would draw to itself the commerce of
both the Atlantic and the Pacific ; wafted by the
trade winds, and transferred in a single day's journey
from sea to sea, the commodities of Europe, America,
and the West Indies would be exchanged here for
those of the East Indies, China, and Japan ; and " the
universal force and influence of this attractive
magnet" would "enable its proprietors to give laws
to both oceans, and to become arbitrators of the
commercial world, without being liable to the fatigues,
expenses, and dangers, or contracting the guilt and
blood of Alexander and G»sar." ' ^ In principle he
had anticipated the vast enterprise which the United
States is just carrying to its completion in the
Panama Canal. To render it more attractive, how-
ever, huge projects of settlement in South America
were grafted on to it, and Paterson, who seems to have
dreamed of floating his scheme on an international
basis, proposed it to * the merchants of Hamburgh, to
the Dutch, and even to the Elector of Brandenburgh ;
but it was coldly received by all these states. The
scheme was at length ofiered to the merchants of
London, the only traders probably in the world
who, their great wealth being seconded by the
protection of the British navy, had the means of
realizing the splendid visions of Paterson. But
when the projector was in London, endeavouring to
solicit attention to his plan, he became intimate with
the celebrated Fletcher of Saltoun. This gentleman,
one of the most accomplished men, and best patriots,
^ Mftthieson, Scotland and the Unian, 1696-1747, pp. 36-7.
276
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
• CHAP.
V
' Act for a
Company
tradeing to
Aifrica
and the
Indies/
passed
by the
Scottish
Parlia-
ment,
1693.
whom Scotland has produced in any age, had, never-
theless, some notions of her interests which were
more fanciful than real, and, in his anxiety to render
his country service, did not sufficiently consider the
adequacy of the means by which her welfare was to
be obtained. He was dazzled by the vision of
opulence and grandeur which Paterson unfolded,
and thought of nothing less than securing, for the
benefit of Scotland alone, a scheme which promised
to the State which should adopt it the keys, as it
were, of the New World. The projector was easily
persuaded to give his own country the benefit of his
scheme of colonization, and went to Scotland along with
Fletcher. Here the plan found general acceptation,
and particularly with the Scottish administration.' ^
The measure now contemplated by the Scottish
administration was designed to open to Scotland the
trade of the West as well as of the East and of the
countries which lay upon the road thither. Under
its terms a Scottish company was to be empowered
'to trade with Asia, Africa, and America; to plant
colonies in places not already possessed by any
European power ; to defend their trade and colonies
" by force of Arms " ; to make reprisals for any damage
done them ; to conclude treaties with foreign powers ;
and to have all rights of government and admiralty in
their colonies. All their ships and goods were to be
free from customs and duties for twenty-one years.
The Scots Navigation Act of 1661 was suspended in
their favour, and they were granted a monopoly of
trade to Afirica, America, and the Indies, " excepting
and without any prejudice to any of the Subjects of
this Kingdom to trade and navigat ... to any part
of America where the CoUonies plantations or posses-
sions of the said Company shall not be setled," that
is, of course, reserving the Scots trade to the English
* Scott, Tales of a Orandfaiher^ vol. iv. pp. 28-9.
— : INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 277
Plantations. Lastly, His Majesty promised to inter- chap.
pose his authority to have restitution made for any ^^^
harm done to the company. This Act was clearly
the work of an independent Scots Parliament. In
pre - Revolution days, when Court influence was
supreme, through the Lords of the Articles, such an
Act could not have been passed. The oflBcial who
now represented the Court, Tweeddale, Lord High
Commissioner, obviously went beyond his instruc-
tions. Burnet says that the King " drew an instruc-
tion impowering the commissioner to pass a bill
promising letters patent for encouraging of trade, yet
limited, so that it should not interfere with the trade
of England.: when they went down to Scotland, the
king's commissioner either did not consider this, or
had no regard to it ; for he gave the royal assent to
an act, that gave the undertakers either of the East
India or West India trade, all possible privileges." ' ^
The Scottish Parliament had, indeed, claimed the
right to confer privileges such as would enable any
one who chose to trade from Scotland to evade the
system by which for a century England had sought
to regulate her own trade with the East and West.^
Paterson, though persuaded by Fletcher to Hostility
nationalize his project, realized, as Fletcher did not, me^ha^te
that- Scotland was unable to finance it.* He turned, ^^"fj|^^
therefore, to English financiers for support, and for Company.
reasons which must now be explained he had cause proposal
to think that he would not look for it in vain. As ^e '
noted in Chapter III.* the English East India ^^^^^^^
IT -I t .Pi , company.
Company had created and maintamed at their own
charge the conditions necessary for trade with India,
^ Keith, CommercicU Belaiians of England and ScoUavd, 1603-1707, pp.
167, 168, quoting Burnet, History ofhia own Times, vol. iv. p. 277.
' See Note B at end of this chapter, p. 301.
' Keith, CommerdcUlielations of England and Scotland, 160S-1707, p. 169.
* See above, pp. 148-50. Also Hunter, History of British India, vol. ii.
pp. 322-8.
278
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
V
Successful
opposition
on the part
of Enelish
East India
Company.
In the closing decades of the seventeenth century
interlopers in ever-increasing numbers were tempted
by the growing value of the trade to ignore the mon-
opoly. When the Company tried to repress them
they attacked it on the ground that such privileges
as the Company claimed could not be conferred by
the King but by Parliament only, thus opening an
important phase in the struggle of Parliament to
control the prerogative. Some of the interlopers
formed a new company which competed with the old ^
one for parliamentary powers. The struggle which
raged in and out of Parliament in the last decade of
the seventeenth century was closed in 1702 by the
voluntary union of the two companies. Meantime,
however, there were others in London who aspired to
share in the Eastern trade, and thought that the
English Company's monopoly might be attacked
more successfully from Scotland than England.
Paterson got into touch with them, and they under-
took to find £300,000. A further £200,000 was
to be raised in Hamburg and Amsterdam. The
remainder was to be found in Scotland itself.
* Almost every one who had, or could command, any
sum of ready money embarked it in the Indian and
African Company ; many subscribed their all ; maidens
threw in their portions, and widows whatever sums
they could raise upon their dower, to be repaid an
hundredfold by the golden shower which was to
descend upon the subscribers. Some sold estates to
vest the money in the Company's funds, and so eager
was the spirit of speculation, that, when eight hundred
thousand pounds formed the whole circulating capital
of Scotland, half of that sum was vested in the
Darien stock.' ^
It was hardly to be expected that the directors of
the English East India Company should watch with-
* Scott.) TaUs of a Orand/ather, vol. iv. p. 31.
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 279
a
out concern the products of the East pouring into chap.
Scotland duty frecy to be smuggled thence into
England duty free again, for every one knew that a
large proportion of the dutiable articles which reached
England evaded the vigilance of the customs authori-
ties. Scotland, moreover, too poor to protect her own
sea-borne * commerce, depended upon the protection
of the English fleets. The English East India Com-
pany now realizing that their position was at stake,
moved their Parliament to address the King. William
replied that * the King had been ill served in Scotland,
but hoped some remedies might still be found to
prevent the evils apprehended,' and dismissed Tweed-
dale from office. Parliament, moreover, by threat-
ening the English subscribers with impeachment,
compelled them to .withdraw their support, and
diplomatic pressure was successfully applied to the
same purpose in Hamburg and Holland.
A demand for separate ambassadors accountable Fletcher's
to Scotland alone was the immediate result. * His fo^pâ„¢*"
majesty's ministers abroad,' said Fletcher in the ^mbawa-
Scottish Parliament, ' paid by the Crown of England, dor.
are no longer to be looked upon as ministers for the
Crown of Scotland. Since we are separate kingdoms,
and have separate ministers at home, we ought to
have separate ministers abroad ; especially in an affair
wherein we niay have a separate interest from Eng-
land, which must always be in matters of trade. . . .
Neither ought we to have separate ministers only
upon the account of trade, but upon all occasions,'
wherein the honour or interest of the nation is con-
cerned. That we have not had them formerly, since
we were under one king with England, was, I suppose,
to save charges, and because we trusted to the imparti-
ality of such as we judged to be the ministers of
the King of Great Britain. ' ^
^ Fletcher. Political Works, p. 86, ' First Discourse on tlie Affairs of Scotland.'
280 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. Fletcher's speech shows how easily a people,
^^.^^^^^^ situated as the Scots then were, drift without knowing
Failure it into supposing that they can enjoy membership
M)on8iWe ^ *wo statcs and continue indefinitely to reap the
Govern- benefits of both. The Scottish ministers were to
ment to
proportion treat the interests of the Scottish State not merely
encU. as separate from those of England, but a^ opposed
to them. And yet, when that treatment brought
Scotland into collision with foreign powers, the
English ministers were to treat Scotland as an integral
and inseparable portion of the State of Great Britain.
It is not children only, but men put in the position
of children, that fall into thinking that they can eat
their cake and also keep it. Never having been
called upon to handle foreign affairs, Fletcher and the
Scottish Parliament, like Grattan and the Irish
Parliament a century later, were adrift of the realities
which underlay them. But an ordinary sense of
humour might have saved Fletcher from the suggestion
that * It will be also fit, that the company petition
the parliament to address his majesty, that the three
small frigats, lately built at the expence of this
nation, may be appointed for a convoy to the next
ships they shall send out.'^ Fletcher's view was,
however, adopted by the Scottish Parliament. In
the Act to authorize the incorporation of com-
panies for foreign trade they provided that if traders
' happened to be attacked and violently seized and
otherwise disturbed by persons not in open war with
Their Majesties, that then and in that case Their
Majesties would be pleased to order that the recovery
of the ships and goods so seized or otherwise molested
and hindered be carried on and prosecuted by publick
means and at publick expense.' But the only means
with which the Scottish Parliament had furnished the
1 Fletcher, Political Works, ]p^. 88-9, 'First Discourse on the Affairs of
Scotland.'
INCLUSION OF SCJOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 281
King for the purpose were the three frigates, ' which/ chap.
as Hodges said to them, ' for pinching their charges
you have laid up to rot.' If the King were indeed
to protect the Darien argosies it could only be with
fleets maintained by the very English commerce
which, as Englishmen believed, the Darien scheme was
intended to divert. The truth was that Scotland,
without realizing the fact, had lived under the pro-
tection of English fleets and had learned to depend
on it. But three years before, the Scottish ministers i695.
had applied to those of England for protection against
the corsair states of Barbary, and the English admiral
in the Mediterranean had been instructed to protect
their ships. The English Government had granted to
Scottish merchants the convoys for which they
applied, and it was not unnatural that both English
Houses should protest against a measure which ' did
seem to engage the shipping and strength at sea
of this nation to the great detriment even of this
kingdom.'
The Darien scheme was not merely one which Pianution
needed adequate protection from aggressors, but was Scottish
in itself an act of aggression. If there was any place s?^"^^^"
in the New World which Spain might claim as her territory.
own by right of discovery, that place was the Isthmus settiere
of Darien.*" The route across it was first tracked in by^p^in.
1513 by Balboa, who had claimed for Spain not only ^gjg
the land but the seas beyond it.^ It was athwart
this very route that the Scottish Parliament now
proceeded to plant a colony of their own, at a
moment when the impending struggle with France
made it of vital importance for England to remain
on friendly terms with Spain. On the 26th July
1698, the first expedition sailed from Leith Eoads^ i698.
disembarked at the Bay of Ada, and founded a town
^ See Kote at end of this chapter, p. 302.
^ See above, p. 133.
282 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, which was called New Edinburgh. Tropical disease,
^ however, want of capital, and the consequent failure
of supplies quickly began to work their ruin.
Jamaica, the Barbadoes, and the American colonies
had been warned by the English executive to give
them no relief, and the settlement was abandoned.
The vacant site, however, was occupied by a second
and third contingent until they were forcibly ejected
by the Spaniards. Some of the Scottish adventurers
languished in Spanish prisons in danger of execution
as pirates until they were released on the intervention
of the English ambassador.
Resent- Scotland was reduced to the verge of bankruptcy,^
^ti^l and the feelings provoked by the failure of the enter-
Pariia- pnse wcrc voiced on the meeting of the Scottish
ment. ^ ^ o ^
Parliament. ' It must still be fresh in every man s
memory, that insults were made upon the sovereignty
and independence of this nation, in the matter of
their late trading company, both before their settle-
ment in Darien by the legal actings of the Scots
Parliament, and by the scandalous memorials given
in by the English resident at Hamburgh, most falsely
representing the Scots company as private persons,
having no authority ; as also, by the said resident's
using threatening denunciations and expressions
against the Hamburghers, if they should enter into
any trading society with them ; and likewise, after
that company was settled in Darien, by their most
barbarous and inhuman execution of some proclama-
tions issued out against them. That whether these
most injurious stretches were calculated really for the
sake of an interest altogether foreign to this island,
it was not proper here to dispute ; but that it was
certain, that this had raised an insuperable jealousy
^ Under the terms of the union of 1707 the shareholders got back their
capital and 5 per cent up to date (Keith, Commercial Relations of England
aTui Scotland 1603-1707, p. 197).
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BKITISH COMMONWEALTH 283
in the Scots nation, which could not fail sometime or chap.
other, to break forth into consequences dangerous to ^^^^^^^.^^
both nations. And, therefore, he concurred with
those noble and worthy members in promoting the
overture, from which he should expect, that some
laws should be enacted towards regulating the
administration and government at home, as might
deliver a Scots prince and ministry from foreign
influence, and might thereby ccjmpose those hurtful
jealousies, in all times coming, to the mutual peace
and quiet of the whole island/ ^
The Scottish Parliament now determined to assert Scottish
its own independence of England in the conduct of fndJaâ„¢ura
foreign affairs. Scarcely had William died and Anne ^^ ?^*'®
come to the throne when war broke out with France, control of
Next year the Scottish Parliament passed a Bill* affaiS?
repudiating the prohibition against the importation of
French wines into the country, and refused even to
accept an amendment providing that * No Scots ship
should trade direct with France now in time of war.'
At the instance of Fletcher, Parliament then Fletcher's
turned to the discussion of a series of measures ^'"'P*^^ *•
designed to transfer the entire control of the execu-
tive from the Crown to itself. Queen Anne's policy
was now largely determined by the advice of
her English ministers. So long, therefore, as the
Scottish ministers held office at the Queen's
pleasure, their action must be controlled rather by
the wishes of the English Ministry than by those of
the Scottish Parliament. In a Bill which he intro-
duced, Fletcher proposed to remedy this defect by
'limiting' the prerogative. The following extracts
show, however, that he proposed not merely to
' limit ' but actually to abolish the whole prerogative
of the Crown. * These are the ends to which all the
' speech of Member of Soottiah ParUament, May 26, 1708.
' It is fair to note that Fletcher opposed this measure.
284 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BEITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, limitations B,i;e directed, that English councils may
^ not hinder the acts of our parliaments from receiving
the royal assent ; that we may not be ingaged without
our consent in the quarrels they may have with other
nations ; that they may not obstruct the meeting of
our parliaments, nor interrupt their sitting ; that we
may not stand in need of posting to London for
places and pensions, by which, whatever particular
men may get, the nation must always be a loser, nor
apply for the remedies of our grievances to a court,
where for the most part none are to be had. On the
contrary, if these conditions of government be enacted,
our constitution will be amended, and our grievances
be easily redressed by a due execution of our own
laws, which to this day we have never been able to
obtain/ ^ * This limitation will secure to us our
freedom and independence. It has been often said
in this house, that our princes are captives in
England ; and indeed one would not wonder if, when
our interest happens to be different from that of
England, our kings, who must be supported by the
riches and power of that nation in all their under-
takings, should prefer an English interest before that
of this country. 'Tis yet less strange, that English
ministers should advise and procure the advancement
of such persons to ^the ministry of Scotland, as will
comply with their measures and the King's orders ;
and to surmount the difficulties they may meet with
from a true Scots interest, that places and pensions
should be bestowed upon parliament-men and others :
I say, these things are so far from wonder, that they
are inevitable in the present state of our affairs. But
I hope they likewise shew us, that we ought not to
continue any longer in this condition. Now this
limitation is advantageous to all. The prince will
^ Fletcher, Political Works, pp. 290-1. Speech by a Member of Parlia-
ment, 1708.
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 285
no more be put upon the hardship of deciding between chap.
an English and a Scots interest; or the difficulty s^^,,,,,^^
of reconciling what he owes to each nation, in con-
sequence of his coronation oath. Even English
ministers will no longer lie under the temptation of
meddling in Scots affairs : nor the ministers of this
kingdom, together with all those who have places
and pensions, be any more subject to the worst of
all slavery. But if the influences I mentioned before
shall still continue, what will any other limitation
avail us ? What shall we be the better for our act
concerning the power of war and peace ; since by the
force of an English interest and influence, we cannot
fail of being engaged in every war, and neglected in
every peace ? ' ^
By a stroke of the pen his proposals would have Measures
placed the executive under the immediate and ^rl^d?
absolute control of the Scottish Parliament. They
were never actually carried ; but two instalments were
placed on the statute-book which, unless the Union
had been accomplished, would have made it necessary
to carry them all. The first wfts an ' Act of Peace
and War ' declaring that ' No person being King of
Scotland and England shall have power of making
war . . . without consent of Parliament, and that no
declaration of war without consent aforesaid shall be
binding on the subjects of his kingdom.' The second
was a measure providing that ambassadors repre-
senting Scotland and accountable to the Parliament
of Scotland should be present whenever the King
had occasion to treat with foreign princes or states.
With his separate parliaments, executives, and Proposal
ambassadors, competent to declare peace with the to serrate
enemies of England, Fletcher now dropped the pre- of s^^-^^
tence that one titular sovereign could avail to unite land and
o England.
* Fletcher, Political Wtyrks^ pp. 342*4. Speech by a Member of Parlia-
ment, 1708.
286 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, two commonwealths. ' No man in this house is more
convinced of the great advantage of that peace which
both nations enjoy by living under one prince. But
as on the one hand, some men for private ends, and
in order to get into offices, have either neglected or
betrayed the interest of this nation, by a mean com-
pliance with the English court ; so on the other side
it cannot be denied, that we have been but indiffer-
ently used by the English nation. I shall not insist
upon the affair of Darien, in which by their means
and influence chiefly, we suffered so great a loss both
in men and money, as to put us almost beyond hope
of ever having any considerable trade ; and this con-
trary to their own true interest, which now appears
but too visibly. I shall not go about to enumerate
instances of a provoking nature in other matters,
but keep myself precisely to the thing we are upon.
The English nation did, some time past, take into
consideration the nomination of a successor to that
crown ; an affair of the highest importance, and one
would think of common concernment to both
kingdoms. Did they ever require our concurrence?
Did they ever desire the late King to cause the
parliament of Scotland to meet, in order to take
our advice and consent? Was not this to tell us
plainly, that we ought to be concluded by their
determinations, and were not worthy to be con-
sulted in the matter? Indeed, my lord Chancellor,
considering their whole carriage in thiB affair, and
the broad insinuations we have now heard, that
we are not to expect her Majesty's assent to any
limitations on a successor (which must proceed
from English council) and considering we cannot
propose to ourselves any other relief from that
servitude we lie under by the influence of that court ;
'tis my opinion, that the house come to a resolution,
" That after the decease of her Majesty, heirs of her
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 287
body failing, we will separate our crown from that chap.
of England." ' ' ^
Fortune indeed had, at this juncture, placed a Act of
powerful weapon in the hands of the Scottish Parlia- ^^a^^y
ment. The joint settlement eflFected by both Parlia- ^^'^^t,
ments at the Revolution had provided that the i/os, pi-o-
descendants of Mary or Anne should succeed to separation
the Crown. Mary left no children, and on the death on d^Tth*
in 1700 of William, Duke of Gloucester, the only 'f^^^''
surviving son of the Princess Anne, the whole question failing
of the succession was reopened. In 1701 the English b/^ng-
Parliament passed the Act of Settlement fixing the ^ttlsh
succession of the Crown of England and Ireland upon demands.
Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, ^^^i-
a grand-daughter of James I. , the senior descendant
of that sovereign who happened to profess the Protes-
tant religion. The Scottish Parliament, quick to per-
ceive the advantage which the necessity for amending
the Act of Succession had given them, declined to
follow suit. In 1708, to the urgent demands of the
English Ministry that the Crown of Great Britain
should be settled on the Electress Sophia, they replied
by passing an Act of Security which provided that
at the death of Queen Anne the Scottish Parliament
should meet and nominate a Protestant successor of
the Royal line of Scotland, but not the same person
as succeeded to the English throne, unless during Her
Majesty's reign such conditions of government were
settled ' as may Becure the honour and sovereignty of
this Crown and Kingdom the freedom, frequency and
power of Parliaments . . . the religion, liberty and
trade of the nation from English or any foreign
influence.'
That the Scottish Parliament recognized that such Scottish
an event meant war with England is evident from pi^ji^â„¢*"
for war
1 Fletcher, Political Works, pp. 301-8. Speech by a Member of Parlia- with
ment, 1703. England.
288
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
V
The
English
Govern-
ment
forced by
fear of
invasion
to allow
the Act
of Security
to become
law.
1703.
the fact that they also provided for arming the
Protestant * fencible men of the Kingdom.' * If we
are not rich enough/ said Fletcher, ' to pay a sufficient
number of standing forces, we have at least this
advantage, that arms in our own hands serve no less
to maintain our liberty at home, than to defend us
from enemies abroad. Other nations, if they think
they can trust standing forces, may by their means
defend themselves against foreign enemies. But we,
who have not wealth sufficient to pay such forces,
should not, of all nations under heaven, be unarmed.
For us then to continue without arms, is to be directly
in the condition of slaves : to be found unarmed in
the event of her Majesty's death, would be to have
no manner of security for our liberty, property, or
the independence of this kingdom. By being un-
armed, we every day run the risk of our all, since
we know not how soon that event may overtake us :
to continue still unarmed, when by this very act
now under deliberation, we have put a case, which
happening may separate us from England, would be
the grossest of all follies. And if we do not provide
for arming the kingdom in such an exigency, we
shall become a jest and a proverb to the world.' ^
To this Bill the High Commissioner, acting on
instructions from the English Government, refused
the Royal assent. The Scottish Parliament, however,
declined to grant supplies, thus leaving the Scottish
forces unpaid. The news of Blenheim had not
arrived, a French invasion was expected almost
hourly, and Godolphin persuaded the English Govern-
ment to yield. By touching the Bill with the sceptre
the High Commissioner placed on the Scottish statute-
book a measure which not merely provided for the
separation of the two Crowns, but contemplated war
between the two kingdoms. England could scarcely
1 Fletcher, PolUical Works, pp. 308-9.
I
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 289
allow matters to stand there unless she was prepared chap.
to face a return to the days when France could
always count upon dividing Britain against herself.
In Scotland, as Lord Haversham said in the English
House of Lords, * there will never be wanting all the
promises and all the assistance France will give/ ^
The crisis was precipitated by an act of vengeance The
on the part of the moribund Darien Company, which p^^.^
induced the Scottish Government to seize an English ™e°* ,
^ retaliates,
East Indiaman in the Clyde. Convicted of piracy but opens
on the evidence of a negro, the captain and several S^st;
of the crew were hanged. The two nations were on "^^^^
the brink of war, but fortunately the English Parlia-
ment kept its temper and contented itself with
declaring that unless the Scottish Succession was
settled by Christmas Day, 1705, Scotsmen were to
be held as aliens and incapable of inheriting lands ;
that no arms or horses were to be exported to Scotland,
and that no Scottish cattle, linen, or coals were to
be imported into England. The same Act, however,
empowered the Queen to appoint commissioners to
treat for union. The Scots 'had endeavoured to
coerce the English into giving them commercial
privileges. Now the English were putting pressure
on the Scots to make them accept a complete union/ ^
What the Scottish Parliament desired was not Attempts
union, but the opening of the English markets to J^ndie
Scottish commerce, and freedom to trade with the f^f^^d-
English colonies in America and with the Far East, ence
all which they hoped to enjoy without any curtailment English
of their own autonomy. These hopes were expressed °*''^'^®°**°'^-
in an amendment moved by the Duke of Hamilton
to the Act authorizing the appointment of Scottish
Commissioners to negotiate with those from England,
' That the union to be treated on should no ways
^ Keith, CommerGicU Belations of England and Scotland, 1603-1707^ p. 191.
• Ibid. p. 192.
U
290 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, derogate from any fundamental laws, ancient privileges,
^ offices, rights, liberties, and dignities of the Scots
Nation/ To the same effect was a resolution moved
by the Marquis of Annandale in the following year,
when the report of the Commissioners was considered
by the Scottish Parliament. 'That we are willing
to enter into such an Union with our neighbours of
England, as shall unite us entirely, and after the
most strict manner in all their and our interests or
successions, wars, alliances, and trade, reserving to
us the sovereignty and independency of the Crown
and Monarchy, and the ancient privileges and im-
munities of the kingdom, and the constitution and
frame of the government both of church and state,
as they stand now, established by our fundamental
constitution, by our Claim of Right, and the laws
foUowiDg thereupon.' As Daniel Defoe remarked :
' " No incorporating union" -was the word — " Let us
have an Union with England with all. our hearts ;
but no incorporation — Let us keep our Parliament —
keep our Sovereignty — keep our independency — keep
our constitution, and for all the rest we are ready
to unite with you, as firmly as you can devise." '
Such, indeed, was the nature of an arrangement
advanced by the Scottish Commissioners under the
name of a 'Foederal Union.' It is important, how-
ever, not to be misled by terms. The plan proposed
was in no sense a federal union, but merely a zoUverein
or customs convention, which left untouched the
vital question who was to control defence and foreign
affairs. It was but one of many attempts to settle
by contract between two states what in fact could
only be settled by the creation of a single state
claiming the unlimited obedience of the citizens in
both,
pro^^ai^ The difficulties were such as must recur every
for solving time the necessity arises for extending the principle
problem.
INCLUSION OF SCOTU^ND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 291
of the cominonwealth, and Fletcher in his writings chap.
has left proposals for their solution which throw
much light 'on the working of his mind. According
to these proposals Europe was to be divided into ten
provinces, and each province into ten or twelve
sovereign republics modelled on the pattern of
Greek city states. Those suggested for the British
Isles were to centre round London, Bristol, Exeter,
Chester, Norwich, York, Stirling, Inverness, Dublin,
Cork, Galway, and Londonderry. Concord between
these sovereign republics was to be secured in each
province by a common prince, but how he was to
secure it the author of the proposal failed to explain.
He was not, however, the last to argue that one
titular crown will suffice to maintain the unity of
dominions whose separate sovereignty has been
recognized as absolute and complete.^
That the Scottish Parliament included a mind statement
more in touch with realities is shown by a speech from real ^
Seton of Pitmadden. * My Lord, I am sorry that in ^gj^^
place of things, we amuse ourselves with words ; for of
my part, I comprehend no durable union betwixt
Scotland and England, but that expressed in this
Article by one kingdom, that is to say, one people,
one civil government, and one interest. It is true,
the words, Foederal Union, are become fashionable,
and may be handsomely fitted to delude unthinking
people ; but if any member of this House will give
himself the trouble to examine what conditions or
articles are understood by these words, and reduce
them into any kind of foederal compacts, whereby
distinct nations have been united, I will presume to
say, these will be found to be impracticable, or of
very little use to us. But to put that matter in a
clear light, these queries ought to be duly examined.
^ Fletcher, Political Works^ p. 448, ' Account of a Cou7ersation regarding
a Bight Regalation of Government.'
292 mCLUSION OP SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. . . . Whether there can be any sure guaranty
projected for the observance of the articles of a
foederal compact, stipulated betwixt two nations,
whereof the one is much superior to the other in
riches, numbers of people, and an extended com-
merce ? Whether the advantages of a Foederal Union
do balance its disadvantages ? Whether the English
will accept a Foederal Union supposing it to be for
the true interest of both nations? Whether any
Foederal compact between Scotland and England is
sufficient to secure the peace of this island, or fortify
it against the intrigues and invasions of its foreign
enemies ? And, whether England, in prudence ought
to communicate its trade and protection to this nation,
till both kingdoms are incorporated into one V ^
Fears for The Scottish OomtniBsiouers in fact asked for a
of Scottish zollverein which would establish freedom of trade
^am^^^^ between Scotland, England, and the colonies. The
in the English Commissioners on their part were ready to
subsequent couccdc thosc privileges, not, however, by way of
events. treaty, as the Scots proposed, but only as the result
of a union which would incorporate the Scots and
English as citizens of one State. And that was the
solution which Scotland was driven unwillingly to
accept ; * I see the English Constitution remaining
firm,' protested Lord Belhaven, * the same Houses of
Parliament, the same taxes, the same customs, the
same excises, the same trading companies, the same
muilicipal laws and courts of judicature; and all
ours either subject to regulations or annihilations,
only we have the honour to pay their old debts, and
to have some few persons present, for witnesses to
the validity of the deed, when they are pleased to
contract more.' The complaints of Belhaven had
their justification in rash utterances such as those
attributed by Fletcher to Sir Edward Seymour :
^ speech by Seton of Pitmadden, November 1, 1706.
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 293
* What a pother is here about an union with Scotland, chap.
of which all the advantage we shall have, will be no
more than what a man gets by marrying a beggar, a
louse for her portion.'^ Such happily was not the
general attitude of Englishmen towards the Scots.
Beneath the antipathies which ruffled the surface was
a sense of mutual affection and respect which made
the prospect of an internecine war hateful to both
alike. Common responsibility for the welfare of a
common state was alone needed to develop the
patriotism necessary to unite Scots with Englishmen
in a single commonwealth. How little the event has
justified the fears of Belhaven may be judged from the
remarks of a modern American observer : * The Act of
Union preserved the ecclesiastical and legal institutions
of Scotland ; and at the present day she has her own
established church, which is Presbyterian ; her own
system of education, which is quite different from
the English ; and her own system of law, based upon
the Civil not the Common Law, and adorned by a
nomenclature so disfigured as to pass for her own.
With such differences as these it has been not un-
common for Parliament, even where the same legis-
lative principles were to be applied on both sides of
the Tweed, to enact them in separate statutes, each
adapted to the institutions of the country in which
it is to operate. Socially, also, the fusion has not
been complete. Every Scotchman is an Englishman,
but an Englishman is not a Scotchman. The Scotch
regard themselves as an elect race who are entitled to all
the rights of Englishmen and to their own privileges
besides. All English offices ought to be open to them,
but Scotch posts are the natural heritage of the Scots.
They take part freely in the debates on legislation
affecting England alone, but in their opinion acts
^ Fletcher, PolUical fForka, p. 411, 'Account of a Oonversation regarding
a Right Regulation of Government'
294 INCLUSION OP SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, confined to Scotland ought to be, and in fact they are
^ in the main, governed by the opinion of the Scotch
members. Such a condition is due partly to the fact
that Scotch institutions and ideas are sufficiently
distinct from those of England to require separate
treatment, and not different enough to excite re-
pugnance. It is due in part also to the fact that the
Scotch are both a homogeneous and a practical
people, so that all classes can unite in common
opinions about religion, politics, and social justice/ ^
Effect of The real nature of the transaction is explained in
in^creSbSg ^ few words by the greatest living authority on the
ttotir British Constitution. * Though the fact is often
overlooked, the Parliaments both of England and
Scotland did, at the time of the Union, each transfer
sovereign power to a new sovereign body, namely,
the Parliament of Great Britain/ ^ In other words, a
new state was created with a new sovereignty of its
own : the two separate states with their two separate
sovereignties vanished. The last act of the two
sovereignties was to order their respective subjects to
behave in future as citizens of a common state, an order
which was obeyed, although to a large number it was
unpalatable. Nothing but time was wanted to create
the habit of obedience to the new Commonwealth,
because that habit was fostered by the exercise of a
responsibility imposed on the inhabitants of both
kingdoms. There was not, as in Ireland, an over-
whelming section of the population excluded from
full participation in the life of the Commonwealth.
The transaction, moreover, partook in no essential
respect of the nature of a contract. The only parties
between whom a contract could have been made were
the two sovereignties, which the moment the trans-
action was completed themselves vanished, and with
^ Lowell, The Government of England^ vol. i. pp. 138-9.
2 Dicey, The Law of the CkmstittUion, pp. 66-7.
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 295
them a contractual condition which was merely chap.
temporary. Henceforth the bond by which a Scot
and Englishman were united was the claim made
by a commonwealth, in which both were embraced,
to the unlimited devotion of each.
To none of the Commissioners, however, does it Why
seem to have occurred that the continued existence in P^^^^^^^y
Edinburgh and London of provincial executives and ^^^^^f^j^
legislatures, entrusted respectively with interests and
which were strictly Scottish and strictly English, was Pariia-
not incompatible with the policy of merging Scots ^tJJ^^^ate
and Englishmen in a common state. The possibility }^^ ^^^
of distinguishing local from general interests had not the new
as yet been realized. The truth is that statesmen w^ST^
of that era had far less experience to draw upon than ^^^^
those who have followed the establishment of the ^'*^??^ ,
American Republic. To the ministers of Queen Anne
the only alternative to absolute separation was to
centralize all government, local as well as imperial, at
Westminster. The American method of preserving
existing state governments as local organs of the
wider state into which they were merged had yet to
be placed on the political market by its discoverers.
But the sovereign merit in the architects of this union
was their uncompromising rejection of shams. As
usual, there were not wanting Englishmen of the type
of Growen and Seymour who comprehended so ill the
principles for which their race stood as to think that
Scotland could permanently be treated as a means to
English ends. Across the border were the Fletchers
and Belhavens, specimens of a no less constant type,
who wanted to retain the essential condition of
separation by a contract dignified by the name of a
Foederal Union. Had either of these counsels pre-
vailed, Scotland would have been linked to England by
bonds similar to those which connected the confederate
states with Athens. Upon either principle the two
296
INCLUSION OP SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
V
Commonwealths were to live apart, and a false union
which purported to unite them without impairing
the sovereignty of either would infallibly have ended
in the domination of the weaker by the stronger, a
domination which would have been exercised, as in
Ireland, in part by corruption and in part by force.
Judging from Ireland the results would so have em-
bittered the relations of the two peoples as to have
made the final achievement of union at a later date
immeasurably harder. As it was, the citizens of both
countries faced fiicts, and above all things faced them
in time. The fears of Belhaven that the Scots would
lose their national character have been plainly falsified
by events. To a great extent they have dominated
the polity in which they were merged. More than
any other portion of Great Britain, Scotland has
devoted to India and the great Dependencies the
best of her sons, and has realized the sense of re-
sponsibility to the races of the other continents, which
alone has made possible the inclusion of so vast a
number of them within the limits of the British
Commonwealth.
NOTE A
See page
261.
How
Scotland
in early
times
became
a separate
political
unit from
England.
SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT IN
THE MIDDLE AGES
When Scotland first came into touch with civilization it was,
like the rest of Britain, inhabited by Celtic tribes. Boman
and Saxon invaders in the dark ages alike failed to penetrate
the Highlands, and till two centuries ago the tribal organization
of society there remained intact The Saxons, however, like
the Bomans, conquered the Lowlands, filling the South-East of
Scotland as far as the Forth with a people who were largely
Teutonic. The modem counties of Boxburgh, Berwick,
Haddington, and Midlothian were indeed part of the English
Kingdom of Northumbria in the age of the Heptarchy. About
the time of the Saxon invasion there arrived from Ireland a
tribe called the Scots, who settled in Argyllshire, and some
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 297
centuries later the East coast^ North of the Forth, was colonized OHAP.
by Norsemen. In the eighth and ninth centuries these two V
races, together with the aboriginal population of the Highlands, ^-'•^v-^i^-^
both Pictish and Celtic, were united under the King of the
Scots. Gradually they pushed their frontiers South till in
1034 the Duncan, who figures in Shakespeare's tragedy of
Macbethy became King of the whole mainland, North of the
Tweed, which thereafter was recognized as the frontier between
England and Scotland. In 1072 William of Normandy, having
completed the conquest of England, invaded Scotland and
exacted homage from the Scottish King, Malcolm Ganmore,
without^ however, achieving an effective conquest of the
country.
Malcolm had married an English wife, Margaret, grand- Anglicizing
daughter of Edmund Ironside, a descendant of Alfred the influence
Greats who had fled from the Normans to seek the protection Mi^e^t
of the Scottish King. Regarding herself as a missionary of in the
English civilization, she devoted herself to anglicizing the eleventh
Scots, an enterprise in which she was doubtless assisted by ^^"""7*
those of her countrymen who were driven by the Normans
across the border, and also by the growth of commerce between
the Eastern ports of the two kingdoms. Although Scotland
remained a separate kingdom, the English law, language, and
religion began gradually to prevail over those of the Celt.
To consolidate the inhabitants of Great Britain into one Incorpora-
state was a natural ideal and one sure to commend itself to a ^|?° ^^,
vigorous king who ruled the larger part of the island. The effective
turbulent state of the Welsh Marches were a menace to order conauest
in England itself, and led to the conquest of the Welsh tribes ^ ^^^
by Edward I. Wales remained a dependency of England o^^mon-
tOl the time of Henry YIII., and was happier than Ireland wealth.
in this, that the kings made the law there supreme as in
England itself. In 1536 Welsh members were summoned to
the English Parliament, so that, as the sovereignty passed from
the King to Parliament, it passed to the Welsh as well as to the
English people, and thereafter no separate constitutional question
ever arose in respect of Wales.
At first Edward I. set to work to incorporate Scotland by Failure of
pacific means. His plan, cordially accepted by both countries, ^^"^ V^
was to unite the Crowns by marrying his infant son to the incoroorate
Scottish Queen, a child of six, known as the Maid of Norway. Scotland.
The scheme, however, was frustrated by her premature death,
and from a number of rival claimants to the throne Edward
selected John Balliol, who did homage to the English monarch
for his crown. Balliol, however, intrigued with France and
rebelled. Henceforward the feeling that Scotland might stab
them in the back when struggling with France became the
298
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
V
Mutual
hostility of
Scotland
and
England
a danger
to their
common
liberty.
The
Scottish
Parlia-
ment
in its origin
a copy
of the
English
Parlia-
ment.
nightmare of English kings. Edward I. promptly dethroned
Balliol, conquered Scotland as far North as Elgin, and then
attempted to deal with it as he had dealt with Wales. In the
place of a vassal king he now appointed his own viceroy, and
Scottish representatives were summoned and sat in his
parliaments at Westminster. One of them was Itobert the
Bruce, who presently headed a revolt against Edward The
great King died before he could crush him, leaving his son
Edward II. to lead into Scotland the forces he had collected at
Carlisle. The struggle continued till at Bannockbum Bruce
defeated Edward II. and separated the Crowns of Scotland and
England once more, a separation which was to continue for
close on three centuries.
Henceforward the two kingdoms were frequently at war, and
the border between them was a scene of perpetual conflict.
French influence was paramount North of the Tweed, and the
Courts of Scotland and France were in constant alliance. The
fear of conquest by any power but England never figured in the
Scottish imagination, for no Continental monarch would have
thought of invading Scotland, unless, like William of Normandy,
he had mastered England first of alL To the Scots England
was their only enemy, and they can scarcely have realized that
English liberty was the bulwark of their own, or that if they
helped to destroy it they would be establishing on their Southern
frontier a foreign and much moi:je dangerous foe.
The parliamentary union of the two kingdoms effected by
Edward I. left, however, one important ti'ace on Scottish in-
stitutions, which survived the predominant influence of France.
The Great Council of Scotland had already been modelled upon
that of England and was an assembly of tenants in chief, lay
and clerical. As a member of the parliaments of Edward I.,
Robert the Bruce had seen English burgesses summoned to their
councils, and as King of Scotland in 1326 he, like Edward,
finding himself in need of money, summoned burgesses to a
Scottish parliament at Cambuskenneth. A century later James
I., a prisoner in England in the days of Lancastrian constitu-
tionalism, tried on his return to Scotland to strengthen the
popular element in Parliament as a counterpoise to the influence
of the barons. To this end he enacted that the small barons
and free tenantry, a class corresponding to the country gentle-
men of England, need not attend in person, provided that they
sent representatives. But it was not until 1587 that the
country gentlemen were definitely forbidden to sit in person
and ordered to send representatives. By then the representation
of the burgesses was firmly established. Thus before the union
of the Crowns the Scottish parliament consisted of lords
temporal and spiritual, who appeared in person and sat in their
own right because they were few enough to do so, and also of
INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 299
representatives of the coantry gentry and of the mercantile CHAP,
interests in the towns. V
Before the union of the Crowns in 1603, and indeed for ^— •-v-«»-^
some time after, the Scottish parliament was no more than a Failure
faint reflection of its English original. Like the French g^^o^jg}^
parlemenis it sat to register rather than to make the law, and monarchy
acquired no real sovereignty for the simple reason that there *? fi^tab-
was none to acquire so long as the Lowland and Highland gupremacy
communities adhered, the one to a feudal, the other to a tribal of law
condition of society. The conditions of statehood were no prevented
more realized in Scotland while under separate kings than in oft^rij^
England before the Norman Conquest. The Scottish monarchy mentary
never finally mastered the barons and chiefs, and the King's institu-
writ was never sure of running until James VI and his l^gj^^a!"
successors succeeded to the English Grown and were able to
employ the resources of the English Commonwealth to enforce the
obedience of their Scottish subjects. ' " The greatest hindrance
to the execution of our lawes in this countrie," wrote James VI.,
'*are these heritable Shiredomes and Eegalities, which being
in the hands of the great men, do wracke the whole countrie."
It was more easy to ordain frequent sessions of " the Chancellor
and discreet persons," to forbid riding to the court "with
multitudes of folkis na with armys," and to threaten
the punishment of negligent sheriffs, than to carry out these
schemes. The only guarantee for their receiving any obedience
lay in the personal strength of the king.' ^ Till the Reformation
the history of Scotland is a series of factious struggles between
chiefs and nobles for the control of a monarchy in which
the monarch himself was often no more than a pawn — to
story-tellers like Scott, an inexhaustible mine, but to students of
history as tedious as the battles described by Homer and
Virgil, because success for the moment depended upon the
prowess of individual leaders. Unlike England, Scotland
failed to develop for herself an effective monarchy on which to
found the supremacy of law. Where no true imperium existed
there was none for the Scottish parliament to assume, and the
first condition necessary for the development of a commonwealth
was lacking. It is the abuse of sovereignty, not sovereignty
itself, that is opposed to freedom.
In these disordered conditions the nobles were able about How the
1367 to establish a procedure which scotched the popular practice of
element in Parliament and arrested the growth of its influence, to tl^ ^^^
Parliament itself only met at the opening and close of each Lords
See page session. The actual transaction of business was delegated to a ^^ *^®
^^' committee known as the Lords of the Articles, in the selection ar^ted
of which the representative members had no voice. On the the growth
^ Kait, T?ie Scottish Parliament^ pp. 79-80, quoting King Jaities VI., Scottish
Basilikon Dor on ^ Book ii. Parlia-
ment.
300 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, last day of the session Parliament met to ratify or reject the
^ measures framed by the Lords of the Articles. The procedure
by which this body was appointed varied until the union of
the Crowns, when it was finally settled in 1612 by James I.
and VL, that the bishops should select certain lords and the
lords certain bishops. The lords and bishops thus chosen were
then to select suitable men from the popular representatiyes.
Such a committee was the instrument, not of Parliament, but
of the ruling faction of nobles when the King was weak, or of
the Ring himself when he was strong.
NOTE B
EXCLUSION OF SCOTLAND BEFORE THE UNION FROM TRADE
WITH THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN ABISRICA
See page The following is an extract from the minutes of the Privy
^^^' Council, relative to a proposal that the dissolution of the
parliamentary union affected at the Restoration should not
involve the exclusion of Scotland from trade with the English
colonies. —
Whitehall, 22 November: 1661.
(The Committee to consider Scotland's position under the
Navigation Act receive an unfavourable report from the Com-
missioners of the Customs under four heads. No. 2 concerns
the Plantation trade : — )
(2) They by this Liberty may trade to the Plantations which
are absolutely English which will bring infinite losse to his
Majestie and as much prejudice to the English Subject.
Ist. They may carry, by this Admittance, all the Growth of
these Plantations into fforraine parts, which must lessen his
Majestys duties and by this they may carry away the English
mens Estates, who haue propriety both in goods and Lands, by
whose Cost and Industry they haue beene Planted, and who
euery yeare looke for the retumes as well to Improue their
Estates as pay their Debts,
(21y) They may serue ail forraine Parts (as Germany, Holland
&c : ), with the fruits of the English Labours and make Scotland
the Magazine, and leaue this Nation to its home Consumption,
and the King in his Duty, and the Merchant in his returnes fall
short in their exspectation, and perhaps the Proprietor forct to
goe into Scotland to looke his Estate.
(Sly) If they should say that they would come for England,
Ireland, or Wales &c : They can giue no secuiity either to the
Gouernor there, or the Officers of the Customes here. Where
they haue no Interest, they cannot be responsible, and their
Bonds are worth little, if once gonn, and the forfeiture is little
IKGLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 301
worth to his Majestie they being as forregners to this Nation, CHAP,
being now vnder our lawes and Oouemment In fine the Planta- V
tions are his Majestys Indies without Charge to him raysed and ^— v-*-^
supported by the English SubjectSi who Imploy aboue 200
Sayle of Qood Sbipps euery yeare, breed abundance of Maryners,
and begin to growe into Comodoties of great value and Esteeme,
and though some of them continue in Tobacco, ^ett vpon the
Betume hither it smells well and payes more Gustome to his
Majestic then the East Indies foure times ouer,
(And as it appears that an Act of Parliament would be
necessary for granting such liberty to the Scots, the order of
30 August in their favour is accordingly revoked, and they are
referred to Parliament for redress.) ^
Similar objections were raised to the 'Act for a Company Seepage
Trading to Affrica and the Indies ' passed by the Scottish parlia- ^^7*
ment in 1693.
' The matter was also considered in relation to the Plantation
trade. Bandolph, government agent in the Colonies, wrote soon
after the Act was passed, that the Scots, ''under pretence of
Erecting an East India Company in y^ Kingdome ... do
Engage themselves with Great Sums of money in an American
Trade; a Trade which has already for Several Years been
carried on by Scotchmen." He feared that they might make
a settlement in some unappropriated spot near Pennsylvania,
or in an island near the coast, which might become "a staple
not only of all Sorts of European Manufactures, but also of
the Enumerated Plantation Commodities." Like the East India
Company, Randolph used the Scots project as a stalking
horse for impressing on the government the necessity for those
measures which he desired, the tightening up and stricter
enforcement of the Navigation Acts, and the necessity of joining
small proprietary colonies to the government of some province
directly under His Majesty's authority. The Lords, influenced
by the Customs Commissioners, also paid some attention to
this aspect of the Scots Act. They ordered the Commissioners
to attend the House, " to give an Account, whether as the Law
now stands, there be a sufficient Power, in Carolina, Maryland,
Pennsilvania and other Plantations where there are Proprietors
to collect the Kihg's Duties there: and whether there be the
same Security to prevent the Inconveniences that may arise to
the Proprietors and Planters there, from the Act of Parliament
in Scotland." These inquiries were followed by the "Act for
preventing Frauds and Regulating Abuses in the Plantation
Trade." Besides making the regulations more stringent, with
a view to checking the existing Scottish trade, the Act took
some precautions against a Scottish settlement being founded,
by declaring that no land in the colonies was to be sold to
^ Acts of the Privy Council (Colonial), 1661, voL i. pp. 818, 819, 820.
302 INCLUSION OF SCOTLAND IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, any but natives of England, Ireland, or the Plantations. The
^ agitators against the Scots Act connected with the Plantation
trade were therefore more successful than the traders to the
East. Parliament considered the Plantation trade of greater
importance to England than the Indian trade, as in America
there was a better market for England's chief product, woollen
cloth; and also the returns from the colonies were esteemed
of more value than the goods which were brought from the East.
They were therefore anxious both to stop the Scottish trade
vrith the West, which already went on, and also to prevent the
Scots from securing any land near the colonies, where they
might establish a depdt for colonial goods, and from which, with
the help of Dutch shipping, Europe might be supplied.' ^
NOTE C
ATTITUDE OF COMMERCIAL INTERESTS IN ENGLAND TOWARDS
SPANISH TERRITORIAL CLAIMS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Seepage Th^ commercial interests in England would have had no
compunction whatever in seizing on Spanish territory if their
government had been prepared to back them with its fleets, for
on September 16th, 1698 the English Council of Trade passed
a resolution Hhat the said country has never been possessed
by the Spaniards and that England should instantly seize Golden
Island and the part opposite to it on the Main to the exclusion
of all Europeans . . . lest the Scotch Company be there before
us, which is the utmost importance to English trade.'
^ Keith, Commercial Relations oj England aTui" Scotland^ 1603-1707 ^
p. 173.
CHAPTEE VI
THE AMERICAN COLONIES^
How the idea grew up that a balance of mutual chap.
interests would suflBce to maintain the connection
between England on the one hand and Scotland and Results
the colonies on the other, was explained in Chapter f^^^o
IV., as well as the political and commercial system ^Wtera
to which that idea led. The conditions, however, to i=w<^-
which the system was applied were always changing ;
the balance it was designed to maintain was for ever
shifting. The system therefore had to be controlled,
and, in the absence of any effective authority common
to all the communities interested, the necessary
control was exercised by the Englisk Parliament.
Shut out from any share in the control, the Scottish
people naturally believed that the system operated to
stifle their industries and commerce. This belief was
in fact justified ; the balance of interests could never
remain a true one, and no sooner had the sovereignty
passed from the King to the Scottish Parliament,
than that body attempted to control the external
relations of Scotland for themselves. The immediate
result was a deadlock, which led to the complete
abandonment, so far as the relations of England and
^ A grateful acknowledgment is again necessary to Mr. Beer for allowing
copious extracts to be made from his works in the text and appendices of this
chapter.
A very free use has also been made of recent researches of Mr. L. B. Namier
in libraries and archives on both sides of the Atlantic. These have not as yet
been given to the public, but Mr. Namier has kindly allowed them to be used.
308
304 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. Scotland were concerned, of the whole principle which
s,^^,.^^^^^^ inspired the mercantile system. The union which
followed was based upon the opposite principle
that every inhabitant of Great Britain was to be
considered as dedicated to the supreme interests of
a common state claiming the obedience of all, irre-
spective of their individual interests. The relation
of every Scot to every Englishman was henceforward
to be the same as the relation of Scots to each other
and of Englishmen to each other. The attempt to
unite two commonwealths by a balance of their
mutual interests had failed, and the opposite plan
of uniting the citizens of both in one new and greater
commonwealth on the principle of mutual obligation
was accepted as the only alternative to an open
conflict between them. In turning to the colonies,
therefore, it ^will now be necessary after 1707 to
speak of their relations to Great Britain, and not
to England, as heretofore. Scottish ministers, indeed,
played almost as large a part as those bom south of
the Tweed in the events which led to the rupture
with the American colonies.
Freedom At the closc of this period there were in all seven-
tion^to** t®®^ colonies,^ with assemblies which exercised in
anew strictlv local matters a control greater if anything
environ- •' ^ ^ .
mentin than that exercised by the people of Great Britain
rendered ovcr domcstic affairs in their own country.^ It was
^jJ'J® in this liberty, acquired by the colonists from the
institution g^gt^ ^f fashioning in the light of their own experi-
smaUseif- eucc the rudimcnts of their new life, that the
sovereign merit of the English system lay. It
enabled them to adapt for themselves their own
social system to novel surroundings, because it
allowed them, not only to manage their own
affairs in their own way, but also to group themselves
1 Lecky, History of Bnglcmd in the Eighteenth Century^ vol. iv. p. 65.
2 Ibid. p. 42.
governing
communi-
ties.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 305
into communities not too large for the purpose, chap.
The action not of one but of many popular assemblies
was needed to adapt American society in detail to
the variations of its widely diflferent climates and
soils. The plastic quality of English society, the
freedom with which it was left to assume a shape
complex and multiform as the conditions of the
continent over which it was spreading, enabled it to
secure a hold on America firmer than was ever secured
by the societies of Spain, Holland, or France.
But for this to be possible it was also necessary that The
Spain, Holland, and France should be kept in check, ^^abie to
Here, however, the institution of local assemblies J^^ ^
enabled the colonists to do nothing effective for their local
>— • Assemhlies
themselves. To keep America for the colonists until in the
they had time to establish English society there was tasls^of
recoffnized as a task beyond the powers of any but the general
the Government of Great Britain itself The colonists weaitii,
were given no share in the control of that Government. ItZio.
Whether it would have been possible to have included common-
colonial representatives in the Imperial Parliament ^^^^^
^ ^ ^ -^ , therefore
must always remain in the field of conjecture. That languished
they were not so included every one knows, and the
student of history will be justified in observing that,
as they had no voice in the Government responsible
for the Commonwealth as a whole, and as there was
laid upon them no obligation to contribute effectively
to its necessities, it was impossible that they should
develop the same sense of responsibility in respect of
its common interests as Englishmen or Scotsmen
who shared in the control as well as in the burdens
which it involved.
These, however, were not the only tasks into Through
which the colonial system failed to initiate the numerous
American colonists. Within areas vaguely described afaembUes
o •' they were
by their several charters they learned by making also unable
mistakes how to avoid mistakes, and because they interests
X
306 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, were able, through their local assemblies, to apply
J!l^ the leBBons so learned, they developed a sense of
common to responsibility to each other for doing so. By virtue
asTwh^ie. ^^ *^is powor o£ self-adaptatioH each little community
prospered and spread through the wilderness, till at
length it found itself in contact with others. The
moment this happened the colonies were faced by
problems of a new order, those arising out of their
mutual relations. Between two contiguous colonies
it was necessary to draw boundaries and to determine
exactly what territory belonged to each. Here was
a question which neither could settle for itself. The
Indians, moreover, could scarcely be expected to
distinguish the colonies from each other, and, when
exasperated by one, wrought havoc throughout the
settlements, regardless of frontiers.
They In examining the American situation it is essential
there- to realize the existence of interests such as these,
^'^.i^.^ narrower than the general interests of the British
Ameri^n Commonwealth as a whole, but wider than the local
gatnotum.
uch interests of the several colonies. They belonged to
spiriras the same order as those which in the last fifty years
developed ^*^® Called iuto cxistencc the Governments of the
was com- Canadian Dominion, the Australian Commonwealth,
mensurate t t n ia/»- tt« x
with the and the South African Union. In the strictest sense
lo^l ^ they were the interests of the American colonists
ofThelr themselves, and touched them so vitally that they
responsi- could hardly fail to recognize their existence. But
under the colonial system they developed no organ
through which to control them, and made no serious
effort to do so. These strictly American affairs were
left in the hands of the British Government, and the
indifference of the colonists towards the general
interests of l^e Commonwealth was scarcely more
marked than their indifference towards those of
America itself. The patriotism developed under
the colonial system was confined to the colonial
THE AMKBIOAK OOLOKrES 307
areas, those in which the colonists were able to chap.
apply their experience and were responsible for .^^^^^^^^^,^
doing so.
As explained in Chapter IV., the policy of British imperial
.tatesme. towards the colonies w« moulded by the SjSa
conceptions of the commercial system. . They left the nfeS
colonists to concentrate their attention on the local concep-
tions.
affairs of their several communities, in the belief that
Britain could bind them to herself by undertaking
to defend them against foreign aggression, and by
offering a preference to their raw products, in return
for which she was to confine the market for those
products to herself. This system was based on a
fi&lse deduction from a true estimate of facts. In the
seventeenth century it was rightly seen that for
England the growth of her trade was henceforward
the condition of her national existence. The habit,
to which this led, of regarding trade as the end and
object of national life, though natural and easily
acquired, was none the less mischievous. English
statesmen of the seventeenth century were not
interested in colonial projects as an outlet for surplus
population ; ^ nor were they interested in colonies
either as homes of freedom, or, except indirectly, as
asylums for religious refugees. By the middle of the
eighteenth century commercial interests had come to
obscure all others in the minds of political thinkers.
* There is no Situation,' wrote William Burke, 'in
which Wealth is not Strength, and in which
Commerce is not Wealth. If Commerce is our Object,
we know, and in all other Cases we can at best only
guess what we acquire.' * ' Happily for this country,'
says another writer, ' the Real and Substantial, and
those are the Commercial Iiiterests of Great Britain,
1 See Note A at end of thie ohapter, p. 878.
' Burke, An Examination of the Commercial Principles of the late Negotia-
tion, London, 1762, pp. 8, 4, quoted by Beer, British Colonial Policy^ 1764-
1766, p. 148.
308 THB AMERICAN OOLONIES
» 1
CHAP, are now preferred to every other Consideration.
^^ Their tendency to think of trade as the ultimate goal
of national policy was one that Cobden and his school
unconsciously inherited from the exponents of the
system they attacked.
One step in the downward path of error leads to
another, and men who began by supposing that
because trade was the condition, it must also be the
object of national life, naturally assumed that the
maxims and methods of commerce must be applied to
the solution of political problems. Trade, as already
observed,^ depends on a community of material
interests, and can only be established where such
a community existe. The old colonial system was an
unconscious attempt to apply this idea to the political
relations of a group of self-governing communities.
Britain was to unite them to herself, simply by
maintaining conditions under which it would be for
the material interest of all to remain united. Their
mutual relations were to be those of partners held
together by material interests for the purpose of
business. It was like an attempt to base family
life on an arrangement from which everything is
eliminated but tibe marriage settlements. As in
trade, the relations between the mother country and
her colonies were from first to last to be governed
by the notion of contract.
Colonists Such wcrc the ideas of English statesmen, and
^e^com-^ American society was bred to them as a child is bred
^^^^ to the ideas of its parent. On colonial character
system ^ ^
to regard they had the same kind of dominating influence.
relation to As early as 1683 Downing was urging that a new
Ssedupon patent should be issued to Massachusetts, in which
contract. « ^j^^ King " will be pleased to covenant to ayde
and assist them, if need require ag^ all forreigne
^ Whately, Th^ BeguUdions lately mcuU Concerning the Coltmies, 1765.
See above, p. 161.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 309
enemies." ' ^ By the middle of the eighteenth century chap.
the contractual idea had become ingrained in colonial ^^
opinion. * " We have, by our own express consent,
contracted to observe the Navigation Act, and by
our implied consent, by long usage and uninterrupted
acquiescence, have submitted to the other acts of
trade, however grievous some of them may be."*^
So, too, Stephen Hopkins in 1765 : * ** The protection
promised on the part of the crown, with chearfulness
and great gratitude we acknowledge, hath at all times
been given to the colonies." ' ^
In the later stages of the controversy which claim of
preceded the Revolution the colonists were driven piJii^ent
by the force of logic to question the title of the ^g"*^^**^
English Parliament to regulate their trade, and commerce
historians whose miormation is derived from con- by the
temporary pamphlets have explained the Revolution °°^°^^**'
as largely a revolt against the Navigation Acts.
As a matter of fact not only were the principles of
the commercial system accepted by the colonists, but
the system itself In 1754 Franklin declared that the
Americans did not complain of the taxes imposed,
though they had no share in laying or disposing
of them, and ten years later, Otiai, the protagonist
of the Revolution, wrote : * The act of navigation
is a good act, so are all that exclude foreign manu-
factures from the plantations, and every honest
man will readily subscribe to them.'^ It was not
the existing system, as in France, which provoked the
Americans to revolt, but the attempt to change the
system as they knew and understood it.
The inherent defect of the system lay in the fact
1 Beer, Origins of the British Colonial System, 1678-1660, p, 326.
* Adams, Writings, IK, p. 113, quoted by Beer, British Colonial Policy,
1764-1766, p. 806.
' Stephen Hopkins, The Rights of the Colonies Exa/mffned (Providence, 1765),
p. 9, quoted by Beer, BrUish Colonial Poliey, 1764^1766, p. 268.
* See Note B at end of this chapter, p. 380.
310 THE AUKRIGAN OOLONIES
CHAP, that it was one which could not exist without control,
VT
^^^^^^^^^^^ and that control lay in the hands of only (me of the
In Britain parties to the bargain. Each side was so situated
^^J^^ as to think mainly or exclusively of its own interest,
some which was but a part of the whole. There was no
corrected common coutfol in which all shared, such as might
^^cora^^ compel them to think of the interests of all — of the
s^stera^to ii^t^rests, that is to say, of the Commonwealth as a
coiTurt whole. In Britain the results of the system were
opinion, uot secu at their worst, because the silent influence
of responsibility was ever at work to correct and
elevate public opinion. Statesmen like Chatham
were the product of that influence. ' In selecting
Canada instead of Guadeloupe (for retention after
the Seven Years' War), which was the crucial point in
the negotiations, Pitt was probably little influenced
by the purely economic argument. To his large
imagination, the prospect of a vast territorial increase
of the Empire's area appealed strongly. Although
these negotiations of 1761 came to naught, they
furnished the basis on which the final treaty of
peace was concluded a year later.' ^ In a pamphlet
of the time already quoted, which, according to Beer,
reflects the views of Grenville himself, are to be
found some glimmerings of the larger view. * " Tho'
we resign a valuable Branch of Trade in their (the
colonies') Favour. . . . yet the Preference is given
upon truly national Considerations, when the (British)
Inhabitants of America and of Europe are looked
upon as one People." ' ^ This was the ground frankly
adopted by the party which supported in Parliament
the retention of Canada and the cession of Gaude-
loupe. * *' Neither ought the value of any country
to be solely tried on its commercial advantages ;
» Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765, p. 168.
^ Tfie Regulations Lately 'Made (London, 1765), pp. 49-50, qnoted bj Beer,
British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765, p. 221.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 311
that extent of territory and a number of subjects chap.
are matters of as much Consideration to a state
attentive to the sources of real grandeur as the
mere advantages of traffic." ^ These arguments were
. . . the general basis on which the statesmen of
the day justified their choice of territorial acquisitions
on the continent in preference to tropical expansion.
Unquestionably the immediate advantage of British
commerce was sacrificed to some future benefits. A
broad policy resting on possible future advantages
triumphed over a narrow policy of actual and im-
mediate profita'^
This tendency in English political circles to make But even'
human instead of material standards the measure of the mater-
colonial values was too weak and came too late to ^ndraciea
save the situation. * Colonies/ wrote an English ^^ *^«
official in 1765, 'are only settlements made in prevailed.
different parts of the world for the improvement
of trade/ ^ This in a nutshell was the idea which
inspired the old colonial system from the opening
of the seventeenth century. The function of the
colonies was not to extend English society to America,
but to supply England with such materials aa she
could not raise for herself. 'This was the general
standard by which the value of colonies was gauged
until about 1745. According to it, the New England
and Middle colonies were found wanting, while those
in the West Indies stood the test best. Hence £ar
more attention was paid to the island colonies than to
those on the mainland. The former were considered
pre-eminently the valuable colonies. The sugar trade
occupied in foreign commerce a somewhat similar
position to the woollen trade, being popularly con-
sidered a pivotal industry. In addition, the West
1 Pari, Hist, 15, pp. 1271, 1272.
2 Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 176Jhl765, p. 166.
' Whately, The BegiUaiions lately made Gonceming the Colonies^ 1766.
312 THB AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. Indian interest was strongly represented in England,
^^^^^.^^^^^^ many of the governing classes having estates in
those colonies.' ^ Hence the attitude of suspicion
and dislike towards the New England colonies which
prevailed amongst English statesmen in the seven-
teenth century. These populous and powerful colonies,
the national and typical o&pring of England herself,
would not square with the commercial system, and
Sandwich did not scruple to tell Charles II. that it
was 'advisable to hinder their growth as much as
can be.'^ Such continued to be the tendency of
^ official opinion until in the face of discouragement
New England had grown so populous as to offer a
valuable market for the products of British industry.
Effect of This failure of English statesmen to estimate
Smln*^ rightly political values inflicted no injury on the
Imperial: Northcm colouies which could not be remedied by
Solicv on . , , , "^
eveiop. time. With the Southern colonies it was otibierwise.
of the In order to make them yield the tropical products^
(^jg^iJ^^;ry . which in the view of European statesmen rendered
(2) Prefer- colonies worth having, myriads of negroes were
ence , o' y o ^
for slave pourcd iuto thcsc plantations. Since the continents
^ were first opened and their inhabitants brought into
contact, the most vital of all secular needs has been
for the statesmanship which could avoid or heal the
injuries inflicted on each other by the various levels
of society. Mutual intercourse between them is now
inevitable, and so long as they come into contact, as
Britain and India have done, edge to edge, the evil
consequences are such as foresight and perseverance
can surely turn to good. But the mutual corrosion
set up when radically different societies are laid face
to face is beyond the reach of human intelligence to
control. No reasonable person will now deny that
the plantation of an African society in America, side
' Beer, British ColonidL Policy, 1764-1766, p. 185.
^ See Note at end of this chapter, p. 883.
THE AMBBICAN COLONIES 313
by side with European society, was one of the incurable chap.
blunders of history. It is as well, therefore, to note
that it was the direct result of a habit in statesmen
of valuing new countries, not in terms of men but in
terms of wealth, for the products they might draw
from them, and not for the society they might plant
there. To ignore ultimate values because they are
imponderable and to consider nothing but what can
be handled and measured with accuracy, is a natural
failing of the human mind. The immediate profits
of slavery were plain and easy to reckon, the future
results to American society distant and incalculable.
Hence the practical conclusion deduced by Burke
that Guadeloupe with its slave plantations was more
to be valued than half the continent of North
America.
As with Scotland before the Union, no appropriate Result of
place was found for the Northern colonies in the old &em
colonial system. For all its outward symmetry the l^l^ ^
philosophy which inspired it was too narrow for the motive for
facts. Like their climate and population, the goods
they produced and consumed most nearly resembled
those produced and consumed by the English them-
selves. New England was justified in the name
bestowed upon it, and the Puritans who settled there
soon found that it suited them to trade direct with
Europe just as they would have done if they had
remained at home. It was to their advantage to
import such products from Europe as they needed,
and to pay for them with sugar and tobacco from
the West Indies and colonies to the South. Individual
traders in New England had thus a private interest
in ignoring the restrictions of the Navigation
Acts,^ which was scarcely likely to be restrained by
the public consideration that England bore the
charge of Imperial defence. But once organized,
^ See Kote D at end of this chapter, p. 384.
314 THE AMERICAN GOLONIES
CHAP, the illicit trade was by no means limited to the
VI !•
requirements of the colony in which it centred.
New England, like Scotland before the Union, became
a general artery of illegal commerce between all the
colonies and foreign states. The loss to the English
customs revenue due to the smuggling trade of New
England was reckoned at £100,000 per annum.^
Lack of It was easy enough for the English Parliament
'^yt to pass laws in restraint of trade. The difficulty
S^^en-^ began when the English Government addressed
traiized itself to the task of enforcing them. The customs
Empire, officials iu America were of course appointed from
whicifto England, and when they prosecuted a colonial
trade^^ merchant before a colonial jury for some contravention
regulations, of the Navigation laws they stood but a poor chance
of securing a conviction.^ An attempt was made to
overcome the difficulty by the establishment in the
colonies of local Admiralty courts, that is to say of
Imperial as opposed to colonial courts, and the
English navy was used to seize colonial ships which
were trading in contravention of the Navigation Acts.
The attempt to control the system from England
produced the same results as when France had tried
to govern Canada from Paris. Traders who were
interested in violating Imperial laws corrupted the
Imperial officers appointed to enforce them.*
Control of lu the theory which underlay the system, a line
dl^ebp- was drawn between the internal affairs of the colony,
ment which Were left to the control of its own assembly,
inseparable ^ , •' '
from and external affairs, which remained under the
^^xternai coutrol of the British Government. Oversea trade
The com- ^^ included in the category . of Imperial affairs.
merciai g^^J tj^^ truth was that internal development was
system .
ifirnored inseparably connected with external trade;* the
this fact.
^ Beer, The Old Colonial Syst^iny Part I. vol. ii. p. 269.
^ See Note £ at end of this chapter, p. 386.
' See Note F at end of this chapter, p. 387.
* Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, IIBJ^HQB, p. 204.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 315
system worked only so long as it could be freely chap.
evaded in the' colonies. Britain, on the other ^^
hand, could only enforce the system by adopting
a centralized machinery appropriate only to such
empires as those of Spain and France and contrary
to the spirit of the institutions which she had'
planted in America. The upshot was that the
system was largely inoperative. A great volume of
illicit trade sprang up between foreign states and the
British colonies, but especially with New England.
This trade, while contributing greatly to the Colonial
material prosperity of the colonies, was deeply JS^y*"
demoralizing from a national point of view. To Jjf^^V^
ignore the law whenever it was profitable to do so traiimgin
became a fixed habit of the trading community, treason-
which bore disgraceful fruit when the Commonwealth ^th*â„¢ ^
was struggling for existence with its ancient foes. ®U^™J/ ^
The advantage of the British Commonwealth lay in ^<^r-
the power of its navies, maintained by the British
taxpayer with no perceptible charge to the colonies,
to prevent France and Spain from sending supplies
to their forces in America. That advantage when
achieved was in great part neutralized by the supplies
furnished by colonists to the enemy. The law, as
a matter of fact, permitted the export of provisions
to French and Spanish colonies in time of peace, but
of course forbade it in time of war. But the habit
of evading trade laws was too strong for the colonial
traders, and when the outbreak of war increased the
profits to be gained from the provision trade, many
of them ignored the fact that it had also rendered
it treasonable. * When they were asked to desist
absolutely from all commercial dealings with their
best customers, their good friends the enemy, the
sacrifice seemed even too much for their simple
loyalty.' ^ In 1750 the English admiral declared that
1 Hall, 'Chatham's Colonial Policy,' Am. Hist, Hev, July 1900, p. 666.
316 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, the supplies furnished to France from the English
^^^^^^^^^^^ colonies had caused the failure of British operations
1756-63. in the Caribbean Sea. In the Seven Years' War,
'to a large extent, the colonies neutralized the ad-
vantages arising from British naval activity, both
supplying the French colonies with the sorely needed
provisions, and also furnishing a market for their
produce.' ^ * If it were not for these supplies we get
from the enemy we should have to live upon what
this place can furnish us,' wrote a Frenchman from
the West Indies in 1758 in a letter which the British
captured at sea. The English colonies were large
producers of food for export, but so extensive was
this trade with the enemy as to exhaust their surplus
supplies ; while the French forces were abundantly
supplied, those of England were actually in want
and had to be furnished by imports from Europe.^
Provisions were more plentiful and cheaper in the
French settlements than in the English West Indies.*
Families like the Livingstons, who figure amongst the
heroes of the Kevolution, were engaged in the trade.*
indiffer- The demoralized state of public opinion which
colonial Diade such things possible is best described in the
opinion to words of Bccr himself. ' The trade,' he remarks, * was
interesto Carried on so immoderately that it brought consider-
Common- able wealth to the colonial merchants engaged in it.
wealth. Burnaby, an English traveller who was in America
during the war, reported that New York had "ac-
quired great riches " in this manner. The immoderate
extent of this trade was due to the temptations
offered by the large profits, together with the absence
of a strong imperial sentiment to counteract the
promptings of self-interest. As was said at the time,
in connection with these practices in Jamaica and in
the North American colonies : *' Here it is an Island
1 Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy^ 1764^1766, pp. 87-8.
2 Ibid, p. 105. » Ibid, p. 102. * Ibid. p. IH.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 317
Interest, There it is the Interest of the Colonies; chap.
• VI
What opposes this Interest is, of all other Things v^,,,,^^.,^
the most obnoxious to them, For the Public or
National Interest is out of the Question with both.'*
At the outset the continental colonies supported this
policy of non - intercourse, as their own immediate
interests were concretely involved in repelling the
French advance. In 1758 the tide turned, and in
the following year, with the fall of Quebec, the i769.
power of France on the continent was broken. It
is significant that this trade with the enemy reached
its high mark in 1760, when France was no longer
; a source of danger to the continental colonies. In
j the eyes of the British government, then under the
I guidance of the great imperialist Pitt, France was
the enemy, whether in India, Africa, Germany, North
America, or the West Indies. It would seem, that
to many in the colonies, France on the continent of
America was the preeminent source of danger, but
that France in the West Indies was merely an un-
failing source of wealth. The marked provinciaUsm
of the colonies blinded them to the fact that any
support given to France in the Caribbean strength-
ened her in Canada. What was in its essence a
world-wide struggle between Great Britain and France
— between two distinct types of civilization — con-
tracted in the narrow vision of the colonies to the
dimensions of a local conflict.' ^
Most, but not all, of the assemblies passed laws Demorai-
I in restraint of the practice, and in doing so at once of public
I placed their own traders at a disadvantage, and l^^^
rendered the business far more profitable for traders subiect of
in the colonies which declined to follow suit.^ the enemy.
Pennsylvania and Rhode Island were conspicuous
offenders, and Boston J merchants organized them-
1 Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1754-1765, pp. 180-1.
» Ibid. pp. 82-8, 90.
318 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, selves to engage in the trade in defiance of the laws
enacted by Massachusetts until Rhode Island and
Connecticut had placed their own trades under similar
restraints.^ But, again, it was one thing to pass laws
and another to find juries in the colonies to enforce
them.^ The failure of the Imperial Government to
secure convictions for trading with the enemy, where
the oflFence was clearly proved, shows that it was not
merely individual merchants but public opinion which
had become demoralized. Even the Admiralty courts
were influenced by the laxity of the atmosphere in
which they worked.* In every commercial state
individual traders are to be found who cannot resist
the temptation to make large profits by furnishing
the public enemy with means for the destruction of
their countrymen. But there is something strangely
amiss with a community in which public opinion
condones such treason. An American trader sus-
pected in 1898 of furnishing supplies to the Spanish
fleet would have found short shrift in the streets of
Charleston, Boston, or New York. Yet a temporary
rebuff to American prestige was the worst that could
have happened in the Spanish war. In the Severn
Years' War, when every one knew that the existence
of the colonies themselves was at stake, there was
general indifference to thesordid treachery of furnishing
the enemy with supplies. No better example could
be cited of the effect on young communities of a system
which permits control of domestic interests but denies
responsibility for the issues of national life or death.*
The com- To the colouists the position for which France
ayatem was fighting in America was a greater menace
afolse''" *^*^ *^ *^® English themselves. Their material
{o|^. ° 1 Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1764-1765, p. 118.
« Ibid. p. 121.
« Ibid. p. 126.
* See Note G, at end of this chapter, in which Beer's treatment of this
important subject may be studied at length, p. 388.
THE AMERICAN OOLONIES 319
interest in defeating France was at once more im- chap.
VI
mediate and obvious. It supplied exactly the kind
of motive upon which the exponents of the com-
mercial system relied as a sufficient link between the
colonists and the Commonwealth from which they
sprang. But their reading of human nature was
wrong from the first, because it was based on com-
merce, and assumed that commerce was the beginning
and end of life. The moment great cracks in the
fabric began to appear and widen, those who were
concerned for its unity forgot to talk of interests,
and the word * loyalty' was on every man's lips.
Suddenly they realized that material interests may
bring men together, but nothing can be trusted to
keep them together but the devotion which enables
them to forget their interests and themselves. To
breed such devotion in the men they govern is the
ultimate task of statesmen, and it behoves them before
all things to know how it is engendered. But the
forces which unite men cannot be understood when
studied in the market and not in the feunily, which
after all is the primary unit of society. There it is a
matter of common observation that parental is stronger
than filial responsibility, that one father can oftener
support ten sons than ten sons one father. The filial
sense is strongest in children who have been called
upon early to share the responsibilities of the family
life. A sense of responsibility is indeed developed
in proportion to the calls which are made upon it.
The radical defect of the old colonial system was
that firom the outset it ignored this side of human
nature and placed on the colonists no duty for
maintaining the Commonwealth as a whole. That
task the parent community reserved to herself, believ-
ing that she might depend upon the gratitude of the
colonies to sustain their loyalty. The exponents of
the commercial system missed the truth that loyalty
320 THE AMERICAN OOLOKIES
CHAP, could only be sustained by associating the inhabitants
of America with those of Britain in the task of defend-
ing their common civilization. To argue that it was
not possible to associate them is beside the point.
The object of this inquiry is neither to censure nor
justify the exponents of the old colonial system, but
to see what the system was and to trace the results
to which it inevitably led.
Decline of That Under it the colonists were not associated in
loyalty to the general tasks of the Commonwealth is a fact
monw^ith ^^joud dispute. The effect of this severance from
through its common life and responsibilities began to make
want of , r <D
exercise, itsclf felt from the outset. In Massachusetts, as early
as the reign of Charles 11. , the assembly had claimed
that it was * by the pattent a body politicke, in fact
and name/ and as such that it had full power and
*authoritje, both legislative and executive, for the
gounment of all the people heere, whither inhabitants
or strangers, both concerning eclesiasticks & in ciuils
w^^out appeale, excepting la we or lawes repugnant
to the lawes of England.' ^ * Our allegiance,' they
said, ' is due to the natural body alone of the King,
not to the publick body.' *The theory of the
imperial constitution that ultimately prevailed in the
colonies was that they were united to Great Britain
solely through the Crown.' ^ In 1764 Stephexi
Hopkins, the Governor of Rhode Island, * claimed
that "in an imperial state, which consists of many
separate governments, each of which hath peculiar
privileges, and of which kind it is evident the empire
of Great Britain is ; no single part, though greater
than another part, is by that superiority intituled to
make laws for, or to tax such lesser part; but all
laws, and all taxations, which bind the whole, must
be made by the whole." ' ^ But citizenship involves
1 Mass. Col. Rec. IV. Part 11. pp. 24-6.
* Beer, BrUUh Colonial Policy, 17S4r-1766, p. 310.
» Ibid. pp. 310-11.
THE AMIEBICAN CX)LONI£S 321
an unlimited devotion which cannot be rendered to chap.
VI
two authorities, and Hopkins, like his contemporaries,
was evading the inexorable question whether that
devotion was due to the whole or the part. An
equivocal loyalty clothed itself in the language of
equivocation, rendering with the lips to the emblems
of one state the service which the heart reserved for
another. 'The colonists . . . asserted their loyalty
to the mother country. Such assertions are, however,
no proof of the existence of this sentiment. As in
many other historical movements, the real motive
was obscured because its revolutionary character
would have injured the cause. The expression by
the colonies of a desire for independence would
inevitably have put on them the burden of proof,
would have united all parties in Great Britain against
them, and would have alienated many supporters ii)
America. Hence the colonies to a great extent
ignored the underlying cause of their actions, and in
all sincerity expressed a loyalty, which in reality they
did not feel. For if in loyalty there is implied any
idea of sacrifice, then this sentiment was to a marked
degree absent in the colonies. Their allegiance was
purely utilitarian, and its fundamental basis had
disappeared with the conquest of Canada.'^ The
language which Beer here uses is very precise.
'Loyalty,' he says, 'was to a marked degree absent
in the colonies.' It was not, however, extinct.
When the final crisis was reached, thousands of
Americans were found to prefer poverty, exile, and
death, rather than become aliens to the British
Commonwealth. Their number was yet too small to
turn the balance. The material was there no less than
in Britain itself, but it had been left * unexercised
and unbreathed ' by responsibility, and was therefore
too little developed to turn the scale.
1 Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1764 -1766, pp. 308-9.
I
322 THE AMERICAN CX>L0NIE8
OHAP. Stephen Hopkins ' illustrated his conception of the
.^^^^^^^^^^ British Empire by comparing it to the decentralised
impractic- German system.' ^ The comparison was a just one,
theories of ^^^ ^^c claims advanced by the colonial assemblies
menUn ^^^^ cxactly on a par with those advanced by the
the German princes, and in either case the result was
arising imperial impotence. But in America the system had
o7â„¢ntoct^ bred a race of publicists whose doctrines were
with facts, un tempered by contact with real political facts.
The excellence of the principle that all should assent
to measures affecting all seemed incontestable. But
what was to happen when universal consent was not
forthcoming was a question which the leaders of
colonial opinion simply neglected to face.
strictly The failure of the colonies to assume their share
character of ID the general defence of the Empire was not more
S^teiop^ striking than their incapacity to effect, by joint
by American action, measurcs required for their own peace, order,
colonists. ' ^ I' ' »
and good government. In the letters published in
1777 purporting to have been written by Montcalm
it is remarked that the colonists 'in general care
nothing for the King or Parliament of England.
If fear of France had not acted as a rein to keep
them in check, they would long ago have cast off
their yoke, and each province would haA)e become
a litUe Republic.*^ Clearly, there was nothing to
suggest to the author of these letters any tendency
on the part of the colonists to create an American
republic. The only devotion he observed was that
of the colonists to their several colonies. The one
loyalty which flourished under the system was
that evoked by the local communities for which
Americans were really responsible. The only Govern-
ment they were ready to obey was also the only
Government which could tax them with effect.
1 Beer, British Colonial Policy y 1764-1765, p. 811.
a Jbid, note, pp. 172-3.
J
THE AMSRICAN OOLOITIES 323
The difficulties which led to the final catastrophe chap.
• . . A . VI
did not arise ' from the incapacity of the colonial ^^^^^^^^.^^
assemblies to handle Imperial problems, for this they American
were never called upon by Great Britain to do. Those J^^**
difficulties arose from their incapacity to handle the /^^^jjj^®^
domestic affairs of British America. The point, which imperial
is of supreme importance, can be rendered clear by (b) from '
a simple analogy. In 1867 Canadians created the ij^terrots,
Dominion Government, in 1900 Australians created tJ^f.^ai
' subject of
the Commonwealth Government, and in 1909 dispute.
South Africans created the Union Government.
These Governmenti; were created to meet Canadian,
Australian, and South African needs which experience
had proved that the existing provincial or colonial
governments were incapable of meeting. Had they
failed to erect these Governments, some action would
have been necessary to meet the most pressing of
these needs, which, though domestic, concerned more
than one colony, and would if neglected have led to
positive disaster. Such action could only have been
taken, and in South Africa until 1909 was frequently
taken, by the British Government.^ Now let it be
supposed that the British Government, having applied
in vain to the assemblies representing the provinces
of Canada, and the various colonies in Australia and
South Africa, for a contribution towards the cost of
the service rendered, had endeavoured by an Act of
the Imperial Parliament to levy that contribution
direct from the colonists, it would have reproduced
exactly the situation which led to the American
Revolution.
1 The use of Imperial troops to quoll riots on the Witwatersrand is a recent 1918.
instanoe due to the faot that the South African Union has not yet had time to
organize its own forces for the maintenance of internal order. The Union
Government, however, can be called upon to meet any special charges incurred.
The Imperial Qovemment has not to recover these chaxges from the four
colonial governments which existed before the Union, and which would have
been certain to dispute the basis of apportionment. That was the position
which the Imperial Government had in 1764 to face in America.
324 THE AMERICAN OOLONIEB
CHAP. For the purpose of this inquiry it cannot be
^^^^^^^^^^^ realized too clearly that in the British Common-
wealth of to-day the particular difiBculty which
led to the crisis in America has been dealt with
by the series of constructive operations of which
the Union of South Africa was the last. The issue is
complicated by the fact that, while the costly function
of defence has both a local and a general aspect, the
two constantly overlap. Unlike the United States
and Germany the British Commonwealth has never
been so organized as to command the whole of its
resources for the general defence.. For that supreme
purpose the Imperial Government, such as it is, can
levy no taxes except from the people of the British
Isles. When, for instance, in 1895 the Govern-
ment of the United States used language which
could only be interpreted as a claim to control
the destinies of Canada, the British Government
repudiated that claim, but in language so temperate
that a conflict was happily avoided.^ Had the
United States persisted in the claim that Canada
was subject to the sovereignty of the United States,
a war in defence of the integrity of the British
Empire would have been the inevitable issue. In
defence of that cause the Imperial Government would
have been able to command the whole resources of
the British Isles. But it was not competent to
command those of the Australian, New Zealand, and
South African colonies, nor even those of Canada
itself, the Dominion most directly concerned. To
turn from supposition to fact, this was the position
actually realized when the South African Republics
1899. issued an ultimatum and invaded Cape Colony and
Natal. To this extent the British resembles the
Holy Roman Empire. The feature distinguishing
the two Empires is the existence in the British
^ See Note H at end of this chapter, p» 414.
J
THB* AHBBIOAN COLOKIES 325
Empire of one community which up to the present ohap.
has proved itself able and willing to secure the
integrity of the whole, and to meet the cost of
doing so from its own resources. And this so far
it has accomplished by providing Imperial fleets
and armies which can be moved to any part of the
globe for the purpose of destroying forces which may
anywhere threaten to violate the Commonwealth.
The fact that India and the Dominions of Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada are still
parts of the British Commonwealth was determined
by battles fought at sea off the coasts of Spain
and Egypt and by land on Spanish and Belgian
territory. 'America/ as Chatham declared, 'was
conquered in Germany.' ^ ' It is essential to an under-
standing of the issues which led to the American
Revolution to realize that no attempt was made by
the British Government to tax the American colonists
in order to meet charges of this class. To Imperial
defence, as distinguished from the defence of America,
they were never asked to contribute, •
The conditions which led to the quarrel will be Thedis-
clearer if it be imagined that the United States of iraperiai^
America had in 1895 pressed the interpretation of ^^jnion
the Monroe doctrine there advanced by Mr. Olney interests
to the point of war. The theatre of war would eincidated.
certainly have been Canada, but in Canada there
would have been at Ottawa one Government com-
petent to evoke the whole manhood and wealth of
British North America in aid of its defence ; and
there is not the smallest reason to suppose that it
would have failed in its responsibility. It is not
at all unlikely that, had the English-speaking world
been engaged in this internecine conflict, France and
Russia might have seized the opportunity of challeng-
ing British supremacy at sea, with a view to realizing
^ Chatham, Speeches, vol. i. pp. 358-9.
326 THE AMBRIGAN OOLOKIES
CHAP, their respective ambitions in Egypt and Asia. The
British Commonwealth would then, as in the Seven
Years* War, have been fighting for its life, and its
ultimate success in resisting the claims of the United
States of America would have depended, as in the
eighteenth century, on the adequacy of its equipment
for general defence — on its power to keep control of
the sea.
The To the cost of this general equipment the
t^o^^ American colonists were never asked to contribute.
MkS by ^^^ Stamp Act and tea duties were imposed in order
Britain to to meet in part charges the whole of which the
to charges Dominion, Commonwealth, or Union Governments
whwhwere ^^^jj j^^^ assumc as a matter of course. Whatever
Imperial. ^]^q pretcusions of the American assemblies may
have been, they were from the character and situa-
tion of the communities they represented unequal to
the functions of a modern Dominion Government
Experience proved them to be suited only for such
business as now falls within the scope of the
provincial governments of New Brunswick, Queens-
land, or Natal.
incaiMcity To begin with, after the manner of local bodies,
coionki tbey were for ever quarrelling amongst themselves.
to^settie^ Britain had really no concern in these quarrels.
their owD The interests involved in them were entirely
disputes. American. But the Americans were powerless to
settle them for themselves, and the British Government,
as in South Africa a century later, was constantly
driven to intervene to prevent them from breaking each
other s heads. ' It is characteristic of the particularistic
spirit prevailing in the colonies that in 1755, at
a time when their very existence was threatened by
the French, Massachusetts and New York engaged
in a bitter boundary controversy leading to riot and
bloodshed. This episode called forth a caustic
rebuke from the Lords of Trade, who wrote to
THE AMEEICAN COLONIES 327
Shirley : " It is very much to be lamented, that the chap.
internal peace of Government should be disturbed v.^.^..^^..,,^
by trivial Disputes of this kind, at a time when the
Colonys are so loudly called upon to exert with the
greatest unanimity their utmost Strength in their
own defence, and in vindication of His Majesty's
Right" '^
Boundaries belong to that class of political problems incapacity
which can be settled once for all. There are others, locai^
involving the adjustment of relations between two J^^^^lf
sets of human beings, which ought not to be called the Indian
problems, because they admit of no final solution, its
The basic question arising out of the relation of the ^eri^inl
settlers to the Indians was a case in point. In character.
questions of this order conditions must be dealt with
as they arise, but cannot be handled with any prospect
of success without reference to certain continuous
principles. Those who have seen an European society
established in another continent side by side with its
native society can best realize the imperative necessity
of control over the relations of individual Europeans
to individual natives. The success of such control
will depend upon the steady application of a continuous
policy to the whole area of contact between the two
races. The extent of its failure will be marked by
injuries to both. As to the incompetence of the
colonial assemblies to grapple with this question the
leading American and British historians agree. ' Until
the middle of the eighteenth century, the British 1753.
government had left the management of Indian aflfairs
to the separate colonies. From their very foundation,
the commercial relations with the aborigines had
been important. With the development of Canada,
the bulk of this trade had, however, drifted into
French hands, yet at all times it constituted a not
insignificant feature of the economic life of the
» Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1754-1766, pp. 49-50.
328 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. British colonies. The success of the French was due
in great measure to the centralised form of their
government, and similarly the failure of the English
resulted from the fact that each colony sought to
secure as great a share of the Indian trade as was
possible, and thwarted the endeavors of its com-
petitors. The result of this rivalry had been
pernicious, not only in facilitating the success of the
French in the fur trade, but also in alienating the
Indians. . . .
* This dissatisfaction of the Indians was due to many
causes : to French incitement ; to the intrusion of
English settlers on their lands ; to the abandonment
by the English of the French policy of giving to the
natives presents of guns and clothing ; and, above
all, to the low moral character of the English traders
In 1761, the secretary of state, Egremont, wrote to
Amherst, condemning in strong terms the shameful
conduct of the colonial traders in taking advantage
of the Indians, and pointing out that the French, by
pursuing a different course, had deservedly succeeded
in gaining the confidence of the native tribes.' * * The
earlier researches of Lecky had led him to very
similar conclusions. ' The relations of the colonists
to the Indian tribes were scarcely less demoralising.
White men planted among savages and removed
from the control of European opinion seldom fail to
contract the worst vices of tyrants. The voluminous
and very copious despatches of Sir W. Johnson and
of Mr. Stuart, who during many years had the
• Dec. 12, 1761. Am. and W.I. 77. On April 28, 1761, Francis
Bernard wrote to the Board of Trade that the Indians ' ' are suffered to run
in debt beyond their abilities & then are allowed to sell their children to
pay their debts ; they are suffered to harass one another at Law for triviftl
disputes, which sometimes end in the ruin of both parties ; when they are
condemned in criminal prosecutions, they are subjected to Fines instead of
oorporal punishment, so that where the Criminal only ought to be oorreoted,
his family is ruined ; In civil actions, they are charged with exorbitant costs,
when it is known they have nothing to pay with." B. T. Mass., 78 LI. 14.
1 Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1764-1766, pp. 268, 266-6.
TH£ AMBBIOAN OOLONIES 329
management of Indian affairs, ate, on the whole, chap.
extremely creditable to the writers. They show that
the Grovernment laboured with great humanity,
equity, and vigilance to protect the rights of the
Indians, but they also show that they had to
encounter insuperable difficulties in their task. The
Executive was miserably weak. There were usually
no troops within reach. Juries in Indian I cases could
never be trusted, and public opinion on the frontier
looked upon Indians as little better than wild beasts.
The French had in this respect succeeded much
better. The strong Executive of Canada guarded
the Indians effectually from depredations, restricted
commercial dealings with them to the better class of
traders, and attached them by a warm feeling of
gratitude. But the despatches of Johnson and Stuart
are full of accounts of how the English settlers
continually encroached on the territory which was
allotted by treaty to the Indians; how the rules
that had been established for the regulation of the
Indian trade were systematically violated; how
traders of the lowest kind went among the savages,
keeping them in a state of continual drunkenness till
they had induced them to surrender their land ; how
the goods that were sold to Indians were of the most
fraudulent description ; how many traders deliberately
excited outrages, against their rivals; how great
numbers of Indians who were perfectly peaceful, and
loyal to the English, were murdered without a shadow
of provocation ; and how these crimes were perpetrated
without punishment and almost without blame.
' A few voices were no doubt raised in the
colonies on their behalf. Franklin wrote with honest
indignation denouncing some horrible murders that
had been perpetrated in Pennsylvania. The Quakers
were usually noted for their righteous dealing with
the Indians. ... It is a significant fact that in the
union
330 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. French war the Indians were usaally on the side of
VI
,^^^,^.^^,„^^ the French, and in the War of Independence on the
side of the Government, and the explanation is
probably chiefly to be found in the constant and
atrocious outrages which they endured from the
American traders.' *
Need for The imperative need of some authority in a
ind^an^â„¢ Sphere which was neither Imperial nor colonial but
^^ American, was recognized much less clearly by
by the colonial politicians than by British officials. The
00^^. truth was that the British Government felt, what
â„¢ioiiiai the colonial assemblies never felt, that the final
summoned T^pcnsibility rested upon them. It is only by
at Albany handling the fiacts that men learn to understand
proposes a them. In 1753, when the British and French in
rcob^r America were fast drifting into war, the British
Government realized that the incapacity of the
colonial assemblies to handle Indian affairs was about
to yield a terrible harvest. The coherent policy of
the centralized French Grovernment had succeeded in
attracting the more powerful tribes to its cause, and
the British colonies were threatened with all the
horrors of an Indian invasion. Not one but many
colonial frontiers were menaced, and the folly of
attempting to handle the tribes through a number of
assemblies was obvious enough. The British Govern-
ment therefore convoked a meeting of representatives
from the colonies immediately threatened, to negotiate
with the Indians. If possible, the instruction ran,
all the colonies were to be * comprized in one general
Treaty to be made in his Majesty's name.'^ The
1754. Congress which assembled at Albany resolved unani-
mously, in terms which went to the root of the
whole matter, that a union of all the colonies was
absolutely necessary for their security and defence,
^ Lecky, History of England in the Eightunth Century^ vol. iv. pp. 86-8.
« Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1764-1766, p. 17.
THE AMBRIOAN OOLONIES 331
and appointed a committee to prepare a plan. chap.
The document which embodied their reasons reveals
the impotence of the colonists to handle their own
interests under the existing system. * " The com-
missioners from a number of the northern colonies,
being met at Albany, and considering the difficulties
that have always attended the most necessary general
measures for the common defence, or for the annoyance
of the enemy, when they were to be carried through
the several particular Assemblies of all the colonies ;
some Assemblies being before at variance with their
governors or councils, and the several branches of
the government not on terms of doing business^with
each other; others taking the opportunity, when
their concurrence is wanted, to push for favourite
laws, powers or points, that they think could not at
other times be obtained, and so creating disputes and
quarrels ; one Assembly waiting to see what another
will do, being afraid of doing more than its share, or
desirous of doing less, or refusing to do anything
because its country is not at present so much exposed
as others, or because another will reap more immediate
advantage ; from one or other of which causes, the
Assemblies of six out of seven colonies applied to,
had granted no assistance to Virginia, when lately
invaded by the French, though purposely convened,
and the importance of the occasion earnestly urged
upon them ; — considering moreover, that one principal
encouragement to the French, in invading and
insulting the British American dominions, was their
knowledge of our disunited state, and of our weakness
arising from such want of union," ... for these
reasons the commissioners unanimously decided that
" a union of the colonies is absolutely necessary for
their preservation." These difficulties had existed
throughout the entire history of the colonies, but at
no previous time was the situation so critical.
332 THB AMSRIOAN OOLONIBS
OHAP. *The committee appointed by the colonial com**
^^,^^,^^^,^ missioners accordingly drafted a plan of union, and
this plan, chiefly the work of Franklin, was in due
course unanimously adopted. It provided for an
executive and a legislature ; the former — the president-
general — to be appointed and supported by the Crown,
the latter — the Grand Council — ^to be elected by the
various assemblies in the eleven colonies* This legis-
lature was to consist of forty -eight members, the
colonies being represented roughly according to popu-
lation and wealth. To this Grand Council was given
jurisdiction over Indian affairs, both political and
commercial. It was to raise and pay soldiers, to
build forts for the defence of the colonies, and to
"Equip Vessels of Force to Guard the Coasts and
protect the Trade on the Ocean, Lakes, or Great
Rivers." In order to raise the requisite funds for
these purposes, the 'Grand Council was given power
to make laws and to impose general duties and taxes.
All acts of the Grand Council, however, required the
consent of the president-general, and, in addition, all
laws were to be submitted to the king in council for
approbation. This plan, it is apparent, implied an
assumption by the colonies of a far greater share of
the cost of defence than had hitherto been customary.
The * This proposal for a political union of the colonies
prowls under one general government in America was ulti-
j^°^®^^y mately to be brought into effect by an act of the
colonial Parliament of Great Britain. With the exception of
lUUlATn ill 1 f^Q
those from Massachusetts, the colonial commissioners
did not, however, have full powers, and accordingly
it was provided that the plan should be, first sub-
mitted to the colonies. With the same unanimity
with which their representatives had adopted the
plan, the colonial assemblies either rejected or failed
to ratify it. The reasons for this failure were, on the
oile hand, the particularism of the colonies, and on
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 333
the other, their underlying conviction that Great chap.
Britain, if left no other choice, would ultimately have
to assume the task of defending them. According to
Shirley, the commissioners at Albany '*had no ex-
pectation " that the colonies would adopt the plan ;
and he added, " nor could any proper plan be form'd,
as I apprehend, in w**** the several Gov** would unite."
Franklin was not more sanguine. On December 29,
1754, he wrote to Collinson : "All the Assemblies in
the Colonies have, I suppose, had the Union Plan
laid before them, but it is not likely, in my Opinion,
that any of them will act upon it so as to agree to it,
or to propose any Amendments to it. Every Body
cries, a Union is absolutely necessary, but when they
come to the Manner and Form of the Union, their
weak Noddles are perfectly distracted." ' *
Franklin strongly advocated that the union should interven-
be brought into existence by an Act of the Imperial sSish
Parliament. 'Till it is done,' he wrote in 1755, ^^^^
^ never expect to see an American War carried on as ^^^f^^^
it ought to be, nor Indian Affairs properly managed.' * and others
It was the governors, whose office was the link ^^ ™«"ca.
between Imperial authority and colonial autonomy,
who realized most keenly the dangers of the system.
* At the very time that the colonial commissioners
were sitting at Albany, the clear-sighted lieutenant-
governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddle, in a forcible
despatch to the secretary of state, bitterly commented
on the particularism of the separate colonies and on
their lack of a spirit of cooperation. " Now what.
Sir, [he wrote] must be the result of this ? Virginia
alone is not able to support the whole Burthen ;
k, if some Method is not found to take away these
destructive Denials of Assistance from the other
Colonies, when it is judged proper to be demanded
by his Majesty for the common Good, as now ; The
» Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 175Jhl766, pp. 19-22. ^ /j^. p, 29.
334 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. Consequence must be, the present Loss of one of the
finest & most fertile Countries in America; & the
future destruction of all the British Dominions on
this Continent." . . . Two months later, Din widdie once
more wrote to Robinson, on the great uncertainty of
obtaining the necessary support from the Virginia
Assembly, as Maryland and Pennsylvania had been
so " monstrously backward," and adding, " but really,
without a British Act of Parliament to oblidge all
the Colonies to a mutual Supply, I dread the Gover-
nours will hardly be able to perswade them." ' ^
Similar experience was driving Shirley, the governor
of Massachusetts, to similar opinions.
* The Pennsylvania legislature, after " an absurd
obstinate Dispute w*^ Gov'' Morris ab* Instructions
have adjourned themselves, whilst the Enemy is at
their Doors, to the beginning of May, without doing
anything for the preservation of their Country." The
Maryland Assembly has likewise ^' risen" without doing
anything further than providing for "a Company of
fifty men, w"^^ was done before." South Carolina was
not active in the common cause, and Virginia was
not doing as much as she should. '' This behaviour
[Shirley concluded] seems to shew the necessity not
only of a parliamentary Union but Taxation for the
preservation of his Majesty s Dominions upon this
Continent, w^^ the several Assemblies have, in so
great a measure abandon'd the Defence of, and
thereby layd his Majesty s Governm'' at home under
a necessity of taking care of it for the State by suit-
able assessm^ upon the Colonies." ' ^
Particu- Their experience in the last French war had
TOâ„¢niM^ taught the British ministers what to expect from
as attested ^j^^ co-opcratiou of the colonial assemblies. Inde-
foreign peudcut testimony on this subject has been left in
observer, **â–
^ Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1754-1766, pp. 48, 44-5.
« Ibid, p. 47.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 335
the writings of Kalm, a Swede, who visited the chap.
colonies immediately after the war of the Austrian
Succession. ' It has commonly happened/ he wrote,
' that while some provinces have been suffering from
their enemies, the neighbouring ones were quiet and
inactive and as if it did not in the least concern
them. They have frequently taken up two or three
years in considering whether they should give assist-
ance to an oppressed sister colony, and sometimes
they have expressly declared themselves against it.' ^
In 1755 the rapid encroachments of the French The
and Indians were bringing matters to a crisis, and oo^^
to save the situation the Ministry resolved to provide ^^ ^
four regiments at the expense of the British taxpayer, take action
Braddock was sent to take couimand, and William expense of
Johnson was appointed to the charge of Indian affairs, toxjjayen
The failure of the Southern colonies, includinff Penn- p^ioniai
' ^ o troops
sylvania, to support Braddock, largely contributed to largely
his downfall in 1755.^ Next year the formal declara- ^tish°™
tion of war found the American colonies no more ~
united and in no better position to conduct their ^^^^'
own defence. The British Government now fell
back on the expedient of making grants to the
colonial assemblies in proportion to the work they
had actually done. Pitt, who realized that the future
of the British Commonwealth hung upon the issue
of this war, saw that so long as it lasted everything
should be sacrificed to the one object of beating the
French. In England it was far less difficult to raise
money than to raise soldiers and transport them to
America. He persuaded Parliament therefore to
spend some £200,000 a year in payment to the
American colonies for their services in defending
their own territory from the French, and about two-
* Leoky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv., note on
pp. 10-11.
> Beer, BrUiah Colonial Policy, 1764-1765, p. 44.
336. THE AMERICAN 00IX)NIE8
CHAP, fifths of the expenditure incurred by the colonies
.^^^^^^^^ was thus reimbursed by the British Parliament. In
this way Pitt succeeded in bringing into the field
a considerable body of colonial troops. Of these
seven-tenths were furnished by Massachusetts, Con-
necticut, and New York, which together contained
one -third of the colonists. The other two -thirds
sustained a burden less than one-fourth of that
assumed by the more public-spirited communities.
Results The general result is thus stated by Beer. ' It is
experience apparent that a system which allowed a colony to
vf ^llr^^^ evade in whole or in part the performance of its
obligations as a part of the Empire was inherently
vicious. Each colony was intent on seeing what the
others were doing, and the action of the least zealous
tended to become the standard by which the others
regulated themselves. The system was an unfair one.
It threw a relatively larger share of the burden on
public -spirited colonies, whose activity was thus
penalized, while at the same time a premium was
placed on neglect of duty. It diminished the potential
military strength of the colonies during the greatest
crisis of their existence, forcing the mother country
to make up, in part at least, the deficiency thus created.
It also limited the extent of the operations themselves ;
for, had more troops been available, it is probable
that Louisiana .would have been conquered. From a
military standpoint as well, the system was deficient.
The successive commanders-in-chief wasted much
time and energy in obtaining the colonial levies. In
order to secure the needed support, they were
repeatedly forced to interfere in the internal politics
of the colonies, especially in Pennsylvania. Disputes
as to the conditions and duration of service were
frequent. It was never exactly known how many
troops the colonies would provide, and occasionally
their tardiness in arriving for service unduly delayed
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 33?
an expedition. 'In all these' different ways were chap.
military operations hampered, and the strength and
efficiency of the army impaired. Thus, the experi-
ences of the war served but to reenforce the conclusion
reached by many already in 1755, that the defence
of the colonies in time of peace could not with
safety be left to them because of their lack of union,
and also that they could not be relied upon as a
whole to provide voluntarily for their due proportion
of the necessary military establishment.' ^
During the war Johnson had found that as an Ministers
Imperial officer he was powerless to control the ^^^^e
colonial traders in their relations with the Indians. conciusioD
that the
Laws regulating this trade involved the action of a legisiatire
dozen legislatures, and the conclusion was forced on of the" ^
the British Government : ' That our Interest with ^^^
respect to the Indians never can be settled with mentmust
^ be evoked
stability, but by the interposition of the Parliament for the
of Great Britain, in making some general Regulations r^^tioo
for the management of Indian Affairs, upon some affiS^"
general Plan, under the sole direction of the Crown
k its Officers.' ^
This was in 1762. The Peace of Paris was signed indiiw
early next year, but the ink was scsurcely dry before ^^w
the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia were ?°i^^
devastated by an Indian rising of unparalleled ferocity
and magnitude under Pontiac, an Indian with genius
for organization. ' A confederation including several
Indian tribes had suddenly and unexpectedly swept
over the whole western frontier of Pennsylvania and
Virginia, had murdered almost all the English settlers
who were scattered beyond the mountains, had
surprised and captured every British fort between the
Ohio and Lake Erie, and had closely blockaded F<M:t
1 Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1754-1766, pp. 70-1.
* Board of Trade to Thomas Boone, June 3, 1762. B. T. So. Ca. 29, p. 171,
qaotod by Beer, Britifh Colonial Pelicy, 1764-1765, p. 266.
Z
338 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. Detroit and Pittsburg. In no previous war had the
^^^^^^^^^^ Indians shown such skill, tenacity, and concert ; and
had there not been British troops in the country, the
whole of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland would
probably have been overrun. In spite of every eflFort,
a long line of country twenty miles in breadth was
completely desolated, and presented one hideous
scene of plunder, massacre, and torture. It was
only after much desperate fighting, after some losses,
and several reverses, that the troops of Amhe^rst suc-
ceeded in repelling the invaders and securing the
three great fortresses of Niagara, Detroit, and
Pittsburg.' '
The Amherst was instructed by the British Govem-
asBembiies D^^ut to Call upou the colouics for assistance. But
haying tj^e Ministry did not dare to ask the people of Oreat
failed onoe f^ , . . i
more to Britain, groaning as they were under the burden of
J^^i. taxation imposed by the recent war, to vote further
men^or^^ grants as an inducement to colonial assemblies to
B^twL^* protect their own frontiers from native attacks, which
Govern- were in fact provoked by the failure of those very
driven to assemblies in the management of Indian affairs.
Se raSg Accordingly, Amherst was warned that he must not
and to offer the slightest hope to the assemblies that the
maintain __ . ^ â– *â–
permanent English Treasury would pay for the troops they
X^S furnished. Again, Beer may be called upon to relate
wM^madT w^** followed. ' As the situation was a most serious
one, Amherst asked New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl-
vania, and Virginia to furnish some troops, but he
refrained from calling on the New England colonies.
This led to a number of dijfficulties. The New York
Assembly thought it unreasonable that all the colonies
had not been asked, and agreed to contribute their
quota only if the New England colonies did likewise.
New Jersey followed the example of New York. On
account of the lack of response to the requisitions,
^ Lecky, History of England in the Mghteenlh Century^ vol. iv.. pp. 57*8.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 339
Gage, who towards the end of 1763 succeeded chap.
Amherst as commander-in-chief, also asked the New
England colonies for aid. Massachusetts refused to
respond to his request, not being willing to submit
to any dictation from New York. The New Hamp-
shire Assembly, on the ground that neither Con-
necticut nor Massachusetts had complied, likewise
refused, alleging also that they could not support the
charge of the two hundred men requested by Gage
"at so great a Distance as Niagara." Similarly,
Rhode Island would not raise tlte troops demanded
by the Commander-in-Chief Some of these difficulties
were overcome. Thus Connecticut finally agreed to
levy a small body of soldiers. But in Pennsylvania,
the old dispute between the proprietors and the
legislature interfered with the grant of effective
support. Virginia, however, had responded energetic-
ally to Amherst's requisition. New York ultimately
raised somewhat over one -half of the number of
troops desired, whereupon New Jersey agreed to
provide three hundred instead of the six hundred
that Amherst had requested.
*The general attitude of the colonies is compre-
hensively described by the governor of New Jersey in
a despatch in which he discussed the difficulty of
raising troops in the colonies. On March 6, 1764,
William Franklin wrote to the Board of Trade : "The
Want of Union among the Colonies must ever occasion
Delay in their military Operations. The first that
happens to be called upon postpones coming to any
Determination till 'tis known what the other Colonies
will do ; and each of those others think they have an
equal Right to act in the same Manner. This pro-
crastinating Conduct, owing to the Jealousies and
Apprehensions each Colony has lest it should happen
to contribute Somewhat more than its Share, is the
Reason why the American Levies are sometimes
340 THK AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, delay'd till the Season for Action is nearly elapsed."
^^ In view of these facts, the following words of Halifax
seem somewhat mild. On May 12, 1764, he wrote
to Golden : " It were much to be wished that the
several Colonies whose assistance was required had
chearfuUy exerted themselves to raise the full numbers
of Men demanded of them by His Ma*^* Commander-
in-Chief."
* Thus it was again demonstrated that the requisi-
tion system was absolutely unworkable. Its inefficacy
rendered the establishment of a standing army in
America essential. In fact, the failure of the colonies
to respond to the requisitions in 1764 forced both
Amherst and Gage to disobey their instructions to
reduce the regular force in America. The British
government was left no choice, and was forced to
keep a large force on the continent.
*This measure was a direct result of existing
military conditions. As, however, it was generally
recognized in England that there was in the con-
tinental colonies a marked tendency toward inde-
pendence, the fact that such a standing army would
serve as a counteracting agency was not totally
ignored. At most, however, if at all a motive of
this measure, it was a distinctly subordinate one.
Until the revolutionary movement was well under
way, several years after the adoption of this policy,
but very slight, if any, stress was laid on the American
army as a weapon of coercion.' ^
Question The cost of the force necessary was estimated at
^urees^^ £220,000 over and above the amounts voted by Parlia-
fr?â„¢ ment to support American garrisons before the war.
the cost * The difficulty in securing adequate support fix)m the
forceTfn colonics during the war with France, and subsequently
wM^to^be thereto during the Pontiac conspiracy, convinced the
met The British government that parliamentary taxation was
> Beer, BrUiah Colonial Policy, 1754-176/), pp. 263-6.
THB AMBRIGAN OOLONIES 341
the sole aud only means of obtaining from the chap.
colonies their just share of the cost of their own .^^^^^^^.^^
defence. Thus on March 10, 1764, Calvert wrote to dilemma
Governor Sharpe of Maryland that he had predicted Imposedon
tiiiat colonial taxation would be inevitable on the the British
Govem-
return of peace because of " the colonies remiss^ of ment
Duty to the Crown & themselves in defence g^ the
Enemy the French, who neither at the commence nor
during the War in America were our equals, either
in Strength or Circumstances, our Colonies Superiour
in all, & with a Little Assistance our People of the
Colonies might have subdued the French." But an
army had to be sent from England which gained the
victories which resulted in the peace of 1763. Since
then, a " War has broke out upon the Colonies by the
Savages, the colonies neglect by their provincial
Legislatures not raising subsidies to avert, nor in
defence, stand still & see their Neighbours cruly
Butchered by the Savages, squabliug ab* framing
Asaessm^ Bills to pass, tho' in Defense bound to his
Majesty & themselves, send to the mother country
for money aid & assistance of Troops."
' In consequence of the patent fact that the
colonies, as a whole, would not voluntarily con-
tribute their share of the military burden, it was
decided to tax them for this purpose. This decision
was the logical result of events from the year 1754
on. The British government might again have tried
to form a union of the colonies as it had done in 1754 ;
but the colonies had shown such an aversion to the
scheme that any such attempt was inevitably doomed
to failure. On the other hand, the mother country
might have borne the whole burden of defence, even
though this would have violated the prevailing theory
and custom. Such a step was, however, decidedly
inadvisable, not only because it might be the entering
wedge for still larger future increases in the colonial
342 THE AMERIOAN COLONIES
CHAP, budget, but also because of the existing strain on
British finances. The war had about doubled the
debt, which stood at the exceedingly large figure of
one hundred and thirty milUon pounds, with an
annual interest charge of four and one half million
pounds. In addition, Great Britain was spending
large sums on the navy, which was regarded as the
Empire's main bulwark. Even after the conclusion
of peace, Parliament granted annually one and a half
million pounds for this purpose. Consequently,
British financial resources were severely strained, and
the already overburdened taxpayer in the mother
country was in no humor to undertake more than
his fair share of the expense of defending the colonies.
In the eyes of the colonies, the imposition of a parlia-
mentary tax on America would, however, violate the
principle of "no taxation without representation."
This principle they regarded as the basis of civil and
political liberty ; and even if its violation could be
justified in their eyes, it meant that the colonies were
to contribute funds toward the support of an army
over whose actions they would have no control. The
adoption of either alternative of this dilemma was
bound to lead the British government into serious
diflficulties. But some decision was imperative, for a
policy of inaction would have been suicidal.' ^
Necessity The gist of the whole matter was that the Seven
X::., rW ^.r had forced into prominence problen«
connection ^hich, though strictly American, were yet too large
tivewith for any of the autonomous colonies of America to
®*^ * "®' handle. The Indian question alone occupied a field
too wide for any executive which the colonists con-
trolled. The British Government attempted to fill
the r61e of an • American executive, and to provide
such uniformity in the administration of native
afiairs as was necessary to prevent constant blood-
1 Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1754-1766, pp. 269-73.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 343
shed. At once, however, their oflScers were brought chap.
up by the fact that sooner or later administration
involves the enactment of a law to administer. They
were also brought up by the fact that administration
involves expenditure and expenditure involves the
raising of revenue. To enact laws or vote revenue
were both functions which lay beyond the scope of
an executive. Where the supremacy of law has once
been established, an executive without a legislature
is as much a creature of fancy as those winged heads
that adorn the canvasses of Raphael and Murillo,
though publicists of that date were not the last to
talk as though political wonders could be worked by
the magic of executives suspended in the air. In
fact, nothing effective could be done in the interests of
America as a whole without reference to a legislature.
The subsequent experience of the American colonies
themselves was to prove the impotence of an execu-
tive which depended on a number of legislatures,
even where that executive was their own joint
creation. A head cannot exist without a body ; but
neither can it exist with more than one. Executive
and legislature are but organic parts of one being,
Grovernment, and Government begins to lose its
vitality as soon as the arteries which connect those
parts are cut.
The British Ministry and its oiticers thus found vital
themselves paralysed for lack of the powers and f^^^l
revenue which could be derived only from a single solution
^ " attempted
legislature, and instead of addressing themselves to by the
the constructive task of creating an appropriate Oovem-
legislature, sought what they needed from the ^^^^'
already existing legislature of Great Britain. This
meant that the law governing Americans in strictly
American affairs waa in future to be made by an
assembly in which not a single American was repre-
sented. Provincial affairs, those transacted by the
344 THE AMERIOAN OOLONIEB
CHAP. States at the present day, would have remained in
the hands of the colonial assemblies. But in its
main outlines the fabric of American society would
have been shaped not by American, but by British
experience. Worse still, the sense of responsibility
of Americans would have gone ' unexercised and un^
breathed' in all American affairs but those which
were the most subordinate and local. Content to
concern themselves with questions of detail only,
they would have become a people incapable of self-
government, and therefore unfit to share not only
in the task of governing America as a whole but
in that greatest of all human responsibilities, which
the march of events was fast placing on the shoulders
of the British Commonwealth. No group of com-
munities unexercised in the real work of self-govern-
ment would have been fit to grapple with its titanic
task of making and keeping the relations of all the
levels of human society amenable to law. The peoples
of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were not
fit for the government of India until they had
acquired control of their own relations to each
other, until the inhabitants of that indivisible unit,
the British Isles, were masters of their own fate.
The people of Canada would not. be fit to join in
the task of Indian government, unless they had first
achieved control of Canadian affairs. And the same
is true of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
The day when the needs of mankind could be satis*
fied by states limited by uniformity of race, language,
or contiguity of territory had already reached its
zenith. Henceforward the greatest need was for a
state wide enough to include all levels of civilization,
and portions, therefore, of every continent, the pre-
cursor of that state, still in the remote future, which
shall embrace them all. But the primary condition
of such a state was and is a supreme Government
THE AMl^IGAN COLONIES 345
with all its fetcultiee reserved for supreme affairs, chap.
It can only be realized by the fullest possible develop- ^...^.^v-.^
ment of local self*government. Every comnaunity in
such a state capable of self-government must be so
constituted as to be able to govern itself. Wherever
the Imperial problem (using that word in its accurate
significance) is met, it may invariably be traced to
some failure to separate local from Imperial issues.
The commercial system had only permitted the Legislative
growth of governments competent to manage the ofa^"*^^
affairs of American localities, and had failed to create fxciualve?*
any government competent to deal with the affairs of repreaent-
America. £320,000 ^ was now needed on the morrow mopie of
of a great war for the primary function of creating fp^^ ^y
peace and order in America. All other means having ^^^^"
feiiled, the British Government assumed the task, and solution of
prepared for submission to the British Parliament Txciusiveiv
measures calculated to raise from America and the t^^^^x.
West Indies an amount less than a half of the sum of Amenca.
required. ^''^^•
Of these the first was a sugar Bill passed by Par- Grenviiie's
liament in 1764 which, by various alterations in the forieyying
existing customs system, was estimated to produce bution"
about £45,000 a year. When introducing it Gren- ^J^"™ \^^
•^ . , *^. . American
ville announced the intention of the Ministry to colonists.
J.1 1* 11 • • 11 Hisiuvita-
prepare m the following year a measure requiring all tion to the
legal documents to be written on paper bearing stamps ^mbiies
purchased from the British Government. Newspapers ^ suggest
some altci*'
and broadsides were also to bear the stamps. A native.
year's notice was given of the proposal in order that
the colonial assemblies might, if they saw fit, render
it unnecessary by raising the contribution for them-
selves. The agents of the various colonies went in a
body to see Gren ville, who disclaimed any intention
of asking the colonies to contribute to the debt
incurred on account of the recent war. The revenue
1 Beer, BrUith Cid<mial Piolicy, 176^1766y p. 267.
346 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, was required for expenditure necessary in the future
only, and in America only. He could not ask the
British taxpayer to bear the whole of this future
American expenditure, and it was his duty to see that
Americans contributed at least some part of it. ' " I
am not, however," he continued, " set upon this tax.
If the Americans dislike it, and prefer any other
method of raising the money themselves, I shall be
content. Write therefore to your several colonies,
and if they choose any other mode I shall be satisfied,
provided the money be but raised." ' ^
Failure In plain words, while stipulating that American
coionui taxpayers must at least contribute to the expenses
assemblies ^f American administration, he invited the colonial
to suggest , '
an alter- asscmbUcs through their own accredited agents to
native
because, discuss with him the manner in which it should be
8ome°" raised. In the following February, when suflScient
in th? ^^^^ ^^^ elapsed for the agents to transmit their
political reports and receive further instructions from their
stTUctuTe
there was principals, they met Grenville again, but confined
themselves to arguing against the introduction of the
1765. measure. Grenville replied, ' " I have really been
made to believe that, considering the whole circum-
stances of the mother country and the colonies, the
latter can and ought to pay something to the public
cause. I know of no better way, than that now
pursuing, to lay such a tax. If you can tell of a
loetter, I will adopt it." Benjamin Franklin, who had
shortly before come over as Agent for Philadelphia,
presented the resolution of the Assembly of his pro-
vince, and urged that the demand for money should
be made in the old constitutional way to the Assembly
of each province in the form of a requisition by the
governor. " Can you agree," rejoined Grenville, " on
the proportions each colony should raise ? " The
question touched the heart of the difficulty ; the
^ Lecky, History of England in the EighUeTiih Century ^ vol. iv. p. 69.
none.
THE AMKRIOAN CXHiONIES 347
agents were obliged to answer in the negative, and chap.
the interview speedily closed/^ Experience before
and after has proved conclusively that it was impos-
sible that they should agree. The particular problem
with which GrenvUle was wrestUng was one which
could never reach its final solution until there was
brought into existence an American Government
which could undertake not a part but the whole of
the expenditure required for American administrative
needs. Such a Government would not have been
called upon to attempt the impossible task of year by
year agreeing, whether with local American assemblies
or with the British Government, as to the proportion
of revenue required. The mistake lay not merely
in seeking too much but also in seeking too little.
Imagine, for instance, what would happen if once the
principle were now admitted that the cost of the -
Dominion Grovernments was to rest in part on the
British taxpayer. Suppose that Dominion Treasuries
were entitled as a matter of custom to rely in part on
grants from the British Treasury, the annual dispute
as to the proportions of the expenditure to be allo-
cated to the British and Dominion taxpayers re-
spectively would simply operate to poison the minds
of the two communities against each other. Such
grants could not be based on any fixed principle
of justice, and could, therefore, only be settled
temporarily as the result of hard bargaining from
which both parties would retire with a sense of
mutual injury.
There is no indication that British statesmen ever British
wished that the Imperial Treasury should cease to and^hlio-
share the burden of American government. They ^^^^
had not apprehended the distinction which separated eighteenth
American from colonial interests on the one hand, hadn^
and from Imperial interests on the other. Therefore ^ut*hl
* Lecky, History of England in the EigfUeenlh Century y vol. iv. pp. 72-3.
348 THE AMERICAN COIiONIES
CHAP, it was impoBsible that they should me to the idea
^^^^^^^^^ that purely American interests should be controlled
distinction exclusively by Americans, as purely Canadian interests
recognized ^^e now Controlled exclusively by Canadians. The
between nearest approach to these truths in that age was
provincial, * x^ ^ o
Dominion, made by Adam Smith, when he urged that the repre-
imperiai scutatiou of the colonists in the Imperial Parliament
interests. ^^ ^j^^ ^^^^ alternative to independence. Smith
had not lived in colonies and, with all his political
insight, failed to grasp the distinction between colonial,
American, and Imperial interests, or to see that in
the long run American interests must be controlled
and paid for by Americana alona Even minds so
penetrating as those of Smith or Chatham could not
travel more than a certain distance beyond the limits
of their own experienca
Butiepic- It is the subsequent experience of the British
i®"^^^^" Commonwealth which has made these issues so
Pariir" cl®" to-day. But colonial representation, if it
ment could havc bccu achieved, would have opened the
have only path by which a peaceful solution could have
me*n on ^^^ reached and the Commonwealth saved from
both sides gchism. It would have given the two peoples and
to arrive , . *^ , *^ ■*• ,
at this their leaders some insight into the vital necessities
d^^thic-'^ of each other's life, and have enabled them, there-
tion. £^j,g^ ^Q grasp the real problem before them. No
serious historian would now contend that the British
people or their statesmen were anxious to assert
or to exercise the right of taxing the Americans.
Modern research has abundantly proved that the
desire to sever their connection with Britain was
limited to a very small, though very active, minority
in America. The vast majority had been bred under
a system which o£fered the privileges of life in a
commonwealth without calling upon them to bear
a due proportion of the burden involved in sustaining
the system. Theirs was a spurious freedom, one
THE AMEBIGABT COLONIES 349
wfaicli could not teach them the real cost which had chjlp.
to be paid by some one for the benefits it brought
them. Willingness to pay their own footing is the
final test of a people's capacity to govern themselves.
But the system must be such as to enable them to
realize what eosta are properly chargeable to their
own account The moral perceptions of the colonists
had, indeed, been blunted by exclusion from all but
the narrower responsibilities of national life. Their
resistance during and after the Wu of Independence
to any proposals for taxation advanced by Congress
show how seriously their political morale had suffered
under the influence of the commercial system. But
when, having quitted the protection t)f Britain, they
found that th^e was no one but themselves to meet
the cost of American administration, they were at
length brought face to face with the naked facts.
That they were a people amenable to the discipline
of facts, and therefore fit for self-government, was
finally proved by their acceptance, in 1789, of an
American Government with effective powers of
taxation.
' According to the British view, the colonies were Repre-
virtually represented in Parliament,' for the extra- orthe*^*^
ordinarj reason that in England the majority had P^'-f""
no votes and the great manufacturing towns which imperial
contributed largely to taxation were not represented.^ ment
mi •j.' M J* JO.' •T>*a.* advocated
Ine existmg system of representation m Britain byotis,
was wholly obsolete, and needed the Reform Bill to ^Tam^^**'
remove its anomalies. The great towns were in fact Smith,
unrepresented until they elected members of their Orenviiie.
own to sit in Parliament. But that was no reason
why the colonists should also submit to taxation
without representation. Two wrongs did not make
one right. The whole plea was as flimsy and worth-
> Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1754^-1765, p. 297. Also Lecky, A History
of Bn/glai^ in the EigkteeyUh Century, vol. iv. p. 77.
350 THE AMERICAN OOLOKIES
CHAP, less as its modem counterpart — the plea that the
British Cabinet virtually represents the people of
the Dominions in the conduct of foreign affairs.
Such arguments are never wanting to apostles of
' a wise opportunism ' who hold that in human affairs
all principles are always open to evasion so long as
every one concerned will only conspire never to state
them. From that day to this there has been an
almost general agreement among 'practical persons'
to regard all proposals to include American repre-
sentatives in the British Parliament as inherently
absurd. But the contemporary exceptions to this
rule are somewhat striking. 'A few voices were
raised in favour of the admission of American repre-
sentatives into Parliament ; but this plan, which was
advocated by Otis ajid supported by the great names
of Franklin and of Adam Smith, would have en-
countered enormous practical difficulties, and it found
few friends in either country. Grenville himself,
however, appears to have for a time seriously con-
templated it. As he was accustomed to say to his
friends, he had never entertained the smallest design
against American liberty, and the sole object of his
colonial policy was to induce or oblige America to
contribute to the expense of her own defence in
the same manner as Ireland. He had consulted the
colonial agents in order that the colonies might
themselves suggest the form of the contribution,
and establish the precedent of being always in such
cases consulted. He had deferred the Stamp Act
for a whole year in order that the colonies might,
if they chose, make imperial taxation unnecessary ;
and if the Americans thought that their liberties
would become more secure by the introduction of
American representatives into the British Parliament,
he was quite ready to support such a scheme. He
would probably, however, have found it not easy
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 351
to carry in England, and it was soon after utterly chap.
repudiated in America.'^ ^^,.>^.^,^^
Grenville, according to Beer, was a statesman ' of orenviiie
a scientific and unimaginative temperament, with a by^Brmsh
distinctly legal cast of mind.' ^ Whatever his defects, conserva-
•^ o ^ , ' tism from
they were certainly not those of a theorist or a propoaing
visionary. His reason for not asking Parliament to represenu-
open its door to American representatives was not, Burke's
it appears, that he thought that nature was opposed ?^J^^^°
to such a scheme, but that he felt that the inveterate proposal.
prejudice of Parliament itself stood in the way.
What he lacked was the imagination which might
have inspired him to overcome it. The kind of
conservatism with which he had to contend domin-
ated even a mind so active as Burke's. After his i766.
fall Grenville published a pamphlet in which he
continued to advocate the principle of his financial
measures, together with such measures of reform as
would make Parliament at once representative of
Britain and the colonies. Burke's reply is worth
quoting at length as the highest intellectual ex-
pression of the attitude of mind in British political
circles which closed the door to any but a violent
solution of the American question. *Has he well
considered what an immense operation any change
in our constitution is ? how many discussions, parties,
and passions, it will necessarily excite; and, when
you open it to enquiry in one part, where the
enquiry will stop? Experience shews us, that no
time can be fit for such changes but a time of
general confusion ; when good men, finding every-
thing already broken up, think it right to take
advantage of the opportunity of such derangement
in favour of an useful alteration. Perhaps a time of
the greatest security and tranquillity both at home
^ Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century ^ vol. iv. pp. 71-2.
* Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, rf6J^TtB6, p. 274.
352 THE AMERIGAJr OOLONIBS
CHAP, and abroad may likewise be fit ; bat will the author
^^ affirm this to be just such a time ? Transferring an
idea of militarj to civil pradence, he ought to know
how dangerous it is to make an alteration of your
disposition in the face of an enemy.
'Now comes his American repres^itation. Here
too, as usual, he takes no notice of any difficulty, nor
says anything to obviate those objections that must
naturally arise in the minds of his readers. He
throws you his politics as he does his revenue; do
you make something of them if you can. Is not the
reader a little astonished at the proposal of an
American representation from that quarter? It is
proposed merely as a project of speculative improve-
ment ; not firom the necessity in the case, not to add
anything to the authority of parliament, but that we
may afford a greater attention to the concerns of the
Americans, and give them a bett» opportunity of
stating their grievances, and of obtaining redress.
I am glad to find the author has at length discovered
that we have not given a sufficient attention to their
concerns, or a proper redress to their grievances.
His great fiiend would once have been exceedingly
displeased with any p^son, who should tell him that
he did not attend sufficiently to those concerns. He
thought he did so, when he regulated the colonies
over and over again ; he thought he did so, when he
formed two general systems of revenue ; one of port-
duties, and the other of internal taxation. These
systems supposed, or ought to suppose, the greatest
attention to, and the most detailed information of,
all their affairs. However, by contending for the
American representation, he seems at last driven
virtually to admit, that great caution ought to be
used in the exercise of cdl bur legislative rights over
an object so remote from our eye, and so little
connected with our immediate feelings ; that in
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 353
prudence we ought "not to be quite so ready with chap.
our taxes, until we can secure the desired representa- ^^
tion in parliament. Perhaps it may be some time
before this hopeful scheme can be brought to perfect
maturity, although the author seems to be in no wise
aware of any obstructions that lie in the way of it.
He talks of his union, just as he does of his taxes and
his savings, with as much sang froid and ease as if
his wish and the enjoyment were exactly the same
thing. He appears not to have troubled his head
with the infinite diflBculty of settling that representa-
tion on a fair balance of wealth and numbers through-
out the several provinces of America and the West
Indies, under such an infinite variety of circumstances.
It costs him nothing to fight with nature, and to
conquer the order of Providence, which manifestly
opposes itself to the possibility of such a parliamentary
union.
' But let us, to indulge his passion for projects and
power, suppose the happy time arrived, when the
author comes into the ministry, and is to realize
his speculations. The writs are issued for electing
members for America and the West Indies. Some
provinces receive them in six weeks, some in ten,
some in twenty. A vessel may be lost, and then
some provinces may not receive them at all. But
let it be, that they all receive them at once, and in
the shortest time. A proper space must be given for
proclamation and for the election ; some weeks at
least. But the members are chosen ; and, if ships are
ready to sail, in about six more they arrive in London.
In the mean time the parliament has sat and business
far advanced without American representatives. Nay,
by this time, it may happen, that the parliament is
dissolved and then the members ship themselves
again, to be again elected. The writs may arrive in
America, before the poor members of a parliament in
2 a
354 THE AMBRICAN C0L0NIB8
CHAP, which they never sat can arrive at their several
provinces. A new interest is formed, and they find
other members are chosen whilst they are on the high
seas. But, if the writs and members arrive together,
here is at best a new trial of skill amongst the
candidates, after one set of them have well aired
themselves with their two voyages of 6,000 miles.
' However, in order to facilitate every thing to the
author, we will suppose them all once more elected,
and steering again to Old England, with a good heart,
and a fair westerly wind in their stem. On their
arrival, they find all in a hurry and bustle ; in and
out ; condolence and congratulation ; the crown is
demised. Another parliament is to be called. Away
back to America again on a fourth voyage, and to a
third election. Does the author mean to make our
kings as immortal in their personal as in their politic
character ? or, whilst he bountifully adds to their life,
will he take from them their prerogative of dissolving
parliaments, in favor of the American union ? or are
the American representatives to be perpetual, and to
feel neither demises of the crown, nor dissolutions of
parliament ?
* But these things may be granted to him, without
bringing him much nearer to his point. What does
he think of re-election ? is the American member the
only one who is not to take a place, or the only one
to be exempted from the ceremony of re-election ?
How will this great politician preserve the rights of
electors, the fairness of returns, and the privilege of
the House of Commons, as the sole judge of such con-
tests ? It would undoubtedly be a glorious sight to
have eight or ten petitions, or double returns, from
Boston and Barbadoes, from Philadelphia and Jamaica,
the members returned, and the petitioners, with all
their train of attomies, solicitors, mayors, select men,
provost marshals, and above five hundred or a thousand
THE AMERICAN OOLONIES 355
witnesses, come to the bar of the House of Commons, chap.
Possibly we might be interrupted in the enjoyment
of this pleasing spectacle, if a war should break out,
and our constitutional fleet, loaded with members of
parliament, returning ofiicers, petitions, and witnesses,
the electors and elected, should become a prize to the
French or Spaniards, and be conveyed to Carthagena
or to La Vera Cruz, and from thence perhaps to
Mexico or Lima, there to remain until a cartel for
members of parliament can be settled, or until the
war is ended.
' In truth, the author has little studied this busi-
ness ; or he might have known, that some of the most
consideralble provinces of America, such, for instance, as
Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay, have not in each
of them two men who can afford, at a distance from
their estates, to spend a thousand pounds a year.
How can these provinces be represented at West-
minster? If their province pays them, they are
American agents, with salaries, and not independent
members of parliament. It is true, that formerly in
England members had salaries from their constituents ;
but they all had salaries, and- were all, in this way,
upon a par. If these American representatives have
no salaries, then they must add to the list of our
pensioners and dependents at court, or they must
starve. There is no alternative.
* Enough of this visionary union ; in which much
extravagance appears without any fancy, and the
judgment is shocked without anything to refresh the
imagination. It looks as if the author had dropped
down from the moon, without any knowledge of the
general nature of this globe, of the general nature of
its inhabitants, without the least acquaintance with
the affairs of this country. Governor Pownall has
handled the same subject. To do him justice, he
treats it upon far more rational principles of specula-
356
THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP.
VI
Burke's
real objec-
tion to
American
represent-
ation fear
that it
might
leaid to
drastic
reforms
in the
House of
Commons.
tion ; and much more like a man of business. He
thinks (erroneously, I conceive ; but he does think)
that our legislative rights are incomplete without such
a representation. It is no wonder, therefore, that he
endeavours by every means to obtain it. Not like
our author, who is always on velvet, he is aware of
some difficulties ; and he proposes some solutions.
But nature is too hard for both these . authors ; and
America is, and ever will be, without actual repre-
sentation in the House of Commons ; nor will any
minister be wild enough even to propose such a repre-
sentation in parliament ; however he may choose to
throw out that project, together with others equally
far from his real opinions, and remote from his
designs, merely to fall in with diflferent views,
and captivate the affections, of different sorts of
men.
> 1
The whole passage is a warning against the
dangers of eloquence. Nothing is easier for a man
with the gift of words than to pour ridicule on a
constructive proposal he dislikes. The ridicule once
uttered, he drifts with fatal facility into the belief
that it constitutes the- real ground of his objection.
The true motive at the bottom of his mind may
be gathered from a letter written about December
1779 to thank Maseres, the Attorney -General of
Canada, for a copy of the Canadian Freeholder^
a pamphlet answering Burke's arguments against
colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament.
' I confess,' wrote Burke, * I still feel in my mind
many objections to the representation you propose.
To make it at all practicable, you are obliged, when
you come to seat American representatives, to alter
exceedingly the tenure and terms on which the
present members sit. I believe many more altera-
tions, and some fundamental, would be necessary
1 Burke, Wm-ks, vol. ii. pp. 136-143.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 357
on such an occasion.'^ What he dreaded was, in chap.
VI
plain words, the reform of Parliament, which the ^„^^,^^,.^^^
younger Pitt might have carried before the century
was closed if the crisis of the French Revolution had
not postponed its accomplishment till 1832.
Had Burke exerted his influence to overcome Difficulty
instead of to justify the conservatism of the British rejecting
Parliament, a pedestrian statesman like Grenville J^^^t-^
might have been encouraffed to propose, and Parlia- ation had
' one been
ment have been persuaded to accept, such a measure made,
as would have robbed of all its strength the case
which the extremists were urging in America. Those of
them like Adams, who consciously desired separation,
were the merest handful. A substantial minority, as
the event proved, were ready to risk their lives and
fortunes rather than surrender their status as citizens
in the British Commonwealth. Others, like Washing-
ton himself, were pushed step by step into active
resistance, because, to men jealous of liberty, no
other exit from the position was opened. A frank
invitation to send representatives would have opened
such an exit, and until it had been tried and had
failed, Washington and others who thought with
him were not the kind of men to resort to violent
solutions. Such an invitation is very difficult to
refuse, as Scottish constituencies had found in the
time of Queen Anne. But the most significant fact
of all was the frenzy of apprehension betrayed by
Adams and others who desired separation, whenever
the proposal was mentioned. The colonies found no
difficulty in sending agents to London; and what
right had any one to assume that in America no
candidates would be found to offer themselves for
election, or that the constituencies would simply
ignore the summons to return them ?
* Burke's Correspondence, edited by the Earl Fitzwilliam, 1844, vol. ii.
p.' 310.
358 THE AMERICAN C50LONIE8
CHAP. It is worth considering what the result might have
^^^7^ been if the first proposals to tax America for
Common American purposes had been raised in a Parliament
diacuBsion ^j^^^j^ included Americans. Apart from a few fire-
probiem brands, the colonists merely desired to resume their
m Parlia- ' •' . , .
ment old freedom from all but purely colonial taxation.
hive Even in 1773, the Massachusetts Assembly simply
th^^y asked to be restored to the situation they were in
^tobUsh ^^^^^^ ^^^ Stamp Act.^ The people at large were not
ment of a in a position to grasp the reality of intercolonial
Govern- nccds, or to scc that those needs must be paid for by
America, somc onc. lu a couutry where the orators all took
one side and no one was responsible for putting
the other, it is not to be wondered at that many
should have thought that the British were attempt-
ing to tax Americans for the benefit of Britain. Few
realized that the continuance of the existing situa-
tion meant saddling the British taxpayer with the cost
of American administration. Americans never saw
themselves as the British saw them. No more was
the gross outrage on colonial sentiment involved by
the Stamp Act realized in Britain. Each party knew
that the position adopted by the other was an
impossible one, but neither recognized the impossible
nature of its own. Repeated discussion in a public
assembly by representatives of both sides could
scarcely have failed to reveal to some of them the
weakness of their own case. The specious theories of
the commercial system, which enabled the Americans
to argue as though Britain were under contract to
furnish military defence, local as well as general,
could scarcely have stood the ordeal of public debate.
The old colonial system, with its underlying principle
of contract, would never have survived so long had
it been exposed to discussion in a Parliament which
included spokesmen for all the communities which it
^ Lecky, History of Engla7id in the Eighteenth Century ^ vol. iv. p. 160.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 359
purported to connect. Face to face with ministers chap
in Parliament American representatives would have ^^^.^^^^^^
realized in time that the only Government which
could act for America as a whole was compelled to
grapple with the Indian problem, was compelled
therefore to maintain expensive forces, and would ere
long be compelled to pass laws regulating the relations
of settlers and natives. Other intercolonial problems,
such as boundary disputes, would have been forced on
their notice, and they might gradually have realized
the cKistence of American interests which lay beyond
the scope of the colonial assemblies. They might
also have seen the inconvenience of settling them in
Britain and have recognized the necessity of an inter-
colonial Government, through which Americans might
dispose of such matters for themselves. By inter-
course with colonial colleagues British members might
have seen the wisdom of leaving American as well as
colonial aflfairs to be controlled in America. Their
American colleagues might have seen that, if
Americans must manage American affairs, they must
likewise meet the cost for themselves.
An American Government once established, the Theinsti-
process of discovering and defining the line which Dom^ion*
divides Dominion from Imperial responsibilities would Govern-
have begun — the process afterwards initiated with America
the institution of responsible government in Canada. havJ ^
Not without a long struggle, doubtless, but yet ^^^£rt.
without schism or bloodshed, the British Common- antdis-
wealth might have arrived at the momentous discovery that the
that in a state distinguished from all others by the taSffis^in^
fact that it exists to unite in one organic whole, not cJ)^^on.^
merely different classes mixed together, nor different wealth
races living side by side within the circle of one ftinction
frontier, but different levels of civilization and different toSfe
communities separated by oceans — that in such a ^oTtoth"'
unique state the control of trade is a function proper imperial,
* *â– authority.
360 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, rather to the territorial parts than to the whole.
VI
The control of fiscal relations in a world -state is
a territorial, not an Imperial function. The question
is one, not of right, but of necessity and of good
government. The experience of the British Common-
wealth may surely be taken to have proved that
each Dominion must shape for itself the structure of
its own society through its own Goverument. The
physical conditions of the United Kingdom, of Canada,
of Australia, of New Zealand, and of South Africa
all differ, and all therefore demand the development
of corresponding differences in the societies inhabiting
them. No central Government could have the know-
ledge, nor, if it had the knowledge, the time, to adapt
the framework of these widely sundered communities
each to their local environment. It is the essential
quality of freedom, which means power of self-adapta-
tion to circumstance, that each part should be left to
do this for itself. The condition of its power to do
so is that each territorial community should acquire
an organic Government adequate for the purpose.
Such a Government has now been acquired by every
Dominion. The title of each Dominion to control its
own internal system of communications, its railways,
its canals, is simply based on the fact that it, and it
alone, can control them with effect. It is only
necessary to imagine that such control had been
finally left to colonial or provincial assemblies, or
that an attempt had been made to vest it in the
hands of an Imperial Government, however representa-
tive, to see that this is so. The same considerations
apply to tariffs. The creation of Dominion Govern-
ments was largely due to the economic paralysis
caused by leaving the control of tariffs in the hands
of provincial and colonial governments. The attempt
of the revolted American colonies to control tariffs
led them to the brink of an internecine war on the
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 361
morrow of their struggle with Great Britain. But it chap.
is safe to say that any attempt on the part of an
Imperial Government to frame a system of tariffs for
all its widely sundered communities would produce
evils far worse than a similar attempt to control
the development of their railways from the centre.
It is happily a matter not now in dispute between
any parties in any part of the Empire that each self-
governing unit must retain a final and absolute con-
trol of its own fiscal system. This general agreement
is not in the least affected by the rise in the last
decade of a school which urges that each Dominion
Government should, in framing their tariffs, accord
preferences to each other of their .own fi:ee wilL
Neither in the Dominions nor in the United Kingdom
has any recognized party advocated the transfer to
any central legislature of the ultimate power to
modify tariffs. It has long been the accepted policy
of the British Government to cancel any provisions
in treaties operating in restraint of the absolute
control of its own exports and imports accorded to
a Dominion Government. The principle that the
trade relations of self-governing communities must, in
the interests of all, be controlled by each for itself is
no longer in dispute, and it is safe to predict that it
never will be. What is now so clear was exceedingly
obscure in the middle of the eighteenth century,
before the experience which has made it obvious had
been gained. But if once there had been established
in America a Dominion authority competent to handle
the Indian and other intercolonial questions, it is not
too much to suppose that the absolute necessity of leav-
ing it to control the trade of America would in time
have been felt. To have effected the change would,
as- in the case of Canada, have required a struggle,
but it is at least possible that the struggle, as in
Canada, would have been bloodless and constitutional.
362
THE AMERICAK COLONIES
CHAP.
VI
The
creation
of an
American
legislature
through
the agency
of a repre-
sentative
Imperial
Parlia-
ment a
possible
expedient.
1764.
The
inclusion
of their
repre-
sentatives
in an
Imperial
Parlia-
ment
would in
time have
initiated
the
colonists
to the
wider
responsi-
bilities
of the
Common-
wealth.
It is idle to suggest that, had Grenville been
content to wait, the colonial assemblies would them-
selves have evolved a plan for an American Govern-
ment. Their reception of the Albany proposals and
their whole conduct in the two wars with France
and Britain point directly to the opposite conclusion.
The public opinion which eventually overruled them
and called into being the Government of the United
States was the fruit of a tremendous experience.
So also was the authority of ^ Washington, whose
patriotism public opinion had learned to trust.
Elective assemblies are as jealous of their own
personal authority as hereditary princes, for like
princes they are just creatures of clay. So long
as governments are composed of men, so long will
those men have interests of their own distinct from
those of the people they govern, and liable therefore
to deflect and narrow their judgment. To create
an American Government it would have been
necessary to evoke the legislative authority of the
Imperial Parliament, as urged by Franklin in 1754 ;
but a measure enacted with the approval of the
American representatives in that Parliament would
scarcely have led to armed resistance.
Gradually the habit would have been formed of
accepting the decisions of the Imperial legislature
as final, and the necessity of an Imperial legislature
would have been realized. With their representatives
in that body the colonists would have developed the
same sense of responsibility for the Commonwealth
as their fellow-citizens in the British Isles. The
duty of keeping the whole inviolate would have
become just as sacred in their eyes. Any policy
directed to that end would have been theirs no less
than that of the British people, and must inevitably
have associated them with the conduct of East Indian
affairs, always inseparable from that of foreign affairs.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 363
Thus they would have been brought with their fellow- chap.
citizens in Britain into touch with the widest of all
civilized functions, that of maintaining in contact
without conflict the East and the West. They would
then have shared in the titanic burden of holding
in equilibrium the diverse elements of the human
race.
On both sides of the Atlantic the theory that The offer
the schism of the Commonwealth was foreordained seDtetion
has acquired the authority of a creed. According to °^e/ded*no
historians the business of statesmen was to recognize wore© con-
this, and to have seen to it that the independence than
of America was consummated with bows instead of the^^
with blows. They are some of them concerned to J^^â„¢p^
J to enforce
adjudicate the exact measure of blame due to each taxation
for an issue less fertile in glory than in bloodshed repesent-
and bitterness. That task will not be attempted **^^'^'
here. What has been, has been, and God Himself
cannot change the past. But since to mere human
intelligence has been given the power to mould the
future, the purpose of the present inquiry is to
examine what dead men ought to have done, only
as a clue to discovering what living men, and men
yet to live, are called upon to do. This at least is
clear, that a policy of opportunism availed the
Commonwealth but little at the crisis of its fate.
No worse consequences could have befallen if Gren-
ville had had the genius to see that in such a crisis
the only safety lay in recognizing and applying the
principles vital to its existence. The only possible
path to a solution at once final and peaceful was to
persuade Parliament to open its doors to the colonists
before it attempted to assert its legal powers of taxa-
tion, and that path was never attempted. To have
done so, indeed, would have needed the genius of
a Pitt. Neither Grenville nor those who followed
him had that genius. They did not see, as English
364 TH£ AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, statesmen who faced and solved the Scottish problem
^^^..^^^^^^ in 1707 had seen, that a constitutional operation, an
act of political surgery, alone could avail to forestall
the bursting of blood-vessels, or the ultimate dis-
ruption of the body politic. Few in America and
scarcely any one in Britain realized that a crisis
impended, and the colonial assemblies having failed
to advance an alternative proposal, the Stamp Act
1764. was passed.
From that moment onwards the game was thrown
The stamp iuto the hauds of the small but ardent minority
gave^ ^^^ whose couscious purpose it was to destroy the authority
force to the ^^ *^® Imperial Government in America. If Hamp-
Revoiu- den was right in refusing to pay ship money, despite
secured the fact that the public safety demanded the main-
support of tenance of a navy, the Americans were right in resist-
WMhS^- ^^S ^^^ principle of the Stamp Act. The motive
ton. which actuated most of the colonists in their resist-
ance was, however, not the motive which actuated
Hampden. It was the reluctance of the colonists to
assume obligations which were really theirs, born of a
system which had never compelled them to see that
these burdens were not only theirs, but vital to their
existence. Under the commercial system the political
conscience of America had become dormant ; but it
was not dead, and it is hard indeed to imagine Wash-
ington and Hamilton and men like them, upon whom
the ultimate success of the movement depended,
justifying so sordid a motive for opposing the
Imperial Government. The Stamp Act elevated
what would otherwise have been the meanest of
causes almost into a religious duty. The colonists
would have been untrue to all that was best in their
English tradition had they admitted the principle
that a Parliament, while failing to open its doors to
them, could assert the right to be master of their
fate.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 365
One wholesome effect the Act had. For the first chap.
time it called into being a body which could in some s^.,.,,^.,,^
sort think even if it could not act for the colonies as The
a whole. Nine states sent representatives to a Con- congress^
gress at New York, which drew up the case for the J^l^^^^
colonies in a statement of marked ability. They wMthe
acknowledged not only that allegiance was due to the towards
Crown, but likewise 'all due subordination to that unity!^^
august body, the Parliament of Gt. Britain.' They 17^4
maintained, however, * that it is inseparably es^ential
to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right
of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them
but with their own consent, given personally or by
their representatives/ '
It was in the nature of things that assemblies so Methods
essentially local in their capacity as those of the the^ ^^
colonies should have attracted to their ranks a class co^itted
ofpoliticianespeciallyprone to particularism. The type j he major-
is seen at its best in the character of Samuel Adams, resistance.
* His strength lay in his vehemence, his total inability
to see more than one side of any question, and still
more in his subtle influence upon the Boston town
meeting, upon committees, and in private conclaves
. . . No view of the Revolution could be just which
does not recognize the fact that in no colony was
there a large majority in favor of resistance, and in
some the patriots were undoubtedly in a minority.
The movement, started by a few seceders, carried with
it a large body of men who were sincerely convinced
that the British government was tyrannical. The
majorities thus formed, silenced the minority, some-
times by mere intimidation, sometimes by ostracism,
often by flagrant violence. One kind of pressure was
felt by old George Watson of Plymouth, bending his
bald head over his cane as his neighbors one by one
left the church in which he sat, because they would
^ Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, voL iv. p. 80.
366 THE AMKRIGAN OOLONIBS
CHAP, not associate with a ''mandamus councillor." A
VI
— ^_ different argument was employed on Judge James
Smith of New York, in his coat of tar and feathers,
the central figure of a shameful procession.
' Another reason for the sudden strength shown by
the Revolutionary movement was that the patriots
were organized, and the friends of the established
government did not know their own strength. The
agent of British influence in almost every colony was
the governor. In 1775 the governors were all driven
out. There was no centre of resistance about which
the loyalists could gather. The patriots had seized
the reins of government before their opponents fairly
understood that they had been dropped.' ^
Anxiety Jcalousy of the Imperial authority was far more
t^t' intense in the asBemblies than amongst the people at
suppreae^ large, and the first and dearest concern of these poli-
deuiandB ticians was to scotch any movement, such as that
for repre- ^ «' '
sentation which Franklin and Otis had approved, towards
Imperial representation in the Imperial Parliament. Otis was
ment ^^^ ^f ^^^ three delegates sent by the Massachusetts
^^®^^ . Assembly to the Stamp Act Congress. But he was
success in •' ^ ^
doing 80. bound by their instructions ' not to urge or consent
to any proposal for any representation if such be
made in congress.' The destructive influence of
Samuel Adams had already prevailed against the con-
structive counsels of Otis, and indeed with Otis him-
self. The Stamp Act Congress endorsed the attitude
of the Massachusetts Assembly and declared * that the
people of these colonies are not, and from their local
circumstances cannot be represented in the House of
Commons in Great Britain.' The resolution was
repeated by the colonial assemblies like the chorus of
a Greek tragedy, to be iterated down the centuries
with the monotony of a parrot cry. Within three
years it was so generally admitted as an axiom that
1 Hart, FamuUian of the Union, 1750-^18^9, pp. 57, 64-6.
THE AMEEICAN COLONIES 367
the colonies could not be represented in London, that chap.
the Massachusetts Assembly were able to deduce the
desired conclusion that therefore Parliament could
not tax the Americans. Nay more, such taxation
without consent, * grievous as it is, would be prefer-
able to any representation that could be admitted for
them there.'
When the Albany Congress was convened on the 1754.
eve of the Seven Years' War, ministers had come British
within an ace of perceiving that an American Union SsjSred
was the key to the problem. The conceptions, how- c^^^ei-ciai
ever, which underlay the commercial system were system
iiTfc''i !•• 1 opposed to
strong enough to lead JDritisn statesmanship m the American
opposite direction. Its maxims, which taught that ^^^^^'
colonies were to be united to the mother country by a
mere calculation of convenience, pointed clearly to the
wisdom of keeping the colonies weakened by their
divisions and dependent on the sheltering arm of the
Imperial Government. Burke himself was unable to
escape the blighting influence of the prevalent creed ;
and, writing in 1769, he speaks of the Great Empire
which * we have to rule, composed of a vast mass of
heterogeneous governments ... all to be kept in
peace and out of conspiracy with one another, all to
be held in subordination to this country.' ^ On the
lips of Louis XIV. such words would have been
thoroughly appropriate, for to seek security in the
divisions of their subjects is a motive natural to
despots. From the rulers of a commonwealth such
language is a sign that they are getting adrift
of principles vital to its structure and growth. If
once their policy is vitiated by the fallacy that in-
terest rather than duty is to be relied upon as the
ultimate bond of society, their maxims and methods
will begin to resemble those of a despotism. From i763.
^ Burke, Observations on a late Fiiblicationj intituled^ the Present State of the
NcUion,
368 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, the close of the Seven Years' War the desire to
^^^^.^^^^^ keep colonies divided became the conscious motive
of British policy.
Loyalist As Hoticed already, the dogma that representation
inverting ^^ *h® colonics in the Imperial Parliament was physic-
into^T* ^^^y impossible had been accepted in America even by
American thosc who most dcsircd to avoid a rupture with
ment Britain. The depth and sincerity of their loyalty to
bySe *^^ Commonwealth prompted them, however, to
indiflFer- work at the eleventli hour for an American Union as
ence of
British the one chance of avoiding a rupture. The habit now
"JSte" formed of meeting in Congress was a step in that
Ameri^cM ^ direction, and Galloway, the loyalist leader, evolved
extremists, fche idea of converting Congress into an American
Government under a British Viceroy. The scheme
submitted by him to the first continental Congress in
1774. 1774 was closely modelled on that put forward in
Albany twenty years before, except that it explicitly
made the Acts of the American legislature subject to
endorsement by the British Parliament, an arrange-
ment which could scarcely have been maintained in
practice. It was this feature, perhaps, which facili-
tated its ultimate defeat at the hands of the extremists,
who, wanting not a settlement but a rupture with
Britain, were determined to frustrate Galloway's
proposal. In England opinion was at length develop-
ing in favour of such a plan as the one remaining
chance of avoiding a rupture, but it was not strong
enough to oblige ministers to support the loyalist
proposal. Congress received it favourably at first,
and referred it to a committee for report. The
opposition, however, led by representatives from
Massachusetts and Virginia, were able to secure, first,
the rescission of this ' formidable motion ' by a
small minority, and presently its erasure from the
minutes of the conference. The extremists had
defeated a proposal which might have rendered
THE AHEBIGAN (X>LONI£S 369
America governable within the limits of the British chap.
VI
Commonwealth. Whether her people were ultimately
to cut themselves off and to form an independent
state, or whether they were to shaire with those of
Britain the vast responsibilities which were crowding
upon the original Commonwealth, was a question
which, as in the case of the Dominions at the present
day, would then have been suspended for future solu-
tion. Galloway's motion would have disentangled
two interrelated but yet perfectly distinct problems,
that of the government of America and that of
America's connection with Britain. Its defeat left
them hopelessly mixed, and by securing its rejection
the extremists in America closed the last avenue by
which a peaceful and constitutional settlement might
have been reached. In Britain the statesmanship
which guided the destinies of the Commonwealth was
that of laths painted to look like steel, which resist
only to break, and break only to lacerate with
splinters the hands that press them. To them the
extremists in America owed their ultimate success in
overcoming the profound disinclination of the majority
to an armed conflict.
So feeble, indeed, was the executive machinery of To begin
the British Government that it was unable to collect colonists
the taxes imposed by the Stamp Act ' in the face of ^^^ ^^^^
*• , '' * supporters
opposition, and in 1766, Grenville having fallen, the inEngiand
Act was repealed. To save its face, however, Farlia- the
ment passed an Act declaring its own right to make ^t?on^®
laws binding the colonies. The real obiection to the ^^\,
. . •* Parliament
Stamp Act was, that it violated the principle that a is excluded
people fit to govern themselves must have a voice in the^nghT
all taxes levied upon them. But the opponents of twatfoâ„¢*^
the Act were faced by the fact that the colonies had i"^^?
under the commercial system always acquiesced in
the payment of taxes which, though insignificant in
amount, were imposed by a British Act of Parliament.
2 B
370 THE AMERIOAK OOLONISS
CHAP. With the instinct of their race to distmst principles
and rely on precedents, the opposition in Britain as
well as in America at first took their stand on the
ground that, while Parliament might regulate the
customs, inland revenue, as the Treasury would now
term it, was the preserve of the ' colonial assemblies.
Their champion in the House of Commons took his
stand upon distinctions which were no less artificial.
' Pitt, illogically and unscientifically, maintained that
Parliament's absolute legislative authority over the
colonies did not include the power of taxation.' * But
events were soon to teach both parties that either
Parliament or the colonial assemblies must be recog-
nized as absolute in America. It was not in the
nature of sovereignty that it could be divided
between them both.
Towns- Pitt's return to power in 1766 as Earl of Chatham
did not improve matters, since in 1767 he became too
raising ^j ^^ attend to business, and the reins of government
from the fell iQto the hands of Charles Townshend, the Chan-
o^terJS ^ cellor of the Exchequer. By this time the British
taxation. Qovemmcnt were in direct collision with two of the
^^^^' colonial assemblies over the Mutiny Act, which
required the colonists to furnish the English troops
with some of the first necessaries of life. Boston
disputed this obligation at every point, and New York
positively refused to obey. The ultimate issue, the
question where sovereignty lay, was rapidly being
forced to the front. Townshend determined to assert
the authority of the British Government in America,
and introduced a series of measures to give effect to
his policy. By one, the governor was forbidden to
give his sanction to any law passed by the New York
Assembly till the terms of the Mutiny Act had been
complied with in that colony. By another, a board of
commissioners was established in America with largely
1 Boer, Briti$h CoUmial Policy, 176Jhl765, p. 307.
hend's
proposals
for raisii
revenue
THB AMSRIGAN COLONIES 371
extended powers for administering the laws relating chap.
to trade. In Townshend's view the distinction ^^
between internal and external taxation, upon which
the colonies had laid such stress and which Chatham
himself had approved, was worthless. Townshend's
proposal, however, was to take the colonists at their
word and to raise the revenues necessary for colonial
defence by additional duties upon glass, red and white
lead, painters' colours, paper, and tea imported into
the colonies.
The Stamp Act was the first serious attempt by The prin-
Parliament to encroach upon the internal revenues ^vereignty
of which the colonists were accustomed to dispose ^e^^^er
for themselves through their own assemblies. Until to tax
I'll! •! reoognized
recent years the customs duties had been too easily and
and too freely evaded to be felt, and there was ^Tp^-
nothing to counteract the growth of l^e idea, which ^^^^
had long been a habit of mind with the colonists,
that no authority was entitled to tax them but the .
local assembly responsible to themselves. It is a
commonplace of history that the Crown, once de-
prived of the right to levy taxation without the
consent of Parliament, could not continue as the
mainspring of government. Sooner or later sove-
reignty must be recognized to have passed to the
organ wherein the actual power of taxation lies.
Parliament was now to learn the unpalatable truth
that the principle is no less true in the case of
assemblies than it had been in the case of monarchs.
But a few years of bitter experience were needed
to teach the Americans themselves that ' power with-
out revenue, in political society, is a name.*^ In
whatever organ of the state there exists an effective
power of taxation, there sovereignty will be found to
reside.
Townshend, recognizing the vital importance of
^ Alexander Hamilton, Works^ vol. i. p. 262.
372 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, the question at stake, resolved to put it to the test.
^^^^^.^^^^^ The revenue anticipated from the measures he pro-
Towns- posed amounted to less than £40,000 per annum,
r^oive to *i^d was to be employed in paying the salaries! of the
to^an '^^u governors and judges in America, the surplue, if any,
endorsed to ffo towards the cost of colonial defence. Certain
by Parlia-
ment. Tcmissions of duty were granted to the colonies at
Jf^Le^g-^ the same time. Townshend's policy was accepted by
ton the Parliament, and henceforward the real issue at stake
result. '
was whether the experience and will of its own
inhabitants or those of Britain were to determine the
destinies of America. The possibility that the safety
of Britain and America might still be treated as a
common interest to be controlled by the common will
of the inhabitants of both countries faded from the
1774. view of either party. On September 5, 1774, the
delegates of twelve colonial assemblies met in Con-
gress at Philadelphia. ^"Th« die is now cast, the
colonies must either submit or triumph," were the
1775. words of George III.' * On April 19, 1775, hostilities
broke out at the battle of Lexington. But it is an
error to suppose that the Americans were in any
sense united in opposition to the claims of Britain.
' The more closely the correspondence of the time is
examined the more evident it will appear that, in the
middle colonies at least, those who- really desired to
throw off the English rule were a small and not very
respectable minority. The great mass were indif-
ferent, half-hearted, engrossed with their private
interests or occupations, prepared to risk nothing till
they could clearly foresee the issue pf the contest.
In almost every part of the States — even in New
England itself- — ^there were large bodies of devoted
loyalists.' ^
^j^Lecky, History of £higland in the EighUenih Century^ vol. iv. p. 176. {
^ Ibid. pp. 380-1. On this wholejsubject see Note I at end of this chapter,
pp. 415-17.
THE â–²USRICAiK COLONICS 373
Fifteen months of civil war had elapsed before ohap.
OongresB could be brought to call on tke colonists ..^^^^^
to renounce for ever their citizenship in the British UnwiUmg-
Commonwealth. * Even after tke enlistment of c-^n^sts ^
foreign mercenaries by Grreat Britain, the diflGLculty ^gi^/u^^.
of carrying the Declaration was very great. As late pendence.
as March 1776, John Adams, who was the chief rendered
advocate of the measure, described the terror and STolSer^to
disgust with which it was regarded by a large section ^^jj^^^g®
of the Congress.'^ Itb leaders, however, now saw of France.
that without foreign support the colonies would
infallibly be crushed, and turned to their old enemy,
France. But France had no possible interest in
supporting them unitil they were pledged to the
dismemberment of the Briitish C!ommonwealth, and
on July 4, 1776, Congress nerved themselves to issue i776.
ihe Declaration of Independence.
The step was taken just in time to revive the -The
/»•!• • /•iiA • tj^ j_i success
laiimg energies of the Amerix^ans and to secure the t^the
active intervention of France, without which, as ^^Ty m^e
Lecky has shown, the revolt would have failed, possible
A large mmon,ty detested the revolution. A large help.
majority were perfectly indifferent to it, or were at
least unwiUing to make any sacrifice for it. Jealousies
and quarrels, insubordination and corruption, in-
ordinate pretensions and ungovernable rapacity
divided and weakened its supporters. The extreme
difficulty of inducing la sufficient number of soldiers
to enrol themselves in the army of Washington, the
difficulty of procuring cannon and gunpowder and
every kind of military stores, the want of woollen
clothes and of other important articles of European
commerce, the ruin, the impoverishment, and the
confusion that resulted from the enormous deprecia-
tion of the currency, and finally the impossibility
of paying for the essential services of the war, made
^ Lecky, History of England in the MghUen^ CtnUuryj toL iv. pp. 244-5.
374 THE AMKBIOAN COLONIES
CHAP, it probable that a peace party would soon gain the
ascendent, and that the colonies would soon be
reunited to the mother country.
* If America had been left unaided by Europe this
would probably have happened. A large proportion
of the States would almost certainly have dropped
off, and although the war might have been continued
for some time in New England and Virginia, it was
tolerably evident that even there no large amount
of gratuitous service or real self-sacrifice could be
expected. Washington himself at one time gravely
contemplated the possibility of being reduced to
carry on a guerilla warfare in the back settlements.
But at this most critical period foreign assistance came
in to help, and it is not too much to say that it was
the intervention of France that saved the cause.' ^
The iThe British Commonwealth was now divided against
Buprorted" ite^lfj fl'^d France saw her chance of perpetuating the
^France, division and of humbling her ancient rival in the
American dust. Congrcss, howevcr, had found the states scarcely
claim . 1. .'. ••<• ii
yielded by more generous m responding to its requisitions than
Bntam. j-j^^y ^iSi^ been in responding to those of the British
Grovemment. The resources of the Revolution were
almost exhausted when France, though still hesitating
to declare war, began to refresh them with secret
loans and volunteers. Burgoyne's surrender, however,
in October 1777 decided her, and in the beginning
1778. of 1778 she recognized the independence of North
America, and war W6U3 declared. The English Parlia-
ment endeavoured to compose the struggle by sur-
rendering everything for which they had contended.
An enactment was passed whereby England resigned
for ever the right to levy taxation in the colonies.^
The Americans, however, apart from their obligations
under the treaty with France, were now determined
' Lecky, History of England in the Mghteenth Century^ vol. iv. pp. 401-2.
^ See Note J at end of this chapter, p. 418.
THE AMERIOAN GOLOKIES 375
on independence. Attempts on the part of England ohap.
to prevent Europe from sending supplies to America ^^^^^..^^..^^
had led meanwhile to the armed neutrality of Den- Britain
mark, Sweden, Eussia, and Holland, and to open war ^iththe^
with Holland in 1780. * The aspect of affairs at the SS^^fi^y of
close of 1780 might indeed well have appalled an Europe
English statesman. Perfectly isolated in the world, America.
Engls^nd was confronted by the united arms of France, ence oftlie
Spain, Holland, and America; while the Northern g^^
league threatened her, if not with another war, at acknow-
least with the annihilation of her most powerful \fg^ "
weapon of offence. At the same time, in Hindostan, i780.
Hyder Ali was desolating the Camatic and menacing
Madras ; and in Ireland the connection was strained
to its utmost limit, and all real power had passed
into the hands of a volunteer force which was perfectly
independent of the Grovernment, and firmly resolved
to remodel the constitution. At home there was no
statesman in whom the country had any real con-
fidence, and the whole ministry was weak, discredited
and faint-hearted. Twelve millions had been added
this year to the national debt, and the elements of
disorder were so strong that London itself had been
for some days at the mercy of the mob-' ^
Opposed by a world in arms Britain lost control
of the sea, and in 1781 Cornwitllis surrendered to i78i.
Washington at Yorktown. All parties except the
King now recognized that further effort was useless,
and on November 30, 1782, provisional articles of
peace between England and the United States ended
the war by conceding the independence of the American
colonies.
According to the estimates of Lecky there were The claim
scarcely less than 100,000 loyalists expelled from the majority
colonies after the peace.^ The struffirle in fact had to remain
neutral.
^ Leoky, Hiitory of Ettgland in the Eighteenih Cmiury, vol. t. pp. 73-4.
^ Ibid. p. 208.
376 THE AMERICAN CX)L0NIE8
CHAP, assumed the character of a civil war between two
* VI
minorities, the one determined to destroy, the other
resolute to preserve the integrity of the Common-
wealth. The majority, especially of the native-bom
colonists, were not prepared to risk their lives or
property for either cause. They were to learn, how-
ever, that there are issues which do not admit of
evasion. ' In January (1778) Washington issued a
proclamation requiring those inhabitants who had
subscribed to Howe's declaration to come in within
thirty days and take the oath of allegiance to the
United States. If they failed to do so they were to
be treated as enemies. The measure was an eminently
proper one, and the proclamation was couched in the
most moderate language. It was impossible to permit
a large class of persons to exist on the theory that
they were peaceful American citizens and also subjects
of King George. The results of such conduct were
in every way perilous and intolerable, and Washington
was determined that he would divide the sheep from
the goats, and know whom he was defending and
whom attacking.' ^
Presently the British commander-in-chief followed
suit and issued proclamations which rendered neutrality
impossible.^ The attitude of most of the colonists
was purely negative. They did not see why they
should be called upon to pay taxes they had never
paid in the past, but questions of principle or
allegiance made no appeal to them. By neglecting
to ask their counsel and enlist their service the
Commonwealth had failed to develop in these citizens
any active aflFection towards itself On the other
hand, it had never oppressed them, ' for, as Moses Coit
Tylor has well said, the colonies **made their stand,
not against tyranny inflicted, but only against tyranny
^ Lodge, George WiUkvu^ton^ toL i. p. 183.
* Lecky, History of England in the EigJiteenth Century, vol. v. pp. 21-8.
THS AMSBIOAN OOLOIHES 377
anticipated." ' ^ Most men are wanting in the imagin- ohap.
ation required to make them risk their lives in a ,,^^^^^^,,^^
struggle against tyranny until they have actually felt
it. The one Government which really meant any-
thing to them was their own colonial assembly, to
which they sent members and to which they paid
their few taxes. But it was not imposing enough to
inspire the average colonist with the kind of devotion
which • makes a people spring to arms who have not
felt the sting of actual oppression. Their politicians
might talk of * these nations/ but some community
more truly national had to be created before the
patriotism of the average American could be called
into being. It was not surprising that the bulk of
the population should claim the right to stand aside
and leave the hotheads to settle such abstract ques-
tions for themselves. 'Why/ they may well have
asked, * should the question whether they were British
or American citizens be raised at all, or at any rate
allowed to disturb the peace ? If theorists must fight
over it, why should the sober and practical majority
be dragged into the struggle?' Whether their
allegiance was due to the British Commonwealth, or
to their colony, or to the United States of America,
were abstract questions which they saw no reason to
raise themselves, or to answer if raised by others.
They simply desired to be left alone.
Nothing is easier than for men to reason so who inexorable
have never been called upon to consider what is the of ti^
state to which their final allegiance is due. The ^
reasoning would be just if the state were as other
forms of association. It differs, however, from all of
them in this, that it puts no limit to the duty which
it may exact from each of its members. A common-
wealth no less than an autocracy is, in the last
^ Litertay HitUry of the Atn, Rev, i. p. 8, quoted by Beer, British
Colonial Policy, n6Jhl7ii6, p. 290.
378 THE AMERICAN OOLONIES
•
CHAP, analysis, despotic in its claims. It cannot undertake
s^,^.,^,.^^ to ask men whether they choose to enter or leave its
service, to keep or lose their wealth, their homes,
their wives, or their children, to live or to die. What
it claims from its members is no less than their all ;
and whenever two states strive for the mastery, that
claim will be made, and woe to the man who, when
called upon to answer two such claims, thinks to
evade both.
'Tis dangerous when the baser nature conies
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.
0'
No true citizenship is possible for men until they
have chosen the state to which they belong and know
what they choose, and for those who imagine that
they can sleep for ever without choosing a rude
awakening is in store.
NOTE A
INFLUENCE OF COMMERCIAL IDEAS ON COLONIAL POLICT IN
THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
Seepage 'Theory and policy are the direct result of fundamental
307. social conditions. The present colonial policy of Great Britain
is largely based on the avowed desirability of finding homes
within the Empire for British subjects, — "breathing spaces"
for an expanding population, whose offshoots would otherwise
be lost to the flag. This idea was alien to the spirit of the old
Empire. The eighteenth century colonies were not looked
upon as homes for a surplus population, simply because England
was not overpopulated. The small population of Great Britain
in comparison with that of her rival, France, emphasized the
need for an increase in numbersv Hence, emigration was not
encouraged, and there was no surer way to condemn a colony
than to show that it tended to diminish the population of the
mother country.^
^ See, e.g.y Political Considerations (2d ed. London, 1762), p. 52. This
pamphlet is attributed to James Marriott In the cases of Georgia and Nova
Scotia, military expediency outweighed this opposition, though in both
instances the philanthropic motive was also a factor, naturally more so, how-
ever, on the part of the individuals interested, such as Oglethorpe and Coram,
THE AMEBIOAK COLONIES 379
'Consequently colonies were esteemed in the main solely OHAP.
for commercial purposes. The ideal colony was »that which VI
furnished commodities which Great Britain could not herself
produce, and which did not in any way compete with the
industry of the mother country.^ In their economic pursuits,
mother country and colony were to be mutually complementary ;
the aim was to create self-sufficient commercial Empire, which,
while independent of competing European powers, would be
able to make them economically dependent on it. To this ideal
type of colony, the West Indies conformed more closely than
did the continental colonies, with the exception of Georgia, South
Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Newfoundland was merely
a fishing establishment, and was highly esteemed on account
of the fishery, which was a nursery of seamen, and hence a
source of naval strength. The North American colonies between
Maryland and Nova Scotia were not looked upon with favor,
as they cctmpeted with the metropolis in a number of industries,
especially in the production of food-stufiPs, in the fisheries, in the
ship-building and carrying-trades. At the same time, they had
but little to export to the mother country, which was still
largely agricultural. According to this theory of colonization,
the essential thing was that the colony produced commodities
that the mother country would otherwise have to buy from
foreigners. Hence greater stress was laid on colonies as sources
of supply, than as markets for British manufactures. The im-
portance of the colony as a market was not entirely ignored, but
was* regarded as the natural corollary to the more vital fact that
the colony furnished the mother country with raw materials not
produced in Great Britain or with tropical products,' *
than on the part of the government. In the ease of both these colonies, as
also in general in all the colonies, special efforts were made to build up their
population by encouraging immigration from continental Europe. See 6
Geo. II, 0. 25 § vii, and Declared Accounts, Audit Office, Bundle 2131,
Roll 2 : Sir J. Dick for transporting foreign Protestants from Holland to
Nova Scotia.
* Josiah Tucker, in one of his earlier books, "A Brief Essay on the
Advantages and Disadvantages whicU respectively attend France and Great
Britain with regard to Trade " (2d ed. London, 1750), pp. 92>95, supported
this view. To divert the colonies from manufacturing, he favored the policy
of encouraging them to produoe iron, naval stores, hemp, flax, silk, indigo,
etc See aUo The Laws and Policy of England Belating to Trade (London,
1765), pp. 33, 34, wherein it was held that colonies should produce com-
modities that England could not raise, such as silk, hemp, pitch, tar, rosin,
turpentine, masts, sugar, tobacco, cotton, rice, and indigo.
2 Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1764-1766, pp. 133-6.
380 THE AKERIGAK COLONIKS
CHAP.
VI , NOTE B
ATTITUDE OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES T0WA&D6 THE
NAVIGATION LAWS
See page ' This system, however, did not stand by itselly but was
^^' integrally connected with that of imperial defence. What
Patrick Henry called the "original compact between King and
people, stipuLe^ing protection on the one hand and obedience
on the other," was not a mere empty formula. The right of
the mother country to regulate imperial trade» and the general
manner in which this right was exercised, were justified in the
eyes of nearly all, whether British or colonial, by the fact that
through her navy Great Britain protected the colonies in peace
and in war. Thus, in 1756, in connection with a Massachusetts
law for enoouraging the manufacture of linen in that colony, the
Board of Trade wrote to Shirley : " The passing of Laws in
the Plantations for encouraging Manufactures, which any ways
interfere with the manufacture of this Kingdom, has always
been thought improper, & has ever been discouraged. The
great Expence, which this Country has been and is still at, for
the defence and Protection of the Colonies, while they on the
other hand contribute little or nothing to the Taxes with which
it is burthen'd, gives it a just Claim to restrain them in such
Attempts." ^ The same idea is also clearly expressed by Arthur
Dobbs, when writing to the Earl of Halifax that he would do
his utmost to stop " all such pernicious Illicite Trade Garryed
on ^ith foreigners to the prejudice of th^ British Trade with
these Colonies after the Immense Expence and Debt incurred
in defence of our Civil and Religious 'Rights and liberties and
future Safety of the Extensive British Empire on this Continent
and Islands : and therefore the Confinement of our Trade for
the benefit of Britain against foreigners is a Tribute we ought
to pay to our protectors." ^ As Dobbs was^an able student of
economic conditions, and as such had freely criticised on a
somewhat comprehensive scale certain features *of the systtton,
his statement is all the more significant.
* Thus the fact that the mother country afforded protection
gave an equitable basis to the colonial system, and justified it
in the eyes of those to whom otherwise it would have appeared
unfair to the colonies. During the eighteenth century, up to
the controversies at the beginning of the revolutionary move-
ment in 1764 and 176.5, the colonies made no complaint against
the trade laws as a whole. During these two generations there
were many acute political controversies, but this system did not
1 B. T. Mass. 84, p. 328.
« Jan. 14 1764. Am. and W.I. 214.
THB AMERICAN OOLONIBS 381
figure in them at all.^ The eolonial attitude is well represented OHAP.
by Franklin, who, in 1754, after enumerating solely those ^I
r^idations that restricted colonial trade, said : '^ These kind of
secondary taxes, however, we do not com|dain of, though we
have no share in the lajdng, or disposing of them/'' As
Franklin had an intellectual tendency toward those laissez /aire
ideas that two decades later were embodied in Adam Smith's
monumental work, this is certainly not a prejudiced statement.
Similarly, in 1764, James Otis, the leader of the revolutionary
movement in its earlier phases^ after calling attention to the
fact that the colonies were "confined in their imports and
exports, to the good of the metropolis," wrote : ^ Very well, we
have submitted to this. The act of navigation is a good act,
so are all that exclude foreign mamifactures from the plantations,
and every honest man will readily subscribe to them." ^
' It should be noted, however, that a Swedish scientist who
had tmvelled extensively in America, and had carefully observed
many matters of interest, stated that as a result of the pressure
of Uiis system, the colonies were less warm to the mother
country.^ This in itself would not be surprising, as communities
have always shown a tendency to dwell on the disadvantages
and to ignore the benefits invtiived in a system of this nature.
The accuracy of this observation is, however, open to question.
The validity of the general doctrine that the mother country
and not foreigners should supply the colonies, "provided the
Mother Country can & does supply her Plantations with as
much as they want" was admitted in 1762 by the Virginia
Committee of Correspondence in a letter to the eolonjr's agent in
London.^ Furthermore, men enjoying to the full the confidence
' Naturally, the Molasses Act, as in no sense an integral part of the
system, is excepted from this statement.
' Franklin, Writings III, p. 236.
' James Otis, The Rights of the British Oolonista Asserted and Proved
(Boston, 1764), pp. 54, 65. Cf. aJao pp. 58, 76.
* "Genom et 84dant tijckande sker, at Angelska Inwanarena uti Norra
America &ro mindre warme mot ait Moderland." Kalm, £n Eesa Til Norra
America (Stockholm, 1756) II, p. 871. As this passage, together with the
unhistorical habit of regarding past events from the vi&wpoint of a later age,
has furnished the basis for the cun-ent thesis that the old colonial system,
as it existed prior to 1768, was the fundamental cause of the American
Revolution, it is advisable to give the context. After the abore statement,
Kalm says: "This coldness is kept up by the many foreigners such as
OermanSf DtUeh^ and FreTieh settled here, and living among the English, who
commonly have no particular attachment to Old England ; add to this
Ukewisa that many people can never be contented with their possessions,
though they be ever so great, and will always be desirous of getting more,
and of ei\joying the pleasure which arises from changing ; and their over
great liberty, and their luxury often lead them to licentiousness. *' Travels
into North America (Warrington, 1770), II, pp. 264, 265.
* Va. Mag. XI, p. 137.
382 THE AMSRIOAN 00L0NIB8
CHAP, of the colonies, even farored a more restrictire sygtem than
VI was the prevailing one. In 1723, Francis Yonge, then the
agent for South Carolina, and four years prior thereto one of
the leaders of the revolution in that colony, presented a memorial
to the Board of Trade, in which he advocated a more stringent
regulation of colonial trade.^ Similarly, in 1755, William
BoUan, when agent for Massachusetts, presented to the Board of
Trade a detailed memorial on the legal defects in the acts of
trade, with a view to their remedy, and consequently a better
enforcement of the system as a whole. At the same time he
advised the placing of all kinds of colonial naval stores in the
"enumerated list"^ It is also not without some significance
that Bollan was appointed agent, though he had been the
prosecuting officer in the colonial Vice-Admiralty Court, and, as
such, had for years been engaged in punishing violations of
these laws.^ Similarly, James Otis resigned from this position
only at as late a date as 1761, in order to attack the use of
" writs of assistance." There seems to be no adequate reason for
rejecting Burke's view that during the eighteenth century, prior
to 1764, the attitude of the colonies toward the system was one
of acquiescence. " The act of navigation," he said, ^' attended the
colonies from their infancy, grew with their growth, and
strengthened with their strength. They were confirmed in
obedience to it, even more by usage than by law." ^
' It would even appear that instead of being a disintegrating
factor, the system of trade regulation tended to give greater
cohesion to the Empire. As has been pointed out, British
policy had never been consistently directed toward creating
a closely knit political empire. The aim was rather to create
a self -sufficient economic empire, and, in the main, this result
had been attained. The West Indian colonies were absolutely
dependent on the monopoly of the British markets that had been
accorded to them. Similarly, the prosperity of the continental
colonies depended, in varying degrees, on the one hand on the
British markets, or on the other hand on British colonial markets.
The least dependent colonies were those producing tobacco ; for
through the long period during which it had enjoyed a monopoly,
American tobacco had gained a firm hold on the British con-
sumer. Hence it is not surprising to find that at this time
there was some objection in Virginia to the " enumeration " of
its staple crop.^ South Carolina, though absolutely independent
1 B. T. So. Ca. 1 A 86.
' B. T. Mass. 74 Hh 51, 52 ; John Ohamberlayne, Magnee Britannitt
Notitia, part II, p. 59.
* Lords of the Admiralty to Sir Henry Penrice, April 19, 1742, ordering
the appointment of Bollan as advocate of the Vice -Admiralty Court in
Massachusetts. Adm. Sec. Out-Letters, 1054.
* Burke's Speeches (ed. 1816) I, p. 202. » Bumaby, op, ciL p. 56.
THE AMEBIC AK GOLOKIES 383
in 80 far as rice was concerned, relied upon the British bounties CHAP.
on nayal stores and indigo. North Carolina was similarly VI
affected by the premiums on tar and pitch. The middle colonies '— -^v^**^
and those of New England were especially dependent on those
other British colonies that in the event of political independence
would probably not throw in their lot with North America.
The fisheries, the lumber industry, the provision trade, demanded
free access to the British West Indies as well as to those of
foreign nations. Then, only because they were British colonies,
was the large trade to Newfoundland open to them. To some
degree also these colonies relied on the naval-store bounties.
In addition, the prosperity of their ship-building industry
depended to a great extent on the sale of vessels to Great
Britain, and on the large carrying-trade between various parts
of the Empire.' ^
NOTE C
TENDENCY OF ENGLISH STATESMEN TO DISCOURAGE THE
GROWTH OF NEW ENGLAND COLONIES
'In 1671, the Earl of Sandwich — one of the surviving Seepage
Cromwellian worthies — put in writing his opinion of the New 812.
England situation, which was based upon the many sources
of information open to him as President of the Council for
Plantations. New England was already at that date, he said,
a numerous and thriving people and in twenty years was likely
"to be mighty rich and powerfuU and not at all carefull of
theire dependance upon old England." As a result, England
was exposed to the following inconveniences : 1, the loss of
her exports of manufactures to these colonies — "possibly to
the value of £50,000 per ann. " — and moreover the likelihood
of their competing with England in the sale of such goods in
foreign markets; 2, the dependence of the West Indies upon
them for provisions and '^all wooden utensills," and the probability
that they would also furnish those islands with other manu-
factures "that we doe,'' and so "reape the whole benefitt of
those colonies ; " their control of the trade in masts and naval
stores in northern America, whose later development he foresaw.
Sahdwich realized that it was impossible "to prevent wholly
theire encrease and arrivall at this power," but he deemed it
"advisable to hinder theire growth as much as can be." With
this object in view, he suggested : I, the passage of an Act
of Parliament prohibiting emigration to the colonies without
license from the King — "at present 40 or 50 families or more
goinge yearely thither ; " 2, "to remoove as many people from
New England to our southern plantations as may be, where
1 Beer, British Cottmial Policy, 1764-1766, pp. 204-10.
384 THB AMERICAN OOLONHS
CHAP, the produce of theire labours will not be oanunodities of the
yi some nature with old England to out-trade us withalL"
* Thus, however significant from the standpoint of universal
history was the colonisation of New England, however vital
and fundamental a part it played in the transfer of European
civilisation to the American continent, these communities were
in the eyes of contemporary statesmen but the unfortunate
results of misdirected efforts, since in no way did they answer
t^e national ends of their creation. It would be difficult to
over- emphasise the influence of New England in the genesis
of the American Nation, but the Kngliidi government, when
directing the movement of colonization, did not aim to create
embryonic national states, but colonies of the plantation type
or trading and fishing stations, whose commercial and politiod
welfare would be intimately bound up with that of the
metropolis. That the outcome was far different from the one
contemplated is merely one of the innumerable historical instances
in which forces beyond the foresight of contemporaries in the
end turned their labors towards an entirely different result
It was the inexorable force <rf circumstances, not choice, that
first made England the *' Mother of Nations." The course of
events in Massachusetts was the most potent factor in forcing
this unwelcome rdia upon England.' ^
NOTE D
EVASION OF THE NAVIGATION ACTTS BY NSW ENGLAND
HBRGHANTS
See page 'On April 10, 1676, was read before the Lcnrds of Trade a
^^^' petition from the mercers and silk weavers of London, stating
that formerly large quantities of silks had been shij^ped from
England to the colonies, but that in recent years they had been
supplied by the New England traders with goods imported
directly from France, Italy, and other foreign countries, "so
that yo^ pet" send little or none thither, by meanes whereof
they are many of them totally ruined, others of them greatly
hurt, and most of them very much prejudiced.'' In addition
to this illegal importation of silks and stuffs, they asserted that
the New Englanders furnished the other colonies with brandy,
wine, oil, and other commodities, all of which by law ought to
be shipped from En^and and pay customs iSiere, and that the
total loss to the revenue on these accounts " would amount to
above sixty thousand pounds per Annum." ^
^ Beer, Tfie Old Colonial System^ Part I. vol. ii. pp. 233-5.
* C. O. 6/908, ff. 106-108 ; 0. 0. 1675-1676, pp. 874, 375. At thia time,
information was also received that the New ExigUnd traders were implicated
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 386
'Although grossly exaggerated, these statements demanded CHAP,
further inyestigation, and the Lords of Trade summoned before ^^
them a number of men qualified to give information, including
some who were to be found at the Exchange, " upon the New
England Walk.*'^ On their appearance before the Lords of
Trade, some of the New England merchants ''were shie to
unfold y? mistery thereof, others pretended Ignorance, but the
most of them declared plainly, how all sorts of goods growing
in his Ma^'f* other Plantations were brought to New England
on paym^ of y* duties payable by the Act for going from one
plantation to another." With these goods, and often also with
cargoes of logwood,^ they then sailed to all parts of Europe,
returning with merchandise to the colonies "without euer
calling at Old England, but when they thought iitt," so that
wines, brandies and other commodities were sold in the colonies
for one-fifth less than the English merchants trading according
to law could afibrd to furnish them. This, they claimed, would
entirely destroy England's trade to the colonies " and leave no
sort of dependancy in that place from hence." Thereupon the
Lords of Trade, thinking it "inconvenient to ravel into any
of the past miscarriages, but to prevent the mischief in the
future" resolved: 1, that all the colonial Governors should
be obliged to take the oaths to obey the Acts of Trade and
Navigation ; 2, that royal customs officials should be established
in New England as in the other colonies and, "in case of
refusall in them to admitt such Officers, that the rest of the
Plantations should be forbid to allowe them any liberty or
intercourse of Trade " ; 3, that the captains of the frigates of
the navy should be instructed to seize and bring in offenders
" that avoided to come and make their Entries here in England." '
But beyond preparing a new form of oath and taking steps to
see that it was administered to the royal Governors,^ nothing
further was done, presumably because it was thought advisable
to await the answer of Massachusetts to the royal letter and
Randolph's report on his mission.' '^
II I
in the illegal importation of tobacco into Ireland 'which was giving the
government so much trouble. Cal. Dom. 1676-1677, pp. 586, 587.
1 C. O. 1675-1676, p. 877.
' A month after this, Edward Gran field told the Lords of Trade that while
he was in America ''seventeen sail of New England ships with logwood were
bound to France whence they bring the commodities of that place to sell in
the West Indies." 0. 0. 1675-1676, p. 898.
» C. O. 5/908, ff. 108-110 ; C. 0. 1675-1676, pp. 879, 880. Of. ibid. pp.
156, 881.
< 0. O. 824/6, f. 53 ; No. Oa. Ool. Rec. I, pp. 227, 228 ; P. C. Cal, I, pp.
668, 664 ; C. 0. 1675-1676, pp. 385, 389, 890 ; Cal. Treas. Books, 1676-1679,
pp. 170, 227.
* Beer, Tlu Old Colonial SysUm, Part I. vol. ii. pp. 262-4.
20
386 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
^^^' NOTE E
DIFFICULTY OF OBTAINING CONVICTIONS FROM COLONIAL JURIES
FOR OFFENCES AGAINST THE NAVIGATION ACTS» AND
CONSEQUENT ESTABLISHMENT OF IMPERIAL COURTS OF
ADMIRALTY IN THE COLONIES
See page ' In general, the proBecuting officials greatly preferred to try
'^^^' seizures in the admiralty courts, as they were much more likely
to find for the Crown. In cases of this nature,^ they .acted
without juries, which in the common law courts were prone to
be over-lenient toward illegal traders. Some of the jurymen
might be engaged in the same devious pursuits. Moreover,
the social conscience of the colonies was apt to omit smuggling
from the list of the crimes. As a result, there was slowly
developing the opinion that^ in order to secure the effective
enforcement of the colonial system, it would be necessary to
establish admiralty courts in sdl the colonies and to give them
jurisdiction over all breaches of the laws of trade and naviga-
tion. In 16S0, Sir Henry Morgan^ sent the English govern-
ment the details of the trial by the Jamaica Admiralty Court
of a vessel condemned for evading the local revenue laws.
This verdict was complained of bitterly, and strenuous efforts
were being made to have it reversed in England.' Morgan
insisted that the trial had been conducted fairly, and added
that without the Admiralty Court ''the Acts of Navigation
cannot be enforced, for it is hard to find unbiassed juries in the
Plantations for such cases." As an example, he cited the case
of a vessel that had come directly from Ireland to Jamaica with
several casks of Irish soap, on account whereof it was seized.
The case was tried in the common law court, and the jury
brought in a verdict for the defendant on the evidence of one
witness, who testified under oath that soap was a foodstuff
upon which a man could live for a month and that, as it could
be considered under the category of provisions, it could legally
be imported directly from Ireland under the Staple Act of
^ In 1680, in connection with a trial in the Nevis Admiralty Court for
riot and murder at sea, the Governor, Sir William Stapleton, as Vice- Admiral,
appointed the Judges, the indictment was made by a grand jury, and the
prisoner was acquitted by a petty jury. C. 0. 155/1, flF. 1-28 ; 0. 0. 1677-
1680, pp. 570, 571.
^ He was Judge of the Jamaica Admiralty Court, but when, at this time,
as Deputy-Governor, he assumed charge of the government, he appointed
John White to preside in his place. C. C. 1675-1676, pp. 842-844 ; 0. 0.
1681-1685, pp. 5, 6.
» On this case, see 0. C. 1677-1680, pp. 343, 344, 487, 552, 667, 668, 681,
627, 631, 639 ; P. C. Cal. I, p. 864 ; Brit. Mus., Stowe MSB. 2724, ff. 198,
200 : C. 0. 138/3, f. 292.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 387
1663.^ When such fantastic fictions and tortuous evasions^ CHAP,
could impress a jury, it is not surprising that the imperial ^^^
officials placed greater reliance on the admiralty courts. It
was the futility of attempting to secure a verdict from, a jury
in even the clearest of cases that ultimately led to the extension
of the admiralty courts throughout all the colonies.
* The royal governors, in their position as vice-admirals, and
the courts established in virtue of the authority thus vested in
them were the direct agents of the English Admiralty in en-
forcing the laws of trade. In addition, as has been seen, the
Admiralty was represented in the colonies by the officers of
the men-of-war stationed there. Under the Navigation Act of
1660, it was their duty to seize unfree ships trading to the
colonies.^ Occasionally in the West Indies such seizures were
made by them,^ but no especial activity was displayed until the
'eighties, when the independent course of the New England
traders threatened to make ineffective the carefully devised
commercial code/ ^
NOTE F
CORRUPTION OF IMPERIAL CUSTOMS OFFICERS IN
THE COLONIES
'Instead of exacting the full duties under the law of 1733, Seepage
the officers of the customs frequently allowed the importation of
foreign West Indian products on the payment of small sums of
money which, it appears in some instances, they retained for their'
own uses. In 1763, in consequence of this abuse, such composi-
tions for duties were absolutely forbidden. In addition, in some
instances, the actual appointees to the positions in the customs
service remained in England, and delegated their functions to
^ 0. 0. 1677-1680, p. 487. •
^ In the case of the Eatery which was tried in 1686 in the Nevis Admiralty
Court for importing candles directly from Ireland, the defence claimed that
there was *'an adjudged Case in Jameco that Candles Should bee taken as
provision and the Ship Bringing them acquitted from her Seizure." C. 0.
1/57, 61 ; ibid, 1/68, 88 i.
' In 1668, the Council of Trade suggested, among other means for suppress- '
ing illegal trade, that directions be given to the ships of the navy and to
merchant vessels to arrest any ship trading to the colonies contrary to law.
After looking into the matter, the Privy Council (the King being present)
declared, early in 1669, that ' ' his Majestys Shippe Of Course " have such
oommisBions and that, if any merchant ships should desire them, ''upon
giueing Security (with other usuall formalityes)," the Duke of York was
authorized to grant them. C. C. 1661-1668, no. 1884 ; ilnd. 1669-1674, p. 6 ;
P. C. Cal. I, p. 501.
* See, e.g,, 0. C. 1669-1674, p. 233.
^ Beer, The Old Colonial Sy^em, Part 1. vol. i. pp. 306-8.
388 THE AMERIOAK COLOKIES
CHAP, deputies. The Board of Trade had in vain striven against this
VI vicious system. As the salaries of the customs officers were in
"^-^ ^v^-^ themselves small, and as they were still further reduced by this
practice, some of them yielded to the temptation of augmenting
their income by corrupt means. ^ Thus a number of posts in
the service had become sinecures. The Commissioners of the
Customs reported that this was one reason for the small
revenue arising in the colonies.' '
NOTE G
See page [Once again- the indebtedness of the readers of this inquiry should
318. be expressed to Mr. Q. L. Beer and his publishers for their courtesy in
allowing Chapters V. and VI. of BrUM Colonial PoUey, 1754-1765,.
to be appended in full, together with the notes and references.]
SUPPLY OF PROVISIONS TO THE FRENCH DURING WAR FROM
THE ENGLISH COLONIES
Chap. V. * While events during the war were demonstrating the
necessity of a more efficient system of defence, the trade of
the colonies with the enemy directed attention to defects in
the administration of the laws of trade and to the necessity of
reforms therein. In accordance with the clearly defined and
unequivocal principle of British law, all commercial intercourse
with the enemy was absolutely prohibited in time of war.^
* On Sept. 17, 1763, Hutchinson wrote to Richard Jackson: "The real
cause of the Illicit trade in this province has been the indulgence of the
officers of the customs, and we are told that the cause of their indulgence has
been that they are quart-ered upon for more than their legal fees, and that
without bribery and cdrruption they must starve." Quinoy, op, eU. p. 480.
Similarly, in 1764, James Otis wrote : *' With regard to a few Dutch imports
that have made such a noise, the truth is, very little has been or could be
run, before the apparatus of guardshipe ; for the officers of some ports did
their duty, while others may have made a monopoly of smuggling, for a few
of their friends, who probably paid them lai^ contributions ; for it has been
observed, that a very small office in the customs in America has raised a man
a fortune sooner than a Government. The truth is, the acts of trade have
been too often evaded ; but by whom ? Not by the American merchants in
general, but by some former custom-house officers, their frieinds and partizans. "
The Rights of the British Colonists Asserted and Proved (Boston, 1764), p. 58.
In estimating the value of this statement, the controversial character of the
pamphlet should be taken into account. Similarly, in 1764, an anonymous
pamphleteer said that the Molasses Act had demoralized the custom -house
officials, who *'made a very lucrative jobb of shutting their eyes, or at least of
opening them no farther than their own private interest required." An Essay
on the Trade of the Northern Colonies (London, 1764), p. 20. See also Howard,
A Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax, Newport, 1766.
» Beer, BrUish Colonial Policy, 1754-1766, pp. 281-2.
' In 1799, in the case of the "Hoop," Sir William Scott, later Lord
StoweU, said : ' ' There exists such a general rule in the maritime jurisprudence
THE AMEBICAH COLONIES 389
Naturally great difficulty has always been encountered in en- CHAP,
forcing sucb a prohibition, especially when the belligerents VI
are mutually dependent in their economic interests.^
* Throughout the eighteenth century, the British government'
had found it almost impossible to prevent the English colonies
from trading with the temporary enemy in America. In the
War of the Spanish Succession, a large trade was carried on
Mrith the French and Spanish colonies.^ The trade with Spanish
America was found so profitable to the Dutch allies that, owing
to the pressure of the English mercantile classes. Great Britain
was obliged to legalize it under certain limitations, though not
waiving the principle involved.^ In the War of the Austrian
Succession, the commercial relations of the British colonies with
the French West Indies^ were of so extensive a nature, that
Admiral Knowles declared they had resulted in the failure of
English naval operations in the Caribbean Sea.^
' The difficulty of putting a stop to this intercourse arose, in
great degree, from the economic relations existing between the
French West Indies and the British continental colonies. The
French islands were not self-sustaining; they devoted their
energies to the production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and similar
commodities, and imported a large proportion of their food-stuffs
from the British colonies. Similarly, French Cape Breton
depended to some extent also on the English colonies. At the
same time, Ireland was a large exporter of provisions, especially
of pork and beef, and it was with supplies purchased in this
market that French fleets and armies were in part at least pro-
visioned and the West Indies fed. Thus two great sources of
of this country, by which all trading with the public enemy, unless with the
permission of the sovereign, is inteixlicted." Robinson (Philadelphia, 1800)
I, p. 167, and J. B. Scott, Cases on International Law, pp. 521, 522. See
F. de Martens, Traits de Droit International (trans, by A. Ldo) III, pp. 200,
201 ; T. A. Walker, A Manual of Public International Law, p. 121.
^ Even in so bitter a struggle as the American Civil War, there was
considerable trade between the belligerents. J. C. Schwab, The Confederate
States of America, pp. 259-266 ; J. F. Rhodes, History of United States, III,
pp. 649, 650 ; V, pp. 274, 275.
'â– ^ O/.f e.g.f Instructions to the colonial governors. May 2, 1710, and
Sunderland to Hunter, May 9, 1710. Am. and W.I. 886.
' Nottingham to the colonial governors, Feb. 23, 1704, and to Board of
Trade, Feb. 24, 1704. Am. and W.I. 385. C/. Am. and W.I. 1 paasim, and
Ibid, 6, no. 10. See also 6 Anne c. 87, § xvii.
* Cf, Am. and W.I. 2, no. 890 ; Ibid, 14, no. 85.
^ At a hearing before the Board of Trade on Dec. 6, 1750, Admiral Knowles
said: "Every Captain of his Squadron knows that these North American
Vessels supplied the French with provisions otherwise he shoiUd certainly have
taken Martinique. " At one time, he said, there were at Hispaniola 42 British
colonial veaaels "with fictitious Flags of Truce." B. T. Journals 58. See
also B. T. Plant Gen. 16 P 18.
390 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, proviaions, on which France depended, were in British hands.
VI At the outbreak of difficulties with France in 1754, the British
government clearly recognized the immense advantage arising
therefrom. Without Irish and American provisions, the French
West Indies would suffer severely, and at the same time, France
would be unable to refit her men-of-war in America and under-
take privateering expeditions. It is interesting and important
to see how Great Britain used this economic weapon against the
French, and to what extent the colonies aided or hampered the
policy adopted by the mother country.
* Early in 1755, Dinwiddle wrote from Virginia to the Board
of Trade that the French forces in Canada were chiefly supplied
from Pennsylvania, New York, and the Northern colonies ; that
flour, beef, pork, and other provisions were taken to Cape
Breton, where they were exchanged for French rum, sugar,
and molasses. From Louisburg these provisions were sent to
Quebec, and thence to the Ohio Valley. He suggested as a
remedy for this "unjustifiable trade," which supported the
French Ohio expedition, that colonial provisions be put in the
" enumerated list," thus prohibiting their exportation to foreign
parts, and also that Irish provisions be placed under the same
regulations. Such steps, he pointed out, would paralyze the
military schemes of the French and would prevent their fitting
out a fleet.^ At the meeting of the Board of Trade on Aprfl 9,
1755, this letter from Dinwiddie was read.^ War with France
had, however, not yet been declared, and consequently this
trade could not be stopped on the principle of no trade with
the enemy. On the other hand, the Board of Trade had always
questioned the legality of any trade whatsoever between the
English and French colonies in America. In 1717 ^ it had sent
a circular instruction to the colonial governors to prohibit all
trade with the French settlements, as contrary to the Treaty
of Neutrality of 1686 between France and England.* This
treaty guaranteed to each power an exclusive trade with its
colonies, and allowed the French and English Crowns respectively
to seize ships of the other nation attempting to invade this
monopoly. The Board of Trade's interpretation of the treaty
was clearly an untenable one, and although it had led to some
difficulties, chiefly in the Bermudas,^ it had not been insisted
* B. T. Va. 25 W 183. See also Dinwiddie to Secretary Robinson, Jan. 20,
1755. Am. and W.I. 68. This is confirmed by DeLancey, Aug. 9, 1755.
B. T. N.Y. .32 Kk 62. '^ B. T. Journals 63.
» B. T. Bermuda 32, p. 830. Cf. B. T. N.J. 13, p. 447.
* This regulation was incorporated in the voliuninous instructions given
to the governors. See, e.g.^ Instructions to (rovemor John Hart, 1721, § 94.
B. T. Leeward Isles 63, p. 70.
^ B. T. Bermuda 12 L 12, 13, 15 et passim; Am. and AV.I. 49, nos. 179,
184, 273, 278 ; Ibid. vol. 620.
THE AMEBIGAK COLONIES 391
apon.^ On receipt of Dinwiddie's despatch, the Lords of Trade CHAP.
again reirerted to this interpretation of the treaty of 1686, but VI
as they were in doubt^ the opinion of William Murray,^ the
attorney-general, was asked. He correctly said, that "it was
not the Intent of the Treaty to provide, nor could it be provided,
that either of the Contracting Powers should seize the Ships or
Goods of their own Subjects for contravening the said articles,"
and that consequently the trade in question was not illegal and
could not be stopped except by some positive law.^ Hence,
until the outbreak of formal war with France, when the
prohibition of all trade with the enemy would automatically
take effect, or until -Parliament had passed some law governing
the matter, nothing could be done to prevent a patently injurious
commerce, unless the colonies of their own accord legislated
against it, or unless recourse were had to arbitrary military
authority.
'Already toward the end of 1754, the naval and military
commanders had been instructed to put a stop to " the illegal
correspondence'' between the French and English colonies, to
prevent such " dangerous Practices," which supplied the French
with provisions and warlike stores.^ These instructions were
enforced,^ and were renewed the following year a few days after
Murray had given his opinion that the trade was not illegal.
Boflcawen received orders to prevent this trade,^ and the secretary
of state wrote to Braddock to observe particularly this clause
in his instructions, especiaUy as regards the inhabitants of
Pennsylvania and New York who were reported to be ''most
notoriously guilty of supplying the French with Provisions."^
The illegality of these instructions is obvious, as no formal war
existed and as no British law prohibited this trade. This step,
however, aroused no opposition, since nearly all the colonies,
largely on their own initiative, had themselves adopted measures
to prevent the French from being supplied with provisions.
' A cessation of trade with the French unquestionably meant
a great sacrifice on the part, of the colonies, but on the other
hand they recognized that France hemmed them in, and that
^ In very many documents this trade is roferred to as illegal, thus increasing
the number of undifferentiated references to illegal trade, and further adding
to.the difficulty of estimating the extent of the violations of the laws of trade
and navigation. ' Better known as Lord Mansfield.
' B. T. Journals 63, April 11, 1755.
* Commodore KeppeVs Instructions, Nov. 26, 1754, and Art. 10 of
Braddook's Instructions. Am. and W. I. 74.
^ B. T. Nova Scotia 15 H 257 gives a detailed and interesting account of
the seizure of a Boston vessel by a man-of-war for illicit trade with the French
at Louisburg in 1754.
* Art. 8 of the secret instructions to Boscawen, April 16, 1755. Am. and
W.I. 74.
7 Sir Thomas Robinson to Braddock, April 16, 1755. ibid.
392
THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP.
VI
their expansion westward was contingent on the expulsion of
this power from America. It was patent that while the sale
of provisioi;is to Canada enriched some individuals and the
colonies as a whole, it tended in the end to their destruction.
If on the one hand the sacrifice demanded was greats on the
other still greater was the danger in strengthening to any degree
whatsoever the position of France. Accordingly, the colonies,
to a large extent on their own initiative, adopted measures to
prevent the exportation of supplies and warlike stores to the
French. In 1755, Dinwiddie laid an emhargo on provisions in
Virginia, solely as an example to the other colonies, no supplies
being exported from that colony to the French.^ Similarly, in
the same year, Pennsylvania prohibited the sailing of any vessel
with provisions unless bond had been given to carry them to a
British port.^ Massachusetts likewise passed several acts of this
nature.* In 1755, New York interdicted the exportation of
provisions, naval or warlike stores to Cape Breton or to any
other French possession,^ and Maryland passed a law forbidding
all trade with the French and their allies.^ These and other
colonial laws, together with the embargo that was laid in Ireland,
Shirley wrote, ^ have greatly distress'd the French at Louisbourg,
& the Effects must be soon felt in all their Settlements in North
America.'' ®
'In the following year, on the declaration of war with
France, all trade with the French colonies became by this
very fact illegal, and ships engaged therein were, together
with their cargoes, liable to seizure and confiscation. In
June, 1756, full instructions to this effect were sent to the
colonies."^ As pointed out, a number of them had already
passed laws forbidding this trade; these laws were con-
tinued and strengthened, and in general similar measures were
adopted by the other colonies.^ By a perpetual law. New
1 B. T. Va. 26 W 170. « B. T. ProprietiM 19 V 156.
' Mass. Laws, 18 Geo. II, c. 3, c. 4, and c. 8 in B. T. Masa 74. See also
Mass. Acta and Resolves. * B. T. N.Y. 82 Kk 62.
• Sharpe to Henry Fox, July 17, 1766. Am. and W.I. 70.
> Shirley to Robinson, June 20, 1766. Am. and W.I. 68. This is con-
firmed by DeLancey. B. T. N.Y. 32 Kk 62. See also Shirley to Robinson,
Aug. 15, 1766. Am. and W.I. 82.
7 B. T. Journals 64, May 20 and June 1, 1766 ; B. T. Plant. Gen. 16 O
146.
« B. T. Journals 64, Aug. 5, 1756 ; Dobbs to Henry Fox, July 12, 1756.
Am. and W.I. 70 ; Fitch to Henry Fox, Sept. 29, 1756. Ibid. ; B. T. Journals
67, p. 86. On March 13, 1756, Henry Fox addressed a circular letter to the
colonial governors stating that *Hhe King would have you recommend it in
the strongest manner to your Council and Assembly, to pass effectual Laws
for prohibiting all Trade and Commerce with the French, and for preventing
the Exportation of Provisions of all kinds to any of their Islands or Colonies. "
N.J. Col. Doo. VIII, Part II, p}). 211, 212 ; N.Y. Col. Doc. VII, p. 76.
THE AMBBICAN COLONIES 393
Hampshire imposed a death penalty on all guilty of trading cHAP.
with the French.! VI
^ The prohibition of all direct trade with the French could not,
however, give Oreat Britain any marked advantage over the
enemy, as provisions could still be legally shipped from Ireland
and from the American colonies to the islands of the neutral
powers in the West Indies, whence they could be transported to
the French colonies. This trade centred in the Dutch commercial
emporia, Cura^oa and St. Eustatius, and tended to neutralize
the advantage derived from the control of the sources of supply
in Ireland and America. Connecticut officially informed the
secretary of state that it was probable the French would be
supplied from Ireland by way of St. Eustatius.^ The governor
of New York, Sir Charles Hardy, gave more specific information
regarding this trade,^ and at the same time sought to induce the
neighboring colonies to desist from engaging therein. He took
measures to prevent the direct or indirect exportation of pro-
visions and warlike stores from New York to the French, but he
was unable to persuade the governors of the other colonies to
adopt the same expedients. This, as he pointed out, was fatal
to lus purpose, for it was useless to enforce such a prohibition in
New York if its neighbors were not placed under the same
restrictions.^ This vitally important question seriously engaged
the attention of the British government.^ On receipt of the
information, the Board of Trade imparted it to the secretary of
state.^ The Lords of the Admiralty also wrote to Fox that
preparations were being made to ship large quantities of supplies
from Ireland to France in neutral ships in order to provision
her navy and the French West Indies, and they suggested as
a remedy that an embargo be laid in Ireland.^ The military
situation was a most critical one, and the government could not
afford to abandon any advantage that Great Britain had in the
* B. T. New Hampahire 4 C 8. Of, Wentworth to Fox, Sept. 2, 1766.
Am. and W.I. 70 and B. T. New Hampshire 3 B 86.
« Fitch to Fox, Sept 29, 1756. Am. and W.I. 70.
» B. T. Journals 64, Aug. 6, 1756.
< Hardy, Oct. 13, 1756. B. T. N.Y. 83 LI 66. Cf, also Fox to Hardy,
Aug. 14, 1756. Am. and W.I. 76. » B. T. N.Y. 88 LI 55.
« Board of Trade to Henry Fox, Aug. 5, 1766. B. T. Plant Gen. 15 O
143. Ou Aug. 14, 1756, Henry Fox wrote to Hardy that the shipping of
provisions from Ireland to the Dutch West Indies, to which Hardy had called
attention, would be looked into, and would be discouraged as much as was
ixwsible, but that it would be difficult to act in this ])articular, "and perhaps
be found impracticable.'* Am. and W.I. 75.
^ Admiralty to Henry Fox, Sept 16, 1756 : In order that this measure
may be attended with as little inconvenience as is possible, "we humbly
propose that the king will allow us to direct the commissioners for victualling
to contract in Ireland for provisions for victualling the fleet in the Mediter-
ranean." B. T. Pbnt Gen. 15 O 143.
394 THE AMERICAN OOLONIES
CHAP, struggle with France. The expressed intention of the govern-
VI ment was to distress '* the French, particularly in North America
by a Want of Provisions " ; ^ in order to attain this end, the ex-
portation of provisions from Ireland and the American colonies
to the Dutch possessions in the West Indies had to be stopped.
Accordingly, Fox instructed the Duke of Devonshire, then
Lord-Lieutenaut of Ireland, to lay an embargo on all ships and
vessels bound with provisions from Ireland to neutral ports, and
at the same time he forwarded to the Commissioners of Trade
the king's commands that they should send similar instructions
to the colonial governors in America.^ On October 9, 1756,
the Board of Trade sent a circular letter to the colonial
governors instructing them to lay an embargo on all ships and
vessels clearing with provisions from any place in the colonies,
unless they were bound for some British colony. In that case
bonds were to be demanded obligating these vessels to go to the
destination indicated in their papers.^ This action supplemented
that of the commander-in-chief in America, Loudoun, who had
already, on August 20, 1756, written to the colonial governors
requiring them '4n Consequence of his Majesty's Positive Orders''
to prohibit the exportation of provisions, because the French
might be supplied thereby, and because, in addition, the possibly
ensuing scarcity on the continent might hamper British military
operations.^
' These instructions received the cordial support of a number
of the colonies. Connecticut had, even before the receipt of the
Board of Trade's letter, passed an act obliging all masters of
vessels to give bond not to land provisions except in a British
port, and had in addition laid an embargo on all shipping in that
province.^ The colonies were, however, not a unit in obeying
these orders. Thus, despite the protest of the governor, the
Pennsylvania legislature adhered to a bill ** confining the
Restraint & Prohibition to America only, leaving Vessels at
Liberty to sail to any Neutral Ports in Europe."* Violations
of the instructions were frequent, and as in addition the
embargo in Ireland was not effective,^ the French continued
> Henry Fox to the Board of Trade, Oct. 2, 1766. B. T. Plant. Gen. 15
144.
« B. T. Plant. Gen. 15 143 ; B. T. Journals 64, Oct. 1 and 8, 1756.
* B. T. Plant Gen. 44, p. 128. * Am. and W.I. 88.
* B. T. Prop. 20 W 2. For the attitude of Maryland, see B. T. Prop. 19
V 195 ; for New York, B. T. N.Y. 33 LI 83, and B. T. Journals 65, Feb. 15,
1757 ;. for New Hampshire, B. T. N.H. 8 B 86 ; for Massachusetts, Spenoer
Phips to Henry Fox, Dec. 21, 1756. Am. and W.I. 70.
* William Denny to Thomas Penn, AprU 8, 1757. Am. and W.I. 71. See
also B. T. Prop. 20 W 8. The assembly claimed that a cessation of this
trade would ruin Pennsylvania.
^ On July 20, 1757, Admiral Frankland wrote to Governor Thomas of the
Leeward Islands : " It is Notorious that in the last Cork Fleet £ight Vessels
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 395
to be supplied with food-stuffs. Thus, in the summer of 1757, CHAP,
there was a scarcity of provisions in the Leeward Islands, due VI
on the one hand to the embargo in the continental colonies,
and on the other to the fact that these colonies had sold
their supplies to the French by way of St. £ustatiQs.^ Hardy
reported that a cargo of flour and provisions was shipped from
Antigua to Cura^oa, the flour being concealed in claret casks.^
Such violations were, however, more frequent in. the continental
colonies.^ Rhode Island especially paid no respect to the orders
from England.^ Loudoun wrote to Pitt that the traders in this
colony were '* a lawless set of smuglers, who continually Suply
the Enemy with what Provisions they want, and bring back
their Goods in Barter ior them." ^
*The Board of Trade had evidently anticipated that these
instructions, even though issued expressly on the authority
of the Crown, would not be sufficient At their meeting on
January 12, 1757, the Commissioners discussed this matter,
and agreed on the necessity of an act of Parliament that
should prohibit the exportation of all food- stuffs (except fish
and rice) from the British colonies in America.® James Oswald,
a member of the Board and also of Parliament, was instructed
to bring this matter to the attention of the House of Commons.^
The suggestion met with the approval of Parliament, which in
1757 passed an act prohibiting, during the war with France,
the exportation of all provisions (except fish and roots, and rice
under the already existing restrictions)^ from the colonies to
any place but Great Britain, Ireland, or some British colony.
Laden with ProviBioDB dropped the Convoy and went into that Island (St.
fiuBtatins) for the Fi'cnch Market" B. T. Leeward Isles 82 Gc 6.
> Ibid.
« Sir Charles Hardy to Pitt, March 11, 1757. Am. and W.L 71. See also
B. T. Journals 86, April 20, 1757, and B. T. N.Y. 33 LI 97.
» Hardy to Board of Trade, June 14, 1767. B. T. N.Y. 34 Mm 8. See
also affidavits. Ibid. Mm 9-12.
* DeLancey to Board of Trade, June 8, 1767. Jbid. Mm 8.
» May 30, 1757. Am. and W.I. 86.
' The subject was naturally considered of utmost importance. Thus, on
Feb. 4, 1757, the Board of Trade wrote to Charles Pinfold, the governor of
Barbados : ''The opportunity, which the Enemy has had in time of War in
supplying themselves with Provisions by means of the Trade carried on in
that Article from Ireland and our Colonys to the Dutch, and other neutral
settlements, has long been the subject of much complaint and the source of
great Mischief and Inconvenience, to remedy which a Bill is now under the
Consideration of Parliament, which We hope will prove effectual" B. T.
Barbados 55, p. 311. The various militaiy commanders were careftilly
instructed to carry oat this policy. See, e.g.y § 6 of draft instructions to
James Abercromby, Dec. 80, 1767. Am. and W.I. 76.
' B. T. Journals 66, Jan. 12, 1757.
* Rice could be exported directly only to Great Britain and her colonies
and to ports in Europe south of Cape Finisterre.
396 THE AMERICAN OaLONIBS
CHAT. The penalties for vioUting this law were oonfiscation of the
VI ship and cargo, heavj fines, and also possible impiisoument for
the master of the ship.^
' In order to make this policy of distressing the French m<Mre
effective, Parliament in the same session also prohibited for a
limited time the exportation of grain ^ and its manufactured
products from Great Britain and Ireland except to the British
colonies.^ This restraint on the £nglish producer did not, how-
ever, imply the same economic sacrifice as did that laid on the
colonies, because England was becoming a less and less important
factor in the grain export trade. In fiict. Parliament^ at this
very time sought even to encourage the importation of food-stuffs
into Great Britain.
' In addition to the general rule forbidding all trade with the
enemy and the act of Parliament of 1757 forbidding the exporta-
tion of food-stuffs from the colonies to foreign ports, temporary
general embargoes were at various times laid in the colonies,
partly with the object of preventing the French from being
supplied, and partly for military purposes. In 1757 Loudoun
laid such an embargo, which, however, had to be raised on
account of the failure of the crops in Great Britain and Ireland,
and the consequent need of provisions there.^ The follow-
ing year also, Abercromby, acting on instructions from Pitt,
^ A fine of twenty shillings for every bushel of grain and every pound of beef,
pork, and other victual, 'Mvhioh said penalties and forfeitures shall be re-
covered in the high court of admiraltyi or any other chief court of civil or
criminal jurisdiction, in such respective colonies or plantations." The master
knowingly guilty could bo imprisoned for three month& Bonds had to be
given, in treble the value of the cargo, that it would be taken to its declared
destination. 30 Geo. II, c. 9. As England was anxious to secure the
neutrality of Spain during the war, on Aug. 9, 1757, an order in council
was Issued allowing the inhabitants of New York, during the Crown's
pleasure, to export provisions to St. Augustine. B. T. Journals 66, Nov. 3,
1758.
^ Corn, malt, meat, flour, bread, biscuit, and starch.
^ 30 Geo. II, c. 1, continued to Dec. 24, 1768 by 31 Geo. II, c. 1.
^ 30 Geo. II, c. 7, continued to Dec. 24, 1758 by 81 Geo. II, c. 1. See
also 30 Geo. II, c. 14. The import duties on com and flour were discontinued
for a limited time ; in addition the Navigation Act was relaxed, allowing com
to be imported in neutral ships. 30 Greo. II, o. 9, § xiv ; B. T. Plant. Gen. 44,
p. 180 ; B. T. Journals 65, March 2, 1757.
° Holdemesse to Loudoun and to colonial governors, both May 2, 1757.
Am. and W.I. 75 ; N.J. Col. Doc. VIII, Part II, p. 248. In future such em-
bargoes were not to apply to ships bound for Great Britain and Ireland.
Eight sliips of Snell k, Go. had been held at New York and Philadelphia, and
were not allowed to proceed to Ireland with their cargoes of wheat and flour.
B. T. Plant. Gen. 44, p. 184 and Drid. 15 O 153. This embai^ was laid
by Loudoun mainly with the object of obtaining suflicient transports to move
his troops to Halifax. Sir Charles Hardy to John Clevland, May 3, 1757.
Adm. Sec. In-Letters, Bundle 481.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 397
adopted the same expedient, preparatory to the Louiaburg OHAP.
expedition.^ VI
* Aa the act of Parliament of 1757 did not prohibit the ex- ^— v-^i*-^
portation of beef and pork from Irehrnd to neutral porte, and
as these were the chief food-stuffs in that kingdom, at vaiious
times also recourse was taken to embargoes there.^
' These various measures to prevent France from getting chap. Y I.
Irish and American provisions were by no means fully effective. See page
In 1757, a number of vessels th&t had sailed from Ireland with ^^^'
provisions for the West Indies parted from the convoy, and
took a large quantity of beef to St. Eustatius. This was
immediately sent to the French in Martinique and Santo
Domingo, and enabled them to fit out their vessels.^ In 1758
it was stated that no less than fifty to sixty thousand barrels of
provisions had gone or were going from Ireland to this Dutch
colony,^ their ultimate destination being the French West
Indies.^
* In the British colonies, both in the West Indies and on the
continent^ similar practices jHrevailed. The temptation to
engage in this trade was very great In time of peace the
foreign West Indies furnished a large market for the surplus
agricultui*al products of the British oontinental colonies, and
also provided them with cheap molasses, which, when converted
into rum, was a most important factor in the fisheries, in the
slave trade, and in the fur trade with the Indians. In time
of war this normally profitable trade became even more lucrative.
The French West Indies suffered from a scarcity of provisions,
and hence were willing to pay high prices for them.* On the
other hand, owing to the war, they had great difficulty in
^ Pitt to Abercromby, Jan. 11, 1758. Am. and W.I. 76. Abercromby to
Pitt, May 27, 1758. Ibid.%7. See also /&u2. 71 /Mumm, and B.T. Mass. 76 li 47.
' Bedford Correspondence II, p. 369 ; Pitt Oorrcspondence II, p. 79 ;
Calendar Home Office Papers, 1760-1765, nos. 484, 498, 522, 526, 552,
559, 579.
' William Wood (CommiasioiieTs of Oostoma) to John Olevland (Lords of
Admiralty), Oct. 28, 1757. Adm. Sec. In-Letters, Bundle 8866. These were
14 ships with 20,000 barrels of beef.
^ An intercepted letter from Waterford, Ireland, dated Jan. 26, 1758. B. T.
Leeward Isles 32 Cc 24.
' Oovemor Thomas to Board of Trade, May 18, 1758. B. T. Leeward
Isles 82 Oc 22. On Jan. 7, 1758, Governor Pinfold of Barbados wrote to the
Board of Trade, that the French obtained provisions from Ireland and St.
Eustatius. He also added : ''I have good Intelligence that in Cork Nmnbers
of Dutch Vessels lade with Beef & publiokly dedare it is to be carried to the
West Indies, all of which is destined for the French Islands. " K T. Barba-
dos 35 Ee 16.
" From St. Eustatius, May 12, 1757, Samuel Wells wrote to his father,
Francis Wells, at Boston, that **the voyages from America now to these
Islands must be very profitable to those that voyage in (them.) at present
every kind of Northern produce bear a great rate." B. T. N.Y. 34 Mm 14.
398 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, marketing their produce, Buch as sugar and molasses, and hence
VI were forced to sell them at moderate prices.^
' These conditions were the direct results of British sea power,
which seriously interfered with the communications between the
metropolis and the colony. France could not send provisions
to the West Indies, and they, in turn, could not send
their produce to the European markets. To a large extent, the
colonies neutralized the advantages arising from British naval
activity, both supplying the French colonies with the sorely
needed provisions,^ and also furnishing a market for their
produce.
'In the opening years of the war the colonies carried on this
trade in two ways, either directly with the French, or indirectly
with them through some neutral port in the West Indies.^
The direct trade was carried on with the connivance of the
French officials, as it furnished them with otherwise unobtainable
supplies. The colonial ships engaged in it were not seized
by the French cruisers and privateers, because in general, they
had "Lycences from the French Governors who refused them
to none that applied for them." ^ In addition, a large number
of British colonial vessels engaged in this trade were protected
by passes from the governors, authorizing them to go to the
' Extract from a letter dated Philadelphia, December, 1759, showing that
the price of French sugar was very low, muscovado at 8a. to 10s. a hundred-
weight, white at 15«. to 25s. a hundredweight. B. T. Plant. Gen. 16 P 20.
Of. also B. T. Jam. 37 Oc 19.
^ A letter from the French West Indies in 1758, which had been taken in
a French prize, clearly shows this : ' * Nous sommes tous les jours k la veiUe de
manquer, sans le secours de nos Ennemis nous serons obligez de vivre oommo
vous nous I'annonoez avec ce que nous foumit la colonie. La Condition est
dure, et Ton n'y resisteroit pas ; nous S9ayon8 bien qu'il est impossible au
Commerce de France de nous seoourir, tout est abandonne et La Cour ne pense
pas k nous." B. T. Va. 26 X 41.
' On April 18, 1757, Governor William Popple of the Bermudas wrote to
the Board of Trade, that a great many sloops built in the Bermudas were
sold to the Dutch West Indies, and that the British register was transferred
with the vessel. Thus the Dutch would be able to get provisions in the
British colonies for the French. ''Even now, thd Bond is given to Land
Provisions at some English Settlement, the Dutch can go to Each English
Settlement for once, give in Bond, and never return there again." B. T.
Bermuda 19 51. An act of Parliament, 15 Geo. II, c 31, § 1, was directed
against such practices, yet there may have been some evasion of this law,
with the result pointed out by Popple as probable.
* Sharpe to Pitt, Feb. 27, 1761. Am. and W.L 78. Also in Sharpe Cor-
respondence II, pp. 490, 491, and Pitt Correspondence II, p. 401. In 1759
Admiral Cotes pointed out that there was some danger in this trade, as a
French frigate, newly arrived from Europe and unacquainted with its
nature, had burnt nine North American vessels. The captain of this frigate
was censured by the governor of Cape Fran9ois for stopping the only channel
by which they were regularly supplied with provisions. R T. Plant Gen^
16 P 20.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 399
French colonies, ostenBibly for the purpose of effecting an ex- CHAP,
change of prisoners. Such vessels were popularly known as VI
" flags of truce."
'The British West Indian colonies participated^ in this
trade, though naturally to a less extent than did the continental
colonies, where the provisions were originally produced. In
1757 Barbados passed a law making it high treason to trade
with the French,^ and in the following year the Governor of
the colony wrote to the Board of Trade, that every care and pre-
caution had been taken to prevent the enemy from being supplied.^
Despite these measures, Commodore Moore discovered, in 1759,
that St. Vincent, one of the neutral islands, which had become
completely French, was constantly supplied with provisions
from Barbados, and that this trade helped to support the other
French Islands.^ A number of ships engaged in this trade
were seized by the navy, and measures were also taken to
punish those guilty of violating the law.* These vigorous
steps seem to have been effective in checking such practices in
the West Indian colonies.®
* In the continental colonies, this direct trade with the enemy
was extensively carried on, especially by Rhode Island and
Pennsylvania, though it was by no means confined to them.
In many instances the colonial vessels were protected from
seizure by commissions or other documents in the nature of
passes issued by the governors, constituting them *' flags of
truce,'' for tlie ostensible purpose of effecting an exchange of
prisoners. Although at the beginning these passes may have
been used for the legitimate purpose of exchanging prisoners,^
their issue soon became a crying evil. All pretence of
legitimacy was abandoned, and, as in the previous war, colonial
merchants eagerly sought to obtain from the governors these
1 Wentworth, New Hampshire, Nov. 18, 1757, to Board of Trade. B. T.
Plant Oen. 49. Gf, R T. Leeward Isles 32 Gc 6 ; B. T. N. Y. 34 Mm 13.
' B. T. Barbados 35 Ee 5, 6.
* IWi, 85 Ee 16. Pinfold to Board of Trade, Jan. 7, 1758.
* Moore to Pitt, October, 1759. Am. and W.I. 100.
* Crump, Guadeloupe, Dec. 26, 1759, to Pitt Ibid, Pinfold to Board
of Trade, May 29, 1760. B. T. Barbados 86 Ff 1.
' The trade was also not unknown in Jamaica. In 1758 a *' flag of truce '*
of that island, loaded up to the hatches, was seized by a privateer. B. T.
Ya. 26 X 41. See also the first memorial enclosed in Holmes to Pitt> Jan. 4,
1761, which states that Jamaica sent money to the enemy, while the Northern
colonies sent provisions, and that the navy had entirely stopped this flog of
truce trade from Jamaica. Col. Oorr. Jam. II. Robert Melvill, the Lieutenant-
€U)veraor of Guadeloupe, wrote to Pitt, Dec. 15, 1760, that he had made
two seizui-QS in frustrating attempts to send provisions from that island to
Martinique. Am. and W.I. 100.
^ Gf, Hopkins, governor of Rhode Island, to Pitt, Dec. 20, 1760. Am. and
W.I. 7a
400 THE AHBBICAN 00L0NU8
CHAP, documents, under cover of which, with one or two French
VI prisoners on board, they could with safety to themselves carry
on a lucrative trade with the enemy. The Ideutenant-Govemor
of Virginia reported that he was offered four hundred guineas,
if he " would license a Flag of Truce/' ^ The most scandalous
conditions prevailed in Pennsylvania, where Crovemor Denny
openly sold such passes. When bringing these facts to Pitt's
attention in 1759, Thomas Penn^ said that the Delaware Biver
at Philadelphia swarmed " with shallops unloading these illegal
cargoes, brought at their return, and cheating the King of his
dutys,^ besides carrying provisions and ready money to the
Enemy." At first Denny sold these licenses in small numbers,
and under the pretence of transporting French prisoners, though
all such prisoners could have been embarked in one or two
vessels at the most. At the outset also the governor received
large sums for these passes, but as the number issued increased
their value fell ; and finally '* he scrupled not to set his name to,
& dispose of great numbers of blank flags of Truce, at the low
price of twenty pounds sterling or under, some of which," as
ins successor, James Hamilton, wrote, were sold in 1759 *'from
hand to hand at advanced prices." In 1759 and 1760, "a very
great part of the principal Merchants" of Philadelphia were
engaged in this trade with the French West Indies.^ In a
number of the colonies, the governors refused to issue flags
of truce. Fauquier in Virginia^ and Wentworth in New
Hampshire^ did not issue any, and though Pownall in
Massachusetts granted two, they were for the legitimate
exchange of prisoners.'^ Connecticut also asserted its freedom
from participation in such practices.^ Rhode Island, on the
other hand, was deeply implicated.
*In 1757 Rhode Island traded directly with the French in
Santo Domingo,^ and in the following year it was asserted that
a regular trade in provisions was carried on from that colony to
the French West Indies by means of "cartel ships," carrying
* Fauquier to Pitt, Oct. 28, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72. C/. also Bumaby,
Travels (ed. R. R. Wilson), p. 129 n.
» Sept. 12, 1759. Am. and W.I. 72.
' The duties were those imposed by the Molasses Act of 1733.
* Hamilton to Pitt, Nov. 1, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72. In a private letter
from Philadelphia, December, 1759, the writer said of this trade, ''there are
among us some who think it illegal, while others of larger consciences practise
it profitably." B. T. Plant Gen. 16 P 20.
« Fauquier to Pitt, Oct. 28, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72. C/. also B. T. Va.
27 Y 14.
8 Wentworth to Pitt, Dec. 9, 1760. Am. and W.I. 73. Wentworth wrote
that he probably could have made a good deal of money by issuing them.
' Bernard to Pitt, Nov. 8, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72.
« Thomas Fitch to Pitt, Nov. 26, 1760, and April 25, 1761. Am. and W.I.
73. • B. T. N.Y. 34 Mm^M.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 401
9 few prisoB^rs and protected by flags of truce.^ Stephen CHAP.
{lopkins,^ the colonial governor, in the course of a detailed yi
exculpatory despatch to Pitt, said that in the first four years of
the war thirty- two Ehode Island vessels had sailed to the
French coloi4es for the purposie of exchanging prisoners. A
colonial law authorized the governor to issue commissions for
this purpose, but expressly forbade the exportation of pro-
visions and warlike stores. Hopkins asserted that the colonial
officials had not connived at any violations of this law, but he
frankly admitted that these Rhode Island " jlags of truce " took
lumber ^and ''Dry Groods of British Manufacture" to the
French colonies, bringing back molasses and some sugar,
^pkiiis finally added : " It must be confessed 'tis highly
probable, that some Vessels from this Colony as well as from
others, have taken in Cargoes under Pretence of being bound
to Jamaica," and have then sold them to the French in Santo
Douango. At the time, it was generally asserted that this
direct trade with the enemy was openly carried on by Rhode
Island.^
' In ^iddition to this direct trade with the enemy, carried on
under cover of flags of truce or with the connivance of the
French authorities, the colonies, and Ireland as well, exported
large quantities of provisions to the neutral ports in the West
Indies. St. Eustatius was the chief centre of this trade and
became an important source of supply for the French.^
' According to British law, provisions were in general deemed
contraband of war, and especially so in a. case like this, because
they enabled the French to fit out their fleets and privateers,
and because, in- addition, they relieved settlements which were
in continual danger of being forced to surrender through starva-
tion.^ Besides, in a number of instances, the Dutch vessels
went to the French colonies under convoy of French men-of-war.
> Faaquier to Board of Trade, Sept. 23, 1768. B. T. Va. 26 X 41 ; B. T.
Journals 66, Dea 12, 1758. * Dec. 20, 1760. Am. and W.I. 78.
• Sharpe to Pitt, Feb. 27, 1761. Am. and W.I. 78. On May 9, 1761,
Francis 3emard wrote to the Board of Trade : *' These practises will never
be put an End to, till Rhode Island is reduced to the subjection of the British
Empire ; of which at present it is no more a part than the Bahama Islands
were when they were inhabited by the Bucoanneers." B. T. Mass. 78 LI 16.
* The Dutch purchasers of these provisions in St. Eustatius furnished the
oolonial vessels with forged or fraudulent landing certificates, which were
used to cancel the bonds given in the British colonies not to take their cargoes
to a foreign port. B. T. N. Y. 84 Mm 14.
' In 1746 the British High Court of Admiralty declared that "provisions
are and always have been esteemed contraband." F. T. Pratt, Law of Gontra-
bfljid of War (London, 1856), p. 93. Cf. also the judgment of Sir William
Soottin the "Jonge Margaretha," 1799. 0. Robinson, Reports of Oases in
the High Court of Admiralty (Philadelphia, 1800), I, p. 168. Holland did
not admit this definition of contraband, which was opposed to the treaties she
had concluded with £Uigland. See Am. and W.I. 54, no. 124.
2 D
402 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. Thus on November 30, 1758, Governor Thomas of the Leeward
VI Islands wrote to the Board of Trade, that three fleets of Dutch
vessels had in the last four months gone in this manner to
Martinique, and he claimed, that without them the French
would have been reduced to great distress and could not have
fitted out their privateers.^ Furthermore, in return for pro-
visions, the Dutch took Fren^sh produce, which they carried to
Europe.^
' In normal times, France did not as a rule allow foreigners to
trade with her colonies. During the war, French colonial trade
was for the time being opened to Dutch vessels, owing to the
supremacy of Great Britain at sea. This measure was not one
"of French councils, but of British force." The British prize
courts proceeded to condemn all such vessels engaged in this
trade, contending that a neutral power could not engage in a
trade which was opened to them only by " the pressure of war."
This general doctrine is known as the "Rule of 1756."*
Proceeding on these general principles, the British navy in- the
West Indies seized Dutch vessels carrying provisions to the
French colonies, and also Dutch vessels taking produce away
from them.^ These seizures created a great deal of friction
^ B. T. Leeward Islands 32 Cc 35, In an intercepted letter from the Gov-
ernor of St. Eustatius to the Governor of Martinique, March 14, 1758, we read :
"Je me flatte d'ailleurs, Messieurs, que dans un cas un peu douteux, vous
voudr^ bien avoir £gard h. la fa9on dont jc me suis porte a foumir des vivres
& Yos Colonies, dans le terns mSme oil les Anglois insultoient le plus notre
pavilion." Ibid, Cc 23. See Commodore Moore's despatch to Pitt from
Guadeloupe, March 6, 1759, to the effect that, as the Butch wero very assid-
uous in assisting the enemy, he had sent ships to cruiBeu)ff St. Eustatius to
prevent provisions being sent thence to Guadeloupe, whose complete con-
quest had not yet been effected. Am. and W. I. 100. '^ Ibid, Cc 6.
' This mle was based on legitimat/C considerations, which ai'e admirably
expoimded in a judgment of the famous jurist, Sir William Scott, in the case
of the '* Immanuel," 1799 : ''It cannot be contended to be a right of neutrals,
to intrude into a commerce which had been uniformly shut against them and
which is now forced open merely by the pressure of war ; for when the enemy,
under an entire inability to supply his Colonies and to export their products,
affects to open them to neutrals, it is not his will but his necessity that changes
his system ; that change is the direct and unavoidable consequence of the
compulsion of war, it is a measure not of French councils, but of British force."
Robinson (Am. ed.) II, pp. 167, 168.
* The general contention of the British government was that, " in the present
War between England and France, the Subjects of Holland have no Right
to cover the Property of the Enemy of England, ^oing to, or coming from the
Colonies of that Enemy, directly, nor indirectly to do it) thro' the Medium of
the Dutch Colonies ; nor to carry to the Colonies of France directly, nor in-
directly, any Commodities, altho' Neutral Projierty, which have a Tendency
to support the Enemy." James Marriott, The Case of the Dutch Ships Con-
sidered (3d ed. London, 1759), p. 1. Marriott was at a later date judge of
the admiralty court. See also The Annual Register for 1759 (5th ed. London,
1769), p. 5 ; A Letter to the Dutch Merchants in England (London, 1759),
THB AMERICAN COLONIES 403
between the English and Uie Dutoh.^ Their general eflfect, CHAP,
however, was to break up the Dutch trade with the French VI
colonies, and with it the exportation of provisions from Ireland
and the British, colonies to Dutch ports. Being deprived of
their Dutch market,^ the continental colonies sought access to
the French by other means, and in the years 1759 and 1760
there developed an important trade with Monte Cristi,
a Spanish settlement in the island of Hispaniola or Santo
Domingo.*
' Both France and Spain had colonies in this island. Monte
Cristi is situated on its north shore in the Spanish part,
contiguous to the French boundary. Prior to the war, this
commercially insignificant place had been closed to foreigners,
but subsequently it was made a free port^^ for the purpose
pp. 4, 18 (this pamphlet is attributed to Marriott) ; Authentic Memoirs of
Chatham (London, 1778), pp. 19, 20.
^ To the frequent complaints of the Governor of St. Eustatius that the
capture and condemnation of Ihitch vessels bound with provisions to the
French islands was contrary to the treaties subsisting between Great Britain
and Holland, Governor Thomas of the Leeward Islands replied, that if the
condemnations were deemed unjust, an appeal could be taken to his Majesty
in Council. B. T. Leeward Islands 32 Oc 22. The documents regarding this
matter were sent to Pitt by the Board of Trade, July 26, 1758. Ibid, 57,
pp. 124, 125, 130. For the activity of the British fleet) see ibid, Cc 35.
Gura^oa was less concerned in this trade than was St. Eustatius. Up to
a short time before the end of the war, only seven vessels from Cura^oa had
been condemned in Jamaica for trading with the French West Indies. Col.
Corr. Jam. II, May 10, 1762. For the decisions on appeal in England in
these cases, see GrenviUe Papers I, pp, 270, 288, 284, 296.
^ On March 28, 1759, Lieutenant-Governor Henry Moore of Jamaica wrote
to the Board of Trade that the squadron had put an end to the commerce
between the French and the Dutch, and that tlus branch of trade was then
taken up by the Northern colonies. B. T. Jam. 84 Z 43. The trade through
the Dutch channel, however, did not cease entirely. See Bradley to Amherst,
Dec. 6, 1760. Am. and W.L 78 and 95.
' Tlie first mention of this trade is in DeLancey's despatch to the Board
of Trade, June 8, 1757. B. T. N. Y. 34 Mm 3. Nothing further was heard
until two years later, when the Board of Trade said that its first information
regarding this trade came fi'om a despatch from the Lieutenant-Governor of
Jamaica, March 28, 1759. B. T. Journals 67, p. 231. See also B. T. Plant.
Gen. 44, p. 179 ; B. T. Jam. 84 Z 43. Colebrooke's report of Feb. 18, 1760,
says that this trade had been carried on since the beginning of the war, but
in no proportion to what it was in 1759 and 1760. B. T. Plant Gen. 16 P 17.
* Shirley, in his despatch to the Board of Trade, March 29, 1760, says it
was a new Spanish settlement. Am. and W.I. 454. The second memorial
enclosed in Holmes to Pitt, Jan. 4, 1761, says : '* There is here No City, No
Town, No Port," only a few huts ; the place has no trade of its ovrUy and *Hhe
Newly established free Port of Monto Christi . . . exists no where, but in the
airy Regions of Imagination." Col. Corr. Jam. II. It should, however, be
noted that already in 1562 John Hawkins sailed '' to Monte Christi another
port on the North side of Hispaniola." Hakluyt X, p. 8.
404 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, of facilitating the trade between the British and French
^I colonies. Nothing was produced here that the English colonies
wanted,^ nor did the few Spaniards residing at the place afford
a market for provisions. The exports from Monte Cristi were
all Fr^ich produce,^ and its imports all went immediately to the
adjoining French colony. The Spanish governor collected fees
from the vessels, gave them clearances, and charged duties on
the sugar and molasses exported.^ But the trade was essentially
a direct one with the French.^ In many instances the French
produce was not even landed in Spanish territory, but was
transferred from small French boats directly to the British
vessels in the harbor.^ The products brought to Monte Cristi
were provisions, warlike stores, British manufactures and money.^
The commodities exported were chiefly sugar and molasses.^
' This trade at Monte Cristi was carried on mainly by the New
England and Middle colonies,^ but it was by no means unknown
^ The only Spanish prodace that oould be obtained here was tobacco and
hides. Hinxman's report in Holmes to Pitt, May 31, 1761. Col. Coir. Jam. II.
« B. T. Jam. 84 Z 59.
' B. T. Bahamas 7 £ 3 ; Hinxman's report in Holmes to Pitt, May 31,
1761. Col. Corr. Jam. II.
* See Memorial of Bdward Long, Dec. 3, 1760. Col. Corr. Jam. II. Long
was Judge of the Vice- Admiralty Court of Jamaica, and is the author of the
well-known history of that island.
^ B. T. Jam. 34 Z 59. Cf. also second Memorial in Holmes to Pitt, Jan.
4, 1761, in Col. Corr. Jam. 11, and Holmes to Pitt, May 31, 1761, ibid,
Holmes's despatch to the admiralty regarding this saliject was likewise sent
to Pitt. Cal. Home Office Papers, 1760-1765, p. 4.
^ B. T. Bahama 6 D 87, 7 £ 1 ; B. T. Plant Gen. 16 P 17. It was said
that the colonies were drained of money by this trade, as a cargo of sugar
was moi-e valuable than a cargo of proTisions. B. T. Plant. Gen. 16 P 20.
The North American vessels also brought horses, lumber, and 'fish. B. T.
Jam. 84 Z 59. The average annual value of the importations from the North
American colonies into Jamaica during the five years 1766 to 1762 was
£200,000 Jamaica currency. The exports from Jamaica to these colonies
amounted to only £50,000 yearly, the balance being paid in money or in bills
of exchange, which the continental colonies Used to purchase French produce
at Monte Cristi. B. T. Jam. 37 Cc 19. In 1761 £10,000 Jamaica currency
was eqtuvalent to £7141 sterling. Ibid, Bb 41.
7 B. T. Jam. 34 Z 44 and 59.
^ According to a list of ships spoken by H. M.'s sloop Fiper in Monte
Cristi harbor, Feb. 5, 1759, 28 of the 29 ships there, ranging from 30 to 150
tons in burden, belonged to the North American colonies, and had cleared
from them. They belonged to the following colonies : New York, 7 ; Rhode
Island, 8 ; Connecticut, 4 ; Massachusetts, 8 ; Viiginia, 1 ; and Bermuda, 1.
The Virginia ship had put in on account of stress of weather. B. T. Jam.
34 Z 44. The success of the trade attracted others. On Oct 25, 1760,
H.M.S. Defiance anchored at Monte Cristi and remained there eight or nine
days. The commander roportki that there were always fifty vessels in the
harbor, and that every day some left and some arrived. These vessels belonged
to £ngland, Ireland, Gibraltar, and the oolonies, and in addition, mention is
THE AMBRICAl^ COLONIES 40 O
in Virginia^ and in the West Indies.^ In addition, British CHAP,
subjects in England, Scotland, and Ireland were implicated in it, ^^
though to a minor extent.^ The trade assumed large proportions
in 1759 and 1760. At times during these two yeurs, over one
hundred North American vessels were at this port^ In 1760 it
was estimated that in that one year four to five hundred vessels
had taken in cargoes of French sugar and molasses.^ In order
to facilitate the trade. North American subjects of the Crown
resided at Monte Cristi.®
* In New York, where this trade to Monte Gristi was extensively^
made of three vessels under the Danish flag. Second Memorial in Holmes
to Pitt, Jan. 5, 1761. Col. Corr. Jam. 11. The trial of a North American
vessel engaged in this trade showed that Messrs. Greg and Cunningham of
New York and Messrs. Hugh White and Co. of Dublin were heavily interested
in it. Holmes to Pitt, no date but marked as received May 18, 1761. Ibid,
Captain Hinjanan, who had been sent by Holmes to investigate, reported that
on his arrival at Monte Cristi he found in the port 42 British vessels and that
8 had arrived subsequent to his anchoring. Of these 50 vessels, 36 belonged
to the North American colonies : Massachusetts, 15 ; Rhode Island, 10 ;
New York, 9 ; Connecticut, 1 ; North Carolina, 1. The balance belonged to
the West Indian colonies and to various places, such as London, 5 ; Edinburgh,
1 ; Ireland, 1 ; Gibraltar, 1. The colonial vessels brought provisions, the
British manufactures; both took in return French products such as sugar
and indigo. Holmes to Pitt, May 31, 1761. Ibid, For Danish ships carrying
French colonial products to market, see Cal. Home Office Papers, 1760-1765,
pp. 69, 77, 78.
1 Fauquier to Pitt, Oct. 28, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72. Cf, B. T. Va. 27
Y 14 and 111. Maryland, on the other hand, seems to have obeyed the act
of 1767. B. T. Pi-op. 21 X 8. Cf. ibid, 20 W 26 and 27.
* One Allen Popham of St. Ritts was extensively engaged in this trade of
sending provisions from Ireland and New York to St. Eustatius, St. Croix,
St. Thomas, and Hispaniola^ Bradley to Amherst, Dec.- 5, 1760. Am. and
W.I. 73 and 96.
' Colebrooke's report of 1760 says: ^'Poliotes of Insurance have been
opened publickly in London to cover their risque, and at such high praemiums
as imply consdousness of great hasard attending illegal adventures." B. T.
Plant. Gen. 16 P 17. See also Sharps to Pitt, Feb. 27, 1761. Am. and W.I.
78. Golden to Pitt, Dec. 27, 1760. Ibid, Report of the New York Council,
Dec. 24, 1760. Ibid, In 1761 a small quantity of merchandise was entered
for export direct from London to Monte Cristi. Customs Records (in Public
Record Office), Ledgers of Imports and Exports, vol. 61.
* Governor George Haldane of Jamaica to Bocurd of TVade, June 9, 1769,
with affidavits to the effect that at times 100 to 120 North American vessels
were at Monte Cristi. B. T. Jam. 84 Z 69. In 1760 it was said that as many
as a hundred such vessels had been seen at one time there. B. T. Plant.
Gen. 16 P 17. C/i aho Shirley to B. T., March 29, 1760, in Am. and W.I.
454 ; B. T. Bahamas 6 D 87 ; a T. Journals 68 p. 175.
' B. T. Bahamas 7 £ 1 and d« Admiral Cotes said that more than 200
vessels had taken cargoes from Monte Cristi in 1769. B. T. Plant Gen. 16
P 20. « B. T. Jam. 84 Z 69.
7 George Spenoer to Amherst, Dea 17, 1760, with a list of 46 New York
406 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, carried on, it monopolized mach of the time of the CJommander-
^I in-Chief, as it interfered with the victualling of the forces.^ The
lieutenant-govemor of this colony, James DeLancey, was very
active in suppressing the illegal exportation of provisions.
** Quantities of Flour,'' he wrote, *^ were clandestinely Exported
to foreign Markets, particularly to Monti Cfaristi, thence to
Supply the French.'* Some of the offenders were discovered ;
whereupon Amherst wrote that this was '* a secret Satisfaction "
to him, and that he hoped they would be punished as they
deserved. Despite DeLancey's efforts and the detection of some
of those concerned "in this shamefull abuse," Amherst again
received complaints of its being carried on to a very great extent ;
so much so that he feared that nothing but an embargo would
put a stop to it. He was, however, opposed to such a step if it
could possibly be avoided without making the army suffer from
want of flour, and he urged the Governor to punish all delin-
quents most severely. While his efforts to do so were at least
in part frustrated,* DeLancey's energetic action succeeded in
checking the trade, though not in stopping it, and he was able
to assure Amherst that at all events there would be in New
York no scarcity of so essential an article as flour. DeLancey's
fears as to the continuance of this trade were, however, justified.
On his death in 1760, Cadwallader Golden, as president of the
Council, became the acting governor. He frankly admitted that
the New York merchants had been too generally concerned in
this illicit intercourse, but added that the Philadelphia merchants
were even more guilty.'
vessels that had taken proyisions to Monte Cristi and other foreign ports,
and had returned to New York with French sugair which was entered on
fictitious clearances. Augustus Bradley to Aniherst, Dec. 18, 1760, with a
similar list of 39 vessels. Am. and W.I. 95.
' See DeLiancey to Amherst, Aug. 24, Oct. 22, Nov. 5, 1759 ; and
Amherst to DeLancey, Oct. 2, 7, 29, 1759. Am. and W.I. 91 and 92. In
New York, the fraudulent flag of truce trade was not practised, as neither
Hardy nor DeLancey would countenance it.
^DeLancey to Amherst, Nov. 5, 1759: "My Proclamation against
Hcysham, I believe, gave some Check to the Exportation of Provisions ;
but De Peyster and FoUiott have connections, the former "with two of the
Judges, and the Latter in the Custom house." Therefore he does not
think that they will be made examples of; they have prevailed upon the
witnesses to absent themselves ; and he fears that this trade will continue.
» Colden to Pitt, Oct. 27, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72. The method of carry-
ing on this trade in New York was to ship provisions in large quantities to
the New England governments, " for which the Merchants give bond," as the
act of Parliament directed. These bonds were in turn cancelled by lauding
certificates from New England. The provisions were then exported to the
French, and French sugars were brought back to New England or to New
Jersey, whence in turn they were imported into New York, ^ith '^cockets"
to the effect that they had been legally imported. In addition, Colden said
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 407
' By these means British subjects, of whom an overwhelming CHAP,
majority lived in the North American colonies, supplied the ^^
French with provisions and afforded them a market for their
produce,^ thus to a great extent frustrating the policy of the
mother country. In fact, according to Shirley, who had been
transferred from Massachusetts to the Bahamas, provisions were
more plentiful and cheaper in the French settlements than in
the English West Indies, and in addition, the prices for French
sugars rose violently on account of the broad market offered at
Monte CristL^ Not only did the enemy secure an otherwise
unobtainable market for his produce, but in addition, the sugars
purchased at Jklonte Gristi were shipped from the North
American colonies to London and entered there as British
sugars,' thus vitiating the preferential system which gave the
products of the British West Indies a monopoly of the home
market. Furthermore, as a result of this trade, the price of
provisions rose rapidly in the North American colonies, especially
that he had no doubt that provisions were exported from places where there
were no customs officers. See also Golden to Pitt, Nov. 11, 1760 {Ibid,),
enclosing the custom-house accounts, illustrating the nature and method of
this trade. This method implied great frauds in the customs service, which
Golden laid at the door of the officers in New Jersey and New England. One
Bradley sent him a copy of a letter from a firm in Norwalk, which had pro-
cured "numbers of fictitious clearances for Different Persons as Also their
method & Price for doing it." Bradley to Amherst, Dec. 18, 1760. Am.
and W.I. 95. In addition, Golden admitted that provisions were shipped
from New York to the Spanish and Portuguese wine islands off Southern
Europe and Africa. This, though illegal, he contended did no harm, as all
provisions thus exported were purely for local consumption in these islands.
Golden to Pitt, Dec. 27, 1760. Of, also B. T. Va. 27 Y 14. New Jersey,
whose foreign trade was unimportant, apparently did not engage directly in
this trade, at least not to a marked degree. Boone to Pitt, Aug. 23, 1760.
Am. and W.I. 72. ^ B. T. Jam. 34 Z 44.
^ White sugar had risen from 185. to 265. a cwt, muscovado from ll5. to
175. 6d. a cwt Shiriey to Board of Trade, Aug. 1, 1760. B. T. Bahamas
7 E 1. Governor Lyttelton said that on account of this trade provisions
during the war were scarce and dear in Jamaica. B. T. Jam. 37 Cc 19.
However, on Jan. 7, 1758, Governor Pinfold wrote to the Board of Trade that
Barbados was plentifully supplied witli provisions, the trade with the
Northern colonies being kept open by the activity of the privateers. B. T.
Barbados 35 Ee 16.
^ These sugars were "entered as the produce of the island of Guardaloup,"
which had been captured in 1759. B. T. Plant. Gen. 16 P 17. French
sugars were imported into New York under "the denomination of prize
sugars & British Sugara from Guardaloup." Golden to Pitt, Nov. 11, 1760.
Am. and W.I. 72. Shirley pointed out that in addition to the other
advantages resulting from this trade, France derived a revenue from the
export duties in Santo Domingo, while the duties that were imposed by the
Act of 1733 on these products when imported into the English colonies were
not paid. B. T. Bahamas 6 D 87. On June 13, 1760, the Board of Trade
sent a copy of this despatch to Pitt. Ibid» 12, pp. 187-188.
408 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, in New York, so that at times it would hare been cheaper to
VI purchase in England the flour and bread needed for the troope
employed in the colonies.^
'Of minor importance, but by no means insignificant^ was
another branch of this illegal trade: that carried on with the
French in Florida and Louisiana. New York and Pennsylvania
did not, apparently, engage in this commerce, which, 4o a great
extent^ centred in New England.^ A small nmnber of colonial
sloops constantly traded with New Orleans.' In addition, some
trade, especially in Indian goods, was carried on by means of
the Spanish with the French to the tirest of Florida. South
Carolina was somewhat inyolved therein, but the chief (lender
was Rhode Island.^ According to William Bull, the lieutenant-
governor of that colony, it was the Indian goods thus acquired
that enabled the French to keep their promises to the Indians,
which, in turn, tended to encourage the Gherokees to keep up
their war with the English and almost brought the Creeks to an
open rupture.*
' The military and naval commanders were naturally indignant
at a trade which they considered " traiterous," and which inter-
fered with the success of their operations. Toward the end of
1759 General Crump wrote to Pitt that the French islands sub-
sisted entirely by this trade and by the prizes which they took,
and that, during the last eight months, not a single vessel had
arrived from Europe with provisions for them. If these practices
were stopped, he added, it would facilitate any military designs
on the colonies of the enemy.^ Admiral Cotes called the trade
iniquitous,^ and Commodore Moore stigmatized those engaged
^ B. T. Plant. Gen. 16 P 17. Of. also correspondence of DeLancey and
Amherst. ' Am. and W. I. 91 and 92.
« CJolden to Pitt, Oct. 27, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72. Hamilton to Pitt,
Nov. 1, 1760. Ihid.
' In 1761 a sloop v:as seized at Boston for trading at New Orleans.
The examination of the crew of this vessel hronght ont the fact that in
addition to this, two other colonial sloops, one from Rhode Island, the other
from Jamaica, traded regularly at New Orleans. Bernard to fitt, May 5,
1761. Am. and W.I. 78 ; B. T. Mass. 78 LI 14 and 19.
* On May 29, 1760, Bull wrote to the Board of Trade that the French
were enabled to take advantage of the rupture with the Oherokees by the
plenty of Indian goods with which they had been 8U})plied by the Northerti
colonies, especially by the Rhode Island traders, who, being interrupted in
their traffic at Monte Oristi, "have found out a new, and more pernicious
Channel for the Industry, by carrying Goods proper for Indians to Pensacola,
or other parts, where the French at Louisiana can get them." B. T. So.Oa.
20 M 7.
» Bull to Pitt, Feb. 18, 1761. Am. and W.I. 78. With a view to
obviating this result, Bull induced South Carolina to pass a temporary law
regulating the exportation of goods needed for the Indian trade.
• Byam Crump, Guadeloupe, Dec. 26, 1759, to Pitt. Am. and W.I. 100.
' B. T. Plant. Gen. 16 P 20.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 409
in it as " Traitors to their Country/' ^ It was claimed by those CHAP.
in the best position to judge of such matters, that this trade VI
enabled the French to equip privateers, which inflicted much
suffering, and that it prevented the capture of the French West
Indies.^
* Full reports were forwarded to Pitt, who characteristically
expressed his sentiments in no uncertain terms. On August 23,
1760,^ he addressed a circular despatch to the colonial governors,
stating that he had received repeated and certain information
*'of an illegal and most pernicious Trade, carried on by the
King's Subjects, in North America, and the West Indies, as well
to the French Islands, as to the French Settlements" on the
continent of America, by means of which the enemy is supplied
with provisions and other necessaries, in consequence of which
France is '' principally, if not alone, enabled to sustain, and pro-
tract, this long and expensive War." Pitt instructed the
governors to make strict inquiries into ** the State of this
dangerous and ignominious Trade," to bring "all such heinous
Offenders ... to the most exemplary ^nd condign Punishment^"
and in general to put a stop to "such flagitious Practices." Pitt
was unquestionably indignant^ and this feeling was intensified
by the fact that, as a result of the victories of Hawke and
Boscawen,. French sea power had been utterly shattered. The
French West Indies were absolutely helpless, and relief from
France was impossible. Guadeloupe had already fallen into
English hands, and Martinique, Dominica, and the other " neutral
islands " would inevitably fall when wanted, unless aided directly
or indirectly by the English colonies.
' The chief instrument used to break up this trade with the
enemy was the royal navy.^ Frequent seizures virtually put an
end to the fraudulent flag of truce trade ^ and to the direct trade
with the enemy.^ The indirect intercourse by means of the
» Moore to Pitt, October, 1769. Am. and W.I. 100.
> B. T. Jam. 34 Z 43. Henry Moore, March 28, 1769.
' Am. and W.I. 78. On Nov. 1, 1760, Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania
wrote to Pitt that trading with the enemy must ** from the very nature of
War, be a very high offence." Am. and W.I. 72.
* In 1757, Sir Charles Hai-dy, who was both governor of New York and
a Rear - Admiral, advised the employment of cruisers to 'intercept any
Smuggling Trade that might attempt going to the Neutral Islands" with
provisiooB. Hardy to Pitt, April 10, 1767. Am. and W.I. 71. At that
time he seized a Salem vessel returning from St. Eustatius, and took it to
Halifax where it was condemned in the Admiralty Court B. T. N.Y. 34
Mm 18.
^ B. T. Va. 26 X 41 ; Second Memorial enclosed in Holmes to Pitt,
Jan. 4, 1761. Col. Corr. Jam. II.
< Hamilton to Pitt, Nov. 1, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72. Sharpe to Pitt,
Feb. 27, 1761. Ibid. 73. First Memorial enclosed in Holmes to Pitt, Jan. 4,
1761. Col. Corr. Jam. II. Bernard to Pitt, Nov. 8, 1760. Am. and W. I. 72.
410 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. Dutch colonies was also checked by the condemnation of the
VI Dutch vessels engaged in trading with the French colonies.
This indirect trade was then diverted to Monte Gristi As this
was a Spanish port, some legal difficulties were encountered in
seizing vessels trading there. It was practically impossible to
condemn colonial vessels carrying provisions to a foreign port in
violation of the act of 1757, because their papers were always
in order and indicated as their destination some British port
Nor, according to a strict interpretation of the ''Rule of 1756,"
could colonial vessels trading at a neutral port, such as Monte
Cristi, be condemned.
'At the outset, in 1759, the navy proceeded to seize ships
engaged in the Monte Oristi trade, but was deterred in this
activity by the legal difficulties encountered in procuring their
condemnation.^ The Admiralty Court in England held that
'' British Subjects have no Undoubted right of Trading at Monte
Christi, provided they carry on their Trade Band Fide with the
Spaniards only."^ The Judge of the Vice-Admiralty court of
Jamaica contended, however, that the trade was not bona fide,
that the Spaniards produced no sugar, molasses or rum; that
the trade was virtually a direct one with the French ; and that
it certainly violated the spirit of the law.^ The naval authorities
supported this view. On January 4, 1761, Rear- Admiral Charles
Holmes,^ the commander at the Jamaica station, wrote to Pitt,
that on his arrival he had instructed the ships of his squadron
to break up this trade, as well as that carried on ^y flags of
truce, but that he now found that many doubts had arisen in
England concerning the legality of seizing and condemning the
ships coming from Monte Cristi. " Shall others," he asked Pitt,
'^ the subjects of Great Britain, concerned in this Trade, and
Swearing with Halters about their Necks, if they bear witness
to the Truth and Declare, that they keep Correspondence with
the Enemy and not only Nourish and Support his Subjects in
their Wants, but cover and carry on their Trade in a most
prosperous and Successful Manner ; Compeat with, or be
opposed and Overthrow, the Certain Knowledge of His Majesty's
Squadron, that there is Neither Port nor Commerce belonging
to Spain ; at Monte Chris ti, that the Commerce is wholly French ;
and that the Spaniards are only the Porters of this Trade, not
into a Port, but into an open Bay and bare Road -Stead ? "
Holmes added that he would obey whatever instructions he
might receive, but he pointed out that " the Enemy Cannot be
hurt here, if the Trade of Monte Christi, under any Colour or
pretext whatever, be sustained as Legal " ; that this trade was
even worse than the flag of truce trade, for if British subjects
» B. T. Plant Gen. 16 P 20 ; B. T. Jam. 34 Z 59 and 80.
2 Edward Long, Dec. 3, 1760. Col. Corr. Jam. II.
» Ibid. * Col. Corr. Jam. 11.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 411
were, by other means, forced to abandon it, the Dutch would CHAP,
take it up. He therefore hoped that his action in seizing the ^l
enemy's produce, wherever he could lay hold of it^ would be
approved. These arguments lead to the extension of the '' £ule
of 1756 " to the Monte Cristi trade.^
*The West Indian Vice -Admiralty courts proceeded to con-
demn these vessels, and ultimately their action was upheld in
England. The question of the legitimacy of such seizures once
settled, great zeal was displayed in breaUng up the trade. To-
ward the end of 1760, the governor of New Jersey informed
Pitt that the activity of the cruisers in the West Indies and
" the Kind of Civil War that has been waged by Privateers on
these Traders belonging to different Provinces " had made this
intercourse so hazardous that it cannot be pursued '* so universally
or successfully as formerly."* Early in 1761, Admiral Holmes
was able to inform Pitt that he had broken up this trade.^
'His report was, however, too sanguine il taken literally.
The navy seriously interfered with this trade and greatly
diminished it, but at no time succeeded in entirely eradicating it.
Many and tortuous were the methods employed to escape the
vigilance of the men-of-war. Thus in 1761 vessels from Jamaica
and the continental colonies used Spanish crews and sailed under
the Spanish flag from Santo Domingo with French produce.^
The navy was able to fathom this subterfuge,^ but there were
apparently other devices, which taken in connection with the
fact that the navy was not ubiquitous, account for the continuance
of this trade, though on a greatly diminished scale. At no sub-
sequent time did it attain the large proportions that it had in
^ Robinson (Am. ed.) II, pp. 121, 122.
* Boone to Pitt, Oct. 23, 1760. Am. and W.I. 72. Of. Golden to Pitt,
N.Y., Oct 27, 1760, to effect that the navy had stopped this trade. Ibid. ;
Wentworth to Pitt, Dec. 9, 1760. Ibid, ; Hopkins to Pitt, Dec. 20, 1760.
IMd.
* Ool. Corr. Jam. II. Not dated but marked received May 13, 1761. Holmes
added that an attempt was then made to carry French produce to market
in Spanish ships from Spanish Hispaniola. The aotion of Holmes in seizing
these Spanish vessels within gunshot of their ports was not approved by the
Biitish government, whose chief aim, after Pitt's resignation in 1761, was
to keep peace with Spain. Cal. Home Office Papers, 1760-1765, nos. 397,
401. On March 29, 1760, Shirley wrote to the Board of Trade that recently
the Vice-Admiralty Court of New Providence had condemned the cai^es of
eight Spanish vessels belonging to Monte Cristi. These vessels had been
captured by a privateer from the Bahamas, and were laden with French
sugars and molasses. Am. and W.I. 464.
* Holmes to Pitt, June 16, 1761. Col. Corr. Jam. II. See also Gal.
Home Office Papers, 1760-1765, pp. 60, 61, for some further details about
the trade between the French and Spanish in Santo Domingo.
' The attack of Holmes on this trade led to considerable ill-feeling
in Jamaica. See complaint against Holmes, Oct. 1, 1761. Col. Corr. Jam.
II ; and Holmes to Pitt, Oct. 27, 1761. Ibid, III. Qf, pasaim this volume.
412 THB AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP. 1759 and 1760. In 1762, after Spain had joined forces with
^1 France, there was, however, a reviyal on so extensive a scale,
that even the normally imperturbable Cknnmander-in-Chief was
roused to indignation.
' On May 10, 1762, Amherst wrote to the Earl of £gremont^
that he had Uitely discovered a most iniquitous trade, by means
of which the enemy was supplied with provisions and stores
from many ports on the continent of America, the colonial
vessels sailing directly to the French colonies ; and that he had
written to the governors and customs officials to put a stop " to
this pernicious and destructive Trade." ^ In his circular letter
to ^e colonial governors,^ Amherst stated that he had un-
questionable proof that the enemy was being supplied with
provisions from sdmost every port in the continental colonies,
and that it was absolutely necessary to stop the trade as the
army needed these supplies. In his letters to the Surveyors-
General of the Castoms,^ Amherst showed that colonial vessels,
which had cleared for British ports and had instead gone to the
enemy's colonies, were yet able^ to procure landing certificates
from the alleged Biitish port of destination. Such certificates,
he pointed out, could be obtained only by the dishonest con-
nivance of the custom-house officials. He enclosed a list of
such vessels that had gone directly to the enemy's ports, though
clearing for Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
' To' the colonies most implicated, Amherst wrote separately
and in great detail To Colden,^ the lieutenant-governor of
New York, he sent complete evidence of the colony's par-
ticipation in this trade, such as : a French passport found on
board a New York vessel, allowing it to trade in French ports ;
an invoice of sugar shipped on a New York vessel in French
Hispaniola, with an account of the cargo sold there by this ship.
Among the number of instances mentioned by Amherst, one
deserves citation. A New York vessel met a French ship that
concealed its nationality by hoisting the British colors. There-
upon the colonial captain hid his French pass. On the New
York vessel being seized, the true nationality of the capturing
vessel was made evident, and the hidden passport was produced.^
1 Am. and W.I. 97.
' Dated April 15, 1762. The goyemors of Nova Scotia and of Georgia
were not included. Am. and W.I. 97. To put **a stop to such infamous
practices, particularly at a time when there is the gi^eatest demand for
provisions to supply the King's troops." Ck)l. Rec. of R.I. VI, pp. 811, 312.
* To Peter Randolph, Southern district, and John Temple, Northern
district) dated April 24, 1762. Am. and W.I. 97.
* Amherst to Golden, April 16, and M&y 6, 1762. Ibid,
^ Amherst's letter of April 16, 1762, shows that families like the Living-
stons and the De Peysters were engaged in this trade. This trade even
extended to French Guiana. On Nov. 3, 1762, William Popple, Governor of
the Bermudas, wrote to the Lords of the Admiralty regarding a New York
TH8 AMERICAN COLONIES 418
It is not surprising that Amherst wrote that ^'such Infamous CHAP,
practices at any time ought to be suppressed/' but especially VI
then, when Great Britain was at war with Spain as well as with
France, and when " there is the greatest ReiEbson imaginable, to
think that without Bupplys from this Continent the Enemy
could not Subsist their Fleets in the West Indies." Colden
fully admitted the truth of these chaises, and said that the New
York traders ''consider nothing but thdr private profit," and
that he would try to punish those engaged in this '' most per-
nicious trade." ^
* Connecticut and Rhode Island also called iorth Amherst's
indignation. On May 5, 1762, he wrote to Fitch, the governor
of the former colony, complaining that this trade was still
continued in Connecticut, and that vessels daily left the
colony with provisions destined for] the enemy.^ Rhode Island
also was actively engaged in this commerce, which centred in
Newport.*
'In this entire correspondence, Amherst emphasized two
points : first, that the trade helped ,the enemy ; eecond, that it
interfered with military operations by depriving the army of
the necessary provisions. Despite the fact that the colonies
produced a large surplus of food-stuffs, the troops had in part to
be supplied from Europe.^ This was to a great extent due to
the traide in question, which enhanced to an abnormal degree
vessel that had been seized for trading at Cayenne. Her outward cargo from
New York was lumber, provisions, and horses, and the return cargo was
cocoa. According to the custom-house papers from New York, her des-
tination should have been Barbados. Adm. Sec. In-Letters 8819.
1 B. T. N.Y. 86 Oo 67 : Colden to B. T., May 11, 1762.
« Am. and W.I. 97.
3 Amherst to Hopkins, M»y 7, 1762. Am. and W.I. 97, and Col. Rec. of
R.I. VI, pp. 817, 818. For the seizure of a Rhode Island schooner, which
had gone to Hispaniola with a cargo of flour, see Peter Blake to Egremont,
Charleston, Nov. 27, 1762. Am. and W.I. 223.
4 Even under normal conditions, it is probable that some provisions for
the army would have been sent from Ireland. See Pitt Correspondence II,
pp. 79, 109, 110. Of, also Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 85909 (Hardwioke Papers
DLXI). In the opening years of the war, wheat was sent to England from
the colonies, while in the closing years the movement was reversed. Among
the imports of wheat and flour into England in the year from Michaelmas,
1756, to the same date 1757 are the following items : from New York, 7
quarters ; from Pennsylvania, 1988 quarters ; from Yiiginia and Maryland,
4887 quarters. For the subsequent year the corresponding figures are 688,
1275, and 2855. Among the exports of wheat from England in 1762 are the
following items : —
To the West Indian colonies 7485 quarters
To Quebec 6602 quarters
To Newfoundland 720 quarters
To New York 1657 quarters
Treas. Ace. Rev. Misc. (England), Bundle 80.
414 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, the cost of provisions in the colonies. In consequence of the
VI ensuing scarcity, the Commander-in-Chief at this time was
forced to order an embargo laid in the Middle and Northern
colonies.^ "I see no other way," he wrote, ''of preventing
those whose Sole Views seem to be to get Money without the
least regard for the good of their Country from accomplishing
their Designs."^ Amherst* took this step most reluctantly, as
it punished both the innocent and the guilty ; ^ consequently on
receipt of advices that a quantity of provisions for the army
was coming from England, he allowed the embargo to be raised,
at the same time expressing the hope that no more attempts
would be made to supply the enemy> For his activity in
breaking up this trade, Amherst was duly praised by the
government.' *
NOTE H
REPLY OP THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO THE CLAIM ADVANCED
BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO SOVE-
REIGNTY OVER THE WHOLE CONTINENT OF AMERICA
Seepage On July 20, 1895 Mr. Olney addressed a despatch to the
324. American Ambassador in London, in which were included the
following observations : —
'That distance and 3,000 miles of intervening ocean make
any permanent political union between an European and an
American State unnatural and inexpedient will hardly be
denied. . . .
* To-day the United States is practically Sovereign on this
continent, and its fiat is law iipon the subjects to which it
confines its interposition. . . .
» B. T. N. Y. 36 Go 67. Amherst^ May 6, 1762, to Fitch ; May 7, 1762, to
Hamilton ; same date to Hopkins ; eta Am. and W. I. 97.
^ Amherst to Goyemor Hamilton of Pennsylvania, May 7, 1762. Ibid.
^ Governor Bernard of Massachusetts complained that the embargo en-
tailed some suffering in that colony, as fish could not be sent to the British
West Indies, nor provisions to Quebec and Nova Scotia. On May 6, 1762,
Amherst in reply wrote to Bernard, that this illegal trade had been carried
on in a most systematic and wholesale manner, and that its suppression was
a matter of the highest importance. He would allow Bernard to relax the
embargo as far as Nova Scotia was concerned provided that satisfactory
bonds were given. Ibid.
* Amherst, June 18, 1762, to governors of Rhode Island, Gfonnecticut,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Ibid.
^ On July 10, 1762, Egremont wrote to him, that * the indefatigable
Pains You have taken to discover & trace out all the Arts used to cover
the most scandalous illicit Ti'ade, carried on with the Enemy, have justly
met* with high approbation. Am. and W.I. 77.
THE AMERICAN COLONIES 415
*With the Powers of Europe permanently encamped on CHAP.
American soil, the ideal conditions we have thus far enjoyed VI
cannot be expected to continue.'
To these observations Lord Salisbury replied : —
'The necessary meaning of these words is that the union
between Gt. Britain and Canada ; between Gt. Britain and
Jamaica and Trinidad; between Gt. Britain and British
Honduras or British Guiana are " inexpedient and unnatural."
President Monroe disclaims any such inference from his doctrine ;
but in this, as in other respects, Mr. Olney develops it. He lays
down that the inexpedient and unnatural character of the union
between a European and American State is so obvious that it
"will hardly be denied." Her Majesty's Government are pre-
pared emphatically to deny it on the behalf of both the British
and American people who are subject to her Crown.' ^
NOTE I
LINES UPON WHICH THE COLONISTS WERE DIVIDED IN THE
WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
* It is difficult or impossible to form any safe conjecture of Soe page
the number of real loyalists in America, but it is certain that ^72.
it was very considerable. John Adams, who would naturally
be inclined to overrate the preponderance in favour of in-
dependence, declared at the end of the war his belief that a
third part of the whole population, more than a third part of
the principal persons in America, were throughout opposed to
the Bevolutiou. Massachusetts was of all the provinces the
most revolutionary, but when General Gage evacuated Boston
in 1776 he was accompanied by more than 1,000 loyalists of
that town and of the neighbouring country. Two-thirds of the
property of New York was supposed to belong to Tories, and
except in the city there appears to have been no serious dis-
affection. In some of the Southern colonies loyalists probably
formed half the population, and there was no colony in which
they were not largely represented. . . .
* The older colonists were not of the stuff of which ardent See page
soldiers are made. Among the poor, vagrant, adventurous ^^6.
immigrants who had lately poured in by thousands from Ireland
and Scotland, there was indeed a keen nulitary spirit, and it
was these men who ultimately bore the chief part in the war
of independence ; but the older and more settled colonists were
men of a very different type. Shrewd, prosperous, and well-
educated farmers, industrious, money -loving, and eminently
* Correspondence respecting the Question of the Boundary qf British Ouiana
[C. 7926], pp. 16-18, 25.
416 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
CHAP, domestic, they were men who, if they were compelled to fight,
VI would do ao with courage and intelligence, but who cared little
"--^^v-*-^ or nothing for military glory, and grudged every hour that
separated them from their families and their farms. Such men
were dragged very reluctantly into the struggle. The American
Revolution, like most others, was the work of an enei^etic
oiunority, who succeeded in committing an undecided aaid
fluctuating majority to courses for which they had little love,
and leading them step by step to a position from which it was
impossible to recede.^ To the last^ however, we find vacillation,
uncertainty, half -measures, and lin large classes a great apparent
apathy.' ^
Lecky's account is supported by the contemporary authority
of Chief Justice Marshall.
' When it is recollected that the parties to the war had been
members of the same empire ; that no practical oppression had
been generally experienced ; but that the contest was a contest
See page ^ One of the most remarkable documents relating to the state of opinion
547. iu America is the examination of Galloway (late Speaker of the House of
Assembly in Pennsylvania) by a Committee of the House of Commons,
June 16, 1779. As a loyalist, his mind was no doubt biassed, but he was a
very able and honest man, and he had much more than common means of
forming a correct judgment. He says : ' I do not believe, from the best know-
ledge I have of that time [the banning of the rebellion], that one-fifth of the
people had independence in view. . . . Many of those who have appeared in
support of the present rebellion have by a variety of means been compelled.
... I think I may venture to say that many more than four-fifths of the
people would prefer an union with Great Britain upon constitutional principles
to that of independence.' Galloway was asked the following question : ' That
part of the rebel army that enlisted in the service of the Congress — were they
chiefly composed of natives of America, or were the greatest part of them
English, Scotch, and Irish ? ' Galloway answered : ' The names and places
of their nativity being taken down, I can answer the question with precision.
There were scarcely one-fourth natives of America — about one-half Irish — ^the
other fourth were English and Scotch. ' This last answer, however, roust be
qualified by a subsequent answer, that he judged of the country of the troops
by the deserters who came over, to the number of between 2000 and 3000, at
the time when Galloway was with Sir W. Howe at Philadelphia. I have no
doubt that in the beginning of the war the proportion of pure Americans in
the army was much larger, as it was chiefly recruited in New England, where
the population was most unmixed. It is stated that more than a fourth part
of the continental soldiers employed during the war were from Massachusetts.
See Greene's HistoricoU View of th€ American Revolution^ p. 285. Galloway's
very remarkable evidence was reprinted at Philadelphia in 1855. In his
Letters to a Nobleman on the Conduct of the Wavj Galloway reiterates his
assertion that ' three-fourths of the rebel army have been generally composed
of English, Scotch, and Irish, while scarcely the small proportion of one-
fourth are American, notw^ithstanding the severe and arbitrary laws to force
them into the service.'
'^ Lecky, History of England in Uu Eighteenth Century^ vol. iv. pp. 222,
224-5.
. THE AMERICAN COLONIES .417
of principle, in which a claim was resisted in its commencement, CHAP,
on the mere ground of rights the pressure of which had not been VI
felt ; it will readily be supposed that some contrariety of opinion
must have prevailed in every stage of the controversy. In its
origin there were very few who took a decisive part in support
of the claims of administration. The opposition was made by
the most active, energetic, and intelligent ; and being an opposi-
tion to taxation, the ultimate consequences of which were
neither generally foreseen nor apprehended, was, of course, very
popular; and those who would not then have been willing to
encounter the difficulties and dangers afterwards experienced,
either joined their countrymen, or suffered themselves to be
borne along with the great mass, without enquiring what would
be the future result of the present measures.
' As the contest assumed a more serious aspect, and became
better understood, causes of irritation multiplied, and real
injuries were sustained. The number of those who were deter-
mined, at every hazard, to maintain the principle asserted by
America, greatly increased : but the party disaffected to this
opposition, assumed a more distinct form, and in many parts
of the union appeared in greater force than had been at first
apprehended.
'So soon as fears were entertained that the pen might be
laid aside, and an appeal be made to the sword, many were
found unwilling to encounter the danger and the hazards of
the contest ; and to be more disposed to admit the supremacy
of the British Parliament, and trust to their not abusing it,
than to risk everything in order to maintain a principle not
deemed by all of equal importance. These men, who were
viewed with infinite contempt and detestation by those who
believed that to submit to taxation, unaccompanied by re-
presentation, was the essence of slavery, were denominated
tories ; and were exposed to the resentment of their neighbours
who entertained the prevailing opinions.
* The nominal government not having been yet changed, and
all concurring in professions of allegiance to the British crown,
even after hostilities had commenced, no pains or penalties
could be ordained by law for persons of this description ; but
they were held up as enemies to the liberties of America, after
which their condition was worse than if subjected to prosecu-
tion, according to legal rules, for offences against established
laws.' ^
' Marshairs Lift of Washington, vol. iii. pp. 48-50.
2 E
418 THE AMERICAN 0OLONIE8
CHAP.
J^^^ NOTE J
ACT OF PARLIAMENT RENOUNCING THE CLAIM TO TAX
THE COLONIES
8ee page < Whereas taxation by the Parliament of Great Britain for
^^^' the purpose of raising a Revenue in His Majesty's Colonies,
Provinces and Plantations in North America has been found
by Experience to occasion great uneasiness and disorders among
His Majesty's faithful subjects who may nevertheless be dis-
posed to acknowledge the justice of contributing to the common
Defence of the Empire provided such contribution should be
raised under the authority of the General Court or General
Assembly of each respective Colony, Province or Plantation. . . .
May it please your Majesty that it be declared and enacted and
it is hereby declared and enacted. . . . That from and after
the passing of this Act the King and Parliament of Great
Britain will not impose any Duty, Tax or Assessment whatever,
payable in any of His Majesty's Colonies, Provinces or Planta-
tions in N. America or the West Indies; except only such
duties as it may be expedient to impose for the Regulation of
Commerce : the net produce of such duties to be always paid
and applied to and for the use of the Colony, Province or
Plantation in which the same shalf be respectively levied in
such manner as other duties collected by the authority of the
Respective General Courts or General Assemblies of such
Colonies etc. are ordinarily paid and applied.
'XL And be it further enacted . . . That, from and after
the passing of this act, so much of an act made in the seventh
year of his present Majesty's reign intituled "An act for
granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations
in America "... as imposes a duty on tea imported from Great
Britain into any Colony or Plantation in America, or has relations
to the said duty, be, and the same is, hereby repealed.' ^
1 18 G«o. in. c. 12 (1778). SialvX^ al Lmrgt, vol. xiii. p. 180.
>LATE XI
lO
8"
Map of
IRELAND
to illustrate Chapter VII
»9e 419.
!m.
CHAPTER VII
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
The independence of the United States of America chap.
VII
was formally established by the second Peace of .^^^^^^^^^^
Paris signed at Versailles in January 1783. In the The
last chapter the disruption of the Commonwealth has R^oiuTion
been represented as the inevitable consequence of a ^f^j.^^*
statesmanship in England which was unable to rise English
above the maxims of the commercial system. A systei
variety of causes had long been disposing the minds
of the colonists towards separation. From the cir-
cumstances which led to their settlement in America
they were out of sympathy in various ways with the
ruling classes in Britain. More earnest in their
religion, cleaner in their personal morality, at once
purer and more democratic in their politics and of a
simpler and more wholesome manner of life, they
were disposed to regard Britain much as Bunyan's
pilgrim regarded the City of Destruction. On these
and other contributory causes of the Revolution
many volumes have been written, but for the pur-
pose of the present inquiry it is needless to dwell
upon them, unless it is contended that, had all these
merely contributory causes been reversed, the result
in the end might have been other than it was.
Suppose that the religion, morals, and manners of
American society had been those of the ruling classes
at home, and had changed in sympathy with the
changes that there took place, is it conceivable even
419
420
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
A similar
system in
Ireland
produced
similar
results.
SO that the relations of the two peoples could have
remamed subject to the principles of the commercial
system ? The United States of America now contain
more than 100,000,000 souls. Can we conceive this
vast aggregate of human beings in the political
situation that was occupied by the colonists of
Virginia and New England? Can any sane mind
imagine the foreign relations of North America con-
ducted to-day by a government responsible only to
the 45,000,000 inhabitants of the British Isles ?
If not, it is enough for an inquiry like this to
examine the one cause which must, if it continued,
have compelled the colonists to assume independence
in external as well as internal affairs. It is not a
very rash statement to say that, unless the people
of Great Britain had managed to admit the Americans
to a common responsibiUty for foreign affairs, the
Americans must in any case have assumed that
responsibility for themselves.
An attempt on the part of Scotland to do this
very thing and the results which followed have been
dealt with in Chapter V. A similar attempt on the
part of Ireland was the immediate result of the
American Revolution. The close connection of Irish
with colonial affairs was ho mere accident. The
Irish problem hinges on the fact that Ireland was the
earliest field of English and Scottish colonization.
I
THE IRISH COLONY AND ITS CLAIM TO INDEPENDENCE
The
isolation
of Ireland
in early
times.
The arm of the sea which divides Calais from
Dover has enabled the English to develop a civiliza-
tion of their own, differing in important respects
from that of Europe. The strait which divides them
from Ireland is thtee times as wide, with the result
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 421
that till recent times the people of England have ohap.
been in closer contact with those of Western Europe
than with those of Ireland. A glance at the map,
however, is enough to show that the fortunes of the
two islands are inseparably connected. A situation
which thus enforces connection while discouraging
intimacy is the key to the misfortunes which have
overtaken the smaller and more secluded of the two
peoples. From the outset of their common history
this situation has operated to the prejudice of Ire-
land. Britain in a state of barbarism was a constant
menace to the civilization established by the Romans
in Gaul, and had to be brought under Roman rule.
Agricola, who accomplished this work, saw that in 78-85 a. d.
time the pax Romana established in Britain would
be threatened in turn from Ireland and advised, but
never attempted, its conquest ; nor did any of his
successors. ' It was probably a misfortune that Ire-
land never passed, like the rest of Europe, under the
subjection of the Romans, who bequeathed, wherever
they ruled, the elements of Latin civilisation, and
also those habits of national organisation in which
they were pre-eminent.' * Had St. George's Channel
been no wider than the Straits of Dover, it is at
least more likely that Rome would have dissolved
the tribal system in Ireland and given to its people
a unity which they have never since been able to
achieve. The Irish seem to have advanced to a state
of culture as high as can be attained within the
limits inexorably imposed by a tribal condition of
society. In the chaos which followed the collapse
of the Roman Empire the seclusion of the island
served, in some measure to protect its people from
external foes. Under the protection of its monas-
teries Celtic literature and art attained their highest
^ Lecky, History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 2. In
future this authority will be referred to as Lecky, History of Ireland.
422 IRELAKD AND THK BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, development, and Irish missionaries carried Chris-
tianity to Northumberland and to the barbarians
of Northern Europe. * From Ireland/ in the words
of St. Bernard, 'as from an overflowing stream,
crowds of holy men descended upon foreign countries.' ^
Survival Nevertheless, outside the monasteries the tribal
tribal system remained undisturbed. Tribal custom, known
system. ^ ^j^^ Brehou law, was recorded with care and
invested with sanctity. * But there was no authority
except public opinion to enforce payment of the fines
determined by the brehon in cases submitted to
him.' ^ By the twelfth century Ireland had attained
no greater unity than existed in England before the
time of Egbert,
introdac- In the twelfth century feudalism had been
feudaHsm thoroughly established in England, but it was subject
stron^^-**^ to a monarchy strong enough to hold the feudal
bow. chiefe in subjection to a common government and
thus to impose upon the country the habit of
obedience to a common government. The whole of
England was parcelled out in fiefs, and the Crown
had no more lands with which to reward military
retainers who had inherited none for themselves. It
was natural, therefore, for the kings to think of
Ireland as a possible field for feudal colonization, and
the internal weakness of the country was such as to
invite the attempt. The opportunity occurred when
Diarmait Machmaida, paramount chief of Leinster,
being worsted in a tribal affray, sought the aid of
Henry II., who authorized him to obtain the assist-
ance of some of his more impecunious retainers. At
Bristol Diarmait obtained the assistance of Richard
de Claire, Earl of Pembroke, better known as ^trong-
bow, a nobleman of great ability butr broken fortunes.
Strongbow asked for and obtained the hand of
* Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. i. pp. 242-3.
* Quiggin, Ency. Brit, vol. xiv. p. 770, 11th eA
IRELAND AKD THB BRITISH OOMMONWEALTH 423
Diarmait 8 daughter Eva. Under feudal law this ohar
marriage would have made him heir to all the rights
of Diarmait in Leinster ; but under the tribal law of
Ireland it gave him no rights to the communal land,
which was the joint property of the tribe. Thus in
the twelfth century appears the same collision of
legal systems which led to the native wars in South
Africa and in New Zealand, and complicates to this
day the relations of the native with the colonist.
Strongbow eventually landed in Ireland with a strong
force and asserted what he supposed to be his rights.
In accordance with the agreement Diarmait pro-
ceeded to grant the territory of Wexford as fiefe to
Strongbow's allies, Robert Fitzstephen and Maurice
Fitzgerald. Such grants, however, were utterly at
variance with the principles of native law.
Henry II. was quick to perceive that Strongbow Henry ii.
might become as dangerous to himself as his own fe'S'as
ancestors had been to the Kings of France. In 1172 l]^2^^^'
he crossed to Ireland with a strong force and exacted
the homage not only of the invaders but of the Irish
chiefs, who did not in the least appreciate the signi^
ficance of their act. England owes much to the
assertion by Henry II. of his authority over the
Norman nobles ; but in Ireland he was quite unable
to control the adventurers, and contented himself
with exercising a nominal authority over them
through a Viceroy. The adventurers proceeded to
carve out fiefs for themselves; but their conquests
were. largely limited to the open valleys, and the
Celtic tribes remained in undisputed possession of
the mountainous districts. The Norman conquerors Nominal
were rapidly absorbed into Irish society, and be- of^E^giuh
came tribal chiefs rather than feudal nobles. The '^^^®'
authority of the King was purely nominal, and did
not avail to impose upon the nobles and their fol-
lowers, as in England, a habit of obedience to a
424
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
1298.
The
English
Pale.
common government. The Irish people were neither
incorporated like the Welsh as part of the British
state, nor did they become a separate state. It was
Edward I. who in England placed the final seal on
the work begun by William the Conqueror and con-
tinued by Henry 11. , as a result of which the King's
writ ran through every county of England, order
was established, and every one. irrespective of rank
or station, was accustomed to obey the national
Government. The history of the British Empire
would have been very different if he and his successors
had been strong enough to accomplish the same task
in Ireland. Wanting that strength, they fell back
on the fatal expedient of maintaining an appearance
of authority by keeping Ireland divided against itself
When Robert D'Ufford in 1298 was called upon by
Edward to account for the state of disorder in Ire-
land, he explained that ^ he thought it expedient to
wink at one knave cutting off another,' whereat the
King smiled and bade him return to Ireland.
The English had long traded with Ireland, with
the consequence which invariably follows, when a
more orderly community begins to trade with one
more backward than itself, that they formed settle-
ments on the coast, just as in the seventeenth century
English trading posts were established on the coasts
of India. It is perhaps more accurate to say that
they utilized and developed Norse settlements already
established at the most convenient harbours, those of
Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, and Cork. The area or
' Pale ' contBoUed by these colonies tended to include
the surrounding country in proportion to the growth
of English power. While England was weakened by
the Wars of the Roses, the area began to contract,
till, except in the case of Dublin, it vanished alto-
gether. Even there the English Pale became so
small ^nd difficult to hold that it was protected by
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CX)MMONWBALTH 425
a ditch. Within the Pale the English colonists ruled ohap.
VII
the Celtic inhabitants, and, as happens to some extent ^..,„,^^.„^
at the present day in South Africa, the colonists
reserved their own law to themselves, while governing
the natives under native law, an arrangement fruitful
in inequalities. It meant, for instance, that while
the murder of an Englishman was punished only with
death, the murder of an Irishman involved nothing,
more serious than a fine. When the Irish inhabitants
of the Pale offered to purchase the privilege of Eng-
lish law for a large sum, their petition was refused
by the Government at the instance of the English
prelates and nobles. The colonists, deeply concerned
to maintain themselves as a separate race and caste,
compelled the sons of labourers to follow their fathers'
vocation, and excluded the natives from the patronage
of the Ohurch. While endeavouring, however, to Fruitless
prevent the natives from rising to their own level, to â„¢^
the colonists were unable to avoid sinking to that of EnS^"
the Irish. Regulations such as those forbidding aacend-
Englishmen to wear moustaches after the fashion
of the natives reveal a consciousness of their own
tendency to merge into the primitive society which
surrounded them.
* Irish modes of life long continued to exercise an
irresistible attraction over many of the colonists ; but
it was inevitable, in such a situation and at such a
time, that those who resisted that attraction, and
who formed the nucleus of the English power, should
look upon the Irish as later colonists looked upon the
Red Indians — as being, like wild beasts, beyond the
pale of the moral law. Intermarriage with them was
forbidden by stringent penalties, and many savage
laws were made to maintain the distinction. "It
was manifest," says Sir John Davis, "that such as
had the government of Ireland under the crown of
England did intend to make a perpetual separation
426
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
The first
Irish
Parlia-
ment,
c, 1295.
CHAP, and enmity between the English and Irish, pretend-
ing, no doubt, that the English should, in the end,
root out the Irish." A sentiment very common in
the Pale was expressed by those martial monks who
taught that it was no more sin to kill an Irishman
than to kill a dog; and that, whenever, as often
happened, they killed an Irishman, they would not
on that account refrain from celebrating Mass even
for a single day.'^
When in 1295 Edward I. summoned representatives
of the English counties and towns to discuss with
him the affairs of state and frimish him with the
necessary supplies, he instructed his Viceroy to adopt
the same procedure in Ireland. The colonists accord-
ingly were summoned to send representatives to
Dublin. As in England, the practice became estab-
lished, and the representatives at Dublin rapidly
acquired the power of making laws for themselves
subject to the assent of the King's deputy, which
was often granted with little or no reference to the
King himself. In 1459, when England was distracted
ofTr^andT ^1 ^^ Wars of the Roses, they anticipated the action
of the American colonies by denying that Ireland
was subject to the laws and statutes of England. The
Anglo-Irish colony adhered to the Yorkist faction, and
it was there that Richard of York gathered strength to
attack the House of Lancaster. It was there that the
rebellion of Lambert Simnel was hatched in 1487, to
end in the Battle of Stoke where, as Bacon remarks,
' the Irish did not fail in courage or fierceness but
being almost naked men only armed with darts and
skeens it was rather an execution than a fight upon
them.' Presently Perkin Warbeck, a Flemish appren-
tice to a silk merchant in Cork, was put forward by
the Yorkist party as rightful heir to the throne and
was recognized as King of Ireland by the colonial
* Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. i. p. 4.
Yorkist
1459.
1451.
1487.
1492.
IRELAND AND THB BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 42*7
Parliament. His claims were a source of anxiety to ohap.
VII
Henry VH. until, after attempting to invade England, ^^^^^.^^.^^^
he was at length captured and executed in 1499. 1499.
Henry VII. recognized that no ruler could secure Poyniug's
his position in England until he had asserted his no '
authority in Ireland, and determined to end the ^^^J^t^
practice in accordance with which the deputy and m Ireland
^ ^ _ ^ . . unless first
his colonial Parliament made laws with little or no approved
bv tilie
reference to the King himself. Accordingly he sent English
to Ireland as Lord Deputy, Sir Edward Poyning, ^^IcH
who summoned a Parliament which, at his instance,
enacted a law providing that in future no Parliament
should be summoned without the consent of the King,
and that no business should be laid before it when
summoned which had not been considered and ap-
proved by the King in council. By a further act
the existing statute law of England was applied to
Ireland. Parliament, of course, represented no one
but the English colonists, whose authority was con-
fined to their fortified settlements on the coast.
Beyond those limits the English settlers had merged
into the Celtic society about them and had adopted
the language and habits of the natives. The only
authority recognized was that of the chiefe, including
those of Norman descent, who were constantly at
feud with one another. The colonists were in no
position therefore to assert their independence of the
English Government. Henry VII. could afford to
despise their Parliament, and it was the Viceroy's
independence, rather than theirs, which Poyning's
Law was intended to restrict. Henceforward no law
could be made in Ireland any more than in England
without the approval of the King himself.
At the very moment when Poyning's Law was Ireland a
passed, Columbus was opening the route to America, the
and within three years Vasco da Gama had landed gp-n^^o?^
on the coast of India. * The great impulse which the *^« '^^^^
age.
428 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CX)MMONWBALTH
CHAP, discovery of the New World and the religious changes
of the sixteenth century had imparted to the intellect
and character of Europe, was shown in England in
an exuberance of many-sided activity equalled in no
previous portion of her history. It produced among
other consequences an extraordinary growth of the
spirit of adventure, a distaste for routine, an extreme
desire to discover new and rapid paths to wealth.
This spirit showed itself in the immense development
of maritime enterprise both in the form of discovery
and in the form of piracy, and still more strongly in
the passion for Irish land. The idea that it was
possible to obtain, at a few hours' or days' journey
from the English coasts, and at little or no cost, great
tracts of fertile territory, and to amass in a few
years gigantic fortunes, took hold upon the English
mind with a fascination much like that which was
exercised by the fables of the exhaustless riches of
India in the days of Clive and of Hastings. The
Government warmly encouraged it. They believed
that the one effectual policy for making Ireland useful
to England was, in the words of Sir John Davis, " to
root out the Irish " from the soil, to confiscate the
property of the septs, and plant the country syste-
matically with English tenants. There were chronic
disturbances between the English Grovernment and
the Irish , chie&, who were in reality almost inde-
pendent sovereigns, and these were made the pretexts
for gigantic confiscations ; and as the hunger for land
became more intense, and the number of English
adventurers increased, other methods were employed.
A race of discoverers were called into existence who
fabricated stories of plots, who scrutinised the titles
of Irish chiefs with all the severity of English law,
and who, before suborned or intimidated juries, and
on the ground of technical flaws, obtained confiscations.
Many Irish proprietors were executed on the most
j
IRELAND AND THE BBITISH COMMONWEALTH 429
frivolous pretexts, and these methods of obtaining chap.
confiscations were so systematically and skilfully re- .^^^^^^,.^^^
sorted to, that it soon became evident to chiefs and
people that it was the settled policy of the English
Grovemment to deprive them of their land.' ^
The darkest pages of history are those in which The
European adventurers are seen using the achievements engendered
of their civilization for the destruction of more J^L^^^®*^'
ence in
primitive peoples. In Ireland it would seem as civilization
enlianced
though fate had decreed that no irony should be by
wanting to complete the tragedy. Unlike the natives JuffS^^cs
of Africa and America the Irish were Europeans, no
less capable than any European race of responding
to civilizing influences which came within their reach,
or of evolving a civilization for themselves. They
were just too near for the English to let them alone,
and yet too far to be incorporated in the English
state and share in the development of its civilization.
Except for its reUgion, Irish society was a survival
of Western Europe before its inclusion in the Roman
Empire. The Irish had adopted Christianity before
the Vo,, them,el.», «>d fldeUty to their'^ndent
creed was now to contribute to their ruin. The
Reformation was closely associated in England with
the cause of freedom, and when Elizabeth ascended
the throne Catholicism was identified with the forces
which were endeavouring to crush the English Common-
wealth. The Church reformed^ on English lines was'
formally estabHshed in Ireland. But the Irish clung
to CathoHcism and were regarded as an outpost of
continental autocracy. Religious opinion instead of
restraining, encouraged and sanctioned the rapacity
of the adventurers who descended on Ireland. ' The Rebellions
slaughter of Irishmen was looked upon as literally reprisals
the slaughter of wild beasts. Not only the men, but E^^beth.
even the women and children who fell into the hands
^ Lecky, History of Ireland, voL i pp.. 13-14.
430 IRELAND AND THB BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, of the English, were deliberately and systematically
^" butchered. Bands of soldiers traversed great tracts
of country, slaying every living thing they met.
The sword was not found sufficiently expeditious, but
another method proved much more efficacious. Year
after year, over a great part of Ireland, all means of
human subsistence were destroyed, no quarter was
given to prisoners who surrendered, and the whole
population was skilfully and steadily starved to death.
The pictures of the condition of Ireland at this time
are as terrible as anything in human history. Thus
Spenser, describing what he had seen in Munster,
tells how, "out of every corner of the woods and
glens, they came creeping forth upon their hands, for
their legs could not bear them. They looked like
aaatomies of death ; they spoke like ghosts crying
out of their graves ; they did eat the dead carrion,
happy when they could find them; yea, and one
another soon after, inasmuch as the very carcases they
spared not to scrape out of their graves." ... In
Ulster the war was conducted in a similar spirit. . . .
" No spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of
towns, and especially in wasted countries, than to
see multitudes of these poor people dead, with their
mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, docks,
and all things they could rend above ground." .
In the neighbourhood of Newry, famine produced a
new and appalling crime. It was discovered that
some old women were accustomed, by lighting fires,
to attract children, whom they murdered and de-
voured. At last, hunger and the sword accomplished
their work .... and the English ascendency was
supreme. . . . The English ascendency brought with
it two new and lasting consequences, the proscrip-
tion of the Irish religion and the confiscation of the
Irish soU.' '
* Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. i. pp. 6-6, 8-10.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 431
Naturally the Irish stretched out their hands for chap.
, yjj
assistance to Catholic countries, and Spain saw in ,,^^,^..,^^.^^
Ireland a possible base for the invasion of England. Spanish
' A small expedition of Spaniards, with some English ^'^^*®*^°*-
and Irish refugees, landed at Smerwicke in Kerry in
1579 to support the rebellion of Desmond, but they 1579.
were besieged by the English, and after a hard
struggle the survivors, numbering about 600, sur-
rendered at discretion, and, except the officers who
were reserved for ransom, were put to death, as well
as some women who were found with them in the
fort. A larger expedition of about 3,500 men landed
in Einsale in 1601, and was joined by the followers
of O'Donnell and Tyrone, but it was surprised and
defeated by the English. The Spaniards were allowed
to retire to their own country, and O'Donnell and
many other Irish accompanied them, and planted in
a happier soil families which in more than one in-
stance produced noble fruit. From this time it was
noticed that Irish exiles were scattered widely over
the Continent. Great numbers of the old nobility
of the land fought and fell under foreign flags, and
'' found their graves in strange places ^nd unhereditary
churches." ' ^
As normally happens when Europeans invade the Exteiisive
territories of a primitive people, the English ignored ^"S"^
a semi-communal system of tenure which they did ^^^®^®-
not understand. ' Under the clan system it may easily
be conceived what passionate indignation must have
been excited by the attempt to expel the old chiefs
from their property, and to replace them by new
owners who had no single object except to amass
rapid fortunes, who had no single sympathy or interest
in common with the natives. But this was not all.
The Irish land customs of tanistry and gavelkind, as
established by the Brehon laws, were still in full force
^ Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. L pp. 11-12.
432
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CX)KMONW£ALTH
CHAP,
VII
Substitu-
tion of
English
for Irish
system
of land
tenure.
among the Irish tribes. According to this system,
the chief was not, like an English landlord, owner in
fee of his land ; he was elected, though only out of
a single family, and the clan had a vested interest in
the soil. The humblest clansman was a co-proprietor
with his chief : he was subject, indeed, to many ex-
actions in the form of tribute that were extremely
burdensome and oppressive, but he could not be
ejected, and he had large rights of inheritance of
common land. His position was wholly different from,
and in some respects it was superior to, that of an
English tenant. In the confiscations these rights were
completely disregarded. It was assumed, in spite of
immemorial usage, that the land was the absolute,
hereditary property of the chiefs, and that no com-
pensation was due to their tenants; and in this
manner the confiscation of territory became a burning
grievance to the humblest clansman.' ^ It was only
in Connaught that the rights of the Irish received
recognition. There Sir John Perrot, instead of ignor-
ing their communal rights, converted them into indi-
vidual tenure or divided them in accordance with the
notions of English law. Elsewhere the natives were
ruthlessly dispossessed, and those who survived were
allowed to remain only in the condition of day
labourers or ploughmen.
Immediately, however, they began to reassert their
hold on the soil. It is the constant complaint among
the European population of South Africa that great
landowners find it more profitable to lease their land
to natives than to whites, and so it was with the
Irish. ' Accustomed to live in wretched poverty,
they could pay larger rents than the English ; their
local knowledge gave them great advantages; they
were unmolested by the numerous robbers who had
begun to swarm in the woods ; and after the lapse of
^ Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. i. pp. 15-16.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 433
ten years from the commencement of the Settlement, ohap.
Spenser complained that the new proprietors, " instead
of keeping out the Irish, doe not only make the Irish
their tenants in those lands and thrust out the English,
but also some of them become mere Irish." '} There
is reason for believing that Spenser's own grandson
was dispossessed of land under the Cromwellian
settlement as a rebel Irishman.
The process already described was continued by The
James I., and henceforward Ireland was exploited by pj^nution
Scotland as well as England. By a decision of the ^^ Ulster
o ^ J ^ under
King's Bench, the tribal rights recognized under the James i.
1609-12.
Brehon law were declared illegal, and Ulster was
colonized by Scottish settlers. Native reserves were
at first made, as in Connaught, but in neither case
were they long respected. Thenceforward the process
of expropriation was furthered by legal tricks to
which the sanction of law was accorded by a corrupt
judiciary. The law as well as the religion of the
conquerors was thus perverted to the undoing of the
Irish people.
In England, meanwhile, the struggle of the Com- Strafford
monwealth with autocracy was fast approaching its i^38!9*" '
crisis, and Ireland became a pawn in the game.
Charles I. sent Wentworth as his Viceroy to Ireland
to raise there revenues and forces which would relieve
him from the necessity of applying to an English
Parliament for suppUes. With this end in view the
natives were driven from the lands which Perrot had
secured to them in Connaught. Wentworth was re-
called, impeached by Parliament, and executed in
1641 ; but the Puritans, who were exhorting the
King to enforce the laws against the Catholics, were
little disposed to protect the Irish natives. Parlia-
ment, like the. King, had parasites of its own who
looked on Irish land as their lawful spoil. Sir William
* Lecky, Histcry of Irelatidy vol. i. pp. 18-19.
2 F
434
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH OOMMONWEALTH
OHAP.
VII
The Irish
rebellion,
1641.
Ireland
supports
â– Charles I.
in the
Civil "War,
1642-9.
Parsons 'ardently desired and purposely stimulated
rebellion in order to reap a new crop of confiscations/^
* The Lords Justices, and crowds of hungry adven-
turers, saw with keen delight the opportunity of
obtaining that general confiscation of Irish lands at
which they had been so long and so flagitiously
aiming, and of carving out fortunes on a larger scale
than in any previous period. Lord Castlehaven
assures us it was a common saying among them that
** the more were in the rebellion, the more lands
should be forfeited to them." ' ^ ' Week after week,
as the attitude of the English Parliament became
more hostile, the panic in Ireland spread and
deepened.' * In October 1641 the rebellion began
with a number of murders but with no general
massacre. ' From the very beginning the English
Parliament did the utmost in its power to give the
contest the character of a war of extermination.'*
It was the boast of Pym himself 'that the Parliament
would not leave one priest in Ireland.' ^ In December
the English House of Commons resolved that the
Catholic religion should not be tolerated in Ireland,
and * thus at once extended the range of the rebellion
and gave it the character of a war of religion.' ®
In May 1642 the Catholic clergy declared the war
against the English Parliament to be just and legal,
seeing that it was waged not only for the defence of
the Catholic religion but also for the maintenance of
the royal prerogative. Not only was the aid of the
Pope invoked but also that of the Kings of France
and Spain. Many of the old English colonists, who
remained Catholic and were cavaliers by sympathy,
threw in their lot with the rebellion. In England
the King and Parliament were actually at war, and
* Lecky, History of Irelarid, vol. i. p. 42.
» Ibid, p. 42.
» Ibid. p. 40.
2 Ibid, p. 70-1.
* Ibid. p. 82.
• Ibid, p. 82.
I
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 435
the Irish rebels, to legalize their position, produced chap.
a commission from Charley which may have been ,J^
genuine. It suited the Puritan book to identify
them with the Bojalist cause, and in 1644 Charles
with a gaipbler's desperation resolved to land Irish
Catholics in Britain in order to crush the Puritan
forces of Scotland and England. ' The Parliaments,
both in England and Scodand, passed ordinances in
1644 that no quarter should be given to Irish who
came to England to the King's aid. These ordinances
were rigidly executed, and great numbers of Irish
soldiers being taken prisoners in Scotland were
deliberately butchered in the field or in the prisons.
Irishmen taken at sea were tied back to back and
thrown into the waves. In one day eighty women
and children in Scotland were flung over a high
bridge into the water, solely because they were the
wives and children of Irish soldiers.
* If this was the spirit in which the war was con- Massacres
ducted in Great Britain, it may easily be conceived ^" "*" •
how it was conducted in Ireland. In Leinster, where
assuredly no massacre had been committed, the orders
issued to the soldiers were not only " to kill and
destroy rebels and their adherents and relievers, but
to burn, waste, consume, and demolish all the places,
towns, and houses where they had been relieved and
harboured, with all the com and hay therein ; and
also to kill and destroy all the men there inhabiting
capable to bear arms." But, horrible as were these
instructions, they but faintly foreshadowed the
manner in which the war was actually conducted.
I shall not attempt to go through the long catalogue
of horrors that have been too often paraded; it is
sufficient to say that the soldiers of Sir Charles
Coote, of St. Leger, of Sir Frederick Hamilton, and
of others, rivalled the worst crimes that were per-
petrated in the days of Carew and of Mountjoy.
436 -IRELAND AND THE BBITI8H COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. " The soldiers," says Carte, " in executing the orders
^^^^^^^^^^ of the justices, murdered all persons promiscuously,
not sparing (as they themselves tell the Commissionei*s
for Irish Affairs in the letter of June 7, 1642) the
women, and sometimes not children." Whole villages
as well as the houses of the gentry were remorselessly
burnt even when not an enemy was seen. In
Wicklow, in the words of Leland, Coote committed
" such unprovoked, such ruthless and indiscriminate
carnage in the town, as rivalled the utmost extrava-
gance of the Northerns." The saying " Nits will
make lice," which was constantly employed to justify
the murder of Irish children, then came into use.' *
Cromwell's At length in 1649, Cromwell, having crushed the
^"ireiand, Royalists in England, turned his attention to the
1649. pacification of Ireland, where he quickly overpowered
the Catholic forces. * It should always be remembered
to his honour that one of his first acts on going to
Ireland was to prohibit the plunderings and other
outrages the soldiers had been accustomed to practise,
and that he established a severe discipline in his
army. The sieges of Drogheda and Wexford, how-
ever, and the massacres that accompanied them,
deserve to rank in horror with the most atrocious
exploits of Tilly or Wallenstein, and they made the
name of Cromwell eternally hated in Ireland. . . .
Among the English soldiers who were present at this
siege was the brother of Anthony Wood, the well-
known historian of Oxford, and the vivid and most
authentic glimpse of this episode of Puritan warfare
which that accurate and painstaking writer has given
us in his autobiography, furnishes the best commentary
on the language of Cromwell. He relates how his
brother " would tell them of the most terrible assault-
ing and storming of Tredagh, where he himself had
been engaged. He told them that 3,000 at least,
* Lecky, History of Irelamd^ vol. i. pp. 88-5.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 437
besides some women and children, were, after the chap.
assailants had taken part and afterwards all the
town, put to the sword on September 11 and 12,
1649, at which time Sir Arthur Aston, the governor,
had his brains beat out and his body hacked to
pieces. He told them that when they were to make
their way up to the lofts and galleries of the church
and up to the tower where the enemy had fled, each
of the assailants would take up a child and use it as
a buckler of defence when they ascended the steps,
to keep themselves from being shot or brained. After
they had killed all in the church, they went into the
vaults underneath, where all, the flower and choicest
of the women and ladies had hid themselves. One
of these, a most handsome virgin arraid in costly and
gorgeous apparel, kneeled down to Thomas Wood
with tears and prayers to save her life, and being
stricken with a profound pitie^ he took her under his
arm, went with her out of the church with intentions
to put her over the works to shift for herself, but a
soldier perceiving his intentions he ran his sword
through her . , . whereupon Mr. Wood, seeing her
gasping, took away her money, jewels, etc., and flung
her down over the works." ' ^
Of a population reckoned at 1,466,000 when the His
war began, over 616,000 or close on half are esti- ^ifi^.^
mated to have perished before its close in 1652. *^°°^
Slave dealers were then let loose on the land, who
shipped the destitute children of the dead to Bar-
badoes. The abuses became such that the Puritan
Government which had for some time cordially sup-
ported the system made vain efforts to stop it. * All
or almost all the land of the Irish in the three largest
and richest provinces was confiscated, and divided
among those adventurers who had lent money to the
Parliament, and among the Puritan soldiers, whose
^ Lecky, Uiatory of IreXcmd^ vol. i. pp. 101-3.
438 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, pay was greatly in arrear. The Irish who were con-
sidered least guilty were assigned land in Connaught,
and that province, which rock and morass have
doomed to a perpetual poverty, and which was at
this time almost desolated by famine and by massacre,
was assigned as the home of the Irish race. The
confiscations were arranged under diflFerent categories ;
but they were of such a nature that scarcely any
Catholic or even old Protestant landlord could escape.
All persons who had taken part in the rebellion before
November 10, 1642, all who had before that date
assisted the rebels with food or in any other way,
and also about one hundred specified persons, includ-
ing Ormond, Bishop Bramhall, and a great part of
the aristocracy of Ireland, were condemned to death
and to the absolute forfeiture of their estates. All
other landowners who had at any period borne arms
against the Parliament, either for the rebels or for
the King, were to be deprived of their estates, but
were promised land of a third of the value in Con-
naught. If, however, they had held a higher rank
than major, they were to be banished from Ireland.
Papists who during the whole of the long war had
never borne arms against the Parliament, but who
had not manifested a "constant good affection"
towards it, were to be deprived of their estates, but
were to receive two-thirds of the value in Connaught.
Under this head were included all who lived quietly
in their houses in quarters occupied by the rebels or
by the King's troops, who had paid taxes to the rebels
or to the King after his rupture with the Parlia-
ment, who had abstained from actively supporting
the cause of the Parliament. Such a confiscation was
practically universal.' ^
Cromwell, however, was far too great a statesman
to believe that the Irish problem could be per-
^ Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. i. pp. 105-6.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 439
manently solved by mere ruthlessness, or even by chap.
the establishment of a military colony. He realized
that, if Ireland as well as Scotland was ever to be irUh
incorporated in the Commonwealth, its people must TOmnonod
share in the general government. Under his Pro- p ^.
tectorate Ireland, like Scotland, sent thirty members ment at
to the Parliament of Westminster. But, as in the minster
case of Scotland, his work was undone at the Re- jS^^tw-
storation, for no Irish members were summoned by **^ ^^^
• "^ not under
Charles II. to the English Parliament. It is not too theRestor-
much to say that the history of the world would
have been different had representatives of the Irish
people continued to meet those of England in a
common assembly.
When Charles 11. was restored to the throne, his 166O.
Catholic supporters in Ireland naturally expected to
regain their lands. But Charles dared not face the
fury of the Cromwellian settlers. A period of the
utmost confusion followed, in which the original
owners got little or nothing. When, however, the
Catholic James II. had been driven from England he James 11.
landed in Ireland in 1689 and identified his cause ^39!
with theirs. Once again the cause of reaction in
England found in neglected Ireland its natural sup-
port. James summoned a Catholic Parliament, which
hastened to revise the Cromwellian settlement and
to restore the land to the Catholic party. Ireland
now became a pawn in the long struggle between
William of Orange and Louis XIV., who was sup-
porting James. Beaten at the battle of the Boyne, The
James fled to France in 1690, and at the end of theBojme,
the following year the last of the Catholic forces ^^*^-
surrendered at Limerick. A promise of reUgious
liberty was included in the terms of surrender but
never fulfilled.
Though a stream of Protestant immigrants con-
tinued to flow for several decades from Scotland,
440 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, it will be convenient to pause at this juncture to
^^^^^^^ examine the composition of Irish society. By the
Composi- sixteenth century the ' old Englishry,' as those were
irish^^ called who had settled beyond the coast towns, had
rft^'~ been largely absorbed by the * Irishry/ They inter-
irishryand married with them, spoke Erse, and adopted their
Etiffiiahry, tribal customs. At the Reformation they adhered,
catkoiic ; together with the Irishry, to the Catholic religion.
(6) the Only the colonists who were segregated in the
th^^Paie,^ coast towHS retained their English character and
Siu^n • embraced the principles of the Reformation. For
them was officially established a colonial Church
modelled on the same lines as the reformed Church
of England, an episcopal organization acknowledging
the King as its head. The settlers who appropriated
the land in the reign of Elizabeth belonged to the
Church of England and coalesced with the sister
Church in Ireland, which, as in England, appro-
priated such church buildings as survived the
cataclysm of conquest.
(c)the A third element was introduced by the Scottish
settlers, colouizatiou of the North largely encouraged by
^&n Janaes I. These settlers were mainly Presbyterian
and violently anti-Catholic, but, from the point of
view of the Established Church of Ireland, Dissenters.
Both these Protestant elements were strengthened
by the successive tides of immigration which swept
over Ireland till the earlier decades of the eighteenth
century. The dissenting element was swelled by the
Cromwellian settlers, many of whom, however, sold
their titles owing to the insecurity of their position.
These were largely purchased by Scottish settlers,
who continued to stream into the North of Ireland
till shortly after the union of Scotland with England.
By the beginning of the eighteenth century the Irish
population was thus divided into three sections.
Three-quarters were Catholics, including some land-
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH OOMMONWEALTH 441
owners, gentry, and descendants of the old Englishry. chap.
But the vast majority of the Catholics were peasants ^^^^^^^^^
of mixed origin, in the lowest depth of ignorance and
degradation. The remaining quarter of the papula-
tion was divided between members of the Church of
Ireland and Dissenters. The great majority of land-
owners and gentry adhered to the Established Church
of Ireland. The bulk of the Dissenters were farmers
and artisans, people of the same class as those who
had colonized New England. Their religious organiza-
tions, unHke that of the Established Church, were
active ones, and they constituted the most vigorous
element in Irish society.
It was in truth their industry which now brought Trade and
Ireland within the meshes of the old colonial system, ^ha/in
The principles of that system, as explained in Chapter 2S!n^
IV., were developed by James I. and Charles I. in ^»"<*«-
fostering colonial projects which originated in the
form of commercial undertakings. Ireland throughout
their reigns was too distracted to develop a trade
valuable enough to claim the attention of the English
Government. Cromwell's settlers, however, the flower
of the English farmers and artisans, quickly changed
all this, and by the time of the Restoration the pro-
duce of Irish farms and looms had begun to reach
the English markets. The Civil War had resulted in
transferring the control of colonial relations from the
Crown to Parliament. The principles, however, which The
underlay the commercial arrangements with the ^stem
colonies remained the same, and were embodied in ^^i^
the Navigation Acts of the Long Parliament. Here, trade,
then, was a colonial policy ready-made, and, the
moment the Irish colonists developed a trade of their
own, the principles of that policy were applied to it
in all their stringency. As with the colonies, the
English Parliament abstained from drawing revenues
from Irish taxation into the English Treasury. It
442 IRELAND AND TH8 BRITISH OOMUONWSALTH
CHAP, reserved in its own hands the sole responsibility for
^^^^^^^^^^ naval defence. That was a charge on English industry,
and therefore the industries of Ireland as well as those
of the American colonies and Scotland were strictly
subordinated to what English industrialists regarded
as their interests.
strength For more than a century the executive was largely
^mmerciai coutroUcd by a few noble families, but commercial
^^ interests were strongly represented in Parliament,
Eneiish and in all matters affecting trade their voice was
ment. Considered as final. 'Trade was the Empire,' and
the classes responsible for trade were treated as the
determining factor in the settlement of public policy.
Politics were increasingly treated as though they were
Adam ' busiucss Writ large.' As Adam Smith pointed out,
f^;^,,, merchants and master.manu&cturers, from the nature
selfishness. Qf their occupatiou, are as a class led to devote a
closer attention to their own material interest than
other classes of citizens. ' As during their whole Uves
they are engaged in plans and projects, they have
frequently more acuteness of understanding than the
greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts,
however, are commonly exercised rather about the
interest of their own particular branch of business,
than about that of the society, their judgment, even
when given with the greatest candour (which it has
not been upon every occasion), is much more to be
depended upon with regard to the former of those
two objects, than with regard to the latter. Their
superiority over the country gentleman is, not so
much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in
their having a better knowledge of their own interest
than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge
of their own interest that they have frequently im-
posed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to
give up both his own interest and that of the public,
from a very simple but honest conviction, that their
IR£LAND AND THB BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 443
interest, and not his, was the interest of the public, ohap.
The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular s^^.,^^,,^
branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some Their
respects different from, and even opposite to, that wiciTnthe
of the public. To widen the market, and to narrow â„¢^^^^
the competition, is always the interest of the dealers, the oom-
To widen the market may frequently be agreeable
enough to the interest of the public ; but to narrow
the competition must always be ags&nst it, and can
only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their
profits above what they naturally would be, to levy,
for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest
of their feUow-citizens. The proposal of any new
law or regulation of commerce which comes from this
order, ought always to be listened to with great
precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after
having been long and carefully examined, not only
with the most scrupulous, but with the most sus-
picious attention. It comes from an order of men,
whose interest is never exactly . the same with that
of the public, who have generally an interest to
deceive and even to oppress the public, and who
accordingly have, on many occasions, both deceived
and oppressed it.' ^
* Smith, The WecUih of Nations, vol. i. pp. 351-2. With this passage it
is instructive to compare Leoky's refleotioiis on the attempts made by the
commercial classes in England to frustrate Lord North's proposal in 1777
to mitigate the restrictions on Irish trade. * Nothing indeed in the
history of political imposture is. more^ curious than the success with whioh,
during the Anti-Corn Law agitation, the notion was disseminated that on
questions of protection and free trade the manufacturing classes have been
peculiarly liberal and enlightened, and the landed classes peculiarly selftsh
and ignorant. It is indeed true, that when in the present century the
pressure of population on subsistence had made a change in the Com Laws
inevitable, the manufacturing classes placed themselves at the head of a free-
trade movement from which they must necessarily have derived the chief
benefit^ while the entire risk and sacrifice were thrown upon others. But it
is no less true that there is scarcely a manufacture in England which has not
been defended in the spirit of the narrowest and most jealous monopoly, and
the growing ascendency of the commercial classes after the Revolution is
nowhere more apparent than in the multiplied restrictions of the English
Commercial Code.* — Lecky, History of Irelamdy vol. ii. p. 179.
444 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. By the time that Irish industries had strugirled
J3L into existence the commercial system was fi^ly
The com- established. The system, as already observed, was
sv^tem conceived to suit tropical colonies which yielded the
to f^r ^^^^ materials which English soil could not produce.
trade in Its Spirit was hostile to the development in the
England ■*■^ i r>t i i ^ • i
as the sole remoter parts of the Commonwealth of any industry
Imperial which was capable of being conducted in England,
revenue, qjj ^j^^ p]^ ^}j^ there and there only was it liable
to contribute eflfectively to the charges of the common
defence. Translated into policy, this plea meant that
Parliament should discourage, so far as it could, the
development of industries outside the area of taxation
from which its revenues were drawn. Ireland, no less
than Scotland and the New England colonies, was
too like England to suit the system. Its soil and
climate lent themselves to the same industries as
Ireland England. But Ireland was in a far worse case than
miflt^^e Scotland or the American colonies. In Scotland
system; before the Union the Parliament of Westminster
claimed no power to legislate. In the American
colonies the power was limited not by law but by
facts. In Ireland, however, where the Protestant
minority depended for their lives and property on
English support, the Parliament of Great Britain
asserted its j right to make laws and was also in a
position to enforce them. The moment therefore
that English landowners and manufacturers com-
plained that Ireland was competing with their pro-
ducts in their own markets, the principles of the
commercial system were brought into play. As the
guests of Procrustes were fitted to his bed, so the
industries of Ireland were fitted by the English
Parliament to the commercial system. In 1665 and
1680 the importation into England from Ireland
of all cattle, sheep, swine, beef, pork, bacon, mutton,
butter, and cheese was absolutely forbidden. In
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CX)MMONW£ALTH 445
1663, 1670, and 1696 Ireland was excluded from chap.
VII
trade with the colonies. In 1698 the Irish Parlia- .^^„^.,^^.,^
ment was constrained to forbid all exportatioti of
wool from Ireland except to England, and to dis-
courage woollen manufactures. In 1699 the English
Parliament prohibited the exportation of manufac-
tured woollens from Ireland. The Irish were to
be encouraged to develop the linen trade, which was
not, like the woollen trade, regarded as the staple
of English industry, but the promises of England
in this respect were imperfectly redeemed.
The Irish, however, did not, like the American though
colonies, refuse the burdens of military defence. ^ntri^°
The Protestant Parliament was always prepared to ^^^
maintain a considerable army, partly in order to defence.
secure itself against the Catholic majority, and these
troops were constantly used on the continents of
Europe, Asia, and America. Ireland, however, was
never taxed for naval defence, and the amount of
taxation levied per head there was far lighter than
in England. It was a significant result of the com-
mercial system that Ireland was at once the least
heavily taxed and the poorest and most unhappy
country in Europe.*
The effect of the commercial restrictions upon the Consequeut
Protestant colonists are best described in Lecky's iSh°in^
own words. ' The manufacturers and the large class ^^^"®^
of energetic labourers who lived upon manufacturing
industry were scattered far and wide. Some of them
passed to England and Scotland. Great ^numbers
found a home in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and they
were the founders of the linen manufacture in New
England. Others, again, went to strengthen the
enemies of England. Lewis XIV. was in general
bitterly intolerant to Protestants, but he warmly
welcomed, encouraged, and protected in their worship,
' Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. i. pp. 175, 459.
446 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH OOHMON WEALTH
CHAP. Protestant manufacturers from Ireland who brought
VII
^^^^..^^^^^ their industry to Rouen and other cities of France.
Many others took refuge in the Protestant States of
Germany, while Catholic manufacturers settled in the
northern provinces of Spain and laid the foundation
of an industry which was believed to be very detri-
mental to England.
Protestant * The Protestaut emigration, which began with the
dmSgthe destruction of the woollen manufacture, continued
centonr"^^ during many ycars with unabated and even accelerating
rapidity. At the time of the Revolution, when great
portions of the country lay waste, and when the
whole framework of society was shattered, much Irish
land had been let on lease at very low rents to
English, and especially to Scotch Protestants. About
1717 and 1718 these leases began to fall in. Rents
were usually doubled, and often trebled. The smaller
farms were generally put up to competition, and the
Catholics, who were accustomed to live in the most
squalid misery, and to forego all the comforts of life,
very naturally outbid the Protestants. This fact,
added to the total destruction of the main industries
on which the Protestant population subsisted, to the
disabilities to which the Nonconformists were subject
on account of their religion, and to the growing
tendency to throw land into pasture, produced a great
social revolution, the effects of which have never been
repaired. For nearly three-quarters of a century the
drain of the energetic Protestant population continued,
and their places, when occupied at all, were occupied
by a Catholic cottier population, sunk in the lowest
depths of ignorance and poverty. All the miserable
scenes of wholesale ejections, of the disruption of
family ties, of the forced exile of men who were
passionately attached to their country, were enacted.
Carteret, in 1728, vainly deplored the great evil that
was thus inflicted on the English interest in Ireland,
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 447
and urged the Presbyterian ministers to employ their chap.
influence to abate it. Madden ten years later echoed ,,^„^,^,,.^
the same complaint, and declared that at least one-
third of those who went to the West Indies perished
either on the journey or by diseases caught in the
first weeks of landing. The famine of 1740 and 1741
gave an immense impulse to the movement, and it
is said that for several years the Protestant emigrants
from Ulster annually amounted to about 12,000.
More than thirty years later, Arthur Young found
the stream still flowing, and he mentioned that in
1773, 4,000 emigrants had sailed from Belfast alone.
Many, ignorant and credulous, passed into the hands
of designing agents, were inveigled into servitude,
or shipped by false pretences, or even with violence,
to the most pestilential climates. Many went to
the West Indies, and many others to thie American
colonies. They went with hearts burning with in-
dignation, and in the War of Independence they were
almost to a man on the side of the insurgents. They
supplied some of the best soldiers of Washington.
The famous Pennsylvanian line was mainly Irish,
and Montgomery, who, having distinguished himself
highly at the capture of Quebec, became one of the
earliest of the American commanders in the War of
Independence, was a native of Donegal.' ^
Until the forces of resistance in Ireland were Con-
finally broken in the seventeenth century, disparity ^nt^^
in civilization was the prime cause which embittered ™®'}^ ^
^ against
Anglo-Irish relations. The English despised the Irish, England
and the Irish hated the English as oppressors. No cS^,*
one deemed to belong to the subject race could count o7^*^ot^*
on obtaining mercy or even justice. Had Cromwell's religion-
Union endured, this condition would still have re-
mained until the difference of civilization between
the colonists and the older inhabitants had vanished.
* Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. i, pp. 245-8.
448 IRKLAITD AND TH£ BBITI8H C0HJf02!rWKALTH
CHAP. When the Union was reversed, the only kind of
VII - .
government possible was one which depended on main-
taining that difference and upon keeping Catholics
and Protestants divided against each other. Under
the commercial system the colonists were taught to
hate the country of their origin no less than the
natives themselves. The Irish problem ceased to be
one merely of disparity in civilization, religion, or
race. Professor Huzley believed that the Irish popu-
lation since the plantation of Cromwell has contained
as large a proportion of Teutonic blood as England
itself, and Lecky endorses that opinion.^ Wales was
&r more Celtic than Ireland The fieu^t that the
descendants of the colonists, English as well as Scottish,
Episcopalian as well as Nonconformist, rapidly de-
veloped a kind of hostility to England, proves that
this antipathy sprang not &om their race, but from
the situation in which the inhabitants of Ireland were
placed. * Hostility to the English Government is so
far from being peculiar to Celts, that it has long
passed into a proverb that in this respect the descend-
ants of English settlers have exceeded the natives,
and there have been few national movements in Ireland
at the head of which English names may not be
found. Nor can anyone who follows Irish history
wonder at the fact. ** If," wrote an acute observer
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, " we had
a new sette [of officers] taken out of London that
had noe knowledge or engagements in Ireland, yet in
seven years they would carry a grudge in their hearts
against the oppressions of England; and as their
interest in Irish ground increased, soe would their
aversion to the place they left. So it hath been these
five hundred years ; so it is with many of my acquaint-
ance but lately come from England ; and so it is likely
to be till the interests be made one." * ^
^ Lecky, History of Jrelandf vol. i. p. 400. ^ Ibid, p. 401.
IBELAITD AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 449
These words were written in 1702. In 1698 chap.
Molyneux had published his famous pamphlet urging s,^^,,.,,^,,^^
that, unless the English Parliament were prepared to Moiyneux's
admit Irish representatives, the Irish Parliament should FeSsiative
repudiate its jurisdiction. The English Parliament ^^^p®^^'
ordered his book to be burned by the public hangman; i«98.
The Irish Parliament was less courageous than
Molyneux, but realized clearly enou^ that the prin-
ciples of the commercial system spelt ruin for Ireland
unless its interests were identified with those of
England. The project of a Scottish Union was in Exampw
the air. Scotland was suffering from the exclusion union of
of her goods from English colonies and the severe ]f°|^*°^
restrictions on her trade with England. England, on Scotland,
the other hand, earnestly desired to consolidate the
connection between the two countries, which after the
Revolution was in great danger. After a period of
great tension England reluctantly agreed to share her
commercial privileges, and Scotland to surrender her
legislative independence. The Union was probably
carried largely by corruption, and long remained
unpopular in the snialler kingdom, but it bound
the two countries indissolubly together, and was to
a great extent the foundation of the subsequent
prosperity of Scotland.
* In 1703, four years before the Scotch Union was Resolution
completed, both Houses of Parliament in Ireland pariiL^
concurred in a representation to the Queen in favour J^y^j"J^
of a legislative Union between England and Ireland, ^^^^^^^
and in 1707 the Irish House of Commons, while
congratulating the Queen on the consummation of
the Scotch measure, expressed a hope that God
might put it into her heart to add greater strength
and lustre to her crown by a yet more comprehensive
union. ... In the pliant, plastic condition to which
Ireland was then reduced, a slight touch of sagacious
statesmanship might have changed the whole course
2g
450
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
The
proposal
ignored by
the com-
mercial
interests.
Adoption
of a
policy of
repression
against the
Catholics.
of its future development. But in this, as in so
many other periods of Irish history, the favourable
moment was suffered to pass. The spirit of com-
mercial monopoly triumphed. The petition of the
Irish Parliament was treated with contempt, and
a long period of commercial restrictions, and penal
laws, and complete parliamentary servitude, ensued.'^
Had Ireland been incorporated, the Catholics, as in
Britain, would have been governed by a Protestant
majority too strong to be frightened into serious
tyranny. The greater part of this majority, being
British, would not have had the same motive for
oppression as the Protestant minority in Ireland.
The commercial interests having forbidden the adop-
tion of this policy, there was no alternative but to
adhere to the old system of trusting to the Protestant
minority to hold down the Catholic majority. The
promise of religious freedom made at Limerick in
1691 was ignored. The English Parliament was not,
in any case, prepared to extend to Catholics in Ireland
privileges denied to them in England, and passed an
Act to exclude them from the Irish Parliament.
They were thus subjected to a minority in whose
minds were fresh the memories of the Catholic Parlia-
ment which had resumed possession of the lands
formerly seized and now regained by the Protestant
colonists. The Irish Parliament refused to ratify the
Treaty of Limerick, and contrary to its provisions
further expropriations were enforced against the
Catholics. Henceforward not more than one-eighth
of the soil of Ireland remained in the hands of
Catholic proprietors. The Dublin Parliament next
proceeded to the enactment of measures designed not
only to confirm the exclusion of Catholics from
political power, but to render them for ever unfit for
it. A series of laws were passed depriving Catholics
* Lecky, History qf IreUmdy vol. v. pp. 124-6.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 451
of the right to vote, and excluding them from the chap.
corporations, from the magistracy, from the bar, from
the bench, from the grand juries, from the vestries,
and from the army and navy. They might not be
sheriffs or solicitors, or even gamekeepers or con-
stables. They were forbidden to possess any arms
or a horse worth more than £5. No Catholic could
be a guardian, and all wards in Chancery were brought
up as Protestants. The land of a Catholic was
divided amongst his Catholic children, but if an
eldest son conformed to the Protestant religion, the
father was reduced to the position of a tenant for life
and the inheritance of the property secured to the
Protestant son. Catholics could not hold leases for
a longer period than 31 years. Foreign priests were
banished and native priests required to register and
remain in their own parishes. Successful informers
under these penal laws were richly rewarded from the
property of convicted Catholics.^
The most malignant of these measures were those Educa-
designed to confine education to the Protestant rMtrfctions.
colonists. At the root of the Irish question lay the
disparity between them and the Catholic Irish, to
remove which should have been the dearest concern
of Government. The policy of the colonial oligarchy
was to emphasize and perpetuate that difference,
and education, except in Protestant schools, was
practically denied to the Catholics. No Papist might
be a schoolmaster or teach any child but his own.
They were even forbidden to educate their children
abroad. They were treated not as potential citizens
but as public enemies and described as such. ' The
Lords Justices, in 1715, urged upon the House of
Commons such unanimity in their resolutions ^*as
may once more put an end to all other distinctions
* Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. i. p. 146 ; also Rich^vrd Bagwell, Ency^
Brii, voL xiv. p. 779.
452
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH OOMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
Injurious
effect on
Irish
character.
in Ireland but that of Protestant and Papist."
Lord Carteret, in a similar speech, said, ''All the
Protestants of the kingdom have but one common
interest, and have too often fatally experienced that
they have the same common enemy." As late as
1733 the Duke of Dorset called on the Parliament to
secure "a firm union amongst all Protestants, who
have one common interest and the same common
enemy." The phrase "common enemy" was in the
early part of the eighteenth century the habitual
term by which the Irish Parliament described the
great majority of the Irish people.' ^ The absolute
subjection of the Irish Catholics was throughout the
eighteenth century a cardinal point in the cireed of
the dominant caste.
The an ti- Catholic laws had an effect on Irish
character which is traceable to the present day. The
majority were taught to regard law and government
as essentially opposed to the religion which they
revered. The penal laws, which closed to them all
constitutional means of redress, forced them to look
to violent remedies and made them experts in the
practice of conspiracy. Political power was confined
to the very small minority of the Irish population
who practised the religion established by law, and
whose ministers were supported out of tithes paid by
the Catholic peasantry. Many of the incumbents
never went near their parishes, and employed curates
on miserable stipends. Their tithes, which were
payable in kind, were farmed by agents whose int^est
it was to be merciless in collecting them. Such a
Church was inoperative as a civilizing influence, and
singularly calculated to endear Catholicism to the
Irish peasants.
The system might have worked its own cure if
the whole Protestant minority had been enlisted in
^ Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. i. pp. 162-3, 166.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH *53
the task of government, for it would then have chap.
included the Scottish and Cromwellian settlers, who s,,,..^^,,.,^
would have kept it in touch with the needs of the Diaabiuties
lower middle and labouring classes. These, however, protesunt
were Dissenters in religion. In the reign . of Charles i^i"®'^*®^
II. the Test Acts had excluded Dissenters from
political rights, and it was obviously difficult to
maintain the exclusion in England unless it was
extended to Ireland. In 1704 the English Privy i704.
Council tacked a test clause to one of the anti-
Catholic measures of the Irish Parliament, which
gladly accepted the amendment. In 1708 the Whig i708.
element, having returned to power in England,
endeavoured to obtain a repeal of the test clause,
but found both Houses of the Irish Parliament
determined to maintain it. A second attempt in
1718 failed, but in 1719 an Act was carried which i7i9.
enabled Dissenters to practise their own forms of
worship without violating the law. In 1733 a third i733.
attempt to repeal the Test Act, made by Walpole,
was again frustrated by the Dublin Parliament. Till
1780 political rights were restricted to Protestants
who were prepared to subscribe to the dogmas of the
Established Church, and Parliament was controlled
by a handful of landowners, as narrow, selfish, and
irresponsible an oligarchy as the world has ever Been.
When, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, w^kneas
the English Government declined to incorporate Ire- Irish
1J-. J. 1.' ±. a.' "i«-i Pariiament
land, it was trustmg to certam powers which were in the
wanting in the case of Scotland. The primitive ^ntuiy!''**^
tenures of the Irish tribes had been ignored or set
aside, and as conqueror of Ireland the Crown had, in
accordance with the feudal conceptions of English
law, asserted its title to the ultimate ownership of
the land. The grants made to the colonists were
subject to quit rents, and these, by the Act of Settle-
ment passed by the English Parliament in the reign
454 IBSLAND AHD THB BBITISH OOMMONWKALTH
CHAP, of Charles II., together with excise customs dues and
sundry Ucences, had been placed for ever at the
disposal of the Crown. This hereditary revenue, as
it was called, did not depend on periodic votes of the
Dublin Parliament, and until it was exceeded the
Crown was under no necessity of summoning a Parlia-
ment in Ireland. None was, in fnct, summoned by
Charles II. But in any case the existence of a
separate legislature appeared to raise no constitutional
difficulties, such as were experienced in the case of
Scotland, because the English Parliament not only
claimed but asserted the right to override it, and to
legislate for Ireland. When the right was questioned
in the reign of George I., it was affirmed by the
English Parliament in a declaratory Act. Lastly,
the English Government had in Ireland the same
facilities as those which Walpole employed for the
management of Parliament in England. Though
Parliament, and Parliament only, could make the
law, the executive was still controlled by the Crown.
Such a system could only work in so far as the
ministers of the Crown were able to control Parlia-
ment, which they did by appealing to the private
interests of the members. It was an age when the
supporters of Government in Parliament were freely
rewarded with lucrative offices, pensions, and even
doles from the secret service fund. The process was
rendered easier by the fact that a large proportion of
members held their seats, not as the representatives
of constituencies, but as the nominees of a single
elector. The corruption by which Walpole secured
the support of Parliament for his measures was openly
recognized and justified as necessary to the working
of the constitution. In Ireland no more than thirty
great borough holders controlled a working majority
in the votes of the Dublin Parliament.^
^ McDonnell Bodkin, QraUan*8 Parliament Before and After ^ p. 82.
IRELAND AND THE BEITISH COMMONWEALTH 455
The ministers of Queen Anne may well have qhap.
flattered themselves that the Dublin Parliament, led ^^^J^^,^^
by a triple cord, must always keep step with the The
English Parliament, and could never, like that of Sdlpefd-
Scotland, threaten to upset the whole Commonwealth .^{J^^i^j^
by pursuing an independent course. But, as happens Pariu-
with makeshifts when used as a means of evading the eight-
principles, the strands of the cord parted one by one. century.
The hereditary revenue failed to keep pace with the
expenditure, so that the executive was forced to ask
the Irish Parliament to vote new taxes. That Par-
liament indeed, whose proper function was to watch
extravagance, dehberately created burdens on the
revenue in order to compel the executive to have
resort to them for fresh supplies.^ But even when
the Treasury was in funds, they could always bring
matters to a standstill by refusing to vote expendi-
ture. Their policy of crushing the spirit of the
Catholics for the time being succeeded so well that
the Irish Parliament so far forgot their fears as to
question the legislative rights of the Parliament at
Westminster. As any attempt to assert those rights
could always be met by a refusal to vote supplies, the
rights fell into disuse. The eighteenth century was
not half gone before the British Government had
found that its constitutional control of the Irish Par-
liament would last only on condition that it was not
used. The one real hold they had was on the private BntiBh
interests of its members, who were paid to pass what- mafntomed
ever measures were called for by the necessities of ^^J^^^ ^^
government. Rulers, forced by the defects of the the
executive
system they administer to practise corruption in by
the public interest, seldom if ever resist the tempta- Jnd^co^p-
tion to practise it in their own, and Irish patronage ^^°'^-
was habitually used for any kind of job which would
not stand the criticism of the Parliament at West-
' Lecky, ffistory of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 58.
456 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, minster. Till 1767 the Lord-Lieutenancy itself was
practically a magnificent sinecure, the head of the
Irish executive contenting himself with a formal visit
to Dublin once in two years. The real Irish executive
was a small knot of men who could undertake to con-
trol a majority in Parliament in return for a substan*
tial share of the patronage of the Crown. They
nominated themselves or their relatives for appoint-
ment by the Viceroy to the chief offices of state.
Appropriately called the Undertakers, they managed
Ireland for England in their own interests upon
principles which were in harmony with the notions
of the whole contractual system. A letter of Dean
Swift to the Viceroy in 1735 recommending some
friend for preferment gives a glimpse of its working.
* " He is a very honest gentleman and, what is
more important, a near relation of the GrattaniS, who
in your Grace's absence are Governors of aU Ireland
and your vicegerents when you are here, as I have
often told you. They consist of an alderman, whom
you are to find Lord Mayor at Michaelmas next ; of
a doctor, who kills or cures half the city ; of two
parsons, my subjects as prebendaries, who rule the
other half, and of a vagrant brother who governs the
north. These Grattans will stickle to death for all
their cousins to the five and fiftieth degree." ' ^
A As noticed above, England had observed the spirit
army ^ of the pac^e colonial so far as never to have imposed
b *ir^^ on Ireland any charge in respect of the navy. The
available Government, however, had always to face in Britain
for service . .... • -0.11?
abroad. a resolutc oppositiou to any mcrease m the lorces
available for foreign service, which was due in part to
the objection to standing armies which had arisen in
the struggle with the Crown, but still more to the
aversion of the people themselves from compulsory
service abroad. Though Catholics were long excluded
^ Fisher, The End of the Irish Parliament^ p. 16.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 457
from the army, in no part of the King's dominions chap.
were recruits more easily raised than amongst the ^.^,..,^^,„,^
Protestant colonists in Ireland. The military tradi-
tion of the adventurers and soldiers from whom they
sprang survived amongst them/ and the poverty of
the country encouraged them to enlist. Catholics
also, from the time of the Seven Years' War onwards,
were recruited into the ranks. Grolden reasons,
moreover, could be found to persuade the Undertakers
to procure from the Irish Parliament an army larger
in proportion to its population than the English Par-
liament was willing to furnish. It is important to
realise that the population of Britain was then little
more than double that of Ireland. But while Britain
in peace maintained a standing army of 17,000,
Ireland maintained 12,000, of whom 8000 were
available for foreign service.
Allusion has already been made to the difficulty Thu
experienced by the British Government at the close of J^t^a^
the Seven Years' War in providing garrisons for the f^m^thr.
great extensions of territory for which they were now theory
responsible. To America they turned for a contri- colonial
bution towards the cost of the garrison in that *^®^"^-
country. To Ireland they turned for a contribution
of 3000 additional men, and embarked on a
wrangle with the Irish Parliament, as fruitless and as
irritating as such discussions always are when the
subject matter is the apportionment of the cost of
defence between two countries which have not clearly
settled the principles upon which that cost ought to
be determined. In this case the proposal to increase
the Irish forces was difficult to harmonise with the
principles of a system under which Ireland was
supposed to forgo the rights of commercial intercourse
with the colonies in consideration of the protection
afforded her by Great Britain. She was now l^ing
* Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. ii. p. 85.
458 lEBLAND AND THE BEITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, asked to increase her forces for the protection of the
VII •
very colonies with which she was forbidden to trade.
Here, as with the American colonies, the theory that
the union of two communities in one Empire can
be based upon some supposed balance of reciprocal
interests broke down the moment it was put to the
test.
Towns- With each fresh difliculty in Ireland fresh charges
resident had to be paid to the Undertakers for overcoming it,
1767^^'. ^^^ ^^ *^® epoch of retrenchment initiated by Gren-
ville the British Grovemment conceived that it would
be cheaper to do the jobs for themselves. It was
decided, therefore, that in future the Viceroy should
reside, make his own appointments, and manage the
Irish Parliament for himself, and Lord Townshend,
brother of the author of the American tea duties, was
sent over to initiate the new system in 1767. The
Undertakers proved intractable and Townshend made
his own arrangements for a parliamentary majority at
a cost of £500,000.^ The increase of the Irish army
was carried by a vote of three to one. Townshend,
however, had earned the undying hatred of the Under-
takers. The Government, which could never bend
till it broke, failed to support him, and in 1772 he
left Ireland abhorred by the politicians, but beloved
by the people,^
The evils Reccut publications of Townshend's secret de-
landiord- spatchcs and of the reports made to him by the agents
ism.
whom he appointed to inquire into the condition of
the rural population explain why the land-owning
oligarchy and the mass of the people regarded him
with such different feelings. The relations of landlord
and tenant were very different from those which in
England were inherited from the Middle Ages, when
rents paid in kind had, perforce, to be enjoyed on the
spot. Irish title had originated in an age when the
1 Fisher, The £nd of the Irish Parliament, p. 62. ^ lind. p. 87.
IRELAND AND THB BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 459
revenues of land could be liquidated and spent at a chap.
distance. Many of the adventurers who secured land s,.^,.,,^,,^^
in Ireland had as little interest in its inhabitants as
the modern capitalist who invests in a tropical plan-
tation. The tradition of absenteeism became rooted
in Ireland. Large numbers of landowners seldom if
ever visited their estates or came in touch with their
tenants. Their rents were collected through succes-
sions of middlemen. In such a system there was no
room for sympathy or mutual knowledge between
the owners and cultivators of the soil. The natural Conversion
results were seen when in 1761 a cattle plague in lanTto*^
England and Europe raised immensely the value of P«<^«™ge-
Irish pasture. Estates were diverted from cultivation
without regard for the interests of the cottiers, who
were quickly displaced by a few thriving graziers.
The commons, which afforded pasture to the culti-
vators' own cattle, were freely enclosed. Faced with conse-
starvation, the agricultural population formed them- Outbreaks
selves into lawless organizations, known as 'White- ^y}'^^^^
boys' from the fact that the armed parties who boys 'in
pervaded the country were in the habit of wearing i76i ;
shirts over their coats. Great parts of Ireland were
held in terror by the movement. Nameless leaders
issued proclamations over the signature of Captain
Right, and exercised all the authority of a secret
government. Their will was enforced by the hough-
ing of cattle, by the burning of houses, by mutilation
and even by occasional murders.
Ten years later Lord Donegal succeeded in com- andtiie
municating the movement to the Protestant colony boys^in
in the North. When the leases of his vast estates fy"^"â„¢'
in Antrim expired he transferred them for a pre-
mium of over £100,000 to a syndicate in Belfast,
which proceeded to displace the existing population.
A rebellion was organized under the name of the
* Steelboys,' which large bodies of soldiers were sent
460 IRELAND AND THE BKITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, to suppress. In 1772 Captain Erskine, who was
sent by Lord Townshend with the troops in the
capacity of a political officer, reported as follows :
* " When the consequence of driving six or seven
thousand manufacturing and labouring families
out of Ireland comes to be felt I question whether
the rectitude of those gentlemen's intentions will
be held by the world as a sufficient excuse for the
irreparable damage they are thereby doing. That
examples should be made of the principal offenders
in each county I suppose every one sees the necessity
of; but should justice be strictly executed on each
unhappy wretch who comes under the lash of the
law, it will indeed effectually quiet the country, but
at the same time render it desolate. And the more
truth there is in the complaints of the levelling spirit
of the inhabitants, the more it will have that effect,
as such a spirit itself sufficiently prompts them to
settle in America. It seems to me that the first
thing to be considered in all insurrections is whether
the complaints of the insurgents are well or ill
founded. Should the causes of the present riots be
looked into it will be found that few have had juster
foundations, that the poor wretches have much to
plead in their excuse, having had many hardships
put upon them which the law may perhaps warrant
but can by no means justify. . . . They complain of
being driven out of their lands by monopolisers, when
they offered as great a rent; of those monopolisers
refusing to sublet to them but at such a rent as
would make it impossible for them to subsist, and of
a most exorbitant cess laid on each county by the
Grand Jury which is avowedly turned into jobs for
the advantage of private people. A few facts which
all the country acknowledges the truth of will show
how much foundation there is for these complaints.
Lord Donegall, upon his leases falling in, wanted to
IRELAND AND THE BBITXSH (X)MMON WEALTH 461
raise upwards of £100,000 by way of 'gorsham/ chap.
which the fanners, not being able to raise, two or ^^^
three merchants in Belfast were preferred to them,
though they offered moore than the interest of that
money besides the rent. By this stroke a whole
countryside was driven from their habitations. What
was to become of them? They must either go to
America or take the lands at any rate that the
Belfast merchants chose to let them." ' ^
Mo8t^ of these thrifty and industrious colonists Renewed
chose the former alternative, and the rising was froJfthe^"
suppressed with comparative ease. *The complete ^ot«stant
subsidence of this formidable insurrection in the °' ''
North forms a remarkable contrast to the persistence
with which the Whiteboy disturbances in the South
continued to smoulder during many generations. It
is to be largely attributed to the great Protestant
emigration which had long been taking place in
Ulster. The way had been opened, and the ejected
tenantry who formed the Steelboy bands and who
escaped the sword and the gallows, fled by thousands
to America. They were soon heard of again. In a
few years the cloud of civil war which was already •
gathering over the colonies burst, and the ejected
tenants of Lord Donegal formed a Ictrge part of the
revokitionary armies which severed the New World
from the British Crown.' ^
This was in 1772 when the American controversy Ulster's
was approaching its crisis, and, as Chatham had said, ^h^he^
* the North of Ireland was American to a man.' American
Revolu-
Everv circumstance past and present united to enlist tion.
the sympathies of the Northern colonists in Ireland betwe^
with those of New England. They were drawn from gituations
the same classes in England and Scotland. They in inland
nourished the same hatred of the episcopal churches. America.
' Fisher, The End of the Irish ParliaineiU, pp. 70-1.
^ Lecky, HiUory qf Ireland^ vol. ii. p. 51.
462 IRELAND AND THB BRITISH COMMON WRALTH
CHAP. Whole districts in America were peopled by settlers
from Ulster/ and the steady drain of migration had
established many personal bonds between them. By
this time, moreover, the Americans were appealing
from precedents which were against them to prin-
ciples which touched the interest of Ireland more
nearly than their own. The British Parliament was
asserting the right which it had long claimed over
Ireland to legislate for the colonies, and the claim
to legislate included the claim to tax. Resistance
offered to this doctrine in America rapidly spread to
all classes in Ireland. Even in the Dublin Parlia-
ment, consisting mainly of country gentlemen and
representing only that small section of the population
which belonged to the Established Church of Ireland,
an address condemning the American rebellion was
carried with diflSculty by 92 to 52. It was in fact
carried by the vote of the rotten boroughs controlled
by the Government in a House in which more than
half the members abstained from voting. Later on,
the influence of the Grovemment was sufficient to
induce Parliament to sanction the removal of four
thousand of the troops who were appointed by statute
to remain in Ireland for its defence, on the under-
standing that they should be paid, during their absence,
from the Imperial Treasury. * In this manner, to the
bitter indignation of a small group of independent
members and in defiance of a strong Protestant
opinion in the country, Ireland was committed to
the American struggle.' ^
Injurious Before the outbreak of war the Americans had
IhTvvAT been, led by the logic of their contention to deny the
trade^^^ right of the British Parliament, exercised from the
first, to regulate their industries. Here was a conten-
tion which appealed more poignantly to the industrial
community of Ulster than any of the more abstract
* Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 164, ' /Wd. vol. ii. p. 164.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CX)MMON WEALTH 463
rights which had been urged. The outbreak of war chap.
had brought them, as well as the farmers throughout ^^^
Ireland, to the verge of ruin. In compensation for
the restrictions laid on the woollen industry Ireland
was allowed to export certain classes of coarse Irish
linens to the American colonies. The closing of these
markets by the war and the imposition by the British
Government, without consultation with the Dublin
Parliament, of an embargo on the export of Irish
provisions, for fear that they should reach the revolted
colonists or the French, led, during the next few years,
to a rapid collapse of Irish trade. In spite of the
increasing use of corruption by the Government, the
Dublin Parliament became so intractable and the in-
ternal condition of the country so serious, that Lord
North agreed to relax some of the restrictions on Irish
trade, and resolutions to that effect were agreed to
by the British Parliament. But the moment they
were thrown into the form of Bills a fierce storm of
opposition broke out from almost every manufacturing
town in Britain. Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow,
and Bristol were conspicuous in their opposition.
Burke lost his seat for Bristol by supporting this
measure of relief for Ireland. Lord North was so
intimidated that he consented to limit the measure
in such a way that it failed to relieve the necessities
of Ireland. At a time when commerce with America
was wholly suspended, it was almost nugatory, and
the attitude of the Protestants in Ulster became
increasingly menacing.
When in 1778 France declared war, the distracted warwith
ministers felt that it was time to conciliate the ^^^'
Catholics and introduced a Bill to relieve them of i>angerou8
some of the more vexatious restrictions on holding in Ireland.
land. The Northern Dissenters at once demanded mentof
the repeal of the Test Act. The Government, terrified 3/1^^
at a me^ure which would have admitted the colonists volunteers
to resist
invasion.
464 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, who sympathized with America to the franchise, were
^^^^^^^^.^^ not prepared to grant this concession, but the enemies
of Catholic emancipation in the Dublin Parliament
supported the amendment in order to destroy the
whole measure. They fedled ; for, though the amend-
ment was passed and cut out by the British Govern-
ment, the Dublin Parliament accepted the Bill in the
form in which it was returned. Government, how-
ever, had literally counted without its hosts. To
retrieve their position in America they had stripped
Ireland of troops. France was threatening to invade
the Irish coast, and ' a troop or two of horse or part
of a company of invalids ' was all that could be f^und
for the defence of Belfast. However keenly Ulster
might sympathize with the revolt in America, the
memories of the Boyne prevented the extension of
that sympathy to Catholic France. With character-
istic self-reliance they undertook to defend their coasts
for themselves. In June 1779, 4000 volunteers were
enrolled in Belfast. The movement spread like wild-
fire. By the end of September 40,000 more men
were in arms under the command of officers elected
by the rank and file. The disfranchised Protestants
suddenly found themselves masters of Ireland, and
a ParUament in which they elected no single member
became an instrument in their hands.
The The advocacy of their cause was imdertaken by
sup^rted Grattan, the greatest orator of an assembly whose
demand*" Standard of eloquence was second to none. That
and obtain eloqueucc, howcvcr, had been habitually bought and
foriiish sold, and it was the inviolable purity of Grattan's
tiTe repeal character, more than his gifts, which made him so
Teat Act formidable a champion of the Northern industrialists.
for Dis- They were now demanding; the removal of all restric-
1779. * tions on Irish exports, and in October 1779 Grattan
Actions moved as an amendment to the address 'that it is
of ii-ish j^qIj i^y temporary expedients, but by a free export.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 465
that the nation is now to be saved from impending chap.
ruin/ He was supported even by men who were y^^,^^^,,^,^
members of the Irish executive at the time. Hussey Protest-
Burgh, the Prime Serjeant, did not hesitate to re^esented
declare that Ireland was now looking to arguments 1,^^^*^^**'
stronger than those furnished by the mere justice
of her cause. * " Talk not to me of peace — it is not
peace, but smothered war. England has sown her
laws in dragon's teeth, and they have sprung up
in armed men." A few days later, Burgh sent in his
resignation. " The gates of promotion," said Grattan,
** were shut as the gates of glory opened." ' ^ The
amendment, together with a vote of thanks to the
volunteers, was passed unanimously. Pery, the
Speaker, carried the address to the castle through
armed files of volunteers. Buckinghamshire, the
Viceroy, reported to the Ministry that he was power-
less to deal with the situation. Still they refused
to yield, and on King William's birthday volunteers
marched round his statue on College Green with
two cannon inscribed with the motto, *Free trade
— or this.' Belfast ordered Parliament to withhold
supplies until the restrictions on Irish trade were
removed. In December 1779 the news of Burgoyne's
surrender reached England and the Government
capitulated. Irish exports were freed, and the
markets of America and the Levant opened to
Irish merchants. The Bill relieving Dissenters from
the test was passed. Henceforward Parliament was
to represent the whole Protestant colony, and the
Dissenters forthwith began to demand that it should
be placed on a footing of absolute equality with that
of Britain.
The strength of the volunteers was increasing
meantime by leaps and bounds, and by the end of i78o
1780 they numbered from 80,000 to 100,000 armed
* Lecky, History of Trdatul, vol. ii. p. 241. \
2 H
466 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CK)MMONW£ALTH
CHAP, men. One incident revealed the impotence of Govern-
VII •
ment Provisions were being shipped from Cork for
the French fleet, and ministers instructed the Viceroy
to seize the offending vessels. This, it was pointed
out, would be ' equal to the gain of a battle at sea.'
The Irish executive protested that such action would
be resented by the people as a revival of the old
embargo, and would be forcibly resisted. They sug-
gested instead that the Government should buy the
contraband stores for itself. The mercantile com-
munity of Cork was mainly Protestant, but a system
which had imposed on the Irish colony no more
responsibility for the safety of the Commonwealth
than it had imposed on those of America had yielded
exactly the same results. They were reflected in the
attitude of Grattan himself. Writing in April of the
same year, he remarked, '^Ireland must continue
in a state of armed preparation dreading the approach
of a general peace, and attributing all she holds dear
to the calamitous condition of the British interest
in every quarter of the globe." ' ^
Orattan's He uow movcd in Parliament a formal resolution
iTfavour" *o ^^^ ^^^^ *lia* ' No powcr on earth but the King,
f . , ,. Lords and Commons of Ireland is competent to make
legislative ^
independ- laws for Ireland.' Hid colleagues, however, took
^fmted. fright. Landowners began to realize that their titles
depended on a law passed by the English Parlia-
ment and to ask what would happen if its authority
were repudiated. Lord Buckinghamshire's term of
office, moreover, was drawing to a close ; it was
known that he was compiling the usual lists of
1781. peerages and compensations, and the debate was
adjourned. When Parliament met again in October
1781, Yelverton reintroduced the matter, but, when
it came up for consideration in December, the news
had reached Ireland that Cornwallis had been forced
^ Fisher, The End of the Irish Parliament, p. 174.
lEBLAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 467
to surrender at Yorktown. Britain had lost control chap.
of the sea, and the Continent of Europe was com-
bining with America for her destruction. An era
was already approaching when every one would be
called upon to declare whether it was the greater
or lesser Commonwealth, the whole or the part,
which might claim his ultimate allegiance. Yelver-
ton, who, like the American loyalists, still preferred
the greater, withdrew his motion and substituted
an address of loyalty to the Crown. He was not
alone in the Irish Parliament, for when Flood and
Grattan tried to couple the address with the recital
of Irish grievances they were decisively defeated.
The spirit and numbers of the volunteers con- The
tinned, however, to rise. The Dublin Parliament convention
grew frightened and protested against their armed ^tDun-
o o r o gannon,
demonstrations. The volunteers declared that it was i782.
simply playing with them, and, determining to take mg views
matters into their own hands, in January 1782 quJ^^onof
arranged a convention which was practically a Par- catholic
^-^ JT â– / emancipa-
liament of their own, in Dungannon. Amongst tion.
many of the Dissenters the growth of rationalism
in the course of the eighteenth century had gone far
to mitigate their Protestant fanaticism, and political
principle was gaining a stronger hold than religious
prejudice. Their enthusiasm for the independence
of the Dublin Parliament dated from their own
admission to the franchise. Hitherto the Catholics
had not unnaturally regarded the Parliament at
Dublin with greater distrust than that at West-
minster. A movement was now set on foot amongst
the volunteers to enlist the support of the Catholic
majority by removing their exclusion from political
rights. Charlemont, Grattan, and Flood had col-
laborated in preparing the business for the meeting
at Dungannon, but a serious division of opinion
arose. Charlemont and Flood were against conceding
468 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
OHAP. the vote to the Catholics: Grattan was in favour
VII
of it. To a Protestant deputation he said, ' " I
love the Roman Catholic. I am a friend to his
liberty, but it is only in as much as that liberty is
entirely consistent with your ascendency, and an
addition to the strength and freedom of the Pro-
testant community. These being my principles and
the Protestant interest my first object, you may
judge that I shall never assent to any measure
tending to shake the security of property in this
kingdom or to subvert the Protestant ascend-
ency." ' ^ JSow the liberty of the Catholic majority
was to be reconciled with the complete ascendency
of the Protestant minority Grattan failed to explain,
but like other masters of rhetoric, he had always a
phrase to reconcile things which were opposite in
themselves. No better example could be given of
how a mind undisciplined by responsibility will
continue to pursue principles while shirking the
practical issue to which they lead. The convention
at Dungannon passed a somewhat colourless resolu-
tion drafted by Grattan, declaring that as Church-
men, Christians, and Protestants they rejoiced in the
relaxation of the penal laws against their Roman
Catholic fellow - subjects. This carefully phrased
resolution averted for the time the danger of division
in -the Protestant ranks.
Separatist The voluntccrs who met at Dungannon in full
^^utiona ujjifQj.jjj i^ad opened their proceedings by declaring
bytiiecon- tj^^^^ <a citizcu by learning the use of arms does not
and by abandon any of his civil rights.' Having thus hinted
the Irish . .
Pariia- the nature of their claim to attention, they passed |
™®"^' a series of resolutions which were in principle exactly i
those which had been advanced on behalf of the
colonial assemblies by the Congress of Philadelphia.
* Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. ii. p. 97, quoting Grattan, Miscellaneous
Works, p. 289.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 469
It must be recalled that in 1778, when it was too chap.
• VII
late, the British Parliament had passed an Act in ^^.,..,^,,^
principle conceding these demands. A week after
the convention the same resolutions were moved by
Grattan in the Dublin Parliament. To gain time the
Attorney-General warned the Protestant landowners
of the possible effect on their titles, and the debate
was postponed. Meanwhile Lord North's Ministry
had foundered, and Rockingham and Fox had come
into power. While in opposition, Fox, who was in
close correspondence with Grattan, had consistently
supported him ; but in office he began to protest that
'he would not consent to see England humbled at
the feet of Ireland.' On April 16 Parliament was 1782.
convened to meet the new Viceroy, who had arrived
fourteen days before. In order that he might fully
understand the situation, the streets of Dublin were
lined by armed volunteers in full uniform. Grattan,
declining to delay matters for a single day, proceeded
to move his resolutions for the last time. They were
carried unanimously, and Grattan informed Shelbume
that there was no place for negotiation or compromise.
He warned ministers that, if they refused to comply
with the demands of the Irish Parliament, Ireland
would adopt the same course as the American colonies
in 1767. * " If our. requests are refused we retire
within ourselves, preserving our allegiance but not
executing English laws or English judgments. We
consume our own manufactures and keep on terms of
amity with England, but with that diffidence which
must exist if she is so infatuated as to take away our
liberty." ' '
Shelburne pleaded that the powers to be reserved Surrender
to the Government in matters of trade and foreign British
affairs should be made the subject of a 'distinct ^ent^d
agreement.' Grattan replied that the question was ^P«*}of
» Fiaher, The Snd of the Irish Parliament, p. 127. ^a^. 1782.
470
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
one not for conference but for surrender, and Fox,
a month after he had declared he would not see
England humbled at the feet of Ireland, rose in the
British House of Ciommons to propose a surrender to
every claim which the Irish Parliament had made.
The Act passed by the British Parliament in the
reign of George I. declaring their right to legislate
for Ireland and to decide Irish cases on final appeal,
the power of the Privy Council under Poyning's Law
to initiate, to suppress, or to alter Irish legislation,
and the perpetual Mutiny Act to which the Irish
Parliament itself had assented but two years before,
were all to be surrendered. The result was announced
to that Parliament on May 27, 1782, It had thus
secured for itself the position claimed by the American
assemblies previous to the Declaration of Independence
of July 4, 1776.
II
THE IRISH colony: FROM INDEPENDENCE TO UNION
Grattan's
Parlia-
ment.
His belief
in co-
operation.
Free
grant of
£100,000
voted
for the
Britiflh
navy.
When the news was received on May 27 that
the British Parliament had surrendered to all their
demands, Grattan, in moving an address to the
Crown, declared that no constitutional question would
any longer exist that could interrupt the harmony
between the two nations. In speaking to his famous
resolutions of the previous month he had said : ' Con-
nected by freedom as well as by allegiance, the two
nations. Great Britain and Ireland, form a constitu-
tional confederacy as well as one empire. The Crown
is one link, the Constitution another, and in my mind
the latter link is the most powerful. You can get
a King anywhere, but England is the only country
with whom you can participate a free constitution.' ^
' Lecky, History of Irdand^ vol. ii. p. 301.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 4*71
Grattan, deeply concerned to justify the position he chap.
had created, moved an unconditional grant of s,*PK,,,-i^
£100,000 as a contribution towards the British navy.
The vote was passed, and the Dublin Parliament
further increased the proportion of Irish troops which
might be used for service abroad by 5000 men. Any
difficulties that might arise between two separate and
sovereign Parliaments were all, as Grattan believed,
to be soluble in the formula of co-operation. Thus
Grattan furnished himself with an answer to the
question with which Grenville in 1764 had confronted
the agents of the colonial assembly. The Irish Par-
liament had hastened to prove its own readiness to
share in the cost of Imperial defence.
The British Parliament had renounced all claim to Vanoiw
enact laws enforceable in Ireland. But what was to SSSting^
happen if Irish sailors in Irish ships conveying Irish ^^^^jai
goods were to venture East of the Cape of Good relations
TT -rrr a t xt • i T n t of Lreiand
Hope or West of the Horn, mto the sphere of the stiu
British East India Company reserved for them by SSSoived.
English law ? What was to happen if they attempted
to trade with a foreign state in contravention of
British treaties? There was also the burning
question of trade with an enemy. If Ireland, repeat-
ing the practice of recent years, supplied an enemy
with provisions, were the ships conveying them within
the jurisdiction of British law ? These were the sub-
jects upon which Shelburne had desired a * distinct
agreement' and to Portland, the Viceroy, they had
caused deep searchings of heart. On June 6. he had
expressed hopes to Shelburne that the Irish Parlia-
ment might be induced to pass an Act ' by which
the superintending power and supremacy of Great
Britain in all matters of State, and general commerce,
will be virtually and eflfectually acknowledged, that
a share of the expense in carrying on a defensive or
oflFensive war, either in support of our dominions or
472 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, those of our allies, shall be borne by Ireland in pro-
.^^^^^^^^^^^ portion to the tactual state of her abilities, and that
she will adopt every such regulation as may be judged
necessary by Great Britain for the better ordering
and securing her trade and commerce with foreign
nations, or her own colonies or dependencies/ ^
Portland believed that Grattan would support such a
measure. But he was quickly disabused, and three
days later informed Shelbume that it was then
impossible to induce the Dublin Parliament to con-
sider it.
Flood These were, indeed, questions which Grattan in the
Gratt^i true spirit of a Whig was nervously anxious that no
and enlists qj^^ should raisc. The forces of human nature were,
support however, too strong for him. Henry Flood had
volunteers, champioucd the cause of Irish independence before
Grattan, but his mouth had been stopped by a valu-
able office. In 1781 he was dismissed and hence-
forward was morbidly anxious to regain his position
as leader of the popular cause. He angled, however,
for the recovery of his lost offices, only to find that
no government would trust him. 'His ambition,'
wrote the Viceroy, *is so immeasurable that no
dependence can be placed upon any engagement he
may be induced to form.'*. Flood, determined to
declare open war on the Government which had refused
his price, now saw his opportunity of supplanting
Grattan in the public favour. Kealizing that the
real power in the land lay, not with Parliament, but
with the volunteers, he determined to place himself
at their head. In moving for the independence of'
Ireland Grattan had said : * " I watched over her with
an eternal solicitude. I have traced her progress
from injuries to arms and from arms to Uberty.
Spirit of Swift : spirit of Molyneux, your genius has
* Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. ii. p. 326.
* Fisher, The End of the Irish Parliament, p. 189.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 473
prevailed. Ireland is now a nation. In that new chap.
. VII
character I hail her : and bowing to her august v^^.^^^,^.,^^
presence I say, Esto Perpetiia." ' ^ The speech was the
most eloquent ever uttered in the Dublin Parliament,
but Grattan's words betrayed the consciousness that
Irish independence was really the achievement, not of
his own eloquence, but of the bayonets of the
volunteers who lined the streets outside. He flattered
himself, however, that a system which the volunteers
had erected by force they would leave to be worked
by argument. * And now, having given a Parliament
to the people, the Volunteers wiU, I doubt not, leave
the people to Parliament and thus close specifically
and majestically a great work. Their associations,
like their institutions, will perish : they will perish
with the occasion that gave them being, and the
gratitude of the country will write their epitaph,'
The volunteers, under the leadership of Flood, were
soon to teach him that Ireland was not to be governed
by words.
Within a month of Grattan's declaration that no The
constitutional question could any longer exist to demrnd "
interrupt the harmony between the two nations, ^^'JJj^qJ^
leave was asked to introduce in the Dublin Parliament in
a Bill declaring its sole and exclusive right to make as well as
laws in all cases whatever, external as well as internal, a^â„¢
Flood supported it, but Grattan persuaded Parliament
to dismiss the matter. Flood now fell back on the
support of the volunteers who promptly transferred
their confidence from Grattan to himself. On July 1
Rockingham died and was succeeded by Shelburne.
Lord Temple succeeded Portland as Viceroy, and
hastened to report that no Government existed in
Ireland. The country was in the hands not of
Parliament but of ' a body of armed men, composed
chiefly of the middling and lower orders, influenced
1 Fisher, T?ie End of the Irish Parliament, pp. 126-6.
474
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
The
British
Govern-
ment
protest
but are
obliged to
f(ive way,
1783.
by no one and leading those who affect to guide
them/ ^ The game was thrown into Flood's hands
by the accidental inclusion of Ireland in two Bills
passed by the British Parliament for the regulation
of trade, and by Lord Mansfield's action in hear-
ing and deciding an Irish case which had been on
the lists for trial in the King's Bench before the
repeal of the Declaratory Act, The British Govern-
ment, convinced by Temple that the volunteers
were prepared to enforce their demands with the
bayonet, determined to concede them. In vain
the Duke of Richmond pointed to the impossible
nature of the position which they were about to
create.
'Suppose that England should have occasion to
go to war, and Ireland should find herself disposed
to remain at peace, should refuse to give aid, and
furnish her quota to the cause of her empire ; suppose
that, in negotiations for peace, the terms agreed on
by the English ministers should be objected to by
the Irish : suppose that in reg^ulations and treaties of
commerce with foreign states fhe Irish should contend
with the English, — in these and a thousand other
possible suppositions, was it possible that this total
separation could be submitted to by the people of
England ? ' ^
Ministers had no answer to make to these
questions, but neither had they troops to oppose to
the volunteers. It was a case of force majeurey and
in January 1783 the British Parliament without a
division passed an Act of Renunciation, which, six
months before, the Irish Parliament had without a
division decided to be unnecessary. The Act declared
that the * right claim by the people of Ireland, to be
* Fisher, The End of Oie Irish Parliament, p. 142.
^ Comewall Lewia, An Essay on the Government of Dependencies, Notes,
p. 362.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 475
bound only by laws enacted by his Majesty and the chap.
Parliament of that kingdom in all cases whatever, ^^.,^,,^^.^^
and to have all actions, and suits at law or in equity,
which may be instituted in the kingdom, decided by
hi§ Majesty's courts, therein finally, and without
appeal from thence, shall be, and it is hereby declared
to be established, and ascertained for ever, and shall
at no time hereafter be questioned or questionable.'
It went on to provide that no writ of error or appeal
from Ireland should under any circumstances again
be decided in England.^
Force was now recognized by the volunteers as The
their one hold over the Irish Parliament. A general uthr^â„¢^^^
election reminded them of the fact that out of 300 seats ^f t^*^^
some 200 were practically pocket boroughs, and that insh
it was as easy as ever for the Government to purchase ment.
a majority. The younger Pitt, who was fast rising volunteers
to power, had already twice moved for reform in the p^^^
British Parliament in the last two years. In March mentary
1783 a meeting of volunteers in Cork resolved to but are
demand the reform of the Irish Parliament, and o Jthe
on July 1, the Ulster volunteers called for a second c»<^^\oUc
•^ ' question
convention at Dungannon in the following September. i788.
The Duke of Portland, however, who had been
Viceroy a year before and knew the real nature
of the situation in Ireland, had become Prime
Minister on April 2, just four months after the
British Government had recognized the independence
of the United States. As rapidly as possible troops
were hastened back from America and placed under
the command of General Burgoyne, and in Ireland
the Government proceeded to organize a militia of
their own. When in September the volunteers met
at Dungannon, the differences which Grattan had
succeeded in evading at the previous convention
* Lecky, History of Irelandy vol. ii. pp. 333-4. See also Comewall Lewis,
An Essay on the Government of Dependencies, Notes, p. 362.
476
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
The Irish
Parlia-
ment,
relying
on the
support of
the troops
returned
from
America,
refuses
the
demands
of the
volunteers.
began to widen. Grattan, in fidelity to his Whig
principles, was in favour of something which he
vaguely called Catholic emancipation, provided
always that the ascendency of the Protestants was*
carefully maintained. Flood and Charlemont w^re
opposed to any concession to the Catholics. Grattan
now held aloof from the meeting at Dungannon, and
the anti-Catholic party carried the day. The reform
of the House of Commons was demanded, but on an
exclusively Protestant basis. At Belfast a town
meeting was helci which approved this resolution, and
resolved further that, if the House of Commons should
' " refuse to express the public will," it would be " the
duty of a community of freemen not only to reason
but to ACT." ' ^ It was in harmony with this principle
that the Dungannon meeting had resolved that a
national convention of the volunteer army of Ireland
should be held in Dublin simultaneously with the
sitting of Parliament.
Matters now came to an open rupture between
Grattan and Flood. On November 10 the volunteer
army met in the Rotunda at Dublin, the volunteers
accompanying the deputies in force. The rear was
brought up by Napper Tandy with the Dublin
artillery, the muzzles of their guns decorated with
the words, *Open Thou our lips, Lord, and our
mouths shall show forth Thy praise.' The convention,
however, was again divided on the Catholic question,
and the advocates of the Catholic cause were only
defeated by a trick. A committee was appointed
to prepare a Reform Bill, and in drafting it Flood
and Charlemont were able to thwart all proposals
to include the Catholics. On November 29, the Bill
was sent to Parliament to be passed, the convention
remaining in session till the result was known. By
this time, however, Burgoyne had 12,000 seasoned
^ Fisher, 21u End of the Irish ParliametU, p. 147.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 477
troops under his command, and Parliament recover- chap.
ing its nerve refused to register the decrees of the ^"
convention. Yelverton, now Attorney -Greneral,
moved that the House should not consider the Bill.
He, too, at an earlier date had supported the volun-
teers, but * when the Volunteers form themselves into
a debating society, and with the rude instrument,
the bayonet, probe and explore the Constitution,
my respect for them is destroyed.' ^ Fitzgibbon told
them roundly that the forces of the law were suf-
ficient to crush them to atoms. On a division, leave
was refused to introduce the Bill by a majority
of more than two to one, and on Yelverton's motion
the House resolved that it wou]d maintain its just
rights and privileges against all encroachments.
This was a direct challenge, but a majority of the
volunteers were not prepared to face Burgoyne and
his veterans, and, after two days' further talk, the
convention dispersed. Unwilling to admit the
Catholics to political rights, they felt the absurdity
of fighting with one hand for liberties which they
•were withholding from the Catholics with the other.
There were some who realized that if blood was
to be shed for reform, reform could not stop short
of the point achieved by America, and that before
Ireland could become an independent republic,
Catholic and Protestant blood must flow together.
But these were men who bided their time till Britain
should once more find herself at death -grips with
a foreign foe.
The old expedient of governing the native Irish Paralysis
through the agency of a Protestant colony had been uientTn"*
defeated by the exigencies of the commercial system, ''^^*'^<*-
which had alienated half the Protestant garrison
and had rendered them more ungovernable than
the Catholics themselves. The two systems had
> Fisher, The End of the Irish ParlimneiU, p. 159.
478
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH OOMMOKWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
DiscuB-
sionfl of
the fiscal
relations
of the two
countries.
together defeated each other, and had utterly fisuled
to create in Ireland the habits and institutions which
are the essential foundations of order and law.
Except in time of peace it was impossible to main-
tain any semblance of order in the country, and
the moment Britain was at war, she had still to
regard Ireland as one of the factors upon which her
enemies could certainly count. Flood's Reform Bill
was again introduced in the following year, but was
rejected on the second reading by a majority of
seventy-four. ' From that time the conviction sank
deep into the minds of many that reform in Ireland
could only be effected by revolution, and the rebellion
of 1798 might be already foreseen.' ^
Bad seasons, meanwhile, together with the reaction
which always follows a long war, had been bring-
ing Ireland to the verge of famine. Farmers and
artisans were alike calling for protective duties
against Britain. Under the concessions of 1780
Ireland had. obtained the same liberty of trade with
the colonies and foreign nations as England herself,
with the exception of trade East of the Cape of
Good Hope as far as the Straits of Magellan, which
was still the monopoly of the British East India
Company. England and Ireland each had a tariff
of its own which it enforced against the other ;
but the Irish tariff was low while the EngUsh tariff
was a very high one. The position of Britain and
Ireland was in this respect the reverse of the position
which exists to-day between the United Kingdom
and the self-governing Dominions. Gardiner, a
Dublin member, who had just failed to secure a
peerage,^ introduced a Bill to raise the Irish duties
against Britain. Flood supported this, but the
British Government was able to maintain its
majority, and the measure was rejected. The Dublin
» Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 877. * Ibid, vol. ii. p. 388,
views on
a-
IBEIiAND AND THE BEITISH COMMONWEALTH 479
mob rushed the Gallery, but were dispersed by chap.
troops. The House, before adjourning, invited the ^"
Government to submit proposals at their next session
for settling the fiscal relations of the two kingdoms.
Pitt, who had now become Prime Minister, was Pitts
resolved to abolish the rotten boroughs. He saw parii
clearly enough that the reform of one Parliament '^^"^^^
would necessitate the reform of the other, and had refonu.
naturally to ask himself what would be the con-
sequences in Ireland of substituting the control of
constituencies for that of individuals over a majority
of the seats at Dublin. Long experience had taught
the British Government that it was only by appeal-
ing to the private interest of the borough-holders
that they could depend upon securing from the Irish
Parliament a contribution to the burden of Imperial
defence. Recent experience showed that, the moment
the Dublin Parliament was really controlled by an
Irish electorate, that electorate would demand a
protective tariflf against Britain. Pitt, however, was
an avowed disciple of Adam Smith, whose book had
been published nine years before. In reading the
Weahh of Nations his eyes had been opened to the
mischievous results of the commercial system, and he
came into office with the purpose of giving effect
to his master's teaching. The Irish Parliament, he
thought, might agree to commit themselves once
for all to a contribution towards Imperial defence,
if the British Parliament would agree to the per-
manent establishment of free trade between the two
kingdoms. In this way, as he conceived, the motives
which compelled the British executive to control the
Irish legislature would be removed, and with them
the objections to abolishing the rotten boroughs and
also the political disabilities of the Catholics. He
proposed, therefore, to deal with all three questions
together, and Rutland was sent as Viceroy to Ireland
480 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, to carry the scheme. Rutland, however, found the
.^^^^.^^^^^^ vested interests in the Irish Parliament resolutely
opposed to the abolition of the rotten boroughs, and
Fitzgibbon and his advisers were quickly able to
convince him that a Parliament really representative
of the . constituencies would render the government
of Ireland impossible.
Pitt's Rutland failed to convince Pitt ; but with his own
for^^uai representative against him, Pitt was unable to press
w^^ his scheme for Irish reform. Though backed by a
Britain stroug majority, he was seriously hampered in the
Ireland, rauks of his owu supportcrs by a certain distrust
^tSa of his youth, and in April 1785 his Bill for the^
J^*^®'^^ reform of the British Parliament was rejected. This
tribution for the moment made it impossible for him to press
navy. for rcform at Dublin. He determined, however, to
prepare the way by settling once for all the fiscal
and financial relations of the two kingdoms. The
Irish Parliament had invited proposals, and Pitt
offered a customs convention under which virtual
freedom of trade between the two countries was to
be guaranteed. All foreign and colonial goods might
pass from England to Ireland and from Ireland to
England without any increase of duty, and all Irish
goods might be imported into England and all
English goods into Ireland either freely or under
duties which were the same in each country. Where
duties in the two countries were now unequal, they
were to be equalized by reducing the higher duty
to the level of the lower. Except in a few care-
fully specified cases, there were to be no new
duties on importation or bounties on exportation.
Each country was to give a preference in its markets
to the goods of the other over similar goods imported
from abroad. Ireland, on the other hand, was to
make a contribution to the Imperial navy on the
following lines. The ' hereditary revenue ' now
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 481
amounted to £652,000 a year, and was steadily ohap.
rising. Pitt proposed that in every year in which
it reached the sum of £656,000 (subject in time of
peace, though not in war, to revenue balancing ex-
penditure) the surplus of the * hereditary revenue '
should be appropriated towards the support of the
naval forces of the Empire in such manner as the
ParUament of Ireland might direct.
The discussions which followed in both Parlia- Irish dis-
ments revealed the inherent impossibility of settling ^ennanent
once for all the fiscal and financial relations of two "ri^^ti^""
coequal Parliaments. The proposal for a permanent which is
naval contribution was at once greeted by the word tized as
Hributa' ^s it right,' cried Longfield, *is it con- '^"^"^'^
stitutional to give a perpetual revenue? It hath
been laid down that it is not a tribute. I assert
it is. I desire gentlemen to look into the law of
nations, and then they will find that the first grant
which was voluntary was considered as a tax, but
the continuance was counted a tribute.' ^ Pitt saw,
however, that a naval contribution which depended
upon an annual vote of the Irish Parliament would
be precarious indeed. ' As it was his object to make
a final settlement in this negotiation and to proceed
upon a fixed principle, he wished it to be understood
that, as he meant to ensure to Ireland the permanent
and irrevocable enjoyment of commercial advantages,
so he expected in return that Ireland would secure
to England an aid as permanent and irrevocable.'^
He was willing, however, that the Irish Parliament
should decide from time to time how the contribution
should be spent, and endorsed a suggestion made in
the Irish Parliament that it might be voted for the
purchase of Irish products for victualling the navy.
Pitt was deeply concerned to remove the last vestige
» Irith ParL Debates, vol. iv. p. 208.
* Pari. Hia. vol. xxv. p. S26.
2l
482 IRELAND AKD THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, of the iniquitous restrictions imposed on Irish trade.
^" He was fast driving home the nails, which Adam
Smith had started in the coffin of the commercial
system, and saw that, when trade restrictions were
gone, Ireland must begin to share on some rational
principle in the burden of common defence. But
he was dealing with men whose minds were still
saturated with the contractual idea. *We have
been further told,' said Grattan, 'in debate and in
public prints that our trade has no claim to the
protection of the British navy. Sir, you pay for
that protection, you paid for it long ago. I tell
you that payment was the Crown of Ireland. You
annexed the Crown of Ireland to that of Great
Britain and have a right to the protection of her
navy, as much as she has a right to consider you
as a part of her empire. . . . You are prevented from
having an Irish navy and should not be reproached
with the protection of the British.' ^
Proposals There were others who thought that Ireland should
TOmrate Contribute to naval defence not in money but in ships.
Irish navy, c j ^^ think,' Said Gardiner, *that as we received the
Pitt on ' ' ,
theindi- protection of the navy of the Empire, we ought in
^ ^^^ reason and justice, to contribute something to its
t^T^!^^ support : and had a design to propose our arming
and maintaining some frigates for the protection of
our trade.' ^ With somewhat diflFerent ends in view,
as will appear hereafter. Flood was for Ireland's
maintaining a navy of her own. * Do you then for-
ever relinquish the desire of having a navy of your
own ? Shall Ireland, an island too, at the moment
when you tell her of extensive trade, relinquish
forever a seaguard of her own and give away her
money never to return, to support the navy of the
empire ? ' ^ The memory of the part played by the
1 Irish Pari. Debates, vol. v. p. 489. « Ibid. vol. iv. p. 127.
• Ibid, vol. iv. p. 214,
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 483 |
Irish volunteers with Flood's encouragement in the ohap.
late war was too recent for such language to be ^^^^^^^^^^
otherwise than alarming, and when the resolutions
reached the Parliament at Westminster Pitt adverted
to the matter. •With regard to the Board of Ad-
miralty, he observed that the Admiralty of England
was the Admiralty of Ireland, and of the empire at
large, and that to divide jurisdiction would be to
weaken and almost destroy the naval force of the
empire. Nor could there possibly be two Boards of
Admiralty, because the branch of executive adminis-
tration which was under that department, being of
a military nature, was one of those which, like the
right of appointing ambassadors, belonged personally
to the Crown without any local reference to the
situation of the dominions.' ^ A most difl&cult point,
however, was raised in debate. Would English sea-
men in time of war be able to escape the press-gang
by taking service in Irish ships ? Pitt's answer
betrayed his embarrassment. ^The situation of the
Irish seamen with respect to this country was to be
precisely the same as it was at the present moment :
for the same claims which the king of Great Britain
had by the laws of Britain to the services of British
seamen, he would also have in his capacity of king
of Ireland to the services of the seamen of that
country. Thus the general welfare of the two
kingdoms being one and the same thing, so the
principal defence of each, those persons who served
in our navy, would be properly under the same
head and authority, namely the king of Gt. Britain
and Ireland.' *
It thus became apparent that, even if fiscal and Pitt's
financial relations could be settled on a permanent l^^^
footing — which as the event proved was impossible — J^*®
there were other questions which must sooner or ^f^^^-
* ment|
» Pari. Hist, vol xxv. p. 769. » Jhid, p. 673,
I
484 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, later lead to a deadlock, if the English executive
^^^^^^^^^^ yielded its control of the Dublin Parliament to Irish
but constituencies. For the moment, however, Grattan
by^e threw his influence into the scale in favour of Pitt's
inters tn proposals* aiid the Irish ParUament accepted them.
England. They wcrc next submitted by Pitt to the House of
Commons at Westminster. He was now to learn the
bitter truth of the words quoted from Adam Smith
on a previous page. Pulteney, writing to the Duke
of Rutland, who was now Viceroy, observed, *Your
Grace remembers probably a remark of Sir Robert
Walpole which Pitt has already seen enough to allow
the truth of, that a Minister might shear the country
gentleman when he would and the landed interest
would always produce him a rich fleece in silence:
but that the trading interest resembled a hog, whom
if you attempted to touch, though you was only to
pluck a bristle, he would certainly cry out loud
enough to alarm all the neighbourhood.' ^
Inherent Pitt's proposals wcrc greeted with a storm of
thfL^^^^^^^ from the English manufacturing interests
commercial ^^S^^^^^ ^7 Wedgewood, the Quaker manufacturer
union was of pottcry, and supported by Fox. The petition from
unieffl^^ ^ Lancashire, which alone bore 80,000 signatures,
adopted demanded that counsel should be heard against the
British scheme, and evidence was accordingly taken from the
navigation interests concerned. The East India Company suc-
ceeded in asserting- once more its monopoly of Eastern
trade. A new diflSculty, moreover, which had not
been previously faced was now raised, namely that
the non-British West Indian islands, could, under
the new arrangement, send their goods to Ireland,
import them thence to England, and so nullify the
preference then accorded to British colonies. It was
realized that to be workable the proposed arrange*
1 Fisher, The End of the Irish ParliamerU, p. 182. For Adam Smith's
remarks on this subject see above, p. 442.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 485
ment required identity between the two kingdoms, chap.
not only in tariffs, but also in the navigation laws v,^,,,.,^^,^.^
which forbad foreign ships to land in Great Britain
any goods not produced in the country to which such
ships belonged. All other imports into Britain had
to be carried in British ships. But if foreign goods
could be brought to Ireland in foreign bottoms and
thence imported into Great Britain, the protection
afforded by the navigation laws to British shipping
would be rendered nugatory. As Fox put it : 'If
those (the original resolutions) had passed into a law,
we should equally have sacrificed the whole of the
navigation laws of this country. These laws, the
great source of our commercial opulence, the prime
origin of our maritime strength, would at once have
been delivered up in trust to Ireland, leaving us for
ever after dependent on her policy, and on her bounty,
for the future guardianship of our dearest interests.' * *
Obviously it was impossible for a commercial To ensure
treaty to be negotiated on equal terms if the naviga- of kws^
tion laws of the two countries were not the same. b^^^^J^^^
Equally obviously it was undesirable to stereotype by a single
the existing regulations in a matter which admitted ment.
of such varying conditions. There were, therefore,
two necessities — ^first, that Ireland should adopt the
existing" English navigation laws ; secondly, that
there should be some machinery for ensuring that the
future navigation laws of the two countries should be
identical. The point was put in the English House
of Commons on May 24, 1785, by Eden, an ex-Irish
Secretary. * It had been well stated by the right hon.
gentleman who spoke last (Dundas), that if the two
kingdoms were to have one trade and one navigation,
they must also have one law for the purpose of pre-
serving this union of commercial interests, otherwise
it was easy to foresee that it would speedily cease. If
* Pari. Hist. vol. xxv. p. 697.
486
IBELAKD AliD THE BRITISH OOMMOKWKALTH
CHAP.
VII
Pitt's
amended
proposal
that
British
shipping
laws
shoald
apply to
Ireland.
Irish
opposition
to this
proi)08al
encouraged
by Fox for
party
reasons.
then the laws most .hereafter be the same in the two
kingdoms respecting these extensive objects, it would
be an absurdity to suppose that the passing of these
laws could be left to both: it must necessarily be
given to one : and the only question was under this
statement, as to which should have the preference.
. . . Undoubtedly if Ireland should decide to accept
the essential conditions of the treaty now brought
forward, she must waive the independence of her legis-
lature on the points described in the resolution. . . .
It was mere nonsense to suppose that the intended
compact could otherwise be carried into execution.' ^
Pitt was obliged by the unanswerable force of this
reasoning to include in the amended resolutions now
submitted to the British House of Commons, the
following provision : ' That it is essential . . . that all
laws which have been made or shall be made in Great
Britain for securing exclusive privileges for the ships
and mariners of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British
Colonies and Plantations ; and for regulating and
restraining the trade of the British Colonies and
Plantations shall be, in force in Ireland (by Acts to
be passed in the parliament of that kingdom) in the
same manner as in Great Britain : and that proper
measures shall from time to Lime be taken for effectu-
ally carrying the same into execution.' *
The party system is of itself fatal to any policy
which depends upon the continuous co-operation of
separate legislatures. To beat Pitt was the dominant
motive of Fox's conduct, and he was quick to see how
the new resolution might be used to excite the jealousy
of the Irish Parliament for their independence so
lately achieved. Though he could not defeat Pitt in
the Parliament of England, he might yet do so in that
of Ireland, and he did not scruple to appeal to their
1 Pari. Hitt, vol. xxv. pp. 676-6.
' House of Commons Journals^ vol. 40, p. 1021.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 487
jealousy. * That she (Ireland) shall agree to follow ohap*
whatever regulations we may think it right to pursue s.^,,^^,^.^,^
from time to time for securing the privileges to our
shipping or for restraining the trade with our colonies :
and that such laws shall be in full force in Ireland
is a remedy certainly of a very hazardous kind : but,
Sir, though it goes so far it does not satisfy me ; it is
dangerous indeed but not efficacious ; nor do I think
that, strong and bitter as it is, it will be attended
with the various and radical evils which are attached
to this pernicious system. I am of opinion, that even
if Ireland should agree to this provision, we shall
deliver up into the custody of another, and that an
independent nation, all our fundamental laws for the
regulation of our trade, and we must depend totally
on her bounty and liberal spirit for the guardianship
and protection of our dearest interests.' ^ Then he
turned to play upon Irish suspicions. The proposed
convention, he declared, * bound Ireland to impose
restraints ** undefined, unspecified, and uncertain, at
the arbitrary demand of another State," and he con-
cluded his denunciation by a skilful sentence, which
s^pealed at once to the jealousy of both countries.
" I will not," he said, " barter English commerce for
Irish slavery ; that is not the price I would pay, nor
is this the thing I would purchase." ' ^ Sheridan was
dexterously harping on the same string. Here was
* unquestionably a proposal on the part of the British
Parliament that Ireland should, upon certain condi-
tions, surrender her now acknowledged right of external
legislation, and return, as to that point, to the situa-
tion from which she had emancipated herself in 1782.' ^
Fox and Sheridan, recognizing that Pitt was Orattan's
invincible in the Parliament at Westminster, saw So^*
* Pari, Hist. vol. xxv. pp. 610-11.
Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 448.
• PwrU Hist, vol. xxv. p. 750.
488 IRELAND AHD THE BRITISH OOHMONWRALTH
CHAP, that they might still defeat him in the Parliament at
VII
Dublin. Orattan and the Irish Whigs, who were in
close commnnication with the leaders of the British
opposition* forgetful of their former anxiety to sup-
press awkward issues, allowed themselves to be drawn
into the manoBuvres of parties on the other side of
the channel The substantial changes made by the
British Parliament in the resolutions as originally
approved by the Irish Parliament on Grattan's advice
afforded him a valid excuse for opposing them in
their amended form. But he now condemned them
as 'subversive to the rights of the Parliament of
Ireland ' for reasons which were just as fatal to the
proposals which he had previously supported. 'Do
not imagine that all these resolutions are mere acts
of regulation : they are solid substantial revenue,
great part of your additional duty. I allow the bill
excepts rum and tobacco; but the principle is re-
tained and the operation of it only kept back. I
have stated that Great Britain may by these pro-
positions crush your commerce, but shall be told that
the commercial jealousy of Great Britain is at an end.
But are her wants at an end ? Are her wishes for
Irish subsidy at an end ? No : and may be gratified
by laying colony duties on herself and so raising on
Ireland an Imperial revenue to be subscribed by our
parliament, without the consent of our parliament
and in despite of our people. Or if a minister should
please to turn himself to a general excise ... if
wishing to relieve the alarms of the English manu-
facturers who complain of our exemption from excises,
particularly on soap, candles, and leather ; he should
proceed on those already registered articles of taxa-
tion, he might tax you by threats, suggesting that if
you refuse to raise an excise on yourself, England
will raise colony duties on both.' ^
^ Irish Pari. Debates, vol. v. p. 359.
union.
IRELAND AND THE BBITISH OOMHON WEALTH 489
The point demonstrated at Westminster by the chap.
British merchants, which Fox had used to such pur- ^^^^^^^„^^
pose, was unanswerable. If Britain accorded free The
trade to Ireland, Ireland must adopt restrictions on ^o^mpat-
foreign trade identical with those imposed by Britain, i^jj^^^^.
For if foreign goods might enter Ireland at lower pendence.
rates or in foreign ships, such trade would pass to denounced
Britain through Ireland, thus evading the restrictions ^S*^^"
imposed by the British custom and navigation laws* ^^^^^p^®"^
Fox, who cared less for serving Ireland than for creeping
beating Pitt, had made the most of this point, which
Pitt had accepted and embodied in the amended
resolutions. No customs convention was possible
unless the Irish Parliament were prepared to contract
away some part of the legislative independence in
external affairs which Flood and the volunteers had
wrested from Britain at the point of the bayonet.
It was difficulties of this nature which on that occa-
sion Grattan had been so anxious to leave unraised.
By the irony of the position to which he had since
committed himself, he was now forced to raise them
himself. ' It is here said that the laws respecting
commerce and navigation should be similar and
inferred that Ireland should subscribe the laws of
England on these subjects — that is, the same law the
same legislature; but this argument goes a great
deal too far; it goes to the army, for the Mutiny
Bill should be the same: it was endeavoured to be
extended to the collection of your revenue, and is in
train to be extended to your taxes : it goes to the
extinction of the most invaluable parts of your parlia-
mentary capacity; it is an union, an incipient and
creeping union : a virtual union establishing one will
in the general concerns of commerce and navigation
and reposing that will in the parliament of Great
Britain; an union where our parliament preserves
its existence after it has lost its authority ; and our
490
IRELAKD AND THE BRITISH (X)MUON WEALTH
CHAP.
VII
Demand
for an
Irish
executive
independ-
ent of the
Britisli
Cabinet.
people are to pay for a parliamentary establishment
without any proportion of parliamentary representa-
tion/ '
Under the influence of Fox, Grattan had relapsed
into an attitude of mere negation. As in the previous
debate, further points were raised which showed how
worthless was the assurance given by Grattan in
May 1782, that no constitutional question would any
longer exist that could int^rupt the harmony between
the two nations. Scarcely three years had passed
before the demand for a separate executive b^an
to be heard. ' There was a radical absurdity,' said
Flood, ' in the whole business : it was absurd for
Ireland to attempt a negotiation with Great Britain.
. . . How could Ireland negotiate with England
upon equal terms ? With England ! who names her
ministers, her negotiators. With England ! who
influences her cabinet, her privy council, and who
has influenced every Parliament of Ireland except
the present.' ^ By Griffith the demand for a separate
executive was definitely made. *Tliis country,' he
said, * is in a novel situation : we are now for the first
time treating with England and 'it therefore becomes
necessary that we should have a minister who holds
himself independent of any administration in Eng-
land ; who considers himself bound to maintain the
rights and interests qf Ireland and who is responsible
for his conduct to the people of Ireland.' And
* what,' he pertinently asked, * would be the conse-
quences of either of the contracting parties infringing
on the treaty ? a circumstance not at all improbable
to occur. What provision had been made or what
redress was to be had in such a case ? Was the breach
of one part sufficient to render the whole treaty void ?
And what was to be the remedy in such a case?'*
* Irish Pari, DebcUeSf vol. v. pp. 355-6.
» Ibid, pp. 308-9.
2 Ibid. p. 310.
IRELAND AND THE BBITISH (X)MMONWEALTH 491
Floods ironical answer to these queries was couched chap.
VTT
in ominous terms. ' The right honourable member
he thought a little unfortunate in not being able to
give an answer to questions which he could answer
with very great ease. He has asked, how is a breach
of treaty to be redressed ? I answer, by fleets and
armies ; by two armies, one of England, the other of
Ireland, but both at the command of England. By
a powerful fleet at the command of England, but not
a single ship belonging to Ireland.' ^
As Flood had declared himself in favour of a Fiood;s
separate Irish navy, his words can only be interpreted to^itt's^^
to mean that Ireland must be prepared to enforce «^^e™e-
her treaty rights against Britain by war. * Above a
hundred years ago,' he had said, * in the fever of the
Restoration and in the infatuation of this kingdom
Ireland had made a perpetual grant for the support
of an Irish marine. This, England never permitted
to be applied. Why ? Because she wished to have
a monopoly of navy to herself — for what purpose let
her subsequent conduct to Ireland explain. What
followed ? English ministers in spite of law, dis-
appropriated this fund and applied it to an over-
crrown land army, rather than to a marine. The
defence of this laid army Britain had, and Ireland
had the burden. . . . When British ministers, eon-
trary to legal appropriation, had applied the marine*
fund of Ireland to a land army for the convenience
of Britain, what right had they to come to Ireland to
demand a new marine fund, and that not for an Irish
marine, but for the British navy ? which was in effect
to demand that Ireland should forever abdicate any
marine, and make a formal recognition that she ought
never to have a sea-guard of her own. As to the
fact of protection, does Britain keep a frigate for the
protection of Ireland ? ' ^
' Irisk Pari DebateSy vol. v. p. 809. * /^^irf. p. 398.
492
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH OOUHONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
TheBiU
dropped.
Its fate
illastrates
the
difficulties
of negotia-
tions
between
states
whose
relations
are un-
defined.
Flood stigmatized the scheme as nothing but an
attack on Irish independence. ' I will raise my voice,
I will be heard in the extremity of the land. I say,
if you give leave to bring in this Bill, you are no
longer a Parliament. Meet it boldly and not like
dastards fearful to guard your rights, though you
talk bravely to your wives and children, trembling at
a foreign nation.' ^
There was little surprise, and in Ireland a great
deal of exultation, when the Bill, which had been
introduced by the leave of a narrow majority of 19,
was dropped by the Irish Crovemment. None the
less it is an instructive fact that, while Great Britain
was able to conclude a commercial treaty with the
revolted American colonies, she was unable to come
to terms with the sister kingdom of Ireland. Treaties
are never so difficult to make, or if made so pre-
carious, as between communities whose mutual re-
lations are undefined. Where the independence of
two states is admitted by both as unqualified and
unreserved, an element of suspicion is eliminated.
But where states are endeavouring to square the
political circle and to reconcile their independence with
common membership in an * empire,' they view every
proposal for co-operation with the utmost suspicion
as *an incipient and creeping union.' Negotiations
between states which admit their mutual independ-
ence proceed frankly on the basis of self-interest.
Those between states of an inorganic empire are
for ever complicated by appeals to some mutual
obligation which the parties have failed to define or
to realize.^ Such is human nature, that negotiators
* Fisher, The End of the Irish ParliamerUy p. 189.
' The records of the Imperial Conferencesi espeoially those of 1907 and
1911, illustrate these observations. Undefined relations, it may be added,
aggravate the difficulty experienced by a Dominion in making a trade
agreement with a foreign power. Dread of ' an incipient and creeping *
separation from Britain has in the past defeated the project of reciprocity
between Canada and tlie United States of America. On this subject see
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 493
cannot resist the temptation of claiming concessions chap.
to their particular interests on the ground of Imperial
obligation, and the whole atmosphere becomes tainted
with hypocrisy. It was this which was constantly
vitiating -the relations of Austria to the rest of
Germany, till Bismarck had forced her to renounce
any claim to membership in a German Empire ; and
it was only when the absolute independence of the
German and Austrian Empires was recognized that it
became possible to establish satisfactory treaty rela-
tions between them.
It is a highly significant fact that the quarrels which Renewed
embittered the relations of England with Scotland, over^the
of Great Britain with the American colonies, and fyl^"^^'
finally of Great Britain with Ireland, had much in
common. In all of them the poHticians were fond of
pointing to the Crown as the sole and sufficient bond
of union. By providing for a separate succession under
certain contingencies, the Scottish Parliament had
proved that a common Crown can afford no permanent
basis of union for two separate commonwealths.
The temporary insanity of George III. in 1788 at
once led to a struggle between the British and Irish
Parliaments, which pointed the same lesson. All
parties agreed that the Prince of Wales should assume
the duties of Regent ; but there was a difierence of
opinion as to the title by which he should assume it.
Pitt contended that his powers must be based upon
and limited by an Act of Parliament. The doctrine
was one that a Whig leader might naturally have
been expected to support, but Fox opposed it. He
urged that the full regal authority passed auto-
matically to the heir-apparent, and that Parliament
had merely to decide the fact of the King's incapacity,
Note A at the end of this chapter, p. 521. In the passage there quoted
it is instructive to note the analogy between Grattan's argument and that
of another great Irishman, Mr. Edward Blake.
494 IRELAND AKD THB BRITISH OOIOIOKWRALTH
CHAP, and address the Prince of Wales to nndertake the
Regency. Principles, indeed, had been subordinated
to party considerations, for it was believed that the
Prince of Wales would dismiss Pitt and call Fox to
power. Pitt's views prevailed with the British Parlia-
ment, and the Prince of Wales was appointed Regent
with certain limitations as to his exercise of patronage.
The Once again Grattan yielded to the influence of
niStrates ^^^ His objections to Pitt's view were based upon
the iiwuffi- highly technical grounds. The Irish Parliament might
cien
cj of
the Crown pass an Act empowering the Prince of Wales to
of union, cxercisc the function of the Sovereign in Ireland ; but
that Act to be valid must first receive the sanction
of the Regent, whose right to give it was already
based on an Act of the British Parliament. That,
argued Grattan, would be tantamount to admitting
the dependence of the Irish on the British Parliament.
The difficulty was to be met by assuming, as Fox
advised, that the Prince of Wales did not require the
authority of Parliament to exercise the functions of
Regent. Grattan, then urged that the Irish Parlia-
ment should present an address to the Prince of Wales,
calling upon him to assume the office. The spoil-
hunters of the Irish Parliament, believing that Pitt
would be dismissed and Fox called to power, deter-
mined to support Grattan's view, and the address was
voted by a majority of over fifty. Buckinghamshire,
the Viceroy, refused to transmit it, and it was en-
trusted to a deputation headed by the Duke of
Leinster. The King, however, had recovered before
the English debates were at an end and was receiving
his ministers by the time the Irish deputation arrived.
But the incident had sufficiently revealed the absurdity
of the contention that one Crown can permanently
aiFord any real element of unity between two coequal
and sovereign Parliaments. It may stand as the
symbol of a unity which the interests or sentiments
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 495
of the people require to be preserved. But unless chap.
that unity be expressed in time in a real organ of ^^
government, the sentiment itself will perish and with
it the symbol, when its meaning has gone. It is, in
the end, not symbols but organs that alone can unite.
The hold which their influence over the owners of Pittbecins
rotten boroughs gave to the English executive was of
strong enough only to enable Government to live from ^^^^^ *^^®
hand to mouth. Pitt, however, had grasped the fact
that the principle upon which the government of
Ireland had been based for two centuries, that of
holding down the majority by a colonial garrison,
was wrong, and that Government could not so much
as begin the real tasks which awaited it there until
the system was abandoned. The failure of his Irish
measures convinced him that it was impossible to
carry such reforms through a Parliament which at
best represented but a fraction of the Protestant
garrison. It was not unnatural that Pitt should begin
to regard the merging of the Irish in the British
Parliament as the first condition of carrying the
measures required to place the relations of the two
kingdoms and the relations of the various sections into
which Ireland itself was divided on a just footing.
To begin with, such a union would of itself settle the
fiscal relations of the two countries. The means of
carrying such a union, however, were not in sight,
and until they were Pitt felt that it was useless to
attempt any further settlement of Irish afiairs.
In Ireland there were men whose despair of the Irish
Dublin Parliament was leading them in the opposite ^Ij^ete^
direction. Flood might describe Britain as a foreign i^^depond-
nation, and Grattan was never tired of asserting that
Ireland had attained her independence in 1782, But,
if so, what then was the status which the American
colonies, now acknowledged by Great Britain as the
United States of America, had achieved at the same
enoe.
496 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, moment? The spectacle of the great republic in-
evitably provoked a sense of make-believe when the
Dublin politicians used the same word independence
to describe the relations of Ireland to Britain. In
the North, where the republican traditions of the
Puritan settlement had never died out, it encouraged
the descendants of Cromwell's settlers to dream that
the Irish might imitate the American colonies.
The In France, however, the effect of the American
K^oiu. Revolution was even more rapid. By its active inter-
tion. Its vention the French monarchy had rendered possible
principles ^ ^
welcomed the independence of the American colonies. The blow
aimed at Britain by the King of France had cleft the
Commonwealth in twain, but Uike to the bullet's
grazing, broke out into a second course of mischief
and laid his own throne in ruins. Voltaire and
Rousseau had long been sapping the belie& upon
which it had rested, and the condition of public
bankruptcy in which the American War had involved
France precipitated a crisis. In essence the American
Bevolution was neither a revolt against inflicted
oppression nor against monarchy; but in France it
was inevitably regarded as both. To the doctrine of
di^dne right, the essential basis of autocracy in Europe,
the establishment of a great republic in America was
a deadlier blow than any dealt by Voltaire and
Rousseau. Not only in France but throughout Europe
men had endured at the hands of monarchs a grinding
oppression, and they aspired to achieve a freedom
which the Americans had long enjoyed, and only
rebelled to keep. In 1789 the Revolution began in
France, and its exponents proclaimed not merely a
national revolt but a European crusade. On the
Continent no worse oppression had been endured at
the hands of autocracy than the Irish had suffered
under the rule of the British Commonwealth, and
nowhere did the doctrines of the Revolution receive
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 497
a readier hearing. In Belfast the news of the taking chap.
of the Bastille was received with the wildest enthu- ^
siasm. The Northern Whig Club, which included in
its membership men like *Charlemont and Robert
Stewart, who ten years later as Lord Castlereagh was
Pitt's principal agent in carrying the Union, and
afterwards acquired the reputation of a British
Mettemich, drank toasts to * The Revolution,' ' The
National Assembly of France,' * The Majesty of the
People,' ' Tom Paine,' and ' The Rights of Man.' The
volunteer companies again turned out to celebrate
the event with a battery of guns and a portrait of
Mirabeau, and the future Lord Castlereagh was actu-
ally present at the celebration. The tidal wave started
by the American earthquake had travelled across the
Atlantic. It touched Ireland, flooded France, and
surging back again to Ireland almost engulfed it.
The conventions of Dungannon had shown that RepuWic-
amongst the volunteers there was a section of Irish the^North.
Dissenters who, republican before they were Protestant,
were prepared to sink their religious differences with
the Catholics in order to gain their political ends.
They recognized the absurdity of supposing that Irish
independence could be achieved or sustained by the
Protestant minority alone, and accordingly set out
to secure the adhesion of the Catholics to their
cause.
The most eager exponent of this idea was Wolfe Threat of
Tone, a young Irish lawyer of broken fortunes. b^*^een
Events in a quarter as remote as the shores of the ^^}^^ .
Pacific were destined to introduce him to the notice about
of the public. In 1778 Captain Cook had begun the isiaiX^^^
exploration of the coast which is now the Western 1778.
seaboard of Canada. In April 1789 some English i789.
merchants had followed this up by founding a settle-
ment at Nootka Sound, in the island since called after
Captain Vancouver. In 1 7 1 4 Juan Perez had explored
2 K
498
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
this coast on behalf of Spain as far north as latitude 54°,
but had never attempted to settle it. Hearing of the
English settlement the Spanish Government despatched
two war-ships to Nootka Sound, which hauled down
the British and hoisted the Spanish flag. Four British
vessels were captured and their crews treated with
harshness and indignity. In reply to the remonstrances
of Britain the Spanish Government cited the Bull
granted in 1493 by Alexander VI.,^ and claimed in
virtue of it an exclusive sovereignty over the whole
of the Western coast of America. In the hope of
obtaining the active support of France, the King of
Spain prepared for war. The Jacobins, however, now
in the first throes of the Revolution, were nervous
lest a foreign war should throw the game into the
hands of Louis XVI., whose throne was tottering to
its fall. Pitt, who had recently brought the British
fleet into a high state of efficiency, promptly mobilized
his forces at the cost of three millions. Spain was
obliged to yield her pretensions without striking a
blow, and Captain Vancouver, who had served under
Cook, was sent to plant the British flag upon the
island which now bears his name.^
The immediate interests at stake were trifling com-
pared with the cost incurred in enforcing the British
claim ; but it is obvious that, unless Pitt had taken
this vigorous line, the Dominion of Canada would now
J^utraiity cujoy uo access to the Pacific. In July 1790 the
event of Ifish Parliament, with the warm approval of Grattan,
war. had voted £200,000 in aid of the apprehended war
with Spain. While the matter was still pending Wolfe
Tone published a pamphlet over the signature of
* Hibernicus,' urging that Ireland should take no part
in an English war over Nootka Sound, and appealing
to the Irish Parliament not merely to refuse the vote,
Wolfe
Tone
claims
that
Ireland
should
* See above, p. 135.
' See Note B at end of this chapter, p. 523.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 499
but to call upon George III. to notify to Spain the chap.
neutrality of the kingdom of Ireland.* In the Irish
Parliament meantime Sir Lawrence Parsons was once
more agitating the questions which had been raised in
the adoption of Pitt's commercial proposals : ' Where
are our ambassadors ? ' he asked. ' What treaties do
we enter into ? With what nation do we make peace
or declare war ? Are we not a mere cipher in all these,
and are not these what give a nation consequence
and fame ? All these are sacrificed to the connection
with England.' * He went on to assert that the so-
called independence of Ireland had been followed by
no improvement in the government, which was fast
driving Irishmen to follow the example of America.
Parsons' own mouth was eventually shut by an
earldom ; but Tone afterwards stated that it was
Parsons' arguments which first led him to the con-
clusion that the only hope for Ireland lay in absolute
and final separation from Britain.
Presently -Tone published a pamphlet under the He attacks
signature of a * Northern Whig,' in which he attacked PaJiia ° ^
the Irish Parliament itself as the corrupt instrument Jhe^TO^^pt
of British rule. Grattan's achievement of 1782 he ^^^^^^^^nt
described as ' a Kevolution which enabled Irishmen to rule
sell, at a much higher price, their honor, their
integrity, and the interests of their country ; it was a
Revolution which, while at one stroke it doubled the
value of every borough-monger in the kingdom, left
three-fourths of our countrymen slaves as it found
them; and the Government of Ireland in the base and
wicked and contemptible hands who had spent their
lives in degrading and plundering her ; nay, some of
whom had given their last vote decidedly, though
hopelessly, against this our famous Revolution. Who
of the veteran enemies of the country lost his place or
^ See Note at end of this chapter, p. 527.
* Leek J, History of Irdatid^ vol. iii. p. 6.
500 lEELAND AND THE BRITISH C0MM019 WEALTH
CHAP, his pension ? Who was called forth to station or oflBce
VTT
from the ranks of the Opposition ? Not one ! The
power remained in the hands of our enemies, again to
be exerted for our ruin, with this diflFerence, that
formerly we had our distresses, our injuries, and our
insults gratis, at the hands of England ; but now we
pay very dearly to receive the same with aggravation,
through the hands of Irishmen ; yet this we boast of,
and call a Revolution/ ^ Tone referred to the Nootka
Sound incident as proving the corrupt subservience of
the Irish Parliament to British interests.
He founds His ucxt Step was to Create a society called the
iriflhmin United Irishmen, the object of which was to secure
CaUiSkT^ joint action between Catholics and Protestants. He
emancipa- himsclf was Secretary of the parent society in Belfast,
and Napper Tandy became secretary of a branch in
Dublin. The volunteer companies in Belfast were
already calling for the repeal of the remaining laws
against Papists, and the Catholic bodies responded
in an address. Pitt, believing that the existence
of civilized society, not only in France but through-
out Europe, was threatened by the progress of the
French Revolution, resolved to enlist every element
of conservatism in support of the established govern-
ment. Catholicism, as he saw, was essentially one of
them, and he was now determined to conciliate it in
spite of the opposition of the Irish Government. In
1792. 1792 the Irish Parliament was induced to concede to
Catholics the right to vote and to sit on juries, but
not the right to sit in Parliament. The omission was
a serious one ; as they learned to listen, not to their
natural leaders, the Catholic gentry, but to the
Protestant demagogues, who were intent upon enlist-
ing them in the ranks of the United Irishmen. The
political influence of the priests, who were naturally
consulted as to which of the rival Protestants
1 Wolfe Tone, PolUical fForks, pp. 346-7.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 501
candidates ought to receive the Catholic vote, was ohap.
greatly increased. v...-..,^.,.^
In 1794 the moderate section of the Whigs, who Fitzwiiiiam's
condemned the excesses of the French Revolution and n^sl^^^^^*
supported the war, broke with Fox and joined Pitt. ^^ ,
The Duke of Rutland, as Home Secretary, became «>rthe
responsible for Ireland, and Earl Fitzwilliam was to CathoUcs
be sent as Viceroy to Ireland as soon as a new opening ^caii?
could be found for Westmoreland, who was now at the
Castle. Fitzwilliam allowed it to be known that he
was to replace Westmoreland, and also that he intended
to dismiss Fitzgibbon and call Grattan and his friends
to office. Pitt, hearing of the matter, refused to
consider the dismissal of Fitzgibbon, and after a crisis
in the Cabinet, which almost led to the resignation of
the Whig ministers, an agreement was arrived at and
embodied in writing. Fitzwilliam was to go to Dublin,
but there was to be no * new system ' of men or
measures, and he was, if possible, to prevent any agita-
tion of the Catholic question during the present
session. On January 4, 1795, Fitzwilliam reached
Dublin and dismissed all the leading officials except
Fitzgibbon. A Catholic Relief Bill was actually intro-
duced in the Irish Parliament, and on February 19,
Fitzwilliam was censured by his own chief, Portland,
and summarily recalled.^ Lord Camden took his place.
The dismissed officials were restored to their offices,
and Fitzgibbon was promoted to the earldom of Clare.
In the bitterness of their disappointment a large
number of the Catholics were thrown into the arms
of the Protestant republicans. By an unforeseen
accident Pitt had been thwarted in his attempt to
conciliate the Catholic majority. The members of the
Established Church were the only section of the
population upon whose support the Government could
now count. They numbered no more than 450,000,
1 Eosebery, FiU, pp. 174-81.
502
IRBLAND AND THE BRITISH OOMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
Wolfo
Tone
intrignes
with
France,
1795.
Disturbed
condition
of Ireland.
Revival of
racial and
religious
animosity.
and secret agents reported that the Dissenters, who
were quite as numerous, were republican. The whole
Catholic peasantry, they affirmed, would join the
French.
In the year 1795 the United Irishmen reconstructed
their society with the avowed object, not of reforming
the Irish constitution, but of establishing a republican
government with the assistance of French arms.
Grattan, whose support they had attempted in vain
to enlist, had illusions of his own, but they were not
those of a revolutionary mind. In unmistakable
terms he warned them that ' the French would merely
treat Ireland in a manner most calculated to weaken
England; that they would halloo the lower classes
against the higher, and make the whole country a
scene of massacre ; that in a year or two it would be
given up by the French again to Great Britain, and that
the convulsion would be the ruin of the country.'^
Grattan's warning was amply justified by events
which have since been disclosed in the archives of the
French Foreign Office. When in 1797 Lord Malmes-
bury was negotiating for peace at Lisle, Canada,
Newfoundland, Gibraltar, India, and even the Channel
Islands were included in the demands secretly formu-
lated by the Directory. No mention, however, was
made of Ireland. Not wanting it for themselves, the
Directory did not think of asking for terms for their
Irish allies.
In reading the polished speeches of Grattan and his
contemporaries in Dublin, it is somewhat difficult to
remember that social conditions akin to those of the
Dark Ages still prevailed in the back blocks of Ireland.
Many of the English colonists had never lost the
tradition of regarding their land merely as an invest-
ment from which to derive an income spent elsewhere.
The moment war checked prosperity the condition of
* Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 384.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 503
the peasants was one approaching famine. Hudson, chap.
an intelligent clergyman, writing in 1789, notices ^^^
* how many traces of savage life still remained in the
population ; the same laziness and improvidence, the
same unrelenting ferocity in their combats, the same
love of intoxication, the same hereditary animosities,
handed down from generation to generation.' ^ The
rule of law, elsewhere the identifying mark of British
government, had scarcely been established in the
remoter parts of Ireland like Connaught, where ' the
magistrates took a great number of those whom they '
suspected of being Defenders, and without sentence,
without trial, without even a colour of legality, they
sent them to serve in the King's fleet.' *
The * Peep - o' - day boys ' were an organization Growth
formed to drive Catholics out of Protestant districts. or^I'aL-
The * Defenders ' were a counter organization originally ^°?^ ^
formed by the Catholics to resist these attacks, and
Inevitably the 'Defenders' turned from defence to ™"^'"®""
aggression, and provoked the formation of the Orange
societies, who next attempted to drive the Catholics
out of Ulster. In the general paralysis of govern-
ment the old religious animosities revived, and, in
spite of the attempt of the Protestant republicaus to
unite all the creeds against Britain, suddenly came
to the surface. The tumult of religious, political,
social, and racial hatreds was like a welter of rock-
pent waters into which angry seas are breaking from
several directions. Currents seething in the Devil's
Punch Bowl or in Hell Bay are no harder to describe
than the movements of the various elements in
Irish society during the months which preceded the
actual outbreak of rebellion. Lord Clare determined
that Government should be master, and hastened to
enlist yeomanry mainly recruited from the same
sections of the population as those which furnished the
» Lecky, UisUyry of Ireland, toI. hi. p. 428. > Ibid. p. 419.
504
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
Abortive
French
invasion
under
Hoche, *
1796.
Grattan's
criticism
of Naval
policy
compared
with that
of the
British
Opposition.
ranks of the Orangemen. Whether he intended to side
with the Orangemen or not, Lord Clare's dragoons
were in fact the Orangemen in Grovernment uniforms
with Government arms. The Catholics were increas-
ingly thrown into the arms of the United Irishmen,
whose ranks were recruited from all religions and races.
In Ulster alone it was estimated that 35,000 rebels
could be brought into the field, two-thirds of whom
were Presbyterians and Deists, and one-third members
of the Catholic and Established Churches. Between
the Orange yeomanry and the United Irishmen there
tended to develop a condition of civil war.
In 1795 Wolfe Tone, who had fled to America,
went to France to persuade the Directory to invade
Ireland, urging that its conquest would destroy the
naval ascendency of England. All property belong-
ing to Englishmen in Ireland was to be confiscated,
and Tone dwelt especially upon the great sums which
some Englishmen had invested in mortgages on Irish
land. The French despatched an agent, Count
Richard O'Shea, to Ireland, with a promise to send
10,000 men, and arms for twice as many. They
exceeded their promises, and in December 1796 Hoche
set sail from Brest with 15,000 soldiers and a large
supply of arms and ammunition for distribution
amongst the United Irishmen. Wolfe Tone accom-
panied the expedition, which succeeded in evading the
British fleets. Part of it reached the south-west
corner of Ireland and beat up Bantry Bay. That the
French failed to effect a landing was in no way due
to the British Navy but to the violence of a storm
which made the landing impossible, and drove them
out to sea.
When Parliament met in January 1797, Grattan
attacked the British Government for neglecting to
protect Ireland. This was, he complained, the second
war within fifteen years in which Ireland had been
IRELAND AND THE BEITISH COMMONWEALTH 505
involved by England and then entirely abandoned.^ chap.
It is instructive to compare this attack on the Govern-
ment with that made by the Opposition in the
British House of Commons, and also with the account
which Admiral Mahan gives from his purely military
point of view.^ Bridport, the First Sea Lord, who at
this time was in command of the British Navy, was a
man of over seventy, whose lack of energy had not
only communicated itself to the personnel of the fleets
but vitiated his strategic dispositions. Shortly after
these occurrences the mutinies at the Nore and Spit-
head brought the British Empire as near to destruc-
tion as it has ever been. He was at fault, moreover,
in failing to keep the squadron blockading Brest suffi-
ciently near to prevent Hoche's escape, in keeping his
reserves at Spithead instead of at Falmouth, and in
neglecting to move the moment he heard that Hoche
had sailed. In leaving such a man in command of
the fleets at such a time, ministers were guilty of
an error of judgment which was afterwards corrected
by the appointment of St. Vincent as his successor.
They were at fault, moreover, in not instructing
Colpoy es, who commanded the squadron off* Brest, that
if Hoche's expedition succeeded in evading him, he
should hasten to the Irish coast where Hoche's attack
would be really dangerous. The Opposition in the
British Parliament was justified to the full in the
attack which it made on the errors of judgment com-
mitted at this period by the GU)vemment in its con-
duct of naval defence. But the charge brought by
Grattan that the British Government was prepared to
abandon Ireland or to sacrifice the defence of its coast
for that of Britain, was absurd on the face of it.
Ireland was then the principaj source from which
* Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. iv. pp. 6-8.
' Mahan, T?ie Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution, vol. i.
chapter xL
506 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, naval provisions were drawn. In Cork Harbour
VII t»
.^^^^^^^^^^ alone there were collected naval stores to the value of
£1,500,000, which, if Hoche had succeeded ip landing,
would have fallen into his hands. The Government
knew that Ireland was seething with discontent, and
that thousands of the United Irishmen were ready to
take up arms in support of the French expedition,
which was bringing with it muskets for 41,000 rebels.^
It had no force in Ireland adequate to deal with the
combined forces which Hoche and the United Irish-
men could have put into the field, and for the purposes
of the war Ireland would then have become French
territory. When in exile at St. Helena, Napoleon
regarded his failure to attack Britain through Ireland
as one of the mistakes pf his career. * On what,'
he said, ' do the destinies of empires hang ? ... If
instead of the expedition of Egypt, I had made that
of Ireland, if slight deranging circumstances had not
thrown obstacles in the way of my Boulogne enter-
prise — what would England have been to-day ? And
the Continent ? And the political world ? ' ^ The
British Government could indeed have dreaded
nothing so much as the landing of Hoche in Ireland ;
merely from the point of view of England's own
safety, a landing on any part of the British coast
would have been infinitely preferable.
Ireland But in the Irish Parliament it was inevitable that
a voice cvcu SO able a man as Grattan should regard the
mani^e- Hiattcr from a particularist point of view. Like the
mentof American assemblies, the Irish ParUament had no
its , '
external voice in the general councils of the Commonwealth
Consequent OH issues of national life and death. They were free
wiitfoT^ to criticise, but there was present in that Parliament
^^f ^ . no member of the Cabinet responsible for the conduct
criticism. ^
of external affairs, no minister competent to answer
1 Wolfe Time's Journal, Dec 22, 1796.
3 Las Cases, M^moires de SainU-HOhu, ii. 335 (ed. 1823).
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 507
criticisms which, like those of Grattan, were clean chap.
... VII
beside the mark. And if sound criticism was offered
there, as it was in the British House of Commons,
it did not fall on the ears of the ministers who
were actually responsible and could scarcely affect
their conduct. An Irish Ministry might have been
established which would have been responsible to the
people of Ireland, through its Parliament, for the
conduct of their local and domestic affairs. The
policy of granting what is called ' responsible govern-
ment,' which was followed in respect of the British
Colonies at a later date, might have been applied
to Ireland ; but even so the Irish people could have
had no Parliament or Government responsible to it
for the issues of peace and war so long as the King
of Great Britain remained the King of Ireland.
That Ireland should have a separate Eang, or, as
the United Irishmen desired, become a republic, was
the policy which Grattan had denounced. Ireland
was the Commonwealth to which United Irishmen
were prepared to yield obedience, to which they were
prepared to subordinate all other interests including
those of Britain. Tone and his fellow-conspirators
had made their choice, and were ready to face the
consequences to the foot of the gallows. Grattan
was not prepared to face that choice, even though
in a moment of heat he had declared that he would
sooner sacrifice the British Empire than the Irish
constitution. In his calmer moments he maintained
that Britain and Ireland had common and inseparable
interests in matters of supreme importance to both.
He chose to assume that two independent and equally
sovereign commonwealths could be trusted to concur
in the defence of those interests. How that concur-
rence was to be maintained, or where the duty of
an Irish citizen lay if it should fail, is a problem to
which he never addressed his mind ; for he spoke
508
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH OOMMONWKALTH
CHAP.
VII
Terrorism
of the
United
Irishmen
and
reprisals
of the
yeomanry.
The
mutiny at
the Nore
largely
caused by
Irish
sailors,
1797.
more easily than he thought, and could always
envelop such problems in a cloud of words which
concealed them not more perfectly from his hearers
than from himself.
Protestant Ulster was now in a condition of
smothered war. The state to which the United
Irishmen had reduced the country was one of absolute
terror. 'It is impossible/ wrote Dean Warburton,
*to give you an idea of how ferociously savage the
people have become in these parts.' ^ Loyalists were
taking the United Irish oath as the only means of
safety. The Government replied by proclaiming
martial law, and the loyalist yeomanry enforced it
by outrages which exceeded those of the United Irish-
men. The situation was indeed growing desperate.
In 1795 the United Irish Society appears to have
been almost entirely confined to Ulster and Dublin ;
but by 1797 it had spread over a great part of
Ireland, and a miUtary organization had been grafted
on to it. The executive of the society computed
that half a million members had been sworn, and
that more than 280,000 were merely waiting the
arrival of the French to rise in arms.
Ireland is the one spot in the British Common-
wealth where anarchy has continuously flourished ;
but the poison from the abscess has aflFected every
part of it. It had fatally complicated the troubles
in America. It now broke out at a moment of
extreme peril in a quarter where it was least ex-
pected. France had by this time absorbed Holland
and seized its fleets, which Hoche was preparing
for a fresh invasion of Ireland. The fleets lying at
Spithead and in the mouth of the Thames at the
Nore were saturated with United Irishmen deported
under martial law. In May and June both fleets
suddenly mutinied, and for a time the coasts of
* Lecky, History of Ireland^ vol. iv. p. 82.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 509
England were threatened by her own ships as well as chap.
by those of her enemies. At this desperate juncture v,^.,.,,^^,^
the Commonwealth was saved partly by the firmness
of the Ministry and partly by the failure of the
French to seize their opportunity. Throughout July,
August, and September the Dutch ships were kept
in the Texel by contrary winds, and when they
issued out on October 8, were signally defeated at
Camperdown by Admiral Duncan, the mutineers of
May and June fighting with a courage worthy of
the best traditions of the fleet. Hoche had died
of consumption three weeks before, and the prospect
of efifective invasion from Holland ended for the
moment. ^ Grattan meantime continued to inveigh
against the war at a time when there was no power,
either in England or in Ireland, that could have
stopped it.' ^
At the beginning of 1798 the French renewed The
their promises of help to the United Irishmen, and ^f^ygg^
the British Government received intelligence of practically
^ confined to
extensive preparations at Dunkirk, Havre, Honfleur, CathoUcs.
and Calais. Martial law had now been extended
throughout the Catholic provinces, and was enforced
with frightful barbarities by the yeomanry, who, as
has been seen, were simply the loyalist population
in arms. House-burning, executions without trial,
massacres, and even torture were the order of the day,
and provoked similar atrocities on the part of the
victims. Open rebellion, for which the United Irish-
men had been preparing for the last five years, first
broke out amongst the Catholic peasantry on May 23
in the counties of Dublin, Kildare, and Meath, and
was quickly followed by a more formidable rising in
Wexford. The movement had originated amongst
the Protestant colonists of the North, but, owing to
a complication of causes characteristic of the tangled
* Lecky, History of Irelwnd, vol. iv. p. 190.
510
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH OOMHONWEALTH
CHAP, condition of Irish society, the Northern repablicans
now hang back. Fitzgibbon had his informers in the
inner councils of the United Irishmen, and when
Hoche's expedition had started from France, suddenly
arrested the leaders. The organization never recovered
from the blow. Recognizing, moreover, that the seat
of the conspiracy was in Ulster, he had first pro*
claimed martial law there. The industrious Dissenters,
who had more to lose than the Catholic peasants,
began to realize the consequences of rebellion to. their
property. By this time, moreover, their instinct for
liberty had been outraged by the policy of France,
not only in Switzerland and Venice, but towards
America, for which the French were now promising
a similar fate unless she would finance France as
France herself had financed the Americans in the
War of Independence. The excesses committed by
the wild peasantry of the South when once they had
taken arms shocked the more civilized colonists of
the North. A deterrent still more powerful was the
sudden revival on both sides of religious intolerance,
which explains the rapid development of the Orange
societies. Hence the United Irishmen in the North
found themselves weaker at the heart of their move-
ment than they anticipated, and it was not till well
on in June that risings took place in Antrim and
Down, which were suppressed in a few days.
On August 6, 1798, when the rebellion was
practically crushed, Humbert, a French commander,
Bly^nQS succeeded in landing at Killala Bay on the North-
West coast of Ireland with rather over a thousand
men. The records of the French invaders give a
glimpse of the kind of society in which they found
themselves. ' Many boxes of arms and uniforms had
been brought over, and when these were opened, the
peasantry speedily streamed in. . . . But except a
dislike to tithes, which was far more languid in
French
troops
landed at
Killala
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 511
Connaught than in either Munster or Ulster, they chap.
had not an idea in common with the French, and no
kind of political motive appears to have animated
them. They joined the invaders with delight when
they learnt that, for the first time in their lives, they
were to receive meat every day. They danced with
joy like children when they saw the blue uniforms,
and the glittering helmets edged with brown paper to
imitate leopard's skin, that were provided for them,
and they rapturously accepted the guns that were
given them, but soon spoiled many of them by their
utter inexperience. It was found necessary, indeed,
to stop the distribution of ammunition, as the only
way of preventing them from using their new toy in
shooting crows.' ^ In the West of Ireland the Com-
monwealth had failed so signally in its task that the
French found themselves amongst a people scarcely
more civilized than those which Caesar describes in
Britain, and their descriptions explain why the
peasantry are so often referred to as ' natives ' in the
military reports of the time. The result was that at
the close of the eighteenth century the suppression of
the rebellion was, as in the age of Elizabeth and
Cromwell, attended by the kind of atrocities which
too often disfigure the wars of civilized powers with
primitive tribes.
Humbert, after a brilliant victory at Castlebar Capituia-
and a skilfully conducted march into the interior, French
capitulated on September 8, 1798, at Mochill. ^7^^^"'
The Irish were excluded from quarter and cut down ^^^ °^
without mercy. Meantime Napper Tandy landed on Tone,
the Isle of Arran in Donegal, but fled on hearing of
Humbert's fate. Another squadron under Admiral
Bompard with Wolfe Tone and three thousand men
on board was defeated on October 12 by Sir John
Warren. Wolfe Tone was captured, and committed
* Lecky, HiUory of IreJaTid, vol. y. pp. 45-6.
512
IRELAND AHD THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
Suppres-
sion of
the
rebellion.
1805.
suicide in gaoL ' If his dream of an independent
Ireland now seems a very mad one, it is bat justice to
him to remember how different was then the position
of Ireland, both in relation to England and in relation
to the Continent. Ireland now contains about an
eighth part of the population of the United Kingdom,
and it is hopelessly divided within itself. At the time
of the rebellion of 1798, the whole population of the
two islands was little more than fifteen millions, and
probably fully four and a half millions of these were
Irish. It was a much larger population than Holland
possessed when she confronted the power of Lewis
XIV., or the United States when they won their
independence, or Prussia when Frederick the Great
made her one of the foremost nations in Europe. It
was idle to suppose that such a people, if they had
been really united and in earnest, could not under
favourable circumstances have achieved and main-
tained their independence; and what circumstance
could seem more favourable than a great revolution-
ary war, which especially appealed to all oppressed
nationalities, threatened the British Empire with
destruction, and seemed about to lead to a complete
dissolution and rearrangement of the political system
of Europe ? ' '
The news of the Battle of the Nile which arrived
at the same time relieved Britain for the moment
from the fear that the Irish rebels could draw any
further support from France. But it was not till the
sea-power of the French was destroyed at Trafalgar,
six years later, that the danger was finally removed.
The British Isles were in fact guarded from effective
invasion, not indeed by ships scattered round her
coasts, but by pitched battles fought at the mouths
of the Nile or the gate of the Mediterranean.
Organized resistance, however, was now crushed in
* Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. v. pp. 80-1 .
IRELAND AND THE BEITISH COMMONWEALTH 513
the North as well as in the South of Ireland, ohap.
VTT
Atrocities were continued by the loyalists till
1799, and ship-loads of United Irishmen were des-
patched to Australia. There it was observed that
after the arrival of every consignment of Irish con-
victs serious disturbances broke out in the settle-
ments.
Tbne and his confederates had failed in their object Tiie
of uniting Ireland in a rebellion against England, a truly ^
The struggle had rapidly assumed the character of a ^^tive^®
civil war in which the minority, backed by Britain, i^®!^^^^
had trampled the majority under foot, not without troubles.
many of the atrocities which attended previous cure a" ^
struggles of the kind. Whether in peace or war, u^n*^^th
Ireland was a source from which trouble spread, and ^'^.
is still spreading, through the veins of the entire means by
r\ ij.i_ T7 i_ J. • which the
Commonwealth. Years, perhaps centunes, were union was
required to remedy the neglect of the past, but that Xmif*
work could not begin until there was a real Govern-
ment in Ireland. The fact had been overlooked that
the legislative and executive functions are but aspects
of the one indivisible function — Government. Re-
sponsibility for government really lay with a British
executive, and the independence of the Irish Parlia-
ment meant that it paralysed that executive, except
in 80 far as it could be induced by corruption to
abdicate its own functions. An effective Government
was the primary need, the inexorable condition of
satisfying all others. On the morrow of such carnage
as Ireland had seen, and of such peril as the whole
Commonwealth had sustained, what justification
could Pitt have for continuing to accept a system
under which Government in Ireland had always to
choose between the opposition of Parliament and the
purchase of a majority by corruption at the cost of
Ireland itself ? Its loaded gibbets and smoking ruins
were sufficient proof of some radical defect in its
2l
514 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, system of government. Obviously some change was
necessary. What was the nature of the change to
be ? The only alternative to a system in which the
executive controlled Parliament was one in which
Parliament would control the executive. But what
constituencies in Ireland were to control Parliament ?
Was Pitt to place that control in the hands of a
minority still thirsting for Catholic blood? Or if*
not, was he to entrust it to the majority which
included the United Irishmen and CathoUcs, from
whose hands the pike and torch had just been torn ?
Such alternatives had only to be stated in order to be
dismissed, and, these dismissed, no other expedient
remained than to go back to the point where Cromwell
had begun, by abolishing the Parliament at Dublin
and giving Ireland. Uke Scotland, representatives in
a common Parliament at Westminster. But the
consent of the Irish, as formerly of the Scottish
Parliament, had to be secured ; and in order to obtain
a majority, Government had no course but to resort
to the means upon which it had always relied when-
ever the action of the executive depended upon the
concurrence of the legislature. Rotten boroughs had
long changed hands at high figures. In 1797 Grattan
estimated their value at from £14,000 to £16,000 a
piece, and Pitt now proposed to expropriate them all
at a gross cost of £1,260,000. The arrangement so
made was legal and public, and it is estimated that
about one-third of this compensation was received by
borough-holders who cast their votes against the
Union.^ There is no evidence of purchase of votes by
clandestine payments of money. In accordance with
the regular practice at Dublin votes were purchased
by a lavish distribution of titles, and the Union was
effected by means no other than those which for a
hundred years had been used by the executive tq
* Fisher, The End of the Irish. Parliament^ p. 306.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 515
carry their measures. Sodden with corruption, the ohap.
Irish Parliament was extinguished in one final debauch, ^"
like Clarence, content to drown in liquor most dear
to its heart.
In the country the Protestant colonists seem to why
have been generally, though not universally, opposed to promiae of
the Union. The Catholics for the most part supported ^»thoiic
it. Recent events did not lead them to hope that tionwas
the Dublin Parliament would admit them to its byhinuâ„¢
ranks nor that it could relieve them of the disabilities
which still seemed to mark them as enemies of the
state. Union was held out to them as the prelude
of Catholic emancipation throughout the United
Kingdom, and as soon as it was consummated Pitt
and Castlereagh did their best to realize the promise.
But Fitzgibbon had privately convinced George III.
that such a measure would be a breach of his corona-
tion oath, and would invalidate his title to the Crown ;
and throughout the three kingdoms George III. knew
that he was supported by an immense force of un-
reasoning prejudice. Pitt resigned and, though later
on he returned to oflGice, never lived to redeem his
promise.
As always with politicral deadlocks, the key was Lessons
found by appealing from fictions to reaUties. from SL^^.
forms to principles. One king could unite two or ^^erond-
more kingdoms so long as he governed in fact as well ^nce the
as in name. But the development of the Common- before two
wealth had meant that sovereignty was transferred Panu!^
from King to Parliament, that Parliament in fact ™®^**'
controlled the King ; and, where the sovereignty had
passed to two or more Parliaments, it was not in the
nature of things that the Crown which they controlled
could serve to unite them. That could only happen
in so far as the Crown controlled the Parliaments,
which meant that the constitution reverted to literal
monarchy. As soon, therefore, as the sovereignty
516 IRELAND AND THE BBITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, had passed to two or more Parliaments, the com-
^^ munities which they represented were faced by
the inexorable question whether the State was to
dissolve into as many independent commonwealths
or whether the several parliaments were to be
merged into one. A commonwealth no less than
a monarchy is a state, and can abate no particle of
that infinite claim which distinguishes states from
all other forms of human aasociation. Politicians
may declare that, whatever the theory of the state
may be, in practice it is proved to be otherwise.
Like Grattan, they may argue that such abstract
questions can be ignored, evaded, postponed, or
buried beneath a heap of words, and so they may
continue until one of those junctures occurs when
states are driven to make their unlimited call on the
devotion of those whom they hold to be citizens.
Suddenly men find, as in Ireland in the closing years
of the eighteenth century, that two different societies
are claiming to dispose of their lives and property,
and are calling upon them to dedicate botib to the
preservation of one or the other. The alternatives
between which they must choose are presented on
the points of opposing bayonets, and then they dis-
cover that citizenship, like everything else, admits
of no lasting divorce between theory and practice.
So it is that sooner or later men in civilized society
are called upon to declare what is their state and
where they belong. In the debates on the Union, as
in the discussions at the making of the American
Commonwealth, politicians forgot to juggle with the
technicalities of constitutional law. They found
themselves uttering truths which at other times they
would have dismissed as a logic contrary to the
experience of practical men. A single illustration
taken from the speech of Grenville will suffice : ' If
by the British constitution the royal power could be
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 517
exercised free from the control of Parliament, then, chap.
VII
indeed,, the regal identity might be a bond of con-
nexion ; but if the whole system of the regal power
was not only under the control, but could not go on
without the aid and assistance of Parliament, and the
Parliaments of each kingdom were to remain distinct
and separate, then, he repeated, the bond of connexion
was absolutely null.' ^
When the Union was effected, the British Common- Need of
wealth had still to face fifteen years of the most a^eiop
desperate struggle for existence which it had ever ^f ^X"*
experienced. But in any circumstances more than between
a few years of union were needed to create in the peoples.
minds of the British people the habit of thinking of gj^^th of
the Irish, not as a separate and subject race, but as ^^wspi"*
' ^ J ' danng
part and parcel of themselves. In Ireland poverty the
in estate and turbulence of spirit were the necessary century.
result of conditions which Britain had suffered to
continue for centuries. A series of such measures as
Pitt had conceived, the removal of glaring religions
disabilities, the recognition of the right of the people
to their own soil, the removal of all that savoured
of an attempt to govern Ireland as a military colony,
and above all education, were needed to raise Irish
society to the level of Western civilization, and to
incorporate it organically in the tissues of a common-
wealth. Such measures could only oome as the people
of Britain learned to feel that they themselves suffered
in Ireland, as a man suffers in his own hand. It was
not tDl 1829 that Catholic emancipation was carried, 1829.
and then in response to fear rather than duty. The
abolition of the Church tithe in 1838 indicated, how- isss.
ever, the growth of real sympathy in Britain with
the position of the majority of the smaller island.
In 1903 the finances of the United Kingdom were 1903.
^ Cornewall Lewis, An Essay on the Government of Dependencies^ Notes,
p. 366.
518 IRELAKD AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, pledged to the extent of £100,000,000 to repair the
essential injustice, three centuries old, by which the
soil of Ireland had been given to English and Scottish
colonists to be held by them as a pledge for the
subjection of its native inhabitants.
The The mutual alienation engendered by the ages in
of thifl^^ which the English, obliged to concern themselves
Ssentui ^^ *^® government of Ireland, yet thought of its
pro-. people as aliens and used them not as citizens
to the but dependents, is not to be enaced even m a
tionof^ century. As with men's bodies so with their
question ^ainds, there are no short - cuts to health when
disease has been long and deeply established. The
first essential is a clear conception wherein the
opposite conditions of disease and health consist. In
the relations of Britain and Ireland the fundamental
disease has been a sense of alienation so radical that
it has been communicated to the English garrison
itself. The people of both islands have been divided
from each other, and the people of Ireland have been
divided against themselves. The union of Ireland
with Britain is founded on a quicksand so long as it
is based on the divisions of the Irish people. Con-
versely, a condition of health is one in which the
people of both islands feel themselves as much fellow-
citizens of one state as do those of Scotland and
England, and when they do so, such internal divisions
as still make it possible for different sections in
Ireland to arm against each other will have vanished.
If ever it should prove expedient to unburden the
Parliament of the United Kingdom by delegating to
the inhabitants of England, Ireland, Scotland, and
Wales the management of their own provincial affairs,
and the condition of Ireland should prove no bar to
such a measure, the Irish problem will once for all
have been closed. The policy of Pitt will be acknow-
ledged to have reached its fruition if ever Ireland
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 519
should be found peacefully transacting Irish affairs, chap.
There will then, within measurable time, be no question ^^^
that the inhabitants of the British Isles feel to each
other as members of one Commonwealth, and whenever
they so feel, the condition of health will at last have
been realized. But the present inquiry is widely
astray in the conclusions to which it points if that
feeling of common citizenship can be maintained, much
less created, in the breasts of people who do not in
fact share in the defence of those interests which are
common to all the citizens, always the most important
interests though not always easy to recognize as such.
If Britain and Ireland have common interests, those
interests must be the subject of common laws, and in
this Grattan was right, that common laws cannot be
made by two Parliaments except in so far as one
submits to the other. Such a system can be nothing
more nor less than * a creeping and incipient ' return
to a condition in which Ireland becomes the reluctant
dependent of Britain, a system which must of its
nature breed the old sense of alienation, the old failure
of mutual responsibility, the old inveterate condition
of disease.
Irishmen look back on a past from which no ele- The
ment of tragedy is wanting, and the greatest of all commoV*^
is this, that their sufferings still throw from behind ^^^^^
them not the radiance of a martyrdom but the shadow memory
of an execution. They remain in the memories of its wrS^,
people to curse rather than to hallow the. land, and foundâ„¢*
to encourage a patriotism which seeks to draw its ^^^^P[
inspiration from hate. Not seldom that gospel is wm.
preached by descendants of those by whose hand the
worsts deeds were done, or by whose vote in the Irish
Parliament the worst laws which have ever blackened
a statute-book were passed. Time and again the
sordid tale of wrongs done by the dead to the dead
is paraded to kindle the hatreds of the living against
520
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
Ireland
formerly
governed,
not in
her own
interests,
but in
those of
Britain.
The
inevitable
failure
of this
method.
each other. There are signs, however, that this ruinous
heritage of an ancient wrong is working itself out,
for in Ireland of late years has arisen a school which
pleads for a patriotism founded in love rather than
hate. Such patriotism, they argue, springs only when
and where men study to win from their soil the means
of better living for each other rather than for them*
selves. The pursuit of their own interests may unite
men for a moment. No essential or permanent union
can result except from a sense of their mutual duties.
' I have always held,' writes the founder of that school,
' that to foster resentment in respect of these old
wrongs is as stupid as was the policy which gave them
birth ; and, even if it were possible to distribute the
blame among our ancestors, I am sure we should do
ourselves much harm, and no living soul any good,
in the reckoning. In my view, Anglo-Irish history
is for Englishmen to remember, for Irishmen to
forget.' '
But the lesson is one to be remembered not only
in England but in every other part of the Common-
wealth, a lesson as old and as obvious as it is apt
to be ignored. What makes a city is men, not walls.
What constitutes a state is not land nor its ' natural
resources,' but men, living or yet to live, be they
black, brown, or white. The primal error in Anglo-
Irish relations was the habit, too slowly unlearned, of
valuing Ireland for its land rather than its people.
Those to whom its destinies were entrusted learned
too late to care for the hive more than the honey,
and the anger bom of wrongs which can only be
ended but not undone, has been carried wherever the
Irish have swarmed. It was an error arising from a
false standard of values, a wrong habit of mind, not in
individuals, but in whole communities, and whenever
one people set out to rule the destinies of another
* Pluiikett, Ireland in the New CefUtinjy p. 26.
VII
IRELAND AND THIT BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 521
there it is waiting to lure them from the one straight chap.
and difficult path. They cannot escape it by refusing
to tread that path. The one and only way to avoid
its snares is to hold aloft the principle against which
the error offends, and to examine every step they
take in the light which it sheds. In governing peoples
too backward to govern themselves the wealth to be
drawn from their country is never to be considered
as the first object nor indeed as an end in itself.
The question to be asked, not first, nor once, but every
day is, * What kind of society the country is destined
to support?' for the answer to that question will
decide the answer to be given to all others. No one
who studies the history of Ireland will think that it
can be raised too often by members of a Common-
wealth charged with the care of three hundred and
fifty millions of fellow-citizens who do not, as yet,
share in its government, and also with the task of
fitting them to do so.
NOTE A
grattan's oijjections against Pitt's pkoposals for com-
mercial RKCIPROCITY BETWEEN BRITAIN AND IRELAND
COMPARED WITH MR. BLAKE'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE
PROPOSALS FOR ESTABLISHING COMMERCIAL RECIPROCITY
BETWEEN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES
* Any feasible plan of unrestricted reciprocity involved See page
differential duties ; and involved — as to the bulk by agreement, 493.
and as to much from the necessity of the case — the substantial
assimilation in their leading features, of the tariffs of the two
countries. Tlie absence of agreement would give to each
country power to disturb at will the industrial system of the
other ; and unrestricted reciprocity, without an agreed assimila-
tion of duties, was an unsubstantial dream. For example, he
said the States could not, without destroying their industrial
system, admit free our woollen or iron manufactures, the produce
of wool or iron freely imported by us from beyond seas ; nor
could we, without destroying ours, levy on raw materials higher
522 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, duties than those laid by the Statea Then, since any practical
VII arrangement substantially involved not only differential duties
but a common tariff, unrestricted reciprocity became, in these
its redeeming features, diflScult to distinguish from commercial
union.
' Commercial union — establishing a common tariff, abolishing
international custom houses and dividing the total duties
between the two countries in agreed proportions — ^would be
the more available, perhaps the only available plan. The
tendency in Canada of unrestricted free trade with the States,
high duties being maintained against the United Kingdom,
would be towards political union, and the more successful the
plan the stronger the tendency, both by reason of the community
of interests, the intermingling of population, the more intimate
business and social connections, and the trade and fiscal relations,
amounting to dependency which it would create with the States,
and of the greater isolation and divergency from Britain which
it would produce ; and also and especially tlm>ugh inconveniences
experienced in the maintenance and apprehensions entertained
as to the termination of the treaty. Therefore he said, " What-
ever you or I may think on that head, whether we like or
dislike, believe or disbelieve in political union, must we not
agree that the subject is one of great moment^ towards the
practical settlement of which we should take no serious step
without reflection, or in ignorance of what we are doing?
Assuming that absolute free trade with the States, best described
as commercial union, may and ought to come, I believe that it
can and should come only as an incident, or at any rate, as a
well-understood precursor of political union, for ithich indeed
wo should be able to make better terms before than after the
surrender of our commercial independence. Then so believing
— believing that the decision of the trade question involves that
of the constitutional issue, for which you are unprepared and
with which you do not even conceive yourselves to be dealing —
how can I properly recommend you now to decide on commercial
union ! " ^
'It is hardly necessary to say that the appearance of this
letter was a profound and painful surprise to the Liberal party.
There was light, perhaps, in the communication. Leading there
was not. It was destructive, inconclusive, and embarrassing to
the last degree. It was like Emerson's New England road,
which ended in a squirrel track and ran up a tree. Various
interpretations were put upon the manifesto, and these were
as conflicting as they were uncertain. The Globe interpreted
the letter as a declaration for political union ; The Emp-ire as
a protest against the disloyal tendencies of the Liberal trade
^ Address of the Hon. Edward Blake to the members of tlie AVest Dnrliani
Refonii Convention, March 5th, 1891.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 523
policy. Conflicting and contradictory efforts to find a positive CHAP,
policy in the letter led Mr. Blake to publish this additional VII
statement : " The contradictory inferences to which a sentence
in my Durham letter, detached from, its context, has in several
quarters unexpectedly given rise, conquer my reluctance to
trespass again so soon upon your cohunns; and I crave space
to say that I think political union with the States, though
becoming our probable, is by no means our ideal, or as yet our
inevitable future." ^
* All that can now be said is that only actual negotiations at
* Washington could have determined the exact force and justice
of some of Mr. Blake's criticisms. If unrestricted reciprocity
was unworkable except upon the lines of commercial union,
then the term was not properly expressive of the intentions of
the Liberal leaders, and stood for a proposition which they had
refused to accept.' ^
NOTE B
LBCKY'S account of the NOOTKA SOUND INCIDENT
* He (Pitt) concluded his speech in a strain of justifiable See page
exultation. "The present prosperity of England," he said, ^^^•
''was unexampled." "The season of our severe trial is at an
end, and we are at length relieved not only from the dejection
and gloom which a few years since hung over the country, but
from the doubt and uncertainty which, even for a considerable
time after our prospects had begun to brighten, still mingled
with the hopes and expectations of the public. ... As far as
there can be any reliance on human speculations, we have the
best ground from the experience of the past to look with
satisfaction to the present and with confidence to the future."
Much of this prosperity, he said, was due to causes which lay
beyond the sphere of political acts ; to the spontaneous enterprise
and industry of the country,^ and to the normal increase of
capital; but much also must be ascribed to the commercial
treaty with France, and to the wise adjustment of the whole
system of customs and taxation on principles which had never
before been so well understood or so skilfully elucidated. " The
great work of Adam Smith," said Pitt, " will, I believe, furnish
the best solution to every question connected with the history
of commerce and with the systems of political economy." But
above these immediate causes of industrial prosperity lay others
' Letter to the Toronto Olohe, March 11th, 1891.
* Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier ami the Liberal Party ^ vol. ii. pp. 170-9.
524 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, which were still mora important Sound politics are the essential
^^I condition of permanent material prosperity. The security
and prosperity of England; the solidity of credit; the rapid
increase of capital; the rapid expansion of industry, are all
" necessarily connected with the duration of peace, the continua-
tion of which on a secure and permanent footing must ever he
the first object of the foreign policy of this country," and with
the maintenance of a constitution in which liberty and law
are indissolubly united ; which " practically secures the tran-
quillity and welfare both of indiyiduals and of the public, and
provides, beyond any other frame of government which has
ever existed, for the real and useful ends which form at once
the only true foundation and only rational object of all political
societies.'' ^
'No one can read this speech without perceiving that it
was the speech of a man who was pre-eminently marked out,
both by his wishes and by his talents, to be a great peace
minister. Pitt had, however, learnt too much from his father
to suffer an exclusive attention to financial considerations to
make him indifferent either to the security or to the dignity of
England. One of the most serious dangers of modern popular
politics is that gambling spirit which, in order to lower estimates
and reduce taxation, leaves the country unprotected, trusting
that the chapter of accidents will save it from attack. The
reduction of taxes is at once felt and produces an immediate
reputation, while expenditure which is intended to guard against
remote, contingent, and unseen dangers seldom brings any
credit to a statesman. It is very possible for an English
minister to go on year by year so starving the military and
naval estimates as to leave the country permanently exposed to
invasion, without exciting any general popular apprehension. The
warnings of a few competent specialists are easily drowned ;
each successive reduction of taxation produces increased
popularity, and if, owing to the course of politics, an invasion
does not take place, writers are sure to arise who will maintain
that the event has justified the wisdom of the statesman. It
would be as reasonable to argue that, because a house does not
happen to have been burnt, the owner had shown wisdom and
prudence in refusing to insure it. Among the many noble
characteristics of the ministry of Lord Palmerston none is more
deserving of admiration than the consistency and resolution
with which be maintained the principle, that it is the first duty
of an English minister to provide at all costs that his country
shall be practically secure from the possibility of a successful
invasion, and shall not be found in a condition of impotence if
unforeseen danger should suddenly arise. Pitt was of the same
school, and he never allowed the armaments of the country to
» Pari. Hist. xxix. 816-38.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 525
sink into neglect. He was much impressed with the fact that, CUAP.
in 1761 and 1762, Martinique, with a giEarison of only 800 men, VII
had held out by means of its fortifications for a whole year
against a large English army, and that in the last war Dominica
had been taken by the French merely because the English
sddiers had no fort to retire to till the fleet could afiford them
relief. He accordingly carried in 1789 an important scheme
for extending the fortifications of the West Indies ; he at the
same time strengthened the naval forces both in the East Indies
and in the Mediterranean ; and when, two years later, serious
complications had arisen with Spain, it was the promptness and
efficiency of the British naval force that chiefly averted the
danger.
' The dispute was of the same kind as that which had led to
the Spanish war under Walpole. Some English merchants had
begun to seek for the Chinese market furs and ginseng, a
v^etable largely employed for medicinal purposes in China, along
the north-west coast of America, and had planted an English
trading settlement at Nootka Sound, on Vancouver's Island, near
the coast of California. It was a country which had been
discovered by Magellan, and first seriously explored by Captain
Cook, and it had hitherto been entirely unoccupied by Europeans.
The Spaniards had never penetrated to it^^ but by virtue of a
Bull of Alexander YL they claimed a sovereignty over all lands
comprised between Cape Horn and the 60th degree of north
latitude — ^in other words, the entire western coast both of South
and North America, and when after a considerable interval they
discovered the existence of a British settlement in these distant
parts, they determined to suppress it. Two Spanish ships of
war accordingly hastened to Nootka Sound, took possession of
the British settlement, hauled down the British flag, replaced it
by the flag of Spain, captured four English vessels, and treated
their crews with extreme harshness and indignity.
'These events took place in the April of 1789. A few
months later, accounts, at first dim and confused, but afterwards
more complete, arrived in Europe, and it soon appealed likely
that the affair would assume a most formidable character.
Complaints were made on both sides. The Spanish ambassador
in London was instructed to desire that the subjects of Great
Britain should no longer be allowed to trade, settle, or fish on
the western coast of America, whOe the English denied the
rights of Spain to this unoccupied coast, and demanded a
restitution of the captured vessels, with their properties and
crews, an indemnification for the losses they had sufl^ered, and
a reparation to His Majesty for the insult that had been
* Leckj ifi in error here. Juan Perez had explored the coast as far as
latitude 54° in 1774.
526 IRELAKD AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, offered to the Britbh flag. The money value of the Nooika
^'11 Sound trade and settlement was very smaD, and certainly not
sufficient to compensate for a week of war ; but a question of
honour and a question of future right of settlement had been
raised which could not be suffered to dn^ The Spaniards
answered the remonstrances of England by stating that the
English vessels had been abready released and their offence
condoned on the ground of their ignorance of the rights of
Spain, but they would give no satisfaction or indemnification ;
they asserted in the strongest terms their ezclusiTe sovereignty
over the whole of the western coast of America, and they
rapidly collected and equipped a great fleet. Pitt promptly
replied by a general impressment of sailors, and by a message
to Parliament asking for assistance to defend the honour and
interests of the country.
' A vote of credit for a million was at once passed ; tbe fleet
was put upon a war footing; each party began to seek for
alliances ; and it seemed possible that this petty dispute would
lead to a general conflagration. Holland and Prussia were
appealed to by England, in conformity with the late treaty of
alliance. Spain, on the other hand, negotiated with Russia,
which was now on bad terms with England ; but she especially
relied on the assistance of France, which was bound to her by
the treaty of 1762. The Revolution was now running its
course in that country, and the direction of its policy was very
doubtful. Montmorin, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, appears
to have inclined to war, and a considerable party hoped that
it would give a new turn to the popular passions which had
become so formidable at home. Montmorin, in obedience to
the treaty of alliance, prepared a French fleet, but he held an
ambiguous and undecided language, and offered or su^ested
a French mediation. Lafayette, whose influence was at this
time very great, and who detested England, was a strong partisan
of war, but the Jacobin opposition vehemently repudiated it.
Nothing, they maintained, could be now more dangerous to the
Revolution, nothing would be more likely to save the monarchy,
than a foreign war. D'Aiguillon, Robespierre, Lamotte, and
above all Barnave, denounced the policy which, in order to
stifle the Revolution, was about to plunge France into bank-
ruptcy, and invoke the spirit of conquest in opposition to the
spirit of liberty, and they desired to take the power of declaring
war from the Ring. Mirabeau on other grounds was opposed
to war, and it was finally agreed that peace and war should for
the future be voted by the Chamber, though only on the
proposal and with the sanction of the King.^
' This decision made it certain that France would not assist
Spain in the war, and the latter country therefore found it
1 See Sybel, Hist, de VJSurope, i. 177-82.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 527
absolutely necessary to recede. A skilful negotiator, named CHAP.
Fitzherbert» had been sent to Madrid, and, after some hesitation, ^'^1
a convention was drawn up and signed in October 1790 which
substantially satisfied the English demands. It was agreed that
Spain should restore the buildings and tract of land taken from
British subjects on Nootka Sound and make reparation for all
subsequent acts of violence ; and the right of navigating and
fishing in the Pacific Ocean, and making commercial settlements
on its coasts, was secured to both nations under the following
restrictions : — British vessels were forbidden to approach within
ten sea leagues of any part of the coast actually occupied by
the Spaniards. The Spaniards and British subjects were to
have equal and unrestricted liberty to trade in all parts of the
north-west of America and of the adjacent islands situated to
the north of the settlements already occupied by Spain ; but
neither were to form any settlement on the east or west
coasts of South America southward of the Spanish settlements.
The success of this negotiation added greatly to the reputation
of Pitt and to the prestige of England in Eiurope, though the
cost of the episode, amounting, as we have seen, to nearly three
millions, remained to be provided for in the Budget of 1791.' ^
NOTE C
NEUTRALITY OF IRELAND IN BRITISH WARS
SPANISH war: AN INQUIRY HOW FAR IRELAND IS
BOUND, OF RIGHT, TO EMBARK IN THE IMPEND-
ING CONTEST ON THE SIDE OF GREAT BRITAIN:
ADDRESSED TO THE MEMBERS OF BOTH HOUSES Seepage
OF PARLIAMENT. 499.
•Tecum prias ergo voluta
Haec auimo ante tubas ; galeatum »ero duelli
Poenitet ! Juvenal.
1790.
* MANY of the ideas in the following pages may doubtless
appear extraordinary, and some of them, to cautious men, too
hardy. To the first, it may be answered, that, until the present,
no occasion has happened where such a question could arise,
as I venture to investigate. Since the lately acknowledged in-
dependence of Ireland, this is the first time when our* assistance
^ Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. vi. pp. 64-70.
528 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, to Britain has become necessary, and the qnestion of right had
VII better be settled in the outset To the last^ I shall only submit,
that it is not whether the ideas are hardy, but whether they are
true, that is of importance to this Kingdom. If the reason of
my countrymen be convinced, I have no doubt of their spirit.
'CONSIDERATIONS ON THE APPROACHING WAR WITH SPAIN
' My Lords and Gentlemen : The Minister of England has
formally announced the probability of a ropture with Spain ;
the British nation is arming with all possible energy and de-
spatch; and, from the Land's End to the Orkneys, nothing
is to be heard but dreadful note of preparation ; ships are
equipped, press warrants are granted, beating orders issued, and
a million raised; all parties unite in one great principle — the
support of the national honor, and pulling down Spanish pride ;
and hope and glowing expectation kindle the native valor of
England ; the British lion has lashed himself into a fury, and
woe to the unlucky Spaniard whom he may seize in his gripe.
' But this is not all ; the Minister of England, in the over-
flowing of his benevolence to this happy Isle, has been
graciously pleased to allow us an opportunity of following the
noble beast in the course of glory and of profit ; so that we may,
from his leavings, glean up sufiicient of honor and wealth to em-
blazon and enrich us till time shall be no more. Press warrants
are granted, and beating orders issued here, too, and the youth
of Hibernia have no more to do but to take the King's money
first, as earnest, and the riches of Spain follow of course.
' I know the ardent valor of my countrymen, ever impatient of
peace and prompt for battle, heightened and inflamed as it now
is by the eloquence of the sergeant and the music of his drum,
will strongly impel them, more majorum, to brandish the cudgel
first, and discuss the merits after ; a very common process among
them. But you, my Lords and Gentlemen, will, I trust, look
a little deeper into things ; with all the spirit of our rustics, you
will show that yon are just and prudent, as well as valiant.
Now is the instant for consideration, before the Rubicon be
passed ; and the example which Caesar shewed, the bravest of
you need not blush to follow.
* It is universally expected, that, at your meeting, the Secretary
will come forward, to acquaint you that his Majesty is pre-
paring for war with Spain, and hopes for your concurrence
to carry it on, so as to procure the blessings of an honorable
peace. This message he will endeavor to have answered by an
address, offering, very frankly, our lives and fortunes to the
disposal of the British Minister, in the approaching contest;
and, that this may not appear mere profession, the popular ap-
prehension is, that it will be followed up by a vote of credit for
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 529
three hundred thousand pounds, as our quota of the expense ; a .CHAP,
sum of a magnitude very alarming to the finances of this country. VII
But it is not the magnitude of the grant which is the great
object ; it is the consequence of it^ involving a question between
the two countries of no less importance than this : " Whether
'* Ireland be, of right, bound to support a war, declared by the
" King of Great Britain, on motives and interests purely British ? "
If it appear that she is, it is our duty to submit to the necessity,
however inconvenient ; if it appear that she is not so bound,
but may grant or withhold her assistance to England, then it
will be for your wisdoms to consider whether war be for her
interest or not If it be, you will doubtless take the necessary
steps to carry it on with spirit and effect ; if it be not, you
will make arrangements to obtain and secure a safe and honor-
able neutrality.
'The present is a question of too much importance to both
countries, to be left unsettled ; but though it be of great weight
and moment indeed, I do not apprehend it to be of great
difficulty. The matter of righi lies in a nutshell, turning on two
principlee which no man will, I hope, pretend to deny : First,
That the Crown of Ireland is an imperial crown, and her legis-
lature separate and independent ; and, secondly, . that the pre-
rogative of the Grown, and the constitution and powers of
Parliament, are the same here as in Great Britain.
' It is, undoubtedly, the King's royal prerogative to declare
war against any power it may please him to quarrel with ; and
when proclamation is made here to that effect, I admits we are
then engaged, just as the people of England are, in similar cir-
cumstances. But as we have here a free and independent
Parliament^ it is as undoubtedly their privilege to grant, or with-
hold, the supplies ; and if they peremptorily refuse them, and
the Mutiny Act, I know not how an army is to be paid, or
governed, without proceeding to means not to be thought on.
It follows, therefore, that the Parliament of Ireland have a kind
of negative voice, in the question of war and peace, exactly
similar to that of the English Parliament. If, then, they have
this deliberative power, they are no further bound to support a
war, than the English Parliament is, which may, undoubtedly,
compel peace at any time by postponing the Money and Mutiny
Bills. They are, therefore, not bound to support any war, until
they have previously approved and adopted it. The King of
Ireland may dedcere the war, but*it is the Parliament only that
can carry it on. If this be so, it follows, very clearly, that we
are not, more than England, ipso facto, committed, merely by
the declaration of war of our own King ; and, a fortiori, much
less are we committed by his declaration, as King of Great
Britain, when our interest is endamaged, and the quarrel and
the profit are merely and purely English.
2 M
530 IRELAND AND THE BBITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. ^ I^ the Parliament of England address his Majesty for war,
VII and, in consequence, war be proclaimed; if we are at once,
without our consent, perhaps against our will and our interest,
engaged, and our Parliament bound to support that war, in
pursuance of that address; then, I say, the independence of
Ireland is sacrificed, we are bound by the act of the British
Parliament, and the charter of our liberties is waste paper. To
talk of the independence of a country, and yet deny her a nega-
tive voice in a question of no less import to her well-being, than
that of peace or war, is impudent nonsense. But, I hope and
trusty no man at this day will be so hardy as to advance such
an assertion, or to deny that our Parliament is co-ordinate with
that of England, and equally competent to the regulation of all
our domestic concerns and foreign interests, with similar powers
of assent and refusal, and if so, with equal right to receive or
reject a war.
* From the question of righij which will not be denied you,
suffer me to call your attention to the question of ex^pediemcy.
You may, at your will, draw the sword, or hold out the olive.
It remains, therefore, to examine which line of conduct is likely
to be most beneficial to your country. Before you commit
yourselves, decidedly, to war or peace, it behoves you well to
consider the consequences of both to Ireland ; see what she can
gain, see what she must lose, try how far her interest or her
honor is concerned : reflect, that on your first vote depend the
properties, the liberties, the lives of thousands of your country-
men ; and, above all, remember you are about to make a pre-
cedent for future ages, in the great question of the obligation on
Ireland to follow Great Britain to war, as a necessary appendage.
* What, in the first place, are the grounds of the quarrel as to
Ireland ? and what are the profits she has to look to from the
contest between Spain and England ?
' It will not be pretended that v)e have immediately, from our
own concerns, any ground for interfering in the approaching
war ; on the contrary, peace with all the world, but peace with
Spain, particularly, is our object and our interest The quarrel
is merely and purely English. A few individuals in China,
members of a company which is possessed of a monopoly of the
commerce to the £ast» to the utter exdusion of this ecuntry^
fitted out certain ships to trade to the North Western coast of
America, for furs, which they expected would prove a lucrative
article of traffic. The Spaniards, actuated by pride or jealousy,
or both, have, it seems, seized these vessels, to the disgrace of
(not the Irish, but) the British flag, and to enforce satisfaction,
an armament is preparing. In this transaction the probability
is that Spain is in the wrong, and England is acting with no
more than a becoming spirit ; but the question with us is, not
who is wrong, or who is right? Ours are discussions of a
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
531
different nature; to foster and cherish a growing trade, to
cultivate and civilize a yet unpolished people, to oUiterate the
impression of ancient religious feuds, to watch, with incessant and
anxious care, the cradle of an infant Constitution ; these are our
duties, and these are indispensahle. Removed a hemisphere from
the scene of action, unconnected with the interest in question,
debarred from the gains of the commerce^ what has Ireland to
demand her interference, more than if the debate arose between
the Emperor of Japan, and the King of Corea ? Will she profit
if England secure the trade ? No. Will she lose if England
cannot obtain one Otter skin ? No. Shall we eat, drink, or
sleep, one jot the worse, whether the Mandarins of Pekin line
their doublets with furs purchased from a Spanish or an English
merchant? No. Decidedly, then, the quarrel is EngUsh^ the
profit will be to England, and Ireland will be left to console
herself for her treasure spent, and her gallant sons fallen, by
the reflection that valor, like virtue, is its own reward, and
that she has given Great Britain one more opportunity to be
ungrateful. So much for the ground of quarrel, and the profit
we are to expect from the war !
' Let me now humbly submit to your consideration, the actual
certainty we are required to sacrifice to these brilliant expecta-
tions, and I ^vill do it from your own authentic documents.
Subjoined, in an Appendix,^ is a view of the whole of our com-
merce with Spain, for the year 1789, from which I shall extract
the most important articles here. In doing this, it is my wish
to be as correct as possible, but the value of most of the articles
I am obliged to appreciate by conjecture and inquiry. There
is a book in the possession of Administration, called the National
Stock Book, wherein the value of all the exports and imports
is inserted; but this is industriously kept back from you, so
that,* in the documents submitted to you, containing, in most
articles, only the quanium, you must content yourselves with
doing what I have done, and make the best inquiries you can.
It appears that the following are the principal articles of your
exports :
Linen
Wheat
Pork .
Butter
Bacon
Beef .
Flour .
Barley
Total £113,543
* This A|)i)endix, whicli is voluminous, has not been reproduced, the most
important figures contained in it being quoted in the text of the ^lamphlet.
CHAP.
VII
-26,779
17,066
17,190
37,539
4,260
3,207
3,718
3,794
532
IKELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VII
Which, with other ai*ticles mentioned in the Appendix, makes
the gross amount of your exports, £117,428, 3s. 2d.
* On this trade, I shall only remark, that your staple manu-
facture, your agriculture and tillage, are most materially
concerned.
' The following, from the same authority, is the account of youx
imports from Spain in the same year, but I confess myself less
competent to ascertain their value. I shall, therefore, unless in
one or two of the most material articles, set down only the
quantum imported :
Drugs £2,000 value.
Dyeing
Stuffs.
Argal
Cochineal
Indigo .
Logwood
Madder .
I Sumach .
Salt
Brandy .
Wine
Canes .
(Beaver .
Cotton .
Spanish .
Pot ashes, 52,378 cwt. at 25s. per cwt.
Wool.
6 cwt.
1,223 lb.
5,995 lb.
790 cwt.
50 cwt.
382 cwt.
23,226 bushs.
17,847 gal8.i
977 tuns.
55,600
150 lb.
123 cwt. 21 lb.
13 cwt.
. £65,972.
' Of these, it is to be observed, that the dye stuffs, salt, canes,
wool, and pot ash, constitute the materials and implements of
future manufactures, the most beneficial species of importation.^
' For the loss of this trade, the only compensation war holds
out to you is the provision trade for. the army and navy ; of all
others the least advantageous, as is universally known, to the
interests of this kingdom.
* Such is the present state of your commerce with Spain, the
whole of which is, at one blow, cut up ; your commerce with
other nations loaded with an heavy insurance; your manu-
factures nipped in the bud, and, in a word, every branch of trade
suspended, except the slaughtering of bullocks and men. And
for what is all this? We have no quarrel with Spain, no in-
fraction of good faith, no national insult to complain of. No, but
we have the resentments of a rapacious English East Indian
monopolist to gratify, who, at the distance of half the globe,
kindles the torch of war amidst the eternal snows of Nootka
Sound, and hurls it into the bosom of our commerce. The
rising prosperity of Ireland is immolated on the altar of British
pride and avarice ; we are forced to combat without resentment
1 Worth about £2,600.
* The price of the pot ash I have tuken from Anderson, vol. 6, p. 707.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 533
in the quarrel of an alien, where victory is unprofitable, and CHAP,
defeat is infan^ous. ^H
^ Haidng examined the question on the ground of profit and
loss to Ireland, I presume it appears clearly that we shall make
an immense sacrifice of blood, treasure, and trade, to establish
a right in which, when it is obtained, we are never to participate.
If, therefore, we embark in this war, it is not in support of
owr immediate pa/riicular interest ; on the contrary, it is evident
we shall be very considerable losers by the most prosperous
issue. The principle of ex^iency, therefore, must be given
up, and it follows that we engage, if at all) on the principle
of moral obligation : the arguments on this ground are reduceable
to three — the good of the empvre, the honor of the British flag, and
the protection which England affoi'ds us,
* I confess I am, in the outset, much staggered by a phrase so
very specious, and of such general acceptation as this of " the good
of the empire" Yet, after all, what does it mean 1 or what is
the empire ? I believe it is understood to mean the kingdoms of
Great Britain and Ireland with independent legislatures, united
under one head. But this union of the Executive does by no
means, to my apprehension, imply so complete an union of
power or of interest, that an injury, or a benefit to one, is an
injury or a benefit to the other ; on the contrary, the present
emergency shews that occasions may arise wherein the direct
opposite is the fact It is not two kingdoms being united under
one head that involves, as a necessary consequence, a unity of
resentment. His Majesty's electoral dominions are not concerned
in this Spanish quarrel, and I would ask how are we more con-
cerned, unless it be that we speak the English language f The
King of Hungary is also Grand Duke of Tuscany, yet no man
thinks that the Tuscans are bound to sacrifice their trade or
their men in his German quarrels, and, in consequence, we see
them at this hour neutral, and, therefore, flourishing in the midst
of a bloody and destructive war. It is convenient, doubtless, for
England, and for her instruments in this country, to cry up the
^* good of the empire " because it lays the power of Ireland at
her disposal ; but if the empire consists of two parts, one of
which is to reap the whole profit of a contest, and the other to
share only the difficulties and the danger, I know not why we
should be so misled by sounds as to sacrifice solid advantages
to the whistling of the name of '^empire" The good of the
whole empire consists of the good of all the parts ; but in our
case the good of one part is renounced to establish the good of
the other. Let us, for God's sake, call things by their proper
names; let us analyse this unmeaning and fallacious mixed
mode ** empire " into its components, England and Ireland, and
then see how the matter stands. England has a quarrel with
Spain, in a matter concerning her own interest exclusively, and
534 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, wherein she is to reap the whole profit. Ireland has tw quarrel,
VII but, on the contrary, a very beneficial intercourse with Spain,
which she is required to renounce to her infinite present detri-
ment ; she is called on, likewise, to squander her wealth and
shed her blood in this English East Indian quarrel, and then
she is told, to console her, that she has been advancing "/A«
good of the empire" \ Let us substitute ^^ England" for the
*^ empire" and see if it be not nearer the fact and truth.
Certainly, if there be such a thing as this ** empire" and if the
general good of this *' empire " be forwarded by the particular
loss and suffering of Ireland, I may be allowed to say, it would
be better for her there were none.
' Suppose, in this great era of revolution, the French were to
acknowledge the title of his Majesty, set forth on his guineas,
to the throne of their kinrgdom ; that he were, in gratitude, to
move his royal residence to Pans, and govern England by a
French Viceroy, and on French views and principles : suppose
the merchants of Marseilles were to quarrel with the Turks in
the Levant, and find it expedient to go to war; suppose the
merchants of London to have a very gainful trade to the Levant,
and- to find those same Turks fair and honest dealers — what
answer would the intelligent and virtuous Parliament of England
give to the Viceroy, who should come forward and demand
them to renounce this trade and its profits, to sink the value of
their lands, and fetter and cramp their commerce with a load
of additional taxes, to send forth the bravest of their youth to
battle and slaughter, and then tell them it was all for the good
of the common empire of Fra/nce and England "i The Viceroy
would act like a good Frenchman in making the requisition,
but he would find the English nation too determined and too
wise to listen to such idle babble, as that of forwarding the
common good of two independent nations, by the certain loss
and detriment and damage of one of them.
' Now, setting aside our prejudice against the idea of a French
Viceroy at St. James's, will any man deny that the actual case
of Ireland at this day, is exactly parallel with that of England
which I have supposed ? with this difference, however, that when
the war was over, France and England might renew their trade
with Turkey, but the trade which is at present in dispute between
England and Spain, Ireland can, by no possible contingency,
ever attain a share in.
' The argument then stands thus : The quantum of consoli-
dated power in the " empire " may be increased by a successful
war, but it is distributed entirely to one of the components,
while the other is at a certain loss. Suppose the joint strength
before the war to be as twelve, England being as eight, and
Ireland as four, and after the war to be as fourteen ; England
being as eleven, with one-third gained, and Ireland as three.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 535
with one-fourth lost ; it is very obvious that there would be an CHAP,
increase of power in the '^empire" resulting, however, from ^H
a very alarming defalcation from one of the parts. And this is
no exaggerated supposition, when we consider the mode in
which each country must necessarily cany on the war. During
the contest, to Ireland nothing is certain but a heavy loss of
trade, men, and money. Our privateers, from the discourage-
ment to Irish navigation, are few, and navy we have none;
whereas, England may not only support the contest, but be
absolutely enriched by a Spanish war, even during its continu-
ance. Her powerful navy, her infinite number of corsairs, bring
in wealthy prizes from every point of the compass. Where then,
is the equality of empire ? or what are our temptations to war t
' I have shewn, as I presume, that in the use of the word " em-
pire,** we are the dupes of a sound ; if, as I contend, the good
of the empire turns out, when examined, to signify no more than
the good of England, purchased, and dearly purchased, at a
heavy loss to Ireland, I know not what quixotic spirit of national
generosity misguided, or gratitude misplaced, shall pretend to
exact such a sacrifice from us. I hasten, therefore, to the next
grand argument for our interference, the honor of the British
flag ; an argument, on the face of it, degrading to our country,
and dishonorable to our spirit; an argument, the mention
of which should make every Irishman hang his head in sorrow
and abasement. Where x3 the National Flag of Ireland ?
I know there are those who, covering their apathy or their cor-
ruption with the specious garb of wise and prudent caution,
may raise their hands in astonishment at this, as an idle excla-
mation ; but, I say, that such a badge of inferiority, between
the two Kingdoms, is a serious grievance. Is the bold pride
of patriotism nothing? Is the ardent spirit of independence
nothing ) Is national rank nothing ? If the flag of England be,
as it is, dearer to every brave Englishman than his life, is the
wish for a similar badge of honor to Ireland to be scouted as a
chimera 1 Can the same sentiment be great and glorious on one
side the channel, and wild and absurd on the other ? It is a
mortifying truth, but not the less true for its severity, that the
honor of the British is the degradation of the Irish flag. We
are compelled to skulk under the protection of England, by a
necessity of our own creation ; or, if we have not created, we have
submitted to it. We are contented to be the subaltern instru-
ment in the hands of our artful and ambitious and politic
sister, without one ray of generous national pride beaming forth
to light us on to our honor and our interest. We raise the lofty
temple of her glory, but we cannot^ or we dare not, inscribe
our name on the entablature. Do we not, in the system of her
naval arrangements, see the narrow jealousy, and interested
caution of England, betray itself in every feature ? Where are
536 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
OHAP, the docks, the arsenals of Ireland 1 How many of the British
VII navy have been built in our harbors 1 Whfere are the encourage-
ments held out to Irish navigation ? What is the fair and liberal
and equitable construction laid by Englishmen on the naviga-
tion act ? fFe are not to be trusted / we are to be kept in pupil-
age, without a navy, or the rudiments of a navy, that we may
be retained in subjection and dependance on England, and so
be compelled to purchase her protection, whenever her interest
or her pride may think proper to plunge us into a war.
* And this leads me to the last argument for our supporting
Great Britain, graiiivde for the protection which she affords tts.
'As this is an argument addressed to a very warm and
honorable sentiment, and, therefore, likely to have some weight
with Irishmen, who feel much better than they reason, I shall
take the liberty to examine it with some attention.
' I lay it down, then, as a principle, that no man has a right to
lay another, perforce, under an obligation ; I mean, to put him
in that state that the obligation becomes unavoidable. No man
has a right to run me into difficulties, that he may extricate me
from them. The original necessity, superinduced by him, leaves
him little, if any claim to gratitude for the subsequent service ;
but his claim will be infinitely weakened, if, in superinducing
this necessity, he does me an actual, violent injury. If a man
hire a banditti to attack the house of another, and then
volunteer the defence of it, I believe it will not be said that
the owner is much indebted to him, though his defence should
prove successful; but if, in the attack, the house should be
burned and the owner robbed of his goods, and sorely wounded
into the bargain, I humbly conceive that the subsequent defence,
however sincere, makes but a poor atonement for the original
attack, and that if any feeling be excited, it should be a very
strong and natural resentment. Now, let us see what is the
boasted protection of England. When has she ever held it
forth that she did not first make it necessary? For her own
interest and honor she embarks in war, and drags in this un-
offending and unoifended country as a necessary sequel, exposes
us to a thousand dangers and difiiculties in a cause where we
have no hope of profit, or advantage, or glory, for who has
heard of the glory of Ireland, merged as it is in that of Great
Britain ? and then she defends us, or perhaps does not defend
us, from the resentment of her^ not owr enemy, and so the mighty
debt of gratitude accrues ; and we are bound to ruin our com-
merce and lavish our treasure, and spill our best blood in her
quarrel, and still remain her debtor for protection in a war,
which she has wantonly and unnecessarily, as to this country,
plunged us into. If this be the protection of England, I, for
one, could be well content that we were left to our own wisdom
to avoid, or our own spirit to support a contest.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 537
' But what becomes of this famous argument of protection, if it cHAP.
appears, by the infallible testimony of facts, that no such thing VII
exists t What have been the wars that England has embarked
in for Irish interests t Her most determined supporters cannot
allege one. But, perhaps, they may draw on futurity for the
deficiency of experience, and tell us that if we wanted her aid,
she would be prompt and willing to afford it Haye we, then,
forgot the memorable protection of the last war, when one or two
paltry American privateers harassed and plundered our trade
with impunity, even in our very ports, and the people of Belfast
were told, **You have a troop of horse and a company of
'* invalids, and, if that will not do, you may protect yourselves."
An answer not easily to be forgiven or forgot, and which, per-
haps, England herself would now, were it possible, wish unsaid.
What were the armaments equipped to compel Portugal to do us
justice, but a very few years since t Did the navy of England
api)ear in the Tagus to demand satisfaction for our woollens
seized and detained ? No : we were left at last, and not without
a long and strenuous opposition from the British Minister in
Ireland, to extort justice as we might, for ourselves, by a heavy
duty on the wines of Portugal. After this, let us not be told of
the protection of England.
' I have examined the question in three great views : as a
question of strict right, as a question of expediency, and as a
question of moral obligation ; and, to my apprehension, in every
one of the three, war is peremptorily evil for Ireland. If the
Spaniards fall by our hands in an unjust war, their deaths are
murder ; if we seize their property, it is robbery. Let me now
submit to your consideration the probable consequences of your
refusing your countenance and support to this war, with respect
to the two countries, Spain and ikigland.
' It may be said that Spain will not consider you as a neutral,
though you may call yourselves so. But I say, if you were to
address his Majesty, praying him to direct his Ministers to
acquaint the Spanish Court with your absolute neutrality, do
you think her so unwise a nation as to choose you rather for her
enemy than her customer, and so to fling you into the scale of
England, already more than a match for her? Do you think
that the communication between Spain and Ireland, when the
ports of England were closed against her, would not be a source
of opulence yet unknown in this country ? Would you not have,
circuitously, the Spanish trade of England pass through your
hands % Would not Spain pay every attention and respect to
your flag ? or, if she did not, then you would have a lawful and
fair ground for quarrel, and might, and would, soon teach her
that you were not a nation to be insulted with impunity.
* That England would exclaim, is what we might expect. We
know with what reluctance she has ever renounced any badge
538 IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COiMMON WEALTH
CHAP, of her domination over thU country, and it cannot bo supposed
vn sho would give up this last without a pang. But, surely, where
the right is clearly established, your first duty is to your native
land. I renounce the idea of national generosity. What was
the language of the wisest of your senators on a great occasion 1
*^ Individuals may be generouSy bui nations never" I deny the
tie of national gratitude ; we owe no gratitude, where we have
received no favor. If we did, in 1782, extort our rights from
England at the very muzzle of the cannon, whom have we to
thank but oursdves ? Interested individuals may hold forth the
nonsensical cant of the generosity of England ; let us, on this
important occasion, speak the language of truth and common
sense. It is the spirit of Ireland, not the generosity of England,
to which we owe our rights and liberties ; and the same spirit
that obtained, will continue to defend them.
' What can England do to us ? With what countenance, what
color of justice, can she upbraid us for following her own process 1
What should Irish policy be, by British example ? First of aUy
take care of ourselves. We invade none of her rights ; we but
secure our own. Why then should we fear her resentment ? But
the timid will say, she may withdraw the protection of her flag
from us, and I answer, let her do so ; every thing is beneficial
to Ireland that throws us on our own strength. We should then
look to our internal resources, and scorn to. sue for protection
to any foreign state ; we should spurn the idea of moving, an
humble satellite round any power, however great, and claim at
once, and enforce, our rank among the primary nations of the
earth. Then should we have, what, under the present system,
we never shall see, A NATIONAL FLAG, and spirit to maintain it
If we then fought and bled we should not feel the wound, when
we turned our eyes to the Harp waving proudly over the ocean.
But now, what are the victories of Britain to us 1 Her's is the
quarrel, hor's the glory, her's the profit, and to us nothing but
the certainty of danger and of death ; the action is over, and
the name of Ireland is never heard; for England, not our
country, we fight and we die. Yet, even under these forbidding
circumstances, such is the restless valor of Irishmen, that we
rush to action as eagerly, and maintain it as firmly, as if our
interest, or our honor were at staka We plant the laurel and
water it with our best blood, and Britain reposes under the
shade.
* I have now done, and with you, my Lords and gentlemen, it
rests to estimate the weight of what I have advanced. The
Parliament ye constitute is a young Parliament Your innocence
is yet, I trust, untainted by the rank leaven of corruption. Ye
have no interests to bias your judgment but the interest of
Ireland. Your first opportunity for exertion is a great one — no
less than fixing the rank of your country among the nations of
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH 639
the earth. May the gracious wisdom of Providence enlighten CHAP,
your minds, expand your hearts, and direct your councils to ^^H
the advantage of your own honor, and the establishment of
the welfare and glory and independence of Ireland, for ever
and ever.' ^
HIBERNICUS.
» Life of Theobald Wolfe Tom, edited by his son, William Theobald Wolfe
Tone, 1826.
CHAPTER VIII
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
^xiii' '^ *^^ hirftory of freedom the growth of the English
,.^.^.,^^,,.^ Commonwealth and its independence of Europe are
r;«^gra[ihi< factors second in importance to none. But unless
the primary that growth had included Scotland and Ireland in
Angfo4ri«h ^^^^ it would probablj have perished, and would
M well a« certainly have failed to exercise the influence it has
ofADglo- 'f
HrMthh douc, to the immeasurable loss of the world at large.
The destinies of the three peoples were and always
will be united by the inexorable fact of their neigh-
bourhood to each other and their common severance
from Europe by an arm of the sea. This primary
feature of insular neighbourhood is common to the
two problems of Anglo -Scottish and Anglo -Irish
relations, and would not have been altered if Ireland
had been peopled by Mongols or Negroes instead
of by a race which in composition differs but little
if at all from that of the larger island.
Ill all other To this extcut and no ftirther the Irish problem
Anglo-Irish cau be illuminated by a study of Anglo -Scottish
analogous relations. Otherwise the clue to Irish history Is to
to those ]jQ found in a study of the relations of the English
>)etwoen •' , . *^ .
Britain and Commonwealth to its dependencies and colonies
encies^and beyoud the British Isles. For the reasons given
in the last chapter Ireland became a field for British
colonization, and hence the intimate connection
between Irish and American affairs in the last three
decades of the eighteenth century. Under the scheme
540
colonies.
THE AMERICAN (X)MMONWEALTH 541
of colonial federation submitted by Franklin to chap.
Congress after the outbreak of war in 1775 Ireland
was invited to become a member.^ * The first voice
publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection
with Great Britain came, not from the Puritans of
New England, or the Dutch of New York, or the
planters of Virginia, but from Scotch-Irish Presby-
terians.' * The history of Ireland is a compendium
of all the difficulties and mistakes which have beset
the administration of colonies as well as of depend-
encies in every part of the world. To be understood
Anglo-Irish and Anglo -American relations must
always be studied side by side.
It is for this reason that the causes which made Hence the
for the disruption of the Commonwealth were traced ^®op^ in
in Chapter VI. to their culmination in the secession ^^^ inquiry.
of the American colonies. But their effect had still
to be felt in Ireland, where the immediate result was
an attempt to remodel Anglo-Irish relations on those
which the colonies before secession had sought to
establish between Britain and themselves. The con-
sequences of this experiment ha,ye been treated in
the last chapter.
Meantime, however, the American colonists had VoiunUiy
been driven by the logic of events to test for them- representeT
selves these principles of political union which they g^io^nuts as
had advocated in their controversy with the British sufficient to
Grovernment. When in February,. 1765, Grenville had union with
met the agents of the colonial assemblies, Franklin, ^"^*°'
speaking on their behalf, had no other solution of the
difficulties to suggest than that the British Govern-
ment should rely upon such voluntary aid as the
colonial assemblies might of themselves be willing
to grant. The British Parliament might protect
their commerce and manage their external affairs.
* Bancroft, History of the United Stat €8, vol. vii. p. 22.
* Ibid, vol. iv, pl 55.
542
THE AHERICAK OOMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VIII
The ruptare
with Britain
com^ielled
them to test
by actual
experience
the value of
voluntary
co-operation
as a bond
of union
' Ijetween
themselves.
1775.
Events
leading to
an outbreak
of war
with Massa-
eliiisetts.
May 1769.
1773.
*None, ' wrote Otis, in this very year, *but rebels,
fools, or madmen will contend that the colonies are
independent.' ' The Empire was one and indivisible,
bat so far as effort and sacrifice were concerned, it
was to be run on the principle of voluntary co-
operation. The principle, however difficult to defend
in theory, was one under which Britain had prevailed
in both hemispheres and had destroyed the power of
France in America.
In appealing to facts, however, it was forgotten
that, till the close of the Seven Tears' War, the
British tax-payers had accepted -whatever charges
the colonial assemblies had failed to meet. When
the final rupture came, the colonists at length found
themselves thrown upon their own resources and
committed to a war with British resources against
them instead of behind them. Clearly the interests
of the thirteen colonies in resisting the claims of the
British Parliament were one and indivisible, and the
assemblies proceeded to assert them on the principle
of co-operation.
After the Assembly of New York had yielded to
the coercion of the Ministry, the gathering storm
centred in New England and finally burst there.^
In July 1768 two regiments were sent to Boston.
The Assembly of Massachusetts, though formally
dismissed, continued to sit as a convention, and the
inhabitants were requested by a town meeting to
provide themselves with arms. All the duties im-
posed by Townshend, with the exception of that
on tea, were repealed by Lord North, who succeeded
him at the Exchequer. The Americans continued to
boycott tea to the grave injury of the British East
India Company, and the tax was further reduced
with the idea of conciliating the one, and of relieving
* Aiiswer to the Halifax Lihel, p. 16, quoted by Leclcy, Bistory of England
in the EighUerUh Century, vol. iv. p. 181. * See above, p. 370.
i
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 543
the other. But in Boston the extremists were now chap.
determined to deny the jurisdiction of the British .^^.^^^^.^^
Parliament in all colonial affairs, external as well as
domestic, in token whereof they boarded the Com- Dec. i6,
1773
pany's ships, seized their cargoes, and poured them
into the sea.
On hearing of this outrage NOTth closed the port March 1774.
and appointed General Gage as Governor of Massa-
chusetts to enforce measures of coercion. In June
the Massachusetts Assembly invited the other
colonial assemblies to send delegates to a general
congress, which met at Philadelphia in the following
autumn. Meantime, while Gage was putting Boston
in a state of defence, the assembly at Salem was
concerting measures to arm and organize its supporters
throughout the Colony. A force sent out by Gage April 19,
to destroy the arms and ammunition collected by
the assembly at Concord, twenty miles from Boston,
came into collision with a party of provincials at
Lexington. In the retreat from Concord the British
party lost 250 killed and wounded and the provincials
less than half that number.
Gage was superseded by Sir William Howe, whose willingness
arrival in May with reinforcements raised the garrison ch^e^
of Boston to 10,000 men. It was obvious that I\^»«" ,
' threatened
Massachusetts could only be saved by prompt and bydestruc-
effective assistance from the rest of the colonies. thSrtrw^^*^
Those of New England were already levying their aL^iof
militia and despatching them to the scene of action. Congress
« . T . , andtoaccept
It was of crucial importance, however, to obtain the a Southern
active support of the colonies to the South, and the ^-MMngton
Assembly of Massachusetts can scarcely have for- ^|?,mander-
gotten their former backwardness in furnishing ^'^^l^'
contingents until the French or Indian invaders had 1775.
actually entered their own territories.^
Delegates from all the colonies were now assembled
' See above, pp. 335, 338.
544 THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, in Congress at Philadelphia, and the legislators of
Massachusetts wisely placed their own forces under
the direction of Congress as the nucleus of a con-
tinental army. They and the other colonies of New
England being willing to see their troops commanded
by a general who came from the South, Congress
selected Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the
American army. The habit of self-government,
coupled with the experience of the Seven Years' War,
enabled the Americans to discover a real military
leader at the start. * That choice was no doubt in a
w
great measure determined by considerations other
than personal fitness. If the southern colonies were
to take their full share of interest in the struggle, it
was clear that it must not be left to a New England
army under a New England general. But we may
be sure that the choice, desirable in itself, of a south-
ern general, was made much easier by the presence
of a southern candidate so specially fitted for the
post as Washington. Not indeed that liis fitness
was or could be as yet fully revealed. Intelligence
and public spirit, untiring energy and industry, a
fair share of technical skill, and courage almost
dangerous in its recklessness — all these were no doubt
perceived by those who appointed Washington.
What they could not have foreseen was the patience
with which a man of clear virion, heroic bravery, and
intense directness, bore with fools and laggards and
intriguers ; and the disinterested self-devotion which
called out all that was noblest in the national character,
which shamed selfish men into a semblance of patriot-
ism and factious men into a semblance of union.
Still less could it have been foreseen that, in choosing
a military chief, Congress was training up for the
country that civil leader, without whose aid an effec-
tive constitution would scarcely have been attained.' ^
* Doyle, Cambridge History, vol. vii. p. 167.
THE AMERICAN OOMMOISTWEALTB 545
The MassachusettB militia, meantime, had occupied chap.
Bunker's Hill, a height overlooking Charles Town, ^^JJJ^^^
which, if left in their hands, would have rwdered Bunker's
Howe's position untenable. ^ By a aeries of unnecessary â„¢ ^^76?*
firontal attacks they were dislodged at the point of proved the
•^ ^ , * courage and
the bayonet in an engagement which cost them 415 marksman.
men. The British lost some 1050, of whom 92 were Immcan*
officers, the largest percentage of casuatties in any ""^^^'''^'
engagement since the invention of gunpowder. The
firmness of the New Englanders was a6 splendid as
their marksmanship. They retired in order, but only
when their ammunition had failed and their trenches
had been rushed by overwhelming numbers.
After a performance like this Congress was Failure of
justified in assuming that the American militia were system^U)^^
as brave as the British regulars, and much better a^Tjlop
o y public spirit
shots. Life in the colonies was calculated to prodnce as proved by
a race remarkable. for courage, straight cdiooting, and ^penen^.
readiness to take up a . quarrel. But the colonists
had never been answerable for the safety of tiiie
Commonwealth as a whole or. in plain words, for
beating France and Spain in both hemispheres. To
preserve the Commonwealth was to defend America^ ^
and the Americans had found that that • task was
always done for them in the end, however much or
little they might do for themselves.. They had never
known what it was to feel that it was they who mtist
pay the price of national existence. They had never;
in a word, come in contact with the iron facts of
national life and death, the ultimate anvil where alone
commonwealths can be wrought to their true temper
and shape. Hence they had failed to develop the
spirit aeswtell as the: ocganiizatkKniiwliichci^abileB.ia
oomnlunitjur I iboi call oiit its ' ifull • fightaofa^ stDength land
keep them • in the ifield so hmg < lasi i thd pubtio • i^itteeat
m^y require their services, . Such at any rate is, tl;ie
' See Map (A) on Plate X. at the end of this vohrnie.
2n
346 THE AMKUGAK COMMOSTWRALTH
CHAP. coDcIusioD to which the most jndicions and careful of
YIII •
.^ ^^^ ^ hifftoriaBS was led by his stady of contemporary
reomrda.^ ^The truth is, that although the circum-
stances of the New Englanders had developed to a
high degree many of the qualities that are essential
to a soldier, they had been very unfeivourable to
others. To obey, to act together, to sacrifice private
jodgment to any authority, to acknowledge any
superior, was wholly alien to tiieir temperament, and
they had notibing of that passionate and all-absorbing
enthusiaem which transforms the character, and
raises men to an heroic height of patriotic self-
devotion. Buch a spirit is never evoked by mere
money di^^tes. . . . Any nation might be proud of
ike shrewd, brave, prosperous, and highly intelligent
yeomen who fk>cked to the American camp ; but they
were very difarent men from those who defended
the walls of Leyden, or immortalised tiie field of
Bannockbum. Few of the great 'ptug^ of history are
less marked by the stamp of heroism than the
American Revolution ; and perhaps the most formid-
able of the difficulties which Washington had to
enoonnter were in his own camp.' ^
Weakness From fiist to last Washington found himself faced
"fl^Sr by the same difficulties as the British generals in the
Its faUure govcn Ycars' War. As soon as the enemy had crossed
to support 1 i. . n t - \ t
Washing- the DX»&tiers of their own colony and was ravaging
oontinenui its territories the militia would turn out, and their
re^ceon* knowledge of the country and marksmanship com-
the Irish, bined with their courage and resourcefulness to
render them as formidable as undisciplined guerillas
can be in embarrassing the progress of an organized
army. But the moment that army retired from their
own to a neighbouring colony the local militia began
to disperse to their homes. Such levies were not
^ For Leek j's conclusions upon this subject see the passage quoted above, p. 41 6.
' Lecky, History of England in ike JSighteeiUh Century, voL iv. pp. 229-80.
THE AMIOUOAK COMBiON WEALTH 647
more able to expel the British forces from America ohap.
. • ' VIII
than were the Spanish guerillas thirty years later
able to expel the Fre^ch from the Peninsula, until
Wellington brought on the scene an army which could
beat thejn in the open f^eld. Wcv^hington saw from
the outset that the local resistance of the colonial
r
militia might prolong, but could never end, the
W£^r, unless he succeeded in creating an American
army strong enough to face British armies and crush
them; and in doing so his greatest difficulty arose
from the fact that the colonial system had done
nothing to create an American spirit. To that extent
the statecraft which had sought to divide the
colonies in order to strengthen the Empire had
achieved its miserable purpose. Washington over-
came these difficulties by dint of a patience and self-
lessness almost without parallel in history, which
grfkdually communicated itself to his fellow-country-
men. In seven years he created the continental army
which ended the war at Yorktown. But its ranks
were recruited less from the native-bom than from
immigrants. Its largest contingent was furnished by
the Irish Presbyterians, whom the commercial system
and landlords like l^ord Donegal had driven into exile
and inspired with an inveterate hatred of British
rule.^ * As for the genuine sons of Hibernia, it was
enough for them to know that England was the
antagonist.'* In recruiting this army Washington
owed more to hatred brewed in the old country than
to the public spirit developed in the new.^
^ See aboTe, p. 447*
* Memoirs of a Life chiefly passed in Pennsylvania vrUhin the Last Sixty
Years, Edinbui^gh 1822, quoted by Trevelyan, The Americam Bevclutiony
voL ii p. 187.
* 'A record has been preserved of the nationalities in a oompanj of
Pennsylvanian Tolnnteers which marohed to join the army of Washington.
Out of seventy-three privates, two were from Qermany, twenty from Ireland,
and six from Great Britain' (Trevelyan, The American Revolvition, voL ii.
p. 139). Lecky {History of Englamd in ihe Mghteenth Century ^ vol. v. p. 17)
endorses this view. 'The Irish Presbyterians,' he says, 'appear to have been
548 THE AMERICAN COMMOJ^WEALTH
CHAP. On assuming the command at Cambridge of the
VIII .
.^.^^^^^^^ forces investing Boston, Washington found that of
Failure of an army supposed to consist of 17,000 men no more
toreapomi* thsm 14,500 Were available for service. Cfolonel Lee
to^wWng- ^^^ estimated that three or four months' recruiting
ton's appeal should produce 100,000 men. *But the high spirit
for recmi^s
at Boston, and enthusiastic ardour which had brought such
iiiiLion- numbers into the field aftei? the battle of Lexington,
ment. ^g^g already beginning to dissipate; and all the
alacrity for the service, which had been expected,
was not displayed. Many were unwilling to continue
in it ; and others annexed special conditions to their
further engagement.' ^ A month's recruiting yielded
no more than 5000. Henceforward the letters of
Washington are those of a disillusioned man. * Such
a dearth of public spirit,' he wrote on November 28,
1775, *and such want of virtue, such stock-jobbing
and fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantages of
one kind or another in this great change of military
arrangement, I never saw before, and pray God's
mercy that I may never be witness to again. ... I
have been obliged to allow furloughs as far as fifty
men to a regiment, and the officers, I am persuaded,
indulge as many more. . . . Such a mercenary spirit
pervades the whole, that I should not be at all
surprised at any disaster that may happen Could
I have foreseen what I have experienced, and am
likely to experience, no consideration upon earth
should have induced me to accept this command.'*
'No troops,' he writes elsewhere, *were ever better
provided or higher paid ; yet their backwardness to
everywhere bitterly anti> English, and outside New England it is probable that
'they did more of the real -figbtingof the Bevol^tiou. <than ai^ oitheir class.'
Aetx>rding Kb GalWwsy) !the • loyalist dpeakeri lof the PeajDfiylyanian . Awemblj}
half Waahinjgton's army >wer» ilrislime»y -and notmersithAB 0Q9.()uartw yfom
native Amerioana^seeabove^ p. 416)ti I i u-. .-. ;i > wi. i > »,,>..
1 Mai'ahall, The jU/b of Washington, vol. ii. p. 320. i i « . ,
' W««hingtoii,, JTri^Mi^, voh iii. pp^ 176-9. i [
THE AMSBICAN GOKMONWEALTH 549
enliBt for another year is amazinir. It grieves me to chap.
VIII
see so little of that patriotic spirit which I was taught
to believe was characteristic of this people.' ^
In England, however, the Ministry had allowed Howe forced
the efficiency of the navy to fall so low that it failed supJS"^
to secure the passage of the supplies destined for the ^^*®
relief of Howe. By the capture of some of them at March irre.
sea Washington was able to equip his own troops
with arms and ammunition, of which he stood in the
greatest need. Becruiting had only just kept pace
with the daily wastage of his ranks, which now
scarcely exceeded 14,000 men. Washington, how-
ever, by persuading the Massachusetts Assembly to
lend him six thousand of their local militia, was
strong enough to occupy Dorchester heights, over-
looking. Boston, and to compel the retirement by sea
of the British garrison and of the loyalists to Halifax.
Presently, howevw, Lord Howe, with a powerful Washington
fleet and reinforcements from England, joined forces nIw yST
with his brother, Sir William. Together they sailed ^mbined
up the estuary of the Hudson river, attacked the ijjroes of
A . T X 1 1 -I 1 i. 1 1 Sir William
Americans on Long Island, and defeated them. Howe and
Washington, however, was allowed to withdraw his lupid^di/.'^*
forces across the East river to New York, where he ^^^^^6^^
was again defeated and once more allowed to slip
across the Hudson to New Jersey. His own army
had now dwindled to 3000 effectives, and General
Lee's army, which hSd been' left east of the Hudson
river, * was melting away, under the influence of the
same fatal cause which had acted so universally and
so banefiilly , and would soon be almost totally dis-
solved. General Mercer, who commanded a part of
the flying camp stationed about Bei^en, was also
called in ; but these troops had only engaged to serve
till the first day of December ; and, like the other six
months' men, had already abandoned the army in
' Washington, WrUmg$, vol. iii. p. 181.
550
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VIII
Howe's
retirement
to winter
in New
York after
allowing
Washington
to escape.
November
1776.
Failure of
Congress to
acquire from
the States
a constitu-
tional
position
till 1781.
Inefficiency
of the
Constitution
then
granted.
great numbers. No hope existed of retaining the
I'emnant of them, afber they should possess a legal
right to be discharged, and very little of supplying
their places with other militia.' *
Had Sir William Howe shown a spark of initiative
or allowed Comwallis to show any, their enemies
might have been destroyed at any one of the several
rivers which crossed their retreat to Philadelphia.
Washington, however, was allowed to cross the
Delaware at Trenton with the dwindling remnant of
his army. Then and for months after, to Washington
himself declared, Philadelphia lay at the mercy of
Howe, who preferred, however, to retire for the
winter into comfortable quarters at New York.
It was not men, but a man, that England needed
at this juncture. If Washington and Howe could
have changed places the American forces would have
been scattered like chaff. It is equally certain that,
if Washington and Howe could have changed forces,
England by the close of 1776 would not have been
holding a foot of American territory beyond the
range of the guns on her ships. The Americans had
not merely a consummate leader, but men and means
enough to expel any troops which Britain could have
landed on their soil unless they had been directed by
a general of more than average ability. But the
colonists lacked the political machinery for collecting
the necessary resources and plading them at the dis-
posal of Washington. Throughout the war, and for
several years after, they were testing those principles
of co-operation which they had formerly asserted were
sufficient to pieserve the Empire against disruption
or attack. The Congress of Philadelphia was, as its
name indicated, a meeting of envoys from the thirteen
assemblies collected to facilitate mutual intercourse.
Each State, through its representatives, cast one vote
1 Marshall, The Life of Waehif^gUniy vol. ii. pp. 698-4.
THE AMBBIGAN OCMIMON WEALTH 561
and one only, but none of them admitted thft't thtf cmaf.
were bound by a majority of yotes. The Congress af
Philadelphia was no more organic than the congseas
of European ambassadors which met in Whitehall
during the Balkan orisis of 1913, under the presidency
of Sir Edward Grrey. Franklin^ who had been at
Albany in 1754, saw at a glance the inherent weak*
ness of a body whose resolutions could not even
pretend to bind the legislatures of dissenting States.
To cure this defect he submitted ioir adoption a con- 1775.
stitution framed upon the lines of that which he bad
formerly designed fot the Albany Convention.^ It
was not until a year later that Congresa found time
to consider the matter ; and the result of their ddlibeca^^
tions was a constitution which began by dedaxing
that * each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and
independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right
which is not by this federation expressly delegated
to the United States in Congress assembled/ ^ But
the powers, jurisdictions, and rights which the States
were to agree to confsr upon Congsess had aU to be
. exercised through the agency of the States themselvea
Congress might requisition men^ money, or ships, bvt
' only from the States. The States were to [vomise to
' fulfil the requisitions, but the compact said nothing
! as to what would happen if the promises were bodu^n.
^ True to the principles of the Commercial System it
'r was a frank attempt to base government on contract,
^ which in effect * merely defined in more precise terms
^ the impotetice of government/ ^ Yet, even so, Con-*
^ gress was unable to secure its adoptioOi by the States Feb. i78i.
^ till five years later, not many montiis before Com^
if^' walUs surrendered at Yorktown. Washington had
^ thus no gi^eatei control of American resouuees tl^ui
^ * See above, pp. 330-3,
' See Note ab end of this chapter, p. 65^.
^ * Oliver, Life iff Almander SamUUm, p. 102.
562
THE AMBRICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
Value of
John
Marshall as
an authority.
Working of
the co-opera-
tive system
described by
Marshall.
coald be exerciBod through a collection of envoys who
could commaaid nothing. His position was not unlike
that of an engineer commissioned to use Niagara for
industrial enterprise subject to the condition that the
wild beauty of the falls should not be diminished by
passing any of the water through a turbine. Experi-
ence had yet to teach the Americans that tiie resources
of men, like those of nature, are not available for
great undertakings until they are harnessed.
The practical results produced by this system have
been described by a contemporary of the highest
authority, who took part in the war. John Marshall,
one of the greatest lawyers the world has ever seen,
who aei Chief Justice did more than some of its authors
to shape the Constitution of the United States, gives
the following account of the matter in his Life of
Washington, ' In the commencement of the war, the
troops were raised entirely by the local authorities,
who, without: concert, established military systems of
their own, and appointed officers, whose relative rank,
and right of promotion^ it was not very easy to adjust.
The officers, like the men, were engaged only for one
year, aiid at the expiration of that time, were to be
recommissioned. Congress appointed the general
officers, and took the armies raised by the respective
colonies into continental pay. With considerable
difficulty, a new cwmy was formed out of these materials,
in the face of the enemy, during the blockade of
Boston. This work was to be repeated, with infinitely
more difficulty, during the active operations of the
campaign of 1776. The attention of Congress was
very early called to this interesting subject by Greneral
Washington; but that body performed its most
important duties through the agency of sovereign
states. Those states were to nominate the officers,
and were requested to send commissioners to camp
to attend to this object. So many delays were
THE AMBRIGAN COMMONWEALTH 553
experieiijced, that the dissolution of the army chap.
approached) before officers were appointed tic recruit
that which was to take its place. At length Congress
resolved that General Washington should himself be
empowered to appoint the officers of those states which
had failed to depute commissioners for that purpose;
The manner in which appointments were made, un-
fortunately brought into the service, as officers, men
without capacity, or sufficient weight of charactelr to
preserve the respect of the soldiers, and that discipline
which is essential to an army ; and the repeated .
re-organization of the troops gave continual discontent
' The various independent authorities employed in
raising the army, gave occasion to other very embar-
rassing circumstances. In order to complete their
quotas, some of the states engaged to allow those who
would enlist in their service, additicmal pay to that
promised by Congress. The discontents excited by a
diBparity of pay among soldiers in the same army,
will readily be conceived. The interference of the
general with the state governments, to produce a
departure from this pernicious plan, became absolutely
necessary.
^ From the same motives, some of the states gave
large additional bounties. This, it was supposed by
Congress, would effectually destroy the recruiting
business in other states where the same liberality was
not used, and therefore a resolution was passed, recom-
mendiQg, and insisting on a strict adherence to the
precise system which had been proposed by the
continental government.' ^
Washington's reiterated warnings received little Oontinued
attention until they were pointed by the disaster on congrew
Long Island, which, but for the criminal neglect of stot^to
Howe, the vigilance of Washington could never have ^PP?r^
saved from becoming an American Sphacteria. Con-
^ Marshall, The I/ift of IFashingtan, toL iiL pp. 61.8.
564
THE AMBBICAN GOMUONWSALTH
CHAP.
vin
Failure of
the Stotes
to respond
to the
requisitions
of Oongress
to which
they reftised
the power of
taxation.
Attempt of
Congren
grass at length went so far as to propose to the States
the creation of a permanent army to be enlisted for
the war by the State governments each in proportion
to its ability.^ The continental levy, however, wafi
largely a £ulure, and of the 66,000 men voted by
Congress not 16,000 were brought into the field*
' Fqw were found who would engage voluntarily in
the service, and coercion was an expedient attended
with too much hazard to be extensively employed.
Apprehensions of danger were ' entertained, from
forcing moi into the army for three years, or during
the war ; and the vacant ranks were scantily supplied
with drafts, for nine, twelve, and eighteen months.
The evil therefore still continued; and except that
the old officers remained, almost a new army was to
be raised for every campaign. The commander^in^
chief, always provident for the future, was uniformly
earnest in his representations to Congress, and to the
several states, on this important subject His letters
continually and urgently pressed them to take timely
measures for supplying the places of those who were
leaving the service. But the means adopted were so
much more slow and ineffectual in their operation
than was expected by those who devised them, that
the season for action never found the preparations of
America completed ; and the necessity of struggling
against superior numbers was almost perpetual' '
As Washington saw, the Americans were sacrificing
the real military advantage which they had over the
British in waging a war on their own soil America
was capable of producing forces strong enough to
overwhelm any which Britain could transport across
the Atlantic ; but at this stage of the contest the
advantages of numbers in the field w^e nearly
^ See note A at end of this chapter, p. 648.
^ Lecky, History of England in the EigJUeeiUK Century ^ vol. iv. p. 422.
s Marshall, The Life <tf JFashim^onf vol. ir. pp. 51-2.
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 555
alwajs on the side of the British. Some assemblies chap.
were oflfering bounties to all who would enlist in their ,,^J^J^^
local militia and were outbidding the officers recruit- to depend
ing for Washington ; so he urged Congress to offer ^^^e^^d
recruits sufficient pay to induce enlistment in the ]^^^ J^
iiieviuiDle
American army.^ Congress, however, had found that failure.
money was even harder to come by than men ; for
the assemblies were no more willing to share the
power of taxation with a Congress of their own
delegates than they were with a Parliament elected
in Britain. The American taxpayer had been trained
to think that all the money he contributed must as a
matter of course be spent within the limits of his
own colony. Not till the war had been five years in
progress did the assemblies make any serious attempt
to impose taxation in order to meet requisitions of
Congress. That body resorted meantime to the issue of
continental notes, and pledged the faith of the States
for its redemption. But no sooner was the paper
issued than it began to depreciate, until it stood at
one-fortieth of its face value. In the expression * not
worth a continental' its epitaph remains engraved
upon the language of modern America. Such being
the condition of its credit, Congress found that it
was impossible to raise a loan.
Accustomed to look to an older community to pay Dependence
them for beating their own enemies, the Americans on v^^
now turned to Europe. The formal alliance with f^tSf^ds
France was not made till 1778, nor that with Spain neceesary
till 1779, but in 1776 both granted them 1,000,000 ^'^'^''~-
livres, which enabled Congress to purchase 250 cannofu,
and arms and clothing for 30,000 men. In the
opinion of Lecky, * it is not too much to say that
it was the intervention of France that saved the
cause,' * and to the end the war was largely financed
^ ManhaD, The Life of WaMngUm, vol. ii. pp. 558-66.
' Lecky, Hiitory of England in the Eighteenth Oentturyy vol. iv. p. 402.
556 THE AMERICAN COMMONWKALTH
CHAP, by France. But, as Washington found, French
^^^^^,^^.^^^ support at once relaxed the energies of a people
demoralized by thie English colonial system, ' Con-
gress relying upon it grew more and more into the
character of a Inere agent of the states for issuing
paper and borrowing money/ '
Command of The iucurablc sloth of Sir William Howe made it
recTvereT^y possiblc for Washington and a handful of heroic
Jan! m^"' followers to save American society from its own dis-
orders. Their task was facilitated by the conduct of
the Hessians quartered in New Jersey, who, knowing
no English and unable to discrimin6»te between friend
and foe, plundered loyalists and republicans alike.
In a few weeks the whole country was reduced to a
frenzy of hostility. Washington, finding that the
enemy made no attempt to cross the Delaware,
recrossed it himself and surprised the German garrison
in Trenton. Evading Cornwallis, he beat a British
force at Princeton and recovered the mastery of the
greater part of New Jersey.
Washington By usiug their fleet the Howes might at any
atStindy- niomcnt have threatened Washington's rear* But
^ne,^Sept. ^j^q summer of 1777 was far spent before Sir William
Philadelphia could rousc himsclf to actiou, and it was not till
held by August that he sailed up Chesapeake Baty and landed
°^®' at Elkhead. Washington endeavoured . to hold the
line of the Brandywine River, but was defeated there
on September 11. On the 26th the British entered
Philadelphia, and Sir William proceeded to cover
that position by occupying Germantown, a hamlet
where roads crossed some ten miles to the North
of the Pennsylvanian capital. Washington, hoping
once more, as at Trenton, to snatch a victory on the
morrow of defesat, attacked him there on October 4,
^ Alexander Johnston, Ency. Brit, 9th ed. vol. 'xxiii. p. 744. See alao
Marshall, Tke Life of WcLshington, vol. iv. pp. 50-7 ; and Lodge, George
WashingUmt vol. i. pp. 284, 249.
TH£ AMBBIGAK OOMMOKWSALTH 657
but through failure of his ammunition was unable to ohap.
cany the post. That night Sir William lost the ^^^^
last chance which fortune gave him of destroying
Washington and his army.
His laziness, however, was scarcely more fatal to Surrender of
the British cause than the desire of Lord George sar^"^"*
Germaine in London to emulate the achievements of ^7^77.^^*
Chatham. The Americans had attacked Quebec at Alliance of
the opening of the war, but had been repulsed with the United
disaster by the Governor, Sir Guy Carleton, and immediate
driven from the provinca Germaine, who resembled ^^^^^
Chatham in nothing but his ambition, had a grudge Juneirre.
against Carleton, and sent Burgoyne to take over
from him the command of the troops in Canada.
Together the minister and his general conceived the
idea of cutting off New England from the rest of
America by the junction of two forces moving
simultaneously, the one led by Burgoyne southwards
down Lake Champlain, the other to be despatched
by Howe northwards from New York up the Hudson
river. Unfortunately for Burgoyne, Germaine failed
to secure that the despatches explaining his part
in the movement reached Howe before he had
left New York, and was involved in his movement
on Philadelphia. Burgoyne, unsupported from the
South, was overpowered by numbers and surrendered
to Gates at Saratoga on October 16 with 3500 men*
On hearing the news, France at once entered into the
alliance with the United States Which eventually
enabled the allies to wrest from Britain her control
of the sea.
The darkest years,* however, in the history of the The con.
American Commonwealth had stillto be faced. . . Whiile amy
Si*»'WlH|im'''H<!we''W«iiiMselbtKmfe nddwiii.. itl. ; Pihilr ^^^led
adiel^lpa fbrkdotherdomfortlftbl/i winteri^ W^dshioagtOn by Congress
iv^as feli]!nfg trees' aBidiieitabliskuQ^ cantompentauat Forge.
VttlWy iFotgd, tWenty liuiles to the > North-* west. ' » Ther^e
558 THE AMBRIOAN OOMMOK WEALTH
OHAP. he was able to keep in touch with Congreas, which
had fled to Lancaster, some forty miles beyond his
camp. The claims of service in the field and abroad
had now deprived that body of most of its best men,
and Washington alone stood between the American
cause and its final destruction. * The misconduct or
inefiiciency of* the commissaries appointed by the
Congress, and the general disaffection of the people,
had reduced the revolutionary forces to a degree of
misery that almost led to ^eir destruction. On
one occasion they were three successive days without
bread. On another, they were two days entirely
without meat. On a third, it was announced that
there was not in the camp " a single hoof of any kind
to slaughter, and not more than twenty*five barrels
of flour." There was no soap or vinegar. '^Few
men" had **more than one shirt, many only the
moiety of one, and some none at all " ; and, besides a
number of men confined in hospitals or £Eirmers'
houses for want of shoes, there were on a single day
2,898 men in the camp unfit for duty because they
were '^barefoot and otherwise naked." In the pierc*
ing days of December, numbers of the troops were
compelled to sit up all night around the fire, having
no blankets to cover them, and it became evident
that unless a change quickly took place the army
must either ** starve, dissolve, or disperse, in order to
obtain subsistence in the best manner they can."
In three weeks of this month the army, without any
fighting, had lost by hardship and exposure near
2,000 men. So large a proportion of the troops were
barefoot that " their marches might be traced by the
blood from their feet." Yet week after week rolled on,
and still, amid unabated sufferings, a large proportion
of those brave men held together and took up their
winter quarters, diminished indeed in numbers, and
more than once defeated in the field, but still un-
THB AMSBIOAN C(»fMONWBALTH 559
•
broken and undismayed, within a day's march of a chap.
greatly superior army of British soldiers. • s^^^^^,^^^
* The time was, indeed, well fitted to winnow the
chaflf from the grain ; and few braver and truer men
were ever collected around a great commander than
those who remained with Washington during that
dreary winter in Valley Forge, some twenty miles from
Philadelphia. "For some days past," wrote their
commander on February 16, 1778, "there has been
little less than a famine in the camp ; a part of the
army has been a week without any kind of flesh, and
the rest three or four days. Naked and starving as
they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparikble
patience and fidelity of the soldiery, that they have
not been ere this excited by their sufferings to a
general mutiny and dispersion. Strong symptoms,
however, of discontent have appeared in particular
instances, and nothing but the most active efforts
everywhere, can long avert so shocking a catastrophe."
Many^ indeed, fell away. " No day, nor scarce an
hour passes," wrote Washington in December, " with-
out the offer of a resigned commission." Many fled to
the country and to their friends, and not lees than
3,000 deserters came from the American camp to the
British army at F^adelphia.' ^
Congress was distracted by jealousy of Washington. Faiion of
Nothing but personal devotion to their leader had (>)^^^*to
availed to keep an heroic remnant faithful to their wSJSn^n
cause. The writer of an anonymous letter to the by Gates as
x\«i p r>i 11 -11 • Commander-
President of Congress averred that the Americans in-ohief.
were making a man their God, and that no good moniTiition
could be expected from the army until Baal and his ^^^^^"^
worshippers were banished from the camp. John
and Samuel Adams denounced the sin of * idolatry,'
and hinted that the freedom of America was now
imperilled by a military despotism. Congress,
^ Lecky, History of England in the Bi^flUtefidk Chmiwry, vol iy. pp. 425-7.
560
THE AMERIOAK GOMMONWEALTH
chap:
VIII
meanwhile, was calling upon Washington to hurl the
army, which they would neither clothe, shoe, nor feed,
against the lines behind which Howe was entrenched
in Philadelphia* His refusal to lead his men to
certain destruction provoked the often reiterated
taunt that he was trying to imitate Fabius to the
ruin of the American cause. An intrigue was set on
foot to transfer the supreme command from
Washington to Gates, the nominal victor of Saratoga.
Gates was brought down from the North to preside
over the Board of War. Conway, his accomplice,
was appointed Inspector-General * Notorious and
implacable hostility to the Commander-in-Chief of
the national forces was recognised as the special
qualification for every office the holder of which
would be in a position to annoy and thwart him.' ^
Washington, however, declined to be driven into any
false step and bided his time until he was able to end
the intrigue by exposing it.
In May 1778 Sir William Howe was at length
recalled, and Clinton, who took his place, abandoned
Philadelphia and retreated to New York. It is
needless, however, to follow the confused and in-
effectual operations by which any decisive result was
postponed for another three years and a halfw For
the purpose of this chapter it will suffice to inquire
why the result was so long postponed. The French
0QtA9, i78i'. admiral failed to co-operate with Washington by
using the superior strength of his fleet to destroy the
British control of the sea. Clinton failed to use the
breathing space afforded him by the French admiral
to destroy the nucleus of continental action which
esiisted sp.'long as Washington and hisarmyiwerem
beingl 'I'Enbounagediby >4ihe'tf(ict ithAtl ah'^inori^ing
number// of Wydistii,- espdeially 'ikl thd t Sbmtb,il ^^«m
now taking tlote* field,' he 'dissipated hisUtbei]lgth|ipy
^ Travelyan; The AfMfricem lUeolutiomn toI. iv. p. 310.
Howe super-
seded by
Clinton,
whom
Washington
was unable
to crush
till the
French fleet
dominated
the sea.
Surrender of
Comwallis
THE AMBRIOAK CX>MUONWEALTH 661
attempting to conquer the country in detail. So chap.
long, however, as he retained the power of moving v..,.,^,,,,^^
his troops by sea, and of preventing his enemy from '
doing so, the incompetence of Congress combined
with the selfishness of tibe States to deny Washington
the means of crashing him.^ Resourceful as he was,
the American leader could do no more than keep
some kind of army in existence with the help of
French troops and mon^. It was not till 1761 that
the French fleet really began to assert its power.
By menacing New York it induced Clinton to with-
draw a portion of the force which was operating
under Cornwallis in Virginia against the French
troops under Lafayette. Cornwallis was ordered by
Clinton to entrench himself at Yorktown on one
of the narrow tongues of land which extend from
the coast of Virginia into the Southern waters of
Chesapeake Bay. The British fleet, however, which
was sent under Admiral Oraves to support Cornwallis
was outmatched by De Qrasse at the mouth of
Chesapeake Bay, and returned to New York to refit.
Washington, having collected all the French and
American troops he could lay hands on, led Clinton
to believe that he was preparing to attack him on the
Hudson estuary. Too late Clinton discovered that his
antagonist was hurrying South by forced marches to
Elkhead and Baltimore, where transports were waiting
which enabled him to unite with Lafayette in the
blockade of Yorktown. The final attack was led
by Alexander Hamilton, and on October 19, 1781,
Cornwallis with 7000 men surrend^ed his troops to
the Americans and his seamen and ships to the Fr^ich.
It must be recalled that since 1780 Britain had Reaaonsfor
been at war with France, Spain, and Holland, while proteaSLn
Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia were leagued to assert ^^ *^® ^*'*-
their claim to send supplies to the Americans.
^ See Note B at end of this chapter, p. BdOi
20
562
TH£ AMSRICAN COMMONWEALTH
OHAP. Hyder All was threatening Madras, and in Ireland
the Protestants were demanding the independence of
their Parliament with arms in their hands. In
America Britain had sacceeded in finding no general
of average capacity to command her forces. From
the outbreak of war the machinery of government
in every one of the thirteen States had been in
the hands of the revolutionary party, who had at
their disposal a strategist incomparably superior to
any that were opposed to him, one whose devotion
to their cause was equalled only by his power for
inspiring others. This master of organization, with
a genius for managing men, took over six years from
the date of his first appointment to beat on American
soil the incompetent generals of a country fighting
from 3000 miles away and threatened by the ever-
gathering hostility of Europe. And when he did
so, it was only with the aid of a French army
aad fleet and French money to pay his American
troops, of which not half, according to one contem-
porary, were American-bom.^ Without Washington
the American cause could never have been saved,
even by the negligence of the British Government
and their generals. The real problem, indeed, is why
he was so painfully slow in ending the war.
The The explanation is to be found in the condition of
of TOciety American society as seen and recorded by Washington
in America himsclf. * If I wcrc to bc Called upon,' he wrote at
as seen oj _ _ . /• i •
Washington, the close 01 1/78, ' to draw a picture of the times and
of men, from what I have seen, heard, and in part
know, I should in one word say, that idleness, dissipa-
tion, and extravagance seems to have laid fast hold
of most of them; that speculation, peculation, and
an insatiable thirst for riches seems to have got the
better of every other consideration, and almost of
- every order of men ; that party disputes and personal
* See above, Galloway's evidence, p. 416.
THE AMERICAN COMMON WEALTH 563
quarrels are the great business of the day ; while the €HAP.
momentous concerns of an empire, a great and
accumulating debt, ruined finances, depreciated money,
and want of credit, which in its consequences is the
want of everything, are but secondary considerations,
and postponed from day to day, from week to week,
as if our aflfairs wore the most promising aspect. ...
Our money is now sinking fifty per cent, a day in this
city ; aCnd I shall not be surprised if, in the course of
a few months, a total stop is put to the currency of
it; and yet an assembly, a <5oncert, a dinner, or
supper will not only take men oflF from acting in this
business, but even from thinking of it, while a great
part of the olBScers of our army, from absolute necessity,
are quitting the service, and the more virtuous few,
rather than do this, are sinking by sure degrees into
beggary and want.' ^ As in the previous war, American
producers were finding that it was more profitable to
feed their enemies than their friends. 'While our Nov.7,i78o.
army,' he writes, * is experiencing almost daily want,
that of the enemy in New York is deriving ample
supplies from a trade with the adjacent States of New
York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, which has by
degrees become so common, that it is hardly thought
a crime. It is true there are, in those States, laws
imposing a penalty upon this criminal commerce ; but
it is so light or so little attended to, that it does not
prevent the practice. The markets of New York are
so well supplied, that a great number of mouths, which
would otherwise be fed from the public magazines,
are now supported upon the fresh meats and flour of
the country, by which means the enemy have been
often enabled to bear the disappointments of the
arrival of their provision fleets without much incon-
veniwice ; and, if report be true, they would at this
^ Washington to Bei^amin Harrison, Philadelphia, December 30, 1778.
WritingSt vol. vi. pp. 151-2.
564 .THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, very time experience distress for the want of their
long expected Irish fleet, if the resources of the
country were effectually cut off from them. This
cannot be done by military measures alone, except
in cases of blockade or siege, and much less will it be
in my power to do it with our army in the weak
state it is verging to. I believe that most nations
make it capital for their subjects to fiimish their
enemies with provisions and military stores during
a war. Were this done by the several States, and the
laws rigidly put in execution in a few instances, the
practice would be stopped.' ^ A month later he was
obliged to discharge part of his army in order to feed
the rest.^ One last touch was needed to complete
the experiences of the Seven Years' War. When the
year 1781 opened with a threat of invasion from
Canada, New York and Vermont were involved in a
local dispute, and were actually preparing for civil war
in the probable field of Washington's campaign.'
Corrobora- The strictures of Washington on American society
o7other con^ ^^ amply supportcd by others who were able to view
temporaries. ^^ £|.qj^ within. When Adams complained to his
wife that Toryism was reported to be rife in Boston,
she replied that the mischief was deeper and more
widely spread. 'It is a spirit of avarice and con-
tempt of authority, an inordinate love of gain, that
prevails not only in town but everywhere I look or
hear from.'^ To the same effect is the letter of a
French engineer captured at sea in 1778. ^Each
State,' he writes, ' is jealous of the other. The spirit
of enthusiasm in defence of liberty does not exist
among them ; there' is more of it for the support of
America in one coffee-house in Paris than is to be
found in the whole continent. The Americans are
1 Washington, Writings, vol. vu. pp. 286-7. > Ibid, p. 821.
• See above, pp. 326-7.
^ Familiar LtUers, p. 261. Quoted by Leoky, England in ths Mghteinth
Century f voL iv. p. 428.
THE AMERIOAN COMMONWEALTH 565
averse to war from a habit of indolence and equality.'^ chap.
The testimony of another French officer shows how
the American cause was subsisting solely on the
patriotism of a strenuous handful. *The spirit of
patriotism/ wrote Count Fersen at this time, * is only
to be found amongst the leading men of the country,
who make tremendous sacrifices. The rest, and they
are the great majority, think only of their personal
interest. . . . Those near the coast convey to the
English fleet anchored in Gardiner's Bay all kinds of
provisions, and that because they are highly paid ;
ourselves they fleece pitilessly. ... In all the trans-
actions we have had with them they treat us more as
enemies than as friends. They are incredibly grasping.'*
There was thus no public opinion strong enough Evidence
to override the jealousy of the local assemblies, and Americans
compel them to concede to an American assembly ^ad been less
r J averse to
the powers necessary for the handling of American taxation by
Parliament
affairs. Men like Otis and Adams had been right in than to
denying the claim of the British to tax the American Ssei^^^"
electorate. But as soon as the controversy had drifted
into war, and the States were called upon to support
their contention with funds, the real motive of the
popular objection began to appear. The colonial
democracies had never been trained to submit to
anything but provincial taxation, the revenues from
which could be spent within their own territories and
amongist themselves. It was not till the war had
lasted more than three years that the assemblies
could bring themselves to levy; or that their con-
stituents would tolerate, any serious taxation to meet
the expenses of Washington's army;
8
' Lan$dotone Papers, British Huaeum, Add. MSS. 2431, p. 29, quoted by
Lecky, History of ErvgUmd in the EighUenih Century ^ vol. iv. p. 483.
' Lettres de Comte Ferseny voL i. p. 61. Quoted by Locky, History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. v. p. 54.
' Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. p. 483.
See also BoUes, Finamcial History of the United States, chap. xiv.
566 THE AMERICAN OOMHONWEALTH
CHAP. Throughout the war the assemblies were almost as
^^^^^^^^^ jealous of their own joint committee as previously
Incoherent they had been of the Imperial Government. Con-
S the^^^ ff^^^ w^ practically limited to the functions of a
American conference, which could frame schemes and request
government , ' , • n -i
and its thirteen governments to give effect to them in detail.
inthedis- But the intended effect of such measures was
ofttiT*^^^° destroyed and impaired by the impotence of Congress
American to sccurc that thirteen assemblies would each and all
play their respective parts, play them in time and
play them to the full. The quota of troops due from
each was seldom if ever completed. It was never
recruited in time, and the men were sent into the
field raw and untrained. But worse still, the dates
of recruitment indicated by Congress were ignored.
The result was ^ that the terms of service of different
portions of the army expired almost every month in
the year, and raw troops, unacquainted with the
first rudiments of military duty, were introduced in
the most critical moments of a campaign. . . . Timely
and correspondent measures . . . had been continually
recommended, and the recommendation had been as
continually neglected.'^ In a letter written to the
President of Congress, Washington shows how chaos
in the system of government was inevitably reflected
in every detail of the military administration. ' The
Aprils, system of State supplies,' he writes, * however in
^'®^" the commencement dictated by necessity, has proved
in its operation pernicious beyond description. An
army must be raised^ paid, subsisted, and regulated
upon an equal and uniform principle, or the confusions
and discontents are endless. Little less than the
dissolution of the army would have been long since
the consequence of a different plan, had it not been
for a spirit of patriotic virtue, both in officers and
men, of which there are few examples, seconded by
* Marshall, The Life of WoBhington, vol. iv. pp. 174-6.
THS AMERIOAK COMMOHTWIBALTH 567
the unremitting pains that have been taken to com- chap.
VIII
pose and reconcile them to their situation. But these
will not be able to hold out much longer against the
influence of causes constantly operating, and every
day with some new aggravation.
' Some States, from their internal ability and local
advantages, furnish their Troops pretty amply, not
only with cloathing, but with many little comforts
and conveniences; others supply them with some
necessaries, but on a more contracted scale; while
others have it in their power to do little or nothing
at all. The ojQKcers and men in the routine of duty
mix dayly and compare circumstances. Those, who
fare worse than others, of course are dissatisfied, and
have their resentment excited, not only against their
own State, but against the Confederacy. They
become disgusted with a service that makes such
injurious distinctions. No arguments can persuade
an officer it is justice he should be obliged to pay
£ — a yard for cloth, and other things in proportion,
while another is ftimished at part of the price. The
officers resign, and we have now scarcely a sufficient
number left to take care even of the fragments of
corps which remain. The men have not this re-
source. They murmur, brood over their discontents,
and have lately shown a disposition to enter into
seditious combinations.' * The difficulty of recruiting
was greatly increased by the fact that in matters of
pay some States treated their men less generously
than others. There was, he added, no remedy for
such evils until military affairs were entrusted to the
sole administration of one central body adequately
equipped with the necessary powers. The situation
as a whole was exhibited by Washington in a famons
image when he compared America to * a clock, each
state representing some one or other of the smaller
* Evans, Writings of American SkUesmen — Washington^ pp. 146-6.
5&8 THB AMERICAN OOUMONWBALTII
OHAP. parts of it, which they are endeavouring to put in fine
order, without considering how useless and unavailing
their labour is, unless the great wheel, or spring,
which is to set the whole in motkm, is also well
attended to and kept in good order.' ^
Efforts of Americans had yet to learn the lessons which were
toredreraby ^ make it posedble for Washington to revise the
effiJwn^" mechanism of their government, and it was saved
the essential from destructlon in the meantime only by an excess
defects of ma
the political of efficiency on the part of the great leader himseli
system. Again he elaborated a scheme for the reform of the
Oct. 1779. army, and was pressing it upon Congress and the
State legislatures, only to demonstrate once more
the hopelessness of measures which depended for their
efficacy on the equal and simultaneous action of
independent authorities. ' The difficulty of bringing
about a harmony and concert of measures among
thirteen sovereign states was too great to be sur-
mounted.'^ The administrative harvest of such a
system may be seen as depicted in Washington's own
despatches. 'Instead of having magazines filled
with provifiionSy we have a scanty pittance scattered
here and there in the diJOTerent states. Instead of
having our arsenals well supplied ^ith military stores,
they axe poorly provided, and the workmen all leaving
them. Instead of having the various articles of field
equipage in readiness to deliver, the quarter-master
general is but now applying to the several states (as
the dernier ressort) to provide these things for their
troops respectively. Instead of having a regular
funds in the quarter-master's hands to de&ay the
contingent expences of it, we have neither the one
nor the other ; and all that business, or a great part
of it, being done by military impressment, we are
daily and hourly oppressing the people, souring their
1 Marshall, Hie Id/t of Washiaiffitm, vol. It. p. 58. > JOrid. ^ 177.
THI AMBRIOAN GOMHONWXALTH 569
tempera, and alienatinff their affections. Instead of ohap.
, VIII
haying the regiments completed to the new establish-
ment (and which ought to have been so) by the . . .
of ... , agreeably to the requisitions of Congress,
scarce any state in the union has, at this hoar, an
eighth-part of its quota in the field ; and there is
little prospect that I can see of ever getting more
than half. In a word, instead of having every thing
in readiness to take the field, we have nothing ; and
instead of having the prospect of a glorious offensive
campaign before us, we have a bewildered and gloomy
prospect of a defensive one ; unless we should receive
a powerful aid of ships, land troops, and money, from
our generous allies ; and these at present are too
ccmtingent to build upon.'^ It was, in fact, a
French fleet, French auxiliaries, and French money
which finally enabled Washington to bring the
struggle to an issue.
In the end Washington, the most constitutionally WaahiD^n
minded of statesmen, was driven to assume the drivTifto
authority which the States had denied to Congress J^^g^i^^he
and n^lected to exercise in response to its demands. ^^^ <^«i^ie<i
Failing to obtain revenue from the States, Congress of levj^wg
had at last requested them to furnish supplies in from^^
kind, but *to such a degree had these requisitions individuals.
been neglected, as to excite the apprehension that, i780.
at every station, the soldiers must be disbanded from
the want of food.'^ Rather than see his soldiers
starve or disperse, he proceeded to levy the supplies
he needed for their maintenance from the people
themselves. But in resorting to arbitrary power he
handled it with the care of a doctor administering
strychnine, who spares no precaution against poison-
ing himself and his assistants as well as the patient.
Hid exactions were carefully systematized, restricted
within the narrowest bounds, safeguarded against
^ HanhAll, The Life of WashififfUm, vol. iv. pp. 508-4. > IbitL p. 604.
570 THE AMBRIGAK COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, abuse and accurately explained in letters circulated to
VIII
the magistrates.^ That so many years spent as the
military leader of a revolution should have left his
respect for law undiminished is one of the marvels
of history, and marks Washington as the supreme
product of Anglo-Saxon civilization. But in principle
he had at length been driven to the same resort
as Grenville, when, after waiting in vain for the
assemblies to impose taxation, he had passed the
Stamp Act and proceeded to levy it over their heads.^
Growth iu Unlike Grenville, however, Washington m his army
the array of n . -i a iij_» i* ••a.*
diBconteiit posscsscQ the mcaus of coUectmg his requisitions.
with the •pjj^ States by their negligence had compelled him to
authority, employ treatment which in hands less steadfast than
his own would have paralysed the liberties of the
nascent Commonwealth. It was with the utmost
difficulty that he was able to restrain the growing
resentment of his army with Congress. Repeatedly
he had urged that body to make some adequate
provision for the payment and pensions of their
officers. After trifling with the question for several
years Congress recommended the soldiers to the
attention of their several States. An indignant
remonstrance from the general officers ' was answered
by Congress with a reference to what had been already
done, and a declaration "that patience, self-denial,
fortitude, and perseverance, and the cheerful sacrifice
of time and health, are necessary virtues, which both
the citizen and soldier are called to exercise, while
struggling for the hbertiee of theit country ; and that
moderation, frugality and temperance, must be among
the chief supports, as well as the brightest ornaments,
of that kind of civil government which is wisely
instituted by the several states in this union."
'It may well be supposed,' as Marshall drily
* Marshall, Tfu Life of Washingtonf vol. iv. pp. 244-5.
* See ahove, p. 346.
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 5 7 1
remarks, ' that this philosophic lecture on the virtues chap. >
of temperance, to men who were often without food,
and nearly half their time with a very limited supply
of it, was but ill calculated to assuage the irritations
fomented by the neglect which was believed to have
been sustained.' ^
At length the Pennsylvania line broke into open Mutiny of
mutiny and threatened Congress itself The Gk)vem- tankn^*^*^^
ment of Pennsylvania lost its nerve and patched up ^"^^^"^
a settlement with their own men on lines which Washington,
simply emphasized the grievances of those from other
States. The immediate result was a mutiny in the
New Jersey contingent which Washington was able
to suppress only by hanging two of the ringleaders.
For the moment Congress and the States were WasMng-
frightened into some kind of activity, and began to to^accept
devise eflFective measures of taxation. In a few monarchic»i
power.
months, however, the war was practically closed by oct i78i.
the surrender of Cornwallis, and the American army
had leisure in which to reflect on its grievances.
* The history of the war,' wrote Washington, * is a
history of false hopes and temporary expedients.
Would to Grod they were to end here.' * Events were
presently to justify his fears. Congress had granted
the officers half-pay for life, but the States, ignoring Oct. i780.
its requisitions, had left the officers unpaid. The
unfriendliness of Congress itself showed what kind of
justice the defenders of their cause might look for as
soon as they were disbanded and could no longer
demand it by force of arma» An address was now
circulated amongst the officers, urging the Commander-
in-Chief to compel the payment of their arrears.
After censuring the violence of its terms he agreed
to discuss another which was quieter in tone, remark-
^ Marshall, The Life of Washington^ vol. iv. p. 365.
' Lodge, George Washington, vol. i. p. 286.
' Marshall, The Life of Washington^ vol. iv. p. 641.
572 THE AMERICAN OOMMOlfWEALTH
OHAP. ing as he took out his glasses to read the notes he
had made for his reply, ' You see, gentlemen, I have
grown both blind and grey in your service/ For the
moment his authority with his officers, combined with
his tact in using it, availed to repress the movement
But their belief in the ultimate principles for which
they had fought was fatally shaken, and their minds
were beginning to seek a cure for the impotence of
Congress in some form of monarchy. Two months
later Colonel Nicola, an old and respected Mend of
Washington, undertook to convey their ideas to him
and invited him in a forcible and well-written letter
to assume to himself the sovereignty of the State.
Once more, however, the movement was checked by
the firmness and tact of Washington's reply. * With
a mixture of surprise and astonishment, I have read
with attention the sentiments you have submitted to
my perusal. Be assured, sir, no occurrence in the
course of the war haa given me more painful sensations
than your information of there being such ideas existing
in the army as you have expressed and [which] I must
view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity.
For the present, the communication of them will rest
in my own bosom, unless some further agitation of
the matter shall make a disclosure necessary. I am
much at 'a loss to conceive what part of my conduct
could have given encouragement to an address which
seems to me big with the greatest mischiefs that can
befall my country. If I am not deceived in the
knowledge of myself, you could not have found a
person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable.
At the same time, in justice to my own feelings, I
must add that no man possesses a more sincere wish
to see justice done to the army than I do ; and as far
as my power and influence in a constitutional way
extend, they shall be employed to the utmost of my
abilities to effect it, should there be any occasion.
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 673
Let me conjure you, then, if you have any regard for chap.
your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or
respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your
mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or
any one else, a sentim^at of the like nature/ ^
Congress, now thoroughly frightened, offered to Undertaking
commute the half-pay for Hfe into a lump sum equal and th?^"
to five years' full pay. Such, indeed, was the general u^atethe
alarm which the army had aroused in the minds of claims of the
/ army nnlli-
the politicians that nine States actually endorsed the fied by the
resolution of Congress. ' But,' as Marshall r^oiarks, ^^uu^^oT
* the value of this resolution depended on the success '^^^"^^
of requisitions, and of applications to the respective ^inds.
states to place permanent funds in the power of
Congress.' ^ In other words, it had no value at all,
and Washington warned Congress that they were
treading a path which could lead only to a military
revolution.' The one alternative was to create some Oct. i782.
government competent to redeem as well as to contract
obligations*
More acutely than any of his comrades-in-arms he steadfast-
realized the general poverty of spirit, but unlike them wTshhigton
he never would acquiesce in the conclusion that it i° 'Tf^"^
^ to abandon
was incurable. He always acted as though time and the ideal of
the discipline of facts would evoke the patriotism AmemLT"
necessary for self-government, even at moments when S«^^^
his letters show that he almost despaired. To a mind
like his it was no real achievement on the part of
Americans to have renounced the authority of the
British Parliament unless they could establish in its
place a genuine government of their own, and one
bafled on the principle of the commonwealth. No
offer of a crown could blind him to the fact that
autocracy was the merest confession of failure, and
^ Lodge, Oecrge WashingUmy toI. L pp. 329-30.
* Marshall, The Life of WashiTigUm, vol. iv. p. 666.
' Lodges Otcrge WtuhHmgUn^ vol. i. p. 326.
574
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
vm
Contact
with facts
and its
gradual
effect in
enlighten-
ing the pub-
lic mind.
Washing-
ton's ta^
in pointing
the lesson
while secur-
ing the time
within
which it
could be
learned.
one which he was resolved never to accept. But
facts had taught him that for a commonwealth to
exist there must be in it a sovereignty just as final
as that of an autocrat. Co-operation, or * influence/
as he called it, was not government but merely
anarchy disguised as such. Throughout the long-
drawn agony of the war no one had laboured more
patiently than himself to make the best of co-opera-
tion. But he saw not only that it had fiailed, but
why. He saw that it must fail not only in war but
in peace, because he had grasped the principles which
must be realized before any system of self-govern-
ment can hope to succeed. Those principles, as he
saw, must be actualized in a definite and concrete
machinery. A statesman greater than Cromwell, im-
measurably greater than Napoleon, it was this in
him which has rendered his papers a mine of political
wisdom, richer than any to be found in theirs.
Washington was that rarest of men who.
Through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
4
The narrative in the previous pages will suffice to
show how the Revolution had brought the colonial
democracies into contact with the facts. Experience
was repairing the mischief of the colonial system by
schooling them to the realities of political life. The
formation of Congress before the war was an invalu-
able step if only because it created a point of observa-
tion from which some representatives from each
State could view the needs of America as a whole.
Throughout the war the silent force of facts was
working a gradual change in the minds of Congress
and the «^ public at large. The weight of the inverte-
brate Commonwealth was resting meantime on the
shoulders of one steadfast man, who none the less
found time to explain the source of its weakness.
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 575
to indicate the cure, and press for its application, chap.
Writing to a member of Congress, he says : * Ceiftain ,^^.^^^..,.^
I am, unless Congress speak in a more decisive tone, May i780.
unless they are vested with powers by the several
States competent to the great purposes of war, or
assume them as matter of right, and they and the
States respectively act with more energy than they
hitherto have done, that our cause is lost. We can
no longer drudge on in the old way. By ill timing
the adoption of measures, by delays in the execution
of them, or by unwarrantable jealousies, we incur
enormous expenses and derive no benefit from them.
One State wUl comply with a requisition of Congress ;
another neglects to do it ; a third executes it by
halves; and all diflfer either in the manner, the
matter, or so much in point of time, that we are
always working up hill, and ever shall be; and,
while such a system as the present one, or rather
want of one prevails, we shall ever be unable to
apply our strength or resources to any advantage.
This, my dear Sir, is plain language to a member
of Congress; but it is the language of truth and
friendship. It is the result of long thinking, dose
application, and strict observation. I see one head
gradually changing into thirteen. I see one army
branching into thirteen, which, instead of looking up
to Congress as the supreme controlling power of
the United States, are considering themselves as
dependent on their respective States. In a werd, I
see the powers of Congress declining too fast for the
consideration and respect, which are due to them as
the great representative body of America, and I am
fearful of the consequences.' ^
Again he returns to his point a month later. Juiyi780.
* To these fundamental errors, may be added another
which I expect will prove our ruin, and that is the
* Evans, Writings of American Statesmen — fFashinfft&n, pp. 157-8, note.
576 THE AMISlIGAir OOMMOirWEALTH
GHAP. relinquishment of Congressional pow^s to the States
individually — all the business is now cMempted, for
it is not done, by a timid kind of recommendation
from Congress to the States; the consequence of
which is, that instead of pursuing one uniform system,
which in the execution shall corrispond in time and
manner, each State undertakes to determine :
* Ist. Whether they will comply or not
' 2nd In what manner they will do it, and
^3d. In what time — by which means scarcely
any one measure is, or can be executed, while great
expences are incurred and the willing and zealous
States ruined. In a word our measures are not
under the influence and direction of one council, but
thirteen, each of which is actuated by local views and
politics, without considering the fatal consequences of
not complying with plans which the united wisdom of
America in its representative capacity have digested,
or the unhappy tendency of delay, mutilation or
alteration. I do not scruple to add, and I give it
decisively as my opinion — ^that unless the States will
content themselves with a full and well-chosen repre-
sentation in Congress and vest that body with
absolute powers in all matters relative to the great
purposes of war, and of general concern (by which the
States unitedly are affected, reserving to themselves
all matters of local and internal polity for the regula-
tion of order and good government) we are att^npting
an impossibility, and very soon shall become (if it
is not already the case) a many-headed monster — a
heterogenious mass — that never will or can ste^ to
the same point. The contest among the different
States now is not which shall do most for the common
cause — but which shall do least, hence arise dis-
appointments and delay, one State waiting to see
what another will or will not do, through fear of
doing too much, and by their deliberations, altera-
THB AMKBIGAN GOMMONWSALTH 577
tions, and sometimes refusals to comply witb the ohap.
VIII
requisitions of Congress, after that Congress spent
months in reconciling (as far as it is possible)
jarring interests, in order to frame their resolutions,
as far as the nature of the ease will admit, upon
principles of equality/^
These letters were written before the States had The Articles
ratified the Articles of Confederation {»roposed hj fedention
Congress. The mere adoption of a constitution which J^^^ylTue
formally recognized the essential unity of American of their
interests was a step of no little importance. ^ It is as a step
not impossible,' says Marshall, ' that had peace been cenuine ^
restored to America before any agreement for a union.
permanent union was entered into> the different parts
might have fekllen asunder, and an entire dismember-
ment have taken place.' ' Otherwise this instrument
was valuable only as proving the incurable weakness of
any government not vested with legal authority over
the persons and purses of the citizens themselves.'
^To the judicious patriots throughout America, Growing
the necessity of giving greater powers to the federal ^^J**^**°
head became every day more apparent. The mutiny ^^^
of so large a portion of the army, £ind the continuance Articles.
of l^e causes which produced that mutiny, mani-
fested the impracticability, in point of -fact, of
continuing the war much longer, if the resources of
the country were entirely controled by thirteen
independant sovereignties.' ^
The system was one which penalized efficiency,
for the action of some States was invariably neutral-
ized by the slackness of others. * It is,' wrote
Washington, ^perhaps the greatest of the great evils
attending this contest, that States as well as in*
dividuals had rather wish well, than aet well ; had
^ EvaDS, H^rUinffs of Aineriean Statesmen — Washington^ pp. 156-7.
* llarshall, The Life of Qecrge WcuMrigton, vol. iv. p. 478.
» Ibid. p. 501. * i«tf. p. 464,
2p
578 THE AMEBI0AN COMMONWEALTH
OHAP. rather see a thinff done, than do it, or contribute
VTTI
their just proportion to the dcang it. This conduct
is not only injurious to the common cause, but in
the end most expensive to themsdves ; besides the
distrusts and jealousies, which are sown by such
conduct. To expect, brick without straw is idle, and
yet I am called upon, with as much facility to furnish
men and means for every service and every want, as
if every iota required of the States had been furnished,
and the whole was at my disposal ; when the fact is,
I am scarcely able to provide a garrison for West
Point, or to feed the men that are there. This, and
ten thousand reasons, which I could assign, prove the
necessity of something more than recommendatory
powers in Congress. If that body is not vested with
a controuling power in matters of common concern,
and for the great purposes of war, I do not scruple
to give it decidedly as my opinion, that it will be
impossible to prosecute it to any good effect. Some
States are capitally injured if not ruined, by their
own exertions and the neglects of others; while
by these irregularities ' the strength and resources of
the country • never are, nor can be, employed to
advantage.' ^ His belief that such a system must
fail even when peace was declared is shown in a
letter addressed to Hamilton after learning that the
March 31, Treaty of Paris had been signed. ' I rejoice most
exceedingly that there is an end to our warfare, and
that such a field is opening to our view, as will, with
wisdom to direct the cultivation of it, make us a
great, a respectable, and happy people ; but it must
be improved by other means than State politics, and
unreasonable jealousies and prejudices, or (it requires
not the second sight to see that) we shall be instru-
ments in the hands of our enemies, and those
European powers, who may be jealous of our greatness
^ Evans, IVrilings &f American Statesmen — JVashingtan, pp. 170-1) note.
1788.
THE AHERIOAK COMMONWSALTH 579
in union; to dissolve the confederation. • , . My wish chap.
to see the union of* these States established upon ^
liberal and permanent principles, and inclination to
contribute my mite in pointing out the defects of the
present couBtitution, are equally great. . . . No man
in the United States is or can be more deeply
impressed with the necessity of a reform in our
present confederation than myself. No man perhaps
has felt the bad effiscts of it more sensibly ; for to the
defects thereof, and want of powers in Congress, may
justly be ascribed the prolongation of the war, and
consequently the expenses occasioned by it. More
than half the perplexities I have experienced in the
course of my command, and almost the whole of the
difficulties and distress of the army, havp their origin
here.'^
Those who contended that the system would work Refuaai of
when once the enemy had been expelled from the to^empower
country were soon destined to learn their mistake. ^ l^T*
The backwardness of the States in the cause of coBtome.
America by prolonging hostilities had increased the
cost and diminished the poweor of the country to meet
it. A vast accumulation of debt was the natural
result of an experiment in levying war without taxa-
tion. The bitter experience of six years had been
needed to bring Congress itself to realize that all
financial measures which depended upon taxes imposed
by the States were worthless. At last, in February
1781, Congress applied to the assemblies for power to
levy duties, not exceeding 5 per cent on the value
of imports and priie-goods. 'Notwithstanding the
greatness of the exigency, the pressure of the national
wants, and the beneficial influence which a certain
revenue in the hands of government would obviously
have upon the war ; yet never, during the existence
of the confederation, did all the states unite to vest
> Evans, Writings of American Statesmen — JFoMngUm, pp. 241-2.
580
THE AMBBICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VIII
The public
debt.
Neglect of
the States
to impose
taxes in
accordance
with the
Articles
of Con-
federation.
Default of
Congress.
in Congress the powers now required : so unwilling
are men possessed of power, to place it in the hands
of others ; and so difficult is it to effect any objects^
however important^ which a/re dependant on the con-
current assent of many distinct sovereignties.*^
The close of the war had therefore left the finances
of Congress in a desperate condition. On January 1,
1783, its debts were computed at $42,000,375,^ due
partly, to Americans who had risked their property
in the national cause, partly to Dutch sympathisers,
whose Grovemment had been one of the first to
recognize that of the United States. But the
principal creditor was France, which had also given
large sums outright and had sent the fleets and armies
which had turned the scale in favour of the American
cause. It is difficult to conceive conditions by which
the public faith could have been more deeply pledged,
but the applications of Congress to the assemblies
for revenues to meet these obUgations were simply
ignored. 'After a short struggle so to administer
the existing system as to make it competent to the
great objects for which it was instituted, the effort
became apparently desperate, and American affairs
were impdkd rapidly J a crisis, on which depended,
perhaps, the continuance of the United States as a
nation. ... A government authorised to declare
war, but relying on independent states for the means
of prosecuting it, capable of contracting debts, and of
pledging the public faith for their payment, but
depending on thirteen distinct sovereignties for the
preservation of that faith, could only be rescued from
ignominy and contempt, by finding those sovereignties
administered by men exempt from the passions
incident to human nature.'' So long as a state of
1 Marshall, The Life of WaMngUm, vol. iv. pp. 471-2.
2 This figure, of oourae^ does not ioolude some 9200,000,000 of paper
money issued on the security of the thirteen States.
' Marshall, The W tf WfuhingUm, vol. v. p. 86.
THE AliERIOAN OOHMOKWEALTH 581
actual hostilitieB continued, the assemblies were ruled ohap.
by men who were readier to talk than to act Peace, ^^^^
however, was now liberating from the ranks of the
army those who had given or hazarded all for the
independence of the United State& Men whose Appearance
devotion to the nascent Commonwealth had its roots ton'aaoidiera
where patriotism ever grows were at length free to mpoHtica.
seek election in the State assemblies and some found ear-mark
their way to the Congress of 1783.^ A committee, fo^th^*^
upon which Hamilton and Madison had found seats, JJ^TdS,^^
prepared a scheme under which certain taxes imposed
by the States were to be ear-marked for the service of
the national debt.
Hamilton, however, had no confidence in the Futiiiiyof
efficacy of this scheme, for he saw clearly that any JSuch ^*
system under which Congress must depend upon the o^n^^Mthe
States for its revenue would assuredly fail, for the F]!®^*®*"
^ mdiviaaals
obvious reason that payment could only be enforced foreseen by
if Congress were prepared to make war on a defaulting *â„¢^
State. Congress, however, could not make war with-
out the assent of the other States, so that to enforce
the payment of revenues meant that Congress had to
persuade some States to make war on others. It was
idle to argue that by an *' irrevocable contract ' the
States had plighted their word to meet the requisitions
of Congress. Experience had conclusively proved
that partial or total failure to meet these requisitions
was the rule rather than the exception. So long as
the Articles of Confederation denied the central
authority all power to collect revenue from the
citizens themselves, Congress could effect nothing
without first inciting civil war between the component
States. * Power,' as Hamilton remarked, * without
revenue in political society is a name.' ^ Not merely
Congress, but the American citizen himself, was placed
^ Marshall, Tht Life of Washington^ vol. v. pp. 39-40.
* Alexander Hamilton, Worla, vol. L P. 262.
582 THE AMERICAN COMMON WEALTH
CHAP, in an impossible position by this claim of the States
to an exclusive power of taxation. Suppose that
Congress should succeed in persuading States who
had contributed their shares to coerce States who had
violated the compact, what then was the duty of
honest citizens in the latter who objected to national
repudiation ? If civil war were to follow, where was
the loyalty of such citizens due ? To Congress which
was endeavouring to discharge, or to the State which
was determined to ignore, the national obligations ?
If, in such a contingency, obedience was due to
Congress, what then became of the claim advanced
by the State to the unlimited devotion of its citizens,
for nothing less than that was implied in sovereignty ?
Americans found themselves in the same predicament
as the lonians had done in that first fatal experiment
in the structure of a counterfeit state. ^ The Con-
federation, Uke that of Delos, was one which imposed
a dual allegiance and exacted from citizens an equi-
vocal loyalty. It was the product of minds which
had never faced the inexorable question whether the
ultimate obedience of the American was due to his
State or to the United States. In other words, was
America to be a state at all and to acquire the
stability which statehood alone can give, or was it to
be no more than an aUiance of sovereign states, which
from its nature could not be otherwise than temporary
and soluble, however loudly its founders might assert
it to be permanent in the terms of the contract ? If
America was indeed to achieve statehood, the revolted
colonies might continue as States in name but must
cease to be states in fact. The right to make
unlimited calls on the revenues and property of the
citizens must be surrendered to the United States,
and in that Commonwealth there must be some
organ through which it could call upon individual
^ See above pp. 43-6.
THB JMJSBOOAV COMlfaNWRALTfl: 683
citizens not merely to satisfy its claims, but to aid to chap.
the full extent of their lives and property in enforcing
that claim on their fellow-citizens. Whether the
United States could e3:]3t as a commonwealth would
depend, not upon the consent of all Americans then
or afterwards, but upon whether a su£Scient number
of Americans could be found to respond to the calL
This, translated into concrete terms, meant, as
Hamilton perceired, that Congress must not only be
able to tax the individual citizen, but must likewise
be competent to call upon him to oblige individual
defaulters to pay their taxation. Its executions must
issue, not against States, but individuals. Hamilton
moved, therefore, in Congress, as an additional* amend-
ment to the eighth article of the Confederation, ' that
the taxes, for the use of the continent, should be laid
and levied separate from any other tax, and should
be paid directly into the national treasury ; and that
the collectors respectively should be liable to an
execution to be issued by the treasurer, or his deputy,
under the direction of Congress, for any arrears of
taxes by him to be collected, which should not be
paid into the treasury in conformity with the
requisitions of Congress.' ^
Congress, however, was too completely the creature The scheme
of the States to accept such a motion. The best that congress ^
it could be got to do was to adopt in an emasculated Ha^rton's
form the committee's scheme for ear-marking taxes, amendment.
_ • AnnftRi to
This scheme was then forwarded to the States together the statet
with a report, which concluded in the following words : thepinapie
*No instance has heretofore occurred, nor can any ^q-JJ^JJj'
instance be expected hereafter to occur, in which the
unadulterated forms of republican government can
pretend to so fair an opportunity of justifying them-
selves by their fruits. In this view, the citizens of
the United States are responsible £t>r the greatest
^ Marshall, The Lift of fFa^ingUn^ rol y, |k 41, note.
584 THB AMERICAN 0OMMOHW8ALTH
CHAP, trust ever confided to a political society. If justice,
good &ith, honour, gratitude, and all the other good
qualities which ennoble the character of a nation,
and fulfil the ends of governnient, be the firuits of
our establislunents, the cause of liberty will acquire
a dignity and lustre which it has never yet enjoyed :
and an example will be set, which cannot but have
the most favourable influence on the rights of man-
kind. If, on the other side, our governments should
be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of these
cardinal and essential virtues, the great cause which
we have engaged to vindicate will be dishonoured
and betrayed, the last and fairest experiment in
favour of the rights of human nature will be turned
against them, and their patrons and Mends exposed
to be insulted and sUenoed by the votaries of tyranny
and usurpation.' ^
Waahinff- The Subsequent failure of the French to justify
addroffi%n their &eedom, which in England delayed electoral
hlaoffi^ in ^eform some forty years, and in Europe led to the
rapport of Holy Alliance, has since proved the gravity of this
warning. The principle of the commonwealth itself
was at stake, and Washington seized the occasion of
his approaching resignation to review the political
June 1783. situation in a circular letter addressed to the State
governors. ^An indissoluble union of the States
under one federal head' was, he assured them,
essential, not merely to the well-being but also to the
independence of* the United States. Forbearing to
discuss the question whether it was necessary to
enlarge the existing powers of Congress, he warned
them that, unless the States suffered Congress to
exercise those powers which it was supposed to possess
under the Constitution, there was nothing before them
but anarchy and confusion. ' It is indispensable,' he
added, 'to the happiness of the individual states,
^ Marshall, The Life of Washinffton, vol. v. pp. 46-7.
THE AMBRIGAN GOMHOR WEALTH 585
that tliere should be lodged somewhere a supreme chap.
VIII
power, to regulate and govern the general concerns of ._^^^.
the confederated republic, without which the union
cannot be of long duration. ... It is only in our
united character that we are known as an empire;
that oar independance is acknowledged; that our
power can be regarded, or our credit supported among
foreign nations. The treaties of the European powers
with the United States of America will have no
validitj on a dissolution of the Union. ' We sheJl be
left nearly in a state of nature, or we may find, by
our own unhappy experience, that there is a natural
and necessary progression from the extreme of anarchy
to the extreme of tyranny ; and that arbitrary power
is most easily established on the ruins of liberty
abused to licentiousness.' ^ By hard experience this
plain Virginian gentleman had rediscovered truths
enunciated by the greatest of the Greeks,^ and was
expressing them almost in the same words. But for
his own selfless and unwearying pursuit of the ideals
which he had drawn his sword to vindicate, those
truths would have been verified in America, as he
himself lived to see them verified in France.
Turning then to the failure of the States to fulfil vital defect
the compact embodied in the Articles of Confederation, stitationthe
he told them plainly that their will and not their gj^g^i^^
power to meet their obligations was questioned by ofwiiuiysing
.it by mere
^ the world, and warned them that the path which iniiction.
they were pursuing led straight towards moral and
financial bankruptcy. ' In what part of the continent
shall we find any man, or body of men, who would
not blush to stand up and propose measures purposely
calculated to rob the soldier of his stipend, and the
public creditor of his due?'* In this one sentence
^ Marshall) The Life of fFashingtont vol. v. pp. 64-6.
> Plato, lUpublic, Book VIII. § 662.
' Marshall, The Life of Washington, vol. v. p. 67.
586 THE AMBBIOAN GOMMONWRALTH
OHAP. he put his finder on the defect which vitiated the
VIII •
Articles of Confederatioiu* So long as the fblfilment
of their contract by the other States depended merely
on the principle of co-operation, repudiation of the
national liabilities could be brought about automati-
cally, without a single member of a single assembly
undertaking the odious task of proposing or defend-
ing such measures. Included in their debts, as he
reminded them, was the provision which they were
pledged to make for the m^i who had won their
independence. ' That provision should be viewed as
it really was, a reasonable compensation offered by
Congress, at a time when they had nothing else to
give, to the officers of the army, for services then to
be performed. It was the only means to prevent
a total dereliction of the service. It was a< part of
their hire. I may be allowed to say, it was the
price of their blood, and of your independance. It
is, therefore, more than a common debt ; it is a debt
of honour. It can never be considered as a pension,
or gratuity; nor be cancelled until it is fairly dis-
charged.' ^ For the non-commissioned officers and
privates disabled by active service he added a special
word of appeal. ' Nothing but a punctual payment
of their annual allowance can rescue them from the
most complicated misery ; and nothing could be a
more melancholy and distressing sight, than to behold
those who have shed their blood, or lost their limbs,
in the service of their country, without a shelter,
without a friend, and without the means of obtaining
any of the necessaries or comforts of life ; compelled
to beg their daily bread from door to door. Suffer
me to recommend those of this description, belonging
to your state, to the warmest patronage of your
excellency and your legislature.' *
1 Marshall, The Life of Washington, vol. v. pp. 59*00.
« lUd, pp. 61-2.
THE AMBRIOAK COMMONWEALTH 587
He next proceeded to emphasize the absolute chap.
necessity of securing uniformity in the organization
and equipment of the militia to be maintained by
the States in time of peace. How hopeless it was
to expect any such uniformity from the action of
thirteen separate governments, no one knew better
than himself, and in guarded words he went on to
tell them from his own experience how little the
principle of co-operation had contributed to the
achievement of their independence. * I could demon-
strate, to every mind open to conviction, that in
less time, and with much less expence, than has
been incurred, the war might have been brought to
the same happy conclusion, if the resources of the
continent could have been properly drawn forth ; that
the distresses and disappointments which have very
often occurred have, in too many histances, resulted
more from a want of energy in the continental govern-
ment than a deficiency of means in the particular
states ; that the inefficacy of measures, arising from
the want of an adequate authority in the supreme
power, from a partial compliance with the requisi-
tions of Congress in some of the states, and from a
failure of punctuality in others, while it tended to
damp the zeal of those which were more willing to
exert themselves, served also to accumulate the
expences of the war, and to frustrate the best-con<^
certed plans ; and that the discouragement occasioned
by the complicated difficulties and embarrassments
in which our affairs were by this means involved,
would have long ago produced the dissolution of any
army less patient, less virtuous, and less persevering,
than that which I have had the honour to command.' ^
The address ended with an appeal to principles which
in Wa3hington's view were the bedrock of political
society. *I now make it my earnest prayer, that
^ Marshall, The Life of WaskiiigUnu vol v. pp. 68-4.
588 THB AMERICAN GOMMOKWBALTH
CHAP. God . • . would incline the hearts of the citizens to
^^^^.^^^.^^ cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to
His views on govemment ; to entertain a brotherly affection and
theuitunato j^^^ £^^ ^^^ another, for their fellow-citizens of the
government. United Statcs at large, and particularly for their
brethren who have served in the field ; and, finally,
that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose
us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean
ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific
temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the
divine author of our blessed religion; without an
humble imitation of whose example in these things
we can never hope to be a happy nation.'^ Such
were the words in which one, who for eight years had
carried on his shoulders the destiny of a Common-
wealth greater than any that the world had yet seen,
chose to resign the charge it had laid upon him.
Washington had learned in the stem school of
responsibility that states are to be knit and the
principle of the commonwealth is to be realized only
by mutual sacri^ce, not by self-interest, however
intelligently realized, as exponents of the commercial
system had so long proclaimed to the world.
Washing- * The imprcssiou,' says Marshall, *made by this
^or^Ey* solemn and affecting admonition could not be sur-
and^^' passed. The circumstances under which it was given,
consequent added to the veueration with which it was received ;
l)ftnkniT)t<cv
of Oongress. and, like the counsel of a parent on whom the grave
is about to close for ever, it sunk deep into the hearts
of all. But, like the counsels of a parent withdrawn
from view, the advice was too soon forgotten, and
the impression it had made was too soon effaced.
^ The recommendations of Congress did not receive
that prompt consideration which the public exigence
demanded, nor did they meet that universal assent
^ For the full text of Washington's address see Marshall, The Life of
Washington, vol. v. pp. 48-65.
THE AMBRIOAK OOMMONWEALTH 589
which was necessary to give them eflfect' ^ In vain chap.
CJongress continued to urge their adoption. Its
requisitions, meantime, of revenues required for the
national administration *were annually repeated,
and were annually neglected. From the first of
'November, 1784, to the first of January, 1786, there
had been paid into the public treasury only 482,897 1^
dollars.' * The interest due on the public debt had
been partly met firom a fresh loan negotiated in
Holland by Adams, but when that was gone Congress,
unable to meet the interest upon it, became liable for
the first instalment of the principal. Continental
securities sank to one-eighth and eventually to one-
tenth of their nominal value. At length the Bevenue
Committee reported to Congress that any reliance on Feb. irse.
requisitions as a means of discharging the engage-
ments of the Confederacy must in future be regarded
as an insult to the creditors of the Union and a
danger to its peace and welfare. *" Under public
embarrassments," they added, "which were daily
increasing, it had become the duty to declare, most
explicitly, that the crisis had arrived, which the
people of the United States, by whose will, and for
whose benefit, the federal government was instituted,
must decide whether they will support their rank as
a nation, by mainteining the public faith at home and
abroad, or whether, for want of a timely exertion
in establishing a general revenue, and thereby giving
strength to the confederacy, they will hazard, not
only the existence of the IJnion, but of those great
and invaluable privileges for which they have so
arduously and so honourably contended."
*The revenue-system of the 18th of April, 1783,
was again solemnly recommended to the consideration
1 Marshall, The Life of Waahington^ vol. v. pp. 66-6.
' Ibid, vol. V. p. 68. In the five years following 1781 four requisitions
were ordered amounting in all to $15,870,987, of which $2,450,808 were paid.
590 THE AMIOUGAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, of the several states, and their unanimous and early
accession to it was declared to be the only measure
which could enable Congress to preserve the public
faith, and to avoid the fatal evils which will inevitably
flow from ^' a violation of those principles of justice,
which are the only solid basis of the honour and
prosperity of nations." ' *
Agreement Under the system proposed in April 1783, pro-
sti^^to vision had been made for a revenue sid£cient to meet
«>noede to the obligations of the Union to the full With this
Goiigress ^
the riffht end in view it had been found necessary to propose
customs, that certain internal taxes as well as customs should
New YorWT ^^ reserved to Congress. The expedient of dropping
the internal taxes, which the States were most un«
willing to surrender, was next tried, and in the course
of the year 1786 every State but one had agreed to
concede the customs. The Assembly of New York
refused to comply without making certain alterations
in the scheme, which were fatal to its efficacy. As
the recalcitrant attitude of one State suspended the
operations of the grants made by all the others,
Clinton, the Governor of New York, was requested
to convene the Assembly and to submit the matter
to them once more. Clinton refused, ' and thus was
finally defeated the laborious and persevering efi*ort
made by the federal government, to obtain from the
states the means of preserving, in whole or in part,
the faith of the nation.' ^
Comments ^ The private letters of that period abound with
toJ!^*Hi^^' passages, shewing the solicitude with which General
fears and Washington watched the progress of this recommenda-
hopes for o . , P , ^
the nation, tiou, and the chagrin with which he viewed the
obstacles to its adoption. In a letter of October,
1785, he said, "The war, as you have very justly
observed, has terminated most advantageously for
1 Marshall, The Life of WashingUn^ vol. v. pp. 70-1.
« tM. p. 78.
THE AMSBICAK COMMONWEALTH . 591
America, and a fair field is presented to our view ; chap.
but I confess to you freely, my dear sir, that I do
not think we possess wisdom or justice enough to
cultivate it properly. Illiberality, jealousy, and local
policy, mix too much in all our public councils, £ot
the good government of the Union. In a word, the
confederation appears to me to be little more than
a shadow without the substance, and Congress a
nugatory body, their ordinances being little attended
to. — To me it is a solecism in politics, — indeed it is
one of the most extraordijiary things in nature, that
we should confederate as a nation, and yet be afraid
to give the rulers of that nation, who are the creatures
of our own making, appointed for a limited and a
short duration, and who are amenable for every
action, recallable at any moment, and subject to
all the evils which they may be instrumental in
producing, sufficient powers to order and direct the
affairs of the same. By such policy as this, the
wheels of government are clogged, and our brightest
prospects, and that high expectation which was en*
tertained of us by the wondering world, are turned
into astonishment; and, from the high ground on
which we stood, we are descending into the vale of
confusion and darknes&
* " That we have it in our power to become one of
the most respectable nations upon earth admits, in
my humble opinion, of no doubt ; if we would but
pursue a wise, just, and liberal policy towards one
another, and would keep good faith with the rest of
the world. That our resources are ample and increas-
ing, none can deny ; but while they are grudgingly
applied, or not applied at all, we give a vital stab to
public faith, and will sink, in the eyes of Europe,
into contempt." ' ^ Washington, however, never quite
despaired of his countrymen. * People,' as he said,
' Marshall, The Life of fFashington, vol. v. pp. 73-4.
592
TEU AMSRICAK OOlDCOirWKALTH
CHAP.
vni
May 1786.
Stipulation
of the Peace
of Paris
ignored bj
tne States.
Justice of
Britain's
refusal to
evacuate
American
territory
admitted
by Jay and
Washington.
Stability of
the State
Govern-
ments
threatened
by the
prevailing
anarchy.
The
foundations
of liberty as
conceived
* mnst fed before they will see ; eonseqiieiitlyy they
are brought slowly into measures of public utility.
Past experience, or the admonition of a few, have but
little weight. But evils of this nature work their own
cure, though the remedy comes slower than comports
with the wishes of those who foresee, or think they
foresee, the danger/ ^
'The discerning part of the community,' he
wrote, ' have long since seen the necessity of giving
adequate powers to Congress for national purposes,
and those of a different description must yield to it
ere long/ *
By the Peace of Paris America had contracted
obligatioQS other than those due to her creditors,
which the States had ignored. By the fourth article
of that agreement they were bound to remove every
impediment to the recovery of bona fide debts (owed
by Americans to British subjects), and some of them .
had passed laws in flagrant disregard of this obliga-
tion.' The British Grovemment declined therefore to
evacuate posts which they still occupied in American
territory when the peace was signed. Jay, the
candid Secretary for Foreign Affairs, reported to
Washington that the States had violated the treaty.
*Had we observed good faith on our part,' wrote
Washington, ' we might have told our tale to the
world with a good grace, but complaints ill become
those who are found to be the first aggressors.' ^
Events meantime had been going from bad to
worse. * Enormous opinions which confound liberty
with an exemption from legal controul ' were abroad
in men's minds, producing * a state of things which
alarmed all reflecting men, and demonstrated to
many the indispensable necessity of clothing govern-
ment with powers sufficiently ample for the protection
1 Marshall, Tht Lift of Washington, vol. v. p. 98.
« IHd. p. 87. » Ibid. p. 99. * Ibid. p. 99.
THB AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 593
of the rights of the peaceable and quiet, fix)m the chap.
invasions of the licentious and turbulent part of the ^^^^
community.' * The authority not merely of Congress by jav
but of the States themselves was threatened with fn^"*"'
dissolution. As Jay wrote to Washington, * Privajbe June 27,
rage for property, suppresses public considerations, ^ ^^'
and personal rather than national interests have
become the great objects of attention. Representa-
tive bodies will ever be faithful copies of their
originals, and generally exhibit a chequered assemblage
of virtue and vice, of abilities and weakness. The
mass of men are neither wise nor good, and the virtue,
like the other resources of a country, can only be
drawn to a point, by strong circumstances ably
managed, or strong governments ably administered.' *
*Your sentiments,' replied Washington, 'that our
affairs are drawing rapidly to a crisis, accord with
my own. What the event will be is also beyond
the reach of my foresight. We have errors to correct ;
we have probably had too good an opinion of human
nature in forming our confederation. Experience has
taught us, that men will not adopt and carry into
execution measures the best calculated for their own
good, without the intervention of coercive power. I
do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, with-
out lodging somewhere a power which will pervade
the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the
authority of the state governments extends over the
several states. To be fearful of investing Congress,
constituted as that body is, with ample authorities,
for national purposes, appears to me the very climax
of popular absurdity and madness. . . . We must
take human nature as we find it: perfection falls
not to the share of mortals. Many are of opinion,
that Congress have too frequently made use of the
1 Marshall, The Life of Washington, vol. v. p. 130.
« Ibid. pp. 10910.
2 Q
594 THE AMERIOAK COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, suppliant humble tone of requisition, in applications
to the states, when they had a right to assert their
imperial dignity, and command obedience. Be that
as it may, requisitions are a perfect nullity, where
thirteen sovereign, independant, disunited states, are
in the habit of discussing, and refusing or complying
with them at their option. Requisitions are actually
little better than a jest, and a by-word throughout
the land. If you tell the legislatures they have
violated the treaty of peace, and invaded the pre-
rogatives of the confederacy, they will laugh in your
face. What then is to be done ? Things cannot go
on in the same train for ever. It is much to be
feared, as you observe, that the better kind of people,
being disgusted with these circumstances, will have
their minds prepared for any revolution whatever.
We are apt to run from one extreme into another.
To anticipate and prevent disastrous contingencies
would be the part of wisdom and patriotism. What
astonishing changes a few years are capable of pro-
ducing I I am told that even respectable characters
speak of a monarchical form of government without
horror ! From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to
acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable
and tremendous ! What a triumph for our enemies,
to verify their predictions! What a triumph for
the advocates of despotism, to find that we are
incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems
founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal
and fallacious! Would to God that wise measures
may be taken in time to avert the consequences we
have but too much reason to apprehend.' ^
Waahing. . The experience of creating a commonwealth from
i^n its raw materials had taught Washington the principle
°^j^jj' of its structure* More thoroughly than some of his
Freeman, modem admircrs he had learned how freedom differs
^ Marshall, The Life of Washington, vol y. pp.* 110-18.
THE AMERICAN OOMMONWEALTH 595
from anarchy. Exactly a century later, the anni- ohap.
versary of his own birthday was chosen for airing ,,.^,,,.^^,,.^
the ^enormous opinion' which Washington was
combating in these letters.^ If Freeman had seen,
as his hero had done, society dissolving into its
primitive elements, he would scarcely have drifted
into talking as though the enforcement . of unwilling
subjects were the feature which distinguished empires
from commonwealths. Eleven turbulent years had
taught Washington and his associates that because
unwilling subjects are and always will be a fact to be
reckoned with, a commonwealth armed with dominion
and competent to enforce it is the essential condition
of freedom. *We imagined,' he wrote in August, • 'irse.
' that the mildness of the government and the virtue
of the people were so correspondent, that we were
not as other nations, requiring brutal force to support
the laws. But we find that we are men, actual men,
possessing all the turbulent passions belonging to
that animal, and that we must have a government
proper and adequate for him. Men of reflection and
principle are determined to endeavour to establish a
government which shall have the power to protect
them in their lawfril pursuits, and which will be
efficient, in cases of internal commotions or foreign
invasions. They mean that liberty shall be the
basis ; — a liberty resulting from the equal and firm
administration of the laws.' ^
The closing words of this letter are a reference to
measures which were now in train for giving efi'ect
^ See extract from Professor Fi-eeman's address delivered in 1886 on
Washington's birthday, printed above, pp. 227-8. * That this now familiar
name of '^Empire" expresses a fact, and a mighty fact, none can doubt.
The only doubt that can be raised is whether the fkct of Empire is a whole-
some one. . . . Empire is dominion ; it implies subjects ; the name may even
suggest unwilling subjects.' A study of Washington's papers should have
shown Freeman that he could iiardly have selected a theme less appropriate
to the occasion.
' Marshall, The Life of WoBkingUmy vol. v. p. 184.
596 THE AMERICAN COMMOKWEALTH
CHAP, to the principleB here set forth. The story has been
VIII
brilliaDtly told by Hamilton's latest biographer.
KamtiTe * In the early spring of 1785 a modest but memor-
^ ^' able meeting took place at Washington's country
under the ®^* ^^ Mouut Vemou, between representatives from
gjidance the states of Maryland and Virginia. The occasion
ington was a coniercnce m regard to waterways between the
Mociates ^Astem Settlements and the western unpeopled land
ol^nUon ^y^^S ^^ *^^ valley of the Ohio and to the north-west
of Phu- The greater portion of these vast territories had been
cjsded to the Federal Government by the various
states who claimed them under their charters, or by
virtue of a nominal occupation. To the south North
Carolina stretched out in a wide strip to the banks
of the Mississippi. Her western population, being
something more than nominal, had refused to be
included in the cession, and after an unsuccessful
effort to form themselves into a separate state under
the name of Frankland, had been compelled to return
to their old allegiance.
* The development of the western country was one
of the great dreams of Washington's life. He foresaw
the importance of these possessions at a time when
few men were willing to give them much thought.
They were the fruits of the great policy of the elder
Pitt, in which, as a youthful soldier, Washington
had borne a distinguished part. What the Treaty of
Paris in 1763 had secured to Britain, another Treaty
of Paris in 1783 had divided between Britain and
the victorious colonists. This rich inheritance it was
his fixed determination to weld into the confederacy.
By speech and correspondence he had pressed the
matter upon his fellow -citizens even before peace
had actually been signed ; and throughout the whole
of the turbulent period which ensued he continued
to urge the need for development, and for the firm
attachment of this estate to the rest of the Union.
THE AMEBIC AN COMMONWEALTH 597
When these means proved inadequate, being a -chap,
practical man, he founded a joint-stock company to
open up communications.
*Even the peculiar advantages of this territory
appeared to Washington to contain some not in-
considerable dangers. The splendid waterways of
the Mississippi and its tributary streams were not
an unmixed advantage, seeing that the mouth and
the lower reaches were in the hands of Spain, who
also extended a shadowy claim to the whole western
bank and to the unknown region beyond. The easiest
course for the new settlers was to drift their produce
down the broad current to New Orleans, and the
dread of Washington was lest this tendency might
induce "a habit of trade" with a foreign power;
an intimacy and a mutual interest which in the end
might lead to a detachment from the Union. Con-
sequently, at a time when the chief matter of political
anxiety with regard to the western lands was the
menace by Spain against the free navigation of the
Mississippi, he was more concerned to develop the
natural trade routes from east to west by clearing
the waterways of the James, the Potomac, and the
Ohio, and by the construction of a system of supple-
mentary canals.
' It was for the adjustment of certain differences,
and to procure the co-operation of the two states,
whose sympathies had already been enlisted in this
enterprise, that the meeting took place at Mount
Vernon in March 1785. As the delegates had come
together in a business-like and peaceful spirit, other
matters of mutual interest were brought tactfully
under discussion — the advantages of a uniform
currency and system of duties ; the need for a general
cohesion and mutual support among the confederated
states. Under the spell of a great character prejudice
was for the moment forgotten, and invitations were
398 THE AMKBIGAir OOMMOHWEALTH
.CHAP. iiSBued to Pennsylvania and Delaware to join in the
VIII . • .
diBcnssioiL But good feeling expanded even further
— once started on the couise of reason it was easy
to urge it forward — ^and it was nltimatelj dedded to
propose to all the thirteen states that in the antnmn
of the following year (1786) they should meet at
Annapolis to discuss the whole commercial situation.
^ Before this date arrived the paper panacea had
been pricked/ and Shays's rebellion was in full blast.
In addition, the disputes with Spain about the free
navigation of the Mississippi had come to a head.
Threats of the confiscation of American ships pre-
suming to enter the lower waters had been foUowed
up by action. The southern states were in a flame
of indignation. Their northern neighbours were
apathetic. The problems of the Mississippi did not
touch their interests at any vital point. On the
contrary, they desired nothing so much as a good
understanding with Spain, for they had hopes that
in this quarter their courtship might not be despised,
and that a commercial treaty might at last be signed.
All this pother about free navigation for the sake of
a few backwoodsmen seemed to them to indicate a
lack of the sense of proportion. Jay at the Foreign
Office took this view of the matter, and, as a com-
promise, advised Congress to consent to close the
river to free navigation for a period of twenty-five
years. The southern states were in no mood for
such concessions, and threatened that if Jay's proposal
were accepted they would secede and return to the
British allegiance. The New England states, with
an equal vivacity, threatened secession unless the
recommendation were confirmed. The crisis was
averted only by an indefinite postponement; New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Kbode Island siding with
the South.
^ The reference is to the collapse of the paper currency.
THB AMESIGAN COMMON WSALTH 699
' The convention of Annapolis, thongli it met in ohap.
stirring times, was but a thin congregation. Only ^"^
five of the states appointed commissioners who
attended; four appointed commissioners who did
not attend, and the remaining four did not appoint
commissioners at all. The last class included Mary-
land, which had joined in issuing the invitation ;
but what was more than all the rest. New York was
represented by Hamilton, and Hamilton ruled the
convention. . . .
^In the short session at Annapolis it became
evident to the delegates, under the searching analysis
of Hamilton, that the only remedy for the evils
affecting trade must be look^ for in broad constitu-
tional changes which their limited commissions gave
•them no authority to discuss. Under the influence
of his vigorous spirit the convention had a remarkable
result; for out of its unanimous conclusion that it
could do nothing great things came to pass.
^ Hamilton drafted an address which, after much
modification, was adopted. . . . The address con-
cluded by recommending that '^ the states by which
they have been respectively delegated would concur
themselves, and use their endeavours to procure the
concurrence of the other states in the appointment
of commissioners to meet at Philadelphia on the
second Monday in May next, to take into considera-
tion the situation of the United States, to devise such
further provisions as shall appear to them necessary
to render the constitution of the Federal Government
c^deqiLate to the exigencies of the Union J* ' ^
As indicated in this narrative, an outbreak of washing-
anarchy in New England was threatening the existence ^mments
of the State Governments themselves. Tumultuous ©n the
meetings were held which denounced the compensation that his
promised tcr the oflScers of the army, payment of taxes,
> Oliver, The Life if Al^ioander HamiUtm, pp. 187*42.
600 THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, and the administration of justice, and called for a
VIII • .
^^^^.^^^^^^ depreciated currency as a relief from the pressure of
personal pubUc and private burdens. Colonel Lee wrote to
should be *^U Washington that a proposal was on foot that
n^tein Cougrcss should iuvitc him to visit the disturbed
oi-derinNew districts, in ordcr that his influence might tranquillize
^-«'^''^- them. « In one ward, my dear general, we are aU in
dire apprehension that a beginning of anarchy, with
all its calamities, is made, and we have no means to
stop the dreadful work. Knowing your unbounded
influence, and believing that your appearance among
the seditious might bring them back to peace and
reconciliation, individuals suggest the propriety of an
invitation to you from Congress to pay us a visit.
This is only a surmise, and I take the liberty to
mention it to you, that, should the conjuncture of
affairs induce Congress to make this request, you may
have some previous time for reflection on it.' ^ Thus
had Americans learned to lean upon one man, trusting
to his strength to redress the feebleness of their own
system. *The picture which you have exhibited,'
replied the general, ' and the accounts which are
published of the commotions and temper of numerous
bodies in the eaatem country, present a state of
things equally to be lamented and deprecated. They
exhibit a melancholy verification of what our trans-
atlantic foes have predicted ; and of another thing,
which, perhaps, is still more to be regretted, and is
yet more unaccountable, that mankind, when left to
themselves, are unfit for their own government. I
am mortified, beyond expression, when I view the
clouds which have spread over the brightest mom
that ever dawned upon any country. In a word,
I am lost in amazement, when I behold what intrigue,
the interested views of desperate characters, ignorance
and jealousy of the minor part, are capable of effecting,
Marshall, The Life of Washington, vol. v. p. 137.
THE AM££IGAK COMMONWEALTH 601
as a scourge on the major part of our fellow-citizens chap.
of the Union ; for it is hardly to be supposed, that ^"^
the great body of the people, though they will not
act, can be so short-sighted, or enveloped in darkness,
as not to see rays of a distant sun through all this
mist of intoxication and foUy.
*You talk, my good Sir, of employing influence
to appease the present tumults in Massachusets. I
know not where that influence is to be found ; nor, if
attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for these
disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have
a government, by which our lives, liberties, and
properties, will be secured, or let us know the worst
at once/^ These were conditions which even the
Grovernment of Massachusetts was now ceasing to
realize, for its Treasury was unable to find funds
sufficient to keep the State-militia in the field for
a week. Money was presently subscribed by GU)vemor
Bowdoin and some wealthy Bostonians, enough to
equip forces which in the coarse of the winter crushed
the rebellion after several engagements.
In all the States but Bhode Island the politicians Kew
were now thoroughly frightened, and agreed to the ^u(»d^^^
proposed Convention for revising the whole system pj^^^i j^j^
of government. In May their delegates assembled at Convention.
Philadelphia under the presidency of Washington, tionandtiie
who had come to represent Virginia. The draft of S'^^*'''''
the Constitution, under which the people of the ^^®™^
United States of America have since been governed, ment.
was signed in the following September. Its authors Sept. 17,
advised that Congress should refer it to conventions ^ ^ *
of delegates in each State specially chosen for the
purpose, and should bring the Constitution into force
when nine States had accepted it. This was done,
and within a year Congress was able to declare that
the new Constitution was ratified, and to arrange for
1 Marshall, The Life of Washington, vol. v. pp. 137-8.
602 THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, elections. ^ In the following year Congress was elected,
^^^ZJ^ and Washington unanimously chosen as President
1789. On April 30 he took the oath and assumed office in
New York.
The principles and methods of the commercial
The system had first divided the British Commonwealth,
^'con^ and then threatened to reduce the part cut off into
federation a heap of ruius. Its traditions had inspired the
contrasted *.-, n rn r -t • i -i* ^ t-
with the Articles of Confederation adopted m 1781, and it
station o° was only by discarding them that the Convention
Stet^"^*^^ of Philadelphia had framed a Constitution under the
provisions of which the people of the thirteen colonies
achieved the essentials of statehood. A comparison
of the two documents will show why the one succeeded
where the other failed. The Articles of Confederation
had begun by postulating the sovereignty of the
several States.^ Article II. reads as follows : * Each
State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independ-
ence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which
is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to
the United States in Congress assembled.* This was
a postulate, and it was followed by a tacit assump-
tion, for as Article III. declared, *The said States
hereby severally enter into a firm league of friend-
ship with each other, for their common defence, the
security of their liberties, and their mutual and
general welfare, binding themselves to assist each
other against all force offered to, or attacks made
upon them, or any of them, on account of religion,
sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.'
It was here assumed not only that these mutual
interests were permanent but also that they would
always in future be recognized as such. For in
Article XIII., the final and operative clause of the
contract, these sovereign States covenanted to endorse
^ See Note D at end of this chapter, p. 660.
^ See Note at end of this chapter, p. 658.
THK AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 603
resolutions of Confinress passed from time to time in chap.
• VIII
accordance with powers assigned to it, and promised
to abide by the Articles of Confederation. * Every
State shall abide by the determinations of the
United States in Congress assembled, on all ques-
tions which by this Confederation are submitted
to them. And the Articles of this Confederation
shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the
Union shall be perpetuaV ^
In using the word sovereignty without realizing inherent
what was involved in it, the authors of this document ^^l
had failed to see that this thirteenth Article was in ^S^f ®^
Confedera-
conflict with the second. The essence of sovereignty, tion due
,.,.,. , . -11 to a failure
whether vested m a monarch or a sovereign assembly, to grasp
is legal onmipotence. A sovereign is no abstraction, ^f g^J*^^^
but must always consist of one or more human beings, ^^^y ^^^
â– ' . *^ ita con-
What reason is to the body, that sovereignty is to sequences.
the slate — the nerve-power created to apprehend the
vicissitudes of life, and, in order to guide the body
corporate through them, charged with the widest
possible authority over all its resources. Sovereignty
can recognize no higher authority than itself without
destroying its own attributes. Ab its claim to com-
mand the resources of the community is unlimited,
so is its judgment unfettered in deciding how far
that claim is to be exercised, to what extent the
resources of the state are to be evoked, and how they
are to be directed. Sovereignty is legal omnipotence
vested in certain persons for the time being. But
their legal omnipotence is yet limited by the fact
that they themselves are creatures of a day. Sooner
or later they will pass and be gone, and what they
have done the future custodians of legal omnipotence
can undo. The one thing which from its nature
sovereignty cannot do with effect is to bind itself.
The one thing which sovereigns cannot do, despite
1 See p. 669.
604 THB AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, their legal omnipotence, is legally to bind their
successors. Hence the inherent infirmity of treaties
and of all political structures raised on the foundation
of compact. The men who sat in the assemblies of
1781 failed to see that if the pledge they were giving
in Article XIII. was valid at all it must deprive their
successors of freedom to be guided by their own
judgment when selecting, in the light of future and
unforeseeable events, the course to be followed in the
interests of their State. Such a pledge, if really
operative, was fetal to the sovereignty postulated in
Article II. The legislatures of 1781 were, in fact,
presuming to decree by their votes that their
successors should cast their votes, not in accordance
with the interests of their several States as seen
by those successors, but in accordance with those
interests as seen once for all by the authors of the
contract in 1781. As events proved, their successors
refused to be so bound, and consequently the States
failed to * abide hy the determinations of the United .
States in Congress assembled.' The Articles for the
Confederation were not * inviolably observed by every
Staiey with the result that in a few years a union
which purported to * be perpetual ' seemed * ready to
fall upon the heads of those who had made it and to
crush them beneath its ruins.' ^
The truth, * It has uot a little contributed,' wrote Hamilton,
8tate*can. * ^ the infirmities of the existing federal system, that
of steteT^ it never had a ratification by the people. Resting
but only on uo better foundation than the consent of the
appre-' scvcral legislatures, it has been exposed to frequent
Hamilton^ *^^ intricate questions concerning the validity of
its powers, and has, in some instances, given birth
to the enormous doctrine of a right of legislative
repeal. Owing its ratification to the law of a State,
it has been contended that the same authority might
1 HamUton, The Federalist, No. XV. p. 91.
THB AMERIGAN'gOMHONWEALTH 605
repeal the law by which it was ratified. However chap.
gross a heresy it may be to maintain that a party to ^^^
a compact has a right to revoke that compc^t^ the
doctrine itself has had respectable advocates. The
possibility of a question of this nature proves the
necessity . of laying the foundations of our national
government deeper than in the mere sanction of
delegated authority. The fabric of American empire
ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent
OF THE PEOPLE. The Streams of national power
ought to flow immediately from that pure, original
fountain of all legitimate authority.' ^ Hamilton was
here feeling his way to the truth. The stability of a
union is determined far less by the exact method of
its ratification than its authors are apt to suppose.
Popular assent, however, was important as a practical
recognition of the basic principle, which Hamilton
demonstrated, that a state cannot be made of states
but only of citizens.
The Confederation of 1781 was, in fact, the kind why a
of attempt to square political circles which men notbT"
always make when they are ignoring the inexorable ^^p^^"
conditions of freedom and scheming to evade them, but only
The structure it set up was a sham state, the counter- individual
part of those so-called empires which led to the ofcmzens.
destruction of Greece and distracted the people of
Germany for a thousand years. Its legally minded
authors had fEdled to realize that compacts are only
irrevocable in so far as they are subject to one
sovereignty capable of enforcing them. It is that
immutable quality in a state, that essential per-
manence distinguishing it not in degreee, Hbut in kind,
from all other types of association, which enables it
to secure that men shall keep their promises, or, in
other words to turn compacts into contracts. The
state cannot derive from compacts the immutable
^ Hamilton, Hie FedenUistf p. 185.
606
THE AMEBIGAK OOMMOKWEALTH
CHAP.
VIII
How the
foregoing
principles
were em-
bodied
in the
present
Gonstita-
tion of the
United
States.
quality which it gives to contracts. In humaQ
affairs the only enduring bond is one by which men
are united in all respects by an unlimited devotion,
severally yielded to a single state. It is only by
virtue of the fiEtct that men are so bound to the state
in all things that they can bind each other by con*
tract in some things. The state itself cannot cohere
unless it contains a sufficient number of members so
deeply actuated by a sense of duty to their fellow-
citizens, present and future, as to be ready to sacrifice
everything to maintain the common authority. This
imposing structure was tottering because its founda-
tions were laid in the quicksands of compact, and
had not been carried right down to the bedrock of
individual dedication.
It was this principle which inspired the Constitu-
tion under which the people of the United States
of America at length realized the conditions of a
commonwealth. The language in which it opens is
not that of contract but of dedication. 'Ws, the
PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a
more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquillity, provide for the common Defence, pro-
mote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain
and establish this constitution for the United
States of America/ The same principle was observed
in the method chosen for the enactment of the
Constitution, for the Convention resolved: 'That it
should be submitted to a convention of delegates,
chosen in each State by the people thereof ... for
their assent and ratification.' It was the electorates
of these thirteen States and not their executives or
legislatures who created a national Govenmient in
1788, and transferred to it from their own State
Governments such powers as it would require to fulfil
the national tasks assigned to it, the power 'to
THE AMSfilCAN OOHMON WEALTH 607
provide for calling forth the militia to execute the chap.
laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel ^"^
invasions/ ^To declare war/ 'to raise and support
armies/ 'to provide and maintain a navy/ and 'to
levy and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to
pay the debts, and provide for the common defence
and general welfare of the United States/
Whenever the way to freedom runs up-hill men Principle
have often tried some by-path across lower ground, aeni^^n
only to lose themselves in thickets and swamps. It ^J^by^*
was thus with the lonians when they failed in the Edward i.
^ "^ Ignored
Synod of Delos to realize a genuine system of repre- in the
sentation. When inviting his people to send confedera-
representatives to meet him, Edward I. had marked ^c^^
the true path by warning them that their delegates J^ *^«
' are to have full and sufficient power for themselves tion of
1788
and for the community . . . there and then, for doing
what shall be ordained ... so that the aforesaid
business shall not remain unfinished in any way for
defect of this power/ * Herein was the inexorable
condition of representative government, a law
ordained by necessity and merely enunciated by
Edward I. His now famous writ reads like the
direction on an ancient signpost obscured by the
lapse of centuries, but at last uncovered by the
iBd^try of modem researcL In framing the
Articles of Confederation the Americans had missed
it and had wandered down the easier road. Happily
for them, however, they had listened in time to the
warnings of Washington and the Federaliste, and in
accepting the Constitution of Philadelphia had re-
sumed the steeper and less obvious path up which
Edward 1. had led their ancestors five hundred years
before*
In framing that Constitution, however, they them-
selves were pointing the way to a higher freedom, to a
^ See aboye, pp. 100-101.
608 THE AMERICAN OOMMONWEALTH
CHAP, wider application of the principle of the common-
,^^^^^^^^^ wealth. That system of government first began in
How the Greece when neighbours who gathered in one market-
onh? place had learned how to focus their experience into
Constitu^ laws, and to endure any sacrifice needed to make them
tion them- prevail To these founders of freedom it seemed in-
opened conccivablc that a commonwealth could ever include
a further^ citizcns morc than could be collected in one place and
of^he^°" join in one discussion.^ That prediction was falsified
principle whcu the English device of representation had made
common- it possiblc for much wider communities united by a
wealth. sense of race to focus their experience into lawa
The There were limits to the area which could be govemed
^fofa ^J an assembly of representatives gathered at one
w^^"^ point ; but those limits were not, as Burke believed,
noio^er permanently fixed by the obstacle of mere space.
by the Problems of distance required for their solution im-
fcuy provements rather in the sphere of mechanics than
of collect- ^f politics, and to-day it would be easier for
ing in one jt » ./
assembly representatives from both sides of the Atlantic to
senutives meet than it was for representatives from the opposite
ywtoliu extremities of England in the days of Edward I.
Under modern conditions of travel there would be
no insuperable difficulty in collecting an assembly from
the Airthest limits of the globe, and the time will
arrive when the difficulty will have ceased to exist
Inexorable The time, howcvcr, will never arrive when one
^^ assembly could attempt to enact all the l^islation
capacity required from day to day by the various sections of
Pariia- the humau race, for the collective capacity of one
trans- ^^ legislature for transacting business is a factor which
b^iness. mcchauical inventions can do little to increase. The
work its members can get through is not so much
limited by the time they must take in travelling to a
common centre, as by the time at their disposal when
they are convened. With a jurisdiction no larger
^ See above, pp. 25-6.
ion
common-
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 609
than England, Parliament in the Middle Ages had chap.
been obliged to pass laws applicable only to the ^,^^^,,^^^^^
peculiar conditions of particular localities, and the Need of
growing complexity of civihzation has further j^i^t
increased the need for diflferential legislation. The ^^^^^
^5 commc
legislative wants of a community like Athens, wealth
smaller in population and scarcely larger in area than At^Dt.
some modem municipalities, could all be satisfied by
uniform legislation. But as soon as the device of re*
presentation had rendered possible the existence of
commonwealths on a national scale this ceased to be
so. If commonwealths larger and more populous than
England were to be realized, no single Parliament
could hope to grapple with the business of suiting the
laws in detail to the needs of various localities.
English society, however, with its power of adapt- How the
ing itself to new conditions had prepared the way for syXm of
a solution of this problem. This, as shown in previous ^o^^had
chapters,^ explains why the English plantations had pennitted
struck their roots so much more deeply, and grown de^e^^-
so much more freely than those of Spain or France. J^^f ^^
The English colonists had been left to work out for \^'
themselves a framework of society suited to the novel
conditions of soil and climate in which they found
themselves. American conditions differed from those of
Europe, and English colonists ^^re permitted to adapt
their organization to the difference. But the various
parts of North America differed from each other as
much as or more so than the various parts of Europe.
No society established on a perfectly uniform pattern
could possibly have suited a country which included
climates and soils more different than those which
are to be found between Finland and Sicily. It
would have been a fatal mistake, therefore, if, the first
colony having been established with a representative
assembly of its own in Virginia, every later settlement
1 See above, pp. 212-18, 804-5.
2r
610 THB AMEBICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, from New England to Georgia had been called on to
send representatives to that one central assembly.
Even if such an assembly could have been gathered,
it could never have found time to work out the
multitude of local enactments which were required to
suit the conditions of its highly various constitaentB.
As it was each settlement was happily allowed to
develop an assembly of its own, through which the
local experience could be collected and embodied in
statutes suited to the local conditions.
Central As thesc Communities grew their respective
menUn inhabitants came into touch with each other, and
common- t)egan to develop relations of a wider kind which
wealth there was no authority in America competent to
possible control The true conditions of liberty could not be
develop- ^ realized until the American people had acquired for
w*^^^ themselves an organ through which they could
author- coutrol thfise wider relations. Such an organ was
effectively created by the C!onstitution of 1788.
But if its authors had tried to impose on that central
organ the whole of the business at present transacted
by the States, they would have robbed the Common-
wealth of its present power of adapting its law to
local conditions. The bupden, moreover, placed on
the central organ would have been so heavy as to
impair its utility for national purposes. Not many
years would have passed before the same kind of
creeping paralysis, which is gradually enervating
the Imperial Parliament of the British Commonwealth,
would have overtaken it. The avoidance of this error
explains why the American Commonwealth has been
able to extend without either splitting into pieces or
losing its efficiency. When its Constitution was
framed the thirteen original States contained some
3,500^000 inhabitants of all races. Tb-day iii includes
some forty-eight States with an aggregate population
of more than 100,000,000 souls. Exponents of mere
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 611
centralization are for ever harpiufi: on the vices of chap.
VIII
the State legislatures as though they were bodies not
bad by comparison, but like Sodom and Gk)morrah
bad in themselves and past cure. In any state the
local organs, when dissected and viewed apart, nearly
always suffer by comparison with the organs of the
central government. What these critics forget,
however, is that in a great commonwealth it is the
presence of these local organs which alone renders
possible the existence of the central government. If
the State 'Governments were abolished as things too
rotten to reform, the government of all America
through the central organ at Washington would be
wholly impossible. The stomach, liver, and bowels,
as the anatomists know, are sadly defective organs ;
but without them the development of life would
never have passed the stage of the jelly-fish.
, The cause of liberty does not, indeed, depend upon This truth
the development of central governmente, nor yet upon SJ^*«^
the development of local authorities. In the last ^^J^e^^"^
analysis it must always depend upon the due develop- United
ment of both. A glance at the cooaditions of America
as they now are will best illustrate this truth. Let
it be supposed for a moment that the United States
were divided into forty-eight sovereign communities,
with no eommon organ through which the general
affairs of America might be rendered amenable to the
control of the people at large, such conditions would
mean that the people of North America would be as
much exposed to the interference and domination of
foreign powers as were the people of Germany, so
long as they remained divided into a multitude of
separate states. But they would ako be at the mercy
of vast commercial corporations, which, even as things
are, the powers of the Federal Government are
scarcely sufi&cient to control. The subdivision of the
American Commonwealth into forty-eight sovereign
612 THE AMERICAN (X>lUiONWEALTH
CHAP, states would in fact mean the subjection of the
VIII
y^,^.^.^^ people at large to a subtle and intangible network
of tyranny.
Let it now be supposed, on the other hand, that
the whole of these local legislatures were abolished
and that their powers were transferred to the central
government at Washington. It will be obvious
that in agriculture, education, and a large number
of matters, it would be mischievous in the extreme
if uniform laws were applied to districts so different
as those of Maine, California, Dakota, and Florida.
In theory, of course, a central legislature might, as
in England, pass local laws applicable to local con-
ditions, but in practice it will readily be seen that
no such legislature would have the time to digest
the necessary measures unless it broke itself up into
a large number of committees. But if this expedient
were adopted, the members of these local committees
would be so busily employed that they would have
no time in which to attend to the general concerns
of the Commonwealth as a whole. Congress, in a
word, would be unable to digest the reports of its
own multitudinous committees, and the same would
be true of the centtel Executive. The business
would have to be divided amongst so many officers
of ministerial rank that the Executive as a whole
would lose control of its component parts. In order
to correlate their work the President would need
more than a Napoleon's capacity for transacting
business.
The Herein lies the importance of the work accom-
l?d^?^" plished by the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. In
tributing ^jjg writs with which Edward I. had summoned the
functions
between Model Parliament he had stereotyped the principle
and local of representation. In like manner the Philadelphia
me^ti^ Convention in establishing the American Common-
hTth^^ wealth had stereotyped the principle of confining
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH ^ 613
the central government of the Commonwealth to chai^.
the management of such affairs as were common s.^^.,^^,,^
to the people as a whole and which experience American
had shown could not be controlled by the co- tion^al"
operation of separate States. It had carefully '^^^^'
preserved the executive and legislative machinery .extenaion
of the States, and had assigned to them all the as the
business, which from the nature of the case they Srepre^^"
could transact. In a large state the diflficulty will ®®^^^]^*
always be for the central government to find time ment
and strength for the transaction of the general affairs.
It was so in the Eoman Empire ; but in common*
wealths the difficulty is &r greater than in autocracies.
Indeed, it may be said that the principle of the
commonwealth depends for its future growth upon
the success or failure of statesmen in devising means
for relieving the central government of any buainess
that can possibly be transferred to local authorities.
Thus were provided in the Constitution the two Provision
T,« j.*ij.ii •! J* 1 intheCon-
conditions essential to the existence of a great stitution
commonwealth, a central government with powers automatic
adequate for the general interests, and local govern- mcorpora-
ments with authority adequate for local interests, colonies
This was much, but it was more that the Constitution common-
went on to provide that, as the Commonwealth grew, ^^®*^^^-
the operation of the central and local authorities
should both be extended automatically and so far as
possible side by side. The United States was to
emit colonies as England had done,^ but only as the
germs of local authorities subject to the authority of
the parent Commonwealth. Most of the revolted
States had filed claims to the unoccupied territories
of the West. Congress, more successful in this than
in other directions, had persuaded them to assign
these claims to itself, and while the Convention was
sitting at Philadelphia provided for their future
^ See Map (b) on Plate X. at the end of this volume.
614 THB AMSBICAK COMMOKWKALTH
dBAP. govenunent in an oTdinance only less important
^^^^^^^^^^^ than the Federal Conatitaticm itseli In effect, the
Jan. 13, familiar methods of British colonial administration
were applied to the West. To b^in with, territories
were to be administered, as in a Crown colony, by
officials nominated by the central Government. As
the population increased a gov^nor was to be
appointed by Congress and a representatire legislature
for the colony called into existence. Conditions were
then defined under which they were eventually to be
admitted as partner States in the Confederation.
The Convention of Philadelphia took note of these
proceedings, and in the Constitution they were
drafting secured to the Federal Covernment the
authority necessary for administering these t^ritories,
for controlling the development of their oiganization
and for their eventual admission as States on an
equal footing with the rest.^ The details had still
to be worked out in years to con^e by Congress in
accordance with the powers secured to it by the
Constitution ; but the net result has been that settlers
in an American colony, when acquiring the fuU
privileges of responsible self-government, assumed at
the same time the fullest responsibilities of the
Commonwealth as a whole. In achieving Statehood
they also acquired full representation in the Federal
Government and assumed the full responsibility hr
all burdens. An effective provision was thus made
from the outset to correct the fissiparous tendencies
of a commonwealth. British statesmen had failed to
devise any system whereby colonists could continue
to discharge the full duties of citizenship in respect
of the general Commonwealth; They had failed to
realize that, unless such a system was devised, these
colonies must of necessity develop, as in Greece, into
separate commonwealths and split off. Massachusetts
^ See Note D at end of this chapter, Article IV. sect. 8, p. 668.
THB AMERIOAK OOMMONWBALTH 615
hftd claimed this poBition from the outset.^ The qhap.
VIII
authors of the Constitution now saw to it that no
American colonist should ever be entitled to make
that claim. From first to last he was to remain a
citizen of the United States, and it was merely a
matter of time till the inhabitants of a colony should
be initiated to the widest responsibilities of the
Commonwealth. The process was defined and made
automatic, and a repetition of the process by which
the thirteen colonies had been separated from the
parent Commonwealth was successfully forestalled.
That separation was in harmony with the principles
of colonization as understood by the Greeks, and was
applauded by Freeman as such. In his enthusiasm
for it, however, he omitted to note that a further
application of the Greek principle to America was
expressly barred by the authors of its Constitution.^ .
Experience had taught these legislators that there FederaiiBm
were certain interests common to the people of the no "S • a
United States. Theae they scheduled, and hoin the ^^^^
materials of the existing Con&ress they remodelled f^e^^y
between
a genuine central authority with general powers central
adequate to the administration of these specified autho^
interests. Most other functions of government were |n?he^^^
assumed to be local functions, and these were asaisned vesting of
sover*
to genuine local authorities remodelled from the eigntyina
mat^ials of the existing States. Certain other i^a^re.
powers, such as passing a Bill of Attainder or an
Ex post f(zcto Law, were assigned neither to the
central nor to the local authorities. ' Such a law as
that recently passed by the South African Union
legalizing the deportation of nine labour leaders could
^ See above, pp. 205, 320.
• For the passage to which i-efcrence is made see extract printed on pp.
228-9, from Freeman's address delivered on th« annivei'sary of Washii^ton's
birthday.
' See Note D at end of this chapter, Article I. sects. 9 and 10, pp. 664-5,
and the first fifteen Amendments, pp. 672-6.
616 THE AMERICAN OOHMOKWBALTH
CHAP, have been passed in America neither by any of the
State legislatures nor yet by Congress. One all-
important power was given neither to the central
nor local authorities — ^the supreme power of altering
the distribution of functions assigned in the Constitu-
tion to each, or of assigning to one or other of them
the functions denied in the Constitution to either.
Nevertheless, the distribution of functions has from
time to time been legally altered. It was only the
other day that Congress for the first time received
the power of levying an Income Tax. It follows,
therefore, that the Constitution must somewhere
contain a legislature to the authority of which Con-
gress and the State Governments are both subordin-
ated, and a glance at Article V. will show where it is.
' The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses
shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to
this Constitution, or, on the application of the legis-
latures of two thirds of the several States, shall call
a convention for proposing amendments, which, in
either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes,
as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the
legislatures of three fourths of the several States,
or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one
or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by
the Congress : Provided, that no amendment which
may be made prior to the year one thousand eight
hundred and eight, shall in any manner affect the
first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the
first article ; and that no State^ without its consent,
shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.'
Here in fact is a latent l^islature, which, like all
legislatures, is endowed with a certain procedure. A
very cumbersome procedure was devised in this case
in order that the sovereign legislature might not
lightly be moved to redistribute the powers of govern-
ment, and, when moved, might proceed only with the
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 617
greatest deliberation. Yet it is capable of being chap.
moved and might even be used to modify its own
procedure and render an amendment of the Constitu-
tion more easy. * One may say/ says Dicey, * with
sufficient accuracy for our present purpose, that the
legal sovereignty of the United States resides in the
States' governments as forming one aggregate body
represented by three-fourths of the several States at
any time belonging to the Union.' ^ The American
Constitution does not purport to partition sovereignty
but only the powers of government, the term correctly
used in the opening words of Article I. The partition
of such powers between central and local authorities
was no new departure, for some such partition is neces-
sary to all states with territories larger than those of
Athens.^ The real innovation in political structure
was the placing of the central authority on the same
footing as the local authorities, that is to say, in
subordination to a legislature only to be called into
action for the purpose of altering the distribution of
powers.
This, so far as its internal provisions are concerned, The Con-
was the distinguishing feature of the Constitution of of i788,\
1788. But of even greater significance for the future ^^°*
of freedom was the manner in which this instrument ^^ ^^-
had been framed. In breaking off from the British =oi«
Commonwealth, the Americans had retained the common-
principles which had inspired its vitality. But they ^^jj^^d
had also retained the tendencies inherent in free ^he|f«
communities to pervert those principles to their own* statesman -
undoing. The commonwealth is a society based on far^aii^!^
the moral relations of men to each other, and upon
its extension depends the extension of liberty. No
serious political thinker will question that a higher
liberty was achieved by the Union of the States than
^ Dioey, The Law of the OonstitiUion, pp. 144-5.
' On this subject see Seelej, IntrodueUan to Politieal Science^ p. 98.
618
rm AM8BICA9 OOnfOmrKALTH
CHAP.
VIII
The
attitade
of British
ststemien
towards
this
Ttcamnt
problem
tyrofied
in Burke.
if the hundreds of millions destined to inhabit those
territories had been allowed to divide themsdyes
into forty-eight republics. The fissipaious tendency
which had severed the colonies from Britain had been
threatening to sever them from each other. The
CSonstitution of 1788 not only united them in one
Commonwealth, but was so designed as to render it
capable of further expansion. Within certain limits
it could grow without fidling to piAsea. The statesmen
of the younger Commonwealth had thus succeeded
where those of the older had failed, and still continue
to £euL
For the purpose of this inquiry, therefore, it is of
crucial importance to compare their methods and
modes of thought. Nowhere is the British attitude
towards this problem better exemplified than in the
speech which Burke delivered in the House of
Commons just four weeks before the final resort to
arms at the battle of Lexington. With unanswerable
force Burke urged that the Welsh could never have
"been incorporated in the Commonwealth unless they
had been admitted to representation in Parliament ; ^
but just when his argument seemed to commit
him to some proposal for the representation of the
American colonists he broke ofi* with the remark that
a great flood stopped him in his course. Nature her*
self was opposed to such remediea 'I cannot,' he
cried, ' remove the eternal barriers of the creation.
The thing, in that mode, I do not know to be
possible. As I meddle with no theory, I do not
absolutely assert the impracticability of such a repre-
sentation. But I do not see my way to it; and
those who have been more confident have not been
more successful. However, the arm of publick
benevolence is not shortened; and there are often
several means to the same end. . . If we cannot give
* Burke, JForfcs, vol. iR pp. 86-90.
THE AKERICAK COMMONWEALTH 619
the principal, let us find a substitute. But how? ohaf.
Where? What substitute? Fortunately I am not ^^.^.^.^^
obliged for the ways and means of this substitute
to tax my own unproductive invention. I am not
even obliged to go to the rich treasury of the fertile
framers of imaginary commonwealths ; not to the
Republick of Plato, not to the Utopia of More ; not
to the Oceana of Harrington.' ^ Neither Burke nor
his hearers had had time to forget the ridicule he had
poured on the proposal to open Parliament to the
colonists six years before.* Could Burke have probed
his own motives to the bottom, might he not have
found that the flood which stayed him was not the
Atlantic but his own eloquence? His own con* •
servatism, rather than Nature, was forcing him to
evade the conclusions of the argument which he him*
self had chosen to use. Compelled, however, to
suggest some positive measure, this exponent of
practical politics took refuge in the proposals
advanced by the colonists themselves,' and urged
that the Imperial Government should depend upon
the gratuitous bounty of the colonial assemblies. To
establish his case he was forced to assume that the
Imperial Government was justified in depending on
their bounty, and moved the House to declare that
' the cheerfulness and suificiency (of the colonial
assemblies) in the said grants, have been at sundry
times acknowledged by parliament.' *
The cases to which Burke referred have already Facts dis-
been mentioned in the course of the present inquiry. Burke in
In 1745 Louisbourg had been captured by the New ^^ia^e
Englanders, though, when it was surrendered at the w^^^-
end of the war, the Imperial Government had refunded his own
^ principles.
* Burke, IVorks, vol. iii p. 91.
^ See passage from his Observations on a late publieation intituled ** The
Present State of the Nation " quoted above, pp. 361-56.
* See above, p. 846.
* Burke, Works^ vol. iii. p. 98.
620 THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, the cost of the expedition/ Pitt, moreover, by the
unique ascendency which he had acquired over the
colonists, had succeeded in persuading them to con-
tribute three-fifths of the cost of defending their own
territories with their own militia against the French.*
The governor of Massachusetts, when asked by
Amherst to make a requisition on his assembly, had
warned the Commander-in-Chief that he * must have
a letter from Mr. Pitt ' before they would listen to
him.^ Pitt had of course seen to it that Parliament
should acknowledge in cordial terms such grants as
were made. As afterwards, in the War of Inde-
pendence, the ' influence ' of a great man availed at
a crisis to wring some spasmodic results from
machinery that in normal times and in the hands
of ordinary men was bound to break down. But
neither of the greatest leaders whom the Anglo-Saxon
race has ever produced could make the system work
the moment that actual hostilities had ceased. In
referring to these grants, Burke omitted to notice that
they had been made at a moment of imminent peril
in response to personal appeals by a statesman of
supreme authority. Nor did he pause to inquire
whether the cost of defence had been apportioned
between one colony and another, or between British
and American taxpayers, upon any just and reason-
able basis. In the light of the facts set forth in
Chapter VI.* the essential untruth of the proposi-
tion to which he was seeking to commit Parliament
will be apparent. There was in reality no ground
for supposing that the assemblies would supply the
funds necessary to meet the charges for American
administration either with cheerfulness or with
' See above, pp. 185-6.
' See above, pp. 8S5-6.
8 Williams, Ttu Life of JFUliam PiU, vol. ii. p. 812.
* See in particular the carefully suramarized conclusions of Beer, quoted
on pp. 336-7, and on pp. 838-40.
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 621
sufficiency. Those charges were in fiEtct being met chap.
by the British taxpayer. More clearly than most of s.^^^,,,,,,^
his contemporaries Burke could grasp principles ; but
his inveterate conservatism shrank from the con-
clusions to which they led him, and took refuge
in distorting the facts which pointed inexorably to
the need of some positive act of construction.
When, twelve years later, Washington and his Creation
friends gathered in Philadelphia they had known Imerioan
what it was to stand in the shoes of the Imperial ^^°^'
Government. The struggle upon which they had made
entered to vindicate the principle of co-operation had only by
in fact proved to them its absolute futility as a basis of tEe*'"
of political union. They themselves had helped to ^^Jl^y
establish a kind of Parliament in which the people dS^unoed
at large were unrepresented in the true meaning of
the word. By bitter experience they had learned
that it was not in the nature of things that such
a body should be able to evoke the patriotism or
command the loyalty of a free people. They had
found that in actual practice the States would not
respond to the requisitions of Congress either with
cheerfulness or sufficiency. Instead of closing their
eyes to these facts, or covering their retreat from
them in a cloud of words, they had at length accom-
plished the very thing which Burke had taken credit
for never attempting. In council together they had
deliberately framed a scheme of government by the
adoption of which the people of America might
achieve the mastery of their own future and fate.
For men whose hard-earned experience had taught
them that there are in politics some principles as
inexorable as those of nature it was not necessary
* to go to the rich treasury of fertile framers of
imaginary commonwealths.' Having grasped the
conditions which must be satisfied before a common-
wealth can be realized, they took the structure of
622 THE AMERICAN GOUMONWEALTH
CHAP. American society as they found it and readjusted it,
^^^^^^..^^ but no further than was necessary for the growth of
freedom in America. And thus they laid the founda-
tions of a commonwealth greater than the world had
yet seen by the method specifically condemned by
Burke, regardless of difficulties which lips less eloquent
than his could easily have proved insuperable. In
no other way could their task have been done, nor
have similar tasks been done before or since. Nor
otherwise, it is safe to say, will similar tasks be
accomplished hereafter.
Example It is characteristic of Burke's conservatism that he
Anglo- should have based his argument on Ireland, Wales,
Swtiash Chester, and Durham while omitting all reference
Ignored in to the much morc pertinent example of the An^lo-
argument Scottish Union. In Ireland the same problem was
still awaiting its solution. In Wales, Chester, and
Durham there had been no separate assemblies.
They were within the unquestioned jurisdiction of
Parliament and could be dealt with on lines familiar
to Burke. Scotland was the one part of the Common-
wealth which before its final incorporation had lain
outside that jurisdiction. The Parliament of England
had known that it was not of itself competent to
settle the mutual relations of the two peoples. Yet
a settlement had been effected and by the very
methods which Burke had chosen as an object of
ridicule. Eepresentatives of both commonwealths
had met and had, in fact, framed a new instrument
of government under which the two peoples had
become one. ' Though the fact is often overlooked,'
says Dicey, ^ the Parliaments both of England and
Scotland, did, at the time of the Union, each transfer
sovereign power to a new sovereign body, namely
the Parliament of Great Britain.' ' The English and
Scottish commissioners had not, like Fletcher of
1 Dicey, The Law of the GonstUutum, pp. 66-7.
THE AMERICAN OOMHONWEALTH 623
Saltoun,^ sought to deyise &ome arrangement purport- chap.
ing to be applicable to all societies at all times, ._^^^.
but went for their material to the constitutions of
England and Scotland, and constructed there&om a
new constitution for Great Britain. By incorporating
both nations in one state, they saved them from a
fratricidal war without in the least impairing the
national character of either. But Burke instinctively
ignored a departure from the constitutional methods
which he had come to reverence as though they were
part of the eternal order of the universe. ' In spite
of the noble sympathy it displayed with the colonies
this speech illustrates Burke's essential weakness — an
inability to rise beyond an established order of things
or to see that a revolution such as had occurred in
America required something more drastic than a mere
return to the old order.' ^
In the older Commonwealth the problem still Burke's
awaits its solution, but public men continue to ^^^
approach it in the spirit of Burke, and to disparage *i^^j^
the methods whereby Washington and his supportem of British
actually solved it for America. No speech nor i^^
treatise on the Imperial problem is felt to be
complete without some warning against the folly and
danger of framing or discussing definite plans. The
student has only to turn to the concluding pages of
a recent work on the subject to find an example.'
* British history tells us that whatever has been
permanent in the work of the English has been the
result of evolution from the past, not of breaking
with the past, and that the English have built well
because the builders have accommodated themselves
to the times and the places and have not been
hampered by elaborate plans, designs, and surveys
* See above, pp. 290-91.
» WiUiams, Life of WiUiam PiU, vol. ii. p. 807.
' Lucas, Oreater Bome and OreaUr Britain.
624
THE AMERICAN (X)MHONWEALTH
CHAP.
VIII
The tnie
and false
analogies
distin-
guished.
drawn out beforehand by the Government. In
considering the future of the Empire it appeals feeble
and inconclusive not to sketch out a definite'programme
and to prescribe new machinery. Consequently we
have a plethora of plans and schemes. But it is in
the very attractiveness of schemes and proinrammes
that the danger for the future consists. Thf British
present has grown up on no definite plan. So
far from being logical, it is a unity of contradictions,
absolutely impossible on paper, but working very
comfortably in £ftct. To anything like an orderly
ground -plan of the future, British instinct, which
constitutes British genius, is opposed. It is equally
opposed to the all or none element, the absence
of compromise which all schemes and plans usually
imply. Clear and practical views are constantly
obscured by the wholesale character with which
both the supporters and the opponents of schemes
invest them. There is only one sure guide to the
future, and that is the race instinct which represents
day to day opportunism.' ^
Cautionary paragraphs like these have now
become so much of a convention that their authors
seldom refer to instances in which schemes thought
out and prepared in advance have obscured clear and
practical views, complicated a problem, or clogged
its solution. Here, however, as a reference to the
context will show, the author is thinking of the
repeated failure of French constitutions. It is true
that many constitutions were adopted by the French
since the first abolition of the Monarchy in the
Revolution of 1789. But what other alternative to
despotism had they? Before they could learn to
practise freedom they had to frame constitutions for
the same reason that men must build aeroplanes
before they can learn to fly. Aviators would scarcely
^ Lncas, Oreater Rome and Oreater Britain, pp. 171-2.
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 625
thank critics for exhorting them to consider the birds chap.
and not to risk their necks by launching into the air ^"^
until they had grown wings. But in any case the
example of France is irrelevant, for she has never
been called upon to unite with another republic.
The Cantons of Switzerland, the German States, the
Canadian Provinces, and the Colonies of Australia
and South Africa are the real cases in point. In each
and all of them the relations of separate communities
have been settled once for all by plans deliberately
framed and consciously adopted, and no one has ever
attempted to show how the same result could have
been reached if statesmen in those countries had
obeyed the maxims of Burke. They are, in fact, no
truer than maxims of the copy-book, which teach
that pounds can always be saved merely by takiilg
care of the pence. No industry in detail will in the
long run relieve statesmen from the duty of grasping
principles, or save them from the necessity of apply-
ing them. Principles are the rock upon which men
may stand, even though they first fall upon them
and are broken. But those upon whom they fall
they crush to powder.
The prevalence of these maxims is largely due Historians
to the circumstance that writers of constitutional in^teresteS
history have lavished their attention on one aspect ^^l^^
of their subject while almost neglecting another internal
equally important. Their eyes have been fixed upon mentofthe
the slow and at times insensible growth of the oonstitu-
English Constitution. They have expatiated on the Jf°^ ^^^
o •' -^ by manner
fact that at certain periods the legislative and execu- in which
tive powers of government passed from the Crown munities
to Parliament so gradually that contemporaries did broM^"
not realize that they were passing. Constitutional ^^^^hmits
history has been written almost as though it were
exclusively concerned with this internal and evolu-
tionary process. To-day England contains a popula-
2 s
626 THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, tion of 34,000,000, but it is an indisputable fact
^"^ that upwards of 433,000,000 souls, drawn from all
races and civilizations and scattered through every
continent of the world, have been brought within
the range of its constitution. The manner, however,
in which they have been so brought has largely
failed to interest the writers of constitutional history.
In one of the most recent and authoritative works |
on English history, in seven volumes, containing in '
all some 4000 pages, no more than one-third of one
page is devoted to explaining how England and
Scotland were brought under the same constitution. |
Unquestionably it is a sign of health in states that
their internal structures should grow like those of !
organisms. It is a certain sign of past neglect
and usuaUy an augury of further disorders when
statesmen have to revise the whole framework of
national government, as Parliament did when it
framed the Instrument of Government in 1653, or
as the French have done again and again in the
century which followed the Revolution. But when-
ever one commonwealth has to be fashioned from
two or more states the case is radically different.
Such operations have invariably required a project
of political construction consciously devised, and
musty from the nature of the case, always do so.
The two The truth is^ that Burke and his disciples have
ofaneffeot- always confouuded two wholly different conditions
ive union: ^i^ich must both be Satisfied before commonwealths
— 1. Ine ^
necessity can bc uuitcd othcrwisc than by force. To begin
muBtbe with, the governing class, or in plain words, the
itoanoniy votcrs, iu cach commuuity must first be convinced
b^tliâ„¢ *^** ^^^ realization of a greater commonwealth is
slow and the Only road to a higher freedom. At first it
proc^ of always seems a path too difficult to climb, and they
experience. ^^^ others which sccm to lead to the same end over
easier ground, only to find themselves involved in
THE AMEBICAK COMMONWEALTH 627
quagmires. This, indeed, is in accordance with the chap.
nature of commonwealths, for the principle which
inspires them is that government should be based
on the experience, not indeed of the governed, but
of those amongst them who are able enough to read
its lessons and unselfish enough to apply theoL The
time comes when the citizens of one commonwealth
realize that they have developed interests which can
only be controlled in concert with others; yet till
they can control them they must remain the slaves
of circumstance, and a further step towards freedom
is barred At first it seems easier to settle these
common interests (which for the governing class
means to discharge their common duties) by leagues
and treaties. Nearly always they are studious to
avoid the creation of common organs. Leagues and
treaties are, however, from their nature unstable, but
this must be learnt from experience and not by any
abstract train of reasoning. Still jealous to maintain
their several sovereignties, they go on to devise joint
organs like the Congress of 1775, in the belief that
through such organs separate states can enforce com-
pacts upon each other. And again experience must
teach them that so long as these organs rest like
treaties merely on the basis of compact they are
subject in practice to all the infirmities inherent in
compacts. Men learn by trial that, so long as the
separate sovereignties are maintained, it is they and
not the joint organ which command the obedience of
individual men ; and in the end government depends
upon the obedience not of communities but of
individuals. Then at last they begin to realize that
all further advances towards freedom are closed until
they are prepared to merge their several sovereignties
into one.
When this stage is reached the first condition of a
union is reaUzed.
628
THE AMERICAN GOMMOKWEALTH
CHAP.
VIII
2. Bat
when the
neoeasity
of nnion is
recognized
the union
cannot be
realized
until a^
oonstitu-
tion has
been
projected.
Reasons
why, for
the
purpose of
settling
their
relations,
the self-
governing
Dominions
must be
treated as
sovereign
states.
It needs no argoment to show, however, that two
or more organized states cannot merge themselves
into one organic whole withont publicly declaring
their intention to do so in some common form of
declaration. But a mere declaration will not suffice.
The process involves the dissolution of existing states
in order that one new state may be constructed from
their materials, and it is essential therefore that
every one concerned should know from the outset
what is the new government they are to obey, and
in what manner its commands will be formulated
and expressed. But this can neither be settled nor
declared until it is written down and published in
some document accessible to alL How can such a
document be prepared by methods other than those
exempUfied in the Convention of Philadelphia?
When once the tedious road of experience has been
trodden and its lesson learnt and recognized, no
further advance can be made unless or until the
leaders of those states sit down together, frame a
plan, put it in > writing, and draft it into the form of
a law. If the sovereignties are really separate this
last stage cannot be passed by any process which is
slow, creeping, gradual, or unconscious.
The deliberate framing of some plan of govern-
ment in writing is the second essential condition of
union between two or more commonwealths.
In comparing the British and American situa-
tions there are certain important distinctions upon
which it will be necessary to touch at a later
stage of the inquiry ; but the purely legal sove-
reignty of Parliament in the British Commonwealth
is not one of them. No Parliament continues to
enjoy real sovereignty when it has ceased in fact
to enjoy the power of taxation. So far as any
question of union is concerned the Dominions and
the United Kingdom must be treated as sovereignties
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 629
no less separate than the thirteen States. * Power chap.
without revenue/ as Hamilton said, *in political
society is a name/ No authority which has not in
fact as well as in name the power to exact revenue
is sovereign in fact. Every community whose repre-
sentatives have once been allowed to exercise a sole
and exclusive power of taxation over its citizens has
acquired the substance of sovereignty, even though it
may not as yet have felt itself called upon to exercise
all the powers that sovereignty implies. In theory
the British Parliament is sovereign over the whole
Empire, but in theory only. In practice it is admitted
that the Parliaments of the several Dominions have
acquired an exclusive power of taxation over their
constituents. Nor is it, as usually supposed, a practice
which rests on custom only. *Prom and after the
passing of this Act,' so run the words of the statute
passed in 1778, *the King and Parliament of Great
Britain will not impose any Duty, Tax or Assessment
whatever, payable in any of His Majesty's Colonies,
Provinces or Plantations in N. America or the West
Indies ; except only such duties as it may be expedient
to impose for the Regulation of Commerce : the net
produce of such duties to be always paid and applied
to and for the use of the Colony, Province or Planta-
tion in which the same shall be respectively levied in
such manner as other duties collected by the authority
of the Respective General Courts or General Assemblies
of such Colonies etc. are ordinarily paid and applied.'^
This, like all other Acts, is in theory revocable by
the sovereign authority of the Parliament by which
it was passed. In practice it is no more revocable
than the Acts by which, five years later, the British
Government acknowledged the independence of the
United States ; for like that acknowledgment it
could never be revoked except by force of arms
^ For the text of this momentous measure see above, p. 418.
630 THB AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, or at the specific request of the colonial assemblies
^^^^.^^^^^ themselves.
Reluctance CoHgress, evcn is its first informal stage, was in-
pUto^hâ„¢ valuable as a continuous post of observation whence
theMtish ®^*^^ representatives from each State might view
Common- the interests of America as a whole, and grasp their
except importance. As regularized by the Articles of
processor Confederation in 1781 it helped Americans to realize
*^° u8e°" *^® incurable weakness of any such body, so long as
ofmistrust the States insisted upon maintaining their several
and ft bflir
to the sovereignties by refusing to abandon their own
or?on°^ exclusive power of taxation. It was, in fine, an in-
suitative valuable aid towards getting at the real facts and
organs. o o
reading the lessons to be drawn from them. For
these very reasons the institution of some continuous
consultative body in the British Commonwealth upon
which representatives of all the Dominions would be
kept in touch with the conduct of their foreign affairs
is much to be desired. Yet so long as it is regarded
as a dogma that the Constitution of the British
Commonwealth can never be reconsidered as a whole,
and that organic union can be achieved only by slow
and insensible degrees, proposals to establish a merely
consultative body will always be met by * insuperable
jealousy.' Nor is that jealousy without reason. The
very counsellors who shrink from the thought of ever
constructing a Constitution for the British Common-
wealth are inevitably committed to the policy of
moulding a consultative body little by little into a
genuine organ of government. * First,' it is said, * let
a consultative body be established. Then at a later
stage let it be given some super-tax upon imports and
perhaps the postal services of the Empire to ad-
minister. Thus will an Imperial Council acquire
revenue and authority by easy and gradual stages,
and the people of the Dominions will be led into re-
storing to such a body the taxing-powers which the
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 631
Imperial Parliament has lost/ But, as any one who chap.
studies the records of the Imperial Conference may ^"^
see, the Dominion representatives have hesitated to
accept proposals for establishing some standing
Imperial Council largely because they are aware
that the idea of making it more than consultative
is always lurking behind. It was much the same
with the American assemblies from 1775 to 1788.
Every proposal made to them to abandon their
exclusive power of taxation in detail was treated as
Grattan treated Pitt's proposals for settling Anglo-
Irish relations, as ' incipient and creeping union,' and
ended by arousing a fever of suspicion in the minds of
all concerned. Such suspicions were never allayed
until it was made clear that no tittle of taxing-power
was to be acquired by the existing Congress. When
the people of the thirteen States conceded such power
it was only to a new body upon which they were re-
presented in the true sense of the word. The Rubicon
was crossed and the American Commonwealth created
by a deliberate act consciously taken by men knowing
what they did and why they did it. And in the
British Commonwealth the character of the problem
as well as of the people to be dealt with is the same.
So long as the methods advocated by Burke hold
the field, so long will the Dominion Governments
regard proposals to establish a permanent consultative
body as attempts to coax them into ' an incipient and
creeping union.' Before a consultative body can be
established they must be assured that it is not
gradually to be moulded into something more. They
cannot, indeed, be criticized for insisting that they
must always know where their own reaponsMity ends
and where that of an Imperial Council begins ; and
that they can know only when it is set down in some
formal and conclusive instrument of government. If
onc^ it were recognized in final and unmistakable
632 THB AMEBIGAN COMMONWKALTH
CHAP, terms that the Dominions must never be asked to
^^^^ surrender any vestige of their existing authority to a
central organ otherwise than by some act as clear,
conscious, and final as that taken by the people of the
thirteen States in 1788, the suspicion which surrounds
the subject would begin to subside, and the creation
of some genuine consultative body might then come
within measurable reach. The Dominion Assemblies
and the British Parliament are aUke in this, that
they exercise an exclusive power of taxation over
the peoples in their own jurisdiction. Such a power
is of sovereign quality, a vessel of glass, from which
no fragment can be split without breaking the whole.
If the thing is to be done, it must be done in the
open and once for all. The change can only be
effected in a written document as unmistakable in its
character as the Constitution of the United States.
Such a document, moreover, can only be framed when
representatives of all the self-governing States of the
Empire meet, as the representatives of the American
States met in 1787, for the express purpose of
framing it, having first realized that in that way
and in no other, a higher freedom can be gained.
The advocates of caution would themselves be
the first to admit that Parliament can never of its
own motion withdraw the exclusive power of
taxation acquired by the Dominion assemblies.
If ever that power is conceded it can only be to
some body, new in fact if not in law, by the
deliberate act of the people in the Dominions them-
selves, done with a conscious intent to realize their
citizenship in the greatest Commonwealth that the
world has yet seen, and knowing what they
sacrifice to realize it. If once this principle be
grasped and accepted, the atmosphere will be cleared
of the suspicion raised by those who continue to
ridicule the only methods by which such problems
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 633
have ever reached their final solution. When neat chap.
VTTI
issues impend, the counsellors of safety are not those
who obscure or evade them, but st^atesmen like
Washington, who perceive their gravity, and nerve
men to meet them.
There is a tradition that Washington remarked, The
as on September 17, 1787, he appended his signature sanction
to the final report of the CJonvention, ' Should the ^^eAcan
States reject this excellent Constitution, the proba- ^^^®^^^^"
bilityis that opportunity will never be offered to
cancel another in peace ; the next will be drawn in
blood.' ^ The Constitution was adopted without a
struggle, but blood was still destined to flow like
water before the principle which inspired it had '
received its final ratification.
At an earlier stage of this inquiry it was suggested strain im-
that the ultimate problems of politics have their SbTuni^"
roots in the conditions which arise when the widely American
differing societies peculiar to the various continents Oommon-
^ * wealth by
are brought into touch with each other. The theco-
. . 1 • 1 'xi • i» "1 < • ^1 existence
question which came withm an ace of deetroymg the therein of
American Commonwealth was a case in point. That fnd^free
America should be valued less for the society which ^*^»r.
it might be made to support than for the products
which its soil might be made to yield was an essential
characteristic of the commercial system. It was in
accordance with the same spirit that Englishmen in
common with other Europeans of that age should
have regarded the natives of Afirica, when first they
came into touch with them, simply as a means to
their own ends. The practice of shipping n^o
slaves to develop the soil of America was the natural
result. The traffic was one which carried devastation
through the length and breadth of tropical Africa.
But it also reacted profoundly on the society which
relied on slavery by teaching them to regard rough
^ Iiodge, Omfrg6 WaehingUm, vol. ii. p. 86.
634 THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, manual work as beneath the dignity of intelligent
^^^^^^^^^^^^y and civilized men. Free and slave labour could
nowhere exist side by side. The one blotted out the
other, and its introduction was prohibited by all the
States north of Maryland. There was room, it was
thought in 1787, under the federal system for free
and slave States to exist in the one Commonwealth
side by side. - Special provision, however, had been
made for the organization of new States in the
territories of the West where the United States had
inherited a vast field for colonization. To which of
the two systems were the new States to belong ? To
the slave or to the free? Experience was soon to
prove that both could not subsist together. The
result was that territory organized as a free State
was practically closed to colonization from the South,
while territory organized as a slave State was equally
closed to colonists bred under the labour conditions
of the North. It was inevitable, therefore, that an
intense rivalry for power in the Federal legislature,
which controlled the conditions under which territories
should be admitted, should arise between the Northern
and Southern States.
The The first sign of the approaching stornl was raised
^wsoun ^^ ^^^ proposal in 1820 to admit Missouri as a slave
promise, gta^c. * This momcutous question, like a fire-bell in
the night awakened and filled me with terror. I
considered it at once as the knell of the Union.'
Thus wrote Jefferson, the author of the Declaration
of Independence. For the time, however, the issues
were compromised. Missouri was admitted as a
slave State, but its Southern boundary of SG^'SO'
was henceforward to be taken as the frontier between
freedom and slavery in the rest of the great territories
purchased from Spain under the name of Louisiana.
Amongst the slave States it now became a motive
to increase the territories south of 86**80' which from
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 635
their climate were also suitable for the extension of chap.
VIII
slavery. They began to entertain visions of conquest v,^,.,,,^^,^
over Mexico, Central America, and Cuba, where itseffectm
slavery was already an established institution.^ In the^Sh^
1850 the conquest of part of Mexico was actually ^^jj^yof
achieved. So vast wei:e the issues raised by a conquest.
difference in the principles upon which two European
societies in America had based their relations to the
primitive natives of the African continent !
Matters were at length brought to an issue in the The
territory of Kansas where two opposing governments ^^^^gi to
were established by emigrants from the North and ^^J^^"
South, each demanding admission to the Union, the
one as a free State and the other as a slave State.
But as the South controlled the Senate and the Control
North the House, nothing could be settled, and Federal
Kansas lapsed into a condition of civil war. In 1856 ^^tâ„¢
the Democrats were able to elect the President and secured by
regain control of the House, so that the whole in isse,
machinery of the Federal Government was in their theiJorth*
hands. There was a strong; movement in the South ^ *^^®
P election
in favour of re-establishing the slave trade with of Lincoln
Africa which had been abolished in 1808. In 1859 Presidency
a large number of negroes were actually snauggled "^^®^^-
into the Southern States.^ The North, meantime,
had found its leader in Abraham Lincoln, who was
elected to the Presidency in 1860. The slave States
had lost their control of the Federal Government,
and it remained to be seen whether they would
recognize Its authority now that it rested in the
hands of a party pledged to resist the extension of
slavery to the new territories.
The formal adoption of the Constitution framed in Contract-
1787 had scotched but not killed the contractual ^union^
principle of the previous Confederation. In Virginia Jhrs^it^i^
' Rhodes, Lectures on the American Civil War^ pp. 55, 74.
« llnd, p. 66.
636
THE AMERICAN CX)MMONW£ALTH
CHAP.
VIII
e
1830.
1832.
Secession
of South
Carolina,
on the
morrow of
Lincoln's
election,
justiiied
by the plea
that the
North had
violated
the
contract.
Patrick Henry, the old exponent of that theory, had
done his best to secure its rejection, and had only
been defeated by the overwhelming authority of
Washington. But to many in the South the institu-
tion of slavery was dearer than that of the American
Republic, and they nursed. a theory which struck at
the root of government itself, because it left the door
open to them to repudiate its authority. Thus Hayne
of South Carolina had declared that ' Before the Con-
stitution each State was an independent sovereignty,
possessing all the rights and powers appertaining to
independent nations . . . After the Constitution was
formed, they remained equally sovereign and in-
dependent as to all powers not expressly delegated to
the federal government . . . The true nature of the
Federal Constitution, therefore, is . . . a compact to
which the States are partiea' ^ It was in virtue of
this doctrine that two years later South Carolina had
actually threatened to secede rather than submit to
the tariff imposed by Congress. The cleavage of
opinion between North and South on the fiscal
question was itself a consequence of the respective
systems of freedom and slavery.
The day after Lincoln's election South Carolina
decided on secession, ' The tea has been thrown over-
board, the revolution of 1860 has been accomplished.'
Such was the cry now raised, and, as in the Revolution
of 1775, the people of South Carolina were anticipate
ing an oppression which had not yet been experienced.
Her example was quickly followed by that of the six
cotton States, popular conventions in each of them
calling for immediate secession. The citizens of
these States resolved, in fine, that their ultimate
obedience should be rendered to the public opinion
of their several States and not to that of the
American Commonwealth. They reverted to the
1 Hart, FomuUion ofiht Union, 1760-18S9, p. 133.
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 637
theory that the union had been based on a compact chap.
VTTT
between the sovereign States and not, as Hamilton
had urged, on the individual dedication of the citizens
themselves to the larger Commonwealth. The North,
they claimed, had violated the contract, which ceased
therefore to be binding on the Southern States. For
if, as they argued, the authority of the Union was
derived from the sovereignty of the States, the States
by virtue of that sovereignty could recall it. All
this was the logical outcome of the doctrine pro-
pounded by Hayne in 1880.
They were faced, however, by a leader who saw sover-
in the Constitution of his country not a contract, but th^^tes
a creed. In his message to Congress of July 4, Linl'^n^^
1861, Lincoln countered Hayne's doctrine by declar- and
ing that * the Union gave each of them (the States) him^for ^
whatever independence or liberty it has ; the Union sutes!^^
is older than any of the States, and in fact it created ^.^^y^
them as States.' In Lincoln's view it was not the sanctions
States nor yet the Federal Government which was ^ ^
entitled to claim the ultimate obedience of the
American citizen. That obedience was due to the
United States of America, from which both the
Federal Government and the States derived such
powers as they possessed. If Lincoln claimed the
right to exact the obedience of Americana in the
Southern States to the authority of the Federal
Government, it was because that government was
founded on the sovereignty of the United States.
Whether or not that sovereignty was a reality did not
depend upon any votes passed, documents signed, or
acts done some seventy years before by a generation
which was now slumbering in its grave, but upon
whether among the living citizens of the United
States there could be found a sufficient number
zealous enough to respond to its sovereign claim and
to devote their property and their lives in vindicating
638 THB AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, its authority upon those who denied it. And the
same was true of those who asserted the sovereignty
of the several States. The conduct of government
by force was a notion hatefiil to the American mind.
* A Union/ wrote Lee, the protagonist of the South,
' that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets,
and in which strife and civil war are to take the
place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm
for me.'^ The use of force was no less odious to
Lincoln. ' The ugly point,' he said, ' is the necessity
of keeping the government together by force, as ours
should be a government of fraternity.' * He realised,
however, that a crisis of that supreme order had
arrived when a state, be it commonwealth or despotism,
can maintain its existence only by making its ulti-
mate claim on the devotion of such citizens as desire
that it should continue to exist, the claim to call
upon them to exact obedience by force from those
who deny its authority and mean that it should
perish.
How Americans were thus called upon to decide to
werf^uS wbich of two states their ultimate obedience was due,
decide^ and it is instructive to see how the practical issue
whether was presented in the parent State of Virginia whence
loyalty Washington himself had sprung. On March 4,
vi^flfniaOT 1861, Liucolu was inaugurated to the Presidency in
United Washington, and, denying the right of secession.
States. announced that ' he would enforce the law in all the
States, using his power to hold the property and
places belonging to the government and to collect
the taxes and imposts.' ^ Fort Sumter in Charleston
Harbour was a post held by Federal troops, and South
Carolina was now demanding its surrender. Acting
upon the instructions of Lincoln, the commander of
^ Page, Lift of OenercU Lee, p. 44.
* Rhodes, Lectures on the American Civil War, p. 88.
» Ibid, p. 89.
THE AMBRICAN COMMONWEALTH 639
the garrison refused to obey the summons of the chap.
• VIII
Government of South Carolina to evacuate his post.
On April 12, 1861, the batteries of the State
Government opened fire and compelled its surrender.
Lincoln now called upon the States generally to
provide troops for the purpose of vindicating the
Federal authority in South Carolina. For some time
every one had been watching to see what course the
oldest State, which had produced Washington himself,
would adopt The attitude of Virginians in the
presence of this crisis is faithfully depicted in the
following speech put into the mouth of a Virginian
officer in a recent work of historical fiction. The
imaginary speaker, Major Cary, is addressing a
meeting just before the announcement of Lincoln's
intention to hold Fort Sumter.
' '* Men of Botetourt ! I speak for pay fellow soldiers
of the Army of the United States when I say that,
out yonder, we are blithe to fight with marauding
Comanches, with wolves and with grizzlies, but that
we are not — oh, we are not — ready to fight with each
other! Brother against brother — comrade against
comrade — friend against friend — to quarrel in the
same tongue and to slay the man with whom you've
faced a thousand dangers — no, we are not ready for
that!
' ^' Virginians I I will not believe that the permanent
dissolution of this great Union is come I I will not
believe that we stand to-day in danger of internecine
War ! Men of Botetourt, go slow — go slow 1 The
Right of the State — I grant it ! I was bred in that
doctrine as were you all. Albemarle no whit behind
Botetourt in that I The Botetourt Resolutions— amen
to much, to very much in the Botetourt Resolutions !
South Carolina! Let South Carolina go in peace!
It is her right ! Remembering old comradeship, old
battlefields, old defeats, old victories, we shall still be
640 THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, friends. If the Gulf States go, still it is their right,
immemorial, incontrovertible! — The right of self-
government. We are of one blood and the country
is wide. Grod-speed both to Lot and to Abraham !
On some sunny future day may their children draw
together and take hands again! So much for the
seceding States. But Virginia — ^but Virginia made
possible the Union — let her stand fast in it in this
day of storm ! in this Convention let her voice be
heard — as I know it will be heard — for wisdom,
for moderation, ior patience! So, or soon or
late, she will mediate between the States, she will
once again laake the ring complete, she will be the
saviour of this great historic Confederation which our
fathers made ! "
^ A minute or two more and he ended his speech.
As he moved from between the pillars, there was loud
applause. The county was largely Whig, honestly
longing — having put on record what it thought of
the present mischief and the makers of it — for a
peaceful solution of all troubles. As for the army,
county and State were proud of the army, and proud
of the Virginians within it. It was amid cheering that
Fauquier Cary left the portico. At the head of the
steps, however, there came a question. " One moment,
Major Cary ! What if the North declines to evacu-
ate Fort Sumter ? What if she attempts to reinforce
it ? What if she declares for a compulsory Union ? "
* Cary paused a moment. " She will not, she will
not ! There are politicians in the North whom I'll
not defend ! But the people — the people — the people
are neither fools nor knaves ! They w^e bom North
and we were bom South, and that is the chief diflfer-
ence between us 1 A Compulsory Union ! That is
a contradiction in terms. Individuals and States,
harmoniously minded, unite for the sweetness of
Union and for the furtherance of common interests.
THB AMKBIOAK COMMONWEALTH 641
Whoi the minds are discordant, and the interests chap.
opposed, one may be bound to another by Conqnest —
not otherwise ! What said Hamilton ? To coerce <i
State would be one bf the maddest projects ever
devisedr'''
No one can fail to be impressed by the sweet How the
reasonableness of the plea that force should not be the right
used by the North to restrain the liberty of any State J^^^*
desirin^r to seceda To the American mind it had by force
would
become almost unthinkable that one part of America have been
could coerce another. But supposing that this view ifberty in
had prevailed with the Northern States, and they had ^^^^^
said to the Southern States, * We think you wrong
to secede, but it would be more wrong in us
to shed Wood in order to prevent your secession.'
The matter could scarcely have rested thera It-
must inevitably have become a recognized principle
of American life that force was not to be used to
restrict the liberty of secession. The process would
not have been ended by the divisioii of the States
into two federations. Before long the Western
States would have raised the same claim, and the
Eastern States would already have surrendered the
right to question its validity. The same precedent
would have been fatal to the integrity of the Southern
Confederation itself. North America ^would have
been broken up into a welter of republics, some slave
and some free,, divided by interests at least as
eontenlious as those of Europe. Questions now
settled by the Federal Government or the Supreme
Court acting under the sanction of a common
sovereignty would have found no arbitrament but
that of war, and North America would inevitably
have repeated the experience of medieval Gtermany
and of the Latin Kepublics. Liberty, in any valid
^ Mary Johnston, The Long Roll, pp. 10-11. The authoress is daughter of
the distingui^ed Southern general.
2 T
642 THE AMKRIOAN OOMMOKWSALTH
OHAP, sense of the word, would have peikhed, as in
Gr^rmany or Mexico, amid the endless strife of
communities which could only have held their own
while armed to the teeth* Americans would have
lost the character of a civilian people. To picture
such conditions is to see how intimately the cause of
liberty is bound up with the maintenance of the
sovereignty of a great state, and how that cause is
sacrificed when men shrink from the ordeal of
enforcing that sovereignty even from the height of
the gallows or at the point of the sword
Th« Lincoln's determination to reinforce Fort Sumter
chdci*^^^ and the conflict which followed determined the
Vir^iana Dwtj^ri*y ^^ Virginians in favour of South Carolina,
and the Grovernment of Virginia now called upon its
people to arm themselves in support of its right to
secede from the Union. Simultaneously President
Lincoln was calling upon them as citizens of the
United States to take up arms in order to resist
those very claims. There was, however, in Virginia
itself a substantial minority which responded to
Lincoln's call in spite of the fact that many of them
approved the institution of slavery. The ultimate
issue which divided. Americans was not their prefer-
ence for slavery or freedom, but the question which
each n)LU8t answer for himself, whether their final
allegiance was due to the GK)vemment of their State
or to that of the United States of America. It was
a conflict of ideals, a question of conscience on both
sides, for no one can doubt the sincerity with which
men like Lee, Jackson, and those who followed them,
placed their lives at the disposal of the Virginian
Government. The choice presented to an inhabitant
of Virginia was clear, but inexorable. On the one
hand he was called upon by the Government of the
United States to enforce its authority, on the other
hand he was ordered by the Government of Virginia
THE AMSBIOAN COMMONWEALTH 643
to resist the authority of the United States. He ohap.
had then to face the alternative, which of these two ^^"
Commonwealths was the one to whieh his ultimate
obedience was due — the very alternative which had
had to be faced eighty years before by Americans at
the time of the Revolution.
Such was, in fact» the predicament of Eobert E. character
Lee, who at the head of the Southern armies showed choice as
himself the greatest soldier who had taken the field ^^^ ^
since the days of ^ Napoleon. Never perhaps has the Lee.
necessity laid upon a man to decide where his
citizenship lay been reduced to a finer point. Lee
had been educated as an officer in the army of the
United States at the Federal Academy founded by
Washington at West Point. As a Federal officer he
fought in the Mexican war and he had already
established his reputation as a military leader.
When the Civil War was impending Lincoln offered
Lee the command of the Federal forces.^ Lee was
opposed to secession and still hoped that the peace
might be kept, but he saw at once that he was face
to face with a choice which could not be evaded, and,
recognizing its nature, wrote telling his son that he
was not to be guided by his father's wishes or
example, but merely by his own judgment, reason,
and conscience.^ His own decision was none the
1^ scrupulous because it was clearly influenced by
the family traditions. His father had once been
governor of Virginia, and had supported the ratifica-
tion of the Constitution of the United States.
But he had always declared that Virginia was his
country. * Her will I obey,' he said, * however
lamentable the fate to which it may subject me ' ;
and to Madison he wrote, ^ no consideration on earth
could induce me to act a part, however gratifying
to me, which could be construed into disregard of,
^ Page, Life of Ghnural Lee,, pp. 82-3. » JMd. p. 52,
644
THK AlfBRICAK OOMM OITWSALTH
CHAP.
vin
Growth of
pnblic
spirit in
America
as proved
by the
sacrifices
made in
the Civil
War.
or iaiiMeasnieas to, this ComnMHiwealtL' ^ To that
same commonwealth of Virginia his son, seventy
years later, decided that his own alliance was due.
Not only did he reftise* Lincoln's offer, bat resigned
his position in the Federal army, because, as he told
a committee of Congress after the war, ' he believed
that the act of Virginia in withdrawing herself from
the United States carried him along with it as a
citizen of Virginia, and that her laws and acts were
binding upon him.' '
The claims of North and South alike met with
a response strangely different from that which had
been made to the appeals of Washington. That
greatest of national leaders had been left to recruit
his ranks from men not bred in America, and to
depend on revenues which had not been earned there.
But now when his work was threatened with destruc-
tion Americans were ready to pour out their blood
and treasure to preserve it. The Civil War is estimated
to have cost America close upon $10,000,000,000
and 1,000,000 lives.' •In truth,' says Lecky, *the
American people, though in general unbounded
believers in progress, are accustomed, through a
kind of curious modesty, to do themselves a great
injustice by the extravagant manner in which they
idealise their past. It has almost become a common-
place that the great nation which in our own day has
shown such an admirable combination of courage,
devotion, and humanity in its gigantic civil war,
and which since that time has so signally falsified
the predictions of its enemies, and put to shame all
the nations of Europe by its unparalleled efforts in
paying off its national debt, is of a far lower moral
type than its ancestors at the time of the War of
^ Page, Life of General Lee, p. 38.
' Report of Joint Committee on Reoonstruction, let Seaa^, 89th Gong,
p. 133, quoted by Page, OenercU Lee, pp. 53-4.
* Seeley, The Eo^anaion of England, p. 182.
THC AMEBIOAN COMMONWEALTH 645
IndependeDce. This belief appears to me essentially chap.
false. The nobility and beauty of the character of
Washington can indeed hardly be surpcissed ; several
of the other leaders of the Revolution were men of
ability and public spirit, and few armies have ever
shown a nobler self-devotion than that which re-
mained with Washington through the dreary winter
at Valley Forge. But the army that bore those
sufferings was a very small one, and the general
aspect of the American people during the contest was
far from heroic or sublime.' ^
It is clear that American society as depicted by The differ-
Washington was incapable of any such sacrifice in expiicSbfe
the public cause, as was made less than three genera- ^^^g^J®"
tions later in response to the call of Abraham Lincoln, effect on
Had the question of slavery come to a head two character
generation; earlier, the attipt to coerce seceding ti^^
States would have been treated as wickedness and
folly, and the Union would infallibly have dissolved.
This contrast which so impressed the great historian
of the eighteenth century is not hard to explain.
Till the close of that century, as Beer has shown, the
whole standard of public life in America had been
poisoned by the system under which it had developed.
Before 1775 the colonists had lived under a Common-
wealth which thought to bind them to itself merely
by the protection it afforded, without giving them
a direct responsibility for the safety of the Common-
wealth itself By nature the colonists were just as
capable of such responsibility as their kinsmen in
Britain; but except in provincial affairs they had
never been subjected to the discipline of freedom.
That discipline was never really experienced till after
1788, when a Commonwealth was established from
whose primary responsibilities no class of citizens
were ever to be excluded irrespective of their fitness
* Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. pp. 486-6.
646 THE AMERIOAK OOMMONWEALTH
€HAP. and merely by reason of the particular locality in
which they dwelt. Henceforward all classes admitted
to political power, whether in the States themselves
or in the Western colonies, were to share alike in
vindicating the authority of the Republic whether
against aggression from without or schism from within.
And the result had proved once more that it is not
by self-interest that States are knit, but by a sense of
obligation which unless it is exercised withers away
and flourishes only so far as it is called into action.
Under a system which imposed upon Americans the
real burdens of statehood, patriotism grew as fast as
it had languished under systems which had failed to
impose them. No leader comparable to Washington
was found to direct the armies of the North. Its
ultimate success after many reverses was the product
not of military genius backed by a handful of patriots,
but of the patriotism of Americans themselves. The
common saying that you cannot make people virtuous
by law is a dangerous half-truth. The virtue innate
in a people may be utterly destroyed by bad institu-
tions, for * the virtue,' as Jay wrote to Washington,
*like the other resources of a country, can only be
drawn to a point, by strong circumstances ably
managed, or strong governments ably administered.'
The Thus was a commonwealth on a scale undreamt
oPthe^^^ of in the philosophy of the Greeks finally cemented
cominon. i^ ^jj^ blood of its citizcus. To the old immeasurable
wealth as
expounded claim mcu morc in number than the walls of Athens
inhiB^^^ had ever contained were found to make the same
^^y^g.*^ unquestioning answer. At Gettysburg, with its fifty
^urg. thousand graves, a vast concourse of Americans was
addressed by Lincoln in words which recalled the
speech uttered by Pericles at the funeral of those who
had given their lives for the Athenian Commonwealth
in ,the Peloponnesian War.^
^ See above, p. 20.
V
\
V
THB AMBEIOAN GOHMOKWSALTH 647
I
* Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought chap.
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men
Ire created equal.
* Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and
00 dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a
'eat battlefield of that war. We have come to
tedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-
)lace for those who here gave their lives that that
latfon might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
tat we should do this.
'But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we
knnot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground,
'he brave men, living and dead, who struggled here
Lave consecrated it, far above our poor power to add
)T detract. The world will little note, nor longer
remember, what we say here, but it can never forget
hat they did here. It is for us the living^ rather,
be dedicated here to the unfinished work which
Shey who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced;
[t is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great
)k remaining before us — that &om these honored
dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion —
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain — ^that this nation, under God, shall
have a new birth of freedom — and that government
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth.' ^ '
^ Brooks, Abraham Lincoln, p. 378.
648 THS AMERICAN COMMOKWRALTH
CHAP.
YUI
^^^^-^ NOTE A
Washington's letter to congress after the American
defeat on long island urging the necessity of a
permanent army. proportions in which contingents
were to be furnished by the several states.
See page ' The State of the anny, after this event, was, in a letter from
554. General Washington to Congress, thus feelingly described :
" Onr situation is truly distressing. The check our detachment
sustained, on the 27 th ultimo, has dispirited too great a
pr(qK)rtion of our troops, and filled their mind^ with apprehension
and despair. The militia, instead of calling forth their utmost
efforts to a brave and manly opposition, in order to repair our
losses, are dismayed, intractable, and impatient to return. Great
numbers of them have gone off; in some instanoes, almost by
whole regiments ; in many, by half ones, and by companies, at a
time. This circumstance, of itself, independent of others, when
fronted by a well-appointed enemy, superior in number to our
whole collected force, would be sufficiently disagreeable; but,
when it is added, that their example has infected another i)art of
the army, that their want of discipline, and refusal of almost
every kind of restraint and government, have rendered a like
conduct but too common in the whole, and have produced an
entire disregard of that order and subordination necessary for
the well-doing of an army, and which had been before inculcated
as well as the nature of our military establishment would admit,
our condition is still more alarming, and, with the deepest
concern, I am obliged to confess my want of confidence in the
generality of the troops.
' " All these circumstances fully confirm the opinion I ever
entertained, and which I, more than once, in my letters, took the
liberty of mentioning to Congress, that no dependence could be
put in a militia, or other troops, than those enlisted and
embodied for a longer period than our regulations have hitherto
prescribed. I am persuaded, and am as fully convinced as of
any one fact that has happened, that our liberties must, of
necessity, be greatly hazarded, if not entirely lost^ if their
defence be left to any but a permanent army.
' " Nor would the expense incident to the support of such a
body of troops as would be competent to every exigency, far
exceed that which is incurred by calling in daily succours, and
new enlistments, which, when effected, are not attended with
any good consequences. Men, who have been free, and subject
to no control, cannot be reduced to order in an instant ; and
the privileges and exemptions they claim, and will have
THB AMERICAN GOKMONWBALTH
649
influence the conduct of others in such a manner, that the aid
derived from them is nearly counterbalanced by the disorder,
irregularity, and confusion, they occasion."
' The frequent remonstrances of the Commander in Chief, the
opinions of all military men, the severe correcting hand of
experience, had, at length, produced their effect on Congress ;
and, soon after the defeat on Long Island, it had been referred
to the committee, composing the Board of War, to prepare a
plan of operations for the next succeeding campaign. Their
report, which .was adopted by Congress, proposed a permanent
army, to be enlisted for the war, and to be composed of eighty-
eight battalions, to be raised by the several states in proportion
to th«r ability.* Ab an inducement to enlist^ a bounty of twenty
dollars was allowed, and small portions of vacant lands promised
to every officer and soldier.
'EUkd this system been adopted in- 1775, the war would
probably have been of much shorter duration ; but much is to
be allowed for the want of military experience in Congress ; for
prejudices which prevailed throughout America ) and very much
for the organization of the government, which, while the
essentials of power were parcelled out among the several local
legislatures, placed, in that of the union, little more than the
right to recommend, a right to be exercised with great caution —
because measures, manifesting an expectation that the war might
be of long continuance, or which might excite a suspicion of
aiming at independence, or of an indisposition to a re-establish-
ment of the antient connexion between Great Britain and
America might, in the early stage of the contest, have produced
very serious consequences in some parts of the union.' ^
OHAP.
VIII
Kew Hampshire
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Connectiout
New York
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Delaware .
Maryland .
Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
Greorgia •
3
15
2
8
4
4
12
1
8
16
9
6
1
88
^ Marshall, Life of fTashington, vol. ii. pp. 526-9.
650 THE AMERIOAN CX)MMONWEALTH
OHAP.
VIII
' . — ' NOTE B
SEA POWER AS THE DETERMINING EAOTOR IN THE
WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
See page * Before quitting that straggle for independence, it mast again
^^^' be affirmed that its successfal ending, at least at so early a date,
was due to the control of the sea, — to sea power, in the hands
of the French, and its improper distribution by the English
authorities. This assertion may be safely rested on the authority
of the one man who, above all others, thoroughly knew the
resources of the country, the temper of the people, the difficulties
of the struggle, and whose name is still the highest warrant for
sound, quiet, imfluttered, good*«ense and patriotism.
'The keynote to all Washington's utterances is set in the
'* Memorandum for concerting a plan of operations with the
French army," dated July 15, 1780, and sent by the hands of
Lafayette : —
' *' The Marquis do Lafayette will be pleased to communicate
the following general ideas to Count de Bochambeau and the
Chevalier de Temay, as the sentiments of the underwritten :
' " L In any qpercUion^ and under all circumstafices, a decisive naval
superiority is to be considered as a fimdamental prindpte^ and the
basis woon which eoery hope of success must ultimately depend,'*
'This, however, though the most formal and decisive ex-
pression of Washington's views, is but one among many others
equally distinct. Thus, writing to Franklin, December 20, 1780,
he says : —
'"Disappointed of the second division of French troops
[blockaded in Brest], but more especially in the expected
naval superiority, which was the pivot upon which everything
turned, we have been compelled to spend an inactive campaign
after a flattering prospect at the opening of it . . . Latterly
we have been obliged to become spectators of a succession of
detachments from the army at New York in aid of Lord
Comwallis ; while our naval weakness, and the political dissolu-
tion of a large part of our army, put it out of our power to
counteract them at the southward, or to take advantage of them
here."
'A month later, January 15, 1781, in a memorandum letter
to Colonel Laurens, sent on a special mission to France, he
says : —
' " Next to a loan of money, a constant naval superiority upon
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 651
these coasta is the object moct interesting. This would instantly qhap
reduce the enemy to a difficult defensive. . . . Indeed, it is not yni
to be conceived how they could subsist a large force in this
country, if we had the command of the seas to interrupt the
regular transmission of supplies from Europe. This superiority,
with an aid i|L money, would enable us to convert the war into
a vigorous offensive. With respect to us it seems to be one of
two deciding points."
' In another letter to the same person, then in Paris, dated
April 9, he writes ; —
^ " If France delays a timely and powerful aid in the critical
posture of our affairs, it will avail us nothing, should she
attempt it hereafter. . . . Why need I run into detail, when it
may be declared in a word that we are at the end of our tether,
and that now or never our deliverance must come ) How easy
would it be to retort the enemy's own game upon them, if it
could be made to comport with the general plan of the war to
keep a superior fleet always in these seas, and France would put
us in condition to be active by advancing us money."
' Ships and money are the burden of his cry. May 23, 1781,
he writes to the Chevalier de la Luzerne : " I do not see how it
is possible to give effectual support to the Southern States, and
avert the evils which threaten, while we are inferior in naval
force in these seas." As the season for active operations advances,
his utterances are more frequent and urgent. To Major General
Greene, struggling with his difficulties in South Carolina, he
writes, June 1, 1781 : "Our affairs have been attentively con-
sidered in every point of view, and it was finally determined to
make an attempt upon New York, in preference to a Southern
operation, as we had not decided command of the water." To
Jefferson, June 8 : '' Should I be supported in the manner I
expect^ by the neighboring States, the enemy will, I hope, be
reduced to the necessity of recalling part of their force from
the southward to support New York, or they will run the most
imminent risk of being expelled from that post, which is to
them invaluable; and should we, by a lucky coincidence of
circumstances, gain a naval superiority, their ruin would be
inevitable. . . . While we remain inferior at sea . . . policy
dictates that relief should be attempted by diversion rather
than by sending reinforcements immediately to the point in
distress," that is, to the South. To Eochambeau, June 1 3 :
" Your Excellency will recollect that New York was looked upon
by us as the only practicable object under present circumstances ;
but should we be able to secure a naval superiority, we may
perhaps find others more practicable and equally advisable."
By the 1 5th of August the letters of De Grasse announcing his
sailing for the Chesapeake were received, and the correspondence
652 THB AH8RIGAN COMMONWEALTH
OHAP. <rf Washington is thenceforth filled with bus7 preparations for
VIII the campaign in Virginia^ based upon the long-delayed fleet.
The discouragement of De Grasse, and his porpoee to go to sea,
upon learning that the English fleet in New York bad been
reinforced, drew forth an appealing letter dated September
25, which is too long for quotatdon; bat the danger passed,
Washington's confidence returns. The day after the capitulation
he writes to De Grasse : " The surrender of York . . . the honor
of which belongs to your Excellency, has greatly anticipated [in
time] our most sanguine anticipations." He then goes on to
urge further operations in the South, seeing so much of the
good season was still left : ''The general naval superiority of the
British, previous to your arrival, gave them decisive advantages
in the South, in the rapid transport of their troops and supplies;
while the immense land marches of our succors, too tardy and
expensive in every point of view, subjected us to be beaten
in detail It will depend upon your Excellency, therefore, to
terminate the war." De Gr^se refusing this request^ but
intimating an intention to co-operate in the next year's
campaign, Washington instantly accepts: **With your Excel-
lency I need not insist upon the indispensable necessity of a
maritime force capable of giving you an absolute ascendency
in these seas. . . . You will have observed that^ whatever
efforts are made by the land armies, the navy must have the
casting vote in the present contest." A fortnight later,
November 15, he writes to Lafayette, who is on the point of
sailing for France : —
'''As you expressed a desire to know my sentiments respecting
the operations of the next campaign, I will, without a tedious
display of reasoning, declare in one word that it must depend
absolutely upon the naval force which is employed in these seas,
and the time of its appearance next year. No land force can
act decisively unless accompanied by a maritime superiority.
... A doubt did not exist, nor does it at this moment^ in any
man's mind, of the total extirpation of the British force in the
Carolinas and Georgia, if Count de Grasse could have extended
his co-operation two months longer."
'Such, in the opinion of the revered commander-in-chief of
the American armies, was the influence of sea power upon the
contest whidi he directed with so much skill and such infinite
patience, and which, amidst countless trials and discouragements,
he brought to a glcmouB close.
' It will be observed that the American cause was reduced to
these straits, notwithstonding the great and admitted losses of
British commerce by the cruisers of the allies and by American
privateers. This fact^ and the small results from the general
war dominated as it was by the idea of commerce-destroying,
THE AMBRIGAN COMUONWSALTH 663
show sfcrongly the secondaiy and indeoisiye effect of sucli a OHAP.
policy upon the great issues of war/ ^ vm
NOTE C
ABTICUS OF GONFIEDKRATION FRAI&ED BY GONGRJISa IN 1776
AND ADOFTRD BT THE STATES, FEBRUABY 1781
Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the See page
States of New Hampshire, MassachuBette Bay, Rhode Island and ^^'
Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Georgia.
Artigle I. The style of this Confederacy shall be ''The
United States of Ameriea."
Art. II. Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom^ and Seepage
independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and rights which ^^i-
is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to Uie United
States in Congress assembled.
Art. IU. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm
league of friendship with each other, for their common defence,
the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general
welfare, binding themselves to assist eacli. other against all force
offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on
account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence
whatever.
Art. IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friend-
ship and intercourse among the people of the different States in
this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these. States, paupers,
vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled
to all the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several
States, and the people of each State shall have free ingress and
regress to and from any other Stat€^ and shall enjoy therein
all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the slune
duties^ impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof
respectively, provided that such restrictions si^l not extend so
far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any
State, to any other State of which the owner is an inhabitant ;
provided also, that no imposition, duties, or restriction shall be
laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or
either of them.
If any person guilty of or chained with treason, felony, or
other high misdemeanoi* in any State, shall flee from justice,
and be found in any of the United States, he shall, upon demand
of the governor or executive power of the State from whkh he
> Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon Bietory, pp. 897-400.
854 THC AMXRICAK GOMUOKWEALTH
CHAP, flod, be delivered up and removad to the State having joriBdic-
VIII tion of his offence.
Full faith and credit shall be giren in each of these States to
the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and
magistrates of every other State.
Art. Y. For the more convenient management of the general
interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually
appointed in such manner as the legislatore of each State
shall direct^ to meet in Congress on the first Monday in
November, in every year, with a power reserved to each State
to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the
year, and to send others in their stead, for the remainder of
the year.
No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two,
nor by more than seven members; and no person shall be
capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any
term of six years, nor shall any person, being a delegate, be
capable of holding any office under the United States for which
he or another for his benefit receives any salary, fees, or emolu-
ment of any kind.
Each State shall maintain its own delegates in a meeting of
the States, and while tbey act as members of the committee of
the States.
In determining questions in the United States, in Congress
assembled, each State shall have one vote.
Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be
impeached or questioned in any court or jdace out of Congress,
and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons
from arrests and imprisonments, during the time of their going
to or from, and attendance on. Congress, except for treason,
felony, or breach of the peace.
Art. VI. No State, without the consent of the United States
in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any
embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement^ alliance,
or treaty with, any king, prince, or state ; nor shall any person
holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or
any of them, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of
any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign state ; nor
shall the United States in Congress assembled, or any of them,
grant any title of nobility.
No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confedera-
tion, or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of
the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately
the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how
long it shall continue.
No State shall lay any imposte or duties, which may interfere
with any stipulations in treaties entered into by the United
Stated in Congress assembled, with any king, prince, or state,
THE AMSEIOAK GOMICONWEAI/TH 655
in pursuance of any treaiiefl already proposed by Congress, to CHAP.
the courts of France and Spain. VIII
No vessels of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any
State, except such number only as shall be deemed neeessary by
the United States in Congress assembled, for the defence of such
State or its trade ; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by
any State, in time of peace, except such number only as in the
judgment of the United States in Congress assembled shall be
deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defence
of such State.; but every State shall always keep up a well
regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred,
and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public
stores, a due number of field-pieees and tents, and a proper
quantity of arms, ammunition, and camp equipage.
N6 State shall engage in any war without the consent of
the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State
be aotually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certein
advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians
to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to
admit of a delay till the United States in Congress assembled
can be consulted ; nor shall any State grant commissions to any
ships or vessels ol war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except
it be after a declaration of war by the United States in Congress
assembled, and then only against the kingdom or state, and the
subjects thereof, against which war has been so declared, and
under such regulations as shall be established by the United
States in . Congress assembled, unless sudi Stete be infested
by pirates, in which case vessels of war may be fitted out for
that oocaaion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or
until the United States in Congress assembled shall determine
otherwise.
AsT. YII. When land forces are raised by any State for the
common defence, all officers of or under the rank of colonel
shall be appointed by the legislature of each State respectively,
by whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such
State shall direct ; and all vacancies shall be filled up by the
State which first made the appointments
- A&T. YIII. All charges (rf war and all other expenses that
shall be incurred for the common defence or general welfare,
and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall
be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied
by the several States, in proportion to the value of all land
within each State, granted to or surveyed for any person, and
such land and the buildings and improvemento thereon shiJl be
estimated according to such mode as the United Stetes in
Congress assembled shall from time to time direct and appoint.
The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and
levied by the authority apd direction of the legislatures of the
666 THE AHSRIGAH OOHMOH WEALTH
CHAP, several States within the time agreed npoa by the United States
VIII in Congress assembled.
Art. IX. The United States in Congress assembled shall
have the sole and exclusive right and power of determining on
peace and war, except in the cases mentioned in the sixth
article— of sending and receiving ambassadors — entering into
treaties and alliances, provided thai no treatjr of commerce shall
be made whereby the legislative power of the respective States
shall be restrsined from imposing such imposts and duties on
foreigners as their own people are subjected to, or from pro-
hibiting the exportation or importation of any species of goods
or commodities whatsoeveD'—of establishing rides for deciding,
in all cases, what captures on land or water shall be legal, and
in what manner prizes taken by land or naval forces in the
service of the United States shall be divided or appropriated —
of granting letters of marque and reprisal in times of peace—
appointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed
on the high seas, and establishing courts for receiving and
determining finally a|^)eals in all cases of captures, provided
that no member of Congress shall be appointed a judge of any
of the said courts.
The United States in Congress assembled shall also be the
last resort on appeal in all disputes and differences now subsisting
or that hereafter may arise between two or more States concern-
ing boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause whatever;
which authority shall always be exercised in the manner follow-
ing : — ^Whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful
agent of any State in controversy with anotiier shall present a
petition to Congress stating the matter in qoestion and praying
for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of (JongresB
to the legislative or executive authority of the other State in
controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the
parties by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to
appoint, by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute
a court for hearing and determining the matter in question ; but
if they cannot agree, Congress shall name three persons out of
each of the United States, and from the list of such persons
each party shall alternately strike out one, the petitioners
beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen ; and
from that number not less than seven nor more than nine names,
as Congress shall direct, shall, in the presence of Congress, be
drawn oUt by lot, and the persons whose names dball be so
drawn, or any five of them, shall be commissioners or judges, to
hear and finally determine the controversy, so always as a
major part of the judges who shall hear the cause shall agree
in the determination ; and if either party shall neglect to attend
at the day appointed, without showing reasons, which Congress
shall judge sufilcient^ or, being present^ shall refuse to strike, the
THE AMSBIOAN OOKMOKWEALTH 657
Congress shall proceed to nominate diree persons out of each OHAP.
State, and the Secretary of Congress shall strike in behalf of VIII
such party absent or refusing ; and the judgment and sentence
of the court to be appointed, in the manner before prescribed,
shall be final and conclusive ; and if any of the parties shall
refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear or
defend their claim or cause, the court shall nevertheless proceed
to {vonounce sentence or judgment, which shall in like miuiner
be final and decisive, the judgment or sentence and other
proceedings being in either case transmitted to Congress, and
lodged among the acta of Congress, for the security of the
parties concerned: provided that every commissioner, before
he sits in judgment, shall take an oath, to be administered by
one of the judges of the Supreme or Superior Court of the
State where the cause shall be tried, '* well cmd truly to hear and
determine the matter in question according to the be$t of his judgment,
ioithoutfavoTy affection^ or hope ofretoardy" provided also that no State
shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States.
All controversies concerning the private right of soil, claimed
under different grants of two or more States, whose jurisdictions
as they may respect such lands and the States which passed
such grants are adjusted, the said grants or either of them
being at the same time claimed to have originated antecedent
to such settlement of jurisdiction, shall, on the petition of
either party to the Congress of the United States, be finally
determined as near as may be in the same manner as is before
prescribed for deciding disputes respecting territorial jurisdiction
between different States.
The United States in Congress assembled shall also have die
sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and
value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the
respective States — fixing the standard of weights and measures
throughout the United States — regulating the trade and
managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of
the States, provided that the legislative right of any State
within its own limits be not infringed or violated — establishing
and regulating post-offices from one State to another, throughout
all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers
passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the
expenses of the said office — appointing all officers of the land
forces in the service of the United States, excepting regimental
officers — appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and
commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the United
States — making rules for the government and regulation of the
«iid land and naval forces, and directing their operations.
The United States in Congress assembled shall have
authority to appoint a committee, to sit in the recess of Congress,
to be denominated "A Committee of the States," and to
2 U
658 THE AUSBICAN CX>MliDNW£^LTH
CHAP, ecmsiflt of one delegate from eadi Stato ; to appoint soeh other
^m connitieea and dvil offion^e as may be neceaeary for managing
the general affiuns of the United Statei under their direction ;
and to appoint one of their number to preside, {»oyided that
no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more
than one year in any term of three years — to ascertain the
necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the
United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for
defraying the public expeuses — to borrow money, or emit InUs
on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half-year
to the respective States an account of the sums of money so
borrowed or emitted — ^to build and equip a navy*— to agree
upon the number of land f oz^ees, and to midLC requisitions from
each State for its quota^ in proportion to the number of white
inhabitants in such State ; which requisition shall be binding,
and thereupon the legislature of each State shall appoint the
regimental officers, raise the men, and clothe, arm, and equip
them in a soldier-like mann^, at the expense of the United
States, and the officers and men so clothed, armed, and equipped
shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed
on by the United States in Congress assembled; but if the
United States in Congress assembled shall, on consideration of
circumstances, judge proper that any State should not raise
men, or should raise a smaller number than its quota, and that
any other State should raise a greater number of men than the
quota thereof, such extra number shall be raised, officered,
clothed, armed, and equipped in the same manner as the quota
of such State, unless the legislature of such State shall judge
that such extra number cannot be safely spared out of the
same, in which case they shall raise, ofiicer, clothe, arm, and
equip as many of such extra number as they judge can be
safely spared : and the officers and men, so clothed, armed, and
equipped shall march to the place appointed, and within the
time agreed on, by the United States in Congress assembled.
The United States in Congress assembled shall never engage
in a war, nor grant letters of marque and reprisal in time of
peace, nor enter into any treaties or alliances, nor coin money,
nor regulate the value thereof, nor ascertain the sums and
expenses necessary for the defence and welfare of the United
States, or any of them, nor emit bills, nor borrow money on
the credit of the United States, nor appropriate money, nor
agree upon the number of vessels of war to be built or
purchased, or the number of land or sea forces to be raised,
nor appoint a commaiider*in-chief of the army or navy, unless
nine States assent to the same; nor shall a question on any
other point, except for adjourning from day to day, be deter-
mined, unless by the votes of a majority of the United States
in Congress assembled.
THE AMJBKICAN COMMONWEALTH 659
The Congress of the United States shall have power to cHAP.
adjourn to any time within the year, and to any |Jace within ' VIII
the United States, so that no period of adjournment be for a '•-^-v^*-^
longer duration than the space of six months, and shall publish
the journal of their proceedings monthly, except such parts thereof
relating to treaties, alliances, or military operations, as in their
judgment require secrecy, and the yeas and nays of the delegates
of each State on any question shall he entered on the journal,
when it is desired by any delegate; and the delegates of a
State, or any of them, at his or their request, shall be furnished
with a transcript of the said journal, except such parts as are
above excepted, to lay before the legislatures of the several States.
Art. X. The Committee of the States, or any nine of them,
shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such
of the powers of Congress as the United States in Congress
assembled, by the consent of nine States, shall from time to
time think expedient to vest them with: provided that no
power be delegated to the said Committee, for the exercise of
which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of nine States
in the Congress of the United States assembled is requisite.
Art. XI. Canada, acceding to this Confederation, and
joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted
into and entitled to all the advantages of this Union ; but no
other J colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such
admission be agreed to by nine States.
Art. XIL All bills of credit emitted, moneys borrowed, and
debts contracted by or under thie authority of Congress, before
die assembling of the United States in pursuance of the present
Confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge
against the United States, for payment and satisfaction
whereof the said United States and the public faith are hereby
solemnly pledged.
Art. XIIL Every State shall abide by the determinations of See page
the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which ^^^•
by this Confederation are submitted to tfaem. And the
Articles of this Confederation shaU be inviolably observed by
«very State, and the Union shall be perpetual ; nor shall any
alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless
auch alteration he agreed to in a Congress at the United States,
and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
And WHJQIKAS it hath pleased the Qreat Governor of the
wco'ld to incline the hearts of the legislatures we- respectfully
represent in Coolness to approve of and to authorize us to
ratify the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union,
Know ye, That we, the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the
power and authority to us given for that purpose, do by these
presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents,
fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said
660 THE AlfERIOAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and
Vtll singular the matters and things therein contained : and we do
further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respectiye
constituents that they shall abide by the determinations of the
United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by
the said Confederation are submitted to them. And that the
Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we
respectively represent, and the Union shall be perpetual.
NOTE D
THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION AS AGREED UPON BY THE
CONVENTION, SEPTEMBER 17, 1787^
/Fie, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
UnioTiy establish Justice, insure domestic TrcmguUliiyy provide for
the comm^on Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure
the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain
and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of
America.
ARTICLE L
Seepage SECTION 1. All legislative powers herdin granted shall be
602. vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of
a Senate and House of Bepresentatives.
Sect. 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of
members chosen every second year by the people of the several
States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications
requisite for the electors of most numcurous branch of the
State legislature.
No person shall be a representative who shall not have
attained to the age of twenty-five years^ and been seven years a
citisen of the United States, and who shall not, wit&i elected,
be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Eepresentatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among
the several States which may be included within tJiis Union,
according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined
by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those
bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians
not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumera-
tion shall be made within three years after the first meeting of
the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent
term of t&a years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.
The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every
thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one representa-
^ For the text of the Constitution and for the first fifteen amendments
thereto see Appendix to Lodge's edition of The Federaliai,
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 661
tive; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of CHAP.
New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts VIII
eight, Bhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut
five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight,
Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five.
South Carolina five, and Qeorgia three.
When vacancies happen in the representation from any State,
the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to
fill such vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker
and other officers ; and shall have the sole power of impeach-
ment.
Sect. 3. The Senate of the United States' shall be composed
of two senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof,
for six years ; and each senator shall have one vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of
the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be
into three classes. The seats of the senators of the first class
shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, the second
class at the expirati(m of the fourth year and the third class
at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one third may be
chosen every second year ; and if vacancies happen, by resigna-
tion or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any
State, the Executive thereof may make temporary appointments
until the next meeting of the legislature, which shsJl then fill
such vacancies.
No person shall be a senator who shall not hare attained to
the age of thirty years, and been ni^e years a citizen of the
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant
of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice-President of the United States shall be president
of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally
divided
The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a
president pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President^ or
when he shall exercise the office of President of the United
States.
The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.
When sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath or affirma
tion. When the President of the United States is tried, the
Chief-Justice shall preside. And no person shaU be convicted
without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present
Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further
than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and
enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United
States ; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and
subject to indictment, trial, judgment^ and punishment, according
to law.
662 THE AttEBIOAK COMMONWEALTH
CHAP. Sect. 4. The times, plac^ and manner of holding elections
VIII for senatoFB and representatiree shall be prescribed in each
State by the legislature thereof ; but the Congress may at any
time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the
places of choosing senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and
such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless
they shall by law appoint a different day.
Sect. 5. Each house shall be the judge of the elections,
returns, and (qualifications of its own members; and a majority
of each shall constitute a quorum to do business ; but a smaller
number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized
to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner,
and under such penalties, as each house may provide.
Each house may determine the rules c^ its proceedings,
punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the
concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.
Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from
time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in
their judgment require secrecy ; and the yeas and nays of the
members of either house on any question shall, at the desire of
one fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.
Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without
the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor
to any other place than that in which the two houses shall be
sitting.
Sect. 6. The senators and representativee shall receive a
compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and
paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall, in
all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be
privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session or
their respective houses, and in going to and returning from the
same ; and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall
not be questioned in any other place.
No senator or representative shall, during the time for which
he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the
authority of the United States, which shall have been created,
or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during
such time ; and no person holding any office under the United
States, shall be a member of either house during his continuance
in office.
Sbctt. 7. All bills for raising revenue shaU originate in the
House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or
concur with amendments as on other bills.
Every bill which shall have passed the House of Kepresentativee
and the Senate shall, before it become a law, be presented to
the President of the United States; if he approve, he shaU
sign it; but if not, he shall return it, with his objections, to
THE ABffEKIGAN COMMONWEALTH 663
that house in which it shall have originat<dy who AM eater OHAP.
the objections at large on their joarnal^ and proceed to reconsider ^I^^
it If after such reconsideration two thirds of that bouse shall
agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the
objeotkms, to the other house, bj which it shall likewise be
reconsidered, and if appiorred bj two thirds of that house, it
shall become a law. But in all such cases the votes of both
houses shall be det^miiied by yeas and nays, and the names of
the persons voting for and agunst the bill shall be entered on
the journal of each house respectively. If any bill shall not
be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted)
after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a
law, in like manner as if he had signed it^ unless the Ck>ngress
by their adjournment [Mrevent its return, in whieh case it shall
not be a law.
Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of
the Senate and the House of Bapresentatives may be necessary
(except on a question of adjournment), shall be presented to the
President of the United States; and before the same shall
take effect^ shall be approved by him, or, being disapproved by
him, shull be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House
of Bepresentatives, according to the rules and limitations
prescribed in the case of a bilL
Sbct. 8. The Congress shall have power —
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises ; to
pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general
wdfare of the United States: but all duties, imposts, and
excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States ;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States ;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the
several ^ates, and with the Indian tribes ;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws
on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States ;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign
coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures ;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities
and current coin of the United States ;
To establish post-offices and post-roads ;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by
securing for limited times to authors and invtotors the exclusive
right to their respective writings and discoveries ;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court ;
To define and punish piracies and fdonies committed on the
high seas, and offences i^ainst the law of nations ;
To declare war, grant letters d marque and reprisal, and
make rules ooneeming captures on land and water ;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money
to that use shall be for a loni2;er term than two yean ;
664 THE AMERICAN OOHMOKWEALTH
CHAP. '^o provide and maintain a navy ;
YIII To make rules for the government and regulation of the land
and naval forces ;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the
laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions ;
To provide for organinng, armings and disciplining the
militia, and for governing such parts of them as may be em-
ployed in the service of the United States, reserving to the
States respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the
authority of training the militia according to the discipline
prescribed by Congress ;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over
such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession*
of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become
the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise
like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the
legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the
erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other
needful buildings ; And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers
vested by this Constitution in the government of the United
States, or in any department or officer thereof.
Sect. 9. The migration or importation of such persons as
any of the States now existing shall think proper to admits
shall not be {MX)hibited by the Congress prior to the year one
thousand eight hundred and eighty but a tax or duty may be
imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for
each person.
The privilege of the writ of haheas carpus shall not be
suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the
public safety may require it.
See page No bill of attainder or ex^postrfado law shall be passed.
^^^' No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, imless in
proportion to the cenms or enumeration herein before directed
to be taken.
No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any
State. No preference shall be given by any regulation of
commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of
another; nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be
obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.
No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in conse-
quence of appropriations made by law ; and a regular statement
and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public
money shall be published from time to time.
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States :
And no person holding any office of profit or trust under them,
shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any
THE AMERIOAN COMMONWEALTH 665
jHreBent, emoluxnent, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from OHAP.
any king, prince, or foreign state. VIII
Sect. 10. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliaace, or '^^^^n^^-^^
confederation ; grant letters of marque; and reprisal ; coin
money ; emit bills of credit ; make any thing bttt gold and
silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of Seepage
attainder, exrpost-fado law, or law impairing the obligation of ^^^* -
contracts ; or grant any title of nobility.
No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any
imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be
absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws ; and the
net proceeds of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on
imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the
United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the
revision and control of the Congress. No State shall, without
the consent of Congress, lay any duties of tonnage, keep troops,
or ships of war, in time of peace, enter into any agreement or
compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage
in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger
as will not admit of delay.
ARTICLE IL •
Sect. 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President
of the United States of America. He shall hold his office
during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice-
President, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows :
Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature
thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole
number of senators and representatives to which the State
may be entitled in the Congress : but no senator or representative,
or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United
States, shall be appointed an elector.
The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote
by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be
an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they
shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the
number of votes for each; which list they shaU sign and
certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of
the United States, directed to the i»resident of the Senate.
The president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the
Senate and the House of Representatives, open all the certificates,
and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the
greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number
be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and
if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an
equal number of votes, then the House of Eepresentatives shall
immediately choose by ballot one of them for President ; and
666 THE AMERICAN OOHHOITSV^EALTH
OHAP. ^ no person have a majority, then from the fire highest on die
Yin list the said House shall in like manner ehoose the Presidenli.
But in choosing the Presidenti the votes shall be taken by
States, the representation from each State having one vote;
a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or
members from two thirds of the States^ and a majority of all
the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after
the choice of the President, the person having ihe greatest
number of votes of the electors ^all be the Vice-President.
But if there should remain two or more who have equal
votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice-
President.
The Congress may determine the time of choosing the
electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes;
which day shall be the same throughout the United States.
No person except a natural-bom citizen, or a citizen of die
United States, at the time of the adoption of this Gonstitution,
shall be eligiUe to the office of President ; neither shall any
person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to
the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident
within the United States.
In case of removal of the President from office, or of his
death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and
duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-
President, and the Congress may by law provide for ihe case
of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the Presideiit
and Vice-Presidenti declaring what officer shall then act as
President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the dis-
ability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services
a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished
during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he
shall not receive within that period any other emolument from
the United States, or any of them.
Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take
the following oath or affirmation :
''I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully
execute the office of President of the United States^ and will, to
the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the United States."
SeCTT. 2. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the
army and navy of the United States ; and of the militia of ihe
several States, when called into the actual service of the United
States ; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal
officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject
relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shaQ
have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against
the United Stated, except in cases of impeadiment.
THE AMKRIOAK OOHMOK WEALTH 667
He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of CHAP,
the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the VIII
senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and, by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint
ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the
Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States,
whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and
which shall be established by law. But the Congress may by
law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think
proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the
heads of departments.
The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that
may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting
commissions which shall expire at the end of their next
session.
Sect. 8. He shall from time to time give to the Congiess
information of the state of the Union, and rec<»nmend to their
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and
expedient ; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both
houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between
them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn
them to such time as he shall think proper ; he shaJl receive
ambassadors and other public ministers ; he shall take care that
the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the
officers of the United States.
Sect. 4. The President, Vice-President^ and all civil officers
of the United States shall be removed from office on impeach-
ment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high
crimes and misdemeanors.
ARTICLE in.
Sect. 1. The judicial power of the United States shall be
vested in one Supreme Courts and in such Inferior courts as the
Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The
judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their
offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive
for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished
during their continuance in office.
Sect. 2. The judicial power shall extend to all oases in law
and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the
United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under
their authority ; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public
ministers and consuls ; to all cases of admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction ; to controversies to which the United States shall
be a party ; to controversies between two or more States ;
between a State and citizen of another State ; between citizens
of different States ; between citizens of the same State claiming
668 THE AMERICAN OOHMOKWEALTH
CHAP, lands under grants of different States ; and between a State, or
YIII the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects.
^•-^^'^./^'•^ In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and
consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme
Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases
before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate juris-
diction, both as to law and fact» with such exceptions, and under
such regulations, as the Congress shall make.
The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall
be by jury ; and such trial shall be held in the State where the
said crimes shall hare been committed ; but when not committed
within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the
Congress may by law hare directed.
Sect. 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only
in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies,
giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of
treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same
overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment
of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption
of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person
attainted.
ARTICLE IV.
Sect. 1. 'Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to
the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other
' State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the
manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be
proved, and the effect thereof.
Sect. 2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.
A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or ot^er
crime, who shall fiee from justice, and be found in another State,
shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from
which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State
having jurisdiction of the crime.
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or
labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom
such service or labor may be due.
See page Sbct. 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into
01^* this Union ; but no new State shall be formed or erected within
the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by
the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without
the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned, as well
as of the Congress.
THE AMEaaiCAN COMMONWEALTH 669
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all CHAP.
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other VIII
property belonging to the United States ; and nothing in this
Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of
the United States, or of any particular State.
Sect. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in
this Union a republican form of government^ and shall protect
each of them against invasion, and on application of the legis-
lature, or of the Executive (when the legislature cannot be
convened), against domestic violence.
ARTICLE V.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem
it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or,
on the applicatioD of the legislatures of two thirds of the several
States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which,
in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part
of this Constitution^ when ratified by the legislatures of three
fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three fourths
thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be
proposed by the Congress : Provided, that no amendment which
may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and
eight, shall in any manner afiect the first and fourth clauses in
the ninth section of the first article ; and that no State, with-
out its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the
Senate.
ARTICLE VL
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against
the United States under this Constitution, as under the Con-
federation.
Thia Constitution, and the laws of the United States which
shall be made in pursuance thereof ; and all treaties made, or
which shall be made, under the authority of the United States,
shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the judges in every
State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or
laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the
members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and
judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several
States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this
Constitution; but no religions test shall ever be required as a
qualification to any office or public trust under the United
States.
670
THE AiC£BIOAN OOMMONWEALTH
CHAP.
VIII
NEW-HAMPSfflRE .
MASSACHUSETTS .
CONNECTICUT . .
NEW YORK . . .
NEW JERSEY
ARTICLE VII.
The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitation between the
States so ratifying the same.
DONE in convdntion, by the unanimous consent of the States
present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of
our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven,
and of the independence of the United States of America
the twelfth. In witness whereof, we have hereunto
subscribed our names.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, FresiderU, arid Deputy from Ftrginia.
/John Langdon,
\NlCHOLAS GiLMAN.
/Nathaniel Oorham,
IRufos King.
/William Samuel Johnson,
\RooBR Sherman.
{Alexander Hamilton.
'William Livingston,
David Brearlby,
William Patbrson,
UoNATHAN Dayton.
Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Mifflin,
Robert Morris,
George Cltmer,
Thomas Fitzsimons,
Jared Ingersoll,
James Wilson,
igouverneur morris.
(George Read,
GiTNNiNG Bedford^ Junior,
John Dickinson,
Richard Bassett,
Jacob Broom.
(James M'Hbnrt,
Daniel Jenifer, of St. Thomas,
Daniel Carroll.
VIRGINIA ("^^^^ ^^^
viKuiJNiA I James Madibon, Junior.
(WiLUAM Blount,
Richard Dobbs Spaight,
Hugh Williamson.
(John Rutlbdgb,
Charles Cotbsworth Pinoknxt,
Charles Pingknby,
Pierce Butler.
PENNSYLVANIA
DELAWARE
MARYLAND
NORTH CAROLINA
SOUTH CAROLINA
TBB AMERICAN OOKlfOK WEALTH 67 1
/William Pew, chap.
IAbraham Baldwin. vui
GEORGIA
Attest. WILLIAM JACKSON, Secretary.
IN CONVENTION.
Monday, September 17, 1787.
Present, The Stales of Netv-Hampshire, MassaehusettSj Cannedicuiy
Mr. HamUUm from New-York^ New Jersey ^ Pewnsylvania^ Dela-
ware^ Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia.
Resolved, That tha preceding Constitution be Laid before the.
United States in Congress assembled, and that it is tbe opinion
of this convention, that it should afterwards be subimitted to
a convention of delegates, chosen in each State hj the people
thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature, for their
assent and ratification ; and that each convention assenting to,
and ratifying the same should give notice thereof to the United
States in Congress assembled.
Besolwd, That it is the opinion of this convention, that as
soon as the conventions of nine States shall have ratified this
Constitution, the United States in Congress assembled should
fix a day on which electors should be appointed by the States
which shall have ratified the same, and a day on 'which the
electors should assemble to vote for the President^ and the time
and place for commencing proceedings under this Constitution ;
that after such publication the electors should be appointed, and
the senators and representatives elected ; that the electors should
meet on the day fixed for the election of the President, and
should transmit their votes certified, signed, sealed, sati directed,
as the Constitution requires, to the secretary of the United
States in Congress assembled; that the senators and repre-
sentatives should convene at the time and place assigned ; that
the senators should appoint a president of the Senate, for the
sole purpose of receiving, opening, and counting the Votes for
President; and that after he shall be chosen, the Congress,
together with the President, should without delay proceed to
execute this Constitution.
By the unanimous order of the convention.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, President.
William Jackson, Secretary.
672 THK AMERIGAK OOHMOFWBALTH
vm AMESDMEXTS TO THE OONSTITDTION.
-^ Tha fint ten amendmeiitB ware propond in GongmB daring
615. Its ftrsi session, and on the 15ih of Deeember, 1791, were
ratified The eleven^ amendment was proposed daring ihefirsi
session of the third Congress, and was annooneed hj tlie
President of the United States in a message to it, of date
January 8th, 1798, as having been ratified. The hadftk amend-
ment originated with Hamilton, and was proposed doring the
Jirst session of the eighOi Congress, and was adopted in 1804.
ARTICLE THE FIRST.
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press ; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the gOTemment for a
redress of grievances.
ARTICLE THE SECOND.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed.
ARTICLE THE THIRD.
No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house
without the consent of the owner ; nor in time of war, but in
the manner prescribed by law.
ARTICLE THE FOURTH.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to
be seized.
ARTICLE THE FIFTH.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand
jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the
militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger ;
nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice
put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be compelled in any
criminal case to be witness against himself ; nor be deprived of
THE AHEBIGAN COMMONWEALTH 673
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor OHAP.
shall private property be taken for public use without just VIII
compensation.
ARTICLE THE SIXTH
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right
of a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jary of the State
and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to
be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be
confronted with the witnesses against him ; to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
assistance of counsel for his defence.
ARTICLE THE SEVENTH.
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy
shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved; and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise
reexamined in any court of the United States than according to
the rules of the common law.
ARTICLE THE EIGHTH.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
ARTICLE .THE NINTH.
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall
not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the
people.
ARTICLE THE TENTH.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to
the States respectively, or to the people.
ARTICLE THE ELEVENTH.
The judicial power of the United States shall not be con-
strued to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or
prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of
another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State.
ARTICLE THE TWELFTH.
The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote
by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom at
2X
674 THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH
CHAP, least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with them-
VIII selves; tbey shall name in their ballots the person voted for
as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as
Vice-President ; and they shall make distinct lists of all persons
voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Yice-
Preaident, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they
shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of
government of the United States, directed to the President
of the Senate ; the president of the Senate shall, in the presence
of the Senate and the House of Representatives, open all the
certificates, and the votes shall then be counted ; the person
having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the
President, if such number be a majority of the whole number
of electors appointed ; and if no person have such majority, then
from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding
three, on the list of those voted for as President, the House of
Eepresentatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President
But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by
States, the representation from each State having one vote ; a
quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members
from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States
shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Eepresenta-
tives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice
shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next
following, then the Vice-President shall act as President as in the
case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President
The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-
President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a
majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if no
person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on
the list^ the Senate shall choose the Vice-President ; a quorum
for the purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number
of senators, and a* majority of the whole number shall be
necessary to a choice.
But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of
President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the
United States.
The following amendment was ratified by Alabama, December
2, 1865, which filled the requisite complement of ratifying
States, and was certified by the Secretary of State to have
become valid as a part of the Constitution of the United States,
December 18, 1865.
ARTICLE THE THIRTEENTH.
Sect. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except
as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 675
dtdy convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any cHAP.
place subject to their jarisdiction. VIII
Sect. 2. Congress shall hare power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation.
The following amendment was certified by the Secretary of
State to have become valid as a part of the Constitution of the
United States, July 28, 1868.
ARTICLE THE FOURTEENTH,
Sect. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the States wherein they reside. No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
process of law ; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws.
Sect. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the
several States according to their respective numbers, counting
the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the
choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United
States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial
officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is
denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being
twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in
any way abridged, except for participation in rebdlion or other
crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to
the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in
such State.
Sbot. 3. No person shall be a senator or representative m
Congress, or eleetbr of President and Vice-President, or hold any
office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any
State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of
Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of
any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any
State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall
have engaged in insftrrection or rebellion against the same, or
given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may,
by a vote of two thirds of each house, remove such disability.
Sect. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United
States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment
of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection
or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United
l^tes nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation
676 THE AMSRICAN OOMMOKWSALTH
CHAP, incurred in aid of insuirectimi or rebellion against tlie United
YIII States, or any claim for the loss or emancipadon of any slaye ;
bat all such debts, obligations^ and claims shall be held illegal
and void.
Sect. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by
appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
The following amendment was proposed to the legislatares of
the several States by the fortieth Congress, on the 27th of
February, 1869, and was declared, in a proclamation of the
Secretary of State, dAted March 30, 1870, to have been ratified
by the legislatures of twenty-nine of the thirty-seven States.
ARTICLE THE FIFTEENTH.
Sect. I. The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by
any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.
Sect. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
The following amendment was passed by Congress on
July 15, 1909, and on Feb. 25, 1913, was certified by the
Secretary of State to have received ratification by the necessary
three fourths of the whole number of States, and therefore as
being valid as a part of the Constitution of the United States.
ARTICLE THE SIXTEENTH.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on
incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment
among the several States, and without regard *to any census or
enumeration.
The following amendment was passed by Congress on
May 15, 1912, and was certified by the Secretary of State on
May 31, 1913, to have been ratified and become valid as a part
of the Constitution of the United States.
ARTICLE THE SEVENTEENTH.
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two
Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six
years ; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in
THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH 677
each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of CHAP,
the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. VIII
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State
in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue
writs of election to fill such vacancies; Frovidedy That the
legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to
make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies
by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the
election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as
part of the Constitution.
CHAPTER IX
THE SCHISM OF THE COIOIOXWEALTH TS ITS
AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP.
IX
Lincoln's
work in
taring the
freedom
estab'
lished bj
Washing-
ton.
The union
of colonies
a step
towards
freedom,
but not
their
secession
from the
parent
Common-
wealth.
Had Lincoln &iled, and had Lee been able to vindicate
the principle which determined his own conduct,
the work of Washington mast have been undone.
American society would have dissolved once more
into a congeries of sovereign states, whose common
interests and mutual disputes would have been subject
to no general law, but only, where agreement £eiiled,
to the settlement of force. America would have had
no law binding upon all and yet capable of being
moulded by the experience and opinion of all, and,
until the edifice raised by Washington had been
restored, the government of American affairs by
Americans for Americans would have perished from
the soil on which they live.
The real contribution of Americans to the cause of
freedom was the effective union of all their states in
one greater Commonwealth, and the efforts and
sacrifices by which the union of that Commonwealth
was preserved. The practice, however, of confusing
the revolution which severed the colonies from the
parent Commonwealth with this subsequent achieve-
ment, has led historians to treat the great schism as
itself a notable step in the progress of freedom. At a
moment when the liberties of the world are trembling
in the balance, it is time to reconsider that judgment.
In assisting the American colonies to revolt from the
678
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 679
parent Commonwealth the French monarchy was chap.
concerned merely to divide the forces opposed to
autocracy against themselves. It succeeded, but the
blow recoiled to hasten the downfall of the tottering
throne^ from which it was aimed. But something
more than the destruction of monarchy — a change in
the national character itself — was necessary for the
achievement of freedom in France. A new and far
more powerful autocracy was raised by Napoleon on
the ruins of the Bourbon throne, and before the close
of the century the British Commonwealth was plunged
once more into a struggle, upon the issue of which
the world's freedom as well as its own existence
depended.
For twenty years that issue hung upon the margin The Napo-
of superior power which the British fleets were able ^^ a
to maintain on the sea. But Napoleon could never struggle
have succeeded so fiur, nor would it have taken so freedom
m wliicli
long to defeat him, had the resources of Anglo-Saxon the British
society on both sides of the Atlantic been united w^tT"^
against him. As it was, the Americans, not under- ^^ ^^
standing the issues at stake, and misled by the I'&tner
catchwords of the French Revolution, ended by supported
ranging their sea-power on Napoleon's side. In spite Iml^ca?^
of its mutilation the British Commonwealth survived,
and in saving freedom for itself saved it for Europe
&s well as for America. That phase of the struggle
waa closed, not merely by the victories of Trafalgar
and Waterloo, but still more by the subsequent
development in France itself of the habits essential
to free institutions.
The conflict, in truth, was one between principles Revival of
rather than peoples. In England there had developed cipiJ^of"
a system different from any in Europe, and strong ?utocracy
•' •' *^ ' ©in central
enough to claim a share in the world opened by Henry Europe,
the Navigator. Its future existence depended on its
power to assert that claim ; and the issue of the conflict
680 THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP, was to determine whether the principle of autocracy
^^^^.^^^^^^ or that of freedom was to prevail in the outer world
From the moment when the Spanish Armada left the
Tagus, till eleven battered hulks of Napoleon's fleet
reeled from Trafalgar into Cadiz, that issue was at
stake. There and at Waterloo it was settled outright,
so far as the Powers of Western Europe were con-
cerned, and the Anglo-Saxon world went on its way
as though there was nobody else to open it. Close
upon a century was to pass before it was realized that
Europe had been destined to a new birth of autocracy
at its centre. In the history of the struggle for the
mastery of the seas the name of that race before which
Kome trembled in her rise and bowed 'in her decay, is
conspicuous by its absence. That Germany, as such,
took no part in it, was, says the pupil and successor
of Bismarck, * a prolonged national misfortune, not
due to foreigners, but our own fault.' ^ The Germans,
organized as a counterfeit state, were blinded to their
own essential disunion. Nor had they for the same
reason acquired the faculty whereby government is
rendered amenable to public opinion.^ The convention
1848. of a German national Parliament at Frankfort was an
attempt to establish popular government and unite
Germany by general consent. The attempt was a
1870. signal failure, and the union of Germany twenty years
later was the work of the Prussian dynasty, accom-
plished by force.
* von Billow, Imperial Germany y p. 111.
2 *I once,* says Prince Bernhard von Billow, an ex-Chancellor of the
Empire, ' had a conversation on this subject with the late Ministerial Director
Althoff. ** Well, what can you expect ? " replied that distinguished man in
his humorous way. " We Germans are the most learned nation in the world,
and the best soldiers. We have achieved great things in all the sciences and
arts : the greatest philosophers, the greatest poets and musicians are Germans.
Of late we have occupied the foremost place in the natural sciences and in
almost all technical spheres, and in addition to that we have accomplished
an enormous industrial development. How can you wonder that we are
political asses? There must be a weak point somewhere.*"— -von Biilow,
Imperial Germany, p. 106.
THE SOHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 681
In 1870 a government which could claim to be chap.
that of the German people acquired a voice in the ^,^^,^^^^„„^
councils of modern Europe for the first time. The Belated
immediate results were sufficient to show how seriously ofthe ^^
the lack of German control over German affairs had ^â„¢*^,,
nation the
affected the peace of all Europe : for the union was achieve-
followed by forty years of repoVe. which was broken iZlj.
only in the Balkan Peninsula. At peace with herself,
Germany was at length able to develop her natural
resources. For the first time free play was given to
the inborn vigour, intelligence, and industry of the
people. Their wealth increased by leaps and bounds,
and with it the strength of their military forces. A
nation, which had never been able to speak and act
as one, suddenly found itself a power second to none
in the councils of Europe. What the German people
had failed to effect by mutual consent, their strongest
dynasty had accomplished by force of arms. The
prestige of autocracy was immensely enhanced by the
achievement, and behind the transparent screen of an
assembly elected by universal suffrage, German state-
hood was established on the power of a monarchy
backed by the strongest army which the world has
seen.
The result was that instead of public opinion Success
controlling Government the best-educated people in oeman
Europe were content that Government should mould ?^*^®"°y
public opinion. So recently as 1913 Dr. Walther trolling
Rathenau, a man no less distinguished in the world opinion.
of culture than in the field of industry, expressed
himself to a French interviewer as unable to under-
stand a political system which allowed public opinion
to influence policy. ' Many of the elements,' he re-
marked, *in your social and moral life escape us.
For instance, we are not, as you are, in the habit
of reckoning with public opinion. With us it does
not count for anything. Opinion has never had any
682 THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP, effect on a policy. It resembles rather the choras of
antiquity which looks on and comments on an action
unfolding around it. I should compare it to a
crowd that accompanies, but is not admitted to the
gama It is, therefore, very difficult for us to grasp
the mechanism of a public opinion that intervenes in
everything, and reigns in politics, in administration,
in the army, and is even allowed access to the courts
of justice. To us it is absolutely inconceivable.' ^
That Government in Germany does not look to
public opinion is only one- half the truth. The
Prussian autocracy would never have been able to
effect or maintain the union had it not seen that the
opinion of the most intelligent, educated, and virile
people in Europe could not be ignored. Bismarck
recognized this, but he also knew that for a people
so far developed in other directions their instinct for
freedom was singularly weak. In the long struggle
of the States for separate existence military despotism
had, with the exception of some free cities like
Hamburg, been accepted as a necessary form of
government, and under its tutelage the Grerman
character acquired a curious docility. Public opinion
was itself amenable to direction from above. The
Press Bureau established by Bismarck was but one
of the means expressly devised to secure that people
should think what the Government wished they
should think. Another, at once more subtle and
powerful, is the control which Government has over
education. The advice which von Treitschke gave to
a young professor, who aspired to success in the world
of leamiDg, was above all things to be 'governmental.'
Independence of mind, so feo: as politics are concerned,
is a fatal bar to success in the field of learning ; yet
nowhere else do professors enjoy so high a prestige or
exercise so decisive an influence on the public mind.
' Boardon, The Oerman Enigma^ pp. 128-9.
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 683
It is this docility of a vigorous and intelligent people, ohap.
turned to its own uses by an indefatigable Govern-
ment, which explains why a legislature, elected by
universal suffrage, with full control of supply, has
never secured an executive responsible to itself. Of
course that assembly has not always been willing to
adopt the measures of the Government, Yet when-
ever a deadlock has threatened, the Government has
appealed to the people, and so far a majority has
always been found to support it against legislators of
their own previous choice. That a people in the fore-
front of civilization should produce the most powerful
autocracy ever seen in the modern world is a singular
phenomenon, and centuries of disunion suddenly ended
by the maater-strokes of the Prussian dynasty furnish
the key to it.
Between such a system and those in which public R«cur-
opinion is the guiding as well as the actuating force, J^e^^ °
a spiritual conflict is inherent. Unquestionably the ^^^^^^^
progress which government by pubUc opinion has theprin-
made in Europe is mainly due to the infectious de^otism
example of the British and American Common- ^the^**
wealths. It is they which have acted as ' seminaries ^"}^^^"
to seditious parliaments,' ' inspiring the French ""''
Revolution, which in turn excited a demand for
constitutions in Germany itself, and obliged Govern-
ment to devise expedients for keeping public opinion
in control. With a people so intelligent such ex-
pedients were bound to fail sooner or later. A time
was certain to come when the electorate would close
its ears to the appeals of the Government and return
a legislature pledged to refuse them ; and whenever
this happened the autocracy must either yield to
responsible government or else suspend the constitu-
tion. The Emperor must face the two alternatives.
^ See above, p. 199, and also the passage quoted from Woodrow Wilsou,
p. 76.
684 THE SCHISM OF THB COMMONWEALTH IN ITS APTBE EFFECTS
CHAP. He must either renounce his claim that he is answer-
IX
able to God rather than man, and bow to the
majority, or else the majority must bow to the armies
which look to the War-lord as their chief The
balance between an autocracy and a popular legis-
lature is in the long run just as impossible to maintain
in Germany as in any other part of the civilized
world. The one must encroach upon the other, and
until commonwealths are blotted from existence and
their memory forgotten among men, their example
will continue to dissolve the primitive and super-
natural ideas which afford the only moral foundations
upon which the principle of autocracy can rest. Its
immediate basis, however, is military force, and the
readiness of an army to obey the man at its head
rather than the law, in the event of a conflict between
the two, will decline unless it is occasionally exercised
in war. Fear of a peace too long unbroken which
inspired the first and third Napoleon prevails no less
in those sections of Prussian society which uphold
the principle of personal rule.^
To commonwealths war is a visitation to be faced,
like famine or pestilence, only with the purpose of
preventing its recurrence and protecting the liberty
for which they stand. By the ruling classes in
Prussia it is treated as a wholesome as well as a
necessary exercise, and naturally they look upon the
opposite opinion as a confession of weakness and a
symptom of national decay. To them Britain is a
power which has used the dissensions of Europe to
annex a quarter of the world, and has now by its
decadence lost any title to empire which it ever
^ ' The lauded nobility . . . which forms a hierarohy of which the King
of Prussia is the supreme head, sees with terror the democratization of
Germany and the growing force of the socialist party. ' — Confidential Report
to M, Stephen Pickony Minister for Foreign Affairs^ on Gtrinan public opinion,
according to French diplomatic and consular agents. Parxs, JiUy SOth, 1913.
Yellow Book published by the French Government, December 1914 {English
translation), p. 16.
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IK ITS AFTER EFFECTS 685
possessed. To men honestly convinced that in chap.
politics * might is also the supreme right/ ^ and firmly ^^
believing in their own nation as the strongest in the
world, it is intolerable that Britain should continue
to rule a quarter of its surface. World-empire, and
its necessary condition, the mastery of the seas, could
scarcely seem otherwise than the natural inheritance
of a nation that had won the hegemony of Europe.
The Grermans, however, have not been content to Project of
rest their claim to world-supremacy merely on superior ^c^^^n-
force, nor indeed have they needed to do so. Their i^e world
nationalism, suddenly realized, has made them vividly contrasted
conscious of their own pre-eminence in music, litera- copsdous
ture, learning, philosophy, science, and the industrial the^*^°
arts. They have evolved a culture which they rightly J*mbo<Sld
regard as the greatest of national achievements, and ^ *^«
this consciousness has effected them in much the Oommon-
same way as the sense of a newly acquired liberty ^^
affected the French. To France her freedom seemed
so glorious a thing that she deemed herself destined
to enforce it on the world. And so with the suddenly
realized nationalism of the Grermans. Justly en-
amoured with the splendour of their own civilization,
they conceive themselves as charged with a mission to
do for mankind what Prussia did for Germany herself.
* Neither the ridiculous clamours for revenge of the
French jingoes, nor the English gnashing of teeth,
nor the wild gestures of the Slavs, will turn us
from our end, which is to strengthen and to extend
Deutschtum (Grermanism) throughout the entire
world.' ^ The words are those of an oflScial, but
they reflect sentiments previ^lent in learned, and
even in religious circles, which have served to invest
schemes of far-reaching conquest with the glamour
^ von Bernhardi, O&rmany and the Next War, p. 23.
^ Secret Report on the strengthening of the Ghrman Army, Berlin,
March 19, 1915. Yellow Book published hy the French Oovemment,
December 1914 {English translation), p. 8.
686 THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTEB EFFECTS
CHAP, of a crusade. The Grerman nation is honestly
concerned to achieve greatness by spreading its
own culture over all the world, bUnd to the truth
that for each individual and race the only culture
is their own. The system which the world most
needs is that which best enables each man and each
community of men to develop their own character,
and develop it, so far as may be, for themselves.
Like all people bred to autocracy, the Grermans
have failed to see that this Empire which includes a
quarter of the world has grown in response to this
need, and has only endured because it has shown
itself better able to respond to it than others. Its
kingdom was one that came not with observation.
Had Napoleon conquered the world, his empire
would not have endured, because it was a project
deliberately conceived, and not one which grew from
human needs too wide and deep to be wholly
conscious. And so with the Latin Emperor's
Teutonic heir. If Germany were to conquer the
world, she could not hold it or compel it to be
German. The only empires which persist are those
which are neither Spanish, French, German, nor
British, but human. For empires cannot be held
as Napoleon would have held Europe, or Germany
has held Posen or Alsace-Lorraine. Empires must
hold together, and that they can do only in so far
as the peoples they include find that they answer
to the needs not of one, but of all. The British
Empire has held together in so far as Britain has
discovered principles and evolved a system which
are not British but human, and can only endure in
so far as it grows more human still. ' It was not
the Romans that spread upon the world ; but it was
the world that spread upon the Romans, and that
was the sure way of greatness.' ^
^ Bacon's Essays, xxix.
THE 8GHI81f OF THE OOMMONWEALTH IN IT8 AJTSK SrFlOTB 687
Bacon's aphomm is far more nearly applicable to ohap.
the Commonwealth planted by the country of his ^^J^,^^
birth. Many and various nations have spread their Freedom
branches upon it, covering its frame so closely that ^dj^^by
they are prone to forget that it is there. Only when the sohiam
the storm strikes it do they realize what freedom America,
their growth has gained from its support, or what b^^he"^
fair promise of flower and fruit would perish in its ^^"f
fall. The principle of freedom, like that of Ufe, is the British
indestructible, but not the systems through which wealth,
it is realized, and many harvests of liberty may be
lost in their ruin, to the lasting impoverishment of
the world. It is idle to suggest that so many men
would be so free as they now are if Britain had
perished in the struggle with France and Spain. It
is equally futile to question that freedom would
sustain the most serious check it has ever received
if the British Commonwealth were to perish in the
present struggle, its Dominions yielding to the virtual
control, and its great dependencies to the direct
authority of Prussia. We have but to imagine the
United Kingdom reduced to the position of Denmark
or Holland, trembling at the Prussian nod, India and
Africa ruled from Berlin, South Africa, Australia, and
New Zealand unable to withstand the dictates of a
power dominant at sea as well as in Europe, to
realize the disastrous nature of a schism which has
led the hundred millions who now inhabit the United
States to treat the American continent as a separate
planet consecrated to liberty, and to regard the
freedom of nations outside it, and the task of ex-
tending its principles to Aflia and Africa, as beyond
the range of their active interest.
The creation of a system whereby the principle of
the commonwealth could be realized for a territory
so much vaster than the British Isles as is that of
the United States was a notable step in the history
freedom.
688 THB SGHISH OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS ATTEB EFFBCTS
OHAP. of freedom ; and, as will be seen at a later stage of
^^^J\^ tlie inquiry, it was one which made possible an
The organization on similar lines in Canada, Australia,
^^^ and South Africa. The British Commonwealth
^"iST" owes an immeasurable debt to the example set by
set-back the first colouies after their secession. But to
cau8e%f represent the schism itself as a step in the history
of freedom argues a failure to grasp what freedom
means, or to recognize the persistence of the forces
by which it is threatened. Across the Atlantic
the people of the British Isles had planted free
communities in a virgin soil. The expansion of the
Commonwealth to America was of supreme import-
ance because it meant that people from all Europe
who settled there were to leave behind them the
traditions of Roman autocracy to inherit those of
Teutonic self-government. But were they to inherit
freedom merely for themselves, or were they to take
their share in the task of guarding the freedom of
younger and weaker communities? Nay, rather
were they to assume a share in the greatest and
most delicate of all human tasks, only to be
accomplished by centuries of labour — ^the task of
opening freedom to the backward races of the
world? So far as that part of America which is
now included in the United States is concerned,
these questions were destined to be answered in the
negative. The burden was not to be assumed by
the people who now inherit the first colonies of the
British Commonwealth. Neither in Britain nor yet
in the colonies was forthcoming the vision to foresee
the widening tasks of the great Commonwealth, nor
the statesmanship to initiate the future inhabitants
of America thereto. The first opportunity of realiz-
ing this project of a commonwealth was missed,
and never were the springs of human endeavour
more perilously weakened, nor the hands which
THE SCHISM OF THE OOMHON WEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 689
record its triumphs more grievously stayed on the chap.
dial of time.
That the schism of 1783 did not lead to a positive The
set-back in the history of freedom was due to a oSmmon-
contemporary revolution in industrial methods. An ^^^^^^^
access of wealth secured for Britain by a sudden theioMof
advance in mechanical invention alone enabled her by the
to defeat the forces which Napoleon marshalled iSvoiut^D.
against her. ' The fact is that the triumphant issue
of the great French war was largely, if not mainly,
due to the cotton - mill and the steam - engine.
England might well place the statues of Watt and
Arkwright by the side of those of Wellington and
Nelson, for had it not been for the wealth which they
created she could never have supported an expendi-
ture which, during the last ten years of the war,
averaged more than eighty-four millions a year, and
rose in 1814 to one hundred and six millions, nor
could she have endured without bankruptcy a
national debt which had risen in 1816 to eight
hundred and eighty-five milUons.' ^ In its immediate
ad well as in its ultimate results the Industrial
Revolution is comparable only to that earlier revolu-
tion in methods of transport eflfected by Henry the
Navigator. Britain acquired a singular facility for
converting cotton, wool, and other products of the
distant continents into articles of human consump-
tion. The wealth which she drew from these manu-
factures enabled her to vanquish Napoleon and to
save freedom for a world which he tried to combine
for her destruction.
The movement, which for three centuries had British^"^^
been bringing the people of all the continents into ^°^p^®'
closer touch with each other, was suddenly accentuated of the
by the need of British manufactures for raw materials i^vMut/^^,,,
of every kind. Their insular position, which pro- ^"d«-
* Leckj, History of England, vol. viL p. 280.
2 Y
690
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP.
IX
reloped into
a system for
the general
protection
of liberty
and its
gradual ex-
tension to
the back-
ward races.
tected the British Isles from the ravages of war and
enabled their inhabitants to develop new industrial
methods, gave them a lead in the field of pro-
duction ; and this lead went unchallenged till the
union of Germany secured the first long period of
peace, not merely to Grennany herself, but to Western
Europe. It was therefore, with minor exceptions,
the people of Britain, not those of Europe, who came
in touch with the distant continents. It was they
who colonized Canada, which the Loyalists, driven
from the United States, together with the French
settlers, had occupied as an outpost of the older
Commonwealth in the continent which the new one
aspired to monopolize. It was they who continued
the settlement of South Africa, begun by the Dutch,
and who colonized New Zealand and the continent of
Australia. It was British traders who came into
ever closer contact with the ancient peoples of Asia,
Africa, and the Southern Seas. Ere the nineteenth
century was reaching its close, the British had
extended their dominion over most of the vacant
territories open to settlement, and the greater part
of the races who inhabit the Tropics. Trade led to
dominion, and in laying the foundations of their own
freedom the people of the United Kingdom were
committed to the government of vast multitudes of
men unable to govern themselves. In doing so they
rose, however imperfectly, to the conception that
freedom is the ultimate goal of government, not
only for themselves, but for the backward races as
well. They grasped the principle that these races
are not to be treated as instruments of the Common-
wealth, but as ends in themselves, and are to be
included in its circle and recognized as co-heirs of the
spiritual inheritance which it exists to realize. They
are to be incorporated in a state which, before all
others, has stood for self-government, precisely for
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 691
the reason that they are as yet unequal to that task, chap.
but always with the end in view that in time they
may learn to rise to it. The British, of course, had
no such object in visiting the distant continents.
No more is it to promote their future welfare that
an industrialist employs thousands of workmen.
Yet having employed them, he contracts a moral
responsibility for their welfare, which, in so far as he
is a man capable of rising above mere appetite for
wealth, he will begin to recognize. And so with the
British people when contracting commercial relations
with the peoples of India and Africa. The task
opening before them in the nineteenth century was,
not merely to plant in the still vacant regions of the
earth kindred communities capable of governing
themselves, but slowly to indoctrinate the rudiments
of freedom in alien societies who had yet to study its
grammar and syntax. For the vast section of the
backward races included in its circle the British
Commonwealth is the best, and for the time being
the only earnest of liberty, as they themselves
have realized now that its existence is visibly
threatened.^ The people of Britain have learned to
regard them as fellow-citizens incorporated in the
same Commonwealth with themselves to the intent
that they may qualify for those fuller privileges
which, when rightly viewed, are coincident with its
wider tasks. Freedom, like the principle of life in
the physical world, is inseparable from growth.
Commonwealths are the corporeal frame in which it
is incarnate, and they cease to flourish when they
cease to extend the principle that inspires them in
an increasing degree to an ever-widening circle of
men. To have gathered to itself so vast a proportion
of the races who have yet to learn what freedom
means is the surest proof that the Commonwealth is
* See Note A at end of this chapter, p. 707.
692
THE 8CHI8H OF THE OOMKONWSALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP.
IX
Effect of
the schism
in divorc-
ing the
people of
thelTnited
States
from re-
sponsibili-
ties for
backward
races.
The United
States im-
pelled by
threats of
the Holy
Alliance to
champion
freedom
throughout
the
American
continent.
still true to the principle which inspires it. The
British Empire is not the less a commonwealth, bat
rather the more so, for having admitted countless
multitudes whose political notions have not yet risen
beyond the duty of obedience to a tribal patriarch
or a monarch invested with divine authority. In
truth, this world-wide state is not, as some historians
have vainly taught, an outcome of blunders, accidents,
and crimes, but of the deepest necessities of human
life. It is the project of a system designed on the
only scale which is capable of meeting those needs.
One of the worst consequences of the schism which
alienated 'the people of the United States from the
parent Commonwealth has been its effect in limiting
their conception of liberty and of the duty which free
communities owe to their feUow-men. The nature of
their quarrel with Britain committed them to the view
that parliamentary government is coincident with
freedom, and not merely a highly advanced stage in
its achievement. In their subsequent experience
there was little to bring home to them the truth that
freedom is an art whose elements must be acquired as
a sepond nature before it can be practised. Cut off
from the British Commonwealth, the Americans were
divorced from the obligations of a higher civilization
about to be laid upon it. They ignored the fact
that the majority of mankind are still incapable
of self-government, and that unless governed by
commonwealths they must, in the alternative, be
ruled by states little disposed to lay the foundations
of a system at variance with their own.
From the ultimate error of supposing that a nation
is not called upon to vindicate freedom, except for
itself, the people of the United States were saved by
the magnitude of the continent m which they lived.
Some years after Napoleon's fall, the monarchs of
Russia, Austria, and Prussia combined in a 'Holy
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 693
Alliance ' to resist the growth of popular government.^ chap.
In 1823 the allied sovereigns addressed themselves to
the task of restoring the principle of autocracy, not
merely in Europe but in Spanish America, where
monarchy was fast tottering to its fall. This meant
the exclusion of Great Britain from trade with
Spanish America; and Canning suggested to Rush,
the American Ambassador, that the United States
should combine with Great Britain to confine the
activities of the Holy Alliance to the continent of
Europe. * When Rush's despatches relating his inter-
views with Canning reached Washington in September
(1823) the President was plunged into a sea of doubt
and perplexity. He fiiUy realized the importance of
the question as he saw plainly the approach of the
dreaded clash ; it was the spirit of absolutism, angered
and jealous, which was seeking to arrest the progress
of democracy in the Western Hemisphere. To him
the subjugation of the South American colonies by
France, or by the combined forces of the Holy allies,
pointed directly to the absorption of those colonies by
the great powers and their forcible return to the sway
of imperialism. It meant the hedging in of the
United States by its natural enemies, and the possible
overthrow of republican institutions at home.'
Monroe consulted his predecessors in the presidential
office, including Jefferson, who, writing from Monti-
cello on October 24, 1823, replied as follows : —
* The question presented by the letters you have
sent me is the most momentous which has ever been
offered to my contemplation since that of Independ-
ence. That made us a nation, this sets our compass
and points the course which we are to steer through
the ocean of time opening on us. And never could
we embark on it under circumstances more auspicious.
* See above, p. 87.
' Henderson, Ainerictm Diplomatic QuetHons^ p. 321.
2
694 THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS APTEE EFFECTS
CHAP. Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never
IX
to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our
second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with
cis- Atlantic affairs. America, North and South, has
a set of interests distinct from those of Europe and
peculiarly her own. She should therefore have a
system of her own, separate and apart from that of
Europe. While the last is laboring to become the
domicil of despotism, our endeavour should surely
be, to make our hemisphere that of freedom. One
nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit ;
she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it.
By acceding to her proposition, we detach her from
the band of despots, bring her mighty weight into
the scale of free government, and emancipate a
continent at one stroke, which might otherwise linger
long in doubt and difficulty. Great Britain is the
nation which can do us the most harm of anyone,
or all on earth ; and with her on our side we need
not fear the whole world. With her then, we should
most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship ; and
nothing would tend more to knit our affections than
to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same
cause. Not that I would purchase even her amity
at the price of taking part in her wars. But the
war in which the present proposition might engage
us, should that be its consequence, is not her war,
but ours. Its object is to introduce and establish
the American system, of keeping out of our land all
foreign powers, of never permitting those of Europe
to intermeddle with the affairs of our nations. It is
to maintain our own principle not to depart from it' ^
Madison wrote in a similar strain, and the result
was Monroe's famous message to Congress of December
2, 1823, in which he announced that the designs of
the Holy Alliance with reference to Spanish America
^ Henderson, Arnerican DipUnnatic Questions, pp. 321-2.
THE SGHISH OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 695
would be regarded as a menace to the United States chap.
and resisted as such.^ s.-.^v--i^
Responsibility for the cause of freedom throughout Outside
the entire length of the American continent was thus tiw g"^rai
consciously assumed by the people of the United responsibility
•^ • JT JT for the main-
Statea But they were never called upon to make tenauceand
rt» . ./» • •. mL extension
any serious effort or sacrmce m its cause, ihe se- of freedom
cession of the American colonists had not altered the tlirwoIiT weh
fact that the British Commonwealth could not aflford concentrated
on tlie
to see the principle of autocracy established over any British isles,
considerable portion of the distant continents. The
survival of that principle in Europe was still the real
menace to freedom, and the task of grappling with it
was left to the people of the British Isles. The final
and only eflFective pledge for the liberties of the world
was the mastery of the sea in the hands of a state
which stood for freedoDgi, and the defection of the
American colonies left that burden to rest where it
had previously rested — with the British Isles. From
the time of Monroe, the supremacy of Britain at sea
was tacitly accepted as a shield behind which the
people of America could live, without concerning
themselves with the affairs of the older world. In
1823 the United States would scarcely have been
strong enough to defy the concerted autocracies of
Europe, unless the President had known that he
could count on British support. But, before the
middle of the century, the Republic could have built
and maintained fleets stronger than any which the
enemies of freedom in Europe could have placed in
the Atlantic. Yet no such effort was made in
America. The people of the British Isles, as the
price of their own existence, were still obliged to face
any sacrifice necessary to retain the control of the
sea, and, so long as they are able to do so, no com-
mensurate sacrifice is imposed on the United States.
^ See Note fi at end of this chapter, p. 708.
696
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP.
IX
Results of
the schism,
(1) that the
Americans,
divorced
from the
ultimate
problems
of politics,
have failed
to grasp
their nature
or to con-
tribute
materially
to their
solution.
As in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so
in the nineteenth, the British Commonwealth, as the
price of its own existence, was forced to extend its
commerce and settlements to the uttermost parts of
the world. It was the people of Britain who were
brought thereby into touch with the ultimate problem
of politics, that which arises from the mutual contact
of the principal families of mankind, and of one level
of civilization with another. It was they who learnt
by experience that those relations cannot be limited
to trade. It was they who were forced by responsi-
bility to recognize that a civilized state must intervene
to redress the anarchy into which traders, armed with
the resources of civilization, plunge the society of
primitive races. It was they who recognized first the
necessity and then the duty of creating a new order
in the wake of, and indeed in advance of, trade. It
was they who in time came to recognize that order
itself is to be valued only as the necessary foundation
for the further extension of liberty. It was the older
Commonwealth, and not the new one, which was led
by contact with ultimate facts to assume the task of
preparing for freedom the vast multitude of human
beings who have yet to realize what fi^eedom means.
Cut off from this experience, the people of the United
States have never yet awoken to these primary truths.
As a practical people, they have assumed the right of
the continents to trade with each other, and the
necessity of their doing so ; but they have never faced
the evident truth that those relations cannot in the
end be limited to trade. On the contrary, they have
fallen into the habit of regarding the government of
backward races as a crime rather than a duty.^ A
^ 'The United States Ambassador, Dr. Page, speaking last night at a
dinner given by the Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce, in
Newcastle, said that if anyone thought that the United States would
acquire Mexico or establish a protectorate over it they missed the key to the
whole development of Republican institutions. The Mexicans were sus-
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 697
slight deviation from that principle, made in the chap.
Philippines as the direct consequence of the Spanish ,_,^.,^,,^
War, has since remained like a thorn in the national
conscience. The Democratic party, at present in
power in the United States, is expressly committed
to reversing that act.
The general result is that the United States, a free (2) That the
state which contains more than twice the population ha^eTevor
of the British Isles, has never advanced beyond the "jise^to
' J , the concep-
conception of the national commonwealth. Americans tion of a
have fallen into the habit of treating their continent wealth
as a sanctuary to which the people of Europe must onelMUBcd*^
come if they desire to enioy the blessings of freedom. ^® **^«^^
J J J o^ ^ own on a
But the presence of the negro in their midst has common
taught them that a mixture in one country of an
advanced with a backward civilization is itself the
greatest menace to liberty, and it has become the
cardinal principle of their system that this sanctuary
is to be closed, so far as may be, to all but the
children of Europe. To the question, how the
majority of mankind who are not Europeans are to be
initiated to the mysteries of freedom, they have never
felt themselves called upon to provide an answer.
For the older Commonwealth, it has been left slowly The
and painfully to feel its way to the truth that the merely the^BruLh
national commonwealth is no more commensurate to ^â„¢mon-
wealtn
the needs of the modern world than the city republic educated
in the age of Edward I. The task of creating a w^th°facte
system whereby not cities nor classes, but whole ception^oT
peoples, sundered by all the width of the world, and a common-
drawn from every level of human progress, can be which is
rendered subject to the rule of a common law, and BHtis^hnor
that law itself rendered amenable to public opinion, but^h°uman
in its scope,
picious of the United States, unfortunately, because they did not know that
the one fundamental and unalterable fact of the policy and principle of the
United States — that which clinched it as a key-stone — was that people must
govern themselves. There was no receding from that principle. It applied
to Mexico and all other Southern States.' — The Times, February 7, 1914.
698 THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP, has remained where it rested in the eighteenth
century — with the Commonwealth which centres in
the British Isles. It is an immense step in the
history of the world, the greatest ever made, that
a quarter of its inhabitants, and that quarter an
epitome of all the stages of human development,
should have been united into one international state,
without that state abandoning, as did Rome, the
principle of the commonwealth for that of autocracy.
Eflfect of To endure, however, a commonwealth must contain
in'Trduo."" a sufficient proportion of citizens competent to share
ing the \jj ^]^q tasks of its government, and, in fact, sharing
proportion o > > > o
of citizens them. No people are more keenly alive to the
British importance of this principle than the Americans
S^^^'fit themselves. Their marked reluctance to consider
to share tj^^ iuclusiou of Mcxico in their Commonwealth is a
in the task
of its gov- case in point. The prospect, indeed, would lose
half its terrors if the inclusion of Mexico in the Union
could be counterbalanced by the inclusion of Canada.
It is now, rather than in 1783, that the nature of the
blow dealt to freedom by the great schism is becom-
ing apparent. The two and a half millions of citizens
capable of government, of which the British Common-
wealth was then deprived, were but a fraction of its
future losses. During and after the Napoleonic wars
the population of the United Kingdom was pouring
into the United States, impelled in no small degree
by the poverty to which those wars had reduced the
labouring classes. The factory system, created by the
Industrial Revolution, while enormously increasing
the wealth of the few, swelled the number of the
poor and greatly enhanced the dreariness of their
lot. Millions found new homes in America, and it
was not until 1838 that more than five thousand
emigrants in any one year turned elsewhere. During
the period when the Commonwealth was absorbing
multitudes of Asiatics and Africans, the natural in-
the: schism of the comhonwbalth in its after effects 699
crease of its ruling race was largely diverted to the ohap.
territories it had lost >„^^^^^.^^
In order to grasp the significance of those facts it is what w-
necessary to suppose that in the nineteenth as well ^ye^r^^
as in the previous century the statesmanship needed ]^'^^ *^o
to avoid the schism had not been wanting. Clearly tion of
it is not thinkable that the hundred millions who with"he
now inhabit the United States could be members of oSnmon-
a world-wide commonwealth, for the conduct of whose wealth.
external aflFairs they exercised no greater control than
do the people of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or
South Africa. In the long run the schism could
only have been avoided had constitutional changes
been made whereby the inhabitants of North America
would have assumed precisely the same responsibility
for the general affairs of the Commonwealth as that
which rests on the people of the British Isles. It is
needless to discuss here whether such changes could
in fact have been made; but supposing that they
had been effected, supposing that the people of
North America had contracted exactly the same
respousibihties for the inhabitants of Asia and Africa
as those assumed by .the people of the British Isles,
it is not unreasonable to argue they would have
developed an attitude of mind on the subject not
different from theirs. Experience would have led
them to see that more primitive societies are in-
variably deranged by unregulated intercourse with
Europeans, which must be controlled because it can-
not be prevented ; that the people of Europe cannot
touch more primitive societies without deranging
them. They would have recognized that the stronger
civilization has a responsibility for the weaker which
it cannot evade. No thoughtful man would question
the principle, and had the United States become an
organic part of the British Commonwealth its people
must also have realized that the responsibility is one
700 THE SCHISM OF THE OOHMOHWEALTH IK ITS ArFKR BFFECTS
CHAP, that civilized men can discharge only when organized
^^^^^^^^^ as a state, and through the agency of a government.
Its Qitimate Had American society remained with, and become
thrp^eof *^ organic part of the Commonwealth, its future
the world, composition would not have been affected thereby.
It would still have become, as Canada is fast becoming,
not merely British, but European. America would
still have afforded an asylum for emigrants from all
the kingdoms of Europe, and a school in which the
traditions of autocracy could be unlearned and ex-
changed for those of the commonwealth. But on
entering it, they would also have assumed the first
of all human responsibilities, while those from the
British Isles would not have abandoned it. Whilst
enlarging its bounds in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific
so as to include hundreds of millions who must for
centuries remain incapable of assuming the burden of
government, the Commonwealth would simultaneously
have been drawing from Europe millions capable of
reinforcing the moral as well as the material resources
of government. To-day some forty-five millions of
Europeans are responsible for the peace, order, and
good government of some three hundred and fifty
millions of the backward races— close on one-third of
the non-European races of the world. But had the
Commonwealth preserved its unity, by realizing the
principle upon which it is based, that stupendous
burden would to-day have rested upon upwards of
one hundred and fifty million citizens qualified for the
tasks of government. A much larger proportion of
civilized men would be organized to fulfil the first
duty of civilization. And had means been found for
incorporating the Americas, the same solution must
also have been applied in the colonies south of the
line. The government of the Commonwealth would
not have rested, as it still does, on a single column
with a base no broader than the British Isles. This
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 701
world-state which gives, not only to its members, but chap.
to all human society, ^uch stability as it now has,
would have rested on an arch which, double spanned,
and based on foundations in four of the continents^
would have been unshakable in its strength. Such
projects as it is now taxed to defeat could never have
been conceived Instead of striving to avert destruc-
tion, it would have put itself outside the reach of
such projects, which cannot be attempted without
involving the greater part of the world in war, and
dislocating the whole framework of human society.
The primary function of a world*common wealth is to
prevent such wars, and that it can do, if all its
citizens capable of government are really responsible
in peace for maintaining peace ; but so long as none
but the inhabitants of the British Isles are really
responsible for preventing war, the relative strength
of the Commonwealth will continue to decline. The
chance of suddenly striking at its heart will encourage
autocracies to prepare the blow. Such periods of
World- war as closed in 1 8 1 5 and opened once more in
the present year are possible only when the British
Commonwealth becomes weak enough to invite de-
struction. And if destroyed, the epoch of cataclysm
would never be closed until there had emerged from
the ruins a like commonwealth, and one resting on
wider foundations.
How to cure this defect by extending responsibility The
for the general peace of the Commonwealth from the problem
British Isles to aU the self-governing Dominions is f^^^^what
the problem we are facing to-day, but one never
presented to the American colonies. They had
never demanded a voice in the issues of peace and
war, as Scotland had done, and had never been
asked to share in the burdens involved, except in
so far as their own local defence was concerned.
The quarrel which led to the schism grew out of
702
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP.
IX
To endure,
the Com-
monwealth
must be
realized by
extending
the ultimate
burden and
control of
government
to all the
self-
g)verning
ominions.
the general failure to realize a system through which
Americans could manage the 'dominion' aflFairs of
America for themselves. By the younger colonies
that problem has now been solved. The people of
Canada have evolved a system whereby they have
assumed a genuine responsibility for all Canadian
affairs; and so also with the peoples of Australia
and South Africa, following in their steps. All this,
unlike the Americans, they have done without dis-
rupting the Commonwealth. The question, then,
which still awaits its solution is, how they are to
assume a genuine responsibility for the first, last,
and greatest of all public interests, those which
determine the issues of peace and war. Short of
that final responsibility the growth of self-govern-
ment can no more be stayed in the Dominions than
it could be in Britain or in the United States ; and
until that final responsibility is shared between all
the peoples of the self-governing Dominions with
those of the United Kingdom, this Empire will
remain what it has been, since its first colonies
were planted in Ireland, not a commonwealth, but
the project of a commonwealth, which must be
completed if it is not to be brought to an end.
If the nature of the Commonwealth be considered
the thing is self-evident. It is a state in which
government rests on the shoulders of all its citizens
who are fit for government. It exists to enlarge
that class, and can afford to spare from its difficult
task none who are equal to sharing it. A common-
wealth in which the final responsibilities of govern-
ment have come to be regarded as the peculiar
attribute of citizens inhabiting one locality is ceasing
to realize the principle of its being. The American
Commonwealth could never have endured if the
powers and burdens of the general government had
been limited to the states which formed the original
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 703
union. The loyalty of the West would have atrophied, chap.
and the project of a commonwealth wide enough to .^^^^^^^.^^
unite the shores of the Atlantic with those of the
Pacific would never have matured. From the fatal
schism of the eighteenth century many truths have
been learned and applied in the older Commonwealth,
but this, the most vital of all, has not been amongst
them. The final responsibility for its maintenance
was then limited to Great Britain, and has never
since been extended beyond the British Isles. It is
true to say that self-government has never been
realized for any portion of this vast Commonwealth
other than the United Kingdom itself. It is there
and there only that political responsibility for the
maintenance of freedom throughout this vast structure
rests, and with it the future of freedom in all the
continents but that of America. This, at any rate,
can be prophesied with absolute certainty, that the
British Empire, as at present established, cannot
endure, unless it can realize its character as a
commonwealth in time, by extending the burden
and control of its supreme functions to every com*
munity which it recognizes as fit for responsible
government. Unless that is done the self-governing
Dpminions must inevitably follow to the bitter end
the path trodden by the first American colonies.
This project of a commonwealth, through which an '
ever-increasing circle of civilized men can discharge
their duty, not merely to each other, but also to
races weaker and more backward than themselves,
will fail, and in that failure freedom will suffer more
than it suffered by the schism of the eighteenth
century.
It is idle to deplore a past we cannot change. Attempts
Our duty is to see the past as it was in the light these^^^^
which the present casts upon it, to see failures as J^e^^o^t
failures, and not to flatter our vanity by treating dancrerto
704 THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP, them as triumphs in disguise. For, if the world's
freedom, rather than national exploits, are the true
goal of political endeavour, the schism of the
Commonwealth in the eighteenth century was a
failure second to none. Now, as then, the real
danger to freedom is failure to understand what it
means, or to see that it can only be realized through
the medium of states in which it is incarnate. But
most dangerous of all is the failure to realize that the
Commonwealth cannot endure unless it fulfils the
principle of its being. Burke and his contemporaries
could scarcely have foreseen that the British Common-
wealth was destined in less than a century to include
one-quarter of mankind ; but he, at any rate, should
not have mistaken the British constitution, as it then
stood, for the last word in the progress of liberty. A
mind like his might well have divined that the
growth of self-government in the colonies could not
be arrested short of the point already attained in
England itself. It is not for us to blame our prede-
cessors, but it is only by seeing their errors that we
can hope to avoid them and * duller should we be
than the fat weed that rots itself in ease on Lethe's
wharf if we suffered ourselves to believe that the
modern Dominions can for ever forgo the burden of
controlling their foreign affairs. Now, as then, there
are not wanting those who seek to evade this con-
clusion by contending, either that the Imperial
Government represents the Dominions, or else that
the British voters, to whom it is answerable, do not
control it in foreign affairs. In their zeal to justify
things as they are, they treat the elementary con-
ditions of responsible government either as illusions,
or as dust which governments must use for blinding
the eyes of those they rule. Aversion to the effort
which change requires dominates their minds, and
soinl914asinl785 they proclaim that the growth
THE SCHISM OF THE COMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 705
of the Oommonwealth is now complete, and that for chap.
us it remftins merely to preserve it for ever as it is. .^^^^^..^^^
Nought in the diBtance but the. evening, nought
To point our footsteps further !
• . •
At the thought,
A great black bird, ApoUyon's bosom-friend,
Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned
That btiished our cap — perchance the guide we sought /
In truth there is unity in human affairs, and laws Conclusion
which work themselves out with the same uncom- maUer^ ^ ^
promising logic as those of Nature herself It is not
by ignoring those laws, but only by learning and
obeying them willingly, that men may reach to
freedom and dominate fate. The claim which a
commonwealth makes on its citizens is in its nature
absolute as that which a despotism makes on its
subjects, and allegiance can no more be rendered by
on& citizen to two commonwealths than homage can
be paid by one subject to two kings. The people of
Britain and those of the Dominions have yet by
some solemn and irrevocable act to decide whether,
in the last analysis, it is to this mighty Common-
wealth as a whole, or merely to the territory in which
they live, that their final allegiance is due. Citizens
of no mean city, we have yet to declare what for us
and for those who come after us that city is to be.
There is the Imperial Problem, the final enigma,
whose answer the secular sphinx abides, knowing
that, as it is found or missed, so, for this, the noblest
project of freedom that the world has seen, are the
issues of life and death. But at least the terms of
the riddle are clear, as they were not to those by
whom this Commonwealth was rent in twain. They
were men who knew not what they did, men for
whom it was diflGlcult to foresee the tasks which time
would impose upon it, or how heavy the freight and
2z
706 THE SCHISM OF THS COMMONWEALTH IK ITS AFTER EFFECTS
CHAP, how dear the treasure which freedom was committing
TY
to its charge. For they saw too dimly the path by
which they had come to descry the goal to which it
might lead. To us, if we choose to see it, the path
is plain. Long and tortuous though it be, we can
discern its course winding up from the valleys, and
sometimes descending again from the hills, but always
in the end leading the footsteps of those who have
followed it to a loftier station and a wider view.
The glory of that sight is with us to confirm our
purpose and nerve our will, as through the night we
face the tempest which rages to overwhelm us. And
what we scarcely saw, when the noon was high and
the sky clear, darkness and storm shall reveal in
flashes — the path, breasting a summit higher than
mortal feet have climbed, yet nearer and easier to
win than we knew.
th
Yy
THE SCHISM OF THE OOMMONWEALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS 707
OHAP.
IX
NOTE A v-^v-i--
Rbooonition bt Races in Asia and Africa of the British
Commonwealth as necessary to their Freedom.
Fbsbtown, August 26^, 1914.
* To his Excellency Sir Edward Marsh Merewbther, K.C.V.O.,
C.M.G., Grovemor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony
and Protectorate of Sierra Leone. /
' Your Excellency, — We, the undersigned, Muhammadan See page
Imams (Alimamis), on behalf of ourselves and the Muhammadan ^^^'
community of the Colony, beg leaye to approach your Excellency,
through the medium of this paper in order to tender, through
your Excellency, our sincere sympathy to his Britannic Majesty
our Sovereign for the present European war in which Great
Britain has been involved. ...
' Our anxious wish for victory for Great Britain in the present
war has not been without very many good reasons : If we are
here to>day practising our religion without molestation, if we^
in fact if the black race are to-day sharing with other races the
blessings of freedom, there is no doubt that it is to Great Britain
that we owe this great privilege. Certainly, for, but for Great
Britain, with the possession of Africa by the several European
Powers, all her native population would have become human
chattels to their respective Over-Lords. Some of us have had
the privilege of travelling to foreign ports, and from 'our
experience of the treatment received by natives at the hands of
their foreign rulers, especially the Germans, whose destruction
may God expedite, we cannot but come to the above conclusion.
It was a Muhammadan of this Colony who said many years agoj
and we still endorse the statement^ that if the Sultan of Turkey,
the Commander of the Faithful, were to invade and capture
Sierra Leone, so that the English were obliged to withdraw
therefrom, he would cast in his lot with the English and go
with them whithersoever they tended rather than remain with
the Commander of the Faithful. Hence it is that at the out-
break of this deplorable war we have been greatly alarmed, and
have been rather anxious for victory for Great Britain.
'Being powerless and feeble we have 2u> other means of
helping our Great King in the war than that of prayer to Allah,
the All-Powerful, and He may be graciously pleased to grant that
Great Britain may come out victorious in the present struggle
at an early date, so that she may continue to maintain her
supremacy among the Powers. This prayer we have been
daily offering since the outbreak of hostilities, and will continue
2z2
708
THK SCHISM OF TKE OOHMOJSTWBALTH IN ITS AFTER EFFECTS
QHAF.
IX
our supplication to the end of the war, and we faithfully believe
that our prayer will be accepted and our wish realised, consider-
ing that England's action is based upon righteousness.
' We beg leave most respectfully to subscribe ourselves as
(In Arabic)
Almami Humaru Jamburier (his X mark)
Alfa Muhammad AJghah (his X mark)
Alpha Orhman (his X mark) .
Alfa Darami (his X mark)
Alfa Abumba Siilah (hif X mark)
Almami Siilah (his X mark)
Foday Sheikhu (his X mark) .
Ali Kamara (his X mark)
Almami Foday Yakka (his X mark)
Alfa Murhtur Tarawali (his X mark)
Almami Bocari (his X mark)
Almami Kangbe (his X mark)
Santigi Musa (his X mark)
Alfa Humaru (his X mark)
Foulah
Yoruba
Yoruba
Mandingo
Mandingo
Temne
Susu
Susu
Limba
Sarakuli
Mendi
Lokko
Torodo
Yoruba
* Written by H'Dirud Deen, Secretary Committee for Moh.
Education and Hoil Sec to Muhamnuidan Alimamis of
Freetown.'
More significant still is the following extract from The Times
of August 29, 1914:
POONA, Augttst 27.
*The Indian agitator Mr. Tilak, who was sentenced to ox
years' transportation in 1908 for publishing seditious articles
and was released last June, made a speech here to-day ui^ing
every one to support the Government in every way possible.
The present, he said, was not the time to press for reforms.
They must sink all differences. The presence of their rulers
was desirable even from the point d view of self-interest.
Eeuter.*
NOTE B
See page
695.
MES6AOS OF PRXSIDBNT MONROB DBLIVSRSI) TO
CONGRBSS ON DBGBBfBBR 2, 1823
' In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to
themselves, we have never taken any part> nor does it comport
with our policy so to da It is only when our rights are invaded
or seriously menaced, that we resent injuries, or make prepara-
tions for our defence. With the movements in this hemisphere
THB SCHISM OF THE OOMMONWEALTH IN ITfi AFTER EFFEOTS 709
we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by OHAP.
causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial ^^
observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially
different in this respect, from that of America* This difference
proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments.
And to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by
the loss of so much blood and treasure^ and matured by the
wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and undei* which we
have enjoyed unexampled felicity this whole nation is devoted.
We owe it^ therefore to candour, and to the amicable relations
existing between the United States and those powers, to declare,
that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend
their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to
our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies
of any European power, we have not interfered, and shall not
interfere. But, with the governments who have declared their
independence, and maintained it^ and whose independence we
have, on great consideration, and on just principles acknow-
ledged, we could not view any interposition for the pur-
pose of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner
their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than
as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the
United States. In war between those new governments and
Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recogni-
tion; and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to
adhere, provided no change shall occur, which, in the judgment
of the competent authorities of this government, shall make a
corresponding change on the part of the United States in-
dispensable to their security.
' The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is
still unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be
adduced, than that the allied powers should have thought it
proper, on any principle satisfactory to themselves, to have
interposed, by force, in the internal concerns of Spain. To what
extent such interpositions may be carried on the same principle,
is a question in which all independent powers, whose govern-
ments differ from theirs, are interested ; even those most remote,
and surely none more so than the United States. Our policy,
in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early age of the
wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe,
nevertheless remains the same; which is, not to interfere in
the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the
government de facto as the legitimate government for us;
to cultivate friendly relations with it^ and to preserve those
relations by a frank, firm and manly policy ; meeting, in all in-
stances, the just claims of every power — submitting to injuries
from none. But, in regard to those continents, circumstances
are eminently and conspicuously different It is impossible that
710
THE SCHISM OF THE OOkMONWSALTH IK ITS AFTER SFFECT8
DHAP.
IX
tbe allied powers should extend their politieal system taanj
portion of either continent without endangering oar peace and
happiness ; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethera,
if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It
is equally impoesible, therefore, that we should behold such in-
terposition, in any form, with indifference. If we look to the
comparative strength and resources of Spain, and those new
governments, and their distances from each other, it must be
obvious that she can never, subdue them. It is still the true
policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves,
in the hope that other powers wiU pursue the same course.' ^
The Annual JUgister, 182S ; Law Cases arid Narratives, pp. 193-4.
j's Project! PLATE II (see page i)
u
liMNNHMinM
^^^^M
INDEX OF NAMES
Aargau, 109
Abderrahman, 67
Aberoromby, 396
Aberdeen, 268
Abraham, 4, 66, 640
Abyssinia, 159
Aoadia, 185, 217
Ada, Bay of, 281
Adams, 357, 865, 366,
878, 415, 559, 564,
565, 589
Aeakes, 82
Aegean Islands, 125
Sea, 30, 38, 45, 58
States, 50
Aegina, 80, 85
Afghanistan, 159
Agrioola, 421
Aigaes Mortes, 198
Aistulf, 69
Aix-la-Ghapelle, 186
Akbar, 148
Alabama, 674
Albany, 830, 381, 882,
888, 862, 367, 869,
551
Albemarle, 689
Alexander of Macedon,
36, 58, 54, 275
Alexander VI. , Pope,
185, 498, 525
Alexandria, 148
Alfred the Great, 98, 297
Algiers, 245
Aigoa Bay, 180
Alleghanies, 192
Almeida, 181
Alsace-Lorraine, 686
Althoff, 680
Amalekites, 4
Amboyna, 146
Ambrakia, 35
Amherst, Qeneral, 217,
828, 838, 339, 840,
406, 412, 413, 414,
620
Animon, 53
Amsterdam, 148, 278
Annandale, Marqnis of,
290
Annapolis, 188, 598, 599
Anne, Queen, 104, 267,
283, 287, 289, 295,
449, 455
Antigua, 895
Antony, 56
Antrim, 459, 510
Antwerp, 144, 148
Apollo, 42
Apollyon, 705
Aquitaine, 67
Arabia, 53, 65, 66, 68
Arabs, 68, 69
Ares, 61
Argives, 37
Argos, 37, 88, 51
Argyllshire, 296
Aruteides, 40, 42
Aristotle, 25, 52
Arkwright, 689
Armada, 142, 182, 680
Arran, Isle of, 511
Artake, 82
Artaxerxes, 51
Artemisinm, 41
Asia Minor, 28, 29, 82,
37, 39, 50, 52, 53,
56, 61, 64
Assyria, 28
Aston, Sir Arthur, 437
Ate, 87
Athalarich, 82
Athens, 20, 21, 24, 30,
32, 33, 85, 36, 37,
38, 40, 41, 42, 43,
44, 45, 46, 47, 48,
49, 50, 51, 52, 55,
57, 79, 95, 97, 98,
231, 235, 286, 266,
295, 609, 617, 646
Atlantii^ 275, 695, 703
Attica, 88, 85, 37, 88, 51
Augustus, 56, 60, 62,
80, 177
711
Aurangzeb, 148
Australasia, 18
Australia, 12, 16, 18,
107, 323, 325, 844,
360, 513, 625, 687,
688, 690, 699, 702
Australian New
Hebrides Company,
226
Australians, 328
Austria, 75, 87, 178,
493, 692
Austrian Empire, 493
Austrians, 173
Ayr, 272
Azores, 135
Azurara, 127
Baal, 559
Babylon, 28, 61
Bacon, 58, 212, 426,
687
Bahama Islands, 401,
407, 411
Balboa, Yasio Nunez
de, 138, 134, 274, 281
Balkan Peninsula, 8,
52, 75, 125, 681
Balliol, John, 297, 298
Baltic, 196
Baltimore, 561
Baltimore, Lord, 205,
206, 244
Bank of England, 243,
274
Bannookburn, 260, 298,
546
Bantry Bay, 504
Barbadoes, 282, 364,
395, 397, 399, 407,
413, 437 «
Barbary, 281
Bamave, 526
Bastille, the, 112, 114,
497
Batalha, 129
712
INDEX OF NAMES
Beer, 6. L., 239, 249,
250, 252, 253, 803,
810, 316, 821, 836,
888, 351, 388, 645
Belfast, 447, 459, 461,
464, 465, 476, 497,
500, 537
Belgium, 116, 117, 162,
179. 237
Belhayen, Lord, 292,
293, 296
Bengal, 272
Bergen, U.S.A., 549
Berlin, 85, 687
Bermuda Company, 2^7
Bermudas, 390, 898,
404, 412
Bernard, Francis, 828,
401, 414
Berne, 109
Bernstet, 87
Bertrada, 68
Berwick, 296
Biamarck, 85, 86, 498,
680, 682
Blackstone, 82
Blake, Edward, ^93,
521, 522, 528
Blenheim, 288
Boeoti^, 86, 87
Bollan, William, 882
Bombay, 150
Bompard, Admiral, 511
Boniface, 68
Bordeaux, 148
Boscawen, Admiral,
391, 409
Bosphoitis, 29, 67, 74,
180
Boston, 251, 318, 854,
865, 870, 197, 408,
415, 542, 643, 548,
549, 552, 564
Boetonians, 601
Bos worth, 104
Botetourt, 639
Bourne, £. G., 227
Bowdoin, Governor, 601
Boyne, Battle of, 439,
464
Braddock, General, 186,
835, 891
Bradford, Governor, 202,
204
Bradley, 407
Bramhall, Bishop, 488
Brandenburgh, Elector
of, 275
Brandywine Biver, 556
Brasidas, 235
Brava, 131
Brazil, 186
Brehon Law, 422, 481,
433
Brest, 504 , 505, 650
Bridport, 505
Bristol, 291, 422, 463
British Channel, 148,
210
East India Com-
pany. See English
East India Company
Britons, 58, 90
Brown, 198
Bruges, 129
Brussels, 287
Brutus, 10
Bryca, 10
Buckinghamshire,
Lord, 465, 466, 494
Bull, William, 408
Bunker's Hill, 545
Buusen, 86
Bunyan, 419
Burgh, Hvtsey, 465
Borgoyne, Genenl, 874,
465, 475, 476, 477,
557
Burke, Edmund, 113,
813, 351, 856, 357,
367, 882, 463, 008,
618, 619, 620, 621,
622, 623, e25, 626,
631, 704
Burke, William, 807
Bumaby, 816
Burnet, 84, 277
Byzantine Empire, 67,
69, 125
Byzantium, 64
Cabot, John, 133, 182,
183
Cadiz, 148, 680
Caesar, 25, 56, 57, 58,
60, 62, 177, 276, 611,
528
Caesars, 59, 83, 91, 125
Oaius Licinius, 26
Calais, 420, 509
Calcutta, 150
Calicut, 130
California, 626, 612
Calvert, 341
Calvin, 187*
Cambridge, 84
, U.S.A., 648
Cambuskenneth, 298
Oambysea, 29
Camd»n, Lord, 501
Camoens, 181
Oamperdown, 509
Canada, 15, 16, 18, 107,
181, 183, 187, 192,
193, 194, 206, 207,
209, 218, 214, 215,
217, 310, 314, 317,
217, 828,
321, 328, 824, 825,
827, 829, 844, 366,
859, 360, 361, 362,
390, 392, 415, 492,
497, 502, 521, 522,
557, 564, 625, 659,
688, 690, 698, 699,
700, 702
Canadians,
848
Cannanore, 131
Canning, 693
Cape Breton Island,
185, 389, 390, 392
Cod, 202, 208
Colony, 324
ofGood Hope, 129,
180, 184, 140, 146,
159, 375, 471, 478
Finistem, 396
Francois, 898
Horn, 140. 274,
471, 526
St Vincent, 129
Verde, 186
Oarew, 435
Oaribb0anSea,816, 817,
389
Carleton, Sir Guy, 667
Carlisle, 298
Carnatio, 375
Carte, 486
Carteret, 446, 452
Carthage, 53, 66
Carthagena, 856
Cartier, Jacques, 188
Carver, Governor John,
204
Gary, Major, 639, 640
Cassius, 10
Castile 127, 186
Castlebar, 511
Castlehaven, Lord, 484
Castlereagh, Robert
Stewart, Lord, 497,
515
Cawnpore, 264
Cayenne, 413
Celts, 89, 90, 207, 297,
448
Central America, 635
Ceuta, 127
Ceylon, 163, 166
Chaeronea, 62
Chalkidians, 86
Cham plain, Lake, 188,
557
Cham plain, Samuel de,
183, 192
Channel Islands, 602
Oharlemaffne. See
Charles tne Great
Charlemont, 467, 476,
497
IKDSX OF KAHS8
713
Charles I^ 188, 'JM, 24fi,
248, 256, 262, 26S,
264, 271, 48a, 484,
486, 441
OhArks II., 84, 104, 248,
264, 266, 272, 812,
820, 480, 468, 454
Charles the Gteat, 69,
71, 72, 78. 75, 91
Oharleeton, 818, 688
Charles Town, 545
Chateaubriand, 87
Chatham, Earl of. See
Pitt, the Elder
Cherokees, 408
Chersonese, 82
Ches&peaka Bay, 556,
561, 651
Chester, 291, 622
Childeric, 68
China, 1, 2, 5, 15, 157,
158, 159, 163, 179,
188, 275, 625, 580
Chinese, 5, 159
— - Bmpire, 1, 2
Chios, 82, 85, 41, 44
Christendom, 68, 73,
125, 126, 127, 129,
186, 180, 245
Clare, Lord. See Fits-
gibbon
Clarence, 515
Clazomenae, 51
Cleomedes, 231
Cleon, 42
Clinton, General, 560,
561
Clinton, Qovernor, 590
CUve, 147, 166, 428
OloTis, 65
Cljrde, 289
Cnidns, 61
Oobden, Riehard, 808
Colden, Cadwallader,
840,406,407,412,418
Colebrook, 408, 405
Coligny, 86
CoUinson, 888
Colombia, 159
Colpoyes, 506
Columbus, 132, 188,
184,139,162,182,427
Comanches, 689 .
Concord, 648
Cond^ 192
Congo, 129, 162
Connaught, 432, 483,
438,508, 511
Connecticut, 183, 208,
255, 818, 886, 389,
855, 893, 894, 400,
404, 405, 412, 413,
414, 663, 649, 653,
661, 670, 671
Conon, 50
Constantine, 64, 67, 71
Constantinople, 64, 125,
126, 130, 186, 148
Conway, 560
Cook, Captain, 497, 498,
525
Ooote, Sir Charles, 485,
486
CopemioQs, 188
Coram, 878
Corea, 531
Corinth, 35, 49, 61
Isthmus of, 87
Cork, 291, 894, 897,
424, 426, 466, 475, 606
CornwaUis, Lord, 876,
466, 650, 651, 666,
560, 561, 571, 650
Cortes, 133, 182
Cotes, Admiral, 398,
405, 408
Cowper, William, 118
Cranfield, Edward, 885
Creeks, 408
Creole, 190
Crito, 23
Croesus, 28, 29
Cromer, Earl of, 126,
222
Cromwell, Olirer, 264,
265, 272, 436, 488,
441, 447, 448, 496,
511, 514, 674
Crump, Ooieral, 408
Cuba, 181, 686
Cunningham, 405
Cura9oa, 893, 895, 408
Cyprus, 80, 61
Cyrus, 28, 29, 44
Dabul, 182
da Qama, Yaseo, 180,
131, 184, 189, 159,
162, 427
D'Aiguillon, 526
Dakota, 612
Dalkeith, 265
Danelaw, 98
Danube, 29
Darien Company. Su
Indian and Afriean
Company
Darien, Isthmus of,
274, 275, 281, 282
Darius, 29, 80, 32, 88,
84,64
Davis, Sir John, 425,
428
De Claire, Riohaid. See
Strongbow
De Faria, Manoel
Severin, 142
Defenders, 508
Defoe, Daniel, 290
De Qiasse, 561, 651, 652
DeLancey, James, 408,
406
De la Salle, Cayalier,
184
Delaware, 188, 598, 649,
653, 661, 670, 671
River, 400, 660,
666
Delian League, 48, 44»
45, 46, 47, 48, 49
De Lolme, 109 'â–
Delos, 42, 46, 48, 102,
582, 607
Delphi, 89
Demeas, 286
De Montfort, Simon, 25,
100, 104, 219, 220
Demosthenes, 26, 62
Denmark, 876, 661, 687
Denny, (jovemor, 400
D'Eon, Chevalier, 118
De Peyster, 406, 412
Desmond, 431
De SoBcino, Raimondo»
188
De Temay, Chevalier,
650
De Tracey, 192
Devil's Punch Bowl,
503
Devonshire, Duke of,
394
Diarmait Machmaida.
See Machmaida
Diaz, Bartholomew, 129,
130
Dicey, Professor, 96,
103, 106, 108, 167,
617, 622
Diderot, 113
Dinwiddle, Governor,
186, 888, 3»4, 890,
891, 892
Diogo Gomez. See
Ctomes
Dionysius, 25, 31
Diu, 131, 132
Dives, 289
Dobbe, Arthur, 880
Domesday, 92
Dominica. See Santo
Domingo
Donegal, 271, 447, 611
Donegal, Lord, 459,460,
461, 547
Dorchester Heights,
549
Dorset, Duke of, 452
Dounton, 146
Dover, 420
, Stiaits of, 421
714
INDEX OF FAMES
Down, 510
Downing, SOS
Drake, 138, 140, 142
Droghdda, 436
Dablin, 108, 291, 405,
424, 426, 456, 467,
469, 476, 479, 480,
. 488, 500, 501, 502,
508, 509, 514
Dnfferin, Lord, 222,223
D'Ufford, Robert, 424
Dumfries, 273
Danbar, 264
Duncan, Admiral, 509
Dancan of Scotland,
297
Dundas, 485
Dungannon, 467, 468,
475,476,497
Dunkirk, 509
Durban, 130
Dorham, 622
Dutch, 145, 146, 147,
149, 201, 207, 275,
381, 395, 398, 402,
403, 411, 541, 690
'. East India Com-
pany, 148, 145, 146
: EepubUc 79, 267
East Africa, 163
Indies, 275, 801,
825
Ebro, 69
Ecuador, 159
Eden, 485
Edinburgli, 266, 295,
405
Edmund Ironside, 297
Edward I., 95, 100,102,
107, 108, 172, 219,
220, 229, 260, 297,
298, 424, 426, 607,
608, 612, 697
Edward II., 108, 298
Edward IIL, 103
Edward the Oonfessor,
99
Egbert, 99, 422
Egerton, Professor, 206
Egremont, 328, 412,
414
Egypt, 8, 18, 29, 67,
158, 162, 163, 165,
222, 223, 325, 326,
. 506
Egyptians, 222
SlDorado, 195
Elffin, 298
Elmbeth, Queen, 107,
140 142, 145, 182,
239, 429, 440, 511
Elkhead, 556, 561
Emmanuel of Portugal,
131
English East India
company, 144, 146,
147, 148, 149, 150,
152, 153, 188, 197,
272, 274, 277, 278,
279, 301, 471, 478,
484, 542, 543
Eufllishry, 440, 441
Ephraim, 4
Epidaurus, 35
Eretria, 85
Erie, Lake, 337
ErBkin^ GapUin, 460
Euphrates, 67
Eurasia, 12
Eva of Leinster, 423
Evesham, 100
Exeter, 291
Fabius, 560
Fabrigas, 168, 169, 176
Falmouth, 505
Fauquier, 400
Federalists, 607
Fermanagh, 271
Ferrero, 56
Ferrers, Lord, 114
Fersen, Ck>unt, 565
Fi)}i, 15, 162
Finland, 609
Fitch, Governor, 413
Fittgerald, Maurice, 423
Fitzgibbon, 477, 480,
501,503,504,510,515
FitKherbert, 527
Fitsstephen, Robert, 423
FitzwiUiam, Earl, 501
Fletcher of Sal toun, 273,
• 275, 276, 277, 279,
280, 283, 285, 288,
290, 291, 292, 622
Flood, Henry, 467, 472,
473, 474, 476, 478,
482, 483 489 490,
491, 492, 495
Florida, 408, 612
FoUiott, 406
Forbes, 186
Fort Detroit, 338
Fort Duqnesne, 186
Fort Sumter, 638, 639,
640, 642
Forth, River, 296, 297
Fox, Charles, 469, 470,
484, 485, 486, 487,
489, 490, 493, 494,
501
Fox, Henry, 392, 393,
394
Francis I. of France,
183
Frankfort, 680
Frankland, 596
Frankland, Admiral,
394
Franklin , Benjamin ,
809, 329, 832, 383,
346, 349, 850, 362,
366, 381, 541, 551,
650, 670
Franklin, William, 889
Franks, 65, 67, 68, 125
Frederick William of
Prussia, 86
Frederick the Great,
512
Freeman, Professor, 49,
58, 205, 227, 229, 2S0,
594, 595, 615
Freetown, 707, 708
Frontenac, 185
Gage, Genera], 839, 340,
415, 548
Galloway, 368, 369, 416,
548, 562
Galway, 291
Gama, Vasco da. See
da Gama
Ganges, 149
Gardiner, 478, 482
Gardiner's Bav, 565
Gates, General, 557, 660
Gates, Sir Thomas, 183
Gateshead, 696
Gaul, 57, 65, 92, 421
Gauls, 57, 58
Genoa, 129
George I., 454, 470
George III., 872, 376,
493, 499, 515
George IV., 493, 494
George, Prince of Den-
mark, 267
Georgia, 183, 217, 378,
379, 412, 610, 649,
652, 653, 661, 671
Germaine, Loiti George,
567
German Empire, 237,
498
Germans, 58, 71, 72,
76, 207, 221, 381,
680, 685, 686, 707
Germantown, 556
Germany, 17, 69, 72,73,
75, 77, 79, 80, 86, 89,
90, 92, 93, 94, 98,
113, 131, 187, 221,
229, 241, 800, 817,
324, 325, 446, 493,
547, 605, 611, 641,
642, 680, 681, 682,
688, 684, 685, 686, 690
IKDBX OF NAMBS
715
Oettysburg, 646
Gibbon, 113
Gibraltar, 65, 67, 127,
245, 404, 405, 502
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey,
182, 206
Gbisgow, 251, 272, 463
GloQoester, 247
Gneist, 109
Goa, 182
Godley, 227
Godolphin, 288
Golden Island, 302
Goldsmiths' Company,
240
Gomez, Diogo, 129
Gondemore, 199
Gonld, Mr. Jostioe,
169
Gowen, Thomas, 265,
295
Grattan, 280, 456, 464,
465, 466, 467, 468,
469, 470, 471, 472,
478, 475, 476, 482,
484, 487, 488, 489,
490, 493, 494, 495,
498, 499, 501, 502,
504, 505, 506, 507,
509, 514, 516, 519,
521, 631
Grattans, 456
Graves, Admiral, 561
Great Fish River, 180
Greece, 12, 24, 28, 33,
84, 35, 36, 37, 38,
39, 50, 52, 53, 56,
60, 69, 79, 80, 89,
108, 123, 125. 126,
177, 605, 608, 614
Greek Commonwealth,
the, 21, 24, 28
Greeks, 12, 19, 20, 21,
24, 25, 28, 29, 80,
31,32, 39,41, 42,48,
51, 52, 53, 54, 58, 63,
65, 70, 71, 79, 123,
155, 175, 228, 585,
615, 646
Greene, Major General,
651
Greg, 405
Grenville, 310, 845, 346,
347, 349, 350, 351,
857, 362, 863, 369,
458, 471, 516, 541,
570
Grey, Sir Edward, 551
Griffith, 490
Guadeloupe, 187, 310,
818, 399, 402, 407,
409
Guiana, British, 416
Guiana, French, 412
Haddington, 296
Hadrian, 82
Haiti, 159
Hakluyt, 257
Haldimand, 217
Halifax, 396, 409, 549
HaUfaz, Earl of, 340,
380
Hambleton, Marquis,
199
Hamburg, 275, 278,
279, 282, 682
Hamilton, Alexander,
364, 561, 578, 581,
583, 596, 599, 604,
605, 629, 637, 641,
670, 671, 672
Hamilton, Duke of,
264, 289
Hamilton, Sir Fred-
erick, 435
Hamilton, James, 400,
409
Hampden, 104, 364
Hanover, 105, 287
Hardy, Sir Charles, 393,
406, 409
Harrington, 619
Hart, Professor, 227
Hastings, Warren, 428
Haversnam, Lord, 289
Havre, 509
Hawaii, 226
Hawke, 409
Hawkins, John, 403
Hayne, 636, 637
Headlam, 85
Hebrew, 5
HeU Bay, 503
Hellas, 26, 27, 28, 32,
84, 36, 37, 38, 45, 49,
50, 51, 52, 55, 228,
234, 235
Hellen, Father, 39
Hellenes, 54
Hellespont, 53
Helpe, 134
Heiyetic Republic, 109
Henry I., 94, 99
Henry II., 94, 99, 104,
107, 243, 422, 423, 424
Henry v., 103,260
Henry VI., 96, 108, 104,
129
Henry VII., 104, 133,
261, 427
Henry VIII. , 91, 139,
141, 201, 297
Henry the Navigator,
97, 126, 127, 128, 180,
182, 140, 141, 143,
158, 160, 221, 238,
245, 271, 679, 689
Henry, Patrick, 380,636
Henry, Prince of Eng-
land, 199
Heptarchy, 99, 296
Hera, 61
Herbert, Lord, 139
Hereford, 247
Hermione, 35
Herodotus, 28, 32, 49
Hesperides; 124
Hessians, 556
Heysham, 406
Hibemia, 528, 547
Hindostan, 375
Hinxman, 405
Hippias, 33, 34
Hispaniola, 389, 408,
405, 411, 412, 413
Hoohe, 504, 505, 506,
508, 509, 510
Hodges, 281
Holland, 77, 137, 144,
147, 160, 164, 166,
183, 187, 197, 221,
279, 800, 305, 375,
401, 402, 403, 508,
509, 512, 526, 561,
589, 687
Holmes, 405, 410, 411
Holy Roman Empire,
69, 71, 72, 78, 76, 78,
80, 102, 128, 125, 324
Homer, 299
Honduras, British, 415
Honfleur, 509
Honolulu, 226
Hopkins, Stephen, 309,
820, 321, 322, 401
Horace, 62
Howe, Lord, 549, 666
Howe, Sir William, 376,
416, 643, 545, 549,
550, 553, 556, 557,
560
Hudson, 503
Bay, 185
River, 549, 567,
561
Huguenots, 192, 193,
206, 207
Humbert, 510, 511
Hungary, 69, 533
Huron, Lake, 183
Hutchinson, 198, 388
Huxley, Professor, 448
Hyderabad, 164
Hyder Ali, 376, 662
Iberian Empire, 143
Peninsula, 78
Incas, 183
Independents, 208
India, 9, 15, 18, 98,
130, 132, 136, 144,
716
INDEX OF NAKES
145, 146, 147, 148,
149, 150, 152, 158,
154, 155, 156, 157,
158, 159, 160, 168,
165, 166, 176, 179,
196, 227, 280, 277,
296, 812, 817, 825,
344, 424, 427, 428,
502, 687, 691
Indian and African
Trading Company of
Scotland, 276, 277,
278, 282, 289, 801
Empire, 146
Indians, Amerioan, 186,
191, 194, 195, 202,
806, 827, 328, 829,
880, 835, 837, 888,
397, 408, 425, 655,
657
, Asiatic, 150, 153,
154, 155, 157, 176
Inyemess, 291
lonians, 29, 30, 31, 82,
40, 43, 57, 582, 607
Irish Channel, 108
Irishry, 440
Isaac, 4
Islam, 66, 67, 126, 127,
131, 245
Island of the Dead,
132
Isocrates, 52
Israel, 4, 5
Italians, 57, 58
Italy, 55, 56, 57, 58,
60, 65, 69, 73, 79, 84,
118, 181, 222, 241,
884
Jaokson, General, 642
Jackson, Richard, 888
Jackson, William, 671
Jacob, 4
Jacobins, 498
Jamaica, 282, 316, 354,
886, 887, 899, 401,
408, 404, 407, 408,
416, 411, 415
James I. of Scotland,
298
James IV. of Scotland,
261
James I. of Great
Britain, 108, 182,
199, 201, 208, 247,
248, 250, 261, 271,
272, 287, 299, 800^
438, 440, 441
James II. of Great
Britain, 104, 209,266,
267, 269, 439
James River, 597
Japan, 5, 158, 159, 275,
531
Japanese, 5
Jay, 592, 598, 598, 646
Jefferson, 634, 651, 698
John of Gannt, 127
John I. of Portugal,
126
John II. of Portugal,
180
Johnson, Dr., 118
Johnson, Sir William,
828, 829, 385, 387
Joliet, 184
Joseph, 4
Julian, 82
Justinian, 82
Kalm, 885, 381
Kansas, 635
Kapuka, 224
Karia, 82
Keats, 188
Keos (Chios), 35, 41
Kerry, 481
Kildare, 509
Killala Bay, 510
KinsalB, 481
Kleisthenes, 25
Knowles, Admiral, 889
Kythnos, 85
Lacedaemon, 85, 281,
232, 284
Lacedaemonians, 282,
234, 285, 286
Laconia, 88
Lade, 80, 82, 88, 41
Lafayette, 526, 561,
650, 652
La Galissoni^e, 192,
193
Lamotte, 526
Lancashire, 484
Lancaster, U.S. A., 558
House of, 426
Land's End, 528
Lanfranc, 92
Launoeston, 265
Laurens, Colonel, 650
La Vera Cru% 355
Lazarus, 239
Lebanon, 41
Lecky, 3, 84, 828, 873,
375, 416, 443, 445,
448, 528, 525, 555, 644
Lee, Colonel, 548, 600
Lee, General, 549
Lee, General Robert E.,
638, 642, 643, 678
Leeward Islands, 894,
895, 402, 408
Leinster, 423, 486
Leinster, Duke of, 404
Leith Roads, 281
Leland, 486
Leo III., Pope, 69
Leon, 135
Leonidas, 34
Leopold of Belgium,
161
Lesbos, 32, 41, 44
Leslie, General, 263,
264
Leuctra, 52
Lenkas, 85
Levant, 4, 67, 465, 584
Lewes, 100
Lexington, 872, 548,
548, 618
Leyden, 201, 546
Liberia, 159
Lima, 189, 855
Limerick, 489, 450
Lincoln, President, 8,
685, 636, 687, 638,
639, 642, 643, 644,
645, 646, 678
Lisbon, 143, 148, 199
lisle, 502
Liverpool, 468
Livingstons, 316, 412
Locke, John, 166
Loire, 67, 178
Lombards, 69
London, 148, 149, 168,
216, 227, 275, 278,
284, 291, 295, 353,
857, 867, 375, 405,
407, 414, 448, 525,
534, 657
Londonderry, 291, 486
Long, 404
Lougfield, 481
Long Island, 549, 553,
648, 649
Long Parliament, 441
Loudoun, 394, 895, 396
Louis XIV., 192, 213,
214, 367, 439, 446,
512
Louis XV., 118
Louis XVL, 113, 498
Louisbourg, 186, 186,
390, 391, 892, 897,
619
Louisiana, 184, 187, 217,
336, 408, 684
LucuUns, 56
Luther, 75, 136
Lutherans, 207
Luxemburg, 237
Luzerne, Chevalier de
la, 651
Lyoomedes, 231
Lydia, 28
DTDKZ OP NAMBS
717
LytteltoD, Governor,
407
Macbeth, 297
Macedon (Maoedonia),
38, 86, 37, 52, 58
Macedonians, 54
Maohmaida, Diarmait,
of Leinster, 422, 428
Madden, 447
Madison, 581, 648, 670,
694
Madras, 149, 150, 185,
875, 562
Madrid, 143, 227, 527
Magellan, 138, 184,
186, 525
Straits of, 478
Magna Carta, 100
Mahan, Admiral, 59,
505
Mahomet, 66, 67
Maid of Norway, 297
Maine, 182, 217, 612
Malay Arohipelago,
144
States, 165
Malcolm Caumore, 297
Malniesbnry, Lord, 502
Manasseh, 4
Manchester, 463
Mansfield, Lord, 118,
170, 891, 474
Mantinea, 52
Manzoni, 222
Marathon, 32, 33, 84,
^ 51, 68, 78
Mardonius, 86, 37
Margaret, Queen of
Scotland, 261, 297
Marquette, 184
Marriott, James, 378
Marseilles, 154, 534
Marshall, Chief>Justice,
416,' 552, 570, 578,
577, 588
Martel, Charles, 65,
67, 68
Martinique, 889, 897,
899, 402, 409, 525
Mary XL, Queen of
England, 267, 287
Maryland, 183, 20^,
207, 208, 301, 334,
338, 341, 379, 892,
394, 405, 413, 596,
599, 634, 649, 658,
661, 670, 671
Maseres, 356
Mason, Robert, 258
Massachusetts, 188, 244,
247, 808, 818, 820,
826, 382, 834, 886,
839, 858, 366, 367,
368, 382, 384, 885,
392, 894, 400, 404,
405, 407, 414, 415,
416, 542, 543, 544,
549, 601, 614, 620,
649,658,661,670,671
Bay, 205, 855, 658
Bay Company, 205
Mathieton, 224
Mayflower, 202
Mazares, 28
Mazdeism, 61
Meath, 509
Medes, 9, 28, 32, 282
Mediterranean, 12, 56,
62, 129, 168, 169,
231, 281, 512, 525
Megara, 35
MelDourne, 95
Melians, 231, 232, 283,
284, 235, 286
Melos, 230, 231
Melyill, Robert, 399
Mercator, 179
Mercer, General, 549
' Merchant Taylors' Com-
pany, 240, 243
Merewether, Sir Ed-
ward, 707
Merovings, 65, 68
Mete, 182
Metternich, 87
Mexican Empire, 183
Mexicans, 696
Mexico, 2, 138, 181,
189, 199, 855, 685,
642, 696, 697, 698
Gulf of, 184
Midlothian, 296
Milan, Duke ot, 188
Miletus, 28, 30, 82
Minorca, 168, 169, 280,
231
MinorquinSy 230
Mirabeau, 497, 526
Mississippi, 184, 193,
596, 597, 598
Missouri, 634
Mithras, 61
Mochill, 511
Mogul Empire, 149, 150
Mohawk, 207
Moluccas, 140
Molyneux, 449, 472
Mongolian races, 3, 159,
540
Monk, General, 266
Monmouth, 84
Monongahela, 186
Monroe, President, 415,
693, 695, 708
Montcalm, 822
Monte Cristi, 403, 404,
405, 406, 407, 408,
410, 411
Montgomery, 447
Monticello, 693
Montmorin, 526
Montreal, 183, 187
Montrose, Earl of, 268,
264
Moore, Commodore, 899,
408
Moore, Governor
%nry, 403
Moors, 127, 181, 245
Moravians, 207
More, 619
Morgan, Sir Henry, 886
Morley, Lord, 113
Morocco, 162, 168, 245
Morris, Governor, 884
Moses, 66
Moslems, 9, 67, 127,
148, 245
Mostyn, General, 168,
170, 171, 230, 287
Mountjoy, 435
Mount Vernon, 596,
597
Muhammadan Imams,
707
Munster, 430, 511
Murillo, 848
Murray, William. See
Mansfield, Lord
Mycale, 87, 40, 41, 51
Nabuchodonosors, 25
Namier, L. B., 308
Naples, 87
Napoleon Buonaparte,
69, 87, 196, 506, 574,
612, 648, 679, 680,
684, 686, 689, 692
Napoleon,'Louis, 25, 684
Napper Tandy. See
Tandy
Natal, 180, 324, 826
Naxos, 85
Negroes, 540
Nelson, Lord, 196, 689
Nepal, 159
Nero, 58, 227
Nerva, 70
Nesselrode, 87
Netherlands, 79, 80,
137, 144, 146, 272
Nevis, 386, 887
New Amsterdam, 188
Brunswick, 182,
326
— Edinburgh, 282
— England, 185, 202,
205, 207, 208, 209,
246, 251, 258, 259,
718
INDSX OF NAMES
811, 812, 813, 314,
315, 338, 339, 872,
374, 383, 884, 386,
387, 404, 406, 407,
408, 420, 441, 444,
445, 461, 541, 542,
543, 544, 548, 557,
598, 599, 600, 610
New Englanden, 884,
* 545, 546, 619
France, Company
of, 184
Guinea, 162
Hampshire, 183,
258, 339, 393, 394,
400, 649, 653, 661,
. 670, 671
Hebrideans, 225
Hebrides, 228, 226,
227
Jersey, 188, 838,
339, 406, 407, 411,
414, 549, 556. 568,
571, 598, 649, 653,
661, 670, 671
Orleans, 408, 597
Plymouth, 202, 203,
365
— Plymouth Com-
pany, 202
— Providence, 411
— York (town), 818,
365, 866, 396, 550,
557, 560, 561, 563,
602, 649, 650, 651, 652
York (state), 188,
207, 208, 209, 316,
826, 336, 838, 339,
370, 390, 891, 892,
393, 894, 396, 404,
405, 406, 407, 408,
409, 412, 413, 415^
541, 542, 549, 563,
564, 590, 599, 653,
661, 670, 671
— Yorker, 208
Zealand, 16, 18,
22, 324, 325, 344,
360, 423, 687, 690,
699
Newark, 264
Newcastle, 696
Newfoundland, 16, 183,
185, 879, 383, 413,
502
Newport, 413
Newry, 430
Niagara, 388, 389, 55^
Nicola, Colonel, 572
Niger, 127
Nigeria, 151, 163, 165
Nile, 67, 512
Nizamut Jung. Nawab,
. 154
Nootka Sound, 497,
498, 500, 523, 525,
526, 527, 582
Nore, the, 505, 508
Normandy, 214, 297
Normans, 93, 243, 297
Norsemen, 297
North, Lord, 448, 463,
469, 542, 543
North Carolina, 182,
183, 216, 301, 888,
405, 412, 596, 649,
652, 658, 661, 670,
671
Sea, 129
Northamptonshire, 100
Northumberland, 422
Northumbria, 296
Norwalk, 407
Norwich, 291
Nottingham, 201
Nova Scotia, 185, 186,
271, 378, 879, 412,
414
Oceana, 2, 4, 157, 158,
210
Odoacer, 65, 125
O'Donnell, 431
Odysseus, 19
Oglethorpe, 378
Ohio, 184, 192, 337,
390, 596, 597
Olney, 325, 414, 415
Olympia, 39
Ontario, Lake, 183
Orange Free State,
263
Orangemen, 503, 504
Orkney Islands, 528
Ormond, 438
O'Shea, Count Richard,
504
Osorio, Bishop, 131
Oswald, James, 395
Otis, 309, 349, 350,
366, 381, 382, 888,
542, 565
Ottawa, 325
Ottoman Empire, 127
Oudh, 156
Oxford, 67, 84, 486
Pacific, 4, 14, 133, 140,
159, 225, 226, 275,
497, 498, 527, 700,
703
Isles, 13, 15,
225
Page, Dr., 696
Pale, the, 424« 425,
426, 440
Palestine, 144
Palmerston, Lord, 524
Panama, Isthmus of,
188, 275
Papacy, the, 68, 69, 71,
184, 186, 140, 273
Paris, 194, 218, 214,
814, 534, 564, 651
, Peace of (1763),
187, 250, 887, 596
, Peace of (1783),
419, 578, 592, 596
Parker, Mr. Justice,
122
Parkman, 208, 217
Parsons, Sir Lawrence,
499
Parsons, Sir William,
484
Pateraon, William, 274,
275, 276, 277, 278
Paton, John, 223, 226,
227
Pausanias, 87
Pavia, 92
Peep-o'-day Boys, 503
Pekin, 581
Peloponnesus, 36, 235
Pembroke, Earl of. See
StronffbNOw
Penn, Thomas, 400
Penn, William, 207,
208
Pennsylvania, 183, 186,
207, 208, 209, 301,
817, 329, 334, 835,
836, 837, 338, 339,
890, 891, 392, 394,
399, 400, 408, 412,
418, 414, 416, 445,
571, 598, 649, 653,
661, 670, 671
Pensacola, 408
Pepin, 68, 69
Perez, Juan, 497, 525
Pericles, 20, 25, 646
Perinthus, 32
Perrot, Sir John, 432,
433
Persia, 28, 29, 30, 31,
39, 42, 46, 47, 48,
49, 50, 51, 52, 53,
125, 148, 159, 163
Persians, 9, 28, 29, 30,
82, 84, 35, 36, 37, 38,
40, 41, 51, 54, 65,
125
Peru, 2, 133, 162
Pery, 465
Petrarch, 83
Pharaohs, 25
Philadelphia, 346, 854,
372, 396, 398, 400,
406, 416, 468, 548,
INDEX OF NAMES
719
544, 550, 551, 556,
557, 559, 560, 596,
599, 601, 602, 607,
612, 618, 614, 621,
628
Philip of Macedon, 52,
58,54
Philip II. of Spain, 140,
142
Philiphangh, 268
Philippa, Queen of
Portugal, 127
Philippines, 184, 160,
166, 697
Philistines, 4
Philocrates, 286
Phocaea, 81
Phoenicia, 80
Phoenicians, 81, 41, 146,
228
Pilgrim Fathers, the,
201
Pinfold, Charles, 395,
897, 407
Pitt, William, the Elder,
186, 810, 817, 325,
835, 886, 848, 868,
370, 871, 395, 396,
400, 401, 408, 404,
407, 408, 409, 410,
411, 461, 567, 596,
650
Pitt, WiUiam, the
Younger, 367, 475,
479, 480, 481, 482,
483, 484, 486, 487,
489, 491, 498, 494,
495, 497, 498, 499,
500, 501, 518, 514,
515, 517, 518, 521,
528, 524, 526, 527,
631
Pittsburg, 186, 388
Pizarro, 138, 182
Plantagenets, 93, 99,
107
Plataea, 87, 88, 51
Plato, 52, 619
Poitiers, 67, 68
Poland, 67
Polybios, 25
Pompey, 56
Pontiao, 337| 340
Poona, 708
Pope, the, 79, 91, 127,
136, 140, 434
Popham, Allen, 405
Popple, Governor
William, 398, 412
Port Resolution, 223,
224
Royal, 188
Portland, Duke of, 471,
472, 478, 476, 501
Portugal, 78, 126, 128,
129, 181, 182, 184,
186, 137, 189, 140,
148, 144, 145, 158,
160, 166, 187, 221,
637, 709
Portuguese, 78, 127, 130,
131, 182, 184, 187,
189, 148, 144, 146,
149, 156, 241
Republic, 182
Posen, 686
Potomac, 597
Pownall, Goyernor, 855,
400
Poyning, Sir Edward,
427, 470
Praxiteles, 52
Prescott, 184
Preston, 264
Princeton, 556
Procrustes, 444
Prokonnesus, 32
Propontis, 32
Providence Plantations,
653, 661
Prussia, 75, 85, 87, 512,
526, 561, 684, 685,
687, 692
Psyche, 218
Pulteney, 484
Pui^ab, 53, 156
Putumayo, 162
Pym, 104, 484
Pyrenees, 68
Quakers, 207, 829
Quebec, 183, 185, 187,
192, 317, 390, 413,
414, 447, 557
Queensland, 826
Quito, 191
Raleigh, Sir Walter,
182, 196, 197, 206
Rameau, 217
Randolph, 301
Ra^jit Singh, 156
Raphael, 343
Rathenau, Dr. Walther,
681
Ravenna, 69
Red Sea, 127
Rhine, 65, 67, 79, 287
Rhode Island, 188, 208,
255, 817, 818, 820,
889, 395, 399, 400,
401, 404, 405, 408,
418, 414, 598, 601,
649, 658, 661
Rhodesia, Northern,
152
Rioliard I., 74
Richard of York, 426
RicheUeu, Cardinal, 184,
211
Richmond, Duke of,
474
Robert the Bruce, 260,
298
Roberval, 192
Robespierre, 526
Robinson, Sir Thomas,
884
Rochambean, Count de,
650, 651
Rockingham, Lord, 469,
478
Roderic, King of the
Visigoths, 67
Roe, Sir Thomas, 145,
149
Roman Empire, 54, 56,
57, 58, 59, 60, 62,
68, 64, 65, 69, 70,
71, 74, 75, 77, 79,
107, 125, 200, 421,
429, 613
Romans, 12, 58, 63, 65,
69, 78, 80, 88, 89, 90,
155, 296, 421, 686
Rome, 58, 54, 55, 56, 57,
58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 69,
70, 71, 78, 76, 77, 79,
80, 82, 88, 90, 128,
136, 140, 150, 155,
176, 177, 181, 201,
221, 261, 269, 421,
680, 698
, Bishop of, 68,
140
Romulus Augustulus,
65
Rouen, 446
Rousseau, 496
Roxburgh, 296
Rush, 698
Russell, 84
Russell, Lord John, 105
Russia, 17, 29, 87, 159,
230, 325, 375, 526,
692
Russians, 148
Rutland, Duke of, 479,
480, 484, 501
Sagres, 128, 129
St. Augustine, 896
St. Bernard, 422
St Croix, 405
St. Eustatius, 898, 895,
397, 401, 402, 408,
405, 409
St. George's Channel,
421
720
INDBX OF NAMES
St. Helena, 506
St. Kitts, 405
St. Lawrence, Gulf of,
183
St. Lawrence River,
183, 184, 185
St. Leffer, 435
St. Malo, 183
St. Peter, 81, 185 .
St. Thomas, 405, 670
St. Vincent, 399
St. Vincent, Lord,
505
Saiamis, 85, 36, 37,
88, 40, 41, 51, 65
Saldanah Bay, 145
Salem, 543
Salisbury, Lord, 179,
415
Samians, 32
Samoa, 162
Samoa, 29, 82, 41, 44
Samson, 245
Samuel, 6
Sandwich, Earl of, 812,
383
San Francisco, 95
Santo Domingo, 397,
400, 401, 403, 407,
409, 411, 525
Saracens, 67, 78, 125
Saratoga, 557, 560
Sardinia, 87
Saul, King, 4, 5, 6
Saul of Tarsus, 58
Saxons, 90, 91, 93, 243,
296, 429
Soone, 264
Scopas, 52
Soott, Sir Walter, 299
Scott, Sir William, 388,
401, 402
Scottish Darien Trad-
ing Company. See
Indian and AMoan
Company
Scrooby, 201
Seeley, Professor, 198
Selymbria, 32
Semitic races, 3, 5, 56,
65
Serbs, 58
Seton of Pitmadden,
291, 292
Seymour, Sir Edward,
292, 295
Shakespeare,. 10, 260,
297
Sharpe, Gorernor, 341
Shavs's Rebellion, 598
Shelbume, 469, 471,
472, 473
Sheridan, 487
Shirley, Governor, 185,
327, 333, 834, 880,
892, 403, 407, 411
Siam, 159
Sicily, 609
Sicyon, 85
Sierra Leoue, 707
Simnel, Lambert, 426
Simon de Montfort.
See De Montfort
Slavs, 685
Smerwicke, 481
Smith, Adam, 113, 348,
349, 350, 381, 442,
479, 482, 484, 523
Smith, Judge James,
866
Smjrrna, 148
Socrates, 21, 48, 44, 95
Soissons, 68
Solomon, 7
Sophia, Electress of
Hanover, 287
South Africa, 15, 16,
18, 160, 323, 824,
825, 826, 344, 360,
423, 425, 432, 625,
687, 688, 690, 699,
702
African Repub-
lics, 324
Africans, 823
America, 138, 275,
525, 527, 694
— American Colon-
ies, 693
Carolina, 183,
216, 301, 334, 379,
382, 408, 636, 688,
689, 642, 649, 651,
652, 653, 661, 670,
671
Southampton, Lord,
199
Spanish Armada. See
Armada
Empire, 138, 142,
227
Peninsula, 547
Sparta, 30, 34, 37, 88,
39, 49, 50, 51, 52
Spartans, 37, 78, 211
Spenser, Edmund, 480,
433
Spice Islands, 146
Spithead, 505, 608
SUpleton, Sir William,
386
Steelboya, 459
Stephen, King, 94, 99
Stephen II., Pope, 68,
69
Stewart, Robert See
Castlereagh
Stilicho, 60
Stirling, 291
Stoke, Battle of, 426
Stowell, Lord. See
Scott, Sir William
Straits Settlements
168
Strongbow, Richard,
Earl of Pembroke,
243, 422, 423
Stuart, 828, 829
Stuarts, 95, 104
Stubbs, 71, 75
Styra, 35
Sulla, 56
Superior, Lake, 184
Surat, 146
Susa, 54
Swaziland, 162, 163
Sweden, 375, 561
Swedes, 207
Swift, Dean, 456, 472
Swiss, 110
Cantons, 109, 110,
625
Confederacy, 80
Switzerland, 77, 79,
109, 110, 510, 625
Sydney, 226
Table Bay, 145
Tacitus, 71, 76, 98, 99
Tagus, 83, 180, 587,
680
Talon, 192
Tandy, Kapper, 476,
500, 511
Tanna, 224
Tannese, 223, 224
Temple, John, 412
Temple, Lord, 473, 474
Tenedos, 32
Terra Natalis. See
Natal
Tessin, 109
Teutons, 65, 69, 71, 72,
79, 89, 90, 91, 98, 94,
98
Texel, 509
Thames, 67, 508
Thebes, 88, 51, 52
Themistocles, 86, 41,
65
Theodorich, 82
Thermopylae, 34, 78,
125
Thessaly, 34, 36, 38
Thomas, Governor, 894,
402, 408
Thrace, 82, 33, 37 .
Thucydides, 25, 49
Thurgau, 109
Thurston, Sir John,
226
INDEX OF KAUES
721
Tilak, 708
Tillotson, 84
TiUy, 436
Timosthe&eA, 40
Tisias, 231
Tisimachus, 231
Tocqueville, 109, 110,
214
Tone, Wolfe, 497, 498,
499, 500, 502, 540,
507, 611, 513
Torbay, 267
Townahend, Charles,
370, 371, 372, 642
Townshend, Lord, 458,
460
Trafalgar, 147,512,679,
680
Transvaal, 263
Tredagh. See London-
derry
Trenton, 550, 556
Tribonian, 82
Trinidad, 415
Troezen, 35
Trov, 19
Tudors, 104, 140
Turkey, 2, 9, 169, 534,
707
Turks, 63, 74, 125, 126,
143, 534
Tuscany, 633
Tweed, 293, 297, 298,
304
Tweeddale, Lord, 277,
279
Tylor, Moses C!oit,
376
Tyrone, 271, 431
Ulster, 207, 264, 271,
430, 433, 447, 461,
462, 463, 464, 503,
504, 608, 610, 511
Undertakers. 456, 467,
458
United Irishmen, 500,
502, 504, 606, 507,
508, 609, 510, 513,
514
Ural Mountains, 12
Utrecht, 185
Valley Forge, 557, 559,
645
Yancouyer, Captain,
497, 498
Yanoouyer Island, 95,
497, 525
Yasco da Gama. See
da Gama
Yaud, 109
Yaudreuil, 217
Yenice, 129, 148, 510
Yermont, 564
Yerona, 87
Versailles, 419
Victoria (Australia), 226
Victoria, Queen, 15,
105, 106
Vienna, 125
Virgil, 62, 80, 299
Virginia, 107, 182, 183
186, 197, 198, 199
200, 202, 203, 207
208, 209, 216, 244
258, 381, 833, 834
337, 888, 339, 368
874, 379, 882, 390
392,* 400, 404, 405
413, 420, 445, 541
661, 596, 601, 609
635, 638, 640, 642
643, 644, 649, 652
653, 661, 670, 671
Company, 182, 197
200, 201, 202, 244
247, 257, 268
Virginians, 208, 638,
639, 640, 642
Visigoths, 67, 68
Vistula, 83
Voltaire, 77, 109, 112,
496
Yon Bulow, 680
Yon Treitschke, 682
Wales, 263, 297, 298,
300, 344, 448, 618,
622
Wallenstein, 436
Walpole, 453, 454, 484,
525
Warbeck, Perkin, 426
Warburton, Dean, 508
Warren, Admiral, 185 •
Warren, Sir John, 511
Washington, George,
186, 228, 357, 362,
364, 373, 374, 375,
376, 447, 643, 544,
646, 647, 548, 549,
550, 651, 552, 653,
564, 655, 656, 567,
558, 559, 560, 561,
562, 564, 565, 666,
667, 568, 669, 570,
571, 572, 573, 574,
677, 581, 584, 587,
588, 590, 691, 592,
593, 594, 595, 696,
597, 599, 600, 601,
602, 607, 621, 623,
633, 636, 638, 639,
643, 644, 645, 646,
648, 650, 652, 670,
671, 678, 693
Washington (U.S.A.),
46, 623, 611, 613,
688, 693
Waterford, 424
Waterloo, 87, 679, 680
Watson, (George, 865
Watt, 689
Wed^ewood, 484
Wellington, Duke of,
689
Wells, Francis, 397
Wells, Samuel, 397
Welsh, 297, 424, 618
Wentworth, 400, 433
Wessex, 98
West Africa, 129
Durham, 522, 523
Indies, 182, 133,
139, 199, 274, 275,
276, 301, 311, 313,
316, 317, 345, 353,
379, 383, 386, 387,
889, 398, 394, 397,
398, 400, 401, 402,
403, 406, 407, 409,
411, 413, 414, 418,
447, 484, 626, 629
West Point, 578, 643
Westminster, 100, 107,
108, 258, 264, 265,
256, 263, 295, 298,
355, 439, 444, 465,
467, 483, 484, 487,
489, 514
Westmoreland, Lord,
501
Wexford, 423, 424, 436,
509
White, Messrs. Hugh k
Company, 405
White, John, 886
Whiteboys, 469
Whitehall, 551
Wicklow, 486
Wilhelmshayen, 86
Wilkes, 95
William the Conqueror,
91, 92, 93, 94, 97, 99,
229, 297, 298, 424
William, Duke of
Gloucester, 287
William II. of Germany,
86
William of Orange, 86,
147, 267, 268, 269,
270, 273, 279, 283,
439, 465
William the Silent, of
Holland, 79
Winthrop, John, 205
Wittenberg, 136
Witwatersrand, 823
722 IKDKX OF YAJHSB
Wolfe, 147, 187, »<1 Yettdkjr, lf8 Tme^ Aitkmr, 447
Wood, Aalhonj, 434 YelTcrtmi, 4M, 467,
Wood, Thonaa, 4S7 477
Wrong. ProfiMOi; lf2 • v^«r^ Z— om, 1»
WyeUf, 201 Yort, »1 ^om^ 3f, «1
' York, Duke oC 387 anncfl^ 45
Yorktovn, S7&, 447, Znlv, 9S3
Xenm, 34, 35, 3«. 36 647, $61, 5tfO, 641 ZmnA, \»
THB KMD
Prmttdhy R. & R, Clark, Limitbd, Edinburik.
, /
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