XLIX. Nov. CHAP. of domestic discord, and preparing for Dickinson a life of regrets. Had it done no more than express its 1775. opposition to independence, a convention of the people would have soon been called, and the proprietary government suspended. To prevent this by a suf ficiently plausible appearance of patriotism, it approved the military association of all who had no scruples about bearing arms, adopted rules for the volunteer battalions, and before its adjournment appropriated eighty thousand pounds in provincial paper money to defray the expenses of a military preparation. The insincerity of the concessions was perceived; extreme discontent led the more determined to expose through the press the trimming of the assembly; and Franklin encouraged Thomas Paine, an emigrant from England of the previous year, who was the master of a singularly lucid and attractive style, to write an appeal to the people of America in favor of independence. Moreover the assembly in asserting the inviolability of the proprietary form of government, which had originally emanated from a king, placed itself in opposition to the principle of John Rutledge, John Adams, and the continental congress, that "the people are the source and original of all power." That principle had just been applied on the memorial of New Hampshire with no more than one dissenting vote. Yet the men of that day had been born and educated as subjects of a king; to them the house of Hanover was a symbol of religious toleration, the British constitution another word for the security of liberty and property under a representative government. They were not yet enemies of monarchy; they had as XLIX. 1775. Nov. yet turned away from considering whether well or- CHAP. ganized civil institutions could be framed for wide territories without a king; and in the very moment of resistance they longed to escape the necessity of a revolution. Zubly, a delegate from Georgia, a Swiss by birth, declared in his place "a republic to be little better than a government of devils," shuddered at the idea of a separation from Great Britain as fraught with greater evils than had yet been suffered, and fled from congress to seek shelter under the authority of the crown; but the courage of John Adams, whose sagacity had so soon been vindicated by events, rose with the approach of danger; he dared to present to himself the problem of the system, best suited to the colonies in the sudden emergency; and guided by nature and experience, looked for the essential elements of government behind its forms. He studied the principles of the British constitution not merely in the history of England, but as purified and reproduced in the governments of New England, and as analyzed and reflected in the writings of Montesquieu. "A legislative, an executive, and a judicial power comprehended the whole of what he meant and understood by government;" and as the only secret to be discovered was how to derive these powers directly from the people, he persuaded himself and succeeded in persuading others, that, by the aid of a convention, "a single month was sufficient, without the least convulsion or even animosity, to accomplish a total revolution in the government of a colony." The continental congress perceived the wisdom of a declaration of independence; but they acquiesced in the necessity of postponing its consideration, till CHAP. there should be a better hope of unanimity. They XLIX. became more resolute, more thorough, and more 1775. active; they recalled their absent members; they Nov. welcomed the trophies of victory sent by Montgomery from the Northern army. In September they had appointed a secret committee to import gunpowder, field pieces, and arms; now, without as yet opening the commerce of the continent by a general act, they empowered that committee to export provisions or produce to the foreign West Indies at the risk of the continent, in order to purchase the materials of war. They did not authorize letters of reprisal against British property on the high seas; but in November they adopted "rules for the government of the American navy;" directed the enlistment of two battalions of marines; authorized the inhabitants of the colonies to seize all ships employed as carriers for the British fleet or army; and sanctioned tribunals instituted in the separate colonies to confiscate their cargoes. The captures already made under the authority of Washington they confirmed. To meet the further expenses of the war, they voted bills of credit to the amount of three millions more. A motion by Chase of Maryland to send envoys to France with conditional instructions did not prevail; but on the twenty ninth of November Harrison, Franklin, Johnson, Dickinson, and Jay were appointed a secret "committee for the sole purpose of corresponding with friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world ;" and funds were set aside "for the payment of such agents as they might send on this service." "It is an immense mis XLIX. Nov. fortune to the whole empire," wrote Jefferson to a CHAP. refugee, "to have a king of such a disposition at such à time. We are told, and every thing proves it true, 1775. that he is the bitterest enemy we have; his minister is able, and that satisfies me that ignorance or wickedness somewhere controls him. Our petitions told him, that from our king there was but one appeal. The admonition was despised, and that appeal forced on us. After colonies have drawn the sword, there is but one step more they can take. That step is now pressed upon us by the measures adopted, as if they were afraid we would not take it. There is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do; but, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist, before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British parliament propose; and in this I speak the sentiments of America." But Dickinson still soothed himself with the belief, that the petition of his drafting had not been rejected, and that proofs of a conciliatory disposition would be manifested in the king's speech at the opening of the session of parliament. CHAPTER L. CHAP. HOW GEORGE THE THIRD FARED IN HIS BID FOR RUSSIANS. SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER-1775. THE king's proclamation was a contemptuous defiL. ance of the opposition, alike of the party of Rocking1775. ham and the party of Chatham, as the instigators, corSept. respondents, and accomplices of the American rebels. Party spirit was exasperated and embittered, and Rochford was heard repeatedly to foretell, that before the winter should pass over, heads would fall on the block. "The king of England," said Wilkes, the lord mayor of London, in conversation at a public dinner, "hates me; I have always despised him: the time is come to decide which of us understands the other best, and in what direction heads are to fall." The French statesmen who, with wonderful powers of penetration, analyzed the public men and their acts, but neither the institutions nor the people of England, complacently contrasted its seeming anarchy with their own happiness in "living peacefully under |