pleaded the cause of the people. His speech created a profound impression throughout the colonies, and aroused a determination in the hearts of his fellow-citizens to oppose the other enactments of Parliament which they felt to be unjust. This trial was fatal to the writs, which ere scarcely ever used afterwards. "Then and there," says John Adams, "was was the first opposition to arbitrary acts of Great Britain. Then and there Then and there American Independence was born."

Taxing the Colonies.

The spirit of opposition soon manifested itself in the New England colonies. The manufactures, trade and fisheries of that section were almost ruined, and the people had no choice but to defend themselves. Associations were formed in all the colonies pledging themselves not to purchase of English manufacturers anything but the absolute necessities of life. Families began to make their own linen and woolen cloths, and to preserve sheep for their wool. Homespun garments became the dress of the patriot party, and foreign cloths were almost driven out of use. It was resolved to encourage home manufactures in every possible way and associations were formed for this purpose. These measures became very popular, and were adopted by the other colonies in rapid succession.

England was blind to these signs of alienation and danger, and such of her public men as saw them regarded them as of no importance. It was resolved to go still further, and levy direct taxes upon the colonies. In 1763 such a proposition was brought forward by the ministers. It was claimed by them that as the debt of England had been largely increased by the French war, which had been fought in their defence, it was but right that they should help to de

English government.

In the meantime the colonies had warmly discussed the intentions of Great Britain respecting them, and all strenuously denied the right of the mother country to tax them without granting them some form of representation in her government. They claimed the right to have a voice in the disposal of their property, and they regarded the design of Parliament as but a new proof of the indisposition of the mother country to treat them with justice.

The feeling of the Americans towards England at this period has been aptly described as "distrust and suspicion, strangely mixed up with filial reverence-an instinctive sense of injury, instantly met by the instinctive suggestion that there must be some constitutional reason for doing it, or it would not be done." In spite of the injuries they had received at her hands, the Americans were warmly attached to England. They gloried in her triumphs, were proud to trace their descent from her, and claimed a share in her great history and grand achievements. Had England been wise she might have strengthened this attachment to such an extent that the ties which bound the two countries could never have been sundered. But England was not only careless of the rights of Americans, she was grossly ignorant of their country and of their character.

Ignorant Rulers.

"Few Englishmen had accurate ideas of the nature, the extent, or even the position of the colonies. And when the Duke of Newcastle hurried to the king with the information that Cape Breton was an island, he did what perhaps half his colleagues in the ministry, and more than half his colleagues in Parliament, would have done in his place. They knew that the colonies were of vast

extent; that they lay far away beyond the sea; that they produced many things which Englishmen wanted to buy, and consumed many things which Englishmen wanted to sell; that English soldiers had met England's hereditary enemies, the French, in their forests; that English sailors had beaten French sailors on their coasts. But they did not know that the most flourishing of these colonies had been planted by men who, prizing freedom above all other blessings, had planted them in order to secure for themselves and their children a home in which they could worship God according to their own idea of worship, and put forth the strength of their minds and of their bodies, according to their own conception of what was best for them here and hereafter.”*

The few Americans who visited Great Britain found themselves looked upon as aliens and inferiors; their affection for the land of their fathers was met with contempt, and they were ridiculed as barbarians. The English colonial officials made this feeling apparent to those Americans who remained at home. Everywhere the colonists saw themselves treated with injustice. The hardearned glories of their troops in the colonial wars were denied them and claimed for the English regulars, and there was scarcely a provincial who had borne arms but had some petty insult or injury, at the hands of the royal authorities, to complain of.

Looking back over their history, the Americans could not remember a time when they had not been treated with injustice by Great Britain. They owed that country nothing for the planting of the colonies; that was the work of their ancestors, who had been forced to fly from England to escape wrong and injury. They had been left to

*Historical View of the American Revolution. By G. W. Greene, p. 15.

conquer their early difficulties without aid, and with scanty sympathy from England, who had taken no notice of them until they were sufficiently prosperous to be profitable to her.

Injustice of the Mother Country. Then she had rarely laid her hand upon them but to wrong them. She had pursued such a uniformly unjust policy towards them that their affection for her was rapidly giving way to a general desire to separate from her. They owed her nothing; they were resolved to maintain their liberties against her. Some of the leading men of the colony had already begun to dream of the future greatness of America, and had become convinced that the true interests of their country required a separation from England.

In spite of this feeling England persisted in her course of folly. In March, 1764, the House of Commons resolved, "that Parliament had a right to tax America." The next month (April) witnessed the enforcement of this claim in the passage of an act of Parliament levying duties upon certain articles imported into America. By the same act iron and lumber were added to the "enumerated articles" which could be exported only to England. The preamble to this measure declared that its purpose was to raise "a revenue for the expenses of defending, protecting and securing his majesty's dominions in America."

The colonists protested against this act as a violation of their liberties, and declared that they had borne their full share of the expense of the wars for their defence, that they were now able to protect themselves without assistance from the king, and added the significant warning that "taxation without representation was tyranny." No one yet thought of armed resistance; the colonists were resolved to exhaust every peaceful

means of redress before proceeding to extreme measures. As yet the desire for separation was confined to a few far-seeing

men.

Prominent among these was Samuel Adams, of Boston, a man in whom the loftiest virtues of the old Puritans were min

SAMUEL ADAMS.

gled with the graces of more modern times. Modest and unassuming in manner, a man of incorruptible integrity and sincere piety, he was insensible to fear in the discharge of his duty. He was a deep student of constitutional law, and was gifted with an eloquence which could move multitudes. His clear

vision had already discerned the dangers which threatened his country, and had discovered the only path by which she could emerge from them in safety. His plan was simple: resistance, peaceable at first; forcible if necessary. Under his guidance the people of Boston met and protested against

the new plan of taxation, and instructed their representatives in the general court to oppose it.

"We claim British rights, not by charter only," said the Boston resolves; "we are born to them. are taxed without our con

If we

sent, our property is taken without our consent, and then we are no more freemen, but slaves." The general court of Massachusetts declared that the imposition of duties and taxes by the Parliament of Great Britain upon a people not represented in the House on Commons is absolutely irreconcilable with their rights." A committee was appointed to correspond with the other colonies, with a view to bringing about a concerted action for the redress of grievances. In Virginia, New York, Connecticut and the Carolinas equally vigorous

measures were taken.

In Virginia the first indication of the intention of the people to resist the arbitrary measures of the crown was given in a matter insignificant in itself, but clearly involving the great principle at issue. In that colony tobacco was the lawful currency, and the

failure of a crop, or a rise in the price of tobacco, made such payments often very burdensome. In the winter of 1763 the legislature passed a law authorizing the people of the colony to pay their taxes and other public dues in money, at the rate of twopence a pound for the tobacco due. The clergymen of the established church had each a salary fixed by law at a certain number of pounds of tobacco, and as this measure involved them in a loss they refused to acquiesce in it and induced Sherlock, the bishop of London, to persuade the king to refuse the law his signature. "The rights of the clergy and the authority of the king must stand or fall together," was the sound argument of the bishop. Failing of the royal signature the law was inoperative.

The matter was soon brought to an issue in Virginia. The Rev. Mr. Maury, one of the clergymen affected by the law, brought a suit to recover damages, or the difference between twopence per pound and the current market price of tobacco, which was much higher. This was popularly known as the "Parsons' Cause." It was a clearly joined issue between the right of the people to make their own laws on the one side, and the king's prerogative on the other.

The Man for the Hour.

The "parsons" secured the best talent in the colony for the prosecution of their claims; the cause of the "people" was confided to a young man of twenty-seven, whose youth was supplemented by the additional disadvantages of being poor and unknown. He He was Patrick Henry, the son of a plain farmer, and a native of the county of Hanover. He had received but little education, as his father's straitened circumstances had com pelled him to put his son to the task of earning his bread at the early age of fifteen years. He entered a country store, and the

next year went into business with his elder brother, William, who, being too indolent to attend to business, left the store to the management, or rather the mismanagement of Patrick.

The young man was brimming over with good nature, and could never find it in his' heart to refuse any one credit, and was too kind-hearted to press unwilling debtors to payment. He let the store "manage itself," and amused himself by studying the character of his customers, and with his flute and violin. He was also a great reader, and read.

every work he could buy or borrow. The store survived about a year, and the next two or three years were passed by Patrick in settling its affairs. At the age of eighteen he married, and began life as a farmer. He soon grew tired of this pursuit, and selling his farm once more engaged in mercantile life. It was not suited to him, nor he to it. He passed his days in reading, this time giving his attention to works of history and philosophy. Livy was his favorite, and he read it through at least once a year for many years..