GRENVILLE'S SCHEME.

33

Lecky, "like most others was the work of the energetic minority who succeeded in commanding an undecided and 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 vacillating uncertainty, heavy majorities, and, in a large class, a great apathy." No people en masse ever at one mental stroke changed the theory of the state and created a new political system. The more we understand of the American Revolution, the more clearly that immense event appears to be the result of "the deliberate calculation of intelligent men." This conclusion does not detract, however, from the supreme importance of the movement, but rather does it demonstrate the capacity of the people of America to understand, and finally to adopt a theory of government which distinguishes them among the nations of the earth.

On receipt of the news of Grenville's scheme of taxation, the assemblies began to advocate the theory of natural rights, and drew up expostulatory petitions to be sent to Parliament. Franklin, about to sail to England as the agent of the Pennsylvania assembly, now in the midst of its contest for the overthrow of the proprietary government, was instructed to oppose any such scheme. From this time the journals of the assemblies recorded the opinions, fast becoming common, which Otis had uttered in his attack on the writs. The assemblies were assuming an attitude hostile to the administrative proposition of the ministry. Their petitions and protests were in vain. They denied the supreme power of Parliament to tax America, though without good authority for the

1 England in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. III, 48,

2 News of the passage of the Stamp Act reached Boston, in May, 1765, but warnings had been sent to the colonial governors as early as August 11, 1764. See N. J. Archives, IX, 448.

34

FORMATION OF PARTIES.

denial. In vain did the few, though able friends of America, who were members of the House of Commons, among whom Barre was chief, speak against colonial taxation and warn the ministry of its ultimate effects. On the twenty-seventh of February, 1765, the stamp act passed the Commons by a vote of five to one, and passed the Lords, without opposition or division.

The proposition to tax America divided its people into two political parties, known at first as the Friends of America and the Friends of the Crown; and later, as Whigs and Tories; or as Loyalists and Patriots. Of the relative strength of these parties, we have no accurate knowledge. John Adams is authority for the opinion that throughout the Revolution one-third of the people in America were opposed to the democratic course of public affairs. As at this time the population was about two and a half millions, the opponents of the Revolution constituted a very respectable portion of the population. A country in which every third man is loyal to the established government cannot be said to lack a conservative party. Of the Loyalists in the country, of their later conduct, their sufferings and their fate, accounts are not wanting. "Of course in every community," says one authority, "there were Tories who were Tories in secret, and these could not be counted for the good reason that they could not be known. Thus again the number of openly avowed Tories varied somewhat with the prosperity of the Revolution. Still further, their number varied with the variations of locality. Throughout the entire struggle by far the largest number of Tories were to be found in the colony of New York, particularly in the neighborhood of its chief city.

Of the other middle colonies, while there were many Tories in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland probably

RELATIVE WHIG AND TORY STRENGTH.

35

the largest number lived in Pennsylvania; a number so great that a prominent officer in the revolutionary army1 described it as "the enemies' country." Indeed, respecting the actual preponderance of the Tory party in these two central colonies, an eminent champion of the Revolution states, that New York and Pennsylvania were so nearly divided,-if their propensity was not cast so,that if New England on the one side and Virginia on the other had not kept them in they would have joined the British."2 Of the New England colonies, Connecticut had the greatest number of Tories and next in the proportion of population was the district afterward known as the State of Vermont.3 "Proceeding to the colonies south of the Potomac," says Mr. Tyler, "we find, especially when hostilities began, the Tories were decidedly less in number than the Whigs; in North Carolina the two parties were evenly divided; in South Carolina the Tories were the more numerous party, while in Georgia their majority was so great that in 1781 they were preparing to detach that colony from the Revolution, and probably would have done so had it not been for the embarrassing accident that happened to Cornwallis in the latter part of that year." With due allowance for the difference in time between the passage of the stamp-act and the surrender at Yorktown, it may be said that the number and influence of the Tories in 1765 preponderated over the Whigs even more than the number and influence of the Patriots preponderated over the Tories in 1781.

The Tory party was not limited to men of greatest 1 Timothy Pickering.

2 Works of John Adams, Vol. X, 63.

185.

Ellis, The Loyalists and Their Fortunes; Winsor, Vol. VII,

4 Moses Coit Tyler in the American Historical Review, October, 1895, 27.

36

THE LOYALIST'S DEFENSE.

wealth for it included many of the clergymen, the lawyers, the physicians and the teachers of the time, and probably enrolled more graduates of the colleges of the country than did the popular cause. Of three hundred and ten men in Massachusetts, who, by a decree of its assembly, were banished in September, 1780, more than sixty were graduates of Harvard.1 Hancock, Quincy, Samuel and John Adams were despised by the Loyalists of New England as deserters and traitors to the cause which, by family alliance, they should have supported. As great lawyers and judges in England at the time interpreted the British constitution, and as tested by the common law, the cause of the Americans was treasonable.

The American Loyalist defended his support of British measures in some such way as this: Granted that taxation and representation went hand in hand, yet the people of England were represented in Parliament in the sense in which democratic Americans demanded representation. The word "representation" was not to be construed as implying the presence in Parliament of persons chosen by the formal act of every man in England. Parliament consisted of the King, the Lords and the Commons, and, in the aggregate, thus represented all England. The King represented the family to which he belonged; the Lords represented another society of the realm, and the Commons, the remainder of the people. That every Englishman, of age, residing in England did not vote for a member in Parliament was not to be interpreted assignifying that it did not represent every Englishman. The House of Commons, it was true, was chosen but by one-tenth of the population, yet the remaining nine

1 Ellis, Winsor, VII., 195.

REPLY OF THE AMERICANS.

37

tenths were thereby represented, for the qualified electors of the kingdom chose the House. If the Americans insisted on a reform in representation, would it not be better to change the law and extend the franchise rather than to nullify the acts of Parliament and precipitate a civil war in America?

The friends of the American cause replied in some such way as this: The representation of the people of the colonies in Parliament was too indirect to secure legislation specially adapted to the wants of America. Englishmen, residing in England, and deriving their knowledge of America from remote and usually unreliable sources, could not understand the wants of its people. The distance to Great Britain was too great to permit the immediate representation of the colonies in Parliament as in their own assemblies.1 As the speediest packet must require two months to reach England, it was practically useless for the Americans to think of sending representatives to Parliament, for that body could never keep pace with public sentiment and the wants of America. Englishmen there were entitled to all the rights and privileges of Englishmen in England. They were, therefore, equally well qualified to choose law-makers, and better able to select their own. The assemblies understood the wants of the people, for they were composed of men chosen at regular times, and with the consent of the people themselves. The power by which Parliament legislated for England was essentially different from the power to which the law-makers of America were entitled and this was particularly true as to the acts affecting the trade and commerce of the colonies and discriminating against them.

1 Declaration of Rights, 1765, Clause 4.