Part 33

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (January-June). Engagement of hireling Hessians to reinforce the British arms.

"The [British] Cabinet had entertained some hopes of Russian auxiliaries [application for 20,000 of whom had been made to the Empress Catherine, who refused them with hardly concealed scorn], but the negotiation for that object could not be matured. Early in the year treaties were signed with the Landgrave of Hesse for taking into British pay 12,000 of his men; with the Duke of Brunswick and other petty potentates of Germany for 5,000 more. These little princes, seeing the need of England, which did not choose to lean, as she might and should have done, on her own right arm, insisted on obtaining, and did obtain, most usurious terms. Under the name of levy-money, there was to be paid to them the price of 30 crowns for every foot-soldier. Under the name of subsidy, each of their Serene Highnesses was moreover to be indulged with a yearly sum, irrespective of the pay and subsistence of the troops; and on the plea that in this case no certain number of years was stipulated as the term of service, the Landgrave of Hesse claimed and was promised a double subsidy, namely 450,000 crowns a year. The men were to enter into pay before they began to march! The subsidies were to be continued for one full year at least after the war was over and the troops had returned to their respective homes. Never yet, in short, was the blood of brave men sold on harder terms. The disgrace of this transaction to the German Princes who engaged in it requires little comment. … The ablest by far of the German Princes at that time, Frederick of Prussia, was not in general a man of compassionate feelings. He had no especial love or care for the North American cause. … Yet even Frederick expressed in strong terms his contempt for the scandalous man-traffic of his neighbours. It is said that whenever any of the newly hired Brunswickers or Hessians had to pass through any portion of his territory he claimed to levy on them the usual toll as for so many head of cattle, since he said they had been sold as such! Nor can the British ministry in this transaction be considered free from blame. … Certain it is that among the various causes which at this period wrought upon our trans-Atlantic brethren to renounce their connection with us, there was none more cogent in their minds than the news that German mercenaries had been hired and were coming to fight against them."

_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 53 (volume 6)._

"The first German troops to start for America were the Brunswickers. These marched from Brunswick on February 22d, 1776, 2,282 strong, and were embarked at Stade, near the mouth of the Elbe. The second division of Brunswickers embarked at the end of May—about 2,000 men. The first Hessians set out from Cassel early in March, and were shipped at Bremerlehe, near the mouth of the Weser. The second division was embarked in June. Together they numbered between 12,000 and 13,000 men. {3232} They were for the most part excellent troops and well equipped, for the Landgrave's little army was one of the best in Germany. … The Prince of Waldeck sent his regiment through Cassel without trouble. The Prince of Hesse-Hanau, the Margrave of Anspach-Bayreuth, and the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst had a longer road."

_E. J. Lowell, The Hessians in the Revolutionary War, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _M. von Eelking, Memoirs of General Riedesel, volume 1, pages 18-88, and appendix._

_G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), volume 4, chapter 22._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (February). Flight of the Royal Governor from Georgia.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1775-1777.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (March). State government organized and a Constitution adopted in South Carolina.

See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1776 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (April). North Carolina the first colony to declare for independence.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775-1776.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (May). Rhode Island renounces allegiance to the King.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1776.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (May). Popular vote for independence in Massachusetts.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1776 (APRIL-MAY).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (May). Arnold's retreat from Canada.

See CANADA: A. D. 1775-1776.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (May-June). Independence declared and Constitution adopted in Virginia.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1776.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (June). The British repulsed at Charleston.

"Early in 1776 the task was assigned to Clinton, who had in January departed from Boston, … to force and hold the Southern colonies to their allegiance.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775-1776.

Cornwallis, with troops, was sent over under convoy of Sir Peter Parker's fleet, to give Clinton the army he needed. The fleet did not reach North Carolina till May. In March, [Charles] Lee, while in New York, had wished to be ordered to the command in Canada, as 'he was the only general officer on the continent who could speak and think in French.' He was disappointed, and ordered farther south. By May he was in Virginia, ridding the country of Tories, and trying to find out where Parker intended to land. It was expected that Clinton would return north to New York in season to operate with Howe, when he opened the campaign there in the early summer, as that general expected to do, and the interval for a diversion farther south was not long. Lee had now gone as far as Charleston (South Carolina), and taken command in that neighborhood, while in charge of the little fort at the entrance of the harbor was William Moultrie, upon whom Lee was inculcating the necessity of a slow and sure fire, in case it should prove that Parker's destination, as it might well be, was to get a foothold in the Southern provinces, and break up the commerce which fed the rebellion through that harbor. The people of Charleston had been for some time engaged on their defences, and 'seem to wish a trial of their mettle,' wrote a looker-on. The fort in question was built of palmetto logs, and was unfinished on the land side. Its defenders had four days' warning, and the neighboring militia were summoned. On the 4th of June the hostile fleet appeared, and having landed troops on an adjacent island, it was not till the 27th that their dispositions were made for an attack. Their ships threw shot at the fort all day, which did very little damage, while the return fire was rendered with a precision surprising in untried artillerists, and seriously damaged the fleet, of which one ship was grounded and abandoned. The expected land attack from Clinton's troops, already ashore on Long Island, was not made. A strong wind had raised the waters of the channel between that island and Sullivan's Island so high that it could not be forded, and suitable boats for the passage were not at hand. A few days later the shattered vessels and the troops left the neighborhood, and Colonel Moultrie had leisure to count the cost of his victory, which was twelve killed and twice as many wounded. The courage of Sergeant Jasper, in replacing on the bastion a flag which had been shot away, became at once a household anecdote."

_J. Winsor, The Conflict Precipitated (Narrative and Critical History of America. volume 6, chapter 2)._

_ALSO IN: H. Flanders, Life of John Rutledge, chapter 10 (Lives of the Chief Justices, volume 1)._

_C. B. Hartley, Life of General William Moultrie (Heroes and Patriots of the South), chapter 2._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (June). Resolutions for Independence. Making ready for the Declaration.

"Things were now verging on every side to the same point. North Carolina had conferred the necessary powers to vote for independence and foreign alliances as early as the 12th of April. And now came the news from Richard Lee, to Mr. Adams, that on the very day of the passage of the significant preamble in congress, the 15th of May, the convention of Virginia had gone a step further, and had instructed their delegates to propose independence. Authority to assent to its natural consequences, a confederation and foreign alliances, followed as a matter of course. On the other hand, the convention of Massachusetts had referred the subject back to the people, to be considered and acted upon at their primary town meetings, and the responses had been for some time corning in unequivocally enough. So decided was the feeling that Joseph Hawley, impatient of the delay, was stimulating the nowise reluctant Gerry to greater exertions. Perceiving these encouraging indications in opposite quarters, the friends of independence now consulted together, and made up their minds that the moment had come for a final demonstration. Resolutions, embracing the three great points, were carefully matured, which it was arranged that Richard Henry Lee, on behalf of the delegates of Virginia, should present, and John Adams should second, for Massachusetts. The movement took place, accordingly, on the 7th of June. It appears on the journal, recorded with the customary caution, as follows:

'Certain resolutions respecting independency being moved and seconded,—Resolved, that the consideration of them be referred till to-morrow morning; and that the members be enjoined to attend punctually at ten o'clock, in order to take the same into their consideration.' It was well that a measure of so momentous a character should be accompanied with as much of the forms of notice and special assignment as the body could properly give it. The record of what passed at the appointed time has come down to us very barren of details. {3233} We only know that the resolutions were referred to the committee of the whole, where they were debated with great spirit during that day, Saturday, and again on Monday, the 10th, by which time it had become quite clear that a majority of the colonies were prepared to adopt the first and leading resolution. This majority was composed of the four New England, and three out of the four southern colonies. But it being deemed unadvisable to place this great act upon so narrow a basis, and a prospect being held out of securing a more general concurrence by delaying the decision, a postponement until the 1st of July was effected by a change of the votes of two colonies. In the mean while, however, as it was thought suitable to accompany the act with an elaborate exposition of the causes which were held to justify it, a committee was ordered to have in charge the preparation of such a paper in season for the adjourned debate. … At the same time that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, all but the last named being of the movement, were appointed the committee to prepare a declaration, as mentioned, the congress formally voted a second committee, with powers to prepare and digest a form of confederation to be entered into between the colonies; and yet a third, to mature a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers. In this compass were included all the elements of national sovereignty abroad and at home. … The bulk of opposition now centred in the five middle colonies, and the pillar upon which it leaned was John Dickinson. But under the combined assaults conducted by the leading colonies of Virginia and Massachusetts, it was plain that victory was become a mere question of time. Jonathan D. Sergeant, who had left congress to hasten a change in the counsels of New Jersey, had been so successful in spiriting up the assembly as to be able to write, on the 15th of June, to Mr. Adams, that the delegates about to be elected would be on the spot by the 1st of July, the day to which the question had been assigned, and that they would 'vote plump.' Equally favorable news soon came from Maryland. … Thus were two States secured. But Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York yet remained to move. In the first of these, recourse was had once more to the so-called committees of conference. … And here, on the 23d of June, Dr. Benjamin Rush, then a young man, but acting entirely in sympathy and co-operation with the leaders in congress, moved and carried the appointment of a committee to declare the sense of the conference with respect to an independence of the province on the crown of Great Britain. He and James Smith were then joined with Thomas McKean, the chairman of the conference, in a committee, which was ready the next day with a report affirming the willingness of the deputies of the conference to concur in a vote declaring the United Colonies free and independent States. The report was adopted unanimously, was presented to congress on the 25th, and, doubtless, had its effect in determining those delegates of the colony to absent themselves on the final vote, upon whose resistance its adverse decision depended. As the hesitation of Delaware was chiefly owing to the feeling that pervaded the county of Sussex, Mr. Rodney had repaired thither for the purpose of bringing about a favorable change, in which errand the news came that he was laboring with success. The delegates from New York, no longer interposing any active opposition, yet unwilling to assume a responsibility which their constituents had not authorized, preferred to withdraw from participation in the decision. Such was the state of affairs on the 1st of July, to which day the discussion had been adjourned. There was then little doubt of an affirmative vote on the part of all but four colonies."

_J. Q. Adams and C. F. Adams, Life of John Adams, volume 1, pages 308-318._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (June). End of proprietary and royal government in Maryland.

See MARYLAND: A. D. 1776.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (July). Authorship, adoption and signing of the Declaration of Independence.

For the last hundred years one of the first facts taught to any child of American birth is, that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The original draft in his handwriting was afterward deposited in the State Department. It shows two or three trifling alterations, interlined in the handwritings of Franklin and Adams. Otherwise it came before Congress precisely as Jefferson wrote it. Many years afterward John Adams gave an account of the way in which Jefferson came to be the composer of this momentous document, differing slightly from the story told by Jefferson. But the variance is immaterial. … Jefferson's statement seems the better entitled to credit, and what little corroboration is to be obtained for either narrator is wholly in his favor. He says simply that when the Committee came together he was pressed by his colleagues unanimously to undertake the draft; that he did so; that, when he had prepared it, he submitted it to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, separately, requesting their corrections, 'which were two or three only and merely verbal,' 'interlined in their own handwritings'; that the report in this shape was adopted by the committee, and a 'fair copy,' written out by Mr. Jefferson, was then laid before Congress. A somewhat more interesting discussion concerns the question, how Jefferson came to be named first on the committee, to the entire exclusion of Lee, to whom, as mover of the resolution, parliamentary etiquette would have assigned the chairmanship.

See, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).

Many explanations have been given, of which some at least appear the outgrowth of personal likings and dislikings. It is certain that Jefferson was not only preëminently fitted for the very difficult task of this peculiar composition, but also that he was a man without an enemy. His abstinence from any active share in debate had saved him from giving irritation; and it is a truth not to be concealed, that there were cabals, bickerings, heart-burnings, perhaps actual enmities among the members of that famous body, which, grandly as it looms up, and rightly too, in the mind's eye, was after all composed of jarring human ingredients. It was well believed that there was a faction opposed to Washington, and it was generally suspected that irascible, vain, and jealous John Adams, then just rising from the ranks of the people, made in this matter common cause with the aristocratic Virginian Lees against their fellow-countrymen. … So it is likely enough that a timely illness of Lee's wife was a fortunate excuse for passing him by, and that partly by reason of admitted aptitude, partly because no risk could be run of any interference of personal feelings in so weighty a matter, Jefferson was placed first on the committee, with the natural result of doing the bulk of its labor. {3234} On July 1, pursuant to assignment, Congress, in committee of the whole, resumed consideration of Mr. Lee's resolution, and carried it by the votes of nine colonies. South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. The two delegates from Delaware were divided. Those from New York said that personally they were in favor of it and believed their constituents to be so, but they were hampered by instructions drawn a twelvemonth since and strictly forbidding any action obstructive of reconciliation, which was then still desired. The committee reported, and then Edward Rutledge moved an adjournment to the next day, when his colleagues, though disapproving the resolution, would probably join in it for the sake of unanimity. This motion was carried, and on the day following the South Carolinians were found to be converted; also a third member 'had come post from the Delaware counties' and caused the vote of that colony to be given with the rest; Pennsylvania changed her vote; and a few days later the Convention of New York approved the resolution, 'thus supplying the void occasioned by the withdrawing of her delegates from the vote.' On the same day, July 2, the House took up Mr. Jefferson's draft of the Declaration, and debated it during that and the following day and until a late hour on July 4. Many verbal changes were made, most of which were conducive to closer accuracy of statement, and were improvements. Two or three substantial amendments were made by the omission of passages; notably there was stricken out a passage in which George III. was denounced for encouraging the slave-trade. … No interpolation of any consequence was made. Jefferson had ample cause to congratulate himself upon this event of the discussion. … He himself spoke not a word in the debate. … The burden of argument, from which Jefferson wisely shrank, was gallantly borne by John Adams, whom Jefferson gratefully called 'the colossus of that debate.' Jefferson used afterward to take pleasure in tingeing the real solemnity of the occasion with a coloring of the ludicrous. The debate, he said, seemed as though it might run on interminably, and probably would have done so at a different season of the year. But the weather was oppressively warm, and the room occupied by the deputies was hard by a stable, whence the hungry flies swarmed thick and fierce, alighting on the legs of the delegates and biting hard through their thin silk stockings. Treason was preferable to discomfort, and the members voted for the Declaration and hastened to the table to sign it and escape from the horse-fly. John Hancock, making his great familiar signature, jestingly said that John Bull could read that without spectacles; then, becoming more serious, began to impress on his comrades the necessity of their 'all hanging together in this matter.' 'Yes, indeed,' interrupted Franklin, 'we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.' … Amid such trifling, concealing grave thoughts, Jefferson saw his momentous document signed at the close of that summer afternoon."

_J. T. Morse, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, chapter 3._

"The statements relative to signing the Declaration are conflicting. Jefferson states that it was signed generally on the 4th (Memoirs i, 94), and he in other places reiterates this statement, but this manuscript is not known to be extant. … According to the journals, Congress, on the 19th of July, resolved that the 'declaration, passed on the 4th, be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and style of "The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America," and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.' On the 2d day of August, the journals say, 'The Declaration being engrossed, and compared at the table, was signed by the members.' … This manuscript is preserved in the office of the Secretary of State."

_R. Frothingham, The Rise of the Republic, page 545 and foot-note._