The Story of American History for Elementary Schools

126. Newspapers, Traveling, and the Night Watchman.– The first printing press was set up at Cambridge in 1639. It was used chiefly to print sermons and small pamphlets. The first newspaper published in America was the Boston News-Letter in 1704. It was a weekly, a brown sheet hardly more than a foot square. News traveled slowly, for there was little communication between city and city. Travelers were few, and conveyances were slow. A stage-coach that made forty miles a day between New York and Philadelphia was called, on account of its great speed, the "flying machine."

In the cities, news was announced in the daytime by the public crier, who walked the streets ringing a large hand-bell, and pausing at the corners, where he recited his message of child lost, or reward offered, or the happening of any important event. In the night the town watchman, with rattle and lantern, paced the streets, stopping every person he met after nine o'clock to demand his name and business. He also called aloud the hours of the night in a sing-song tone: "Twelve-o'clock-and-all-'s-well."

Sometimes his night cry was intensely interesting. At Philadelphia in October, 1781, evening after evening every one went to bed anxious about our army at Yorktown, and hoping every hour to hear tidings of victory. One night the old watchman's cry was heard echoing along the lonely streets: "Two-o'clock-and-Cornwallis-'s-captured!" How the windows flew up! and how the hearty cheers burst along from house to house all through the city!

127. Other Details of Home Life in the Colonies.– The home life of the colonists improved as the years passed, but until the Revolution it was very crude. In the families of well-to-do people the earth floors of early days were replaced by boards, the proudest decoration of which was a sprinkling of white sand, which on great occasions was swept into ornamental waves with a broom. The door latch was for a long time of wood, lifted by pulling a string hanging outside. Hence the hospitable invitation used to be: "Come over and see us! We keep the latchstring out." At night the string was drawn in, and that locked the door.

As there were no friction matches, fire was started by striking a spark with flint and steel, which was caught on a bit of half-burned rag, and then brought to a blaze with a splinter of wood tipped with sulphur. On a cold morning, if one's fire was out and these tools were not at hand, the resort was to send a boy to a neighbor for a brand!

128. How our Forefathers clothed themselves.– The clothing worn by men, women, and children was nearly all home-made from the wool of their own sheep. It was a matter of pride with a good housewife to supply all the nice warm clothes needed by her family, and the daughters were brought up to card and spin and weave clothing, bedding, and table linen. After a time very fine linen was made, especially by the Scotch-Irish settlers who were skillful in raising flax and in weaving linen. We may safely infer that the women of those days were obliged to work early and late to provide warm clothing for themselves and oftentimes for large families. In fact it was for many years regarded as almost a disgrace to purchase clothing which might have been made at home.

But some were disposed to shine in apparel more showy than their purses could afford or their rank allow. All such victims of personal vanity were liable to be ordered to appear before the court; for any person whose estate was less than a thousand dollars was "forbidden to wear gold or silver lace, or any lace above two shillings a yard." Once a "goodwife" by the name of Alice Flynt was required to show that she was worth money enough to be able to wear a silk hood. But the woman proved that she was, and she was allowed to wear her finery in triumph. In like manner, "goodman" Jonas Fairbanks was arrested for wearing "great boots," meaning boots with high tops that turned over showy red. He too escaped punishment and continued to sport his extravagance.

129. How the Wealthier People lived.– But after a while in the cities, the really wealthy, of whom there were not a few, often dressed in fine style. Gentlemen when fully equipped wore three-cornered cocked hats, long velvet coats, embroidered silk waistcoats with flaps weighted with lead, breeches coming only to the knees, long silk stockings, and pointed shoes adorned with large silver buckles. Stately men wore their hair powdered, a long queue hanging down the back, where it was tied with a black ribbon. The clothing was often enriched with gold and silver lace, and glittering buttons. A mass of lace ruffles adorned the wrists and flowed over the hands. The street cloak glistened with gold lace, while a gold-headed cane and a gold snuff-box confirmed the wearer's title to rank as a gentleman.

Ladies of wealth in the city wore rich heavy silk over stiff hoops, and towering hats adorned with tall feathers, with hair massed and powdered as if with snowflakes. All the fashions of high life were very exacting and precise. The wealth and style of the cities were displayed in the fine houses, the heavy, rich furniture imported from England, the massive silver plate of the tables, the luxurious living, and the choice wines.

The forms of address, too, showed the social rank. The terms "lady" and "gentleman" were applied only to persons of recognized standing. Our everyday title of "Mr." was conferred only upon ministers and the officers of the law, and upon their sons if college bred. The title "Mrs." was limited to the wives of prominent men. But if Mr. John Smith was proved guilty of any offense, as theft or lying, he was always afterwards known only as John Smith. For ordinary people above the grade of servants the title of "Goody" was in common use, meaning either "Goodman" or "Goodwife."

CHAPTER X.

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION

130. Our Forefathers, Men of Rare Ability and Sterling Character.– Many of our forefathers who had been driven from England to this country by persecution were men of rare ability and sterling character. Some had served their nation with credit in the army; others had won social and political honors. Independent in their way of thinking, fearless in speech and action, they were sternly opposed to governmental oppression. They believed that royal power should be held within well-defined limits. They would not tamely submit, as many did, to abuses from a bad government and tyrannical kings.

131. The Story of their Wrongs told to their Children.– Now we may safely believe that the early settlers told their children all about the persecutions in England. The young folks learned well the sad tale of how their fathers had been punished, and some of their neighbors hanged or burned alive for worshiping God in what they thought the right way, and how, for this reason, they had sought a shelter in the New World.

As the years passed, these children grew up to be men, and in their turn they told it all to their sons. Again, when the new generation came upon the stage of action, the fathers repeated it to their boys, and these, when they attained manly strength, became the very heroes that fought so bravely at Bunker Hill and King's Mountain and on many another battlefield!

132. A Feeling of Brotherhood among the Colonies.– Then there was a sense of freedom, an inspiration to liberty, in this open, unsubdued, apparently boundless land. The free ocean, the immense forests, the eternal mountains, all seemed to teach that here man was to be his own master; that in this wide, new country, the people were destined to rule themselves, and not bound to obey some stupid and obstinate king three thousand miles away.

The colonies along the coast, having the same language, with similar laws and customs, and having shared like sufferings from hunger and cold and the Indians, were naturally drawn together by a feeling of brotherhood.

133. Cruel and Short-Sighted Policy of the Royal Governors.– Before long there came up real grievances. One fact that diminished the affection of our forefathers for the mother country was the harsh treatment they received from many of the governors sent over by the king. For the colonies were not allowed to elect their own governors, nor could they choose even the governor's council of advisers. These were appointed by the monarch far away, who cared little for the Americans except to extort money from them.

Indeed, the English king seemed to think almost anybody would do for governor who contrived to wring money enough out of his distant subjects. Many of the royal governors were self-conceited, arrogant, and tyrannical. Consequently in some of the colonies there was almost incessant quarreling between the governors and the people. By and by the colonies came to be treated, not as a part of the home country, but as a sort of foreign district to furnish a royal revenue.

134. The Colonies begin to prosper.– Notwithstanding all their hardships, the colonies prospered. The people were wonderfully enterprising. They built ships and made a great deal of money by trading with the West Indies, France, Spain, and other countries. The New Englanders alone had over five hundred vessels engaged in domestic and foreign commerce and in profitable fisheries.

The early colonists were ingenious. They built and ran a sawmill a hundred years before one was erected in England. They exported great quantities of excellent lumber. They began very early to manufacture farmer's tools, leather, boots and shoes, woolen cloth, hats, glass, paper, salt, and gunpowder. The sale of these goods and of many other things produced by them made a profitable trade. In return the colonists bought in distant lands a great amount and variety of other merchandise.

135. The British Government begins its Tyrannical Policy.– But the English rulers, seeing all this prosperity, became jealous and said: "This will never do! We must stop it! Those distant colonists across the ocean are driving a great trade; the foreign nations they deal with get their money. We must have it; we must compel them to do all their trading with us." And that is what the English government tried to do. By 1750 not less than twenty-nine Acts of Parliament had been passed with the intent to have all of the loss in trade fall on the colonies and all the gain come to England.

In 1761 it was decided to enforce the so-called Navigation Acts, forbidding the colonies to have any foreign commerce except in British ships. Our colonial merchants were not allowed to export goods, nor to import any except from England or her colonies. They must not import any sugar or molasses without paying on it a heavy duty, which went to the king. Under these unjust laws the British traders could fix low prices on all they bought, and high prices on all they sold, and thus by this double-edged method could shape their profits to suit themselves.

136. Other Absurd and Tyrannical Laws.– Still more odious than these navigation laws were other absurd and tyrannical regulations made to cripple the industries and manufactures of the colonies. The fact was, the English Parliament meant that England's workshops should do all the manufacturing, her merchants all the trading, and her ships all the carrying for the colonies, that they might keep in England all the immense profits of the colonial trade.

To bring this about, laws were passed forbidding the manufacture of all such goods as English shops could produce. For instance, iron must not be made from the abundant mines of our country. We must buy all our hardware from England. It was a crime to use the wool from our own sheep in making woolen goods, and we were forbidden to sell these articles from one colony to another. For example, a Boston hatter could be punished if he sold his hats in New York. Men were forbidden to cut down trees on their own lands for staves and barrels. For wooden ware, as chairs, tables, wheels, wagons, the raw material must be sent to England to be worked up, and the finished goods brought back to this country.

137. A Bitter Feeling aroused against the Home Government.– Now all these laws seemed very harsh and unjust. And, indeed, they were well-nigh intolerable. They crippled and almost ruined the business of the colonies, and violated what our forefathers regarded as their natural right to make what they pleased and sell where they pleased.

These laws were so unjust that our forefathers thought there was not much wrong in evading them. They smuggled goods and carried them home. British officers went around and searched houses from cellar to attic, often with rudeness and insults. This conduct created much bitterness of feeling. Pine trees of twelve inches or more in diameter were marked with the "king's arrow," which showed that they were to be saved for use in the navy. It was a criminal offense to cut down any such. However much a settler might need them to build his house, he was forbidden to touch them. In fact, before he cleared his land, he had to pay an officer to come and make the arrow mark on the king's trees!

These unjust and absurd statutes produced a vast deal of ill-will toward England. If they had been strictly enforced, no doubt the Revolution would have come several years before it did. And yet there was also much friendly feeling for the mother country. The friends and relatives of the colonists still lived there, letters were constantly exchanged, and hundreds of people coming and going every year kept up an affection between the two countries. Our people in those times always called England "home."

138. The Obnoxious Stamp Act.– There came at last one event which, of all the troubles, hastened the Revolution. The French and Indian War had cost both England and the colonies a great deal of money. King George wanted to compel the colonies to pay part of this expense, and accordingly Parliament passed in 1765 the "Stamp Act," the most unpopular measure ever tried with the colonists. This law required that stamped paper should be used for all bills, bonds, notes, wills, and deeds, and even for all pamphlets, almanacs, and newspapers.

Stamps for this purpose had to be bought of stamp officers appointed by the king. They were for the most part not unlike our revenue stamps. One kind was a red-ink seal, made with a hand stamp; the other a seal on blue paper, to be fastened on the article. The cost varied from one cent to fifty dollars each. No document was legal unless stamped.

Our people at once saw that if England could levy taxes in this way, she could in many other ways, and there would be no end to such high-handed and tyrannical laws. Besides, there were no American representatives in Parliament, and Americans had no voice at all in the matter. They felt that the tax thus laid upon them was wrong. They did not object to paying the cost of a trifling tax. They felt bound to resist the rank injustice of the demand. It was not the amount but the principle at stake.

139. The Indignation of the People.– The people were aroused. A storm of indignation swept over the land. Violent opposition broke out along the entire length of the colonies. They pledged themselves to stand by each other. The cry passed through the land: "No taxation without representation!" This became the watchword of the country. They did not wish to avoid paying a fair assessment in a fair way; but they insisted that, as always before, their own legislatures and not Parliament should levy the contribution. Our forefathers declared over and over again that they would not be taxed by a governing body three thousand miles away, whose members had never seen America.

140. Patrick Henry and his Bold Speech.– One day the Virginia Assembly was in session. Washington was there in his seat, and Jefferson, then a young law student, stood listening at the door. Patrick Henry stoutly argued that Virginia was not bound to obey any law which was plainly a menace to the common freedom of Englishmen.

"Cæsar had his Brutus," said the bold and eloquent orator; "Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third" —

"Treason!" shouted the Speaker of the Assembly, and the cry, "Treason, treason!" rang through the room.

The intrepid patriot finished his sentence: "may profit by their example. If that be treason, make the most of it!"

141. The People combine to resist the Hated Law.– The people combined to resist, and a stamp-tax congress was held in New York. Lovers of liberty would not deal in stamped goods. They refused to buy a single stamp. Riots occurred at the stamp offices. Packages of stamps were seized, and some were publicly burned in the streets. Boxes of stamped paper arriving in vessels were seized and thrown overboard. Publishers of newspapers decorated their headlines with skull and cross-bones instead of stamps. Stamp officers were dragged out and compelled to swear they would not sell any stamps.

On the day for the law to take effect, funeral bells were tolled, flags were at half-mast, and shops were closed. New England, New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas all felt alike and acted alike. William Pitt, also called the Earl of Chatham, one of the greatest of Englishmen, took his stand on the side of the colonies in a speech of surpassing eloquence and power. The hated law was repealed in just one year from its passage.

This happy news was received both in England and in America with bonfires, ringing of bells, and universal rejoicings. But the joy was short-lived. King George, "industrious as a beaver and obstinate as a mule," and his followers in Parliament were not slow to pick a fresh quarrel with the Americans.

The next year the English Parliament made a law requiring duties to be paid on paper, glass, paints, and tea. Again the liberty-loving Americans were a unit in opposing any kind of taxation that seemed to them illegal. Some of the legislatures protested to Parliament, and King George answered by breaking up the legislatures. The people indignantly refused to buy any goods at all from England while these taxes were demanded. English traders found their business going to ruin. Ships came loaded with British goods, and had to carry them back.

142. Bitter Hatred of the British Soldiers.– So bitter was the opposition in Boston that a regiment of British troops was sent there to force the people to submit even at the point of the bayonet. But a brave people, determined to be free, is not so easily forced.

The citizens of Boston were ordered to furnish lodging and food for the soldiers. They would not do it – not they! Their hatred of the soldiers grew more bitter. Brawls often occurred on the streets. The soldiers on their part began to be insulting.

143. Boston Boys stand up for their Rights.– Even the children took part in the quarrels, as an incident will show. During the winter the boys used to build snow-slides on Boston Common and slide down upon them to the frog pond. The English soldiers destroyed these slides, merely to provoke the boys. The young Americans complained of the injury and set about repairing it. However, when they returned from school, they found the snow-slides destroyed again.

Several of the boys now waited upon one of the under-officers, and told him of the conduct of his soldiers; but he would have nothing to say to them; and the soldiers were more impudent than ever. At last the boys called a meeting and sent a committee of the largest of their number to General Gage, the commander-in-chief. He asked why so many boys had called upon him.

"We came, sir," said the tallest, "to demand satisfaction."

"What!" said the general; "have your fathers been teaching you rebellion, and sent you to show it here?"

"Nobody sent us, sir," he answered, while his cheek reddened and his eye flashed. "We have never injured nor insulted your troops; but they have trodden down our snow-slides and broken the ice on the pond. We complained and they called us young rebels and told us to help ourselves if we could. We told one of your officers of this, and he laughed at us. Yesterday our slides were destroyed for the third time; and, sir, we will bear it no longer."

General Gage was a kind-hearted and courteous gentleman. He looked at them with admiration, and said to an officer at his side: "The very children draw in a love of liberty with the air they breathe. You may go, my brave boys; and be assured, if my soldiers trouble you again, they shall be punished."

144. The Boston Massacre.– One night in March (1770) some soldiers stationed in Boston got into a quarrel, and the noise increased until the guard was called out. As the platoon of regulars drew up in line, most of the crowd fell back.

A few remained and reviled the red-coat soldiers, shouting, "Lobster-backs! Fire if you dare, you cowards! You don't dare to fire!"

Captain Preston, the officer in command, gave the word, "Fire!" The regulars fired.

Five men were killed and several wounded. There was now intense excitement in Boston. The Old South Church was crowded with an angry town-meeting. Thousands filled the streets near by. The people demanded that the troops be removed. The governor promised to remove one regiment. "Both regiments or none," was the watchword.

Samuel Adams waited upon the governor, and stretching forth his long right arm, and pointing his finger at him, he sternly demanded, in the name of three thousand freemen, that the royal governor remove every British soldier from Boston.

"I observed his knees to tremble," said the stern patriot in after years; "I saw his face grow pale – and I enjoyed the sight."

Before sunset of the same day the British troops were removed from the city and sent to a fort in the harbor. Not until then did the meeting in the Old South break up.

This unfortunate affair was the so-called "Boston Massacre." It did more to mould public opinion than weeks of vigorous protest and fine argument could have done. It was one step, and an important one too, toward the final appeal to the sword and the bayonet.

145. The Famous Boston Tea Party.– In view of all these troubles, England took off the taxes from everything but tea. King George said he must have one tax to maintain the principle of the right of taxation. But the colonists refused to drink tea imported from China! The women were patriotic and made their tea of raspberry leaves, sage, and other plants, rather than use the hated foreign article.

But the government of England was determined we should buy tea, and the merchants sent shiploads of it to our large cities. The Americans were firm. They vowed that not an ounce of it should land. There was only a few cents' tax on each pound. What our people disputed was the right of the king to tax. When the tea reached New York and Philadelphia, none dared to receive it, lest their houses should be pulled down about their heads. In Charleston, S. C., some was taken ashore, but as no one would buy it or pay the duty, it was hid in damp cellars, where it soon spoiled. In Annapolis it was burned.

At Boston warning was several times given to the masters of the ships to sail out of the harbor. On the last day before the tea must be landed or be prevented by force from landing, a town-meeting was held in the Old South Church. The crowd in the church, and in the streets about it, numbered more than seven thousand people. "It was to be," says John Fiske, "one of the most momentous days in the history of the world." The discussion continued until dark, and candles were brought in. It was decided that the tea should not be landed.

"Who knows," shouted one in the audience, "how tea will mix with salt water?"

The church fairly shook with cheers.

Then up rose Samuel Adams and quickly said: "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country."

This was the signal. A war-whoop was heard outside the door, and forty or fifty men, disguised as Indians, went quietly aboard the three vessels, and before the nine-o'clock bell rang three hundred and forty-two chests of tea had been cut open and their contents emptied into Boston Harbor. This was the famous "Boston Tea Party" we have so often heard of, and it took place in the middle of December in 1773. A large crowd of the friends of these men stood on shore until the deed was done, and then, without doing any other injury to property, all separated and went home in the clear, frosty moonlight.