Part 10

“This meeting can do nothing more to save the country,” said Samuel Adams when he announced the fact. But another scheme was on foot which was probably known to Adams if not inspired by him. Some men disguised as Indians went to the harbor and threw overboard the three hundred and forty chests of tea. The next morning the patriots drank a decoction of native herbs while the Chinese tea floated on the salt waters of the bay. The Boston Tea Party, as it was called, by its disregard of the rights of property and its defiance of his authority, made the king very angry. There was passed the Boston Port Bill, which forbade vessels to enter or leave that port.

General Gage was sent to Boston with soldiers to enforce the king’s laws. General Gage realized that Samuel Adams, “the Cromwell of New England,” was the ringleader of the rebellion. An attempt was made to bribe Adams, who was very poor, with money or with position. But Adams was proof against the British offers. “I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of kings,” he said. “No personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the righteous cause of my country.”

In June Gage dissolved the general court, and the patriots organized a government of their own. Largely through the influence of Samuel Adams, it was resolved that representatives of the colonies should meet in Philadelphia to discuss affairs. He went as the representative of Massachusetts, which was suffering most from British oppression, having her port closed and an army stationed on her soil. We are told that Adams rode to Philadelphia on a borrowed horse, wearing a coat presented to him “to enable him to make a decent appearance.”

Delegates from eleven colonies met in this Congress in September, 1774, and discussed their situation. Among the delegates was a traitor who gave the royalists a full account of the meetings. This man said, “Samuel Adams eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, and thinks much. He is most decisive and indefatigable in the pursuit of his object. He is the man who, by his superior application, manages at once the factions in Philadelphia and the factions of New England.”

The people were now getting ready to fight. Minute men were being drilled, firearms and powder and ball were being collected. Samuel Adams encouraged all these preparations.

One night lights in the belfry of the North Church at Boston--a system of signals agreed upon--informed the patriots that British troops were leaving the city. They were going to seize the military stores collected at Concord and Worcester by the patriots. Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere,” tells in stirring phrase how the patriot-messenger galloped forth to give the alarm. In Medford he roused John Hancock and Samuel Adams, two leaders whom Gage was anxious to capture. The minute men sprang to arms. When the British soldiers, eight hundred in number, reached the village of Lexington about four o’clock on the morning of April 19, 1775, they found sixty or seventy men collected on the green.

“Disperse, you rebels!” said the English officer. “Lay down your arms.”

The men stood firm. Captain Parker had already given his orders: “Stand your ground! Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean war let it begin here.”

The British fired and the shots of the Americans rang out in answer; eight Americans lay dead on the green. The War of the Revolution was begun. Adams and Hancock heard the shots as they galloped from Medford.

“Oh, what a glorious morning for America this is,” said Adams.

At Concord the minute men assembled and put the British to flight. From there to Boston, sixteen miles away, they fired on the British from behind trees and stone walls. Finally, the British broke and ran.

On the northwest Boston was commanded by Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill. A force of Americans under Colonel Prescott occupied Breed’s Hill one night and threw up earthworks to protect the city. The British soldiers marched forth to attack them and the American troops formed behind the earthworks and on the edge of Bunker Hill.

“Wait till you can see the whites of their eyes,” said the American leader, wishing to use the small supply of ammunition with deadly results. Twice the British attacked and twice they were driven back. Then the ammunition of the patriots was exhausted and they had to retreat. The news of the battle between the patriots and the king’s troops was borne to the other colonists; they came to the aid of Massachusetts.

Samuel Adams, who had done so much to inspire resistance to oppression, did not serve the patriot’s cause on the battle-field. His work was in Congress, and his position as a leader was so well recognized that the English excluded from the offer of pardon to the rebels two men--Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, and “one Samuel Adams.”

After the war was over, Adams served as governor of Massachusetts. He aided to draft the state constitution, the only one of the old constitutions adopted immediately after the Revolution which is still in force. He died, October 2, 1803, and was buried in Boston. In the busy business heart of the city, there is a metal disc bearing the inscription, “This marks the grave of Samuel Adams.”

George Washington

The Leader of the Revolution

The story of Washington, the personal history of the man who was identified with the independence of our country, has been told over and over and yet it never fails to find interested listeners and one can well believe that it never will. He was born, February 22, 1732, on a plantation, or large farm, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His father, Augustine Washington, was master of many broad acres but lacked what seem to us the very comforts of life. There was a houseful of children, too--four by the first wife, and six (of whom George was the eldest), by the second wife Mary Ball.

Mary Washington was kept busy with household cares. She superintended not only the cooking and washing and housework, but the spinning of thread, the weaving of cloth, the making of clothes, and other tasks which were then a part of home routine.

When George was three years old, the family moved to Washington, the place afterwards named Mount Vernon, and there they lived about four years.

When George was about seven, the family moved to a farm on the Rappahannock, across the river from what was then the little village of Fredericksburg. George was sent to an old field school where he was taught “to read and write and cipher.” He was fond of writing and he wrote a clear, careful hand. His early copy books have been kept and we can read on the yellowed pages the moral precepts which he copied down with great care when he was twelve years old.

George early learned to ride and swim and excelled at outdoor sports and games, thanks to a strong body and determined, energetic spirit. An early biographer, Weems, tells many stories of his childhood which are widely known. Of their truth or falsehood we cannot be sure. One is the famous story that George cut down a valuable cherry tree belonging to his father, and promptly confessed his misdeed, choosing punishment rather than falsehood. Another is that he undertook in boyish bravado to subdue his mother’s favorite colt and continued the struggle until the animal burst a blood-vessel and died. This, also, he immediately confessed, and his mother while grieved over the death of her colt “rejoiced that her son was brave and truthful.”

Mr. Washington died when George was only ten years old, and on the mother devolved the early training of the children. After his early childhood, George was with her but little. He was sent, soon after his father’s death, to live with one of his older brothers to attend school. When he was fourteen, it was planned that he should go as a sailor, but the plan was given up and he returned to school and took up the study of surveying.

His half-brother Lawrence, fourteen years older than he, was a soldier; perhaps as a boy George, who admired and loved this brother, wished and planned to be a soldier, too. If so, he no doubt thought that he would wear a British uniform and fight for the king as did his brother, for the colonists then were contented and loyal subjects of England.

Lawrence Washington after his father’s death inherited the estate of Washington and changed its name to Mount Vernon, in honor of an English admiral under whom he had served. Lawrence Washington, who was a fine, manly fellow, married a Miss Fairfax whose home was near Mount Vernon. She was a cousin of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, an English gentleman who came to America to look after land which he had inherited from his grandfather. This was a royal grant of all the land between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. Lord Fairfax did not even know how many thousands of acres were in this great estate. So he employed young George Washington to explore and survey his lands.

George Washington was sixteen years old when he set out, March, 1748, with one companion, to explore and survey Lord Fairfax’s land. He had a good horse and a gun as well as his surveyor’s instruments, and the two youths spent several weeks on the trip. Sometimes they met Indians and sat beside their camp fires and watched their war dances. Sometimes they slept outdoors, sometimes they spent the night in the rude huts of the settlers. “I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed,” George Washington wrote, “but after walking a good deal all the day, I have lain down before the fire on a little straw, or fodder, or a bearskin, whichever was to be had, with man, wife, and children, like dogs and cats; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire.”

On his return Washington gave such a glowing description of the beautiful and fertile country he had visited, that Lord Fairfax determined to move there and make his home at Greenway Court. He employed young Washington to make a careful survey of his lands and got him appointed public surveyor. During the next three years when Washington was not at work in the field he stayed at Greenway Court with Lord Fairfax. This gentleman was a scholar and a courtier and from intercourse with him the young surveyor gained breadth of mind and polished manners, while his outdoor life was making him strong and robust.

At twenty he was a picture of stalwart manhood--over six feet in height, straight as an Indian, and with dignified manners. About this time his brother Lawrence died, leaving Mount Vernon to his little daughter; George, his favorite brother, was to manage the estate and in case of the child’s death was to inherit it.

He went home to take charge of the fine old estate, but he did not long remain there. France and England were beginning their contest for supremacy in the country along the Ohio. When only twenty-one, George Washington was appointed to bear a protest to the French against their occupancy of the land. He set out the very day that he received his appointment, accompanied by some white woodsmen and Indian hunters. His was a long, difficult journey through the untraveled forest to a fort hundreds of miles away near Lake Erie, and it was a vain one. He was received courteously by the commander but was informed that the French were ordered to hold the country and would do so. The return journey was even more difficult than the journey to the fort. It was the depth of winter; the ground was covered with snow and the streams blocked with ice. Leaving the remainder of the party to follow later on horseback, Washington set out on foot with a woodsman named Gist. The two men made their way through the country inhabited by hostile Indians and fierce beasts. Once an Indian shot at young Washington, once he fell into an ice-blocked stream and came near losing his life; he accomplished the dangerous journey in safety and hurried to Williamsburg to inform the governor of the result of his expedition.

It was resolved to defend the frontiers, and some men were sent out to build a fort at the Forks of the Ohio River near Pittsburg. But these men were attacked and defeated by the French who finished and occupied the fort. This they called Fort Du Quesne. The French soldiers marched forth in the spring of 1754 to meet the little band commanded by Washington. Washington, having defeated a small body of the French, stopped at a place called Great Meadows, and defended his troops by an earthwork which he called Fort Necessity. Here he and his soldiers fought bravely against a French force of far superior numbers to which they had to yield at last.

The next year, Washington, in charge of the Virginia troops, went with General Braddock, commanding the English forces, to attack the French and take Fort Du Quesne. Braddock was brave but stubborn and ignorant of the methods of Indian warfare. Washington wished the Virginia rangers to march in front in order to guard the army against surprise.

“What!” said Braddock, “a Virginia colonel teach a British general how to fight!”

Off he marched with flags flying, drums beating, and men in close ranks. Before they reached Fort Du Quesne, the French and Indians attacked them and inflicted a terrible defeat. Braddock paid the penalty of his folly with his life. Washington made a gallant effort to redeem the day. He said, “I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho’ death was levelling my companions on every side of me.” On him devolved the difficult task of leading the shattered remnant of the army back home, protecting it against the unfriendly Indians and the hostile French.

After this campaign he was tendered a vote of thanks in the House of Burgesses. When he rose to reply, he blushed and faltered so that the Speaker said, “Sit down, Colonel Washington, sit down. Your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess.”

Two years later, as commander of the troops raised in Virginia to defend the frontier he marched against Fort Du Quesne. The French, unable to hold it, set fire to it and retreated; on the spot, the English built a new fort which they called Fort Pitt in honor of an English statesman, and on the site of this fort stands now the city of Pittsburg. The English were victors now and as most of the fighting was in New York and Canada instead of the Ohio country, Washington resigned his commission and went home to Virginia.

In January, 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a widow with a fine estate and two children. Washington had no children of his own and his step-children, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis, were like his own children. In the lists of goods he ordered from England we find such items as “One fashionable dress Doll to cost a guinea” and “A box of Gingerbread Toys and Sugar Images or Comfits.” “Patsy,” as the little girl was called, died in early girlhood, but the boy lived to become a man and married, leaving at his death four children of whom two, George Washington Parke Custis and Eleanor Parke Custis, made their home at Mount Vernon as Washington’s adopted children.

Probably the happiest and most carefree years of Washington’s life were those after his marriage which were spent at Mount Vernon which he had inherited at the death of his niece. Farming was his “most favorite pursuit,” and he devoted himself with characteristic energy to improving his land by manures and rotation of crops, and his stock of sheep, cattle, and horses by selection and breeding. He was a member of the House of Burgesses, took an interest in public affairs, and was regarded as one of the leading men in the colony.

Not long after the French and Indian War, trouble arose between the colonies and England about taxation without representation. As you know, the trouble in Boston finally led to the passage of the Boston Port Bill. Virginia and the other colonies sympathized with Massachusetts. In a speech in the House of Burgesses Washington said, “I will raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march with them, at their head, for the relief of Boston.”

George Washington was one of the six Virginia delegates to the first continental congress in September, 1774. It was decided to raise a colonial army, and, June 15, 1775, Washington was appointed its commander-in-chief. In his speech accepting the office he refused to receive pay for his services, saying that only his expenses in the service should be repaid him at the end of the war. June 21 he left Philadelphia and rode to Massachusetts to take charge of the troops. On the third of July, at Cambridge under a great elm-tree still known as “Washington’s elm,” he assumed command of the army. He was an imposing figure, a tall handsome man dressed in a blue coat with buff facings and buff small clothes or knee trousers. The army of which he took command, was, he said, “a mixed multitude of people, under very little discipline, order, or government.” These troops, about sixteen thousand in number, had most of them been enlisted for but a short time and they lacked provisions and supplies,--above all, ammunition. Throughout the war there was scarcity of ammunition and the enemy’s stores of powder and ball and firearms were the most welcome part of an American victory. During the first months, however, the Americans had more experience of defeat than of victory.

In the spring of 1776 the Americans took possession of Dorchester Heights and the British evacuated Boston a few days later. When their fleet put to sea, Washington marched across the country, hoping to keep them from landing in New York. But the enemy were too strong for him and they took possession of the city.

Up to this time the patriots had been fighting for their rights as British colonists. July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the fight was now for freedom. Of this Washington said, “When I first took command of the army I abhorred the idea of independence, but I am fully convinced that nothing else will save us.”

At Cambridge Washington had used a flag with thirteen stripes of red and white, and the red and white cross of the British flag in the corner; in 1777 Congress adopted as the national flag one with the stripes but having, instead of the British cross, thirteen stars to represent the thirteen colonies.

As we said, the Americans were unable to prevent the British from landing in New York. Then the patriots were defeated in the battle of Long Island and Washington was forced to retreat. Pursued through New Jersey, he crossed the river into Pennsylvania, with about three thousand ragged, hungry, discouraged soldiers. It was now winter and it was supposed that the troops would go into winter quarters. But Washington did not wish to give up the year’s campaign without striking one successful blow. By a sudden march the day after Christmas, he surprised and captured a force of one thousand Hessians at Trenton and then he defeated an English force at Princeton. These victories inspired hope and the patriots began the campaign of 1777 with renewed courage.

But it was a year of reverses. The patriots were defeated at Brandywine in September and at Germantown in October and went into winter quarters at Valley Forge in December in a pitiable condition. They lacked clothing, food, military stores. The campaign in the north was more successful. At Saratoga General Gates won a signal victory and Burgoyne was forced to surrender his army. It was this victory which led the French to declare in favor of the colonists.

There was formed a conspiracy to depose Washington and to put at the head of the army General Gates who had won the victory of the campaign. Congress, however, supported Washington and collected men and supplies for a new campaign. The army was drilled in the winter of 1778 by Baron von Steuben, a Prussian officer who had served under Frederic the Great.

In 1778 the British evacuated Philadelphia and Washington attacked them at Monmouth. Here he had a clash with General Charles Lee; his temper, usually under control, rose at what he considered General Lee’s failure to perform his duty.

The little army marched north and encamped near White Plains. In this vicinity it remained during the year. During the campaign of 1779 also, Washington remained in the Highlands of the Hudson on the defensive. The next year came French aid. That same year the plot of General Arnold to surrender West Point to the English was discovered from papers in the possession of a captured spy. This spy, the brave young General André, paid the penalty with his life; the traitor Arnold escaped to the British.

In 1781 brilliant victories were won at the south by General Greene, General Morgan and by Marion, called “the Swamp Fox.” That same year Washington, aided by the French troops, invested Lord Cornwallis’s men at Yorktown, and forced them to surrender.

A treaty of peace, made in September, 1783, ended the war which, as Pitt said, “was conceived in injustice, nurtured in folly, and whose footsteps were marked with blood and devastation.” In November the British evacuated New York and on December the fourth Washington read his farewell address to the army. He resigned his commission to Congress, thinking that his remaining days were to be spent in private life at the home he loved.

But his country needed him still. Victory had been won indeed, but the debt and burden of war remained. Congress with its limited delegated power was unable to settle matters, and there seemed danger that the colonies, united in their struggle against British oppression, would drift apart. Washington had won public confidence; it was he who could best advance the work of peace. He presided over the Convention of 1787 which framed a Constitution for the newly-established United States. This was adopted by the required number of states and Washington was unanimously chosen President of the United States. On April 30, 1789, he assumed the duties of the office in New York, which was the first seat of national government. He entered upon the performance of his work as president with the conscientious attention which he gave to all matters. He aided to organize the different departments of the government and appointed as their heads the ablest men in the country--Hamilton, Jefferson, and others. He never openly allied himself with either the Federalist party led by Hamilton or the Democratic-Republican party led by Jefferson, but strove for union and peace.