The King and his Ministers the Real Revolutionists

IN the early part of 1775, the British government had proclaimed Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion, and provided means for suppressing that rebellion by force of arms. The fulmination of wrathful threats against that province was intended for the ears of her sister colonies, as well as for her own. They had interests in common. They were making resistance to oppression in common; and they were resolved to stand united for the common defence. To call Massachusetts a "rebel," was to call all the other colonies "rebels." So they all felt. Joseph Hawley had said in Massachusetts, when viewing the impending crisis: "We must fight!" Patrick Henry, in Virginia, had answered "Amen!" with vehemence; and these words from the head and heart of resistance to oppression, were echoed back from all the provinces in the early part of 1775. For ten years the people of those provinces had pleaded, remonstrated, and worked in vain endeavors to obtain justice for themselves and their posterity. They had asserted the inalienable rights of every free-born Englishman, and had been haughtily spurned as slaves. They had bravely, meekly, patiently and persistently opposed the revolution which the king and Parliament seemed determined to effect (and did effect) by overturning the colonial charters and denying to British subjects in America the freedom and privileges of British subjects in England. At length the united colonies came to the solemn conclusion--"We must fight," and prepared for the dire necessity. The war for independence that ensued was not a war of revolution on the part of the Americans. It was a war by the Americans against the arch-revolutionist King George and his ministers-a war by the Americans for the defence of their liberties and free institutions which the government of Great Britain sough to destroy.

Let us look a little behind the stirring events of the spring of 1775. You who have followed the narrative given in preceding pages in this work, cannot fail to have discovered the existence of a controlling spirit of independence-a spirit yearning for free thought and action-a spirit of resistance to unlawful restraint, everywhere manifested by the early settlers and colonists-emigrants from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; from France, Switzerland, Holland, and Sweden. The sentiment uttered by Patrick Henry in old St. John's Church in Richmond in 1775--"Give me liberty or give me death!" had been the sponsor of that faith and courage which impelled men and women to leave home and kindred, brave the storms of the Atlantic and the perils of the wilderness, and seek abiding places in the forests of America. That spirit was not born in these forests, as some suppose. It was older than the gnarled oak and lofty pines-as old as civilization-aye, as old as the race-a child of remote ages. It had been seen emerging from the mists of pre-historic times. It walked arm-in-arm with young Christianity when it went forth from the gates of Jerusalem to conquer the earth with its sublime ethics, for the Founder had said: "The Truth shall make you free." It asserted its power at Runnymede; and it spoke out boldly in the theological and ecclesiastical reformation of the sixteenth century. It found a rare coadjutor in the new-born printing-press; and from the advent of that mighty teacher, it was rapidly diffused. It was the prevailing spirit of the century, when the greater portion of the English colonies in America were planted-a century most remarkable for its energy and development.