have seized, unloaded, and destroyed the cargoes of two ships that were going with supplies to Gage; and, by all accounts, that whole continent is in a flame. So here is this fatal war commenced! The child that is unborn shall rue The hunting of that day! Those gentlemen do not seem to be at all afraid of your question, whether they could not be sent for over, and tried. A colonel of their militia has sworn before a justice of peace that he ordered his men to fire on the King's troops, and has sent over a copy of his affidavit — perhaps in hope of being knighted. Well, we don't mind all this we the nation. We go on diverting ourselves, and are to have a regatta on the Thames the end of this month. Somewhat later he writes1 the same friend: I am what I always was, a zealot for liberty in every part of the globe, and consequently I most heartily wish success to the Americans. They have hitherto not made one blunder; and the administration have made a thousand, besides the two capital ones, of first provoking, and then of uniting the colonies. The latter seem to have as good heads as hearts, as we want both. The historian Gibbon 2 makes this allusion in a letter to his connection, Mr., afterward Lord Eliot, who had helped him to his seat in Parliament: DEAR SIR, I am happy to hear from various quarters that you have at length reached Bath in good health, spirits, and a disposition to take the amusements which the law of Moses may prescribe to you. John, I am sure, William, I hope, are happy and well, but I hear that Mrs. Eliot already begins to turn her eyes toward Cornwall. With regard to yourself I must beg the favour of a line to 1 Letters, IX, 244. Ed. Toynbee. 2 Magazine of American History, May, 1883. inform me of your intended motions. If you do not mean to proceed further westward, I will certainly contrive to run down to Bath for a week rather than miss the opportunity; but if inclination or business leads you to the capital, my literary engagements will persuade me to defer till the autumn my arrears visit to Mrs Gibbon, and to content myself for the present with saluting my rustic cousin from a distance. You have seen by the papers the unpleasant news from America; unpleasant, as a single drop of blood may be considered as the signal of Civil War. For otherwise it was not an engagement, much less a defeat. The King's troops were ordered to destroy a magazine at Concord. They marched, did their business and returned, but they were frequently fired at from behind stone walls, and from the windows in the villages. It was to those houses that they were obliged to set fire. Ensign Gould (of Northamptonshire) had been left with twelve men to guard a bridge, and was taken prisoner. The next day the Provincial Congress sent a vessel without her freight express to England: no letters were put on board but their own, nor did the crew know their destination till they were on the banks of Newfoundland, so that Government has not any authentic account. The master says that the day after the engagement, the country rose, and that he left Boston invested by 1500 tents with cannon, and under the command of Col. Ward, who was at the head of a Provincial Regiment in the last war; but unless Fanatacism gets the better of self-preservation, they must soon disperse, as it is the season for sowing the Indian Corn, the chief subsistance of New England. Such at least is the opinion of Governor Hutchinson, from whom I have these particulars. I am, Dear Sir, most sincerely yours, LONDON, May the 31st, 1775. E. GIBBON. SOON EVE OF OPEN HOSTILITIES OON after the first published account one paper,1 in utter darkness as to the character of the New Englanders, observed: In order to soften the obduracy, and conciliate the affections of some Leaders among the Americans, we are informed that services of plate, to a considerable amount, have been some time preparing, which are to be distributed at proper opportunities. Elsewhere one reads: 2 The Americans certainly are not such worthless people as they have been represented to be; if they were, would G-t offer £500 a head for a number of them. No, surely; the worth of a thing is the price it brings; consequently the Americans must be a very valuable set of people etc., etc. Another doubts "the facility of reducing the Colonies by military force," and exclaims, "Heaven forbid that the bravery of such troops as the English should be so vainly, so fatally employed." A controversy was carried on through several numbers over the part taken by Justice Gardner, of Brookline, who was killed, it will be remembered, at Watson's Corner, during the retreat. The zeal of his friends, as well as of his enemies, was so far in excess of their knowledge, the 1 Lloyd's Evening Post, May 29-31. |