CHAPTER VI Congress THE general agreement of American authors has attached great importance to the Congress of representatives from the different Colonies which met at Albany in 1754. Even so cool and cautious a writer as Mr Weeden remarks,1 "a larger organism of state, a better co-operation and autonomy, which should articulate into itself the town or parish meeting and the rude Colonial assembly, began to work in the minds of❤. men. This sentiment found its first political expression in the assembly in 1754." But, in fact, this assembly was suggested and directed by the English Government, and, although its conclusions were arrived at with tolerable unanimity, it was at the same time generally recognised that the mutual jealousies of the various Colonial Assemblies would prevent those conclusions from being generally accepted. The evil to be met was of course an old one. 1746. During the last war, Shirley had called serious attention to "the difficulty of uniting five or six different Governments 1754. in acting for their common safety and interest."2 In the very year of the Congress we find him writing that it would be impossible to obtain proper contributions from the different Colonies unless the English Government gave peremptory. 1754. directions. De Lancey bore similar testimony.3 "A general union becomes every day more necessary, the necessity more visible, for in the present disjointed way in which the Colonies act, and some will not act at all, nothing is done." At the same time De Lancey clearly recognised that such union could never take effect except by interposition of the British Parliament "to oblige the Colonies." Dinwiddie from Virginia is found advising an Act of Parliament to compel each Colony to raise a proportional quota for a general fund, 4 1 Vol. II. p. 668. 3 N. Y. Docs., Vol. VI. 2 MSS. in R. O. 4 MSS. in R. O. Nor by a poll tax of one shilling or by some other means. were such opinions confined to Governors and persons in authority; the colonists themselves clearly recognised the difficulty. Massachusetts was sore because the contributions of the other Colonies in men and money had been grossly insufficient, and the Assembly assured Shirley "Your Ex- 1754. cellency must be sensible that an union of the several Governments for their mutual defence and for the annoyance of the enemy has long been desired by this province." The separate Colonies were slow to intervene on each other's behalf, though they might rise to the occasion of a general war. Especially the rich and populous state of Pennsylvania shirked its natural obligations, and the majority, who were non-Quakers, concealed their meanness by crouching behind the cloak of the Quaker's honest scruples. We find Franklin forwarding1 to a correspondent an emblem of a serpent which May 1754. has its parts-beginning with the head, Massachusetts, and ending with the tail, South Carolina-disjointed, while the motto is affixed, "Join or Die." A few years later, in the very middle of the war with France, the dispute between New York and Massachusetts, 1757. concerning their boundaries,2 was carried to such indecent lengths as to have been the occasion of riot and bloodshed. To the Board of Trade at home, the important points 1754. appeared to be that there should be established a systematic mode of raising levies from the different Colonies, in case of .attack, that the necessary forts should be obtained under a general plan, and that there should be a Commander-in-chief for America. The last matter lay entirely with the Home 1755Government, and General Braddock was appointed such Commander-in-chief. Bancroft sees in this a measure of tyranny, but, in fact, the all-important point being that a "common fund" should be provided, General Braddock's instructions merely enjoined him " to give all the advice and assistance you can towards effectuating this." Upon another point it was possible to make some improvement. Little has 1 MSS. in R. O. 2 N. Y. Docs., Vol. VII. + MSS. in R. O. been said here of the colonial relations with the Indians. But it must be remembered that throughout all this period the American Colonies were in the position of the South African Colonies of to-day, with large bodies of natives on their flanks, who were further rendered very dangerous by the continual influence of French intrigue. In this state of things Indian affairs were, as far as possible, withdrawn from the Colonial authorities and put under the charge of special Commissioners. As time passes the Colonial records become increasingly occupied with accounts of parleyings with Indian chiefs. There was, as is always the case where European settlers come in contact with savage natives, the risk lest the Indians should be unfairly dealt with. Stringent • instructions were forwarded to the Governors forbidding all private purchases of land from Indians, unless a proper licence had been previously obtained. Upon the whole, Sir William Johnson, who was for many years the English Commissioner, appears to have done his work very well, and it is noteworthy that in the War of Independence the sympathies of the Indians seemed to have been generally upon the side of the English Government. So far then as the appointment of a Commander-in-chief and the settlement of Indian affairs were concerned, England could take the initiative, but with the question of Colonial defence there was bound up a question of finance, which opened out every kind of difficulty. It was in every way desirable that on this point the Colonies should evolve their. own plan, and the recommendations 2 of the Congress of 1754 were an honest attempt to meet the difficulty. The scheme was due to the active brain of Franklin, and is in several respects noteworthy. It proposed that there should be a presiding General appointed and maintained by the Crown, and a Grand Council chosen by the Assemblies of the different Colonies. The Colonies were to be represented · upon the Council, according to the amount of their respective contributions. But, at the start, Massachusetts was to have seven members, Connecticut five, Rhode Island two, New 1 See in N. Y. Docs., passim. 2 N. Y. Docs., Vol. VI. York four, New Jersey three, Pennsylvania six, Maryland four, Virginia seven, North Carolina four, and South Carolina four. Elections were to be held triennially. The business to be entrusted to this body included the management of all matters relating to the Indians, and of all military affairs, such as the building of forts, raising of troops, etc. For these purposes power was given to make laws and to levy such general duties upon imports and taxes 1 "as to them shall appear most equal and just, considering the ability and other circumstances of the inhabitants, with the least inconvenience to the people, rather discouraging luxury than loading industry with unnecessary burdens." Laws made by the Congress were to be remitted to England, and, if not disapproved within three years, were to remain in full force. It was decided that application should be made for an Act of the British Parliament to establish such a single general government in America. Afterwards Franklin asserted 2 that his plan was probably a just one, inasmuch as it was repudiated on the one hand by the Colonial Assemblies and on the other by the British Board of Trade; on the opposite grounds that it showed too much or too little deference to the Prerogative of the Crown. But, in fact, whatever had been the attitude of the English authorities, the prospect of any such scheme proving acceptable to the Colonies was very slight. When we remember how difficult it proved, even after common interests and fellowship in arms had strengthened the ties of union, to raise the general taxes, we may well recognise that at the time any such union was impossible. It was found that Massachusetts was the only Colony which had given its delegates definite power to agree to any plan. The result of the Congress was, according to Shirley, to put on record the formal recognition by representative men from the different states, of the necessity for union, and to prove the impossibility of such union without a British Act of Parliament. He considered that it showed the necessity, not only of a parliamentary union, but also of taxation by Parliament for the preservation of His Majesty's 2 In his Autobiography. 1 MSS. in R. O. 3 MSS. in R. O. dominions, "which the several assemblies have in so great April 14, a measure abandoned the defence of." And the Governors expressed to Braddock an unanimous opinion in favour of a common fund and a Parliamentary interference to bring it about. This recognition that it was hopeless to look to the American Colonies themselves for common measures on behalf of their common defence is of importance, as giving the key to what followed. For the time being, however, the failure of the Congress was acquiesced in, the actual outbreak of hostilities giving English statesmen other things to think of. The In America the actual outbreak of war had preceded its struggle formal declaration in 1756. The occupation by the French between England of the sources of the Ohio had led to the commencement of and France. the struggle for the West. As usual, in spite of the vigour of 1753. Dinwiddie, the French forestalled their adversaries. The Banish destruction of an English fort and the erection of Fort Duquesne was met by the despatch of Washington to Fort 1754. Necessity. The necessary abandonment of this fort decided the wavering Indians to adopt the French side. In 1755, on the arrival of Braddock, operations were resumed on a greater 1755. scale, but the disaster at the river Monongahela, due mainly to the ignorance of the British regulars of the Indian methods of warfare, rendered the position of the English very critical. About this time there had occurred an event which showed ment of in a painful manner the strained nature of the situation. The French inhabitants of Acadia were forcibly removed1 from their homes and distributed among the different Colonies. Doubtless there was much excuse for what was done. The war waged by the French against the English was an unfair war, wherein savages were employed, and which was attended with the horrors inevitably accompanying such employment. The neutral French naturally sympathised with their countrymen, and, in individual cases, sympathy found vent in deeds. To have sent them all to Canada would have been to Acadians. 1 The best account of this matter is in Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. I. chap. viii. Bancroft is, of course, violently anti-English, and Dr Kingsford may be accused by some as prejudiced in the other direction. |