History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 35

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1706

USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 35

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" With this impression they feel it their indispensable duty in this tremendous crisis to implore the Honorable Legislature to devise and pursue such measures as their enlightened judg- ment shall dictate, to preserve the general Constitution from violation, and to relieve thein from the severe pressure under which they are suffering.

" Without undertaking to decide on the constitutionality of an unlimited embargo law, they do not hesitate to say with great confidence that the supplementary law made to enforce it contains many provisions that are in direct violation of the aforesaid Declaration of Rights, and that the people of this Commonwealth never conceded to the general government power and authority which they conceived dangerous to concede to the State government. Among the enumeration of these essen- tial and inalienahle rights are those of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, of exemption from excessive hail and the imposition of excessive fines, and of heing secure from all unreasonable searches and seizure of their persons, their houses, their papers, and all their possessions. It is only necessary to read the group of embargo laws to discover, on the face of them, the most flagrant infractions of all those sacred rights. In ad- dition to which, and the most monstrous of all the violations, these embargo laws are to he enforced by military execution without any application to the civil magistrate. They will not trespass upon the time of the Honorable Court by descanting on the general impolicy of the embargo laws, even if they were authorized by the Constitution. The privation and distress occasioned by them are universally felt, nor will they recapitu- late the other ruinous measures of the present administration of the general governinent, that by forcibly diverting the cur- rent when in the full tide of successful experiment have plunged the United States into a gulf of wretchedness. These measures are seriously impressed on the minds and hearts of most of our fellow-citizens.

" In the wisdom, firmness, and patriotism of the Honorable Legislature they place under Providence their last hope, with the most unbounded reliance that no constitutional remedy will remain unessayed to rescue this unhappy country from the destruction that threatens it.

" WILLIAM DAVIS. " JOHN BISHOP. " JOSEPH BARTLETT. " JOHN PATY.

" PLYMOUTH, Jan. 26, 1809."

After the declaration of war with Great Britain, at a meeting of the town held July 20, 1812, the fol-

" The Inhabitants of the town of Plymouth respectfully rep- resent that they were among the most zealous in proenring the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, and have . lowing petition to the selectmen was read :

1 r

154

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

"GENTLEMEN,-The subscribers alarmed at the momontous aspect of our public affairs request you to call a meeting of the inhabitants of this tewn at as early a period as conveniently may be, to deliberato upon and carry into effect such legal and constitutional measures as shall be calculated to terminate the calamities of an offensive war, commenced under the most un- favorable auspices, and which must be particularly distressing and ruinous to this section of the United States. By memorial- izing the President of these States upon the impolicy and in- justice of this war, and hy solemnly protesting against an alliance with despotic France, whose friendship more than its enmity has been fatal to every other republic on the globe, to choose delegates to meet in County Convention and Committee of Correspondence, and to do whatever else in the opinion of the town may he adopted to obtain the important objects in view.

" JOSHUA THOMAS & 15 others."

Then on motion made and seconded the moderator put the following votes :

1st. He requested all those persons in the meeting that were for war to hold up their hands ; and not one hand was held up.

2d. He requested all those persons in the meeting that were for peace to hold up their hands; when it appeared that every hand in the meeting was held up, being about three hundred.

Then the following memorial to the President of the United States was read and adopted :

" To the President of the United States.

"The inhabitants of the town of Plymouth, in the Common- wealth of Massachusetts, in legal town-meeting assembled, re- spectfully show that, having recently united with their fellow- citizens in the vicinity in memorializing Congress upon tho menacing aspect of their public relations, solicitously, though ineffectually, supplicating the national legislature to remove the impolitic restrictions that had almost annihilated a once lucrative commerce, and especially to avert the host of calami- ties that in repeated succession will follow a war with Great Britain, they now address you, sir, to interpose your Presiden- tial powers and influence, that in a great measure control the destinies of the nation, to rescue them from scenos of horror from the near prospect of which hope, the solace of the wretched, flees away, and which, in their serious apprehension, will en- danger the existence of the social compact when the rulers of a free peoplo deliberately and obstinately persevere in a system of measures directly tending, if not intentionally devised, to distress a large and respectable section of the country to gratify the unfounded jealousies and restless, envious passions of an- other, and the irritation produced by the operation of such a partial system begins to discover its natural effects, it is un- questionably the part of wisdom seasonably to contemplate the possible consequences.

"What must be tho extent and degree of suffering before avowed resistance to the constituted authorities becomes a duty eannot be accurately defined, but the awful, though sometimes necessary, decision must be submitted to the judgment and feelings of the sufferers themselves. They have tho authority of Mr. Madison that even the unpopularity of warrantahle moasures in the fedoral government in particular States will justify a refusal of concurronco; what then, they would inquire, is the justifiable mode of opposition to an unwarrantable meas- ure of the government not only unpopular but fraught with dogradation and ruin? Surely, in the opinion of Mr. Madison,

such efficient counter-action by regular and constitutional means as will insure redress.

" The enumeration of wrongs inflicted by Great Britain on the United States, exhibited by the committee of fereign rela- tions, recapitulated in the manifesto and assigned as the cause of war by this vivid coloring and sublimated extravagance, evidently betrays the vagaries of an over-heated imagination. Allusions are made to injuries that havo been honorably ad- justed, and to swell the catalogue of wrongs, the stale, vulgar story of Indian hostilities, stimulated by British agents, and the miserable tale of John Henry are introduced, which affect your memorialists in the same ludicrous manner as a declaration of war against Great Britain by a former King of Spain, wherein he estimated the injuries he had received at the precise number of one hundred. Divert these pretended eauses of war of all species and artificial representation, consult the history of all the wars among commercial belligerents for the last two cen- turies, contrast the injuries heaped upon neutrals in these wars with those sustained by the United States from Great Britain, take into account the peculiar ferocious character of the war that has raged in Europe almost without interruption for more than twenty years, the notorious partialities shown to France during the administration of your immediate predecessor, and your memorialists pronounce with much confidence that no legitimate causes of war exist against Great Britain. In the convulsed unnatural state of society, consequent on war, from the principles of policy assumed by helligerents arising from their varying relative situations, evils and embarrassments always have been and always will be incident to neutrals, un- willing to encounter any impediments in their pursuit of wealth, which, if considered as just causes of war, the inevitable result will be that a long continued conflict between two great mari- time powers will embroil the whole commercial world.

"Conceiving this to be a correct view of the subject, this would be cause of multiplied observations upon the manifest impolicy and injustice of a war with Great Britain, commenced at a period and under auspices the most unfavorable to the Eastern States, exposing them to immense losses and accumulated dis- tresses, but they will not trespass upon your time, as their losses and distresses have been depicted in numerous addresses with a force of reasoning and splendor of eloquence that have seldom heen equalled. From the circumstances and manner in which the revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees was lately made known, they have the most mortifying suspicion that a war with Great Britain was the express condition of their revocation, nor can they express their indignation at the im- position attempted to be practised on the credulity of their government by the disgusting pretext that their obnoxious de- crees were revoked in April, 1811, and had a retrospect to the November beforo, in direct contradiction of every act public and privato at the Court of St. Cloud, legerdemain worthy indeed of that prostitutod Court, where the basest perfidy is openly re- warded, and a man of integrity and honor finds no ticket of admission.

" Among the innumerable train of evils that a war with Great Britain will produce, tho one conspicuous abovo all others as pregnant with universal political and moral ruin, and which cannot bo too often repoated and depreeatod, is an allianeo with the Fronch empiro, at tho head of which is placed a desporato adventuror, who, to accomplish his infornal purposes of avarice and ambition, would waste countless millions of money and destroy wholo generations of men ; they sickon at tho thought of their fellow-citizens boing amalgamatod with tho slaves of this mnonstor, and of oo-operating with them in eliminating from tho Globe the rosidne of virtuous freedom that yet remains ; they invoke the genius of thoir fathers to save thom from this

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155

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.

base and contaminating confederacy, and if they are destined to be wretched, that their wretcheduess may not he embittered by a servile connection with profligate and infidel France.

"Thns, sir, with much brevity, hut with a frankness that the magnitude of the occasion demands, they have expressed their honest sentiments upon the existing offensive war against Great Britain. a war by which their dearest interests as men and Chris- tians is deeply affected. and in which they deliberately declare as they cannot conscientiously so they will not have any volun- tary participation. They make this declaration with that par- amount regard to their civil and religious obligations which becomes the disciples of the Prince of Peace, whose kingdom is not of this world, and before whose impartial tribunal Presi- dents and Kings will he npon a level with the meanest of their fellow-men and will be responsible for all the blood they shed in wanton and nnnecessary war. Impressed with these solemn considerations, with an ardent love of country and high respect for the union of the states, your memorialists entreat the Pres- ident immediately to begin the work of peace with that unaffected dignity and nndisguised sincerity which distinguished one of yonr illustrions predecessors, and they have the most satisfac- tory conviction that npright, sincere efforts will secure success, while the land is undefiled with the blood of its citizens, and before the demon of slanghter. thirsty for human victims, ' cries havoc and lets slip the dogs of war.'"

After the adoption of the memorial several spirited resolves were passed, of which the following is one :

" Resolred, That, as neither the government or inhabitants of Great Britain have evinced any disposition to be at war with the people and Government of the United States, and that the ex- istence of tbe present war is to be attributed to French intrigue and domination. it will be disrespectful in the inhabitants of this town to have any voluntary connection in the prosecution of it, either by engaging in privateering or any other species of plundering nnoffending men, but that, with fraternal sym- pathy, they alleviate the misfortunes of each other under the beavy pressures that await them, associate to suppress riotous proceedings, and to support each other against all attempts of whatsoever nature to injure them for anything they rightfully do or say."

The above extracts from the records of the town are quoted for the purpose of showing the spirit and energy with which the war of 1812 was opposed and the character of the men who at that time gave tone to the sentiment of the town. There is an expression of thorough independence characterizing all the pro- ceedings rarely found in a small community, or, if found, rarely declaring itself with so clear and em- phatic a voice. In these latter days, when the reserved rights of individuals and states are swal- lowed up in the vortex of a powerful centralized government, such declarations as these addresses and memorials convey would have the sound and would wear the badge of treason. They will serve as land- marks to the present generation to show how far we have drifted from what our fathers considered the permanent moorings of the government under which we live. But the framers of our institutions builded better than they knew. They laid no foundations of

fixed dimensions and of unyielding material, precisely adapted to a structure of definite height and breadth and weight, never to be changed because never des- tined to bear a heavier burden ; but, like the mass- ive oak, whose roots stretch out beneath the surface of the soil and take stronger hold as its branches expand, the foundations they laid meet new condi- tions, with new elements of strength, and gain ampler dimensions and form with the increased demand on their sustaining power.

CHAPTER VII.

FOREIGN TRADE-REPRESENTATIVE MEN-CELE- BRATION OF 1820-FIRE DEPARTMENT-REBEL- LION.

BY such men as those indicated in the last chap- ter it may be easily believed that disaster was not looked upon as ruin, that suffering was not mistaken for death, and that the elastic texture of their active natures promptly manifested itself when once relieved from the actual pressure of the war. They were far from disheartened by the losses they had incurred, and at once readopted navigation, which had been the vehicle of their disasters, as the only true and legiti- mate means of a complete recovery. Before the year 1820 the number of fishing-vessels, which had been reduced to five during the war, increased to forty-six, and the foreign and coasting trade, which had been completely destroyed, was represented by more than one hundred vessels. In the year 1819 the amount of duties on merchandise actually landed on the wharves amounted to sixteen thousand dollars, and in 1829 had increased to thirty-one thousand. As an indication of the character of the trade with for- eign countries, it may not be out of place to include in this narrative the following list of entries from foreign ports during the year 1819, the only year which happens to be at present under the author's eye :

Barks.

Captain.

Port.

Cargo.

Hannah . Bartlett

Martinique ...... Molasses.

...

...... Molasses & coffee.

Schooners.

Roseway. .Simmons ... .. St. Ubes .. ...... .Salt.

... .Gibraltar.

Independence. Finney .. Turk's Island, ..

Primrose

Robbins . Isle of Mayo ...

Dolphin

Burgess. Bonavista .... ..

Maria Finney .. .. Guadaloupe ...... Molasses.

William Nelson . Martinique ......

Pilgrim. Soule. Rum Key ........ Coffee.

White Oak Brewster. Figueira ... ...... Salt.

Economy. .. Winsor. St. Andrews .....

Aurora Hall

Halifax

156

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

Schooners. Captain.

Port,

Cargo.

Rover Finney.

. Guadaloupe .. ... Molasses.

Only Son ...... Fuller.

Halifax.

Three Friends ... Clark ....

.Turk's Island ... Salt.

Lucy Robbins ...... Porto Rico ...... Molasses & sugar.

Collector .. Soule ..

Oporto ............ Salt.

Grampus .. ).

Sylvester

Lisbon ....

Cowlstaff.

Bradford

. Figueira ...

Gustavus

South worth .. Exuma ...

...

Ann Gurley

. Bradford ..... Figueira.

St. Michael's .Bourne .....

.. Gottenburg ...... Sugar.

Thomas.

Leach .......

. Figueira .....

.. Salt.

Caravan ... Paty .......

.Gottenburg ...... Sugar. " 66

Miles Standish ... Carver ....

...

......

Camillus ......... Jones ...

Liverpool ........ Molasses & coffee.

These figures, however, far from represent the actual foreign trade in which Plymouth capitalists were en- gaged. The process of eentralization had already begun, which in later years made Boston and New York and other eities farther south the prominent points of trade, and which was destined, at least tem- porarily, to absorb the business of the outports and doom their wharves and warehouses to gradual deeay. Between the Revolution and the embargo the foreign trade had so rapidly inereased that in 1806 the duties paid in Plymouth amounted to ninety-eight thousand dollars. Notwithstanding the business revival after the war of 1812, no year sinee has seen so large an importation as that of 1806, because Boston became the distributing point for molasses and sugar and eoffee and salt, and consequently the port of arrival and departure of vessels owned in Plymouth, which would otherwise have sought the channels and wharves of their own town. Aside from those eentralizing tendeneies, which must operate in every country, ves- sels were gradually built of larger tonnage and found it difficult to enter a shallow harbor. Those of the present generation who hear of the trade onee earried on at the wharves naturally attribute its deeline to a

gradual shoaling of the harbor. There is no reason, however, to believe that such is the ease. The author, after fifty years of careful observation, is satisfied that during that time no material change in the harbor has taken place. The precise boundaries of channels have from time to time been changed by the deposits or losses of sand on one side or the other, but he is convinced that at no time since the landing of the Pilgrims eould a larger vessel enter the harbor than the soundings would admit to-day. How soon this process of eentralization will eease it is difficult to say ; that it will eease sooner or later is as sure as the growth of our country. The condition of things which will cheek it is already visible in the future. It will be controlled by the same law which earries tributary waters through artificial channels to a een- tral reservoir, which, after it has reached a certain level, ean rise no higher without feeding and filling the tributaries themselves. In a rapidly expanding

country like ours, destined to contain within its borders before another half-century expires a hun- dred millions of inhabitants seeking an outlet for their products and an inlet for their pay, it is absurd to suppose that any harbor along our seaboard can long remain idle. Already Boston and New York afford poor facilities for the successful and economieal man- agement of the grain and cattle trades, yet in their infaney, and the improvement of our water outlets by the general government, onee resisted as uneonstitu- tional, but now a well-grounded poliey, eannot fail to furnish needed depth of water in the deserted out- ports as rapidly as the demands of trade shall re- quire it.

The men who represented Plymouth during the two generations succeeding the Revolution were marked by other eharaeteristies than those of busi- ness enterprise. This period, with the interruption of the war of 1812 and its foreshadowing elouds, was one of expansion and growth, both in population and wealth. During these fifty years Plymouth had doubled its number of inhabitants, and largely in- ereased its eirele of families who were warranted in the indulgenee of something more than the ordinary comforts of life. Like all such periods in the life of every community, it developed a elass of liberal, publie- spirited, benevolent, upright, noble men. Those who were looked upon as the leaders in social and muni- eipal life felt a pride in the welfare of the town, whiell no spirit of mean economy eould erush; they used all the influenee they possessed in seeuring a faithful and dignified administration of municipal affairs, and while conseious of their social rank were unbounded in their charities among those who, though depend- ents, were treated as neighbors and townsmen and friends. In those days the system of municipal and associated eharities, which, it is to be feared, is doing mueh to extinguish the beauty and grace which only a personal eontaet with the poor, and the response of a grateful heart, ean lend to benevolenee, had not come into life. Charity was a virtue which bound the rich and poor together, and not a principle of politieal economy, which regards poverty as a burden, which the tax-payer must be assessed to sustain. It is a praetieal question for politieal economists them- selves to answer, whether charitable organizations are not deceptive in their promises, inasmuch as the per- sonal gifts on which they depend may in time utterly fail unless the heart of the givers be kept sympa- thetie and warm by contaet with the recipients of their bounty.

Among those who lived during this period were Thomas and William Davis, father and son, both

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157

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH.

enterprising and successful merchants, to the first of whom the town is indebted for the trees in Towu Square, which were planted by him in 1784; John Russell, a merchant. from Scotland, the progenitor of a family which has since filled a large space in the social and civil ranks of the towu; Baruabas Hedge, a Harvard graduate of 1783, whose intelligence and sagacity, while building his own fortune, were fruitful instruments in the promotion of the welfare of others ; James Warren, whose special field of usefulness, already referred to, was found in the councils of the nation during the war of the Revolution; Joshua Thomas. a Harvard graduate of 1782, judge of pro- bate. moderator of town-meetings, a member of the Committee of Correspondence during the war, a man whose patriotism and learning may be discovered in the addresses and memorials of the town; Ephraimu Spooner, a respected deacon of the First Church, jus- tice of the Court of Common P'leas, and many years clerk of the town ; Isaac Lothrop, an active merchant, register of probate, and an early member of the Massachusetts Historical Society ; William Watson, a Harvard graduate of 1751, the first postmaster of the town, and collector of the port; John Watson, a Harvard graduate of 1766, and the second president of the Pilgrim Society; and George Watson, of whom the inscription on his gravestone says,-

" With honest fame and sober plenty crowned,

He lived and spread his cheering influence round."

To these must be added Daniel Jackson, largely and honorably engaged in commercial pursuits, which he transmitted to his sons; Nathaniel Goodwin, ån officer in the Revolution, and afterwards a major- general in the State militia ; Ichabod Shaw, an in- genious and skillful artisan ; Joseph Bartlett, to whom the town was long indebted for liberal drafts on a fortune which the misfortunes of war seriously impaired ; Benjamin and Isaac Barnes, brothers, whose influence in the town as active promoters of its industry was long and conspicuously felt; Na- thanicl Carver, an intelligent and successful ship- master, and afterwards merchant ; James Thacher, a native of Yarmouth, who, after seven years' service as surgeon in the Revolution, settled in Plymouth, and added to a reputation already secured by professional and literary labors; Nathan Hayward, a Harvard graduate of 1785, a native of Bridgewater, and sur- geon in the army under Wayne, who, as physician and high sheriff, held a high position in the com- munity ; Rossiter Cotton, a practicing physician and register of deeds; William Goodwin, the first cashier of the Plymouth Bank; Nathaniel Lothrop, a Har- vard graduate of 1756; and Samuel Davis, the recip-

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History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 35

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co. Number of Pages: 1706

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1706