USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, from its first discovery to the year 1830; with dissertations upon the rise of opinions and institutions, the growth of agriculture and manufactures, and the influence of leading families and distinguished men, to the year 1874; > Part 15
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ers to matin and vesper services. Wax candles shed a " dim religious light" on the altar, on crosses, pictures and a silver image of the Virgin Mary. A small organ aided the rude choir in their devotions. A Catholic friar "of good jesuitical qualities" regulated both church and state in this little republic of freebooters and assassins. The last act of these savages that provoked General Amherst to order an attack upon them was the detention of Captain Kennedy as a prisoner, whom he had sent with a flag of truce to negotiate a peace. On the thirteenth of September, 1769, Captain Rogers received the following orders :
"You are this night to join the detachment of two hundred men who were yesterday ordered out, and proceed to Missisquoi Bay, from which you will proceed to attack the enemy's settlement on the south side of the St. Lawrence, in such a manner as shall most effectually disgrace and injure the enemy and redound to honor and success of his Majesty's arms. Remem- ber the barbarities committed by the enemy's Indian scoundrels on every oc- casion where they have had opportunities of showing their infamous cruel- ties towards his Majesty's subjects. Take your revenge; but remember that although the villains have promiscuously murdered women and children, of all ages, it is my order that no women or children should be killed or hurt. When you have performed this service you will again join the army wherev- er it may be."
This was one of the most difficult and perilous enterprises ever undertaken by mortal man. The march lay for hundreds of miles through an unbroken wilderness. The enemy was before and behind them; but Rogers and his Rangers never quailed before dangers. The company immediately left Crown Point, embarked in bateaux and rowed north on Lake Cham- plain to Missisquoi Bay. Here they left their boats and provis- ions with a trusty guard and entered the lonely wilderness. After two days' march they were overtaken by the guard they had left at the bay with the intelligence that four hundred French and Indians had seized their boats and provisions, and that two hundred of them were now on the trail of the explorers. They still pressed on, and on the twenty-second day after leaving Crown Point the Indian village was discovered from the top of a tall tree, about three miles distant In the evening Major Rogers and two of his men, disguised like Indians, passed through the village. They found the Indians in the greatest glee, celebrating a wedding. Rogers wrote in his journal: "I saw them execute several dances with the greatest spirit." The Rangers, by various calamities, had been reduced to one hun- dred and forty-two men. These, being divided into three sections, advanced against the slumbering Indians at three o'clock in the morning. "The Rangers marched up to the very doors of the wigwams unobserved, and several squads made choice of the wigwams they would attack. There was little use of the mus-
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ket ; the Rangers leaped into the dwellings and made sure work with the hatchet and knife. Never was surprise more complete." After destroying the foe they set fire to the houses. They burn- ed all but three, which they reserved for their own use. The lurid glare from these smoking huts revealed a horrid spectacle. It showed more than six hundred scalps of white men elevated on poles and fluttering in the wind to grace the infernal orgies of the preceding day. Many women and children probably per- ished in the flames; only twenty were taken, and none were intentionally killed. Two hundred Indian warriors were slain. This was accomplished with the loss of one private, a Stock- bridge Indian, and the wounding of one officer and six Rangers. The village abounded in wealth, the accumulation of years of robbery. The Rangers took with them such treasures as they could conveniently carry. Among them were two hundred guin- eas in gold and a silver image of the Virgin weighing ten pounds.
When this work of vengeance was complete the greatest perils of the war awaited them. Three hundred French and Indians were upon their trail. The enemy were well supplied with pro- visions ; the victorious Rangers were dying of hunger. Rogers, learning that his path was ambushed, resolved to return by way of the Connecticut river. General Amherst had ordered sup- plies to be forwarded for their use to the mouth of the Ammon- oosuc river. For eight days they marched in a body towards the sources of the Connecticut. At length they reached Lake Memphremagog, where their provisions were utterly exhausted. They then divided into three parties, under skillful leaders, in- tending to rendezvous at the mouth of the Ammonoosuc. One company was overtaken by the enemy. Some were killed ; seven were captured ; but two of these escaped. On their arrival at the place of rendezvous they found no provisions. Lieutenant Stevens, who had been sent with succor, waited two days for the Rangers, then departed leaving no food. Major Rogers, with Captain Ogden and an Indian boy, embarked on a raft of dry pine trees to float down the Connecticut to Number-Four. He thus describes his perilous voyage :
"The current carried us down the stream, in the middle of the river, where we kept our miserable vessel with such paddles as could be split and hewn with small hatchets. The second day we reached White River falls, and very narrowly escaped running over them. The raft went over and was lost ; but our remaining strength enabled us to land and march by the falls. At the foot of them Capt. Ogden and the Ranger killed some red squirrels and a partridge, while I constructed another raft. Not being able to cut the trees I burnt them down, and burnt them at proper lengths. This was our third day's work after leaving our companions. The next day we floated down to Watoquichie falls, which are about fifty yards in length. Here we landed and Captain Ogden held the raft by a withe of hazel bushes, while we went below the falls to swim in, board and paddle it ashore; this being
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our only hope of life, as we had not strength to make a new raft. I suc- ceeded in securing it; and the next morning we floated down within a short distance of Number-Four. Here we found several men cutting timber, who relieved and assisted us to the fort. A canoe was immediately dispatched up the river with provisions, which reached them in Coös four days after, which, according to my agreement, was the tenth after I left them. Two days after I went up the river with two other canoes, to relieve others of my party who might be coming this way."
The several parties in moving westward toward the place of destination suffered untold horrors from cold and hunger. Win- ter was approaching. Rogers reached the Ammonoosuc on the fifth of November. Other parties came in later. They sub- sisted on roots, nuts, birch bark and such small animals as they could kill. They devoured their leather straps, their cartouch boxes, their moccasins and even their powder-horns after they had been sodden in boiling water. The weak in mind went mad ; the weak in body died. They even ate the bodies of their mur- dered comrades ! To such fearful sufferings were those heroic Rangers subjected to free the people of New Hampshire from their relentless foes who had, from the first history of the state, hung like a dark cloud upon its northern horizon.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CLOSE OF THE WAR AND THE RETURN OF PEACE.
After the capture of Quebec, the rest of Canada fell an easy prey to the invading army. That city was the key to all the French possessions ; and by its fall the English became masters of all the northern portion of the continent. For the service of the war in 1760, New Hampshire raised eight hundred men, who were commanded by Colonel John Goffe. Their place of ren- dezvous was at Number-Four; thence they opened a road through the wilderness directly to Crown Point. They then pro- ceeded with the English army down the lake, and captured with little opposition the forts of St. John and Chamblee. Montreal was surrendered without fighting. This event completed the campaign. After fifteen years of anxiety, toil and privation, peace returned to New Hampshire. Captives were restored and the joy was heightened by the subjection of the Indians and their treacherous allies to the power of England. The expenses of the war had been paid in paper money, the last resort of a people in distress, a substitute for the precious metals easy to
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make but hard to pay. It always depends for its value on pub- lic opinion ; and always becomes depreciated as the national en- thusiasm declines. Paper money had been issued several times before, in periods of great distress ; but it never commanded the confidence of the people. In 1755, paper bills were issued under the denomination of " new tenor ;" of which fifteen shil- lings were equal to one dollar. The same expedient was adopted in the two following years ; but a rapid depreciation of these bills followed, and they continued to decline till silver became the standard of value, in 1760. During the continuance of ac- tive operations in war the harvests were bountiful, and there was little suffering for food at home or in the army ; but during . the years 1761 and 1762, there was a severe drought and the crops were cut off so that it became necessary to import corn. At the time of this drought, in the summer, a fire raged in the woods of Barrington and Rochester with intense fury for weeks, destroying a large amount of the best timber. It was only ar- rested by the rains of August. Pitt, the greatest premier in English history, showed himself "honorable " in practice as well as in title. As he promised before the war, he recommended a reimbursement of the expenses of the colonies ; and by his per- sonal influence obtained it. His administration gave to Eng- land new life ; to her colonies new hope. Both countries for a time enjoyed unparalleled prosperity. Pitt was popular at home and abroad, except with the narrow-minded, wrong-headed Guelph who wore the crown. George III. hated the minister who had added to his dominions nearly a third part of the hab- itable globe. The monarch stood in awe of his subject. His rush-light policy became invisible amid the solar blaze of Pitt's imperial genius. The king removed him from office, attempted to silence him with " a peerage and a pension ;" and, when the spirit he had evoked "would not down at his bidding," longed for the hour "when decrepitude or age should put an end to him as the trumpet of sedition." Thus the Commons lost their wisest counselor ; the colonies their staunchest supporter.
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CHAPTER XXXIX.
CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE WESTERN BOUNDARY.
It was a favorite theory of the Philosopher of Malmesbury, that war is the natural state of mankind. If we class the feuds, factions and contentions of political parties under the head of war, history abundantly confirms his theory ; for when public · warfare ceases, domestic strife begins. It would seem that con- troversy, about men or measures, creeds or policies, is a neces- sary concomitant of political existence. When the seven years' war ended by the definitive treaty of peace at Paris, in 1763, a quarrel sprung up at once between New Hampshire and New York respecting the ownership of Vermont. Both states claimed it by royal grants. Charles II. conveyed to his brother James " all the land from the west side of Connecticut river to the east side of Delaware bay. New York claimed Vermont under this grant. George II., in deciding the boundaries of New Hampshire, allows her line to extend westward "till it meets with the king's other governments." New York, in her contro- versies with Connecticut, had tacitly permitted the boundaries of that colony to extend to a line drawn twenty miles east of Hudson's river. Massachusetts had claimed the same bound- ary, though denounced by New York as an intruder. On this disputed territory the governor of New Hampshire proceeded to lay out towns and receive large fees and presents from grant- ees for his official services. Thus his coffers were replenished and his private estate largely increased. He preferred men from other states to those of his own, because they were " better husbandmen " and more liberal donors. During the year 1761, sixty townships, six miles square, were granted on the west, and eighteen on the east side of the river. The governor, with a wise regard to his descendants, reserved grants to himself and heirs of five hundred acres in each township, freed perpet- ually from taxation. The whole number of grants made on the west side of the river within four years amounted to one hun- dred and thirty-eight. The land fever rose to a fearful height. Speculators swarmed on every hand. The governor, proprietors and middle men became rich, while the settlers were fleeced, and received for their money imperfect titles and a legacy of lawsuits. New York resisted these grants and oppressed the settlers who received them. They appealed to the king to set-
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tle the question. He in the plenitude of his wisdom, with ad- vice of council, declared "the western banks of Connecticut river, where it enters the province of Massachusetts Bay, as far north as the forty-fifth degree of latitude, TO BE the boundary line between the two provinces of New Hampshire and New York." One controversy was closed by this decree, and another was opened. The western bank of the river was declared to be the boundary between the states. The actual settlers on the disputed territory claimed that the operation of this decision was future; the government of New York assumed that it was retrospective and applied to the past. This led to litigations as long continued as the war of Troy. The arm of power, as usual, triumphed, and the innocent tillers of the soil paid the penalty of defeat.
CHAPTER XL.
ORIGIN OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
Want is a universal stimulant. All animated nature moves in obedience to it. Artificial wants give birth to civilization. Where men are satisfied with mere existence, without comforts or lux- uries, there is no progress. Tacitus tells us of a race of men that subsisted by the chase and, to escape at night the teeth and claws of the creatures they hunted by day, swung them- selves to sleep in cradles made by interlacing the branches of tall trees ; and they asked no favors of gods or men. They dis- appeared when a better race occupied the soil. Necessity creates wants and constrains men to supply them. Climate determines the kind of shelter, the amount of clothing and the quality of food which men need for the protection of life. By a natural law, therefore, the northern man in the temperate zone is made vigorous, industrious and progressive ; the tropical man in the torrid zone is made effeminate, indolent and stationary. But with accumulated wealth comes luxury. The rich and powerful supply their pleasures at the expense of the poor and industrious. This fact is beautifully illustrated by Archdeacon Paley: "If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn ; and if (in- stead of each picking where and what it liked, taking just as much as it wanted and no more) you should see ninety-nine of
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them gathering all they got into a heap, reserving nothing for themselves but the chaff and the refuse ; keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps worst, of all the flock ; sitting round and looking on, all the winter, whilst this one was devour- ing, throwing about and wasting it ; and, if a pigeon more hardy and hungry than the rest touched a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly flying upon it and tearing it to pieces ; if you should see this, you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men." So by the accident of birth, the feeblest and worst person in the nation, often a child, an idiot, a madman or a fool, is set on high to rule over others, to live on their earnings and to own them, "body, mind and estate." Kings never have enough. They are always in want ; they want sailors and soldiers to fill their armies and man their ships ; they want money to pay their expenses and gratify their tastes. To us who have learned that the people alone own their estates and tax them as they choose, it seems absurd even to read of the claims of a hereditary dunce like George III., in- sane half his life and unreasonable the other half, upon the ter- ritory, productions and inhabitants of half a continent. We read with astonishment that the tall pines of the unexplored forests were called "the king's timber ; " and the unsunned mines in the recesses of the earth, "the king's treasure ;" and the ex- cise and imposts raised from the productive industry of the peo- ple, "the king's revenue." Kings have brought nothing to America but wars and taxes. All that the English kings did for their colonies is expressed in three sentences in Colonel Barre's indignant reply to Minister Grenville : "They planted by your care ! No ! your oppression planted them in America.
They nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your neg-
lect. *
* *
*
* They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence." The whole speech de- serves to be inscribed in letters of gold upon the walls of every legislative hall in the country.
When England no longer needed the arms of Americans to subdue her enemies, she began to seize their wealth to replenish her treasury. For more than a quarter of a century previous to the peace of Paris, England, under the specious plea of "regu- lating commerce," had been indirectly taxing her colonies. As soon as they had any trade worthy of the name, it was burdened with duties. The mother country required all their exports to be carried to her markets ; and if they sought to import goods from other nations, they were at once burdened with duties so heavy as to become prohibitory. The restrictions laid upon manufact- ures were so minute and oppressive as to savor of feudalism. As Pitt said, the colonies "were not allowed to manufacture a
10
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hob-nail." In 1750, parliament positively forbade the manu- facture of steel and the erection of certain iron works. These regulations of trade, restrictions on commerce and prohibitions of art created discontent but no rebellion. But, in 1764, the king began to feel the want of more money. The expenses of " the seven years' war" had added to the national debt more than three hundred millions of dollars. The colonies had been bene- fited by the conquest of Canada and the subjugation of the Ind- ians. Therefore they must pay for the expenses of those bat- tles which they had fought and the victories which they had won. The pretence for taxing America was "to defray the expenses of protecting, defending and securing it." Another motive lay beneath this cloak. England had become jealous of the rising independence of her colonies. It was feared that they might shake off their allegiance to their dear mother. They must therefore be taught to know their place. This could be done in no better way than by taxing them without their consent. Resolutions passed both houses of parliament to quarter troops in America and support them at the expense of those who were to be overawed by them ; also, to raise money by a duty on for- eign sugar and molasses and by stamps on all papers legal and mercantile. The stamp act was introduced in 1764. The fram- ers of it boasted that it would execute itself, because all un- stamped papers would be illegal ; and all controversies respect- ing such papers would be decided by a single judge, who was a crown officer, in the admiralty courts. But,
"The best laid schemes o'mice and men Gang aft a-gley. "
Neither the law nor its executive officers could accomplish the work. The heavy duties previously imposed on imported goods led, first, to a contraband trade ; secondly, to the disuse of all ar- ticles so taxed. English cloths were no longer worn ; domestic manufactures supplied their place. The rich gave up their lux- uries ; the poor their comforts. Patriotism supplanted all other passions, affections and appetites. Life, domestic and public,. seemed to be regulated with sole reference to the defeat of Brit- ish legislation. This interruption of trade proved very injuri- ous to England and stimulated her legislators to severer meas- ures. Then came the stamp act, which it was thought could be evaded by no domestic pledges or political unions. The an- nouncement of this law led to more decided opposition. Asso- ciations were formed to resist it, called " Sons of Liberty." They adopted the words of Pitt as their motto : "Taxation and repre- sentation are inseparable." The final passage of the bill was on the eighth of March, 1765. It was soon after approved by the king. On the night of its passage, Franklin, then in Lon-
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don, wrote to Charles Thompson : "The sun of liberty is set ; the Americans must light the lamps of industry and economy." His correspondent replied : "Be assured we shall light torches of quite another sort." The spirit of this remark breathed from all lips. The people were roused to determined resistance. They resolved that the stamps should neither be distributed nor used. George Meserve, Esq., son of Colonel Meserve who died at Louisburg, a native of Portsmouth, was appointed stamp- clistributor for New Hampshire. He was in England at the time of his appointment. He soon returned. On his arrival in Bos- ton, he found the very air filled with curses against the law and imprecations upon its agents. Upon the recommendation of his friends, he resigned his office. The people of Portsmouth, hearing of his arrival, hung his effigy in hay-market. It was ac- companied by those of Lord Bute and the Devil. These images hung through the day ; and at night were carried with great tumult through the town and burned. When Mr. Meserve reached his native town, he was immediately surrounded by a crowd, and compelled publicly to resign his office so odious to his townsmen.
The stamped paper intended for use in New Hampshire reached Boston on the thirtieth of September. As there was no one present authorized to receive it, Governor Barnard placed it in the Castle. The law was to go into operation on the first of November. That inauspicious day was regarded as an occa- sion of mourning. The New Hampshire Gazette was lined with black. The bells tolled ; the colors on the ships were at half- mast ; the people from the neighboring towns flocked to Ports- mouth ; and in the afternoon a funeral procession was formed, and a coffin inscribed "Liberty aged 145, stampt," was carried through the streets, with all the parade of a military funeral ; but, under pretence of remaining life, it was not interred, but brought back in triumph, with a new motto, "Liberty revived." After this manifestation of disorder, associations were formed in all the leading towns to aid the magistrates in preserving the peace. The governor and the crown officers remained quiet. They dared not meet the popular storm. All the business of the state was transacted as though no stamps were required to make it legal.
Petitions, numerously signed, were sent to England for the re- peal of the act. There had ever been a formidable opposition to the measure in parliament. The ablest men of the country were the friends of America. Hence it was not very difficult to procure the repeal of the offensive law. Pitt, the greatest statesman of his age, said : "My position is this ; I will main- tain it to my last hour,-taxation and representation are insepar-
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able. This position is founded on the laws of nature; it is more -it is in itself an eternal law of nature ; for whatever is a man's own is absolutely his own : no man has a right to take it from him without his consent ; whoever attempts to do it at- tempts an injury ; whoever does it commits a robbery. I am of opinion that the stamp act ought to be repealed, totally, abso- lutely and immediately." It was repealed on the eighteenth day of March, 1766; and the American people for a time mani- fested a joy extravagantly disproportioned to the occasion. Only one tooth of the British lion had been extracted. His jaws were yet strong to mangle his victim. England still claimed "the right to bind America in all cases whatsoever." She had only lifted her hand to gain strength for a firmer and deadlier grasp.
The new governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, ar- rived at Charleston, South Carolina, in March, 1767, and jour- neyed thence by land to Portsmouth. He was received with unbounded demonstrations of joy and respect by the citizens and magistrates. The general court met in September, and voted a salary of seven hundred pounds with an allowance for house rent. His salary as surveyor of the woods was also seven hundred pounds. Governor Wentworth came into power at the most critical period in the history of our country. There was a temporary lull in the storm of opposition, at his arrival ; but a sense of wrong still rankled in the hearts of the people. The law requiring the colonies to maintain the troops quartered among them still remained in force. The changes of ministers were frequent during these troublous times. A new administra- tion was formed, in July, 1766, with William Pitt, the friend of America, at its head. He was now the Earl of Chatham. He sat with the lords and not with the commons. The voice that had rung across seas and continents, in defence of freedom, had become weak ; the eagle eye, which could gaze unblenched upon the very sun of power, had lost its lustre ; that manly form, whose presence could awe the most august legislative assembly on earth, was bowed with age and disease. Pitt was no longer master of the occasion. He was too ill to attend the sessions of parliament ; too irresolute to enforce his opinions upon the king. In his absence his colleague, Mr. Townsend, introduced another bill for the taxing of glass, paper, painters' colors and tea. It was readily passed and received the king's approval. This was met with the most determined opposition in America, by assemblies, associations and individuals. In Boston, mobs were frequent ; the governor and other magistrates were assaulted and fled to the castle for safety. The arrival of seven hundred British troops, from Halifax, was a new cause of tumult, disor- der and violence. Collisions took place between the citizens
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