USA > Pennsylvania > The history of Pennsylvania : from its discovery by Europeans, to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 > Part 39
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The army returned to fort Pitt on the twenty-eighth of November. The regular troops were sent to garrison the several posts on the route of communication with the inte- rior, and the provincial soldiers and restored prisoners to their several provinces. Cessation of hostilities was proclaimed on the fifth of December, and colonel Bonquet arrived in Phi- ladelphia early in January. He was honoured with votes of thanks by the legislatures of Virginia and Pennsylvania; the
Hutchins.
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former requested the governor to recommend him to his ma- jesty's ministers, as an officer of distinguished merit, in this as in every former service in which he had been engaged. But before this recommendation reached the royal ear, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and to the command of the southern district of America.
The Indians, faithful to their engagements upon this occa- sion, delivered up their prisoners at the promised time; and concluded by their deputies a satisfactory treaty with sir Wil- liam Johnson; who, in the preceding August, had negotiated a treaty at Niagara with two thousand other Indians, embracing the Six nations, and delegates from most of the northern and western tribes, stipulating for the surrender of their prisoners, indemnification for losses sustained by the traders, and ces- sions of large tracts of land between the lakes Ontario and Erie.
During this war, the barbarous policy introduced by the French, and recommended by the agents of the Paxton in- surgents, was again resorted to for the destruction of the enemy. By the proclamation of the seventh of July, 1764, governor Penn offered the following bounties for the capture, or scalp, in proof of the death, of an Indian ;- for every male above the age of ten years captured, one hundred and fifty dollars; scalped, being killed, one hundred and thirty-four dollars; and for every female Indian enemy, and every male under the age of ten years, captured, one hundred and thirty dollars; for every female above the age of ten years scalped, being killed, fifty dollars.
The British ministry, desirous to render the stamp act as little obnoxious as possible, resolved to appoint the officers of distribution and collection from among the discreet and re- putable inhabitants of the provinces. A meeting of the colonial agents in London was held at the office of Mr. Gren- ville, and they were requested to nominate fit persons for the performance of these duties. Dr. Franklin recommended his friend and admirer, John Hughes of Philadelphia, who
* Votes.
-
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was accordingly commissioned. This act of the doctor was greatly misrepresented in Europe and America. The friends of parliamentary supremacy in the one, regarded it as an ad- mission of the British right, whilst the friends of liberty in the other, especially among the proprietary party in Penn- sylvania, affected to consider it as an abandonment of her cause. The delusion, however, was momentary only; the frank and decisive conduct of Franklin soon removing this false colouring. *
But there existed no means to reconcile the people to a law every where regarded as the forerunner of political slavery. The stamp officers were hung or burned in effigy, in several of the provinces; and violent outrages were committed on the persons and property of the deputy-governor and other officers at Boston. On Saturday, the fifth of October, the ship Royal Charlotte, bearing the stamped papers for Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, convoyed by a sloop of war, arrived at Philadelphia. On the appearance of these ships around Gloucester point, all the vessels in the harbour hoisted their colours at half-mast, the bells were muffled, and every countenance assumed the semblance of mourning. At four o'clock of the afternoon, many thousand citizens assembled at the state house to consider of the means for preventing the distribution of the stamps. The first step proposed, was to require Mr. Hughes to resign his commission. A deputation of seven gentlemen waited upon him for that purpose, to whom he gave assurances that he would not attempt to en- force the stamp act until it should be generally submitted to in the other colonies, but he refused to resign his office. The indignant multitude refrained from resorting to violent mea- sures, in consideration of the dangerous sickness with which he was then afflicted. Instead of repairing to his house, as was first designed, they contented themselves with exacting from him a written declaration, by the succeeding Monday, that he would not execute his office. His answer, reiterating the assurance he had given to the committee, was received
* Franklin's Memoirs. Pamphlets.
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by the people with shouts of approbation. They suffered him for the present to retain his commission; but becoming convalescent, he was compelled to enter into a public engage- ment that he would not assume his office until required so to do by the people .* The stamps brought by the Royal Char- lotte, and others which subsequently arrived at Philadelphia, were secured, with the assent of the people, on board his majesty's ship of war Sardine, then lying in the harbour.
By the law the stamp duty was to commence on the first of November. On the previous day the newspapers were put in mourning for their own approaching extinction; the editors having resolved to suspend their publication until some plan should be devised to protect them from the penalties of pub- lishing without stamps. The term of suspension, however, was short. On the seventh of November a semi-sheet was issued from the office of the Pennsylvania Gazette, without title or mark of designation, headed, " No stamped paper to be had;" and, on the fourteenth of the same month, another, entitled, " Remarkable Occurrences;" both were in the or- dinary form of the Gazette, and on the twenty-first, its regu- lar publication was resumed,t
The inhabitants generally resolved to manufacture for themselves, and to obtain a supply of wool they determined to refrain from the use of lamb during the year. This was not more a measure of resentment than of necessity, growing out of the restrictions on their trade with the foreign West Indies and South America. The merchants and traders of Philadelphia cheerfully followed the example of the other commercial towns, by adopting a non-importation agreement, pledging themselves neither to give orders for shipping goods nor to sell merchandise sent them on commission, except such as should be manufactured in Ireland, and be imported direct- ly from thence. The names of more than four hundred traders
* The reluctance of Mr. Hughes to accede to the wishes of the people, rendered him very unpopular, and occasioned his expulsion from a fire company, of which he was a member.
+ Penn. Gazette.
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were obtained to this agreement, by the committee appointed for that purpose .*
The universal refusal of the inhabitants of the colonies to submit to the stamp act, occasioned the entire suspension of legal proceedings. In some of the provinces, however, busi- ness was speedily resumed, and in nearly all, the penalties of the act were braved before its repeal. In Pennsylvania the public offices were closed on the gloomy first of November, and were not opened until May, some days after news had been received of the intended repeal of the act.
Delegates from the assemblies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina, assembled at New York at the time appointed. t The provinces of New Hamp- shire, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina, did not send deputies; but the two former gave assurances of their dispo- sition to unite in petitions to the king and parliament; the assemblies of the two latter not having been in session since the proposition for a congress had been made, had no oppor- tunity to act upon the subject. Having chosen for their chair- man Mr. Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts, the congress adopted a declaration of their rights and grievances, upon which they founded a petition to the king, and a memorial to parliament. In these instruments they claimed the full rights and privileges of English subjects, averred the plenary legis- lative power of the colonial assemblies, protested against tax- ation by parliament, and the abolition of the trial by jury; and earnestly pressed upon the attention of the parent state, the burdens imposed by the stamp, and other acts, with the utter impossibility of continuing the execution of the former, in consequence of the drain of specie it would produce. A difference of opinion prevailed upon the question, whether the petitions and memorials should be signed and transmitted by the congress, or should be sanctioned and forwarded by
* Names of the committee: Thomas Willing, Samuel Mifflin, Thomas Montgomery, Samuel Howell, Samuel Wharton, John" Rhea, William Fisher, Joshua Fisher, Peter Chevalier, Benjamin Fuller, and Abel James. + Second Tuesday of October.
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the provincial assemblies, as their several acts. Messrs. Rug- gles, of Massachusetts, and Ogden, of New Jersey, believing in the propriety of the latter mode, refused to sign with the other delegates; but their conduct was censured by their constituents, and Mr. Ogden, thereupon, resigned his seat in the assembly, of which he was speaker. Two of the dele- gates only from Pennsylvania signed these papers; Mr. Fox not having attended the congress, and Mr. Dickinson having been called home by his private affairs before the addresses were prepared. The whole proceedings were cordially ap- proved by the assembly of Pennsylvania, who voted their thanks to their committee.
During these cis-atlantic endeavours to obtain redress for American grievances, the colonial agents, the friends of free- dom and equal rights, and the merchants interested in the American trade, were not idle in Great Britain. The refusal to import her manufactures touched her in a vital part. The great diminution of orders for goods, so honourable to the self-control of the colonists, compelled a powerful class of traders to advocate liberal principles, who, under other cir- cumstances, would have buried their love for political freedom beneath the hopes of lessening their own burdens by a revenue from America. The colonial agents, and those generous spirits which could appreciate the injuries of the Americans, were actively employed in making converts to their cause by the force of reason, whilst the merchants, manufacturers, and labourers, filled the kingdom with their cries against the im- policy of measures, which, designed to replenish the treasury, had resulted in the diminution of commerce, the suspension of remittances from the colonies, and the derangement of the business of a vast portion of the empire. Powerful as this combination certainly was, it was resisted by the most impe- rious passions, the pride and avarice of the people. The lofty position assumed by the Americans was intolerable. They had long been viewed as men of an inferior race. The arro- gant philosophy of Europe had placed them and the animal productions of their country low in the scale of perfectibility. By the mass of the English vulgar they were ranked with
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savages and negroes. The colonies, the dependencies of Great Britain, on which she had for years poured forth the scour- ings of her prisons, had denied her supremacy, and refused- to submit to her parliament, hitherto deemed throughout her vast empire politically omnipotent. With the sin of a rebel- lious temper, they were also charged with ingratitude. Under the pressure of accumulated debt and heavy taxation, the English people envied the display of wealth by the provin- cialists during the late war, and forgot that its exhibition was made in the common cause, with a generosity which had en- forced from English justice the return of a million sterling. Thus supported, the ministry that sought relief for the peo- ple by taxing American industry, would scarcely have been driven from their purpose. But other causes transferred the government to other statesmen, whom consistency required at least to reverse measures, which they had denounced with unqualified reprobation.
Under the new ministers an inquiry was instituted into the effects of the colonial policy of their predecessors. The mer- chants and manufacturers gave ample testimony of the para- lysis in trade, whilst Dr. Franklin, as the representative of America, before a committee of the whole house of com- mons, demonstrated the impossibility of levying the new im- positions, and the consequent necessity of their repeal. The majority of parliament was now divided into two parties: The larger one affirmed the right to tax the colonies, but de- nied the expediency of its present exercise; the other, led by Mr. Pitt, repudiated this right, on the ground that all aids are gifts from the people, and can never be legally obtained with- out their assent, and that this assent could not be had in par- liament, since the colonists were not there represented. A repeal on these principles, however just, according to the English constitution, would not have saved the pride of the nation, and would have destroyed the hopes of future revenue at the will of parliament. Hence the repeal of the stamp act, which took place on the eighteenth of March, by a vote of two hundred and seventy-five to one hundred and sixty-seven, was accompanied by a declaration of the right of parliament
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to tax America. It was followed by an act indemnifying those who had incurred penalties on account of stamp duties. · The tidings of this event were received in America with joy more temperate than might have been expected from the excitement of the public mind. The prudence displayed on this occasion had been earnestly recommended by a committee of merchants in London trading with America, and by others friendly to American interests. At Philadelphia, the master of the vessel which brought the news was presented with a gold lace hat. On the evening following his arrival (twen- tieth of May) the city was illuminated, bonfires were light- ed, and many barrels of beer distributed among the populace; but there was no riot or disorder. The principal inhabitants gave an entertainment, at which the mayor, assisted by the aldermen, presided, and the governor and strangers of dis- tinction were guests. At the close of the festival it was unanimously resolved by the company, that, in gratitude for the repeal of the stamp act, each would, on the birth-day of his majesty, dress himself in English manufactures, and give his home-spun to the poor. Some hundreds of citizens were present, and conducted themselves with remarkable decorum. Whilst in their toasts they lauded their friends in England and America, they avoided the arrogance of triumph, and refrained from reproaching those who might have been deemed their enemies. The birth-day of the king (the fourth of June) was celebrated with great pomp and splendour. The assem- bly dined with the governor, and a fête was held by the citi- zens on the banks of the Schuylkill. During the whole of the late interesting controversy the conduct of Pennsylvania was exemplary. Her firm resistance of the stamp act, and the principles on which it was based, was evinced by the re- solutions of the assembly, the unanimous refusal of her citizens to use the stamps, and the accurate, profound, and temperate discussion of the rights of the colonies, and of the parent state, in the journals and pamphlets of the day. But there was no noisy associations of self-styled sons of liberty, nor destruction of the property belonging to officers of the crown. Even the stamp officer, as we have seen, was suffered to re-
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tain his commission upon his simple pledge not to exercise it unless requested by the people. General Conway, secretary of state, on communicating officially to the governor the re- peal of the stamp act, requested him to assure the assembly of his majesty's approbation of the wise, prudent, and dutiful behaviour of the province, amid the too prevailing distractions which had so generally agitated the colonies.
To effect the specie payment of the stamp duties, it was deemed necessary to prohibit by act of parliament the making of future issues of paper money in the colonies a lawful ten- der. In Pennsylvania this act was a serious grievance, and the assembly instructed their agents earnestly to solicit its repeal; in support of which they relied upon the assistance of the American merchants in London; since without such re- peal, the exports to the colonies would be limited, and the people reluctantly driven to manufacture for themselves.
On the thirteenth of July, died the venerable Isaac Nor- ris, after a long indisposition. He was a statesman of dis- tinguished reputation, and an active and upright magistrate. In the political disputes of the colony, he uniformly adhered to the popular party, and possessed its unvarying confidence. He succeeded his father as a burgess of the city in the year 1735, and represented the city or county of Philadelphia for thirty years successively in the assembly. In 1759, he soli- cited his constituents to release him from the service to which he had been so long devoted, declaring it to have been his intention some years before, to retire from public life; " but that the violent attacks of power openly made upon their rights, had induced him still longer to bear the burden of contending with unreasonable men, however inconvenient to his private affairs ; but resolving never to ask a vote to get into the house, nor, when there, to solicit for any employ- ments or posts of private advantage, he had made this the invariable rule of his conduct. I have now," continued he, "served you three times seven years complete, and have discharged my duty cheerfully, as a debt due to my country, to the best of my understanding, through the vigour of my life and health; but as my years advance, and my health be-
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comes very precarious, I request and desire that you will ac- quit me from further attendance, and choose some other per- son at the ensuing election to represent you in my stead." Notwithstanding this earnest appeal, he was again returned at the ensuing election, and continued to be re-elected until 1765, when his infirm health, and dissatisfaction with the at- tempt to change the proprietary government, induced him peremptorily to refuse a re-election.
During the years 1767 and 1768, the annals of Pennsylvania afford few subjects of historical interest. An effort was made to supply an alleged deficiency in the circulating medium, by the emission of promissory notes from an association of merchants in the city of Philadelphia. But the public either had not confidence in the plan or members of this association, or the addition they designed to the currency was unnecessary. For, on the remonstrance of the citizens, the assembly re- solved that the issue of such notes had a manifest tendency to injure the trade of the province, and to depreciate the va- lue of its currency. Under such reproof, this early attempt at banking proved abortive. *
But the assembly was unable to suppress a measure highly repugnant to their moral principles. The religion of the Quakers, as well as that of the various sects who draw their creed from the school of Calvin, condemn most species of public amusements as dangerous to public morals, af- fording temptations to inordinate excitement of the passions, . and opportunities for the indulgence of vicious propensities. Dramatic performances, balls, and concerts, were considered especially condemnable. Yet the intercourse of the inhabit- ants of Philadelphia with the troops and strangers brought there by the war, had so relaxed this austerity, that balls, plays, and concerts, became favourite amusements. A theatre was erected at considerable expense in Southwark, where plays were exhibited, notwithstanding the assembly remon- strated with the governor upon their pernicious influence, and urged him to prohibit them.t
* Votes. + Votes. The curious reader will find a short historical notice of the Philadelphia theatre in Mr. Mease's Picture of Philadelphia.
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The fruitful and enduring source of Indian complaint and hos- tility, the encroachments of the whites upon unpurchased In- dian lands, threatened another war. Immediately after the late pacification, the governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia, by proclamations, forbade settlements upon such lands. But the dif- ficulties, in some instances real, though often pretended, which the out settlers found in discovering the boundaries designated in Indian treaties, served to extenuate continued aggression. Settlements, however, were made on Indian lands at Red- stone creek, and Cheat river, and upon lands ceded to the Indians in Pennsylvania, which were audaciously projected and pertinaciously pursued. To this, other causes of dissa- tisfaction were added. Several individuals of the Seneca tribe were murdered; and a party, whilst pursuing their way to war with the southern Indians, were attacked, without provocation, in Virginia, and many of them slain. The de- sire of vengeance for the horrible massacre at Lancaster was still unappeased, whilst new barbarities of the most atrocious kind were perpetrated by the whites. One Frederick Stump, a German resident in Penn township, Cumberland county, with the assistance of a serving-man, murdered at his own house, four male and two female Indians, who, on their journey, had sought his hospitality. He cast the bodies of his victims into Penn's creek, through a hole in the ice, and proceeded to a cabin about four miles from his house, where he found two Indian girls and one child, whom he also slew, and setting fire to the cabin, endeavoured to con- sume their remains. In defence of these horrible crimes, the monster alleged, that he apprehended injury from his visiters, who were intoxicated and disorderly, and that the tenants of the cabin might learn the tidings of their death and communicate them to their tribe. When this crime was known, the magistrate prepared to arrest the criminals ; but their indignant neigh- bours seized and lodged them in prison at Carlisle, whence the sheriff, by a warrant from the chief justice, was directed to convey them to Philadelphia for examination. Their re- moval was delayed, by order of the magistrates, either from an apprehension that the government designed, under a late
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law, to try them in the city, or that they would be rescued by the people, who regarded the act, directing the trial of of- fences against the Indians to be had out of the county in which they were committed, as tyrannical and oppressive, and preg- nant with danger of unjust conviction; the inhabitants of Philadelphia being supposed to entertain strong prejudices against those of the frontier counties, on the subject of Indian relations. If fear of rescue of the prisoners on their way to Philadelphia were the true cause of the interference of the magistrates, due care should have been taken to keep them safely at Carlisle. But this was not done. The friends of Stump-for even he had friends-together with many others, who would have quietly seen him executed in the county of Cumberland, conspired to liberate him, and effected their de- sign by forcing the prison, and intimidating the jailer.
These manifold and grievous injuries were deeply felt by the Indian tribes, who sought to avenge them by new combinations against the whites. Sir William Johnson, and his deputy-agent, George Croghan, having penetrated their designs, hastened to communicate them, through gene- ral Gage and the governor of Pennsylvania, to the assembly, and to urge the adoption of proper measures to prevent fur- ther intrusion on the unseated lands, and to appease the cries of vengeance arising for the unatoned murders. The house applied themselves earnestly to these objects. A law was enacted for removing trespassers, prohibiting their return under the penalty of death, and funds were liberally voted for carrying it into execution; renewed efforts were made to discover the perpetrators of the massacres at Conestoga and Lancaster; and a petition to the crown was prepared, pray- ing for the establishment of a general boundary line between the whites and Indians. The last measure had long been the subject of negotiation between sir William Johnson and the Six nations ; and the procrastination had given rise to great doubts of the sincerity of the English. Upon the recom- mendation of Sir William, the assembly placed at his disposal the sum of three thousand pounds, to be expended in propi- tiation of the savages.
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