USA > Rhode Island > A short history of Rhode Island > Part 11
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Governor Ward replied on the part of Rhode Island by an elaborate history of the colonial cur- rency and an able exposition of the causes and necessities from which it arose. Unfortunately these necessities still existed, and without heeding the warning implied by the action of the House of Commons the Assembly "created a new bank of twenty thousand pounds for ten years at four
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per cent." The paper issued under this act was called the new tenor, because unlike the earlier issues the bills bore on their faces the exact amount of gold and silver they were supposed to represent. Silver on the new tenor notes was rated at six shillings and ninepence sterling, gold at five pounds an ounce, and thus the value of a new tenor bill was four times that of an old tenor bill. The seeds of bankruptcy were thickly sown in both.
The question of the eastern boundary line, one of the bitterest of the many disputes with Mas- sachusetts, had after several vain attempts to come to an amicable agreement, been referred, in 1741, to a royal commission. With the decision of this commission neither party was altogether satisfied, Massachusetts claiming a great deal and Rhode Island something more than it awarded them. Both parties appealed. But the commission adhered to its decision, and the line fixed by it continued to be the boundary between the two colonies till after the adoption of the Federal constitution.
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CHAPTER XX.
PROGRESS OF THE WAR WITH THE FRENCH .- CHANGE IN THE JURISDICTION OF THE COURTS .- SENSE OF COMMON INTER- EST DEVELOPING AMONG THE COLONISTS. - LOUISBURG CAPTURED.
WAR still continued to give its stern coloring to legislation. The Tartar was held ready for instant service. The Governor and his council were vested with the power of laying an em- bargo upon outward bound vessels. Speculation turned seaward, and the money which in peace would have been employed in building up com- merce and manufactures was spent upon priva- teers.
Still the interests of peace were not altogether neglected. The productive enterprise which was to raise Rhode Island so high in the list of man- ufacturing states, was already awakened, and as early as 1741 James Greene and his associates petitioned the Assembly for permission to build a dam across the south branch of Pawtuxet river and lay the foundation of those iron works which in the sequel became so celebrated throughout the colonies. Population was increasing. The large townships became too large for the demands of local government and were divided. Thus
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Greenwich, carrying out the suggestions of its position, was divided into East and West. About the same time Warwick was divided and a new township set out under the name of Coventry. In the next year North Kingstown was divided and the Town of Exeter incorporated, and a year later the country district of Newport, which was sep- arated from the town by thick woods, was incor- porated as Middletown. The territorial struggle was nearly over and Rhode Island was settling down into its permanent proportions. The sched- ules still continue to record the progress of organization as experience called for new changes. The office of attorney-general was abolished and a King's attorney for every county appointed instead. A Court of Equity composed of five judges, annually elected by the Assembly, was formed to try all causes of appeal in personal actions from the Superior Court to the General Assembly-a course which "by long experience had been found prejudicial." To draw closer the ties of loyalty a form of prayer for the royal family was sent from England to be read in every religious assembly throughout the colonies as a part of public worship.
The dissensions with Connecticut concerning the western boundary had taken a new form. The line, as the reader will remember, had been drawn and marked by competent authority. A committee appointed by Connecticut displaced the bound at the southwest corner of Warwick.
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The Rhode Island Assembly sent surveyors to examine the ground and restore the line. This outrage was repeated twice.
The history of the war does not belong to the history of Rhode Island, although the spirit engendered by it led to the formation of some military institutions. Among these was the Newport Artillery, which was chartered in 1741, and is still one of the best disciplined corps in the State.
I have spoken of the substitution of King's attorneys to attorneys-general. It was made in the hope of enforcing the payment of interest bonds. But after a short trial the original form was resumed. The root of the evil was too deep. Another of the chronic evils of paper money vexed the Colony sorely. Counterfeit bills fol- lowed close upon the issue of genuine bills, and the Colony was flooded with bad money.
The Court of Equity was not continued long, and many other changes of brief duration were made in various branches of government. But what deserves especial mention is the instinctive perception with which Rhode Island detected the slightest invasion of her chartered rights and the courage with which she defended them. The clerkship of the naval office in Newport was claimed by one Leonard Lockman in virtue of a royal commission. The claim was referred to a committee which reported "that His Majesty was mistaken in said grant" which belonged to
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the Governor, who alone was responsible for the conduct of that officer. The question of custom fees and vice-admiralty fees was brought for- ward about the same time, and "the undoubted right of the General Assembly to state the fees of all officers and courts within the Colony " boldly asserted.
The expenses of the war still increased, strain- ing the resources of the Colony to the utmost. Questions of organization were still rising, but the question of finance was the most difficult of all. New bills were issued with reckless profu- sion, and various devices adopted for the relief of the exchequer. Several bounties, and among them the bounties on hemp and oil, were with- drawn. The tonnage duty upon all vessels enter- ing the Colony was revived. The lottery so wisely condemned in 1733 was legalized in 1744. Wey- bosset bridge was built by lottery.
The great military event of the campaign of 1745 was the capture of Louisburg by colonial troops. In this gallant feat of arms which fills so bright a page of colonial annals Rhode Island bore her part-especially through the Tartar, which, supported by two other war sloops, de- feated at Famme Goose Bay a flotilla which was advancing with large reinforcements to the relief of the enemy. Captain Fones, who commanded the Tartar in this memorable campaign, has not received the honorable mention to which he was entitled for his gallantry and skill.
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New exertions were required for securing Louis- burg, and the colonies were again called upon to furnish men and supplies. In this also Rhode Island bore her part, propping as best she might her tottering treasury and using impressment for raising men. When the war was over Eng- land acknowledged her services by special grants.
In this year Rhode Island lost one of her faith- ful sons, Colonel John Cranston, son of the pop- ular Governor, and commander of her forces at the capture of Port Royal. Towards the close of the year another great loss, though of another kind, fell upon the Colony. Two new privateers, mounting twenty-two guns each, with crews of over two hundred men went to sea the day before Christmas in a gale of wind and were never heard of again. Privateers held a place in war then which they do not hold now, and there was bitter sorrowing in more than two hundred households when the months passed away and no tidings of , husband or father or brother came.
The success of the expedition against Louis- burg increased the desire to carry the war into Canada. Commissioners from the colonies were invited to meet and take council together concern- ing the common interest. Here we meet for the first time the names of Stephen Hopkins and William Ellery, whose names stand side by side on the Declaration of Independence, which is already drawing nigh. The sense of common interest and mutual dependence gradually gains
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ground. Every exertion was made to call out the strength of the Colony. Popular feeling went with government and strengthened its hand for the great contest. Canada and Indian warfare were inseparably connected in the minds of the people, who, to rid themselves of the dreaded enemy submitted cheerfully to what they would otherwise have resisted as tyranny. Impress- ment was authorized by the Assembly.
In the midst of these efforts depreciation was undermining the strength and corrupting the moral sense of the community. The property tax of freemen had doubled. Bribery and fraud- ulent voting gained ground, and an attempt was again made to meet them by increasing the sever- ity of the law. Every voter and every officer was required to declare under oath that he had neither taken nor offered a bribe ; and a single fraudulent vote was sufficient to invalidate an election. The
evidence of the briber held good against the bribed ; and that the law might not be forgotten it was ordered to be "read in town meeting at every semi-annual election for five years and the name of every transgressor stricken from the roll of freemen."
Again, the vacillation of the ministry defeated the expedition against Canada. Then came tid- ings of a great French armada which was com- ing to the conquest of New Engand. Great was the alarm of the colonies. But help came from another quarter. Disease and tempest scattered
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and infected the hostile fleet. One commander died. His successor committed suicide, and the shattered remnants of the unfortunate armada had hard work to make their way back to the French coast.
Before the tidings of this disaster could reach New England it had been resolved to send rein- forcements to the succor of Annapolis Royal, the supposed point of attack. The Rhode Island troops sailed early in November. The Massachu- setts troops soon followed. Both were overtaken by heavy gales which cast some of them ashore at Mt. Desert. Some, like their adversaries, the French, were crippled by disease and a few made their way to the nearest port. Winter set in and the campaign of 1746 closed in gloom.
This was the year in which the royal decree concerning the eastern boundary was enforced. Rhode Island gained by it a large accession of territory-the towns of Bristol, Tiverton, Little Compton, Warren and Cumberland, which were incorporated and brought under the control of Rhode Island laws. Thus ten new deputies were added to the colonial representation. Thus, also, a revision of the judicial and military system of the Colony became necessary, and a new court was established under the title of Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Jail Delivery, and consisting of a chief-justice and four associate justices annually chosen by the Assembly. The judicial powers of the assistants
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or upper house of Assembly ceased, though they still continued to act as a court of probate. Two militia companies were formed in Tiverton and one in each of the other new towns.
The previous history of the new towns belongs to Massachusetts and Plymouth. Their annexa- tion to Rhode Island brought her an increase of about four thousand inhabitants, well trained most of them in the tenets of religious freedom.
CHAPTER XXI.
ATTEMPT TO RETURN TO SPECIE PAYMENTS .- CHANGES IN THE REQUIREMENTS OF CITIZENSHIP. - NEW COUNTIES AND TOWNS FORMED .- FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR .- WARD AND HOPKINS CONTEST .- ESTABLISHMENT OF NEWSPAPERS.
THE war was almost over, although privateers still endangered maritime commerce. First an armistice was agreed upon for four months and then peace was signed at Aix la Chapelle, on the 30th of April, 1748. It was a welcome peace although the war had brought lessons with it which were never forgotten. The men who had fought at Louisburg were looked upon as veter- ans, and when the final struggle came brought experience to the service of the revolting colonies. Parliament, well aware of the readiness with which the'colonies had contributed to the support of the war both by men and by money, made them a grant of eight hundred thousand pounds as an indemnity. Rhode Island's share for the expe- dition against Cape Breton was six thousand three hundred and twenty-two pounds twelve shillings and tenpence; for the expedition against Canada, ten thousand one hundred and forty-four pounds nine shillings and sixpence. But deductions were afterwards made in a cavil-
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ing spirit which excited bitter feelings. Still more irritating to colonial pride was the article restoring to France her conquered territories, for among them was Louisburg. Of the right of search, the original cause of the war, no mention was made, a precedent not forgotten in the war of 1812. Now was the time to heal the wound which paper money had inflicted upon the com- merce of the country. Hutchinson, an aspiring young statesman of Massachusetts, formed a plan for sinking the paper money and restoring specie payment by means of this grant. Massachusetts after a long discussion, wisely adopted Hutchin- son's plan. Rhode Island and Connecticut re- jected it. Rhode Island presently felt the con- sequences of her error by the loss of her West India trade.
The records of the labors of peace again fill the schedules. Charlestown was divided into two towns and the name of Richmond given to the portion north of Pawcatuck river. The commu- nications between the different parts of the Colony were carefully watched over. There were already nineteen ferries when peace returned, and of these thirteen served to keep up the connection with the seat of government.
The year before the peace the first public library in the Colony, the Redwood Library, was founded. It was fruit of the good tree planted by Berkeley. In 1754 Providence followed the noble example and founded the Providence Li-
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brary Association. In the following year we find another attempt to enforce a moral law by legis- lative enactment. The act against swearing was revised, and a fine of five shillings or three hours in the stocks imposed as a penalty for every offence.
The increase of population called for a revision of the statute of legal residence. "New comers were required to give a month's notice of intention to become residents, after which if they remained one year without being warned to leave they were admitted as lawful inhabitants of the town." A freehold estate of thirty pounds sterling also gave a legal residence. "Apprentices having served their time in any town, might elect their residence there, or return to the place of their birth. Paupers not having acquired a legal set- tlement might be removed by the councils on complaint of the overseer of the poor, to the place of their last legal residence or to that of their birth." So careful was the watch kept over the conditions and privileges of citizenship. The Board of Trade called for a new census. "The population was found to consist of thirty- four thousand one hundred and twenty-eight souls, of whom twenty-nine thousand seven hun- dred and fifty were whites, the remainder blacks and Indians. Newport contained forty-six hun- dred and forty souls, Providence thirty-four hun- dred and fifty-two."
ยท The lottery had taken a strong hold upon the
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innate love of chance. The two first lotteries had been applied to public improvements. The third was formed for the relief of an insolvent debtor. Henceforth we meet it as a common relief in busi- ness misfortunes and a natural assistant in new enterprises.
The winter of 1748-49 was made memorable in Rhode Island annals by the death of John Cal- lender, her first historian and pastor of the First Baptist Church in Newport. Among the public works of the year which the growing commerce of the Colony called for, was a light-house at the south end of Conanicut, still known as Beaver Tail Light.
Depreciation began to make itself deeply felt as the interests of English commerce became more and more interwoven with those of colonial com- merce. Their raw products were the only articles that the colonies could give in exchange for Eng- lish manufactures. Their West India trade was their only source of coin. Colonial bills out of the colonies were worthless. The subject was brought before the House of Commons, which called for a full and accurate statement of the condition of the currency. A committee was ap- pointed by the Assembly to prepare the state- ment, and Partridge the colonial agent directed to present and support it. By this report it was shown that three hundred and twelve thousand three hundred pounds in bills of credit, emitted to supply the treasury since May, 1710, of which
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one hundred and seventy-seven thousand had been burned at various times and one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds were still out- standing, amounting in all in sterling money to about thirty-six thousand pounds.
An interesting incident of this year was the organization of a Moravian mission.
The statute book records several new criminal statutes. It is an illustration of domestic rela- tions that the first divorce was granted by the Assembly in 1754-more than a hundred years after the foundation of the Colony. And it may be taken as proof of the feelings of the Colony towards England, that a large number of English statutes were transferred to the colonial statute book. New precautions against fire were taken in Newport by the formation of firewards, and a fire engine was sent for from England. Provi- dence soon followed the example. Another step was taken towards a satisfactory distribution of the territory by forming East and West Green- wich, Coventry and Warwick into a new county under the name of Kent County, with East Green- wich for its county town. The new county was required to build a court house at its own ex- pense, which was partly done by lottery. Four years later another town was formed from Provi- dence County and incorporated under the name of Cranston. In spite of the increased depreciation of the currency the Colony continued to grow in numbers and strength. Seventeen hundred and
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fifty-two was made memorable both in England and her colonies by the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Henceforth the new year begins on the first of January instead of the twenty-fifth of March.
But the great event of the year was the decision of the lawsuit for the possession of the glebe lands in Narragansett, a suit of nearly thirty years standing, and which after passing through many phases was decided in favor of the Congre- gationalists against the Episcopalians, upon the ground that "by the Rhode Island charter all denominations were orthodox, and that a majority of the grantors when the deed took effect were Presbyterians or Congregationalists."
Meanwhile paper money was doing its bad work. The calendar of private petitions bears sad witness to the evil. Bankruptcy became frequent, and among the bankrupts of those days of gloom was Joseph Whipple, the Deputy-Gov- ernor, who, surrendering all his property to his creditors was relieved by a special act of insol- vency. The spirit of enterprise though dulled, was not crushed.
The first recorded patent was granted in 1753. Parliament had passed an act to encourage the making of potash in the colonies, and Moses Lopez took out a patent for making it for ten
years by a process known only to himself. The next year a similar patent was granted to James Rogers for the manufacture of pearl-ash. The
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industrial instinct which was to receive in the sequel so great a development, was already gird- ing itself up for the trial. The spirit of asso- ciation, also, was awakening. A society of sea- captains was incorporated for mutual assistance under the name of the Fellowship Club. From this grew the Newport Marine Society.
A new war was at hand, a war known to our childhood as the old French war, and the last waged by France and England for the dominion of North America. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had left the door wide open for new claims, and these soon led to a new war. Here again Rhode Island displayed great energy, sending Stephen Hopkins and Martin Howard, Jr., to represent her as Commissioners at the Albany Congress of 1754, in which Franklin brought forward his plan for developing by union the resources of the colonies, she took promptly the steps necessary for her own defence and complied cheerfully with the requisitions of the English commanders. In this as in former wars she sent out her privateers to harrass the enemy's commerce. But her part in the contest was a limited one. Her troops went as contingents not as armies. She had no gen- erals to give their names to great victories, and when peace returned her soldiers and sailors re- turned cheerfully to the duties and avocations of common life.
The annexation of the eastern towns in 1757 marks an important period in the history of
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Rhode Island. With two unfriendly neighbors on each side she had been compelled to contend inch by inch for her territory. All the obstacles which impede development had accumulated in her path. All the dangers which menace the ex- istence of feeble colonies had beset her. She had faced them all, she had overcome them all. A great principle lay at the root of her civilization, and humanity itself was inseparably connected with her success.
From the annexation of the eastern towns in 1757 to the peace of Paris in 1763, all the leading events were more or less connected with the war. Privateering took the place of commerce. Taxes were levied to build and arm forts and raise and equip soldiers, not to erect churches and court houses and libraries and schools.
The war was lingering but decisive. It gave England one brilliant victory and one illustrious name-the Heights of Abraham, and Wolf-to the colonies the lesson so valuable a few years later that English troops might be driven where colo- nists held their ground, and the name of Wash- ington. Recorded in European history as the seven years war, for the colonies it was a war of nine years, hostilities having begun two years be- fore war was declared. Nowhere is man's place in history more distinctly marked than in this war, which till the right man came was a suc- cession of blunders and defeats. With William Pitt came victory.
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While the war was still confined to the colonies a large number of French residents had been thrown into jail as prisoners of war. What was their legal position ? The question was brought before the Assembly by a petition for release, which was so far granted as to authorize their transportation to some neutral port, and so far rejected as to still subject them to the laws of : war.
We have seen how watchful the home govern- ment was to enforce the laws of trade. But with all its watchfulness smuggling still prevailed in every colony. New orders came from the King directing the Assembly to "pass effectual laws for prohibiting all trade and commerce with the French, and for preventing the exportation of provisions of all kinds to any of their islands or colonies." The Assembly passed the necessary acts. But too many and too powerful interests were involved to admit of their rigorous execution.
To this period belongs the bitterest party con- test in the annals of Rhode Island, generally known as the Ward and Hopkins contest. Sam- uel Ward and Stephen Hopkins were the fore- most Rhode Islanders of their time; both men of self-acquired culture and both illustrious by public services. Hopkins was the elder of the two, being born at Scituate on the 7th of March, 1717. Ward was his junior by eighteen years. Both were farmers and merchants, and both sin- cerely devoted to the interests of their native Col-
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ony. But as to what those interests were they differed widely, and their difference soon took the form of town and country parties. Newport was the leading town of the Colony, not only in com- mercial enterprise but in intellectual culture. Berkeley had not left his foot-prints there in vain. This seat of Rhode Island culture was best rep- resented by Samuel Ward. The name of Hop- kins stood for the country. The distribution of taxes was one of the questions at issue. Paper money was another. By degrees all questions of public policy were classed under the one or the other of these two leading names. There were sharp contests at the polls, painful severings of social ties and all the bitterness which partisan- ship gives to political discussion. At last the aid of the law was invoked and Hopkins sued Ward for slander. It is a singular illustration of the altered relations between Rhode Island and Massachusetts that in order to obtain an impar- tial jury the trial should have taken place at Worcester. Ward was acquitted and Hopkins condemned to pay the costs. In a few years the party contest gave way to the graver contest of the Revolution wherein the two leaders took their seats side by side in Congress Hall.
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