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A History of the United States. Charles Kendall Adams
Читать онлайн.Название A History of the United States
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isbn 4064066200824
Автор произведения Charles Kendall Adams
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
| [58] | Born in 1738; died, 1820. Began his reign with an obstinate determination to increase the power of the Crown; accepted the resignation of Pitt, and called weak ministers about him; persisted in his policy of taxing America and humiliating the colonies; reluctantly consented to peace in 1782; became mentally incompetent during the later years of his life, when the government was transferred to his son as Prince Regent (1811–1820). |
| [59] | American orator, patriot, and agitator, second cousin of John Adams; born, 1722; died, 1803. Studied for a time at Harvard College; was unsuccessful in business took an active part in political affairs; drew up Boston’s protest against Grenville’s scheme of taxation in 1764; was among the foremost speakers and writers for the American cause from 1765 to 1774; secured from Hutchinson the removal of troops in 1770; member of Continental Congress from 1774 to 1781; voted for the Federal Constitution in 1788, though strongly opposed to some of its measures; was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1789 to 1794, and governor from 1794 to 1797. |
| [60] | Revolutionary patriot and orator; born, 1728; died, 1778. Graduated at Harvard, 1743; opposed the Writs of Assistance, in a celebrated speech, 1761; published Rights of the Colonies Vindicated, in 1764; moved the appointment of a Stamp Act Congress in 1765 and was one of the delegates; made a spirited opposition to the “Townshend Acts”; was severely injured by some British officers in 1769, and was insane for the remainder of his life. |
| [61] | Born, 1736; died, 1799. After failing in farming and trading, he became a lawyer in 1760; in 1763 attracted attention by a noted speech; entered House of Burgesses in 1765, where he uttered his famous arraignment of the Stamp Act; assisted in organizing committees of correspondence; was member of First Continental Congress; gave his “liberty or death” speech in 1775; was the first governor of Virginia in 1776–1778; also governor, 1784 and 1785; was a strenuous believer in states’ rights, and for this reason opposed the adoption of the Federal Constitution. |
| [62] | Born, 1732; died, 1808. Became a Philadelphia leader; elected to the Colonial Congress in 1765; published the famous Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer, in 1768; elected to the Continental Congress in 1774; wrote the two petitions to the king and numerous other important public papers; opposed the Declaration of Independence as premature; served loyally in the army; was president of Delaware in 1781; president of Pennsylvania from 1782 to 1785; member of the Federal Convention in 1787, and a strenuous advocate of the adoption of the Constitution. |
| [63] | Dickinson summed up his argument by declaring: “Let these truths be indelibly impressed upon the mind: that we cannot be happy without being free; that we cannot be free without being secure in our property; that we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may as by right take it away; that duties laid for the sole purpose of raising money are taxes; that attempts to lay such duties should be instantly and fearlessly opposed; that such opposition can never be effectual unless it be by the effort of these provinces.” |
| [64] | Born, 1711; died, 1780. Member of the General Court of Massachusetts, 1737–1740 and from 1741 to 1749; speaker from 1746 to 1748; lieutenant governor in 1756; appointed chief justice in 1760; had his house sacked and his valuable library destroyed by a mob infuriated by his action in regard to the Stamp Act in 1765; appointed governor of the province in 1770; letters of his revealed by Franklin intensified the belief that he was responsible for the acts of the British government; sailed for England in 1774, where he died a conscientious and high-minded Tory. He was the author of an important history of Massachusetts. |
| [65] | This famous old church in the heart of Boston, the meeting place of the Revolutionists, was used as a place of worship until far into the nineteenth century. When it was in danger of being destroyed, it was bought by a society organized for the purpose, and has since been used as a historical museum and a place for instruction in American history. |
| [66] | Born, 1737; died, 1793. Earnest patriot, and member of the Massachusetts legislature from 1766 to 1772; became member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in 1774; was exempted from pardon by Governor Gage in 1775; was in Continental Congress from 1775 to 1780, and from 1785 to 1786; president of Congress from 1775 to 1777; signer of the Declaration of Independence, his bold signature standing first on the document; was commissioned as major general; delegate to Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1780; governor of Massachusetts from 1780 to 1785, and from 1787 to 1792; liberally used his large fortune for patriotic and benevolent purposes. |
CHAPTER VII.
the campaigns of 1775 and 1776.
EARLY MOVEMENTS.
144. Continental Army and Commander in Chief.—When the Second Continental Congress came together in the spring of 1775, one of its first acts was to adopt as a continental army the forces which had enlisted in Massachusetts. It then performed an act of the greatest possible service to the cause by appointing George Washington[67] commander in chief. Washington was forty-three years of age, and the important services he had rendered in Virginia and Pennsylvania (§§ 106-111) had given him such military knowledge and such accuracy of judgment in dealing with men as made him universally respected and admired. He accepted the appointment with a full sense of the greatness of the task, and declared that he would receive no pay, but would rely on Congress to reimburse him for his expenses.
145. Capture of Ticonderoga.—While Congress was taking these preliminary steps, there was great activity in various parts of the country. Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, with a small force from Vermont, assisted by a few men from Connecticut under Benedict Arnold, surprised and captured Fort Ticonderoga. By this success the Americans got possession of an important fort, as well as of many stores and more than two hundred cannon.
146. Fortification of Bunker Hill.—As soon as the news of Lexington and Concord spread through the colonies, troops poured in to the vicinity of Boston from Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania. Before the middle of June, Boston, on the land side, was thoroughly invested. The British had seventeen battalions of infantry and five companies of artillery, and before June their army was joined by three major generals—Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne. Late in the afternoon of June 16, General Ward, then in command of the Americans, ordered a force to take possession of Bunker Hill, a commanding point in Charlestown, just north of Boston. About twelve hundred troops under Colonel Prescott, a veteran of the French War, went over from Cambridge with spades and picks, which in the course of the night they used so industriously that the British soldiers in the morning saw strong works confronting them. But instead of obeying orders and occupying Bunker Hill, Prescott occupied Breed’s Hill, a point nearer Boston.
Boston and Environs, 1775