attempted to enforce the tea duties, it unwittingly gave a few Bostonians a masquerade party in their harbor one night.
That event, which happened two years ago, still enrages much of England. It’s one thing to refuse to unload the tea like they did in New York. It’s another thing to masquerade as Indians, trespass on a private vessel and dump its contents overboard.
Lord North convinced Parliament to answer with the Coercive Acts.
People here call them the Intolerable Acts. Parliament is finally getting tough under North. It closed the port of Boston and wrote the colonists out of government by giving George III the right to appoint his people in the colonies’ upper houses of government. The colonies discussed the Acts with each other through their Committees of Correspondence and then answered England by declaring the Acts unconstitutional.
Wasn’t the so-called Boston “Tea Party” condemned here, too?
You bring up a very good point. There’s more than one power struggle going on over here. Gage’s war with the New England militia is more visible, but its potential for bloodshed isn’t any more threatening than the dissension between those who call themselves “Patriots” and those who call themselves “Loyalists.” Some of these people are militant and they hate each other’s politics with a passion.
Why so much open bitterness?
For one thing they’re encouraged to from the pulpit. Preachers on both sides of the conflict claim God has given them the nod. Loyalists swear by the divine right of kings and they site scripture to prove their case. Patriots pull out their own passages from the same Bible to argue that King and Parliament have no rights over them at all. Many Patriots are convinced they’ve been chosen by God to declare their independence from England.
Some have called this conflict a rebellion and others call it a revolution. How do you see it?
Of course it’s a revolution to the Patriots. King George’s England, however, would label it a nasty little rebellion.
How do you mean?
He’s convinced that the radicals are small in number and the Loyalists will rise up and fight with his troops, much like this whole country did in the French and Indian wars.
Do you think they will?
I’m not sure at this point. There are over 10,000 Patriot militia around Cambridge right now and I haven’t seen one armed Loyalist yet. They may come out when Gage moves his army on the mainland but right now the Patriots seem to have the leverage nearly everywhere.
In what way?
They’ve gained control over most of the colonies by usurping the local and provincial governments the King and Parliament put in place. Here in Massachusetts they’ve literally thrown politicians who don’t agree with them out of office. They’ve formed so-called Committees of Safety all over the colonies. These Committees have run many Loyalists off. Of course, all this could change when the militia come up against Gage and his armies again.
He wasn’t too successful the last time, was he?
Well, he can’t pull back when he has them running. Clinton’s reserves might have mopped them up at Cambridge.
Washington is considered a farmer rather than a military man. Was his appointment purely political?
Whoever came up with the notion that Washington isn’t a career officer hasn’t done his homework. The man has been in and out of the military since the age of 20. In fact, he ordered the shots that began the French and Indian War. He’s requested an officer’s commission from the British at least three times that I know of.
And he never received one?
That’s right. They turned him down on all three occasions and now they just might live to regret it, because he has to feel he has something to prove. He wanted command and he courted Congress for it. Showed up at every session in uniform. He was the only delegate who looked military. Did a great job of selling himself.
Do you think these people can beat the British?
They’ve shown they can damage them more than anyone expected. If the Loyalists stay in the background and this becomes a long, drawn out war, it’s anybody’s guess.
Can Washington make a decent army with the men you’ve seen?
Hard to say. They are a very unruly bunch and they aren’t about to put themselves or their muskets under just anyone’s authority.
Do you think the independence movement will take hold over here?
Unless England is willing to let them govern themselves under some sort of commonwealth, I can’t imagine these people heading in any other direction but toward independence. It may take a long, bitter, bloody while, though.
Is there a chance England might relinquish any power in order to avoid a war?
I doubt it. The English have a distorted view of these people. They look on a colonist as though he was a child, very dependent on England for his livelihood and protection. In reality, these people have carved good lives for themselves out of some very rugged land over the years, and with very little help. And they aren’t accustomed to being told where to put their money. They’ve never been shot at by their own government either. Then again, England’s never had her authority, much less a good part of her empire threatened by her settlers.
You’ve more or less painted a picture of an England about to plunge into a war she could avoid simply by yielding a few powers she’s found next to impossible to hold on to.
Well, when we talk of England we’re talking about King George III, a man with a large ego, a good sense of history and absolutely zero tolerance for anyone who disagrees with him. He’s not going to the grave as the monarch who lost 20 percent of the British Empire to what he views as a gang of rebels sitting in Philadelphia.
Thank you, Mr. A., for your observations.
You’re welcome.
SURGEON GENERAL ARRESTED FOR TREASON
Washington to Court Martial Dr. Benjamin Church
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Oct. 2, 1775. Rebel leaders were stunned yesterday afternoon when they learned that Commander George Washington placed his Surgeon General under arrest and bound him over for Court Martial. Dr. Benjamin Church, the highly respected Patriot physician has been accused of passing military information and congressional secrets to British General Thomas Gage.
Church’s alleged espionage was discovered in a ciphered letter he wrote to a British major on Gage’s staff shortly after the battle of Lexington. Apparently, the letter was meant to be delivered by Church’s mistress, a woman residing in Newport, Rhode Island. Unable to deliver
