XLIII. mand for money was made with fleets and armies; CHAP. unjust, as it asked increased contributions without renouncing as an equivalent the monopoly of trade; 1775. July. unwarrantable, as a wrongful intermeddling in the colonial support of civil government; unsatisfactory, since it left the obnoxious acts unrepealed; insufficient, as it did not renounce the claim of a right to alter colonial charters and laws; insincere, as coming from a minister who had declared "that he would never treat with America, till he had brought her to his feet;" and delusive, as it offered no option but of devastation or abject submission. On the other hand, if the king would order a truce and point out a method for treating with the colonies jointly, they would desire nothing better than a colonial constitution, to be established by a mutual agreement. Content with this declaration, and clinging to the hope of a speedy adjustment with Britain, congress shunned energetic measures to the last. For the transmission of intelligence, Franklin was selected to organize a post office, and thus came to be known as the first postmaster general; a hospital was agreed to for the army, and Benjamin Church elected its director; the rate of pay of officers and soldiers was finally settled; but these votes added no real strength; what was really wanting was money and munitions of war. For money, a third million of dollars was ordered to be struck in paper bills. To promote their credit, some mode for redeeming them must be devised. There was no commerce, and therefore no hope of revenue from duties upon imports. Besides, congress had no power to enforce taxes of any kind. It was necessary, there XLIII. CHAP. fore, to charge each separate colony with the obligation to provide for sinking its quota of the bills issued 1775. by the general congress. Here, at the creation of the July. national finances, the question arose as to the proper principle for the apportionment; whether wealth or population; and, if of population, whether slaves should be numbered as well as freemen. After a long opportunity for deliberation, it was agreed that population should constitute the distributive rule; and that all persons, including free negroes, mulattoes, and slaves, should be counted. Thus, to the correct principle of "no representation, no taxation," and of representation in proportion to population, was added the injustice of taxation in proportion to representation; so that the continental revenue was to be sustained by a collective poll tax. Of four annual instalments, by which the continental notes were to be redeemed, the earliest was adjourned to the last day of November, 1779; in other words, was adjourned indefinitely. Paper money, which was never to be sunk but by the concurring action of twelve or thirteen colonies at distant periods, was virtually irredeemable, and would surely depreciate with rapidity; yet the united colonies had no other available resource, when they rose against a king who easily commanded annually twenty millions of pounds sterling in solid money. There was no mode of obtaining munitions of war but by throwing open the ports and inviting commerce, especially with the French and Dutch colonies; yet the last act of congress, before its adjournment, was the renewal of the agreement, neither XLIII. directly nor indirectly to export any merchandise or CHAP. commodity whatever to Great Britain, Ireland, or to the British, or even to the foreign, West Indies. On the first day of August the congress adjourned for five weeks, leaving the insurgent country without a visible government, and no representative of its unity but Washington and the army. 1775. Aug. XLIV. CHAPTER XLIV. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, 1775. CHAP. THE duties of Washington were more various and burdensome than ever devolved upon a European Aug. commander. In the absence of an organized conti 1775. nental government, and with a most imperfect one in Massachusetts, it fell on him to take all thought for his army, from its general direction to the smallest want of his soldiers. Standing conspicuous before the world, with apparently no limiting authority at his side, he made it his rule, as a military chief, to obey most scrupulously the directions of the civil power, which, from its inchoate character, was feeble and uncertain, prompt to resolve rashly, destitute of system, economy, and consistent perseverance. In his intercourse with the neighboring colonial governments, whose good will was his main resource, he showed the same deference to their laws, the same courtesy to their magistrates; and his zeal to give effectiveness to his power, never hurried him beyond CHAP. his self-prescribed bounds. XLIV. Congress had voted him five hundred thousand 1775. Aug. dollars, in its rapidly depreciating paper, but the persons who were to sign the bills were dilatory; and in a scene of confusion and discord, without money, without powder, without artillery, without proper arms, he was yet expected to organize victory and drive the British from Boston. By the fourth of August the army was already formed into three grand divisions, at Roxbury, Cambridge, and Winter Hill, under the respective command of Ward, Lee, and Putnam. Each division consisted of two brigades, each brigade of about six regiments; but Washington was still unable to return the fire of the enemy, or do more than exchange a few shot by scouting parties; for when, with considerable difficulty, he obtained an accurate return of the amount of powder on hand, he found much less than half a ton; not more than enough to furnish his men with nine rounds of cartridge. The extremity of danger could not be divulged, even while he was forced to apply in every direction for relief. To Cooke, the governor of Rhode Island, he wrote on the fourth of August, for every pound of powder and lead that could possibly be spared from that colony; no quantity, however small, was beneath notice; the extremity of the case called loudly for the most strenuous exertions, and did not admit of the least delay. He invoked the enterprise of John Brown and other merchants of Providence; he sent an address to the inhabitants of Bermuda, from which island a vessel, under Orde of Philadelphia, actually brought off a hundred barrels |