THE AMERICAN TOWN IN THE AMERICAN

REVOLUTION.

ADDRESS BY C. W. ERNST, A.M.

FEEL a little reluctance in coming here. While I have a salary from the City of Boston, I do not quite like to travel outside of my immediate duties.

It is not easy to say things that are very pleasing, or new, or important; but you have made my task easy by letting me talk to you, and with you, on THE AMERICAN TOWN IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

I have an impression that historians have rather overlooked that subject. To be sure, I have not read all historians, and, perhaps, cannot; there are so many of them. And I never knew that it was worth while to read second-hand information when you can get first-hand evidence. But if the historians have left any impression upon public opinion, is it not something like this, that people view the Revolution as a conflict between the American people and the Crown of England, between the United States and Great Britain?

But when Boston was evacuated, there was no United States. We all remember Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. When those great events took place, there was no United States. Is it not true that the United States was rather the result of the Revolution than its cause or its occasion? The Revolution, at least. in its origin, cannot have been a conflict between Great Britain and the United States.

We count it a peculiar glory that the first and greatest of all events in the Revolution, the evacuation of Boston, took place

before the United States existed, and contributed very largely to the establishment of the United States.

Nor was it a conflict, so far as we can see, between the Kingdom of Great Britain and any of the American States. A conflict between the Crown of England and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or the Province of Massachusetts, was impossible. The charter of Massachusetts was given by the Crown. The Crown was free to change it, to replace it by another, to cancel it altogether. There was no opportunity for a conflict between the Province and the Crown.

The Crown sent its own Governor here. To be sure, we had the General Court, which represented the people of Massachusetts; but every Act of the General Court was subject to revisal by the Crown Governor, and, after the Governor was through with these Acts of the General Court, they were all packed up and sent to England, to be revised by the Crown, meaning the Privy Council.

And I wonder greatly that the Privy Council, which was supposed to comprise at least a few bright men, not many, should have let so many Massachusetts Acts slip through.

Now, if the conflict was not, in its origin, between the Crown of England and the United States, nor between the Crown and the individual States, what was it? By elimination, I think, we shall arrive at the conclusion that it began as a conflict between a great Empire and a little Town in North America called Boston.

That statement sounds strange. And yet it is not without some foundation. At least, in those days the world took that view. The outside world, the continent of Europe, foreign nations, saw nothing but on the one side a New World Empire called Great Britain, and the other a little Town in North America called Boston. And the world was duly astonished.

When the people of France invented a new game of cards, about 1776, they called it "Boston."

You all know the story of Captain Gray, the first white man to take a ship into the Columbia River. Those poor natives asked him: "Who are you? Are you Spanish?" “No.” “Are you an Englishman?" "No." "Where do you come from?"

We

"I come from Boston." "Oh, Boston is a good Town. know all about Boston. You are welcome." And from that event it is called the Columbia River today, and Americans are still known in Alaska as Boston men.

I merely wanted to give you an intimation of the view that mankind took of the origin of the American Revolution in 1775. And it seems to me that the function of the Town in the Revolution is in some need of reconsideration, for many reasons. We all know the latest American history, written by a distinguished fellow-citizen of ours, in which we read once more that up to the Revolution all America was loyal to the Crown, loyal to England. I think they teach something like that in the schools, that, prior to the Revolution, all Americans were loyal British subjects.

Now, was that true of Boston? Was Boston loyal or attached or true to the Crown prior to the Revolution? Was Boston loyal to the Crown at the treaty of Paris in 1763, and at the time of the Stamp Act? Every school-boy, to use Macaulay's exaggeration, knows better.

Or go back a little. We have all heard of Pepperell taking Louisburg, in 1745. And why did he take it? He took it for exactly the same reason that Mr. Whitney has now taken it. It was wanted for the coal that is there. That is the true reason why Pepperell went to Louisburg and took it.

And then the English Crown concluded the peace of Aix-laChapelle, in 1748, and restored Louisburg and the coal fields to the French. Do you think that Boston felt grateful then, or loyal?

I might say something about the treaty of Utrecht, or about the Postal Act of 1710. In the days of the war over the Spanish succession, they carried through Parliament an Act which arranged the postal service in America and our postal rates. That was the first interference on the part of Parliament with the domestic concerns of this continent. And Massachusetts never recognised it. It was never proclaimed in Massachusetts. It was always repudiated; and, at the first opportunity they had, they established what they called the Constitutional Post, as against the King's Post. For Massachusetts was always

constitutional; Massachusetts was always orderly; Massachusetts always honored the law.

They tell you that we had smugglers. It is not true.

Massachusetts in the days of Queen Anne, as always, rejected Parliamentary interference with the domestic concerns of this Continent.

Or, go back still further, to 1691, when the Charter was given us by William and Mary. Do you think Massachusetts felt grateful for that Charter? How could its inhabitants feel grateful? They had no part in it.

King William sent over a Collector of Customs, by the name of Brenton. He was a Newport man. The name is commemorated in Brenton's Reef, which you know. Do you think Massachusetts felt grateful to him? Is it likely that Boston felt grateful to Andros, or for the quashing of the first Charter, or for the Restoration, in 1660, when the Stuarts returned to the throne?

Do you think Boston was loyal in 1630? Do you think Winthrop and his men came here to establish loyalty to England? Why, in the name of Heaven, did they leave England? Immigrants are sometimes suspected. You don't know, perhaps, why men leave one country and adopt another. Mr. Winthrop and the glorious fifteen hundred that came with him left England for good and sufficient reasons: To get rid of the Crown, to get rid of the Bishops, to get rid of Parliament, and to carve out their own fortunes. That is enough reason for any

one.

They were all Church of England men. The first thing they did when they came to Boston was to turn their backs upon the whole outfit, and to start an independent establishment of their own, which we know by the name of Congregationalism. Now, don't imagine that men change their church for light reasons. They don't.

And at the first opportunity they changed the whole Constitution of Massachusetts. They came here a trading company. As soon as they knew the settlement might possibly live, they started an independent Government, which they called the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

They abolished the oath of allegiance to the King, and re

quired the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They threw aside the very essence of the Charter of 1629, and started a Government of their own.

And, to make sure of everything, they built a fort, still commemorated in our " Fort Hill." That fort was not put up against Frenchmen, nor against Indians, nor against Spaniards, but against King Charles and the Government of England.

Historians of Massachusetts have not told us this interesting transition from a mere trading company,- comparable at best to something like the East India Company, to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is a symbol of honor among all nations and at all times.

It is a small matter, but it is worth telling, that, when Cromwell started the Commonwealth of England, he copied even the name from Massachusetts. It is always well to copy Massachusetts. Massachusetts has no apologies to offer.

When our first Charter was quashed in the times of James the Second, and a new departure had to be made, King William did the best he could. He gave up all that he thought he could give up, and he left to us all that he thought he could possibly leave to us. But he did appoint a Collector of Customs. And if you wish to get the quintessence of Boston history, study your custom house under the Crown.

The King appointed a Collector of Customs, to look after the Acts of Trade. It was a very delicate position to occupy.

Massachusetts established a protective tariff for revenue. And throughout the Province age you will find that there was a twoheaded customs establishment, the one representing the Crown, of which you have read exaggerated reports, and the other conducted by the Province of Massachusetts, of which you have heard very little. But it is sometimes the men of whom you hear the least that do the most work, and I suppose we are all old enough to have some distrust of those names that are so loudly heralded abroad.

However that may be, the King's Collector was apparently called "Collector" because he collected nothing, and the Puritans did the business. The naval officer was always appointed by Massachusetts, and the entries and clearances always ran, not