It was Parliament as theater, and gripping, even if the outcome, like much of theater, was understood all along. For importantly it was also well understood, and deeply felt, that the historic chamber was again the setting for history, that issues of the utmost consequence, truly the fate of nations, were at stake.
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At about the time the chandeliers were being lighted in the House, John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London, champion of the people and the homeliest man in Parliament, stood to be heard, and to let there be no doubt that he was John Wilkes. “I speak, Sir, as a firm friend to England and America, but still more to universal liberty and the rights of all mankind. I trust no part of the subjects of this vast empire will ever submit to be slaves.” Never had England been engaged in a contest of such import to her own best interests and possessions, Wilkes said. We are fighting for the subjection, the unconditional submission of a country infinitely more extended than our own, of which every day increases the wealth, the natural strength, the population. Should we not succeed…we shall be considered as... (查看原文)
Johnstone praised the people of New England for their courage and fortitude. There was a wide difference, he said, between the English officer or soldier who merely did his duty, and those of the New England army, where every man was thinking of what further service he could perform. No one who loved “the glorious spirit of freedom” could not be moved by the spectacle of Bunker Hill, where “an irregular peasantry” had so bravely faced “the gallant Howe” leading the finest troops in the world. “Who is there that can dismiss all doubts on the justice of a cause which can inspire such conscious rectitude?”
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it had been Isaac Barré, in a past speech in defense of the Americans, who had first called them “Sons of Liberty,” and the name had taken hold. He had lost one eye, the colonel reminded his listeners, but the one good “military eye” he had left did not deceive him. The only way to avert “this American storm” was to reach an accommodation just as soon as possible.
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(Fox) I cannot consent to the bloody consequences of so silly a contest about so silly an object, conducted in the silliest manner that history or observation has ever furnished an instance of, and from which we are likely to derive nothing but poverty, disgrace, defeat, and ruin.
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ASKED WHAT THEY WERE FIGHTING FOR, most of the army—officers and men in the ranks—would until now have said it was in defense of their country and of their rightful liberties as freeborn Englishmen. It was to “defend our common rights” that he went to war, Nathanael Greene had told his wife. The British regulars, the hated redcoats, were the “invaders” and must be repelled. “We are soldiers who devote ourselves to arms not for the invasion of other countries but for the defense of our own, not for the gratification of our own private interest, but for the public security,” Greene had written in another letter to Samuel Ward. Writing to General Thomas, Washington had said the object was “neither glory nor extent of territory, but a defense of all that is dear and valuable in life.”
Indepen... (查看原文)
While the dregs of society did indeed count among the King’s troops, the great majority were young countrymen from rural England, Scotland, and Ireland. They were farmers, unskilled laborers, and tradesmen—blacksmiths, cordwainers, carpenters, bakers, hatters, locksmiths, and weavers—who had
been recruited, not pressed into service, drawn by the promise of clothing, food, and steady, if meager, pay, along with a chance at adventure, perhaps even a touch of glory. In their rural or small-town origins they were not greatly different from their American counterparts.
The average British regular was in his late twenties, or about five years older than the average American soldier, but the average regular had served five or six years in the army, or five or six times longer than the average v... (查看原文)
On reaching the Brooklyn side, he saw, as he never had, the blood and suffering of wounded men. “What were the feelings of most or all the young soldiers at this time, I know not,” he would remember, “but I know what were mine.”
I saw a lieutenant who…. ran round among the men of his company, sniveling and blubbering, praying each one if he had aught against him, or if he had injured any one, that they would forgive him, declaring at the same time that he, from his heart, forgave them if they had offended him…had he been at the gallows with a halter about his neck, he could not have shown more fear or penitence. A fine soldier you are, I thought, a fine officer, an exemplary man for young soldiers! I would have suffered anything short of death rather than have made such an exhibition of m... (查看原文)
The year 1776, celebrated as the birth year of the nation and for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was for those who carried the fight for independence forward a year of all-too-few victories, of sustained suffering, disease, hunger, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear, as they would never forget, but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country, and that, too, they would never forget.
Especially for those who had been with Washington and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning—how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities or strengths of individual character had made the difference—the outcome seemed little short of a miracle.
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