Page images
PDF
EPUB

172 GOV. FRANKLIN CONVENES THE ASSEMBLY.

the trial of the offenders, and to give weight and dignity to it, a number of gentlemen of rank and character were associated with the Justices of the Supreme Court. In Essex the rioters were promptly punished; but in Monmouth, where the disaffection was more general, they were screened from chastisement by the sympathy of their fellowcitizens.

A meeting of the Legislature was also called, for the purpose of reviving and continuing process in the Courts of the county of Monmouth, and adopting such measures as might be necessary, to vindicate the majesty of the law, and support the authority of government. Governor Franklin sent a message to the Assembly, recommending the passage of a number of laws, which he thought the exigencies of the occasion required; and telling them very plainly, that in his opinion, this cry against lawyers was raised only for the purposes of deception, and that the unwillingness of some to pay their just debts, and the inability of others, were the true causes of all the difficulties that had arisen. The House in reply assured the Governor, that they would ever discountenance such riotous proceedings, and would heartily join in such measures, as were necessary to bring the offenders to condign punishment; and they declared, that the

best remedy against any abuses from the practitioners of the law, was one, which the people had in their own hands, namely, a patriotic spirit of frugality and industry, and an honest care to fulfill con

tracts.

It might be worth while to inquire, whether those who thus made war upon the lawyers, were equally ready to take up arms against the enemies of their country, in the contest which soon followed. We know there were a good many Tories in the county of Monmouth, as well as in other parts of the State; and if the truth were known, I suspect it would be found, that among those who took sides with the British, were included most of the individuals who were engaged in these riotous proceedings. Nor is this mere conjecture. The same thing happened precisely in North Carolina, where in 1771, a body of men, to the number of about fifteen hundred, calling themselves "Regulators," and complaining of the oppressions attending the practice of the law, rose in arms, for the purpose of exterminating lawyers, and shutting up the Courts of justice. And yet most of these very persons, in the Revolution, joined the royal party, and enlisted under the King's banner.1 Nor should this

1 Grahame's Col. Hist., II. 466. Sabine's American Loyalists, 26.

surprise us. The freedom for which our fathers contended, was not an unlicensed freedom, but a liberty regulated by law.

In 1772, Chief Justice Smyth was appointed one of the Commisioners to examine into the affair of the burning of the British Schooner Gaspee, by a party of Rhode Island Whigs. Wanton, the Governor of Rhode Island, Horsmanden, Chief Justice of New York, Oliver, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, and Auchmuty, Judge of Admiralty, were associated with him in the Commission. They began their sitting at Newport, on the fifth of January, 1773, and continued in session until the twenty-fourth of June. But although the most diligent and searching inquiries were made, and large rewards offered for the discovery of the offenders, not a particle of evidence could be procured against a single individual. This is the "Court" alluded to, in the address of the first Congress, to the inhabitants of the Colonies, where it is said, "A Court has been established at Rhode Island, for the purpose of taking colonists to England to be tried." It was a Court of Inquiry only; and if any delinquents had been detected, they were to have been sent to England for trial.

1 Grahame's Col. Hist., II. 467. Gordon.

Holmes.

2 Griffith's Historical Notes, p. 261.

The time had now arrived, when it became necessary for every man to decide upon the part which he would take in the approaching contest. It is due to Chief Justice Smyth to say, that he never seems for one moment to have faltered in his course. He was throughout, a firm and consistent loyalist. Nor was he at any pains to conceal his sentiments. Thus, in a charge to the Grand Jury of the county of Essex, at the Term of November, 1774, he alluded to the troubled state of the times, and among other things observed, "that the imaginary tyranny three thousand miles distant," was less to be feared and guarded against, than the "real tyranny at our own doors." This was bold language to be uttered, at such a time, and in such a place; and it drew from the Grand Jury a reply, so spirited and patriotic, that it deserves a conspicuous place among the memorials of our Revolutionary history.

66

After expressing their obligations to the Chief Justice for his "friendly admonitions," and the paternal tenderness” he had evinced for their welfare, they proceed to say:-" But respecting the tyranny at the distance of three thousand miles, which your Honor is pleased to represent as imaginary, we have the unhappiness widely to differ from you in opinion. The effect, Sir, of that tyranny is too

severely felt, to have it thought altogether visionary. We cannot think, Sir, that taxes imposed upon us by our fellow subjects, in a Legislature in which we are not represented, is an imaginary, but that it is a real and actual tyranny; and of which no nation whatsoever can furnish a single instance. We cannot think, Sir, that depriving us of the inestimable right of trial by jury; seizing our persons, and carrying us for trial to Great Britain, is a tyranny merely imaginary. Nor can we think with your Honor, that destroying Charters, and changing our forms of Government, is a tyranny altogether ideal:-That an Act passed to protect, indemnify, and screen from punishment, such as may be guilty even of murder, is a bare idea;— That the establishment of French Laws and Popish religion in Canada, the better to facilitate the arbitrary schemes of the British Ministry, by making the Canadians instruments in the hands of power to reduce us to slavery, has no other than a mental existence. In a word, Sir, we cannot persuade ourselves, that the Fleet now blocking up the port of Boston, consisting of ships built of real English oak, and solid iron, and armed with cannon of ponderous metal, with actual powder and ball; nor the Army lodged in the Town of Boston, and the fortifications thrown about it,-substantial and formida

« PreviousContinue »