The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (59 page)

Not surprisingly, Gage's letters to the ministry conveyed something of his desperation and panic. He was not up against the Boston "rabble" and he said so; rather, he faced the "freeholders and farmers" of New England. To crush them he needed reinforcements, and he had already ordered regiments from New York and Canada to Boston. Nor did he hesitate to tell the ministry that he needed troops from home. None of these reinforcements would arrive soon, of course. While he waited, feeling naked and vulnerable, Gage recommended the suspension of the Intolerable Acts. These acts, after all, had aroused the Americans.
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Although there was fear in Gage's account, there was also realism. He could not hope to put down a rebellion with the forces under his command, and lifting the Intolerable Acts surely would have undermined the most extreme radicals in America. The king and the ministry saw things differently. They shared Gage's displeasure as the news of American resistance came in; Thomas Hutchinson noted that Dartmouth and John Pownall were "thunder-struck" on learning of the Suffolk Resolves. North told Hutchinson that matters seemed "desperate" and insisted that "Parliament would not -- could not -- concede. For aught he could see it must come to violence." A few days later he was saying flatly that' Massachusetts was "in actual rebellion, and must be subdued." The king shared these opinions -- "the new England Governments are in a State of Rebellion, blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this Country or independent" -- but he was repelled by Gage's proposal to suspend the Intolerable Acts -- "the most absurd," he told North, "that can be suggested."
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Gage indeed had very nearly undone himself in his dispatches of late summer and early fall, and by December his recall was certain. The month before, Suffolk, Secretary of State for the Northern Department, had urged that Gage be relieved of his command but the king held back as news of the Congress worsened -- the ministry learned from an informer what the Congress did even though its sessions were secret -and as Gage's panic deepened. With Gage simultaneously clamoring for 20,000 troops, urging that a decisive blow be struck, and recommend-

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ing suspension of the Intolerable Acts, the king decided he had had enough. He thereupon offered the American command to Jeffrey Amherst, a soldier with wide experience in America. Amherst, however, who detested America and hated service there, turned his king down. Soon after, as a temporary expedient the king decided to send a major general to aid Gage, a decision that eventually resulted in the dispatch of Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne.
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The problem of policy -- what response should be given to the rebellious actions of the Americans -- remained. By late January the ministry had decided on a policy -- one, as it turned out, strikingly similar to the old one which, of course, had nearly brought open rebellion. The main features of this policy looked toward repression: New England's trade was to be strictly confined to the empire and the fisheries were to be closed to New England's ships; reinforcements of ships and troops were to be sent to Gage and Admiral Graves, and as a measure of conciliation an offer was made to stop taxing the colonies (while the right to tax was to remain) if the colonies agreed to support all civil and military needs. There was ambivalence in this policy though, to be sure, its main emphasis was on coercion. Both Dartmouth and North yearned for reconciliation before force had to be used. The king was not averse to trying conciliation so long as the right to tax was not yielded; he, however, had none of the hope that his ministers still retained.
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In January before the ministry could present its American program to Parliament, it had to head off Chatham's last great attempt to restore peaceful relations. Ever secretive and dramatic, Chatham concealed his plans from the Rockinghams, the major opposition to the ministry, and did not try to draw them to his side. His proposal involved the withdrawal of troops from Boston and the passage of legislation which would reaffirm Parliament's sovereignty but also provide that the colonies should not be taxed without their consent. Chatham also proposed that in return for recognition the Congress should grant the Crown a perpetual revenue. The Coercive Acts would be lifted and so would a dozen other statutes the colonies had complained of in the last ten years.
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It was a daring and hopeless proposal. It presumed to recast imperial relations in such fundamental ways as to imply that members of Parliament were creatures utterly without pride, that they would admit errors without a blush once they were exposed, and act speedily to correct

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them. It also assumed that the Americans had not really meant to reject Parliament's sovereignty and that they would back off if Parliament repealed disagreeable statutes and promised not to exercise its legitimate right to tax them.

Parliament did not spend much time in disposing of Chatham's fancy, and in the next two months it moved to approve the ministry's program. In the first week of February both houses approved an address to the king declaring the colonies in rebellion and calling for forceful measures to ensure obedience to the laws and sovereignty of England. The members spoke long and the debate dragged on, but the issue was never in doubt. Two weeks later North held out his "olive branch" to the colonies; an offer to desist from taxing any colony that made acceptable provisions for the support of civil and military government within its boundaries. After this proposal received Parliamentary approval, the ministry pushed through legislation restraining New England's trade and fisheries -- extended in April to all the colonies except New York and North Carolina. Burke observed sardonically that by this legislation the government proposed "to preserve your authority by destroying your dominions."
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Sitting in Boston, Gage was beginning to believe that British authority could be preserved in no other way. During the autumn and winter he had received a series of surprises which persuaded him that only force could bring the Americans to heel, but he also believed he lacked a body of troops large enough to do the job. What distressed him most was the ferocity and unanimity of the opposition he faced. The treatment of the mandamus councillors was harsh yet not altogether unexpected; but the response in September 1774 to his seizure of gunpowder in Charlestown and cannon in Cambridge was almost overwhelming. Militia from as far away as Connecticut marched to Boston's aid as the rumors swirled through New England. About four thousand men gathered, and they were prepared to fight.
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Once this episode passed, Gage had to contemplate the growing strength of the militia in Massachusetts. Every act of the Provincial Congress was forbidding, as money was appropriated and plans set afoot to purchase arms and supplies. When the Congress adjourned it left behind a committee of safety charged with calling out the provincial

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militia should Gage so much as send 500 regulars outside Boston.
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Not everything Gage tried failed. In September he set about fortifying Boston Neck and found men in and out of Boston to do the work -and to sell him construction materials. To be sure, unfriendly citizens -doubtless including artisans and craftsmen put out of work by the Boston Port Act -- sabotaged the construction whenever they could, smashing bricks and setting straw afire, but it proceeded nonetheless. Shortly the Neck was fortified with cannon, and Gage soon discovered that information as well as labor and supplies could be purchased. Sometime in the winter he engaged the services of several informers -- the exact number is unknown -- including Dr. Benjamin Church, who was close to the inner circle of the Provincial Congress. Church and the others may have volunteered information, though there is evidence that some expected, and received, a reward for their services. The stories they told and the plans they betrayed did not reassure Gage as to British prospects in America.
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By late January 1775, feeling exposed and ignored and increasingly vulnerable in Boston, Gage began to scout the roads leading inland. On one of these patrols Captain Brown, accompanied by Ensign DeBerniere and one private, set out to sample public opinion in Suffolk and Worcester counties and to map the roads. They never reached Worcester County. A sharp-eyed tavern keeper penetrated their disguises -- the three wore civilian clothes -- and passed the word of their presence. Before long they were warned to return to Boston and were lucky to escape without suffering physical attack. From this experience and similar ones, Gage learned again what it was to command a standing army in an unfriendly country where he was spied upon, sabotaged, and unable to move a squad without its maneuvers being reported.

Among others Paul Revere did the reporting. Revere headed an informal group of unemployed artisans who watched every move of the troops. When the troops did anything out of the ordinary, Revere sent word to Joseph Warren, who dispatched the news to the committee of safety in Concord.
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Gage may have considered an attempt to arrest the leaders of the Provincial Congress, or more likely he was preparing to seize munitions stored in Concord and Worcester.
Whatever his intentions at this time,

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he tipped his hand by sending scouts on these roads. He also exercised larger bodies of troops on roads leading from Boston and thereby alarmed eager watchers in and out of the city. What Gage badly needed during these gloomy winter months were instructions from home telling him what to do. All he received was an order to intercept guns smuggled into the colonies from Europe, a task he would have been delighted to do had he been able.

On April 14, 1775, instructions arrived: a long letter from Dartmouth which summed up the ministry's views and which, though not altogether explicit in its directions, by its reproving tone and substance compelled action. The letter reeked of the ministry's disappointment in what Gage had reported in the autumn: Gage should not have allowed Boston to maintain a town guard and he should not have allowed the militia to train in Faneuil Hall. His request for 20,000 troops could not be met, and they probably were not necessary anyway since the violence in Massachusetts was the work of a "rude Rabble" (a characterization Gage had long since repudiated) without "plan" and without "concert" and "conduct." In any case, if, as Gage had written, "actual Revolt" existed or nearly did and the people seemed determined "to commit themselves at all Events in open Rebellion," then "Force should be repelled by Force." In urging the use of force, Dartmouth did not mean to propose that Gage attack the Massachusetts militia wherever he could find it. Rather, as he told Gage, the ministry and the king agreed that the most appropriate action would be the arrest of the leaders of the Provincial Congress. Move secretly without warning, he urged, and added -somewhat ambiguously, given this exhortation for secrecy -- that an unprepared and unorganized people "cannot be very formidable." Gage had long since warned that such action would set off war, and Dartmouth now replied that "it will surely be better that the Conflict should be brought on, upon such ground, than in a riper state of Rebellion."
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