Reading the American Past: Printed Page 110

DOCUMENT 6–4

Daniel Leonard Argues for Loyalty to the British Empire

One of the wealthiest lawyers in Massachusetts, Daniel Leonard defended the actions of Britain and criticized the rebellious colonists. When his outspoken loyalist views caused supporters of colonial independence to threaten him with violence, Leonard evacuated his home outside Boston and moved into the city, and then to London in 1776. Between December 1774 and April 1775, Leonard wrote seventeen letters, excerpted below, outlining his arguments for loyalty to Britain. Published in a Boston newspaper and in pamphlet form, Leonard's letters documented the colonists' deep social, political, and ideological conflict on the eve of independence.

To the Inhabitants of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, 1774–1775

December 12, 1774

The press, when open to all parties and influenced by none, is a salutary engine in a free state, perhaps a necessary one to preserve the freedom of that state; but when . . . the press itself becomes an engine of oppression or licentiousness . . . [then it] is as pernicious to society as otherwise it would be beneficial. It is too true to be denied, that ever since the origin of our controversy with Great Britain, the press in this town [Boston], has been much devoted to the partisans of liberty [i.e., of colonial independence]. ... In short, the changes have been rung so often upon oppression, tyranny and slavery, that whether sleeping or waking, they are continually vibrating in our ears; and it is now high time to ask ourselves, whether we have not been deluded by sound only.

My dear countrymen, let us divest ourselves of prejudice, take a view of our present wretched situation, contrast it with our former happy one, carefully investigate the cause, and industriously seek some means to escape the evils we now feel, and prevent those we have reason to expect. ...

[P]erhaps many of us are insensible of our true state and real danger. Should you be told, that acts of high treason are flagrant through the country, that a great part of the province is in actual rebellion; would you believe it true? . . . Are not the bands of society cut asunder, and the sanctions, that hold man to man, trampled upon? Can any of us recover a debt, or obtain compensation for an injury, by law? Are not many persons, whom once we respected and revered, driven from their homes and families, and forced to fly to the army for protection, for no other reason but their having accepted commissions under our king? Is not civil government dissolved? . . . [W]hat kind of offence . . . is [it] for a number of men to assemble armed, and forceably to obstruct the course of justice, even to prevent the king's courts from being held at their stated terms; for a body of people to seize upon the king's provincial revenue, I mean monies collected . . . for the support of his [majesty's] government within this province; for a body of men to assemble without being called by authority, and to pass governmental acts; or for a number of people to take the militia out of the hands of the king's representatives; or to form a new militia, or to raise men and appoint officers for a public purpose, without the order or permission of the king or his representative; or for a number of men to take to their arms, and march with a professed design of opposing the king's troops. ...

We already feel the effects of anarchy: mutual confidence, affection and tranquillity, those sweeteners of human life, are succeeded by distrust, hatred, and wild uproar; the useful arts of agriculture and commerce are neglected for cabalizing [plotting], mobbing this or the other man, because he acts, speaks, or is suspected of thinking different from the prevailing sentiment of the times, in purchasing arms and forming a militia, O height of madness! with a professed design of opposing Great-Britain. I suspect many of us have been induced to join in these measures, or but faintly to oppose them, from an apprehension that Great-Britain would not or could not exert herself sufficiently to subdue America. Let us consider this matter: However closely we may hug ourselves in the opinion that the parliament has no right to tax or legislate for us, the people of England hold the contrary opinion as firmly: they tell us we are a part of the British empire; that every state from the nature of government must have a supreme uncontroulable power coextensive with the empire itself; and that, that power is vested in parliament. ... If the colonies are not a part of the British empire already, and subject to the supreme authority of the state, Great-Britain will make them so. ... For what has she protected and defended the colonies against the maritime powers of Europe, from their first British settlement to this day? For what did she purchase New-York of the Dutch? For what was she so lavish of her best blood and treasure in the conquest of Canada, and other territories in America? Was it to raise up a rival state, or to enlarge her own empire? Or, if the consideration of empire was out of the question, what security can she have of our trade, when once she has lost our obedience? . . . [Y]ou are much deceived, if you imagine that Great-Britain will accede to the claims of the colonies: she will as soon conquer New-England as Ireland or Canada, if either of them revolted; and by arms, if the milder influences of government prove ineffectual. ... [C]an any of you, that think soberly upon the matter, be so deluded as to believe that Great-Britain, who so lately carried her arms with success to every part of the globe, triumphed over the united powers of France and Spain, and whose fleets give law to the ocean, is unable to conquer us? Should the colonies unite in a war with Great-Britain (which by the way is not a supposable case) the colonies south of Pennsylvania would be unable to furnish any men; they have not more than is necessary to govern their numerous slaves, and to defend themselves against the Indians. I will suppose that the northern colonies can furnish as many, and indeed more men than can be used to advantage; but have you arms fit for a campaign? If you have arms, have you military stores, or can you procure them? When this war is proclaimed, all supplies from foreign parts will be cut off. Have you the money to maintain the war? Or had you all those things, some others are still wanting, which are absolutely necessary to encounter regular troops, that is discipline, and that subordination whereby each can command all below him from a general officer to the lowest subaltern; these you neither have nor can have in such a war. ... [L]et us now turn our eyes to our extensive sea coast, and that we find wholly at the mercy of Great-Britain; our trade, fishery, navigation and maritime towns taken from us, the very day that war is proclaimed. Inconceivably shocking the scene, if we turn our views to the wilderness; our back settlements a prey to our ancient enemy, the Canadians, whose wounds received from us in the late war will bleed afresh at the prospect of revenge, and to the numerous tribes of savages, whose tender mercies are cruelties; thus with the British navy in the front, Canadians and savages in the rear, a regular army in the midst, we must be certain that, when ever the sword of civil war is unsheathed, devastation will pass through our land like a whirlwind, our houses burnt to ashes, our fair possessions laid waste. ...

I have as yet said nothing of the difference in sentiment among ourselves: upon a superficial view we might imagine, that this province was nearly unanimous [in supporting colonial independence], but the case is far different. A very considerable part of the men of property in this province are at this day firmly attached to the cause of [British] government; bodies of men compelling persons to disavow sentiments, to resign commissions, or to subscribe leagues and covenants, have wrought no change in their sentiments: it has only attached them more closely to government, and caused them to wish more fervently, and to pray more devoutly for its restoration; these and thousands beside, if they fight at all, will fight under the banners of loyalty. ... And now, in God's name, what is it that has brought us to this brink of destruction? Has not the government of Great-Britain been as mild and equitable in the colonies as in any part of her extensive dominions? Has not she been a nursing mother to us from the days of our infancy to this time? Has she not been indulgent almost to a fault? . . . Will not posterity be amazed, when they are told that the present distraction took its rise from a three-penny duty on tea, and call it a more unaccountable frenzy, and more disgraceful to the annals of America than that of the witchcraft.

January 2, 1775

[A] committee of correspondence. ... is the foulest, subtlest and most venomous serpent, that ever issued from the eggs of sedition. These committees generally consist of the highest whigs. . . . They are commonly appointed at thin-town-meetings. ... in fact, but a small proportion of the town have had a hand in the matter. ... [T]hese committees when once established, think themselves amenable to none; they assume a dictatorial stile, and have an opportunity . . . of clandestinely wreaking private revenge on individuals, by traducing their characters, and holding them up as enemies to their country . . . as also of misrepresenting facts and propagating sedition through the country. ... These committees, as they are not known in law, and can derive no authority from thence, lest they should not get their share of power, sometimes engross it all; they frequently erect themselves into a tribunal, where the same persons are at once legislator, accusers, witnesses, judges and jurors, and the mob the executioners. The accused has no day in court, and the execution of the sentence is the first notice he receives. This is the channel through which liberty matters have been chiefly conducted the summer and fall past. ... It is chiefly owing to these committees, that so many respectable persons have been abused, and forced to sign recantations and resignations; that so many persons, to avoid such reiterated insults, as are more to be deprecated by a man of sentiment than death itself, have been obliged to quit their houses, families and business, and fly to the army for protection; that husband has been separated from wife, father from son, brother from brother. ... My countrymen, I beg you to pause and reflect on this conduct: have not these people, that are thus insulted, as good a right to think and act for themselves in matters of the last importance as the whigs? Are they not as closely connected with the interest of their country as the whigs? Do not their former lives and conversations appear to have been regulated by principle, as much as those of the whigs? You must answer, yes. Why then do you suffer them to be cruelly treated for differing in sentiment from you? Is it consistent with the liberty you profess? . . . I do not address myself to whigs or tories, but to the whole people. I know you well. You are loyal at heart, friends to good order, and do violence to yourselves in harbouring, one moment, disrespectful sentiments towards Great-Britain, the land of our forefathers' nativity, and sacred repository of their bones: but you have been most insidiously induced to believe, that Great-Britain is rapacious, cruel, and vindictive, and envies us the inheritance purchased by the sweat and blood of our ancestors. Could that thick mist that hovers over the land . . . be but once dispelled, that you might see our sovereign . . . and Great-Britain . . . as they really are; long live our gracious king and happiness to Britain, would resound from one end of the province to the other.

From [Daniel Leonard], Massachusettensis: Or a Series of Letters, Containing a Faithful State of Many Important and Striking Facts, Which Laid the Foundation of the Present Troubles in the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay (Boston: 1776), 1–37.

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