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The Declaration of Independence signed July 4 at Philadelphia follows military and naval action in the American Revolution that began last year. Continental naval commodore Esek Hopkins joins the new fleet of eight small converted merchant vessels early in the year at Philadelphia (see 1775); ordered by the Continental Congress to sail into the Chesapeake Bay and attack a strong British fleet there, he chooses instead to bypass the Chesapeake and attack the British post at New Providence in the Bahamas, where he captures a store of valuable war matériel.
Thomas Paine's 46-page pamphlet "Common Sense" appears anonymously at Philadelphia January 10 and marshals arguments for the justice of the revolutionary cause: "The cause of America is, in great measure, the cause of all mankind . . . The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling . . . Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil [and] in its worst state an intolerable one." "There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required." Paine's pamphlet has sales of 100,000 copies almost overnight, newspapers throughout the colonies reprint parts of it, men read it aloud in taverns, officers read it to their men, it persuades thousands of people that separation from Britain is not only inevitable but urgently needed, and it wins its author a position as aide to Rhode Island-born General Nathaniel Greene, 34. Sales of the pamphlet by year's end total nearly half a million.
The Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge February 27 ends in defeat for some 1,600 Scottish Highlanders and upper North Carolina Regulators, who have marched toward Wilmington, North Carolina, under the command of General Donald McDonald to join British troops arriving by sea from Boston and England. A rebel militia group of about 1,000 men has positioned itself at the bridge, 18 miles northwest of Wilmington, under the command of Colonels Alexander Lillington and Richard Caswell. Only one militiaman is killed and one wounded; the others take 900 prisoners and seize arms, supplies, and £15,000. The quick American victory discourages Newfoundland-born general Sir Henry Clinton, 38, from landing a British expeditionary force in the Southern colonies.
Lord North tells the House of Commons February 29 that it will be cheaper and more efficient to hire mercenaries than to recruit men at home for the army in America; he makes a motion that treaties between George III and the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the duke of Brunswick, and the hereditary prince of Hesse-Cassel be referred to the committee of supply. He receives support from Lord George Germaine, who notes that in every war or rebellion England has hired foreigners to fight her battles or support her government. Opponents say that hiring mercenaries even at £7 per man would cost too much and would disgrace Britain in the eyes of all Europe. The issue is debated also in the House of Lords, but the motion carries in the Lords by a vote of 100 to 32 and in the Commons by 242 to 88. Six small German despots will supply nearly 30,000 mercenaries, 17,000 coming from Hesse-Kassel; most are soldiers of fortune skilled in the use of bayonets at close quarters.
General Artemas Ward orders a subordinate general March 6 to seize Dorchester Heights, forcing the British to complete their evacuation of Boston March 17 after taking losses from artillery fire (see Ward, Knox, 1775). General William Howe sails for Nova Scotia with 900 Loyalists (many will settle in New Brunswick) while the rest of the British move to New York and points south.
Naval commodore Esek Hopkins returns from the Bahamas in April and wages an inconclusive battle with H.M.S. Glasgow on Long Island Sound. Despite a spirited defense by John Adams, Hopkins is formally censured later in the year for having disobeyed orders in going to the Bahamas and for being inactive since then while his fleet lay idle in Narragansett Bay (see 1777).
Lee's Resolutions urge the colonies to make foreign alliances and form a confederation under a constitution to be approved by each state. The Virginia Convention sitting at Williamsburg May 6 has voted unanimously to break its 169-year-old ties to Britain and instructed its delegate Richard Henry Lee, 44, May 15 to propose independence. Introduced into the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia June 7, his three resolutions include an announcement "That these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states." A letter signed "Republicus" appears June 29 in the Pennsylvania Evening News making reference to The United States of America; Congress changes the name United Colonies to United States September 9.
Patriots/rebels seize Argyllshire-born British lieutenant colonel Archibald Campbell, 36, in Boston Harbor June 16. A veteran of last year's Battle of Quebec, Campbell will remain a prisoner until May 1778, when he will be exchanged for Ethan Allen.
The Continental Congress commissions Connecticut representative Silas Deane, 38, to sail to France for supplies and investigate the possibilities of French recognition of American independence with a view to treaties of alliance and commerce (see 1777). The Congress last November named Virginia-born physician-politician Arthur Lee, now 35, to act as its London agent and in October asks him to join Deane and Franklin at Paris with a view to negotiating alliances with France and other European nations that might supply the Continental Army with weaponry (the colonies have no gun factories of their own) (see 1778).
Patriots/rebels at Sullivan's Island off Charleston, South Carolina, repulse a British fleet under General Clinton and Sir Peter Parker, 55, June 28. Charleston-born planter and politician Colonel William Moultrie, 45, has built a 16-foot wall of sand and palmetto logs, manned it with a force of 400, and equipped it with 31 guns; Governor John Rutledge has given former British Army officer Charles Lee command of the colony's troops, and he has been arranging for the evacuation of the island, but it survives a heavy bombardment and is renamed Fort Moultrie.
Thomas Jefferson reads the Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress June 28. He has been working on it since June 11 as part of a five-man committee that has included John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, borrowing words and arguments from documents that included George Mason's draft of Virginia's Declaration of Human Rights. The congress irritates Jefferson by making substantial changes in the declaration, which makes reference to the United States of America:
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinion of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Where Mason borrowed philosopher John Locke's 1690 call for protection of "life, liberty, and property," Jefferson has substituted "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
General Sir William Howe lands unopposed on Staten Island July 2, having arrived off Sandy Hook June 25.
The Continental Congress adopts Lee's Resolutions July 2.
Continental Congress president John Hancock signs the Declaration of Independence July 4, writing his name in large letters and saying, "There, I guess King George will be able to read that." The Declaration is set in type and printed in a shop at 48 High Street; the 56 signers are all members of Congress but most of them do not affix their names to the document until August 2 (some will not sign until November). The signatories are keenly aware that they have only the slimmest chance of success and that in all likelihood they will go to the gallows. Signer Benjamin Franklin says, "We must all hang together, else we shall all hang separately." Abigail Adams (née Smith), 31, at Boston has several months earlier written to her husband, John, at Philadelphia, "This intelligence will make a plain truth for you, though a dangerous one. I could not join today in the petitions of our worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer parent state, but tyrant state, and these Colonies. Let us separate: they are unworthy to be our brethren."
News reaches New York July 9 that a Declaration of Independence has been signed at Philadelphia. General Washington has the declaration read to his troops, who return to their barracks and campgrounds, whereupon a crowd rampages through town, breaking the windows of prominent Loyalists. The Sons of Liberty and other civilians pull down and destroy the 4,000-pound equestrian statue of Britain's George III in Bowling Green; its head is sawed off and its lead taken away by some accounts to be melted down and molded into 42,000 musket balls by the wife and daughter of the governor of Connecticut; the 5-year-old iron fence surrounding the statue and the green is partly destroyed as the mob tears off its ornaments, but much, if not most, of the city remains staunchly loyal to the Crown and regards the bid for independence as ill-advised, ill-conceived, and certain to fail.
A Royal Navy fleet under the command of the swarthy Viscount Richard "Black Dick" Howe, 50, arrives off Staten Island July 12 with 280 ships, 33,000 soldiers, and 10,000 sailors to join the admiral's younger brother, General William Howe, with the largest amphibious force ever assembled; Vice Admiral Howe has been given command of the North American station, he had hoped to conciliate the colonists, but he makes a show of force July 12 by sending H.M.S. Phoenix and H.M.S. Rose up the Hudson with guns blazing; former colonial governor William Tryon has been obliged to remain aboard ship since returning from England more than a year ago but is finally able to debark.
General Henry Clinton arrives on Staten Island August 1.
The Continental Congress appoints Lieut. Col. Rufus Putnam, 38, engineer with the rank of full colonel August 5; a Massachusetts-born cousin of General Israel Putnam, Putnam has built defensive works around Boston and in the New York area, but he insists on having a distinct and properly organized engineering corps (see Gridley, 1775), and when Congress takes no definite action he resigns his commission, accepts command of a Massachusetts regiment, and will earn the rank of brigadier general (see Corps of Engineers, 1779).
General Howe determines to end the rebellion with a single massive victory and leaves Staten Island beginning August 22, crosses the Narrows in 75 flatboats with planked up sides, and comes ashore at Gravesend Bay and Denyse Ferry (later Fort Hamilton) with cannon, horses, munitions, and supplies. Augmenting the British regulars are 7,800 Hessians under the command of Lt. Gen. Leopold Philip von Heister, a veteran of the Seven Years' War whose men are battle-hardened whereas no more than 6,000 of the colonials have had any military experience. The Battle of Brooklyn that is part of the larger Battle of Long Island (still called Nassau Island) pits George Washington's 7,500 Continental Army troops and colonial militiamen against an enemy that outnumbers him more than two to one. The Americans are well dug in at Brooklyn Heights and in forward positions, but they have not defended Jamaica Pass except for five mounted militia officers whose instructions are to send warning if the pass is threatened. Colonial musketfire takes a heavy toll on General Howe's troops as they try to advance uphill. He realizes that he must adopt different tactics, so he positions about half his men near the three southern passes to make it appear that he will launch his attack there, but he then gathers 10,000 troops at Flatlands, marches them under an almost full moon north to Jamaica Pass, and captures the five militia officers there at about 2 o'clock in the morning without a shot being fired. Having delayed action in hopes that General Washington would surrender, Howe fires off two shots at 9 o'clock in the morning of August 27 at Bedford, signalling some 4,000 British soldiers to attack; General Israel Putnam's colonials contain them briefly, but about 8,000 additional redcoats arrive an hour later, gain support from local Loyalists who know the terrain, and come up from behind to surround the 1,200 Americans, most of whom surrender (although many are massacred in the Gowanus marshes). A band of 400 Marylanders launches an assault on the 10,000 surrounding British and German forces; forced back, 250 survivors put up stout resistance at the old stone Vechte-Cortelyou house and give the routed colonial forces time to retreat across a bridge over Gowanus Creek before seeking refuge in the forts on Brooklyn Heights; having lost 1,407 men killed, wounded, or missing (the British have sustained relatively few casualties), General Washington sets up headquarters at the Cornell house on Brooklyn Heights and brings over reinforcements from New York, but his aides persuade him that Manhattan offers better opportunities for defensive action, so with help from local boatmen he moves his remaining 9,300 men across the East River from Fulton Landing under cover of fog and rain on the night of August 29. Admiral Howe has somehow failed to block the East River crossing, and his brother on Brooklyn Heights finds that the rebels have slipped away, the last man on the last boat to cross being George Washington.
General Washington realizes that he cannot hold New York City; General Greene urges that nothing be left behind that the enemy can use, two-thirds of New York property belongs to Loyalists, and Washington writes to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia September 2 asking whether he should have his departing troops torch the city or let the British have it for use as winter quarters. "They would derive great convenience from it on the one hand; and much property would be destroyed on the other." Congress still hopes that New York can be recaptured and opposes any scorched-earth policy.
The submarine Turtle goes into action against Royal Navy vessels in New York Harbor the night of September 6, pioneering the use of the submarine in warfare. Built by Yale graduate David Bushnell, 34, the pear-shaped, seven-foot vessel is made of oak staves held together with pitch and iron hoops. It has ballast tanks operated by foot pumps, its conning tower has windows level with the head of the operator (Sgt. Ezra Lee), who uses two air tubes for intake and exhaustion of air (automatic valves close them for diving), is propelled horizontally and vertically by hand-cranked propellers and guided by a flexible rudder, carries a powder magazine with a clock timer, and has an auger mounted on its top to bore a hole into the wooden hull of an enemy vessel so that it may plant its powder magazine, but many of the British vessels have copperclad bottoms that add to their speed and protect them against shipworms, Sgt. Lee's effort to plant a charge in the bottom of H.M.S. Eagle fails, several other attempts to plant charges prove fruitless, and the British shift their entire fleet (see transportation [Lake], 1897).
General Washington sends the Continental Congress a letter urging that a regular army be enlisted to serve for the duration of the war (many regiments have voted to disband and return home in the wake of the defeat in Brooklyn). He warns that he may not be able to obey his orders to defend Manhattan, which the British clearly intend to use as their winter quarters, and he devises a new strategy of evasive actions that will exhaust the British without directly engaging them. Congress resolves September 10 to reform the Continental Army into 88 battalions to be "enlisted as soon as possible, and to serve during the war," but its members are so fearful that a standing army may bring "military despotism" that they retain the old method of levying troops by requisitions upon the several states and the appointment of officers without proper regard to their qualifications.
General Howe and his secretary Sir Henry Starchey meet September 11 at the 86-year-old Christopher Billopp house in Staten Island's Tottenville section with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge in an effort to end the war by negotiation. Howe has captured two major generals, including New Hampshire-born soldier John Sullivan, 36, and learns for the first time that the Declaration of Independence has been signed. He offers "clemency and full pardon to all repentant rebels" if they will lay down their arms. Sullivan gains General Washington's grudging consent to carry General Howe's peace overtures to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia (where he is freed in exchange for a British general), but Franklin, Adams, and Rutledge demur, Congress refuses to retract the declaration, and negotiations break off. Washington positions 9,500 men on the heights of Harlem and at Kings Bridge, deploys 5,000 along the shore of the East River above New York, and leaves only 5,000 in Manhattan.
General Howe arrives at Kips Bay on Manhattan September 15 with five frigates, his cannonfire disperses defenders ashore, his infantry clambers up the steep rocks at what later will be the foot of East 34th Street, and—by some accounts—he stops for lunch at the Murray Hill home of Mary Murray (née Lindley), 50, whose husband, Robert, has built a house he calls Inclenberg on property acquired by his late father, James, in 1723, entertains the general and his officers with help from her beautiful daughters. General Howe is carrying on an affair with the wife of a subordinate and narrowly misses catching General Washington, who has galloped down from the Jumel Mansion to hold off the British until General Putnam can withdraw troops trapped at the Battery; a woman near the Battery starts a fire that consumes much of the city, not only diverting attention of the British from Putnam's troops but creating smoke that masks Washington's retreat to Harlem Heights, where he repulses a British attack September 16 with help from his sharpshooters. Armed with Pennsylvania long rifles (see 1710), infantrymen of the Continental Army can fire accurately at 200 to 400 yards, while musket balls carry effectively only 80 to 100 yards (the British will complain that American sharpshooters are unsportsmanlike in concentrating their fire on officers), but although the rifles cannot be fitted with bayonets, and they take a full minute to reload, and riflemen are vulnerable to being shot in the process, the conventional style of exchanging volleys of musket fire goes against the American grain (see Battle of Saratoga, 1777).
General Washington spends most of September on Harlem Heights with the main body of his army, observing the movements of General Howe.
Continental Army captain Nathan Hale, 21, undertakes an espionage mission to gather intelligence on Long Island but blunders into a trap September 21. Having set numerous fires to harry the British in New York, the Connecticut-born Yale graduate has left his uniform and papers with a fellow soldier at Norwalk, disguised himself as a Dutch schoolmaster to avoid arrest, taken a boat across Long Island Sound, but made the mistake of confiding in a stranger who has pretended to be a spy himself. The stranger is French and Indian War hero Robert Rogers, who invites Hale to dinner, British soldiers seize him, and he is taken to Manhattan, where he is hanged September 22 by order of General Howe. His last words will be reported as, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," actually a paraphrase of a line from a popular play by the late Joseph Addison.
Polish military tactician Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko, 30, enters the Continental Army as a volunteer, having been wounded by the retainers of Sosnowski of Sownowicka, the Grand Hetman, with whose youngest daughter he tried to elope. Kosciuszko has studied fortification and naval tactics at Polish government expense in Prussia, France, and Italy, and will distinguish himself in the American cause. General Washington will make him his adjutant and raise him to the rank of colonel of artillery (see 1794).
Benedict Arnold assembles a makeshift fleet of schooners and open boats on Lake Champlain to block the advance of General Sir Guy Carleton, now 52, who has moved south with 12,000 men. Some of Colonel Arnold's vessels have been dismantled on the St. Lawrence River, hauled overland, and then reassembled; he confronts Sir Guy October 11 in the Battle of the Island of Valcour, the hard-fought encounter costs both sides dearly, Arnold sails through the British fleet at night without Sir Guy knowing what has happened, the British pursue him, Sir Guy defeats him soundly October 13, but Arnold runs his own schooner ashore and burns it along with some of his open boats to keep them from falling into enemy hands. He has delayed the southward advance of Sir Guy, who takes Crown Point but soon withdraws to Canada.
General Howe loads a large part of his army into 90 flat boats October 12 and lands them on Throg's Neck. General Washington sends a force to oppose the landing and occupy lower Westchester, but Howe takes the heights of New Rochelle and is joined by a newly-arrived contingent of Hessian troops under the command of General Wilhelm von Knyphausen. The Battle of White Plains October 28 to 31 gives General Howe a narrow victory over General Washington. Each side has fielded about 13,000 men, Howe has brought up reinforcements, and Washington withdraws under cover of darkness behind entrenchments in the hills of North Castle as Howe falls back to an encampment on the heights of Fordham.
General Washington decides after an open war council to move with 5,000 men across the Hudson into New Jersey and establishes headquarters November 14 at Fort Lee (formerly Fort Constitution) on the Palisades; he has left Colonel Robert Magaw with nearly 3,000 Pennsylvania volunteers to defend Fort Washington on the Harlem Heights, but although the Continental Congress has sent word that the fort must be held at all costs Magaw finds himself heavily outnumbered, takes losses, and has little choice but to surrender November 16. The British and Hessians lose 458 men out of their 8,000-man force but capture 2,828 rebels and put 53 of them to death while General Washington looks on in despair from across the river at Fort Lee. General Charles Cornwallis, 38, leads more than 4,000 British troops across the Hudson November 20 about six miles north of Fort Lee, hoping to trap the Continental Army between the Hackensack and Hudson rivers; he advances with 8,000 men toward General Nathaniel Greene, who hurriedly evacuates Fort Lee, letting it fall into enemy hands with 50 British-made cannon, large stores of ammunition and flour, tents, blankets, and huge quantities of other provisions. The British gain control of the Hudson, Greene and his men join Washington across the Hackensack River, and they begin a retreat across New Jersey the next day. Washington has lost 90 percent of his army and is left with no more than about 3,000 men; he sends pleas for help to General Charles Lee, who is in Pennsylvania with 4,000 men but has opted to employ guerrilla tactics. Lee eventually follows orders, marches his men to New Jersey December 12, takes quarters at White's Tavern in Basking Ridge, but denounces Washington in a letter to General Horatio Gates as "a certain great man" who is "most damnably deficient. He has thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties." The British soon capture Lee and take him to New York; where he will remain imprisoned for 18 months (see Battle of Monmouth, 1778).
General Washington escapes across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, having burnt bridges across the Hackensack and Passaic rivers in his retreat to Newark and then to New Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton with General Cornwallis in hot pursuit, but he has left the British in possession of New Jersey. Washington's men have no tents or blankets, little food, and no salt; one fifth of them are suffering from dysentery. While the British and Hessians can use flogging, officers in the egalitarian American army must rely on cajolery and exhortation to maintain discipline; more than 2,000 militiamen from Maryland and New Jersey reach the end of their enlistment periods November 30 and return home. In desperation and hoping for a miracle, Washington requisitions some heavy open boats used to bring pig iron into Philadelphia, crosses the half-frozen Delaware from the Pennsylvania shore Christmas night with 2,400 ill-equipped men in boats that go back to fetch 18 field guns plus horses to pull them, surprises a well-trained and well-armed contingent of 1,500 Hessians at dawn December 26, forces their commander Colonel Johann G. Rall to surrender, and turns the tide of the war, killing about 100 (Rall is shot from his horse and dies 2 days later) and taking more than 900 prisoners (the other Hessians have fled into the woods) without sustaining a single casualty in what will be remembered as the Battle of Trenton. Colonel Henry Knox has made his voice heard over the gale-force winds to relay Washington's orders, organized the deployment of Continental Army troops, and is elected brigadier general of artillery after the first triumph against the British and their mercenaries.
News of the victory at Trenton soon reaches every colony, giving heart to the Americans and enabling Washington to persuade men who have enlisted in his little army to remain for at least one more month; the Continental Congress grants Washington greater powers December 27, and 3 days later he leads 1,600 volunteers, Continental Army regulars, and New Jersey and Pennsylvania militiamen back into Trenton, where he meets with others that swell his ranks to nearly 6,000 men; General Cornwallis has 5,500, but the Americans slip away northward toward Princeton (see 1777).
Catherine the Great's court favorite Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin, now 37, builds a Russian Black Sea fleet. Potemkin distinguished himself in 1769 fighting the Turks.
The Treaty of Purandhur signed March 1 annuls last year's Treaty of Surat. Raghunath Rao, peshwa (chief minister) of the Maratha, is given a pension, but the British East India Company retains the revenues of Salsette and Broach, and hostilities in the first Anglo-Maratha War continue (see 1778).
The East India Company's governor of Madras George Pigot, 1st Baronet Pigot (of Patshul), suspends two members of his council and orders the arrest of the city's commandant Sir Robert Fletcher (see 1761). Pigot returned to Madras last year and has made enemies by attempting to suppress the corruption that has become widespread in the public service. His proposal that the raja (ruler) of Tanjore be restored has brought opposition from a majority of the council, who have the backing of trader Paul Benfield, and they take over the government, imprisoning Pigot (see 1777).
Members of Parliament hear the first motion to outlaw slavery in Britain and her colonies (see 1772). David Hartley, 44, calls slavery "contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man," but his motion fails (see Wilberforce, 1787; Wilberforce, 1789).
Delaware forbids further importation of slaves as the slave population in the colonies reaches 500,000.
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident," says the 1,335-word Declaration of Independence, "that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government . . ." Thomas Jefferson's draft has been edited to delete an attack on slavery (with the single exception of John Adams, every man who signs the declaration owns—or has owned—slaves). Abigail Adams has written to her husband, John, "[A]nd by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could [she uses no quotation marks but is using a line from the late Daniel Defoe that is known to her husband]. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a revolution, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation." When John Adams denies her petition and calls her saucy, she retorts, "I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies for whilst you are proclaiming peace and goodwill to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining absolute power over Wives."
New Jersey adopts a constitution July 2 that reaffirms the right of women worth $250 or more to vote, a privilege they will enjoy until 1807 (but see New York, 1777).
Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, dines at London with James Boswell, who tells Doctor Johnson he wants to accompany Cook on his next voyage: "One is carried away with the general, grand, and indistinct notion of A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD" (see 1775). Johnson discourages him, saying, "A man is to guard himself against taking a thing in general." Cook embarks in July on a third expedition to the Pacific, this time with the consort ship H.M.S. Discovery accompanying his H.M.S. Resolution. His orders are to seek a possible Northwest Passage across North America from Atlantic to Pacific (see Sandwich Islands, 1778).
San Francisco has its beginnings in the presidio of Yerba Buena (good herb) established September 17 by Spanish Army lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga in California (see 1769). Monks establish the Mission San Francisco de Asis (later to be the Mission Dolores) October 9 (see 1846).
France's controller general Jacques Turgot presents Louis XVI with Six Edicts in January (see 1774). One edict ends the guilds' monopoly, another abolishes the corvée (see 1761), and the proposals bring demands by the clergy, courtiers, the nobility, and the queen Marie Antoinette that Turgot be dismissed. His opponents forge letters in which Turbot is alleged to have made offensive remarks about the king; Louis XVI stands by his minister, saying, "Only Monsieur Turgot and I really love the people," but he yields to pressure in May and requests Turgot's resignation.
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith proposes a system of natural liberty in trade and commerce (see Hume, 1739; Smith, 1759). "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production, and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer," who in the long run has full control over what will and will not be produced, says Smith, who is now 53, teaches at the University of Glasgow, and says prosperity requires freedom, a competitive system, and an effective judicial system. "The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it" (I); "The propensity to truck, barter, and exchange . . . is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals" (I, ii); "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest" (II). "Every individual endeavors to employ his capital so that its produce may be of greatest value. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own security, only his own gain. And he is in this led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." "To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose Government is influenced by shopkeepers" (II, iv, 7). Smith's massive work establishes the classical school of political economy and will influence all future thinking on politics and economics, but it shows no awareness of the developing industrial revolution, and while it espouses free-market competition with limited government intervention it regards unemployment as a necessary evil to keep costs (and therefore prices) in check (see Ricardo, 1817). "The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind," writes Adam Smith. His 1,000-page work is a bestseller whose first printing sells out in a few weeks.
The colonists who risk their lives by signing the Declaration of Independence August 2 and pledging their fortunes to the cause include some of the richest men in the country: Carter Braxton, 39, of Chericoke and Elsing Green, Benjamin Harrison V of Berkeley, 50, Thomas Jefferson of Monticello, and Richard Henry Lee have huge Virginia plantations; Annapolis-born lawyer and planter Charles Carroll, 38, received a 10,000-acre tract (Carrollton Manor) in Maryland's Frederick County from his father 10 years ago; Philadelphia merchant George Clymer, 37, is a partner in the prosperous firm Merediths & Clymer; Marblehead-born Boston merchant Elbridge Gerry, 31, has been building up a fortune since his graduation from Harvard in 1762; John Hancock has more personal wealth than anyone else in Massachusetts; Connecticut farmer John Hart, 65, owns fulling factories and grist mills; Kingston, New Jersey-born North Carolina merchant Joseph Hewes, 46, has built up a substantial mercantile and shipping business; Welsh-born New York merchant Francis Lewis, 63, has accumulated a fortune in contracts supplying British troops; New York patroon Robert Livingston, 29, has vast holdings on the Hudson River; South Carolina jurist Arthur Middleton, 34, inherited his plantation on the Ashley River through his mother; New York landowner Lewis Morris, 50, has inherited large family estates; Thomas Nelson, Jr., 37, is a Virginia lawyer; Kittery, Maine-born Portsmouth, New Hampshire, merchant William Whipple, 46, gave up slave trading and deep-water sea voyages in 1760 to form a mercantile partnership with his brother Joseph. The 56 signers include 24 lawyers and jurists, 11 merchants, and nine farmers and large plantation owners; all have much to lose financially if the bid for independence fails, many will pay dearly for supporting the revolution (nine will die of wounds or from hardships suffered in the war, five will be captured as traitors and tortured before they die, two will lose their sons, one will have his two sons captured, 12 will have their homes ransacked and burnt), but the rich men who cautiously remain loyal to the Crown will suffer most in the end.
The Continental Congress starts a national lottery to raise money for the Continental Army. Congress borrows $5 million October 3 to halt the rapid depreciation of paper money; Rhode Island establishes wage and price controls December 31, limiting pay to 70¢ per day for carpenters, 42¢ for tailors.
A good harvest in France reduces the price of bread, but the French again abolish internal free trade in grain (see 1774; 1787).
A Staffordshire colliery installs a Watt-Boulton steam engine and uses it for pumping water out of flooded passages (see 1774). Another is installed to blow air into the furnaces of ironmaster John Wilkinson. Inventor James Watt will spend much of the next 5 years in Cornwall, where copper- and tin-mine managers view the steam engine as a possible means of reducing fuel costs, but mines and mills in Britain and worldwide will continue for decades to rely for energy upon water wheels and the muscle power of horses, oxen, water buffalo, and humans (see 1781).
The Ferguson Rifle patented by Scottish-born Seven Years' War veteran Patrick Ferguson, 32, is a breechloading rifle whose barrel is grooved for accuracy. The best marksman in the British Army, Ferguson has improved on the Chaumette breechloading mechanism used in sporting guns with a device that prevents powder from jamming its action; his rifle can be fired six times per minute, but no more than 200 of them will be used in the war (see politics [Battle of Kings Mountain], 1780).
Crucible steel inventor Benjamin Huntsman dies at Attercliffe, Yorkshire, at age 72 (approximate).
Journey Through Various Provinces of the Russian Empire (Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des russischen Reichs) by naturalist Peter Simon Pallas is published in its third and final volume, the first having appeared in 1771 (see 1768). Now 35, Pallas returned to St. Petersburg 2 years ago, his health having been destroyed by his travels. He has advanced a theory of mountain formation based on study of Siberia's Ural and Altai ranges, where he has recognized a temporal sequence of rocks from the center of a range to its flanks.
Karl Wilhelm Scheele discovers uric acid in a kidney stone (see 1774; Garrod, 1859).
Smallpox decimates the Continental Army in the north. By June, some 5,500 of the 10,000-man force are incapacitated, largely by the dread pox to which the British are generally immune as a result of having had mild bouts with the disease in childhood or in some cases by inoculation (see 1747). Continental Army physician-in-chief John Morgan writes a pamphlet under the title, "A Recommendation of Inoculation" (but see 1777).
New York Hospital opens its first facility, in Pearl Street (an earlier building was gutted February 28 of last year before it was quite finished; see 1771). The colonial assembly has granted £4,000 for construction of a new building. The first patients treated are two Continental Army soldiers who have been wounded July 12 in an engagement between shore batteries and two British men-of-war trying to force their way up the Hudson (see 1788).
Physician-scientist Cadwallader Colden dies on his Long Island, New York, estate September 28 at age 88.
Rhode Island Quaker Jemima Wilkinson, 23, is dismissed from her Friends meeting in August. Having offended her coreligionists by going to meetings of the late evangelist George Whitefield in his final revival tour of New England, she comes down with fever in October, recovers, announces that she has had a vision in which she died and was sent back to Earth to preach to a "lost and guilty, gossiping, dying World," and adopts the name Publick Universal Friend by which she will insist hereafter on being called (see 1784).
The Virginia General Assembly meets for the first time in October and hears petitions for the disestablishment of the Church of England and the removal of disabilities from dissenters. Church attendance has been compulsory in the colony, and (although the laws have not been enforced) heresy has been punishable by death, denial of the Trinity by 3 years' imprisonment, free speech has been treated as blasphemy, and Baptist ministers have been singled out for special persecution. Thomas Jefferson asks, "Has the state a right to adopt an opinion in matters of religion?" The Assembly repeals some of the most oppressive British statutes and exempts dissenters from taxes to support the Anglican Church, but it defers action on a proposal to levy a general tax on all citizens for the support of Christian ministers (see 1779).
The Phi Beta Kappa Society is founded December 5 at Virginia's 83-year-old College of William and Mary, whose administrators sever the institution's ties with Britain. Five young men have gathered at a local Williamsburg tavern for conviviality and to debate such subjects as "Whether French politics be more injurious than New England rum" or "Had William the Norman a right to invade England?" (Chapters of the new scholastic fraternity will be established at Harvard and Yale in 1779, Harvard men will debate the question of whether Adam had a navel, Yale men whether females have intellectual capacities equal to those of males, and into the 21st century election to PBK will carry great prestige in U.S. academic circles.)
"The American Crisis" by Thomas Paine is published at Philadelphia December 23, the first of 16 pamphlets that Paine will write under that title in the next 7 years (he has begun writing it on a drumhead while serving as an aide-de-camp to General Greene). General Washington has his officers read it to the men: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." Paine's words have an electrifying effect similar to that of his January pamphlet "Common Sense."
Nonfiction: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by English historian Edward Gibbon, 39, appears in the first of its five quarto volumes at London February 17, becomes an instant bestseller, and creates a controversy with its critique of Christianity. Short, fat, unattractive, and unmarried, Gibbon got the idea for his work in October 1764 while visiting the ruins of Rome and begins with the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 (see 1779); Observations on the nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America by moral philosopher Richard Price enjoys wide sales on both sides of the Atlantic.
Philosopher David Hume dies of cancer at Edinburgh August 25 at age 65. The pamphlet "Remarks" by his friend Adam Ferguson, now 53, is published with proposals for peace terms in North America (Ferguson will voyage to Philadelphia in 1778 with a commission sent to negotiate terms with the revolutionaries).
Fiction: The Corrupted [Male] Peasant (Le Paysan perverti) by French novelist Nicolas-Edme Restif, 41, who uses the nom de plume Restif de la Bretonne for his erotic novel of peasant life.
Poetry: A 42-line poem by Phillis Wheatley appears in the Pennsylvania magazine. It is addressed to General Washington, with whom she has corresponded.
Painting: Chief Joseph Brant by George Romney (the Mohawk chief is visiting London and after attending theater is allegedly asked what he thinks of English love-making, to which he is said to reply, "No lover worth a lady's while would waste his time and breath in all that speech-making. If my people were to make love in that way our race would be extinct in two generations"; The Washerwoman by Jean Honoré Fragonard.
Sculpture: Voltaire by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, now 62.
Theater: Stella by Wolfgang von Goethe 2/8 at Hamburg; The Twins (Die Zwillinge) by German playwright Friedrich (Maximilian) von Klinger, 24, 2/23 at Hamburg; The Soldier (Die Soldaten) by German playwright-poet Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, 25, who has followed Goethe to Weimar but is forced to leave because of his bad manners and tactlessness (Lenz will suffer a mental breakdown); Mustapha et Zeangir by Sebastien Chamfort, whose tragedy brings him a pension from the French royal family and confirms his success in society; The Runaway by Devonshire-born bookseller's daughter Hannah Cowley (née Parkhouse), 33, at London's Drury Lane Theatre. Poet Cowley attended theater earlier in the year with her husband, an East India Company employee, and told him she could write a better play. She did so within a fortnight and sent it to David Garrick, who has produced it, launching her on a notable career.
The Bolshoi Theater is founded at Moscow.
Vienna's Burgtheater opens, givinh the city a new opera house and concert hall. The Holy Roman Emperor Josef II has founded the theater and forbids curtain calls, feeling that he is more worthy of applause than his servants the actors.
First performances: Serenade No. 6 in D major for two Small Orchestras (Serenata Notturna) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in January at Salzburg; Serenade No. 7 in D major (Haffner) by W. A. Mozart, 7/22 at Vienna, for the marriage of Elisabeth Haffner, daughter of the late Viennese burgomaster, to F. X. Spath.
Hymn: "Rock of Ages" verses by London editor Augustus Montague Toplady, 35, are published in the February issue of The Gospel Magazine (see 1830).
England's St. Leger stakes race has its first running at Doncaster in Yorkshire as its founder, Colonel Barry St. Leger, now 39, prepares to leave for America to join General Burgoyne in the Hudson Valley. Winner of the 2,400-meter race for 3-year-olds is Allabaculia.
English courtesan Elizabeth Chudleigh, 56, is adjudged guilty of bigamy. Beautiful but illiterate, she had several affairs with courtiers of George II before being secretly married at age 24 to Augustus John Hervey, brother of the 2nd earl of Bristol. She concealed the birth and death of a son, obtained a separation, denied the marriage on oath when being courted by the 2nd duke of Kingston, married him in 1769, and inherited his estates when he died 3 years ago. His nephew has brought suit, and her marriage to Hervey (who has succeeded his brother as 3rd earl of Bristol) will be declared valid next year.
A great fire September 21 affects one third of New York, beginning at the foot of Broad Street and destroying 493 houses including more than 100 along the Hudson River before it dies out. By British accounts, colonial officers have sent in arsonists to set the city ablaze and thus make it harder for the British to find winter quarters. The first Trinity Church is burnt down along with the entire west side of Broadway between Whitehall and Barclay streets (see 1778), but citizens form bucket brigades to save the 10-year-old St. Paul's Chapel.
Cattle ranches begin to flourish on the Argentine pampas as Spain creates the Viceroyalty of La Plata with its capital at Buenos Aires.
Turnips, carrots, cabbages and such "things which were formerly never raised but by the spade. . . are now commonly raised by the plough," Adam Smith writes.
The Reinette d'Orléans apple is mentioned for the first time in print. It will be France's favorite eating apple.
The cocktail gets its name (by some accounts) at an Elmsford, New York, tavern, where barmaid Elizabeth "Betsy" Flanagan decorates the bar that she tends at Halls Corner with discarded tail feathers from poultry that has been roasted and served to patrons. An inebriated guest demands that she bring him "a glass of those cocktails," and Flanagan serves him a mixed rum drink garnished with one of the feathers.
Edinburgh surgeon John Hunter oversees the first successful attempt at human artificial insemination. He instructs a linen draper who suffers from hypospadias in how to impregnate his wife, using a warm syringe for the purpose.
Philadelphia's population reaches 40,000, making it larger than Boston and New York (24,000) combined.
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