Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/205

 1776] Extension of the field of war. 173 repealed, and an act of amnesty passed. In the House of Lords, Grafton, who had now left the Ministry, proposed that the colonists should be invited to embody their grievances in a petition, and that such petition should be considered by Parliament. It was not difficult for the supporters of the government to point out the evil of negotiating with armed rebels, and of condoning attacks on the King*s troops and such an outrage as the Boston tea riot; and the government majority was too strong and solid to give either Grafton or Burke a chance of success. The beginning of 1776 saw the area of war extended to the southern provinces. In North Carolina both the governor, Martin, and the Convention of the colony raised troops. Apparently the object of the loyalists was to get possession of Wilmington, the chief city of the colony. On their way thither they were intercepted and defeated. In South Carolina the British cause fared no better. After the evacuation of Boston, General Clinton was instructed to take such measures as might seem expedient to advance the British cause in the south. It would have been a severe blow to the commerce and resources of the south if he could have obtained control over Charleston harbour. To do that it was necessary to get possession of Sullivan's Island, which commands the harbour on the south. The swampy character of the soil made a land-attack impossible. On June 8 a squadron of eight sail commenced a bombardment of the island. The fire produced no effect : one ship ran ashore and was burnt to prevent the enemy getting possession of her; and the attack was abandoned. In May, 1776, the third Congress met at Philadelphia. Only a super- stitious reverence for forms could any longer withhold the Americans from throwing off that allegiance which they had practically reduced to a nullity. The situation was not only anomalous but practically inconvenient. Congress was in its nature a transitory body, incapable of making any permanent contract, or of issuing any permanent command. We may be sure too that such astute and far-sighted men as Franklin and Samuel Adams had present to their minds the necessity of foreign alliances; and for these a permanent government was an absolutely requisite condition. Moreover a new influence was at work, by which colonial sentiment was not merely reconciled to separation but eagerly impelled towards it. Hitherto none but a few specially clear-minded and far-sighted men entertained more than a sense of isolated grievances and a vague desire for some relaxation of British control. The publi- cation of Common Sense (1776) by Thomas Paine did much to give definiteness to these vague aspirations. The instinctive conservatism of Englishmen did something to delay the result, but it was inevitable. The strength of the nationalist party lay largely in the fact that the moderate men had no ideal, at once definite, practicable and satisfactory, wherewith to confront the scheme CH. V.