Americanism Redux
May 22, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1775
A husband and wife face a challenge.
* * * * * * *
(her)
Today, 250 years ago, Abigail Adams is doing what her husband John asked her to do. Before he left to participate in the 2nd Continental Congress in Philadelphia, John had received a box of books and letters from Edward Dilly, a bookseller in London. John asked Abigail to write to Dilly and thank him for the shipment.
Well, that was John’s original request, at any rate. For as Abigail says at one point in her letter to Dilly, “my pen has run strange lengths.”
She explains why John can’t write to Tilly himself. But then she launches into all the things that have happened, beginning with the chaos of battle in Concord, Lexington, and Old Bay Road a month ago.
Abigail emphasizes the suffering and misery visited upon the people of Boston by the Redcoat occupiers of the town. Mistreatment, brutalization, plundering, violence, and more, Abigail relates a state of life that is as close to the “state of nature” as anything envisioned by English philosopher John Locke and other political writers and commentators of the 17th and early 18th centuries.
Abigail states, “The Spirit that prevails among Men of all degrees, all ages and sexes is the Spirit of Liberty.” She believes upwards of 30,000 men are now surrounding the Redcoats penned up in Boston. “Tis thought,” she asserts, “we must now bid a final adieu to Britain, nothing will now appease the Exasperated Americans but the heads of those traitors who have subverted the constitution, for the blood of our Brethren cries to us from the Ground.”
Finally, she laments that most of the local printers and publishers have their shops in Boston, which is not inaccessible. No new books or articles or anything else printed is available. The best she can manage is to include a printed copy of a new “dramatic performance called the Group.” It’s infamous, Abigail notes in secretive tones, but Dilly will likely know who the characters are meant to represent.
Placing her quill pen down and resting her aching hand, Abigail returns to check on the four young children she’s now essentially raising—and the farm she’s essentially operating—as a single parent and single owner. When John will return, she cannot say.
* * * * * * *
(him)
The 2nd Continental Congress where John Adams is currently working and serving as a Massachusetts delegate is consumed with two items of business.
One is the news of the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Crown Point. Neither had been authorized by the Continental Congress, nor was it clear who was exactly in charge of the operation among Massachusetts, Connecticut, and various Green Mountain fighters. It’s a stunning example of Union—anyone and everyone, it seems, can decide to do something and somehow supplies and support have to be offered, to say nothing of trying to extract a strategy from all of it.
The other item is whether or not the entire Congress, or a portion of it, might shift to the vicinity of Boston. That’s where the recent combat of April 19 had occurred and that’s where, it’s said, 30,000 colonial men have surrounded the Redcoats in the port town. The area is also where the Massachusetts Provincial Congress is exercising its own authority over the colony. The complexities of having the Continental Congress—or its subcommittee—existing cheek-to-jowl alongside the Massachusetts Provincial Congress are too many to count.
And so it’s in Philadelphia that the arguments within the Continental Congress continue.
John Adams sits in frustration as the hours tick by.
Also
(when it’s finished)
Today, 250 years ago, the land is being marked out for the future site of an English-language theater in Kolkata, India. A prior site has been in use for the past twenty years. The new location and facility promise to be a spectacular addition to the British-Indian colonial city.
British Governor-General Warren Hastings is a solid supporter of the project, as is England’s most famous Shakespearean actor, David Garrick. Garrick has donated painted scenery from the city’s old playhouse. He’s also arranged for a talented artist to produce additional sets for the new structure. Politics and culture are working hand-in-hand in southern Asia.
Actors like Garrick and playwrights like Shakespeare strengthen the British imperial hold on Kolkata. It’s what a later era will call “soft power.”
For You Now
(what can it be made to mean?)
Speaking of “hold” and “power”, we’re seeing an experiment in both as we look at the 2nd Continental Congress and the Union.
The current magnetic attraction of events is in New England, specifically eastern Massachusetts. There’s been fighting, combat, battle. The potential exists for much more of the same, and with frightening consequences. People have flocked to the area with weapons and supplies. A civilian authority exists, too—the Massachusetts Provincial Congress (MPC). But the number of armed men and their families from outside the colony arrive in greater numbers as the days go by. Are they under the control of the MPC? Don’t forget that a few weeks ago, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, and the MPC crafted fifty-three articles of instruction on a new Massachusetts Army. Is this conglomeration of people outside Boston following those dictates? It’s not clear.
It’s interesting to see that we have a husband and wife who illustrate part of the strain on what exactly the Union is–and isn’t.
A decision has clearly been made by Adams and other New England delegates not to press for the 2nd Continental Congress to go all-out in relocating to the scene. And at the same time, attention may potentially need to be extended further west to Lake Champlain and the two seized forts. That attention will have to come from either the MPC or the 2nd CC.
It’s one thing to shout “Union” as the best and right answer to the imperial-colonial crisis. It’s quite another thing to translate the word into reality, into the daily rubs and frictions that arise from plans, from surprises, from whatever else.
Suggestion
Take a moment to consider: do you think there is any “soft power” available to the 2nd Continental Congress in this situation?
(Your River)
