A History of the American People

On June 14 Congress agreed to raise six companies on the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
Virginia frontier, to be paid for by itself (as opposed to any individual state), and to be termed
the American Continental Army.' Washington was instructed to draw up regulations for the new force. By July 3, the general was at Cambridge, taking charge. One of the reasons the New Englanders had been so keen to choose him was that they had, so far, borne the brunt of the fighting. They were anxious that Virginia, the most populous state, should be fully committed too. By his prompt move to the Boston theater of war, Washington showed he accepted the logic of this and that he intended to fight a continental struggle for an entire people and nation. But was it a nation yet? Three days after Washington took over the army, Congress issued a formal Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms. This rejected independence. As late as January 1, 1776, when the first Grand Union flag was raised over Prospect Hill in Boston, it consisted of thirteen alternating red and white stripes with, in the left- hand corner, a red, white, and blue Union Jack. But the measures taken by Congress, far from compelling Britain to negotiate, as they hoped, had the opposite effect. General Gage, the last royal governor of Massachusetts, wrote home:Government can never recover itself but by using
determined measures. I have no hopes at present of any accommodation, the Congress appears to
have too much power and too little inclination [and] it appears very plainly that taxation is not
the point but a total independence.' Acting on his advice, George iii proclaimed all the colonies
in a state of rebellion.
At this point an inspired and rebellious Englishman stuck in his oar. Thomas Paine (1737-
1809) was another of the self-educated polymaths the 18th century produced in such large
numbers. He was, of all things, a customs officer and exciseman. But he was also a man with a
grudge against society, a spectacular grumbler, what was termed in England a 'barrack-room
lawyer.' In a later age he would have become a trade union leader. Indeed, he was a trade union
leader, who employed his fluent and forceful pen on behalf of Britain's 3,000 excisemen to
demand an increase in their pay, and was sacked for his courage. He came to America in 1774,
edited the Pennsylvania Magazine, and soon found himself on the extremist fringe of the
Philadelphia patriots. Paine could and did design bridges, he invented asmokeless candle'-like Franklin he was fascinated by smoke and light-and at one time he drew up a detailed topographical scene for the invasion of England. But his real talent was for polemical journalism. In that, he has never been bettered. Indeed it was more than journalism; it was political philosophy, but written for a popular audience with a devastating sense of topicality, and at great speed. He could pen a slashing article, a forceful, sustained pamphlet, and, without pausing for breath, a whole book, highly readable from cover to cover. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was on the streets of Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and was soon selling fast all over the colonies. In a few weeks it sold over 100,000 copies and virtually everyone had read it or heard about it. Two things gave it particular impact. First, it was a piece of atrocity propaganda. The first year of hostilities had furnished many actual instances, and many more myths, of brutal conduct by British or mercenary soldiers. Entire towns, like Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) and Norfolk, had been burned by the British. Women, even children, had been killed in the inevitable bloody chaos of conflict. Paine preyed on these incidents: his argument was that any true-blooded American who was not revolted by them, and prepared to fight in consequence, hadthe heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.' Crude
though this approach was, it went home. Even General Washington, who had read the work by
January 3I, approved of it. Second, Paine cut right through the half-and-half arguments in favor
of negotiations and a settlement under British sovereignty. He wanted complete independence as