John Erskine
Over twenty years of corresponding with
leading Americans had softened John Erskine’s heart toward the colonists. When
America complained that Britain was unfairly trying to extract money through
legislation like the Stamp Act of 1765, Erskine and other Scottish evangelicals
rose to defend the colonists’ grievances. Erskine was the best known American
sympathizer in Scotland. He wrote a total of three pamphlets outlining a
defense of the liberties of Americans: Shall I Go To War with My American
Brethren? (1769), Reflections on the Rise, Progress, Probable Consequences, of
the present Contentions with the Colonies (1776), and the Equity and Wisdom of
Administration, in Measures That Have Unhappily Occasioned the American Revolt,
Tried by the Sacred Oracles (1776). But of the three, Shall I Go to War was the
most controversial. Published anonymously in 1769 and republished in 1776 with
a preface signed by Erskine, Shall I Go to War questioned the logic of waging
war against the normally loyal North American colonies. With prophetic insight,
Erskine hinted that Britain may not win a fight against a nation that God
seemed to favor in times of distress. Although critics labeled his pamphlet as
treasonous, Erskine claimed the necessity of the work as a last resort for
avoiding war between a “mother” and her “child.”
Shall I Go to War With My American Brethren? (1769)
Judges 20:
28: “Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my
brother, or shall I cease?”
If the
denomination of Christians to which I belong, and my rank in the church, gave
me the honor of addressing you from the pulpit, I should remember, that my
business there was not to discuss political questions, and to determine the
disputed rights of sovereigns and subjects, but to explain and inculcate the
great truths and duties of our holy religion; and among these I would not fail
warmly to recommend, loyalty to our prince, love to our country, and a
willingness to sacrifice pleasure, ease, wealth, and preferment, to the public good.
But the sciences are not, as trade and manufactures, confined to particular
corporations. If men make conscience of the public and private duties of the
offices with which they are invested, it is lawful, nay, on some occasions, it
is laudable, in their leisure hours, to unbend their minds by a change of
study, to follow where their genius leads them, and to impart their thoughts to
the public, if they see cause. The exercise of government, and the
authoritatively deciding political questions, must be the work of the few; but
to study politics, and to write of them, is the right of every freeborn Briton.
Every Christian may aspire after the blessing of the peacemaker. One who has a
mean rank in a family, one who has no rank in it at all, is authorized, is
obliged, if he sees a house on flames, to call upon those who may have it in
their power to extinguish them. My duty as a minister does not annihilate my
duty to the best of princes, and to my dear fellow subjects. If a watchman see
danger approaching, and blow not the trumpet, the blood of the people, whom he
neglected to warn, shall be required at his hand. If we forbear to deliver them
that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if we say,
behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart, consider it? And
he that keepeth our souls, doth not he know it? And shall he not render to
every man according to his works? Shall I then, can I with safety be silent,
when my king and country appear to me in the most imminent danger?
I love and
respect my sovereign, not only as the guardian of our civil and religious
privileges, but as one, whose virtues would honor and ennoble even a private
station. I love my country, and I love the posterity of those brave and good
men, who fled from the rod of oppression in their native land, to what was then
a waste and howling wilderness; but what now is, and I pray God may ever
remain, a fruitful field, a seat of liberty and of true religion. The
principles of humanity and universal benevolence, and the warm attachment I
feel to British liberty, and to the succession in the illustrious house of
Hanover, constrain me, though it may offend many whom I would not willingly
disoblige, to sound an alarm. The prudent, I know, will keep silent in such a day,
for it is an evil day. But a flame, not to say a dispute between B—n and her
colonies, appears to me in so alarming a point of view, that I cannot be easy,
without making this feeble effort to prevent it…
If war with
foreign nations is undesirable, how shocking is it to think of war with our own
countrymen, connected with us by birth, alliance, or commercial interest, so
that we cannot hurt them without injuring ourselves. Shall the friend, the
brother, the father, the son, imbrue their hands in the blood of men, by the
ties of nature, esteem, or gratitude, dear to them as their own souls? The
fancied voice of loyalty or of liberty, calls their respective votaries to rush
on, and to risk the consequences, while natural affection whispers in the breast,
“Let not the mother country forget her children, let not the children tear in
pieces the bowels of the mother. If the child must be sacrificed, let it be by
a savage Indian, or a perfidious Frenchman. Let it not be by a parent’s hand.
Let not Abraham’s trial be our choice.”
And what is
it, that in some has well nigh extinguished parental compassion? Whence is it,
that they can talk with all imaginable coolness, of bombarding the cities of
their children, nay, of bringing them to scaffold? It is for claims, which
(besides a plausible foundation in charters, the validity of which parliaments
and courts of law have ratified, by judging and determining according to them),
are supported by more than a hundred and thirty years uninterrupted and
undisputed possession. In the opinion of Mr. David Hume, whose authority some
of you too much regard, Britain, before the late Glorious Revolution, had no
such claim as this, for either her civil or her religious liberties. Do we
think our forefathers erred, in deeming a claim sufficient, that had a feeble
legal support? Do we wish, they had thought and acted otherwise? Have we such
slavish , dastardly spirits, that we would have thought or acted otherwise in
their situation/ If we disclaim the charge, let us not be so uncharitable as to
do to others what we would not should be done to us.
Should the
colonies acknowledge a power in the British parliament to tax them, whatever
confidence they may have in the wisdom and moderation of the present
parliament, it is natural to dread, that in process of time, an unequal and
disproportionate burden may be laid on their estates and commerce, to lessen
the burden on those of the imposers. Plead not, that the colonies being a part
of the British empire, a British parliament will naturally consult their
welfare, and take as tender a care of their concerns, as of any other part of
it. That would be a good argument, if members of parliament, by their property
in Britain, had not an interest distinct from, and sometimes opposite to that of
the colonies. But as they have such a separate interest, it must strongly tempt
them, in raising funds for the support of government, to prefer their own ease
to that of the North Americans. The present parliament, however willing, can
give no security, that the power of taxing shall not be thus abused, because no
rules or limitations fixed by them, can restrain subsequent parliaments from
suspending or altering these rules, when they judge it for the interest of the
British empire, and from conducting themselves according to these new
emergencies, which in their apprehensions may require new laws, new measures of
government, and new plans of procedure in the exercise of their acknowledged
powers…
Tell me
not, that it is certain, from the wealth and power of Great Britain, that she
must prevail, and that her colonies are as yet too weak to give her any
effectual opposition. That this is probable, I allow: that it is certain, no
wise or modest man will venture to assert. However we exceed them in number, we
would do well to remember, that the New Englanders, inured from their infancy
to fatigue and hardship, though unable to face a British army in a fair and
open field, may yet be the destruction of those, whose education was more soft
and delicate, by harassing them with constant marches, and obliging them to be
exposed to the open air in the most cold and tempestuous weather. Animated by a
spirit of patriotism, or of revenge, one has chased a hundred, and two have put
a thousand to flight. It was the brave New Englanders, that in 1745, projected
the siege of Louisburg, carried it on with courage, prudence, and unwearied
activity, looking up to God to prosper the cause in which they were embarked.
Though most of them never before witnessed a siege, or even a battle with
regular forces, yet they made themselves masters of that important fortress,
and thereby furnished Britain, and her allies, with a price to purchase peace,
after a most disastrous and unsuccessful war. This one article, I imagine,
fully balances the account of the New England colonies with the mother country.
Though some may pronounce it enthusiasm, I must add, that as the first planters
of New England honored God, by leaving their estates, their friends, and their
native country, that they might worship him, though in a wilderness, according
to the dictates of their consciences, God has honored them and their posterity
with distinguishing instances of his favor and protection; and often, when they
were on the brink of ruin, has interposed in their behalf. When they were but a
few men in number, yea, very few, and strangers in a wilderness; when by
tyranny and persecution, they were driven from one nation to another, from one
kingdom to another people; God suffered no man to do them wrong, and reproved
the numerous tribes of Indians for their sake. By unusual sickness and
mortality, he drove out the heathen, and planted them, increased his people
greatly, and made them stronger than their enemies…
After all,
it must be confessed probable, that B—n must prevail in this dispute with her
colonies. But if she prevail by harsh and severe measures, may, if not sow
among them seeds of animosity, which, when twenty or thirty years have added to
their strength, may ripen into a general revolt. I would not entrust my garden
to one, who new no way to make a tree flourish, but by lopping off the most
fruitful branches. I would not entrust my horse, or my hounds, to the butcherly
physician, who is fond of cutting off a limb, in cases where a gentler remedy
might be as effectual. A severe chastisement may be justly inflicted, where it
would be neither honorable nor expedient to inflict it. Fire and sword are as
preposterous arguments to teach men allegiance, as to instruct them in
religion. The taking off the heads of a faction by capital punishment, tends to
inflame and enrage their deluded followers. The friends, the associates, the
well-wishers of those who immediately suffer, conceive, cherish, and transmit
to their posterity, a rooted aversion to the men, or to the country, which they
consider as the faulty cause of their sufferings. A people thus roughly
enraged, will soon find themselves a method: fury will in some cases supply the
want of prudence, and mischief shall be done in an hour, which an age shall hardly
repair. Through unexpected revolutions, bloody measures are often repaid with
usury, on those who advised them, or who assisted in them. Men only restrained
by fear, will cease to submit when they find it in their power to rebel, and
will eagerly seize the first opportunity of bursting asunder their galling
yoke. From the blood of every individual, who in the field of battle, or on a
scaffold, falls in the American cause, new enemies to the mother country will
spring up, and in process of time, some foreign power, prompted by hatred or
envy to B—n, may assist them to throw off their allegiance. It is only gaining
the heart, that destroys all inclination to revolt. No victories have such
irresistible, happy, and abiding effects, as victories gained by clemency and
condescension. Princes and states have been taught this by fatal experience,
who would not be taught it by reason. The ten tribes would have remained
faithful to the house of David, had Rehoboam hearkened to the counsel of the
old men, to be a servant unto the people that day, and speak good words unto
them that they might be his servants for ever, and to ease the heavy yoke his
father had put upon them. The wholesome severities of the Duke of Alva, lost
Spain the seven United Provinces; and probably King James II lived to be
convinced, that the bloody western assizes, instead of establishing his
authority, contributed to his ruin. It is to be presumed, from what has
happened in similar cases, that if we give our colonies terms indeed for their
interest, their allegiance will be faithful and perpetual: and if not, that
they will renounce it, whenever they can. A small matter may now quench the
spark, which, if suffered to kindle into a flame, may consume all our power and
glory…
Say not,
that the North Americans are a forward, murmuring people, not to be satisfied.
Where were their murmurs, before the unhappy Stamp Act? Where was the corner in
his Majesty’s dominions, that open rebellion, or secret disaffection, had less
disturbed; and where loyalty to the prince, and a zealous, I had almost said an
enthusiastic attachment to the mother country, more universally prevailed? Did
they ever dispute the right of the Crown to repeal laws enacted in the
colonies, and to determine finally in appeals from their courts of justice; or
the right of parliament to regulate their trade and manufactures, so as they
deemed necessary for the general good of the British empire? Did they not
quietly submit to prohibitions of carrying, to other nations, commodities that
might enable them to interfere with the trade of the mother country; to
prohibitions of manufacturing hats, iron, and steel; and to many other
restraints, very prejudicial to their separate interests? What power of
parliament have they ever questioned, unless the power of levying taxes, to
raise a revenue for the support of government, in America? And shall we condemn
them without mercy, for questioning the existence of a power, which, till a few
years ago, never appeared? When were the brave and generous new Englanders
backward, called or uncalled, to hazard their lives, and spend their treasure,
for the honor and interest of Britain? Have you forgot their heroic, though
unsuccessful expeditions against Canada; or their surprising conquest of
Louisburg? What had Britain done for New England before that conquest, any way
comparable to what New England then did for Britain? Have not the New England
colonies, on different occasions, exerted themselves so much beyond their
power, that a grateful prince and parliament have seen cause to refund them?
[John Erskine], Shall
I Go To War With My American Brethren? (London: G. Kearsly, 1769), 1-4.
9-16, 19-22, 30-31.
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