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A FORGOTTEN 44ArgRICAN.• Tau Industry and patriotism of Professor Wallace, of Wollord College, have enabled him to unearth from the records of the eighteenth century the material out of which to construct the biography of a South Carolinian who played a distinguished and honourable part during the American struggle for independence, but whose posthumous fame has been scarcely on a par with his merits. The latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica does, indeed, contain a brief notice of the life of Henry Laurens, and also of his son John, who served on Washington's Staff, and who met a soldier's death on the battlefield. But on this side of the Atlantio there are probably few, save those who have devoted special attention to American history, who are familiar with his name, whilst even amongst his own countrymen, though his memory is still somewhat languidly cherished, his reputation has apparently paled before that of others whose services, in the day of America's need, though no greater, were exhibited on a somewhat more conspicuous field than his. Henry Laurens, though tenacious of his opinions when once they had been formed, and courageous in asserting them, was an eminently moderate man. He is described by the American historian McCrady as "an English Whig." He had all the traditional Whig dislike for violent and arbitrary proceedings, whether on the part of Kings, Ministers, or mobs. "God deliver us," he said, "from kingly, ministerial, and popular tyranny " Though eventually convinced that complete separation from the Mother Country was both "necessary and unavoidable," ho for long clang tenaciously to the hope that the bond, though loosened, would not be altogether severed, and that a remedy for American grievances might be obtained by the adoption of strictly constitutional methods. Even towards the close of his career, when his conduct had amply testified to his steadfast Republican loyalty, ho was thought by many of his countrymen to have "a bias towards the British nation and an undue cordiality with its loaders." Such men as these rarely evoke the enthusiasm of
• 21es Life oj Henry Laurens. By David Duncan Wallace, Ph.D., Professor of History and Economics In Wolford College. London ; 0. 1'. Putnam's Sons,' [LW net.j their contemporaries, or attract marked attention from their posterity. They may perform excellent service in averting an inipending crisis, and they may, again, do much to soothe angry passions when it is laver, but whilst it is at its height they will generally, in public estimation, yield the foremost places on the political stage to thesextremists on either side.
Henry Laurens, who was born in 1724, came from that sturdy and virile Huguenot stock who were driven by the folly and fanaticism of Mine. de Maintenon to seek refuge from persecution in foreign lands. In 1682, his grandfather, Andre, migrated first to England, and subsequently to South Carolina. He died shortly after his arrival in America. The early settlers in America, whether French or English, did not commit the error which proved so fatal to the haughty Spaniards who inherited the conquests won by Cortes, Pizarro, and others. They recognized the dignity of labour. They did not scorn to work with their own hands. They became carpenters, bricklayers, tanners, dm. John Laurens, the son of Andre, albeit he belonged to a good old French family which, in heraldic language, would be called axmigerous, did not disdain to become a saddler. Henry, the son of John, was sent to London at the ago of twenty with a view to setting up in business there, but he was disappointed, and returned to South Carolina in 1747 with a feeling of loyalty, but not of love, towards England. On the other hand, he had, his biographer says, developed in the course of his travels much "promising material for making a good American." He inherited considerable wealth from his father, who died in 1747, and before long became a large dealer in rice, indigo, deer-skins, wine, and slaves. Engaging in the "Guinea business," as the slave trade was then euphemistically called, was not at that time generally condemned by public opinion. Laurens records, in 1755, that he "sold a great many men at £40 sterling and a few at £290 currency—prices that have not been heard of for many a day for Angola slaves." Never- theless, his self-accnaing Protestant conscience told him that such things should not be. After a long straggle between self-interest and duty, he chose the better part. At first he contented himself with treating his slaves well. He even sneered at the few abolitionists who at that time made their voices heard. But at last, in 1763, he finally abandoned the trade in slaves and renounced all the profits accruing from it :—
" If you knew," he wrote to a friend, "the whole affair it would make your humanity shudder. I have been largely concerned in the African trade. I quitted the profits arising from that gainful branch principally because of many acts from the masters and others concerned towards the wretched negr, oes from the time of purchasing to that Of selling them again."
Laurens soon took an active part in the stormy politics of South Carolina, where the Council, or Upper House, appears to have been in a permanent state of war with the Commons. Eventually, he became President of the first American Congress. His proceedings throw a curious light both on the character of the man, and on the manners and customs of the time. At an early stage of his career he got into trouble for "twisting the nose" of an extortionate collector of Customs. As President of Congress, he threatened to kick the Secretary, and on another occasion he "so far forgot himself as to answer from the chair an honourable member from North Carolina by singing aloud 'Poor little Penny, poor little Penny ; Sing tan-terra-ra-re.'" Manifestly, Laurens's excitable French blood, coupled with frequent attacks of gout, and possibly stimulated by his early dealings with slaves, rendered him somewhat irascible. In 1780, having resigned the Presidency of the Congress in consequence of what is known as the Deane-Lee controversy, he proceeded to Europe, but the ship in which he sailed was captured by an English cruiser. He was taken to London and confined in the Tower. During his confinement, the English Government, or one of its subordinate agents, had the inconceivable meanness and want of judgment to present him with a bill for £97 10s., to pay the warders who had been appointed to guard him. He replied with equal wit and dignity : "Attempts, Sir, to tax mon without their own consent, have involved this kingdom in a bloody seven years' war. I thought she had long since promised to abandon the project." Burke eventually took up his case, and he was exchanged for Cornwallis. On his 'return to America he received no very cordial welcome from his countrymen. Whilst confined in the Tower he had petitioned the British Government for certain minor privileges to be granted to him in words which were held to be unduly obsequious. His conduct was attacked in Congress.
Laurens died in 1792, before the battle between Federalism and State rights had been fought and won. Professor Wallace thinks that he would have been a "moderate Federalist," and this view is probably correct. Ho did, indeed, at times show strong Particularist tendencies. An impassioned appeal whioh he wrote, apparently in 1777, began : "0 Carolina! [not, it is to be observed, America] 0 my country ! " On the other hand, his political outlook was sufficientty wide to enable him to grasp the vital importance of unity. He was subjected to sharp criticism in his native State because he stood vigorously by the Now Englanders in the assertion of their rights to the Newfoundland fisheries, and even wished to continue the war with England on that account. The question was one which did not interest the Southern States. Professor Tyler, in his Literary History of the American Revolution, thus sums up the character of Laurens : "Coming at last upon the arena of national politics, he PM soon recognized for what he was—. a trusty, sagacious, lofty, imperturbable character—a man whom Washington could love and lean upon ; of whom even the bitterest of the loyalists had to think with admiration and forbearance." It may be added that the war cost Henry Laurens forty thousand guineas out of his private pocket.
Professor Wallace dwells at length on the acute dissensions which at times divided the counsels of the Americans during their struggle
for independence ; but to Englishmen the most interesting, and certainly the most instructive, portion of his work is that in which a lurid light is thrown on the folly of the British Government and the ineptitude of its agents. Both combined threw men of the typo of Henry Laurens, much against their will, into the camp of those who were deemed patriots on one side of the Atlantic and rebels on the other. We are accustomed to think that it was mistakes in policy alone which led to the American Revolution. The policy of the British Government was, indeed, very short-sighted and defective. Apart from those of
its features which are comparatively well known, there were others which afforded abundant ground for legitimate complaint on the part of the Americans. Thus, Laurens, who was first estranged from the British Government by the proceedings of the Admiralty Court, wrote a very temperate memorandum in which he said :—
" An American thinks it hard he should be obliged to purchase almost all the articles ho makes use of from Great Britain at an high price, and at the same time be prohibited from carrying his own produce to the most advantageous market ; whereby the British merchant is enabled to set his own price, not only on British goods, but also on the produce of America. By this means the American pays a much greater tax than any person of equal fortune on the other aide of the Atlantic, exclusive of the sums he is bound to contribute towards the support of the provincial government under which he resides."
Even, however, a bad policy need not necessarily produce disastrous results if only the agents charged with its execution act with honesty, judgment, and consideration. The Government of George III. were quite unfit to bear the burden of Empire. Experience had not as yet taught them the main principles on which an Imperial policy, to be successful, must be based. They did not understand that their agents should be chosen from the flower of the nation, and that the payment of adequate salaries was the best safeguard against corruption :— "If Great Britain would fix a pack upon the unbroken steed," Henry Laurens wrote in 1769, "she should at least have employed skilful
hands to make the first attempt to put it on the timorous creature. The wretches employed to carry the grievous laws into execution— I mean the pilfering and most grievous parts of them—are justly complained of everywhere here, from the Deputy Collector downwards to a man."
One South Carolina Judge, Leigh by name, is described as "a greedy, coarse, and filthy wretch." It was the conduct of Leigh, and such as Leigh, quite as much as the faults committed by the Norths and Townshends at Westminster, which eventually shattered to fragments the noble ideal of combining the whole Anglo-Saxon race into one indissoluble community. Some ardent spirits, such as Christopher Gadsden and Samuel Adams, strove from the very first to shako off the yoke of the Mother Country. They viewed with almost as much disapproval as George III. himself the tardy repeal of the Stamp Act, as they feared that it would lead to reconciliation. But the case of genuine loyalists such as Laurens was very different. They struggled hard to maintain the English connexion, and when it was severed Laurens compared himself to a dutiful son "thrust by the Lands of violence out of his father's house." In February, 1776, he wrote : "One more year will enable us to be independent. Alt! that word cuts me deep—has caused tears to trickle down my cheeks." It Is pitiful now to read how an Empire was wrecked by sheer inability to understand the rudimentary principles of sound Imperialism. The only excuse which can be offered for George III, and his advisers is that distance and the imperfect means of locomotion and communication which then existed rendered it difficult for them to obtain early and correct information, or to realize the true nature of the situation with which they had to deal.
Before leaving this work it may be observed that Professor Wallace's ardent patriotism has led him to defend American action in cases where it is quite indefensible. Thus he justifies, on what appear to be very inadequate grounds, the breach of faith committed by the Americans in violating the Convention of Saratoga, a proceeding which has been strongly condemned by such competent and impartial judges as Mr. Leek), and Sir George Trevelyan. This and some cognate subjects are, however, matters which concern the general history of America
rather than the biography of Henry Laurens. CROMER.
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