Johnston County, NC - Bicentennial Series

                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                        An English Look at 1776

Reprinted with permission of the Smithfield Herald
Febraury 20, 1976

   There may be some Englishmen, perhaps, who are rather vague as to the 
issues involved in the American Revolutionary War. They have heard of the 
Boston Tea Party, and feel a twinge of horror at the thought of 342 chests 
of the beloved here being pitched into Boston Harbour - a crime only second
in magnitude, it seems to them, to the wanton wastage of a similar quantity 
of beer. The sympathies of those English people - and they are many - who 
take an enlightened interest in the subject, are wholly with the rebels.  
They realize that a conflict between an army of pressed men and mercenaries,
acting on order from a base 3,000 miles over the water, and an army of 
people fighting with a strong sense of purpose on their own territory, could
have only one inevitable result; and that the American colonies must 
eventually have broken from England by their own weight, if not by their own
will.

                          England in 1776

   It was not so in England in 1776. The Church, in particular, strongly 
supported the colonial policy of King George the Third. Those two great 
clerical diarists of the eighteenth century, John Wesley and James Woodforde,
were no exceptions to this rule. John Wesley was a man of God, a radical in
religion, and in politics a high eighteenth-century Tory. In his pamphlet, 
"A Calm Address to the Inhabitants of England," he made no secret of his 
pro-British sympathies. Caesar was Caesar, and so was King George; and unto
Caesar must be rendered those things that were Caesar’s. These things, in
Wesley’s mind, included the provisions of the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, and 
the Boston Port Act.

   I noticed one entry in Wesley’s journal, dated April 28, 1776. "Preached 
in the Press-yard at Rothwell. Seldom have I seen a congregation so moved."
Rothwell is a township a few miles away from my home town of Leed, in 
Yorkshore, and the Press-yard was actually a jail where men press-ganged
into service for the American war were incarcerated until the time came to 
ship them abroad.

   The Rev. James Woodforde was an obscure country clergyman whose diary, 
first published in 1924, has been popular bedtime reading in England ever 
since. He made an entry every day during the years 1765-1803, chiefly 
concerned with delightfully mundane matters; most of all with the gargantuan
meals which seem to have been a regular feature of the Woodforde household.
On February 27, 1776, whilst the North Carolina Whigs were defeating the 
Loyalists at Moore’s Creek Bridge, the Woodfordes were dining on "boiled 
beef roast and boiled chicken, part of a fine ham, a couple of ducks roasted
and peas, followed by tarts and cheesecakes."

                            "God Was Pleased?"

   Both Wesley and Woodforde refer in their diaries to December 13, 1776, 
the day appointed by King George as a fast day when the people were exhorted
to go to Church to pray for the success of the Royal forces in America.  
"There is reason to believe," writes Wesley, "that God was pleased with us,
for the British forces have occupied New York and Long Island." Woodforde 
led the prayers in his own church, and on December 14, the day after the 
fast, records that "today I dined upon a fine turkey - the finest, I believe,
that I ever tasted in my life." The only other Woodforde entry relating to 
the American war is dated November 28, 1781, when he sadly comments on the 
"tragic news in the Times newspaper" that Lord Cornwallis has surrendered 
to General Washington at Yorktown.

   Should the spirts of John Wesley and James Woodforde meet each other in 
outer space, they would at this present time, I am sure, agree to accept 
the United States. And the spirit of Thomas Carlyle, hovering near, would 
say - as he once said to a philosophical lady who gravely told him that 
after due consideration she had decided to accept the Universe - "Gad!  
You’d better."

______________________________________________________________________

Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by
Guy Potts - gpotts1@nc.rr.com
______________________________________________________________________