WEBVTT NOTE 24. Polarization in England and the German 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Volume 4, Chapter 24, Polarization in England and the German Response to Renting Hessians 2 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:20.000 During 1775 and early 1776, as we have seen, the American conflict escalated and intensified step by step, 3 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:28.000 as the military clashes widened on land and at sea, as the British cracked down bitterly on the revolutionaries, 4 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:48.000 as militant measures were taken against Americans loyal to Britain and as the Continental Congress opened diplomatic relations, organized the war effort and opened the ports to foreign trade and supplies in defiance of the time-honored British laws of trade. 5 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:57.000 As the conflict got underway and for many months thereafter, most of the American leaders had conservative aims and goals. 6 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:12.000 They aimed not at all at independence, but at intensifying the old pressure of the boycott to bring Britain to her senses and to abandon her recent policy of aggressive imperial domination. 7 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:33.000 Others, at least, realized that Britain would adopt a hard-line policy of crushing the rebellion in exorably pushing the Americans into greater conflict, but only a handful of the most radical and prescient leaders fought eagerly for the maximum goal, independence. 8 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:47.000 They realized that France would only be interested in aiding an American movement that would aim for independence and not for eventual reconciliation and strengthening of the British Empire. 9 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:58.000 Moreover, they saw that in the difficult war ahead, only American independence would provide the necessary inspiration for waging the struggle. 10 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:02.800 The radicals realized, as Curtis Nettles has written, that 11 00:02:02.800 --> 00:02:06.400 the Americans had arrived at a crossroads of history. 12 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:11.160 Backward, the road led to monarchy, serfdom, oppression. 13 00:02:11.160 --> 00:02:18.920 Ahead was visible the trace of a new path leading to emancipation, freedom and self-government. 14 00:02:18.920 --> 00:02:23.720 Should Congress take the road backward to the oppressions of the old world, 15 00:02:23.720 --> 00:02:29.520 or build a new road to the summit discernible in the distance. 16 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:32.920 It was independence that offered an inspiring prospect, 17 00:02:32.920 --> 00:02:35.820 nothing less than the creation of a new nation, 18 00:02:35.820 --> 00:02:40.320 a great republic dedicated to rights of man. 19 00:02:40.320 --> 00:02:43.620 New England, the center of liberalism and democracy, 20 00:02:43.620 --> 00:02:46.620 with its tradition of virtual independence, 21 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:50.820 had little difficulty in visualizing American independence. 22 00:02:50.820 --> 00:03:00.820 But as long as Massachusetts was the focal point of conflict with Britain, it and the rest of New England had to tread warily in Congress. 23 00:03:00.820 --> 00:03:06.820 Leveling New England was under enough suspicion as it was from the other colonies, 24 00:03:06.820 --> 00:03:16.820 and it would have been suicidal for it to take the lead in advocating independence, a most unpopular concept, in 1775. 25 00:03:16.820 --> 00:03:23.060 Massachusetts and its chief radicals, the Adams's, had to lie low, waiting for the 26 00:03:23.060 --> 00:03:29.900 lead for militancy and eventual independence to be taken by Virginia, the foremost and 27 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:33.180 the most radical colony in the South. 28 00:03:33.180 --> 00:03:38.820 This was a further consideration in the decision to give George Washington command of the Continental 29 00:03:38.820 --> 00:03:39.980 Army. 30 00:03:39.980 --> 00:03:46.780 He was an uncommon blend of impeccable conservative on social and political matters, and yet, 31 00:03:46.780 --> 00:03:50.580 Yet a militant in the fight against Britain. 32 00:03:50.580 --> 00:03:56.500 Yet the radicals had a difficult row to hoe indeed, for Congress began firmly in the hands 33 00:03:56.500 --> 00:04:05.180 of conservatives who would not consider independence, such leaders as John Jay, James Dwayne, John 34 00:04:05.180 --> 00:04:12.200 Alsop, Philip Schuler, and Philip and Robert Livingston of New York, John Dickinson, James 35 00:04:12.200 --> 00:04:18.560 Thomas Wilson and Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, Thomas Johnson of Maryland, Benjamin Harrison 36 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:25.800 of Virginia, Thomas Lynch in the Rutleges of South Carolina, and Dr. John Zubly of Georgia. 37 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:31.320 Even New England had conservative delegates, Silas Deane of Connecticut, and Thomas Cushing 38 00:04:31.320 --> 00:04:36.940 and the waffling and petulant John Hancock of Massachusetts. 39 00:04:36.940 --> 00:04:43.340 If such a formidable array, the Adamses, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, could only fume 40 00:04:43.340 --> 00:04:50.300 in private and await the passage of time that they firmly believed would be on their side. 41 00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:56.860 The superior insight of the radicals was partly due to their superior information on political 42 00:04:56.860 --> 00:05:03.740 conditions in Great Britain and on the formidable strength of the Tory forces. The prime source 43 00:05:03.740 --> 00:05:18.740 One of the authors of this information was Arthur Lee, who was functioning as a one-man committee of correspondence from London from the late 1760s, sending his news and evaluations to the Adamses and other radical leaders. 44 00:05:18.740 --> 00:05:25.740 Lee and his other brother William, a merchant settled in London who had become important in London politics, 45 00:05:25.740 --> 00:05:31.740 reported clearly the feebleness and decline of the Whigs and Radicals, 46 00:05:31.740 --> 00:05:40.740 as well as the triumphal successes of the imperialist and Tories and the subservience of a corrupt parliament. 47 00:05:40.740 --> 00:05:46.740 The American Radicals soon saw this estimate of the temper of the British government confirmed 48 00:05:46.740 --> 00:06:00.740 as the King brusquely refused even to receive Dickinson's olive branch petition and issued the staunchly hardline Proclamation of Rebellion on August 23, 1775. 49 00:06:00.740 --> 00:06:14.740 The proclamation absurdly denounced the Americans as rebels and traitors who had now brought long-laid designs and traitorous conspiracies to open rebellion and war. 50 00:06:14.740 --> 00:06:21.740 The King announced that he would bring traders to justice and condine punishment. 51 00:06:22.540 --> 00:06:27.740 This was quickly followed by a royal order to seize the ships of Americans or all those 52 00:06:27.740 --> 00:06:33.740 trading with America. And the royal authorities expressed their determination to proceed against 53 00:06:33.740 --> 00:06:39.980 the Americans as open and announced enemies of the state. In England, the Whig and liberal 54 00:06:39.980 --> 00:07:03.980 Many English merchants were beguiled by the temporary expansion of markets in Europe, aided by the recent peace between Russia and Turkey, and by the lure of government war contracts. 55 00:07:03.980 --> 00:07:13.980 The mass of the people were seduced by a wave of patriotism as well as the desire to force the Americans to pay part of their tax burden. 56 00:07:13.980 --> 00:07:27.980 The aristocratic Whig leadership, always inclined to luxurious indolence, decided against the efforts of Edmund Burke to arouse them and instead to give up and absent themselves from Parliament. 57 00:07:27.980 --> 00:07:44.980 Burke did his best to work for peace on his own and roused peace petitions from London and his constituency in Bristol, but all in vain. Indeed, more people in Bristol addressed their support of the government on the American War. 58 00:07:44.980 --> 00:07:53.980 Burke's persistent appeals to the Marquis of Rockingham and the Whigs to oppose the war vigorously was not simple impetuosity. 59 00:07:53.980 --> 00:08:02.980 It was based on profound insight into the proper strategy for a party truly in opposition to the existing regime. 60 00:08:02.980 --> 00:08:08.980 Vigorous opposition, though in a weak minority at the time, would not be at all futile. 61 00:08:08.980 --> 00:08:19.980 On the contrary, local opposition would inform people of the available alternative to which they might turn in anger when present policy became bankrupt. 62 00:08:19.980 --> 00:08:25.860 bankrupt. But for such an angry turn toward a radical change of the system, there must 63 00:08:25.860 --> 00:08:32.680 be skilled leadership and direction. There must be a vanguard. As Burke wrote, to bring 64 00:08:32.680 --> 00:08:39.500 the people to a feeling, as tends to amendment or alteration of system, there must be plan 65 00:08:39.500 --> 00:08:46.860 and management. All direction of public humor and opinion must originate in a few. He vainly 66 00:08:46.860 --> 00:08:53.620 urged on the Whigs a large and powerful nationwide petition movement, which would remain permanently 67 00:08:53.620 --> 00:08:59.500 in operation as a network of local committees of correspondence to serve as the lever of 68 00:08:59.500 --> 00:09:02.140 dynamic political change. 69 00:09:02.140 --> 00:09:09.180 The eloquent young Charles James Fox, a son of Henry Fox, enclosed to the Whig party, 70 00:09:09.180 --> 00:09:15.660 also argued against the Britons' war against the Americans. The Pittites opposed the war 71 00:09:15.660 --> 00:09:20.620 too, but were enfeebled by the chronic illness of Lord Chatham. 72 00:09:20.620 --> 00:09:26.420 Leading individual Whigs did make their mark by refusing to serve in the armed forces against 73 00:09:26.420 --> 00:09:33.580 the Americans, and these came to include Lord Effingham, an army officer, and the great 74 00:09:33.580 --> 00:09:36.020 Admiral Augustus Keppel. 75 00:09:36.020 --> 00:09:41.700 Meanwhile, the radical movement in Britain had fallen into rapid decline. 76 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:48.620 John Wilkes' triumphal entry into Parliament in 1774 as well as into London politics marked 77 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:55.620 the beginning not of new triumphs for the Wilkite movement but of its collapse. 78 00:09:55.620 --> 00:10:01.620 In any age of Tory ascendance, Wilkes proved to have been a far better radical leader in 79 00:10:01.620 --> 00:10:06.100 disgrace than in positions of power or influence. 80 00:10:06.100 --> 00:10:12.520 In fact, having realized his civic and parliamentary ambitions, it seemed that he no longer sought, 81 00:10:12.520 --> 00:10:17.300 or depended on, the acclaim of the lower orders of citizens. 82 00:10:17.300 --> 00:10:22.040 He was still a liberal opposed to the war, however, and he warned that victory would 83 00:10:22.040 --> 00:10:28.940 be hollow, since the Americans could not be kept permanently in subjection, even by large 84 00:10:28.940 --> 00:10:31.500 forces of occupation. 85 00:10:31.500 --> 00:10:37.100 In order to abandon the radical position, Wilkes was to remain for a while an undistinguished 86 00:10:37.100 --> 00:10:43.220 liberal member of Parliament. But he began to follow the classic ever rightward path 87 00:10:43.220 --> 00:10:51.180 of the renegade radical until, after two decades, he died in the odor and sanctity of the new 88 00:10:51.180 --> 00:11:00.020 Toryism. The radical cause in 1776 had become more abundant in Britain, a state aggravated 89 00:11:00.020 --> 00:11:05.800 by Parliament's recent re-imposition of a high tax on newspapers, crippling the cheap 90 00:11:05.800 --> 00:11:11.460 and popular press that had served as a vehicle for gaining support of the cause from the 91 00:11:11.460 --> 00:11:18.460 masses. Of the radicals, only the doubty Reverend John Horn managed to remain active. He took 92 00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:26.040 up a collection in London in June 1775 for widows and orphans of the Americans murdered 93 00:11:26.040 --> 00:11:45.040 by the British troops. He was promptly sent to prison for his audacity. It is significant of the decline of British radicalism that his arrest evoked none of the popular agitation generated by the imprisonment of John Wilkes in 1763. 94 00:11:45.040 --> 00:11:51.360 In their desperate state, the various liberal and opposition groups began to draw hesitantly 95 00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:57.600 together and to become increasingly radicalized by the American crisis. 96 00:11:57.600 --> 00:12:03.600 They soon realized that their only hope lay in a drastic British defeat at the hands of 97 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:05.600 the Americans. 98 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:11.360 Openly favoring the American cause, they grew more radical in their proffered solutions. 99 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:19.780 Burke, who habitually dealt in terms of utility and expediency or else tradition, now acknowledged 100 00:12:19.780 --> 00:12:27.340 in part the validity of the American stress on their rights. Yet he was gradually being 101 00:12:27.340 --> 00:12:33.540 outflanked on his left. The Earl of Shelburne and other Chattamites, along with the London 102 00:12:33.540 --> 00:12:40.220 radicals, called for repeal of the declaratory acts asserting full parliamentary sovereignty 103 00:12:40.220 --> 00:12:46.620 over America, including the right of taxation. And Charles James Fox was calling for repeal 104 00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:53.620 of every British measure toward America passed since 1763. With the liberal and radical movements 105 00:12:54.540 --> 00:13:01.540 weak and in disarray, the field was wide open for the hard-line apostles of force and suppression. 106 00:13:02.620 --> 00:13:09.260 Bunker Hill was characteristically taken not as a signal to stop and think, but as a stain 107 00:13:09.260 --> 00:13:15.940 to Britain's Honor, to be avenged as quickly and forcefully as possible. Only Lord Dartmouth, 108 00:13:15.940 --> 00:13:21.580 the Colonial Secretary, stood out against the war policy of the Cabinet, but with no 109 00:13:21.580 --> 00:13:27.760 success. So widespread was British support for suppression that the manufacturing centers 110 00:13:27.760 --> 00:13:35.640 of Manchester, Lancaster, Liverpool and Bristol presented pro-government addresses. Driven 111 00:13:35.640 --> 00:13:40.720 Known by the King and by the War Party in control of the rest of the Cabinet and of 112 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:46.880 popular opinion, the equivocal Prime Minister Lord North was forced to press the war with 113 00:13:46.880 --> 00:13:53.040 vigor. He raised troops, relieved General Gage and Vice Admiral Samuel Graves, who were 114 00:13:53.040 --> 00:13:59.760 considered dilatory by the War Party, and sent five Irish regiments to America. In the 115 00:13:59.760 --> 00:14:07.480 The autumn of 1775, moreover, the two cabinet moderates lost their posts. The Whig, Duke 116 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:14.120 of Grafton, went into opposition in bitter protest against the war, and Lord Dartmouth 117 00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:21.680 lost the key post of Colonial Secretary to hard-line Lord George Germain, a man bitterly 118 00:14:21.680 --> 00:14:28.600 opposed to appeasement of the colonies. Strengthening hard-line dominance over public opinion was 119 00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:37.120 as a pamphlet published in 1775 by the eminent Tory literary critic, Samuel Johnson. With 120 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:45.080 his accustomed perceptiveness, Johnson, in Taxation, No Tyranny, warned that the logical 121 00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:54.760 conclusion of the libertine and American hostility to taxation was no taxation at all, or anarchy. 122 00:14:54.760 --> 00:15:01.200 The World War Petitions, inspired by the government, denounced the sophisticated arguments and 123 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:07.840 seditious correspondence of a few disappointed men who were responsible for diluting the 124 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:15.320 Americans into rebellion. The Ministry propounded a similar line. Indeed, more serious than 125 00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:22.360 the imprisonment of John Horn was the arrest on a charge of treason of the radical alderman 126 00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:28.760 and leading London banker, Stephen Sayre, whom Burke and other Whigs were refused permission 127 00:15:28.760 --> 00:15:35.360 to visit in prison. Similar treatment for the Whig leaders was hinted to be in the offing, 128 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:41.960 though Sayre was eventually able to sue successfully for false arrest. Having agreed to prosecute 129 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:48.720 the war vigorously, North attempted to offer peace terms to the Americans. After a great 130 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:55.640 Deal of Wrangling with Germain and the War Party, he won an agreement in May 1776 to 131 00:15:55.640 --> 00:16:02.720 send as peace commissioners to America General Sir William Howe and his brother the Whig 132 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:09.680 Admiral Richard Lord Howe, the newly appointed commander of the fleet in American waters. 133 00:16:09.680 --> 00:16:14.960 This wrangling was a waste of time for the peace terms merely amounted to a demand for 134 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:21.760 for American Submission in Exchange for Instituting North's Rejected Plan of Conciliation and 135 00:16:21.760 --> 00:16:27.920 a Plan to Consider American Grievances. There was not the ghost of a chance that the Americans 136 00:16:27.920 --> 00:16:35.320 would submit. As Professor Richeson comments, the terms thus held out were those a victorious 137 00:16:35.320 --> 00:16:41.980 and reasonably benevolent mother country might have granted to discouraged and chastised 138 00:16:41.980 --> 00:16:47.980 But the Americans, of course, were neither beaten nor discouraged. 139 00:16:47.980 --> 00:16:55.980 Lord North's first task in prosecuting the war was to raise 20,000 men to send to the American colonies. 140 00:16:55.980 --> 00:16:59.980 Rather than annoy the British people by raising the troops at home, 141 00:16:59.980 --> 00:17:05.980 he determined to use Britain's vast wealth to hire mercenary troops from other governments. 142 00:17:05.980 --> 00:17:17.980 He turned first to Russia, which had been substantially helped by Britain to defeat Turkey in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-74. 143 00:17:17.980 --> 00:17:29.980 Russia had installed King Stanislaus as its puppet ruler in Poland, and in 1768 the liberal Polish Country Party, or Confederation of Bar, 144 00:17:29.980 --> 00:17:36.780 led by Counts Joseph and Casimir Pulaski rose in rebellion against the king. 145 00:17:36.780 --> 00:17:50.780 By 1772, the Polish rebellion was crushed, and Poland suffered the loss of one-third of its territory and half of its population in the first partition by Russia and Prussia. 146 00:17:50.780 --> 00:17:56.780 Turkey had decided to aid the Polish rebels, earning the belligerent attention of Russia. 147 00:17:56.780 --> 00:18:02.620 But Russia's gratitude to Britain for its aid in the war had cooled. 148 00:18:02.620 --> 00:18:08.820 The German-born Empress Catherine the Great had come strongly under the influence of Prussia, 149 00:18:08.820 --> 00:18:14.760 and Frederick the Great of Prussia was peeved at Britain for what he considered unsatisfactory 150 00:18:14.760 --> 00:18:18.800 peace terms after the Seven Years' War. 151 00:18:18.800 --> 00:18:24.340 After much backing and filling and seeming agreement, Catherine finally refused Britain's 152 00:18:24.340 --> 00:18:26.020 request. 153 00:18:26.020 --> 00:18:28.660 Roth turned next to the Dutch. 154 00:18:28.660 --> 00:18:35.100 Ever since the accession to the English throne of William of Orange in 1688, the Dutch House 155 00:18:35.100 --> 00:18:38.340 of Orange had been subservient to Great Britain. 156 00:18:38.340 --> 00:18:44.020 They had been governed during the first half of the 18th century by the Libertarian Republican 157 00:18:44.020 --> 00:18:51.300 Party, which pursued a policy of thoroughgoing decentralization, minimal government and profitable 158 00:18:51.300 --> 00:18:54.100 neutrality in Europe's wars. 159 00:18:54.100 --> 00:19:00.100 During the war of Austrian succession, Britain had engineered a coup by the House of Orange. 160 00:19:00.100 --> 00:19:06.780 The Republic was overthrown, and William IV of Orange was installed as Stadtholder of 161 00:19:06.780 --> 00:19:08.580 the Dutch provinces. 162 00:19:08.580 --> 00:19:13.740 Now Great Britain asked the Dutch to supply the needed troops, specifically the Scotch 163 00:19:13.740 --> 00:19:15.460 Brigade. 164 00:19:15.460 --> 00:19:20.700 This brigade originally consisted of Scotsmen, but was now largely comprised of Walloons 165 00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:23.020 from the southern Netherlands. 166 00:19:23.020 --> 00:19:28.380 The House of Orange was, of course, willing to agree, but the Prince of Orange was by 167 00:19:28.380 --> 00:19:34.140 no means the autocratic ruler of Holland, and the Republican-led assemblies of most 168 00:19:34.140 --> 00:19:37.820 of the provinces vetoed the scheme. 169 00:19:37.820 --> 00:19:43.620 Eloquent opposition to providing the troops was expressed by John Dirk, who, citing English 170 00:19:43.620 --> 00:19:50.220 depredations upon the sea and upon Dutch commerce, declared that the Americans were contending 171 00:19:50.220 --> 00:19:56.940 for their liberty just as the Dutch themselves had fought for their independence as rebels 172 00:19:56.940 --> 00:20:00.660 against Spain in the late 16th century. 173 00:20:00.660 --> 00:20:06.060 Leading the successful opposition to troop aid to Britain in the interior Dutch province 174 00:20:06.060 --> 00:20:12.700 of Overiesel was a man destined to become one of the most important figures in the international 175 00:20:12.700 --> 00:20:16.220 revolutionary movement in the near future. 176 00:20:16.220 --> 00:20:23.700 The nobleman, J.D. van der Kaepelin-Totepole, who broke precedent by making public his views 177 00:20:23.700 --> 00:20:30.020 in the secret discussion within the provincial estates, van der Kaepelin, who also led the 178 00:20:30.020 --> 00:20:36.620 movement to abolish corvée servitude by the peasants of the province, was in contact with 179 00:20:36.620 --> 00:20:42.980 British radicals and was soon to correspond with the revolutionary governors of Connecticut 180 00:20:42.980 --> 00:20:44.780 and New Jersey. 181 00:20:44.780 --> 00:20:50.900 The substantial number of Republican merchants in the Dutch provinces also expressed their 182 00:20:50.900 --> 00:20:58.140 opposition to British dictation by happily engaging in illicit trade with the rebellious 183 00:20:58.140 --> 00:21:05.180 Americans and with the French, St. Eustatius in the Dutch West Indies serving as a crucial 184 00:21:05.180 --> 00:21:08.740 entrepôt in the American trade. 185 00:21:08.740 --> 00:21:13.500 Twice rebuffed in their search for mercenary troops, the British now turned to some of 186 00:21:13.500 --> 00:21:20.500 The Petty Princes of Western and Southern Germany, who were always eager to augment their incomes 187 00:21:20.660 --> 00:21:27.660 by renting out their troops. In January 1776, Britain received into its service 30,000 German 188 00:21:29.540 --> 00:21:36.540 mercenaries from six principalities, including Hesse and Brunswick, of which three-fifths 189 00:21:36.540 --> 00:21:48.540 The myths came from Hess Castle. Of the 30,000 troops, 7,500 were to perish during the war, either in battle or of disease. 190 00:21:48.540 --> 00:21:57.540 Of the remaining 22,500, 5,000 were to desert to settle in the United States. 191 00:21:57.540 --> 00:22:02.580 Some of these German troops were mere hired killers or soldiers of fortune. 192 00:22:02.580 --> 00:22:09.020 Many were imbued with deep sympathy for the American cause, proving to be reluctant fighters 193 00:22:09.020 --> 00:22:14.060 at best and often deserting outright to the American ranks. 194 00:22:14.060 --> 00:22:20.260 In their discontent, the German troops at least partially reflected a wave of enthusiasm 195 00:22:20.260 --> 00:22:25.960 for the revolutionary cause that was sweeping the intellectuals of Germany. 196 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:31.880 The Enlightenment had deeply penetrated into German thought and Rousseau and Voltaire were 197 00:22:31.880 --> 00:22:35.880 read as widely in Germany as in America. 198 00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:42.760 The rights of man were keenly admired and the German intellectuals saw with enthusiasm 199 00:22:42.760 --> 00:22:49.640 that here was a new type of war, a war for liberty, a revolutionary war for an ideal 200 00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:57.220 feel very different from the familiar European war of mercantilistic and dynastic plunder. 201 00:22:57.220 --> 00:23:03.960 The rental of the troops to counter-revolutionary England ignited a torrent of protest in Germany. 202 00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:09.280 The German poets were in the forefront of the protest, including the young poets Goethe 203 00:23:09.280 --> 00:23:10.360 and Schiller. 204 00:23:10.360 --> 00:23:17.000 The poets were moved to use the American struggle for liberty to protest directly or obliquely 205 00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:24.400 against their own petty despotisms. The poet, Johann Voss, called courageously for Germans 206 00:23:24.400 --> 00:23:31.600 to drain the cup of tyrant's blood to triumph. Leading the campaign was the romantic poet 207 00:23:31.600 --> 00:23:38.680 and newspaper editor of Hortenberg, Christian F.D. Schubart, who had recently founded a 208 00:23:38.680 --> 00:23:45.840 lively paper to help launch Germany's political press. Also avidly enthusiastic for the American 209 00:23:45.840 --> 00:23:52.080 and Revolution was the poet Johann George Jacobi, who hailed the Americans as really 210 00:23:52.080 --> 00:24:00.080 battling against despotism in all countries. An editor of a sentimental women's magazine, 211 00:24:00.080 --> 00:24:07.860 Jacobi rhapsodized over revolutionary activities by the women of Pennsylvania. Another prominent 212 00:24:07.860 --> 00:24:14.480 romantic libertarian poet of the revolution was Christopher M. Whelan, former jurist and 213 00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:21.360 and Professor of Philosophy, who founded Der Tutsch Merkur, the most lively and popular 214 00:24:21.360 --> 00:24:25.600 and most politically oriented paper in Germany. 215 00:24:25.600 --> 00:24:31.680 Schubart and Jacobi were soon suppressed by their respective princes, but Whelan carried 216 00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:38.600 on, and he was joined in advocating the American cause by more sober thinkers. These writings 217 00:24:38.600 --> 00:24:44.980 These included a constitutional defense of the American case and of American smuggling, 218 00:24:44.980 --> 00:24:50.480 and an attack on the navigation acts by Jacob Movillian, professor of military science at 219 00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:57.840 Castle. Movillian was greatly influenced by the first modern economist, the French physiocrats 220 00:24:57.840 --> 00:25:04.400 who had evolved a rigorous libertarian theory that included a commitment to a strictly laissez-faire 221 00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:08.400 to their economy and to the natural rights of man. 222 00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:15.400 Movilon declared the lesson of the American Revolution to be that, to avoid revolution, 223 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:22.400 the German states must abolish the statist repressions at home, including religious intolerance, 224 00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:30.400 monopolies, guilds, taxes on agriculture, and economic burdens on trade and commerce. 225 00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:42.400 Movillian's physiocracy, in turn, influenced his colleague, the statesman and economist Christian von Dome, who became the political commentator for Whelan's Mercure. 226 00:25:42.400 --> 00:25:56.400 Von Dome criticized the vicious trade monopoly of the British mercantilist system and pointed out that American independence would be a great boon to the world if only because it would smash this monopoly. 227 00:25:56.400 --> 00:26:02.780 Monopoly. He thereby summed up the German, indeed the European, radical hopes for the 228 00:26:02.780 --> 00:26:10.780 American Revolution. Its success would create new routes for trade, new types of industry, 229 00:26:10.780 --> 00:26:17.080 new connections between nations in various parts of the world. It can give wider circles 230 00:26:17.080 --> 00:26:23.340 of influence to the enlightenment, new keenness to popular thought, new life to the spirit 231 00:26:23.340 --> 00:26:23.900 of Freedom.