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But the time had come. In the 15 months since Lexington and Concord, the colonial psychology has changed profoundly. Radicals like Boston's Samuel Adams and other revolutionary leaders played a canny waiting game, delaying the call for outright independence until popular sentiment clearly swung away from King George and reconciliation. The radicals declared until nearly the last moment that the Colonists wanted only their rights within the British Empire, thus denying the Tories the chance to brand them as extremists who were misleading the people. Counseled Sam Adams: "Wait till the fruit is ripe before we gather it."
Events have worked a revolution in the American mind long before the formal break; they have called a new hierarchy of loyalties into being. The American invasion of Canada last fall produced two political effects: 1) because of the idealistic rhetoric that Congress used to describe the enterprise, liberty took on, to American ears, strong and even official overtones that it had not previously possessed; 2) the British decided that the Americans were obviously incendiaries who must be stopped. In January, Thomas Paine's Common Sense issued a loud, clear call for independence, condemning George Ill as "the greatest enemy this continent hath."
So fervent was Paine's message and so swift its circulation that by the beginning of March, Congress found itself behind the people. It hurried to catch up. On March 3, it sent Connecticut Delegate Silas Deane to France to negotiate for military aid; on the 14th, it voted to disarm all Loyalists; on the 19th, it authorized privateers to intercept British merchantmen; on the 26th, it placed an embargo on exports to Britain and the British West Indies. On April 6, it opened ports of trade to all nations except Britain. By May 10, John Adams was writing to James Warren, president of Massachusetts' Provincial Congress, "Every post and every day rolls in upon us, independence like a torrent."
Since February, rumors have floated that Britain was sending commissioners to America to negotiate a reconciliation. An influential Pennsylvanian, and now George Washington's adjutant general, Joseph Reed, wrote to his chief: "To tell you the truth, my dear Sir, I am infinitely more afraid of these commissioners than of their generals and armies. If their propositions are plausible, and behaviour artful, I am apprehensive they will divide us." (As is now believed, Admiral Lord Howe may have got from King George a commission to negotiate; see page 22.)
By mid-April, Elder Statesman Benjamin Franklin advised a friend: "Nothing seems wanting but that 'general consent.' The novelty of the thing [independence] deters some, the doubts of success, others, the vain hope of reconciliation, many. But our enemies take continually every proper measure to remove these obstacles, and their endeavors are attended with success, since every day furnishes us with new causes of increasing enmity, and new reasons for wishing an eternal separation."