All language subtitles for The American Revolution S01E02.en

Once it's a shooting war,
as with Lexington and Concord, it's a war.

There's no doubt about that.

But independence was not in any way
officially on the table as a goal

of the Americans at that point.

The idea of independence was still controversial.

The official position was that the
fight was essentially

for redress, for, "Let's get back to
the way things used to be,

"back when things were good.

"When you left us alone."

- "That we are divorced is to me very
clear.

"The only question is concerning the
proper time for making

"an explicit declaration in words.

"Some people must have time to look
around them,

"before, behind, on the right hand,

"and on the left, then to think,

"and, after all this, to resolve.

"Others see at one intuitive glance
into the past and the future,

"and judge with precision at once.

"But remember, you can't make 13
clocks strike precisely alike

"at the same second."

John Adams.

- I think the greatest misconception
about the American Revolution

is that it was something that unified
Americans,

and that it was just a war of
Americans against the British.

It leaves out the reality that it was
a civil war among Americans.

- Some 20,000 militiamen from towns
all over Massachusetts

and from Connecticut, New Hampshire,
and Rhode Island, as well,

had poured into the series

of impromptu camps

that kept the British

caged in Boston.

They were united in their anger at the
Redcoats,

but very little else.

They were militiamen, not professional
soldiers,

expected to meet immediate crises,

not take part in prolonged campaigns.

Few had uniforms.

Many had never been more than 50 miles
from home.

Their first loyalty was to the towns
from which they came,

and the neighbours whom they had
elected as their officers.

Once the shooting stopped and it
became clear

that the British were not going to
attack them,

they began drifting home to plant
their crops.

- "What, 10,000 peasants keep 5,000
King's troops shut up?

"Well, let us get in, and we'll soon
find elbow room."

General John Burgoyne.

- On May 25th, 1775,

a Royal Navy frigate threaded its way
into Boston Harbour.

Aboard were British reinforcements

and three major generals.

John Burgoyne was the showiest and the
most self-assured of the three.

A playwright, as well as a soldier,

eager always for advancement,

he was dismissive of the rebels
besieging Boston,

whom he called "a rabble in arms,
flushed with insolence".

Henry Clinton had spent six boyhood
years in New York,

where his father had been the royal
governor.

He was soft-spoken, retiring,
insecure.

William Howe had once expressed
sympathy with the American cause,

but he now saw an opportunity to
burnish his reputation

as a soldier.

They had been sent to bolster General
Gage,

whom the King's ministers now saw as
overly timid.

The commanders all agreed that, if
they could seize the heights

at Dorchester and Charlestown,

they could break the rebel siege.

- There are two pieces of high ground

that the British have to worry about.

One is Dorchester Heights,

and the other is the high ground

on the Charlestown Peninsula,

including Bunker Hill and Breed's
Hill.

If you put cannon on either the
Charlestown Peninsula

or on Dorchester Heights,

you would be able to bombard British
forces in Boston.

The British decide that they are going
to seize Charlestown first.

- The Patriots got wind of the plan,

and Colonel William Prescott was
ordered to seize

and fortify Bunker's Hill,

the highest prominence on the
Charlestown Peninsula.

As Prescott and his men got there,
however,

it was somehow decided that they
should instead build their fort

on the crest of another lower hill

that came to be called Breed's Hill.

But it was within range of both the
warships in the harbour

and the British battery in Boston's
North End.

Prescott's men went to work with picks
and shovels,

trying to make as little noise as
possible,

so as not to alert the British.

But when dawn broke on June 17th,
1775,

the redoubt was only half finished.

A 20-gun British Navy ship opened fire
on the hilltop.

A cannonball tore the head off a
private named Asa Pollard.

To steady his men, Prescott leaped
onto the unfinished parapet

and bellowed at the warships,

"Hit me if you can!"

British General Howe was certain

that the hill would easily be carried.

As soon as the mid-afternoon tide came
in,

Howe would personally accompany a
large force to the eastern tip

of the Charlestown Peninsula.

INDISTINCT SHOUTING CANNON FIRE

- No-one expects that a bunch of
country farmers with muskets

are going to hold off a trained army

who have orders from an actual general
in Boston.

- When the column on the left neared
Charlestown and came under fire

from Americans hidden in abandoned
buildings,

British ships set the town ablaze with
incendiary shells.

Then, at around 3.30,

Howe's Redcoats started up the right
side of the hill.

Tall, fearsome grenadiers formed the
first rank.

Behind them came the foot infantry.

But the men had to dismantle wooden
fences and stone walls

that blocked their climb.

Their uniforms were woollen, the sun
was hot.

And, like the anxious New Englanders
waiting for them on the hilltop,

some had never been in battle.

- The notion that the British Army

is this battle-tested, experienced
force -

they're good, there's no doubt about
it,

their officers are good,

they're very disciplined for the most
part -

but they are as scared and as new to
this as the Americans are.

- As Howe's forces continued their
ascent,

British light infantry on the far
right started

their flanking manoeuvre along the
narrow beach,

bent on getting behind the American
defences,

sure they could get there unopposed.

But Colonel John Stark, of New
Hampshire,

and 60 of his militiamen were waiting
for them.

He had seen that the beach was open to
a flanking attack

and directed his men to build a
barricade.

When the British got within range,

the Patriots opened fire.

GUNFIRE

The light infantry disintegrated.

The New Hampshire men kept firing

until the stunned survivors began to
retreat toward their boats.

Behind them lay nearly 100 dead and
wounded,

lying, Stark recalled, "As thick as
sheep in a fold".

Meanwhile, at the top of Breed's Hill,

Prescott and his officers reassured
their men

the Redcoats could never reach them

if they held their fire till they came
close.

90 yards out, a stone wall stopped the
grenadiers.

As they laid down their arms and
worked to tear apart the wall,

the Patriots fired their muskets.

British officers urged their men to
keep advancing.

Instead, the soldiers stayed where
they were

and tried to shoot back.

The Americans had cover.

The British had none.

The Redcoats broke and retreated down
the slope.

General Howe let his lines regroup,

then ordered them back up the hill

in hopes of driving through the gap
between the breastwork

and the rail fence.

He would go with them.

This time, the Patriots behind the
fence waited till

the grenadiers got within 50 yards,
before opening fire.

It was hard to miss.

Scores of British soldiers fell...

..dead, dying, screaming in pain.

- They deliberately target the British
officers,

and they can recognise them in part
because they're all

wearing red coats, right?

But the officers are wearing coats
that are almost vermillion in hue,

because they can afford the more
expensive dyes

that make those coats pop.

The British, frankly, think this is
unfair,

trying to target officers.

There's something unseemly about it.

But the Americans are not going to
stop, throughout the whole war.

- CHEERING

The Americans cheered,

hoping General Howe had had enough.

- Every one of his staff officers is
killed or wounded.

Howe will come back down the hill
unharmed, remarkably.

But he's got blood all over his
stockings

from the men who've been shot on
either side of him.

- GUNSHOT ECHOES

At the bottom of Breed's Hill,

General Howe was determined to come at
the Americans one more time.

Up above, Colonel Prescott knew his
men had little powder left,

and that many of their muskets were
fouled from so much firing.

This time, in order to make each shot
count,

he insisted his men wait until their
targets

were within 30 yards.

GUNFIRE

"As fast as the front man was shot
down,

"the next stepped forward into his
place,"

one militiamen recalled.

"It was surprising how they would step
over their dead as though

"they had been logs of wood."

"We fired till our ammunition began to
fail,"

another militiamen remembered.

"Then our firing began to slacken,

"and at last, it went out like an old
candle."

British Marines with bayonets began
climbing over the parapets.

Some Americans hurled rocks

or swung their muskets like clubs.

Others clawed their way out of the
redoubt and ran.

It was all over in a matter of
minutes.

The Patriots had been driven from
Breed's Hill.

115 Americans had been killed,

and another 305 wounded.

- The British succeed, in that they
drive the Americans off of

the Charlestown Peninsula.

They take Breed's Hill, they take
Bunker Hill.

But it has been a pyrrhic victory of
the first order.

It's four of the most awful hours of
combat

in American military history.

There are 1,000 British casualties
that day.

There are 220-some British dead.

- 40% of the attacking force was
killed or injured.

40%.

That's a horrendously high casualty
rate.

It is the highest casualty rate for
the British Army

until the first day of the Somme in
1916.

It is unbelievably bloody,

and that has a really profound impact.

- "The loss we have sustained,"
General Gage admitted,

"is greater than we can bear."

During the final struggle, Major John
Pitcairn was shot

through the chest, and fell dying into
the arms of his son.

He was so hated by New Englanders,

because he had led the British troops
at Lexington Green,

that at least four different men

would subsequently claim to have fired
the fatal shot.

- "Saturday gave us a dreadful
specimen

"of the horrors of civil war.

"You may easily judge what distress we
were in

"to see and hear Englishmen destroying
one another.

"God grant the blood already spilt may
suffice.

"But this, we cannot reasonably
expect."

Reverend Andrew Eliot.

- When the news of the battle -

remembered as the Battle of Bunker
Hill -

eventually made its way to London,

the King proclaimed, the deluded
people of America

were in a state of open and avowed
rebellion.

Anyone who now aided their cause was a
traitor.

General Gage was soon called home,

replaced as commander-in-chief by
General William Howe.

For almost three years, Howe would
lead the struggle

to try to put down the rebellion

and carefully avoid ordering any more
frontal assaults

against entrenched Americans.

- "Britain, at the expense of three
millions,

"has killed 150 Americans this
campaign,

"which is £20,000 a head.

"And at Bunker's Hill, she gained a
mile of ground.

"During the same time,

"60,000 children have been born in
America.

"From these data, calculate the time
and expense necessary

"to kill us all,

"and conquer our whole territory."

Benjamin Franklin.

- "Unhappy it is to reflect that a
brother's sword

"has been sheathed in a brother's
breast,

"and that the once happy and peaceful
plains of America

"are either to be drenched with blood

"or inhabited by slaves.

"Sad alternative.

"But can a virtuous man hesitate in
his choice?"

- THUNDER ROLLS

- George Washington.

- On July 2nd, 1775,

Private Phineas Ingalls, of Andover,
Massachusetts,

noted in his diary that it rained,

and that a new general from
Philadelphia

had arrived in Cambridge.

That new general was George
Washington, of Virginia,

the commander of the Continental Army

the Congress in Philadelphia had just
created.

His arrival meant that the New England
War,

in which Phineas Ingalls and his
fellow militiamen had joined,

was about to become an American war.

- Washington is a figure toward whom

people naturally turn for leadership.

It is clear, by the time the
Continental Army is signed

into being, in the late spring of
1775,

that its commander-in-chief can be
nobody else.

There's something about his presence

that makes him the inescapable choice.

- The Second Continental Congress had
been meeting since May,

and it was obvious from the first

that 43-year-old George Washington
would command its new army.

He had led troops during the French
and Indian War,

and he was from Virginia,

the wealthiest and most-populated
colony.

New England delegates,

eager to ensure that colony's support
for the war,

favoured naming a Virginian.

Washington was also one of America's
richest men,

the beneficiary of the work of scores
of indentured servants

and more than 100 enslaved people

at his plantation on the Potomac
River, Mount Vernon.

And to the west, he had amassed tens
of thousands

of acres of Indian lands.

- Washington has this vision of the
future in which...

..America's future is not to the east,

not towards Europe, it's to the west.

He does see the future and the next
century as something in which

we should focus on the consolidation
of the continent.

- What defines his early career is an
amazing focus -

a ruthless and intense focus - on his
own interests,

which makes him exactly like every
other member of his class.

It's just that he became George
Washington.

- Washington considered outward
evidence of ambition unseemly,

but his appearance alone made him
stand out in Philadelphia.

He was about 6'3", when the average
height of the men

he would lead into battle was around
5'7".

And he, alone among the delegates,

appeared each day dressed as a
soldier.

- "He has so much martial dignity in
his deportment

"that you would distinguish him to be
a general and a soldier

"from among 10,000 people.

"There is not a king in Europe that
would not look like

"a valet de chambre by his side."

Benjamin Rush.

- Washington accepted that he and his
army would be subordinate to

the civilian control of Congress,

but he did not yet see himself as a
revolutionary.

He still hoped to lead what he called
a "loyal protest",

as if George III might somehow
overrule Parliament

and restore the rights of British
colonists.

On his way to Cambridge, he met a
dispatch rider

who carried a letter that told of the
terrible blood-letting

that had taken place on Breed's Hill.

- He shows up in Cambridge in early
July 1775

as a Virginian commanding almost
exclusively New England militiamen.

He doesn't know what to make of them.

They don't know quite what to make of
him.

He has nothing good to say about New
Englanders privately.

They're almost from different
countries.

But his job is to take this gaggle,

this cluster of militia forces,

and to form them into a national army.

- Washington thought he'd be
commanding a 20,000-man force.

In fact, he had fewer than 14,000 men
fit for service.

He was assured he would have 15 tons
of precious gunpowder.

There were just five.

Washington was impatient, eager to get
at the enemy.

In September, he proposed mounting a
waterborne attack on Boston.

His officers talked him out of it.

- Typically, Washington, before he
would make a big decision,

would canvass his major generals

as to what to do, and inevitably,

he would do whatever Nathanael Greene
suggested.

- General Nathanael Greene, of Rhode
Island -

a Quaker who came to see pacifism as
impractical

in the face of what he called "this
business of necessity" -

hoped the British might make a move,
so that the Americans, he said,

"Could sell them another hill at the
same price as they had paid

"taking Breed's Hill."

But the British didn't dare mount an
attack

on Washington's forces, either.

The memory of the last battle was too
fresh.

The standoff would continue for
another six months.

In Boston, soldiers and civilians
alike suffered.

There was too little firewood.

Regulars ripped pews from churches

and demolished whole houses trying to
keep warm.

Of 40 transport vessels dispatched
from England and Ireland

to provision the town, 32 never made
it -

blown off course by unfavourable winds
all the way

to the West Indies, or seized by
Patriots.

- "What in God's name are ye all about
in England?

"Have you forgot us?

"For we have not had a vessel for
three months

"with any sort of supplies,

"and therefore, our miseries are
become manifold."

- The Americans were not hostile to
the concept of empire.

On the contrary,

they were great enthusiasts for it.

They called it the Continental Army

and the Continental Congress for a
good reason.

They had ambitions to incorporate
Canada, Florida,

and the whole of the continent of
North America.

- "Failure to punish the people of the
four New England governments

"for their many rebellious and
piratical acts

"only encourage them to go to greater
lengths.

"I determine to destroy some of their
towns and shipping."

Vice Admiral Samuel Graves.

- In October, Vice Admiral Samuel
Graves,

commander-in-chief of His Majesty's
North American Station,

announced he planned to lay waste to
the ports of Marblehead,

Salem, Cape Ann, Ipswich, Newburyport,
Portsmouth,

Saco, Falmouth, Machias.

All of them were bases from which
privateers, Patriot raiders,

menaced British shipping.

Graves dispatched Lieutenant Henry
Mowat and four warships

to carry out his orders.

Mowat began with Falmouth - now
Portland, Maine.

Mowat gave the nearly 2,000
townspeople two hours, he said,

"to remove without delay the human
species"

before the bombardment began,

then agreed to reconsider,

provided the townspeople turned over
all their arms and gunpowder

by the following morning.

When they didn't, British ships opened
fire.

CANNON FIRE

The cannonade went on for more than
seven hours,

firing more than 3,000 rounds of shot

and hollow balls filled with
combustible material.

In mid-afternoon, landing parties
rowed ashore.

They hurled torches into the doors and
windows of homes and shops.

News of Falmouth's destruction spread
fast.

Ports up and down the coast braced for
the next attack.

British Admiral Graves decided against
attacking any more ports.

The damage was done.

- "The savage and brutal barbarity of
our enemies is a full demonstration

"that there is not the least remains
of virtue, wisdom,

"or humanity in the British.

"Therefore, we expect soon to break
off all kinds of connections

"with Britain, and form into a grand
republic of

"the American United Colonies."

The New England Chronicle.

- "When you make men slaves, you
deprive them of half their virtue

"and compel them to live with you in a
state of war.

"Are there no dangers attending this
mode of treatment?

"Are you not hourly in dread of an
insurrection?"

Olaudah Equiano.

- The growing talk of liberty had
appealed to those

who had the least of it, and craved it
most.

From New England to South Carolina,

enslaved people offered to help the
British

if they were granted freedom.

In November of 1775,

Virginia's royal governor, Lord
Dunmore,

issued a proclamation.

It promised freedom to any enslaved
man owned by a rebel

who was willing to take up arms

and help suppress the uprising.

- It's not that the British are
anti-slavery, by any means,

in the 1770s, right?

Their colonies in the Caribbean are
their most profitable colonies

in the Americas.

They are firmly committed to slavery.

But, opportunistically,

when they think that they can
encourage slaves to rise up

against rebelling colonists, they'll
do so.

- For enslaved people, this was a way
of getting out of a situation

that seemed intractable,

and it gave them an impetus

to get involved in all of this.

In the sort of chaos of war,

they found an opportunity, a way to
escape their situation.

- The Virginia Gazette.

"Be not then, ye Negros,

"tempted by this proclamation to ruin
yourselves.

"Whether you will profit by my advice,
I cannot tell.

"But this I know, that whether we
suffer or not,

"if you desert us, you most certainly
will."

- "Connecticut wants no Massachusetts
man in her core.

"Massachusetts thinks there is no
necessity for a Rhode Islander

"to be introduced into hers.

"Could I have foreseen what I have and
am like to experience?

"No consideration upon Earth should
have induced me

"to accept this command."

- Now George Washington faced, for the
first time,

the problem that would haunt him again
and again.

When enlistments expired at the end of
the year,

most of his army was simply going to
melt away.

To fill out his ranks, Washington
persuaded the governors

of Massachusetts and New Hampshire

to send him a total of 5,000
militiamen.

The newcomers were so sullen,

veteran soldiers called them the
"long-faced people".

Washington's new army,

an ill-assorted mix of soldiers who'd
decided to stay on,

raw recruits, and short-term
militiamen

now numbered around 8,000 men,

but only two thirds were fit for duty.

Those men were still cold, still
poorly armed,

still poorly paid -

but also, still able to keep the
British trapped in Boston.

- "At the most moderate computation,

"this rebellion will cost Great
Britain ten millions of treasure

"and 20,000 lives.

"What, then, in the name of wonder is
the object of the war?

"Are we to throw away so much treasure
and so many lives

"to gain a point which, when gained,

"is not worth 1% on our money?"

- The war in North America was not
universally popular in Britain.

The colonies were 3,000 miles away.

The theatre of war would be far larger
than any the British Army

had ever encountered before.

It was sure to be costly and bloody,

and likely to be prolonged.

The Army chief and England's
most-distinguished naval commander

would both refuse to take part in the
war.

The Lord Mayor and aldermen of the
City of London

appealed to the King to reconsider.

"It was far better to give the
Americans their rights

and liberties," they said,

"Than impose the dreadful operations
of your armaments."

But the new Secretary of State for
America, Lord George Germain,

remained determined to crush the
rebellion -

and to do it with a single all-out
campaign.

If the war dragged on,

King George himself feared that
Britain's old Catholic enemies,

France and Spain, might be persuaded
to support the rebel cause.

- "The rebellious war now levied is
become more general,

"and is manifestly carried on for the
purpose of establishing

"an independent empire.

"The object is too important,

"the spirit of the British nation too
high,

"the resources with which God hath
blessed her too numerous to give up

"so many colonies which she has
planted with great industry,

"nursed with great tenderness,

"and protected and defended at much
expense of blood and treasure."

- King George was not an ogre.

He was not a tyrant.

Contrary to the stereotype that most
Americans have of him,

he's actually a pretty extraordinary
man.

- He was a very great constitutional
monarch.

In fact, in 1775, he declares,

"I'm fighting the war of the
legislature."

In other words, he's fighting for
Parliament's rights

over the American colonies.

Not his own rights, Parliament's
rights.

But once the war starts, he sees
himself as the commander-in-chief

with a responsibility to make sure

the war is run efficiently and
effectively.

- The British Navy was the largest on
Earth,

but the all-volunteer British Army

numbered fewer than 50,000 officers
and men on paper.

And it was still smaller in reality -

just a third of the size of the French
army,

and scattered across the world, from
Ireland to India,

the Mediterranean to the Caribbean.

"Unless it rains men in red coats,"
one official warned,

"I know not where we are to get all we
shall want."

- The British should have recognised
that this was going to be an

extremely difficult, and perhaps
unwinnable conflict.

They were confident of two things.

They had invincible military power,
and therefore,

there was no need for them to
compromise.

And secondly, that any compromise of
sovereignty,

of Parliament's sovereignty,

was going to encourage independence

on the part of the Americans.

They had a kind of domino theory - if
we lose the American colonies,

then we lose Canada, then we lose the
Caribbean -

so that George III and his ministers
really believe that nothing less

than the future of the British Empire
is at stake.

- "I am more and more convinced that
man is a dangerous creature,

"and that power, whether vested in
many or a few, is ever-grasping,

"and like the grave cries, 'Give,
give.'

"You tell me of degrees of perfection
to which humane nature

"is capable of arriving, and I believe
it,

"but at the same time lament that our
admiration should arise

"from the scarcity of the instances.

"When I consider these things,

"I feel anxious for the fate of our
monarchy, or democracy,

"or whatever is to take place."

Abigail Adams.

- On New Year's Day, 1776,

George Washington ordered a new
Continental Union flag

raised atop Prospect Hill, overlooking
occupied Boston.

The British Union Jack still filled
its upper left-hand corner,

but its 13 red and white stripes, he
said,

"Were intended as a compliment to the
United Colonies."

With the exception of the city of
Boston,

Patriots now controlled each of the 13
colonies.

But people within the colonies
remained deeply divided.

Some of the free population favoured
independence.

Others were appalled at the thought of
breaking with the King.

"Abandoning Britain," one Virginian
wrote.

"would dissolve the bands of religion,
of oaths,

"of laws, of language, of blood, which
hold us united

"under the influence of the common
parent."

Still others remained disaffected,

favouring neither side,

hoping somehow to carry on with their
lives

while their fellow Americans,
suspicious of their neutrality,

fought things out.

But events were changing minds.

- What happened in the run-up to all
of this gave people a sense that

they might be able to make it on their
own.

They were different from the people in
Great Britain.

They realised that they were moving
apart.

- "If we must erect an independent
government in America,

"a republic will produce strength,
hardiness, activity, courage,

"fortitude and enterprise.

"But there is so much rascality,

"so much venality and corruption,

"so much avarice and ambition, such a
rage for profit

"and commerce among all ranks and
degrees of men,

"even in America,

"that I sometimes doubt whether there
is public virtue enough

"to support a republic."

John Adams.

- Up to the 18th century, people
assumed that everything

will always remain the same.

But the idea that you could take
charge and change your culture,

that's what...

That's the fundamental basis of the
Enlightenment,

that man can be changed.

- "The sun never shined on a cause of
greater worth.

"'Tis not the affair of a city, a
country, a province, or a kingdom,

"but of a continent.

"Everything that is right or natural
pleads for separation.

"Every spot of the old world is
overrun with oppression.

"Freedom hath been hunted round the
globe.

"O, receive the fugitive and prepare
in time an

"asylum for mankind.

"We have it in our power to begin the
world over again.

"A situation similar to the present
hath not happened

"since the days of Noah until now.

"The birthday of a new world is at
hand."

- On January 9th, 1776,

a slender pamphlet titled Common Sense

was published in Philadelphia -

the most important pamphlet in
American history.

It was signed simply, "An Englishman".

Its author, a recent newcomer to
America,

was 38-year-old Thomas Paine.

Paine was a master with words,

skilfully weaving the latest
Enlightenment philosophy

with biblical references that everyone
knew.

And he was a violent foe of
aristocracy and monarchy.

- It's a much more radical document
than anything that had preceded it.

Common Sense takes off like

an accelerant through the colonies.

Everyone reads it.

- Excerpts from Common Sense appeared
in newspapers

throughout the colonies.

The pamphlet would sell tens of
thousands of copies.

- It was a wholesale attack on the
entire world of Britain.

Political, cultural,

and it's in slam-bang prose.

No American pamphleteer wrote

that kind of really tough, extreme
language.

- "Hereditary succession is an insult
and an imposition on posterity.

"For all men being originally equals,

"no-one by birth could have a right to
set up his own family

"in perpetual preference to all others
forever.

"One of the strongest natural proofs
of the folly

"of hereditary right in kings is that
nature disapproves it.

"Otherwise, she would not so
frequently turn it into ridicule

"by giving mankind an ass for a lion."

- That pamphlet did stir people's
minds about the possibility of

a different kind of world.

- "Common Sense struck a string which
required a touch to make it vibrate.

"The country was ripe for
independence,

"and only needed somebody to tell the
people so."

Private Ashbel Green.

- "The want of guns is so great

"that no trouble or expense must be
spared to obtain them."

- Washington has got Boston
surrounded.

The problem is, he doesn't have the
big guns necessary

to make the British in Boston really
feel threatened.

He's got some artillery, but not
enough.

They tend to be smaller field guns.

He knows that, at Ticonderoga,

which is several hundred miles away,

there are more than 80 British guns
that have been captured

by Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen,

and he tells Henry Knox, "Go to
Ticonderoga,

"bring back whatever you can."

- Henry Knox was a big, amiable
25-year-old Boston book-seller

who had learned all he knew about
artillery and military engineering

from volumes he'd stocked in his shop,

and from his service in the Boston
militia.

He'd earned Washington's admiration
for overseeing the construction

of fortifications at Roxbury.

- Washington, who's got a very good
eye for subordinate talent,

recognises that this guy -

doesn't even have a uniform at the
time -

has something about him that
Washington finds appealing,

and the potential that Henry Knox
evinces is something that

Washington recognises immediately.

- Knox made his way to the captured
forts

and found 55 guns worth transporting,

39 field pieces, 14 mortars,

and two howitzers -

all weighing more than 64 tons.

Knox's task was somehow to move them
300 miles

down into the Hudson Valley,

across the Berkshires,

and all the way to Boston.

He had horses and ox teams haul the
guns overland

to the northern end of Lake George.

From there, a small fleet of barges
and boats ferried them

more than 30 miles, against howling
winds,

to Fort George at the southern end.

- "I have made 42 exceedingly strong
sleds,

"and have provided 80 yoke of oxen to
drag them

"as far as Springfield,

"where I shall get fresh cattle to
carry them to camp.

"We shall have a fine fall of snow,

"which will make the carriage easy."

- The snow, for which Knox hoped,
proved unpredictable.

Sometimes too light for his sleds to
glide over,

sometimes too heavy for them to move
at all.

Crossing the Berkshires,

oxen hauled the cannon up and over
mountains so tall that

from their summits, Knox remembered,

"We might almost have seen all the
kingdoms of the Earth."

When Knox's cannon reached
Washington's army,

Britain's hold on Boston was doomed.

- It's one of the most extraordinary
expeditions

in American military history.

He appears back in Cambridge.

Says, "Boss, I'm here.

"I've brought back 50 guns.

"They're parked right outside of town.

"They're available whenever you need
them."

And Washington says, "You're my man."

And he puts Knox in charge of
Continental artillery.

- On the night of March 4th, 1776,

some 3,000 men and 300 teams

worked to put 20 or more

heavy guns in place on Dorchester
Heights.

- "March 5th. This morning at
daybreak,

"we discovered two redoubts on the
hills on Dorchester Point,

"and two smaller works on their
flanks.

"They were all raised during the
night,

"with an expedition equal to that of
the genie

"belonging to Aladdin's wonderful
lamp.

"From these hills, they commanded the
whole town,

"so that we must drive them from their
post

"or desert the place."

- Unwilling to sacrifice any more men,

General Howe decided to leave Boston

for Halifax, in Nova Scotia,

where he hoped to regroup.

With him went 10,000 soldiers and
their dependants,

as well as 1,100 Loyalist men, women,
and children

who would have to build new lives in a
new place.

Among them were Henry Knox's in-laws.

"I have lost," his wife, Lucy, wrote,

"my father, mother, brother, and
sisters."

- "How horrid is this war,

"brother against brother,

"and the parent against the child.

"Who were the first promoters of it, I
know not.

"But God knows, and I fear they will
feel the weight

"of His vengeance."

Lucy Knox.

- With the evacuation of Boston,

no British garrison now remained
anywhere in the rebellious colonies.

- I think it surprises everybody

that the Patriots are having some
successes -

so much so that everyone's convinced
that it's either the support of God

or the virtue of the cause that is
helping them win.

One of their favourite metaphors is
the Battle of Jericho.

They're sure that all it takes is for
this army that has

right on its side to show up and blow
a trumpet,

and the walls are just going to fall
down.

- Some Americans believed the war was
over.

The Massachusetts legislature

thanked George Washington for his
service,

and wished him peace and satisfaction
of mind

in his retirement.

But Washington knew better.

He informed Congress that he would

immediately repair to New York

with the remainder of the army.

He was sure that Howe's next move
would be to attack

that strategically important port.

By mid-April 1776, he and his wife,

Martha, and several members of their
household

were in residence there.

Meanwhile, Congress sent a Connecticut
businessman

named Silas Deane to Paris

to secretly buy munitions and
supplies,

and to look into the possibility of
forging an alliance with France.

- Two questions really conjoin at this
point.

One question is, if we're going to
make ourselves independent,

if we're going to somehow create a
nation -

which is a truly novel and
destabilising concept -

how are we going to do that?

We have absolutely no means with which
to do so.

And then comes the question of a
declaration.

And the question is, which needs to
happen first?

- "Independence is the only bond that
can tie and keep us together.

"Every day convinces us of its
necessity.

"Instead of gazing at each other

"with suspicious or doubtful
curiosity,

"let each of us hold out to his
neighbour the hearty hand

"of friendship, and let no other name
be heard among us

"than those of a good citizen, an open
and resolute friend,

"and a virtuous supporter of the
rights of mankind,

"and of the free and independent
States of America."

Thomas Paine.

- France had by now quietly pledged to
provide some arms and money,

but open support would require the
Congress

to cut all ties to Britain.

"Every day," John Adams wrote to a
friend,

"independence rolls in upon us like a
torrent."

On May 15th, Congress called upon all
13 colonies

to form their own governments.

By adopting new constitutions, the
colonies would turn themselves

into sovereign states.

The next day, delegates learned that
the British,

desperate and without European allies,

had hired thousands of foreign troops

to help crush the rebellion.

Some German princes had agreed to
provide them - for a price.

Most came from Hesse-Kassel and
Hessen-Hanau,

so the Americans would call them all
"Hessians".

"O Britons," one Rhode Islander
lamented,

"how art you've fallen that you hire
foreigners

"to cut your children's throats."

- "The British nation has proceeded to
the last extremity,

"and we should expect a severe trial
this summer,

"with Britons, Hessians, Indians,
Negroes, and every other butcher

"the gracious King of Britain can hire
against us."

Josiah Bartlett, New Hampshire.

- The Americans are using the British
Government's decision

to hire foreign soldiers in the war
against British subjects -

you have to look at this as a civil
war, to some extent -

they're using this as a tool to rile
up resistance against Britain,

to mobilise men to basically take up
arms against these invaders,

and ultimately to support
independence.

- On June 7th, Richard Henry Lee, of
Virginia,

introduced resolutions in Congress
declaring that these United colonies

are and of right ought to be free and
independent states

absolved from all allegiance to the
British Crown.

Meanwhile, a letter to a Pennsylvania
newspaper,

signed only "Republicus,"

declared that it was time for
independent Americans

to call themselves by some name,

and proposed "the United States of
America".

A five-man committee was named to
produce a document

setting forth the reasons for making
such a momentous decision.

33-year-old Thomas Jefferson, of
Virginia, was assigned

to write the first draft.

He would draw from Aristotle, Cicero,
John Locke,

and the Virginia Declaration of
Rights,

written by his friend George Mason.

But his goal, he said, was to distil
what he called

"an expression of the American mind."

- "When, in the course of human
events,

"it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands

"which have connected them with
another,

"and to assume among the powers of the
Earth the separate

"and equal station to which the laws
of nature,

"and of nature's God, entitle them,

"a decent respect to the opinions of
mankind requires that

"they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.

"We hold these truths to be
self-evident,

"that all men are created equal,

"that they are endowed by their
creator

"with certain inalienable rights,

"that among these are life, liberty,

"and the pursuit of happiness."

- Everything that we believe in comes
out of the revolution.

Our ideas of liberty, equality.

It's THE defining event of our
history.

"All men are created equal."

That is the most famous and important
phrase in our history.

If we don't celebrate it, we have no
reason to be a people.

And Lincoln knew that.

And that's why he says, "All honour to
Jefferson."

- Thomas Jefferson was proposing
something altogether new

and radical in the world.

It was the American people's right, he
argued,

it was their duty to throw off tyranny

and learn to govern themselves.

- "That to secure these rights,

"governments are instituted among men,

"deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed,

"that whenever any form of government
becomes

"destructive of these ends,

"it is the right of the people to
alter or to abolish it,

"and to institute new government,

"laying its foundation on such
principles

"and organising its powers in such
form as to them,

"shall seem most likely to effect
their safety and happiness."

- Since no-one had authority over
anyone else by birthright,

Jefferson was affirming that all
legitimate power

came from the people themselves -

even if he, the owner of hundreds of
human beings,

could never make that truth a reality
in his own life.

- His relationship to slavery is
foundational.

From the beginning to the end, this
institution bounded his life,

even though he knew it was wrong.

How could you know something is wrong
and still do it?

Well, that...is the human question for
all of us.

- The Declaration of Independence, we
remember it primarily

from its opening preamble.

The most famous sentences in our
history,

quoted ever since as a mandate

for expanding liberty for other
people.

But most of the document is something
else.

It is a list of crimes allegedly
committed by the King.

That means that, when the Patriot
leaders decide

that they want independence,

then they must persuade their people
in the colonies - now states -

that the King has forfeited his just
authority.

The purpose of the Declaration of
Independence is to declare

the King is no longer sovereign.

- Throughout history, most people had
been subjects

living under authoritarian rule.

"All experience hath shown," Jefferson
wrote,

"that mankind are more disposed to
suffer

"while evils are sufferable."

George III himself, not the
Parliament,

was now the enemy.

The Declaration denounced him

as unfit to be the ruler of a free
people,

guilty of 18 injuries and usurpations
-

all meant to establish, it read,
"absolute tyranny".

It charged that he had invaded the
rights of the people,

sent swarms of officers to harass
them,

imposed a standing army in peacetime,

levied taxes without the colonists'
consent,

and was now waging war against them.

The Declaration of Independence was
formally ratified on July 4th, 1776.

Just 1,337 words that ended with the
phrase,

"We mutually pledge to each other our
lives, our fortunes,

"and our sacred honour."

When Rhode Island delegate Stephen
Hopkins, who had palsy,

signed the document, he is said to
have remarked,

"My hand trembles, but my heart does
not."

CHEERING

It was first read aloud to a cheering
crowd

in the State House Yard at
Philadelphia on July 8th.

It was soon published in 29
newspapers,

and greeted by parades and celebratory
volleys of gunfire

throughout the newly united states.

- "Boston, Massachusetts.

"When Colonel Crafts read the
proclamation,

"great attention was given to every
word,

"and every face appeared joyful.

"The King's arms were taken down from
the State House,

"and every vestige of him, from every
place in which it appeared,

"and burned in King Street.

"Thus ends royal authority in this
state,

"and all the people shall say,
'Amen.'"

Abigail Adams.

- On July 9th, in New York,

General Washington ordered the
Declaration read to his troops.

Hearing the list of George III's
alleged crimes so angered the men

that a number of them raced down
Broadway to Bowling Green,

tied ropes to the statue of the King,

and pulled it to the ground.

Pieces of the shattered statue were
dispatched by wagon

to Litchfield, Connecticut,

where Patriots melted the gilded lead
into bullets,

42,088 of them.

- London, The Gentleman's Magazine.

"The American Declaration reflects no
honour upon either

"the erudition or honesty of its
authors.

"'We hold,' they say, 'these truths to
be self-evident,

"'that all men are created equal'?"

"Every ploughman knows that they are
not created equal.

"It certainly is no reason why the
Americans should turn rebels."

- King George was determined that the
Americans

not be permitted to break away.

He believes, and his senior ministers
believe,

that the slippery slope of an American
insurrection

will only lead to the dissolution of
the British Empire.

The sun never sets on the British
Empire.

That phrase was coined in 1773.

And George is determined it's never
going to set,

as long as he is the monarch.

- And the King had sent a great fleet
to New York,

with thousands of troops,

to prevent that from ever happening.