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NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY OF AMERICA

The United States of North America

Part I

[Illustration]

NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY OF AMERICA

Edited by

JUSTIN WINSOR

Librarian of Harvard University

Corresponding Secretary Massachusetts Historical Society

VOL. VI

Boston and New York

Houghton, Mifflin and Company

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

Copyright, 1887,

By Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.

Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

[_The cut on the title shows the obverse of the Washington medal,

struck to commemorate the siege of Boston._]

CHAPTER I.

THE REVOLUTION IMPENDING. _Mellen Chamberlain_ 1

ILLUSTRATIONS: George III., 20; Lord North, with Autograph,

21; Rockingham, 31; Fac-simile of _Glorious News_, May 16,

1766, 33; John Adams, 36; Fac-simile of Adams's Writing, 37;

Samuel Adams, with Autograph, 40; Samuel Adams, 41; Revere's

Plan of State Street at the time of the Boston Massacre, 48;

Autographs of the Court for the Trial following the Boston

Massacre,—Benjamin Lynde, John Cushing, Peter Oliver, Edmund

Trowbridge, Jonathan Sewall, Samuel Winthrop, 50; of the

Counsel,—Robert Treat Paine, Samuel Quincy, John Adams, Josiah

Quincy, Jr., and Sampson S. Blowers, 51; Joseph Warren, 54;

Fac-simile of Broadside, June 22, 1773, 55; A Contemporary

Print, 59; Broadside, June 17, 1774, 61.

CRITICAL ESSAY 62

EDITORIAL NOTES 68

ILLUSTRATIONS: Statue of James Otis, 69; Jonathan Mayhew, 71;

Autograph of Charles Chauncey, 71; George III., 76; Fac-simile

of Handbill, Faneuil Hall Meeting, Oct. 28, 1767, 77; of

Broadside, _The True Sons of Liberty_, 78; List of Merchants

importing contrary to agreement, 79; Broadside proscribing

William Jackson, 80; Revere's Cut of the Landing of Troops in

Boston, 1768, 81; John Dickinson, with Autograph, 82; Autograph

of James Bowdoin, 83; William Livingston, 84; Liberty Song,

86; Massachusetts Liberty Song, 87; Fac-simile of Instructions

to Representatives, signed by Richard Dana and William Cooper,

87; Handbill on the Anniversary of the Boston Massacre, 89;

Handbill of Warning, Dec. 2, 1773, 92; Philadelphia Poster

about the Tea-Ships, 93; Josiah Quincy's Manuscript Dedication

of his Port-Bill Tract, 94; Quincy Mansion, 96; Handbill

announcing the Port Bill and Regulating Bill, 97; Handbill

of General Brattle's Letter, 1774, 98; Autograph of Thomas

Cushing, 99; Signers of the Congress of 1774, 102; Satirical

Print, _Virtual Representation_, 103; Josiah Quincy's Diary,

105; Lord North, 107; Chatham, 109; Richard Price, Portrait and

Autograph, 111; Autograph of Lord Dartmouth, 111.

CHAPTER II.

THE CONFLICT PRECIPITATED. _The Editor_ 113

ILLUSTRATIONS: Autograph of Admiral Graves, 114; Notice of

Committee of Correspondence, signed by William Cooper, 115;

Autograph of Jedediah Preble, 116; of Joseph Hawley, 118;

Roads of Roxbury and beyond, 120; Roads between Boston and

Marlborough, 121; Heath's Account of the Fight at Menotomy,

126; General Heath, with Autograph, 127; Autograph of Ethan

Allen, 128; Ruins of Ticonderoga, 129; Pen-and-Ink Sketch of

the Roxbury Lines, 130; Warren's Last Note, 132; Notice to the

Militia, 133; Order of the Committee of Safety, 135; Autograph

of Colonel William Prescott, 135; of John Brooks, 136; of

General Howe, 136; of John Stark, 137; of Richard Pigot, 137;

of Governor Tryon, with seal, 140; of Joseph Reed, 141;

Washington's Heads of Letter, July 10, 1775, 141; Letter of John

Hancock, June 22, 1775, 143; Autograph of General Gage, 145;

Handbill thrown within the British Lines, 147; Views of Country

around Boston from Beacon Hill, 148, 149, 150, 151; A Vaudevil

on _The Boston Blockade_, 154; Playbill of Zara, 155; Autograph

of General Knox, 156; Views of Boston and of the Castle, 157;

Proclamation of Washington, 159; Guy Carleton, with Autograph,

164; Seal of Lord Dunmore, 167; Plan of Attack on Fort Moultrie,

169; Plan of Attack on Charlestown, S. C., 170; William

Moultrie, 171.

CRITICAL ESSAY 172

NOTES 174

ILLUSTRATIONS: Colonel Parker's Lexington Deposition, 176;

Colonel Barrett's Concord Deposition, 177; Plan of Lexington,

179; of Concord, 180; Emerson's Diary, 181; Earl Percy, 182,

183; Lexington Green, 185; Richard Frothingham, 186; Ezra

Stiles, with Autograph, 188; Autograph of Samuel Swett, 191;

General Putnam, with Autograph, 192; Autograph of General

Ward, 192; Joseph Warren, 193; Handbill (Tory Account) of the

Battle of Bunker Hill, 196; View of the Battle of Bunker Hill,

197; Plans of Charlestown Peninsula and the Battle, 198, 199;

Plan of the Battle, 201; Autograph of General Heath, 203;

Plan of the Siege of Boston, 206; Boston and Vicinity, June,

1775, 208; Boston and Charlestown, 1775, 210; British Lines on

Boston Neck, 211; Map of the St. Lawrence and Sorel Rivers,

215; General Montgomery on the Capitulation of St. John, 217;

Attestation of Montgomery's Will, 218; Richard Montgomery, 220,

221; Benedict Arnold, with Autograph, 223; Montresor's Map of

the Kennebec Region, 224; David Wooster, with Autograph, 225;

Plan of Siege of Quebec, 226; Autograph of Charles Carroll

of Carrollton, 227; View of Sullivan's Island, 228; View of

Charlestown, S. C., and the British Fleet (1776), 229.

CHAPTER III.

THE SENTIMENT OF INDEPENDENCE, ITS GROWTH AND CONSUMMATION.

_George E. Ellis_ 231

CRITICAL ESSAY 252

EDITORIAL NOTES 255

ILLUSTRATIONS: Autographs of the Mecklenburg Committee, 256;

Thomas Jefferson, 258; State House, Philadelphia, 259; Original

Draft of the Declaration of Independence, 260; Autograph

of Thomas Jefferson, 261; Portrait and Autograph of Roger

Sherman, 262; Autographs of the Signers of the Declaration of

Independence, 263-266; Fac-simile of a Contemporary Broadside

of the Declaration, 267; John Dickinson, 268; John Hancock (the

Scott picture), 270; (a German picture), 271; Charles Thomson,

272; Fac-simile of a Page of Christopher Marshall's Diary, 273.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE HUDSON. _George W. Cullum_ 275

ILLUSTRATIONS: Mortier House, on Richmond Hill, Washington's

Headquarters, 276; Lord Howe, 277; General Sir William Howe,

278; Lord Stirling, 280; Roger Morris House, Washington's

Harlem Headquarters, 284; Autograph of Knyphausen, 289;

Portrait and Autograph of Burgoyne, 292; another Portrait,

293; Lord George Germain, 295; General Arthur St. Clair,

297; Autograph of General Schuyler, 297; General John Stark,

301; General Horatio Gates, 302; General Horatio Gates, with

Autograph, 303; Sir Henry Clinton, Portraits and Autograph,

306, 307; General George Clinton, 308; Fac-simile of Burgoyne's

Letter to Gates, 310; Rude contemporary Cuts of Washington and

Gates, 311.

CRITICAL ESSAY 315

DISPOSAL OF THE CONVENTION TROOPS 317

EDITORIAL NOTES 323

ILLUSTRATIONS: Plan of Fort Montgomery, 324; Chain at Fort

Montgomery, 324; Plan of Constitution Island, 325; Plans of

the Battle of Long Island, 327, 328; Ratzer's smaller Map of

New York City, 332; Johnston's Map of New York Island (1776),

335; the Sauthier-Faden Plan of Campaign round New York (1776),

336; Fort Washington and Dependencies, 339; the Sauthier-Tryon

Map of New York Province (1774), 340; the Present Seat of

War, from Low's _Almanac_, 342; New York and Vicinity, from

the _Political Magazine_, 343; Campaign of 1776, from Hall's

_History_, 344; Hessian Map of the Campaign above New York

(1776), 345; Map of Arnold's Fight near Valcour Island, 347;

Trumbull's Plan of Ticonderoga and its Dependencies (1776),

352; Map of Ticonderoga (1777) used at St. Clair's Trial, 353;

Fleury's Map of Fort Stanwix, 355; Plan of the Conflict at

Saratoga, 362; Attack on Forts Clinton and Montgomery as mapped

by John Hills, 363; another Plan, from Leake's _Life of Lamb_,

365.

CHAPTER V.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DELAWARE.—PHILADELPHIA UNDER HOWE AND

UNDER ARNOLD. _Frederick D. Stone_ 367

ILLUSTRATIONS: Charles Lee, 369; his Autograph, 370; Fac-simile

of an Appeal of the Council of Safety, Dec. 8, 1776, 371;

Broadside of the Council of Safety, 372; Lord Howe, 380;

General Grey, 383; General Sir William Howe, 383; Alexander

Hamilton, 384; Anthony Wayne, 385; the Destruction of the

"Augusta", 388; Fac-simile of Proclamation of Washington, Dec.

20, 1777, 390; Playbill of Theatre in Southwark, February,

1778, 394.

EDITORIAL NOTES 403

ILLUSTRATIONS: Autograph of General Richard Prescott, 403;

Map, from the _Gentleman's Magazine_, of the Neighborhood of

New York, 404; Joseph Reed, 405; Charles Lee, 406; Marshall's

Map of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth, 408; Hessian Map

of Trenton and Princeton, 409; Faden's Map of Trenton and

Princeton, 410; Wiederhold's Map of Trenton, 411; Wilkinson's

Map of Trenton, 412; of Princeton, 413; Hall's Map of the

Campaign of 1777, 414; Galloway's Map, 415; General Sir William

Howe, 417, 418; Washington's Map of Brandywine, 420; Hessian

Map of Brandywine, 422; Hessian Map of Paoli, 423; Faden's Map

of Trudruffrin, or Paoli, 424; Approaches to Germantown, 425;

Montresor's Map of Germantown Battle, 426-427; Hessian Map of

Germantown, 428; View of Stenton, Logan's House, 429; Faden's

Map of Operations on the Delaware, 429; Lafayette's Map of the

Attack at Gloucester, N. J., 430; Map of Fort Mifflin on Mud

Island, 431; Fleury's Plan of Fort Mifflin, 432-433; Attack on

Fort Mifflin, 434-435; Plan of Mud Island Fort, 437; Attack on

Mud Island, 438; Map of Valley Forge Encampment, 439; Defences

of Philadelphia, 440, 441; Vicinity of Philadelphia, 442;

Barren Hill, 443; Plan of the Battle of Monmouth, 444; Monmouth

and Vicinity, 445.

THE TREASON OF ARNOLD. _The Editor_ 447

ILLUSTRATIONS: Portraits of Benedict Arnold, 447, 448, 449;

Arnold's Commission as Major-General, signed by John Hancock,

450; Plans of West Point, 451, 459, 462; Portraits of Major

John André, 452, 453, 454; Autographs of André, 452, 453; Plans

of the Hudson River, 455, 456, 465; Portrait and Autograph of

Benjamin Tallmadge, 457.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WAR IN THE SOUTHERN DEPARTMENT. _Edward Channing_ 469

ILLUSTRATIONS: View of Charlestown, S. C., 471; Fac-simile

of General Moultrie's Order, 471; Fac-simile of Commodore

Whipple's Letter, 472; General Benjamin Lincoln, Portrait and

Autograph, 473; Portraits of Cornwallis, 474, 475; Portrait of

General Gates, 476; Lord Rawdon, 489; Kosciusko, 492; Steuben,

497; Portrait and Autograph of Rochambeau, 498; Autographs of

French Officers, 500; Portraits of Comte de Grasse, 502, 503;

his Autograph, 502; Fac-simile of Articles of Capitulation at

Yorktown, 505; Nelson House, 506.

CRITICAL ESSAY 507

ILLUSTRATIONS: Portraits of General Nathanael Greene, 508, 509,

512, 513; his Autograph, 514.

NOTES 519

ILLUSTRATIONS: Map of Siege of Savannah (1779), 521; Plan of

Charleston (1780), 526; Siege of Charleston, 528; Battle of

Camden, 531; Gates's Defeat, 533; Battle of Guildford, 540; Map

of Cape Fear River, 542; Action at Hobkirk's Hill, 543; Diagram

of the Naval Action of De Grasse, 548; Plans of the Yorktown

Campaign, 550, 551, 552.

EDITORIAL NOTES ON EVENTS IN THE NORTH 555

ILLUSTRATIONS: Hessian Map of the Hudson Highlands, 556; Stoney

Point, 557; Verplanck's Point, 557; Faden's Plan of Stony

Point, 558; Paulus Hook, 559.

CHAPTER VII.

THE NAVAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. _Edward E. Hale_ 563

ILLUSTRATIONS: Fac-simile of Commodore Tucker's Orders to

command the "Boston", 566; Esek Hopkins, 569; Autograph of

Joshua Barney, 575; of Captain John Barry, 581; Fac-simile of

Captain Tucker's Parole at Charleston, 583.

GENERAL EDITORIAL NOTES 589

SPECIAL EDITORIAL NOTES 589

ILLUSTRATIONS: Paul Jones, 592; Richard Pearson, 593; Count

D'Estaing, 594, 595; his Autograph, 595; Plan of the Siege of

Newport, 596; Blaskowitz's Plan of Newport, 597; Sullivan's

Campaign Map, 598; View of the Fight on Rhode Island, 599;

Lafayette's Map of Narragansett Bay, 600; his Plan of the

Campaign on Rhode Island, 602; Autograph of General Solomon

Lovell, 603; Map of the Attack on Penobscot (Castine), 604.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE INDIANS AND THE BORDER WARFARE OF THE REVOLUTION. _Andrew

McFarland Davis_ 605

ILLUSTRATIONS: Guy Johnson's Map of the Country of the Six

Nations, 609; Joseph Thayendaneken (Brant), 623; Brant, by

Romney, 625; his Autograph, 625; St. Leger's Order of March,

628; Peter Gansevoort, 629; the Butler badge, 631; General

Sullivan, 637.

CRITICAL ESSAY 647

NOTES 673

ILLUSTRATION: Map of Colonel Williamson's Marches, 675.

CHAPTER IX.

THE WEST, FROM THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH FRANCE, 1763, TO THE

TREATY OF PEACE WITH ENGLAND, 1783. _William Frederick Poole_ 685

ILLUSTRATIONS: Henry Bouquet, 692; Plan of Bushy Run Battle,

693; Bouquet's Council with the Indians, 695; Bouquet's

Campaign Map, 696; Map of the Illinois Country, 700; Ruins of

Magazine at Fort Chartres, 703; Daniel Boone, 707; Plan of

Kaskaskia, 717; Lieutenant Ross's Map of the Mississippi, 721;

Fac-simile of Colonel Clark's Summons to Governor Hamilton, 727.

THE CLOSING SCENES OF THE WAR. _The Editor_ 744

ILLUSTRATIONS: Captain Asgill, 745; Fraunce's Tavern in New

York, 747.

INDEX 749

NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY OF AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

THE REVOLUTION IMPENDING.

BY MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN,

_Librarian Boston Public Library._

THE American Revolution was no unrelated event, but formed a part

of the history of the British race on both continents, and was not

without influence on the history of mankind. As an event in British

history, it wrought with other forces in effecting that change in the

Constitution of the mother country which transferred the prerogatives

of the crown to the Parliament, and led to the more beneficent

interpretation of its provisions in the light of natural rights. As an

event in American history, it marks the period, recognized by the great

powers of Europe, when a people, essentially free by birth and by the

circumstances of their situation, became entitled, because justified

by valor and endurance, to take their place among independent nations.

Finally, as an event common to the history of both nations, it stands

midway between the Great Rebellion and the Revolution of 1688, on the

one hand, and the Reform Bill of 1832 and the extension of suffrage

in 1884, on the other, and belongs to a race which had adopted the

principles of the Reformation and of the Petition of Right.

The American Revolution was not a quarrel between two peoples,—the

British people and the American people,—but, like all those events

which mark the progress of the British race, it was a strife between

two parties, the conservatives in both countries as one party, and

the liberals in both countries as the other party; and some of its

fiercest battles were fought in the British Parliament. Nor did it

proceed in one country alone, but in both countries at the same time,

with nearly equal step, and was essentially the same in each, so that

at the close of the French War, if all the people of Great Britain had

been transported to America and put in control of American affairs,

and all the people of America had been transported to Great Britain

and put in control of British affairs, the American Revolution and the

contemporaneous British Revolution—for there was a contemporaneous

British Revolution—might have gone on just the same, and with the

same final results. But the British Revolution was to regain liberty;

the American Revolution was to preserve liberty. Both peoples had a

common history in the events which led to the Great Rebellion; but in

the reaction which followed the Restoration, that part of the British

race which awaited the conflict in the old home passed again under the

power of the prerogative, and, after the accession of William III.,

came under the domination of the great Whig families. The British

Revolution, therefore, was to recover what had been lost. But those

who emigrated to the colonies left behind them institutions which were

monarchical, in church and state, and set up institutions which were

democratic. And it was to preserve, not to acquire, these democratic

institutions that the liberal party carried the country through a long

and costly war.[1]

The American Revolution, in its earlier stages at least, was not a

contest between opposing governments or nationalities, but between two

different political and economic systems, to each of which able and

honest men then adhered, and now adhere. The motives and conduct of

each party, therefore, ought to be stated with exact impartiality. It

was not only inevitable, but wise, and on the whole wisely conducted in

accordance with the traditions and methods of political action to which

our British race had been accustomed. It was also honestly and fairly

opposed by those who neither accepted revolutionary principles, nor

recognized the validity of the reasons assigned for their application

to the existing state of affairs.

Readers of American history from the Restoration of Charles II.,

in 1660, to the Revolution find frequent reference to the King's

Prerogatives, Navigation Laws, Acts of Trade, and in later years to

Writs of Assistance, as subjects of complaint between Great Britain

and her colonies; and as these were among the immediate causes of the

war, they require explanation. When the Earl of Hillsborough (April 22,

1768) required the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, through

Governor Bernard (June 21st), in his majesty's name, to rescind the

resolution which had given birth to their Circular Letter of February

11, 1768, the order was a claim of right by the king to control the

legislative action of that province; and the refusal of the House was

regarded by the prerogative party both in Great Britain and in the

colonies as in derogation of the king's constitutional power.

What was the foundation of this alleged authority of the king over the

colonies? By the public law of all civilized nations in the fifteenth

century, the property in unoccupied lands belonged to the crown of the

country by which they were discovered;[2] and if, as was generally the

case, these lands were inhabited by savages, still the fee was in the

crown, subject only to such use as might be made of them by wandering

tribes. Such is the law to-day. This title to the English colonies was

not in the people of England nor in the state, but in the crown, and

descended with it. The crown alone could sell or give away these lands.

The crown could make laws for the inhabitants, and repeal them; could

appoint their rulers, and remove them. Parliament could do neither.

The political relations of the colonists were to the crown, not to

the government of England; nor were they in any respect subject to

parliamentary legislation.[3] They were not citizens within the realm,

nor, except in a qualified sense, of the empire, but subjects of the

crown, having only such rights as it granted to them in their charters;

and even these charters the crown claimed, and exercised the right to

amend or revoke. James I. amended that of Virginia in 1624, and Charles

II. revoked that of Massachusetts in 1684. They were regarded merely

as charters of incorporated land companies, and, as such, subject to

revocation by the king who granted them; and when these companies had

developed into municipal governments, they were considered as still

subject to alteration or repeal by the sovereign power,[4] although in

both cases rights of property were saved to the owners. Strange as this

doctrine may seem, it is now substantial law in England and in America.

To all these rights, privileges, and disabilities the emigrants agreed

when they purchased lands from the crown; and the rights and duties,

whether of the crown or of its subjects, descended to their respective

successors. With such rights, though not in all cases with such views

in respect to them, the colonists came to America; and such rights, and

no more, their children possessed, under the British Constitution, at

the time of the American Revolution, in the days of George III.

These claims of the crown every colony resisted as incompatible with

its essential rights, and yet they were legal and constitutional

prerogatives, admitted by the greatest judges of England, and most

necessarily have been admitted in the colonies not only by Hutchinson

and Oliver, but by James Otis and John Adams, had they sat as judges.

It was on this legal and constitutional ground that the prerogative

party stood both in England and in America.

But in England from the time of James I., and in America from the

coming of Winthrop, there had been an anti-prerogative party; and as

the prerogative party in England and the prerogative party in America

were one and the same, so the anti-prerogative party in England and the

anti-prerogative party in the colonies were one and the same, having

similar views, and, though separated by a thousand leagues, working to

the same end. On this question came the first political contest of the

Revolution; that of parliamentary supremacy came later. The strength of

one side was in legal and constitutional principles, as they were then

interpreted by judicial tribunals; that of the other lay in the changes

which were taking place in the British Constitution,—in short, in

revolution. The revolutionary party succeeded in both countries: in

America, by war; in England, by more silent influences which have

greatly modified, if not destroyed, the prerogative.

Although the prerogative was a cardinal right in the British

Constitution, and freely exercised by popular sovereigns like

Elizabeth, it began to be questioned under James I., and resisted

under Charles I., who lost his life in its defence, as James II. lost

his crown.[5] But the progress of this revolution was not steady,

nor did it always hold what it had gained. There came periods of

reaction, one of which was in the early days of George III. He was

strenuous in maintaining his prerogative, and, by the support of the

"King's Friends", probably held it with a firmer hand than any of

his predecessors since Elizabeth. The contest about the prerogatives

encountered this difficulty: that successful resistance in a particular

instance settled no principle, but left all other cases untouched.[6]

The extension of the navigation acts to the colonies by Parliament,

though assented to by King Charles II., was in derogation of his

prerogatives; and so in the time of William III. (1696) was the

attempt to transfer certain colonial affairs from the Privy Council,

which represented the king, to a proposed Council of Commerce, which

would have been the creature of Parliament. In consistency with

these proceedings, the king's power over the colonies ought to have

been transferred to Parliament; and instead of remaining the king's

colonies, they ought to have become a part of the empire, and his

authority over them no greater than that over the territory within the

four seas. But it was otherwise. The colonists remained the king's

subjects. He appointed their governors; he frequently set aside their

laws, and over them he exercised his royal prerogatives. One capital

point, however, had been gained by the revolutionary party on both

sides of the water. Successful invasions of the prerogative had at

length created what was called the "spirit of the constitution."[7]

The loyalists, however, seemed to be firmly entrenched in their

constitutional position, nor did the anti-prerogative party avoid a

dilemma: how to escape out of the hands of the king without falling

into the hands of Parliament. If, as some claimed when they resisted

the royal prerogative, they were British subjects, entitled to the same

rights and privileges as native-born subjects within the realm, why

then should they, more than other subjects, be free from the burdens

imposed by the imperial policy? But when, in pursuance of that policy,

Parliament undertook to tax the colonies, then they were forced by the

logic of the situation to claim that, though subjects of "the best of

kings", they owed no more allegiance to Parliament than the Scotch did

before the union.[8]

Probably no one more heartily detested the claims of the prerogative

than Franklin; and yet the phase which the controversy had assumed

compelled him to take high prerogative ground. Such was his position

with regard to the Stamp Act, as is seen in the note below.[9] Andros

himself could have asked for nothing better, in 1686; and when Franklin

was asked what the king could do, should the colonies refuse just

requisitions, he had no other answer than this,—that they would not

refuse!

Such is the doctrine of the prerogative which gave rise to constant

conflicts between the king and the colonists, from 1660 to 1774,

and in every colony was among the political causes which led to the

Revolution. But it was an English question as well as an American

question,—a party question in both countries, and it was finally

settled with the same result in each, though by different means. We

must look further for the real controversy between the English people

and the American people.

Another cause of the Revolution, but one which, in no strict sense,

concerned the political relations between the people of Great Britain

and the American colonists, was the attempt of the British merchants

to monopolize the trade of the colonies, not for the benefit of the

British people, but for their own. This also was a party question,

on one side of which were arrayed the adherents of the Mercantile or

Protective System, and on the other those of the Economic or Free

Trade System. The mercantile class endeavored to subordinate colonial

interests to the protective system by navigation laws and acts of

trade; and the resistance of the colonists to these acts was a claim

for free trade which finally involved them in a war with the mother

country.

What were those navigation laws and acts of trade which called forth

the invective of James Otis when he argued the Writs of Assistance, and

revived in the bosom of the octogenarian John Adams the hearty curse

he bestowed upon them in his youth; and on what foundation did they

rest?[10]

Nations acquire new territories, and maintain and defend them, to

promote their own interests, and not the interests of those who inhabit

them; still less the interests of other nationalities. This has been

the case in all ages and under all forms of government, to which

our own age and nation form no exception. By the right of discovery

the British crown became possessed of the territory included in the

thirteen American colonies, settled mainly by British subjects. Lands

were granted to individuals, or companies, with the expectation that

they would build up prosperous communities, to contribute by their

products and trade to the wealth of the mother country. On these

purely selfish considerations she protected them; and when their trade

was grown to be considerable and their markets valuable, the British

merchants took measures to secure both, instead of sharing them

with other nations, or allowing them to follow the interests of the

colonists. Such was the policy of Great Britain at the dictation of the

mercantile class; and in the maintenance of that policy, in sixty years

between 1714 and 1774, she paid out of her Exchequer the enormous sum

of £34,697,142 sterling, a sum greater than the estimated value of the

whole real and personal property in the colonies.[11]

Between 1660 and 1770 Parliament enacted various laws whose enforcement

produced irritation from the beginning, and had no inconsiderable

influence in promoting the final rupture. These acts may be classed

as,—First, navigation laws, designed to secure the naval and maritime

supremacy of Great Britain throughout the world; these were aimed at

the Dutch. Second, acts of trade, procured by the mercantile class, to

monopolize the trade of the British colonies. Like the corn-laws of a

later generation, these formed part of the protective system, and were

dictated by class interest. Third, acts for the protection of British

manufactures by preventing their growth in the colonies, where their

best market was found. Fourth, acts designed to secure the strict

execution of the preceding acts by establishing colonial admiralty

courts, custom-houses, and boards of customs. Fifth, acts which

imposed and regulated duties and port charges in commercial towns.

In no sense were these acts for revenue, British or colonial. They

brought nothing into the British Exchequer, but drew large sums from

it.[12] They were passed solely in the interest of the mercantile and

manufacturing classes, whose protection had much to do with bringing on

the Revolution, but whose clamors happily prevented efficient measures

for its suppression. These demonstrations, which gained them great

credit in the colonies, grew out of their fear of losing not only the

£4,000,000 due by their colonial debtors, but also their future trade.

Before the Grenville Act of 1764 no measures had been taken to relieve

the Exchequer from demands on account of the colonies. The people and

the government had suffered the mercantile and manufacturing classes

to dictate their colonial policy. Not that the prosperity of these

classes did not contribute to the general prosperity of the realm;

for, on the contrary, it had made Great Britain the most affluent and

powerful country on the globe. But this system did not promote the

welfare of all classes alike; and when the time came, as it did after

the frightful expenditure in the French War, that the Chancellor of the

Exchequer was compelled to ask for ready money to pay the interest on

the debt and to meet current expenses, neither the merchants nor the

manufacturers, who had grown rich by the war, offered on that account

to pay larger taxes, but they were quite willing that the British

farmer should do so, or that a revenue should be sought from the

American colonies.

Some account of these famous laws is essential at this point. There

were three statutes embraced under the general term Navigation Laws

and Acts of Trade, in which are to be found the principles of the

Mercantile System. They were passed in 1660, 1663, and 1672, during the

reign of Charles II., and may be found in the _Statutes at Large_,[13]

with the following titles respectively: "An Act for the Encouraging and

Increasing of Shipping and Navigation", "An Act for the Encouragement

of Trade", and "An Act for the Encouragement of the Greenland and

Eastland Trades, and for the Better Securing the Plantation Trade."[14]

The navigation laws will be more readily understood if we attend solely

to their effect on the American colonies, and disregard unimportant

exceptions and limitations. By the act of 1660, none but English or

colonial ships could carry goods to or bring them from the colonies.

This excluded all foreigners, and especially the Dutch, who at that

time were the principal carriers for Europe. The result was that the

colonists lost the advantage of their competition. Far more serious

was the provision which restricted them from carrying sugar, tobacco,

cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, fustic and all other dyeing wood, the

product of any English colony, to any part of the world, except Great

Britain, or some other English colony. This affected the English sugar

islands of the West Indies and the Southern colonies, which were

obliged to send their products to the overstocked English or colonial

markets, more than it affected New England, whose great staples,

lumber, fish, oil, ashes, and furs, were free to find their best

market, provided only they were sent in English or colonial vessels.

British merchants not satisfied with this monopoly procured a more

stringent act in 1663, which provided that no commodity, the growth,

product, or manufacture of Europe, should be imported into the

colonies, except in English-built ships, sailing from English ports. By

this act England became the sole market in which the colonists could

purchase the products or manufactures of Europe, nor could they send

their own ships for them, unless English-built or bought before October

1, 1662. They were obliged to buy in English markets and import in

English vessels.[15] This discouraged ship-building for the European

trade in a country full of timber, and compelled the payment of charges

and profits to English factors dealing in Continental goods for the

American market.

By these two acts British merchants had undertaken to monopolize,

with certain exceptions, the carrying trade of the colonies and their

markets for the sale and the purchase of goods. But avarice was not

satisfied. There had grown up a trade, especially profitable to New

England, with the Southern colonies which were without shipping. By the

act of 1660, foreign and intercolonial trade in certain articles was

permitted, with the expectation that it would be limited to necessary

local supply. But Boston merchants, shipping to that port tobacco and

some other colonial products in excess of the local demand, sent the

surplus to Continental Europe, without payment of British or colonial

duties, and thus undersold the British trader, who had paid heavy

import duties. To suppress this profitable irregularity, it was enacted

in 1672 that the enumerated products shipped to other colonies should

be first transported to England, and thence to the purchasing colony.

The colonial merchants had the option, however, of bringing tobacco,

for instance, from Virginia direct to Massachusetts, first paying an

export duty equivalent to the English import duty.[16]

These enactments subjected colonial interests to those of British

ship-owners and merchants; and as they had been thus duly protected,

the manufacturers in turn claimed similar protection by statutes

which should prevent the colonists from setting up competing

manufactories.[17] How could there have been any difference of opinion

among the colonists respecting such statutes? A general answer is,

that the colonial system, which regarded the colonies as feeders for

the navigation, trade, and manufactures of the parent state, was the

accepted doctrine of European statesmen. Pitt was its stanchest

advocate, and Burke its rational friend. Adam Smith, who assaulted

it in 1776,[18] did not succeed in overthrowing it. Twenty-five

years later, Henry Brougham controverted Smith's views.[19] It is

not strange, therefore, that it found advocates among the colonists

themselves. It was also far from being a one-sided question.

James Otis's arguments on the Writs of Assistance and John Adams's

letters to William Tudor, by dwelling on the injurious features of

these acts, and passing over all compensating considerations, give an

erroneous notion of them. The idea that they originated in a hostile

disposition of the British people or merchants towards the colonists

is not entitled to a moment's consideration. They formed a commercial

policy, not a political policy. The more numerous, wealthy, and

prosperous the colonists became, the more useful they were to the

British merchants, so long as they could monopolize the trade. That

was their object; and where the freedom of colonial trade would not

interfere with British trade, it was left free. For example, the most

profitable trade of New England was with the French and Spanish West

India Islands and the Spanish Main. The short distance favored small

vessels and small capitals. The exchange of lumber, grain, cattle, and

fish for sugar and molasses, with an occasional voyage to the coast

of Africa for slaves, during that traffic,[20] yielded rich returns.

This trade was free; and so was that of Asia and Africa, and some

ports of Europe, except for certain enumerated articles. It was not

only permitted, but with respect to some commodities was encouraged by

bounties. Between 1714 and 1774, the colonists, chiefly those of New

England, received £1,609,345 sterling on their commodities exported

to Great Britain;[21] and through a system of drawbacks, by which the

duties on goods imported into England were repaid on their exportation

to America, the colonists often bought Continental goods cheaper than

could the subjects within the realm. These favors no more indicated

good will than the restrictions indicated hostility. Both rested on

purely commercial considerations. There were other compensations. The

naval supremacy of Great Britain, due chiefly to the navigation laws,

protected colonial commerce in whatever seas it was pushed; and the

stimulus of monopoly withdrew British capital from other less lucrative

enterprises, and directed it to the colonies, where it was freely

used by planters in developing lands which otherwise would have been

uncultivated for lack of capital.[22] And although certain colonial

produce was obliged to find its only European market in England, it had

the monopoly of that market.

If it was a hardship to the tobacco growers of Maryland and Virginia to

be compelled to send that product to England, they had this advantage,

that no Englishman could use any other. He was forbidden by penal

statutes to grow his own supply even in his own garden. As to those

laws which restrained manufactures in the colonies, it was the opinion

of Henry Brougham,[23] who cites Franklin as an authority, that they

merely prohibited the colonist from making articles which could have

been more cheaply purchased.[24] He could import a hat from England

for less than it cost to make one, and he did so. But the best ground

for nominal submission to the navigation laws and acts of trade was

found in their easy evasion, and the fact that they never were, and

never could have been, rigidly enforced. From the first, all attempts

to enforce them led to dissatisfaction. Randolph's revenue seizures

in the time of Charles II. and James II. had no small influence in

overthrowing Andros's government in the revolution of 1689, and so had

Charles Paxton's in bringing on the American Revolution.

Before the new policy of enforcing these laws was entered upon, the

colonies enjoyed British naval protection; they possessed the monopoly

of the British market; they drew bounties from the British Exchequer;

they purchased European goods more cheaply than the British people

could do; and, stating the facts somewhat broadly, they manufactured

whatever they found to be for their advantage, and sent their ships

wherever they pleased, notwithstanding the navigation laws and acts of

trade. The result was that the colonies, especially barren and frozen

New England, engrossed most profitable commerce which England had

attempted to monopolize, and increased in wealth beyond all colonial

precedent.[25] But these halcyon days were destined to pass under

clouds. British merchants had seen from the beginning the amassing of

fortunes in the colonies by illicit trade, and the falling off of their

own. They had striven to enforce the laws, and Parliament had lent its

assistance,—but in vain. Under the first charter of Massachusetts, the

collector of customs was the governor, whose annual election depended

upon the good will of those who were evading the navigation laws; under

the second charter, the governor was appointed by the king, and sworn

to enforce those laws. But colonial juries generally checkmated the

king's representative. Then followed admiralty courts without juries,

which produced indignant protests. The new system was irritating rather

than efficient on a long line of coast filled with bays, creeks,

and ports not patrolled by revenue cutters. The British merchant

was foiled, and anger was the result. The attempt to monopolize the

commerce of the colonies was a failure; and so long as the navigation

laws were a dead letter the advantages of the situation were with the

colonists. They were content.

But the time came at the close of the French War when the mercantile

system was subordinated to a revenue system, and the enforcement of

the navigation laws and acts of trade, made more stringent by some

new ones, became the policy of the government. Its instruments were

admiralty courts with enlarged jurisdiction, commissioners of customs,

writs of assistance, and an adequate naval force. When that time came,

the Revolution was not far off![26]

In 1755, Shirley, then governor of Massachusetts, had persuaded the

General Court to attempt by a stamp act to meet the expenses of the

French War. This produced an irritation like that which followed in

1765 the act of the British ministry;[27] and to Shirley, as much as to

any other man, perhaps, was due the suggestion of those parliamentary

measures which led to the Revolution. Long residence in Boston and

his profession as a lawyer had made him familiar with the evasions of

the navigation laws; and his larger duties as commander-in-chief, in

which he found much difficulty in bringing the colonial assemblies into

concerted and efficient action, doubtless suggested measures which

were adopted by the British ministry. However this may have been, the

enforcement of the navigation laws was taken in hand for the first time

by the government, and no longer left to depend upon private interests.

This unwonted activity was shown as early as 1754. Its most formidable

weapon was the Writ of Assistance.

More than four years before the passage of the Stamp Act, James Otis

had resisted the granting of these writs before the Superior Court

of Massachusetts. John Adams, then a student of law, took notes of

Otis's argument, and fifty-six years later wrote: "Then and there

was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary

claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was

born."[28] This was no mere rhetorical phrase.[29] The influence of

this controversy in producing the Revolution is not wholly due to the

fiery eloquence of Otis, whose words, said John Adams, "breathed into

the nation the breath of life", nor to the range of his argument,

which called in question the mercantile and political systems of

Great Britain, but to their effect upon the commercial interest—then

the leading one—of New England; for if the latent powers of these

writs were set free, and used by the revenue officers, the commerce

of Boston, Salem, and Newport would have been effectually crippled.

Authorized in England, they were extended to the colonies by an act of

William III.[30] The officers of customs, however, instead of applying

to the courts for them, relied upon the implied powers of their

commissions, and forcibly entered warehouses for contraband goods.

The people grew uneasy, and some stood upon their rights against the

officers, whose activity was stimulated by documents like that given in

the note below.[31]

Governor Shirley issued these writs, though the power to do so was

solely in the court.[32] But they would have held a less important

place in the history of the Revolution had it not been for the

concurrence of several circumstances. All writs become invalid on the

demise of the crown and six months thereafter. George II. died October

25, 1760, and the news reached Boston December 27th. The government

had already resolved upon a more vigorous enforcement of the revenue

laws. The king had instructed Bernard, the newly appointed governor

of Massachusetts, to "be aiding and assisting to the collectors and

other officers of our admiralty and customs in putting in execution"

the acts of trade. Pitt also directed the colonial governors to prevent

trade with the enemy and a commerce which was "in open contempt of

the authority of the mother country, as well as to the most manifest

prejudice of the manufactures and trade of Great Britain."[33] Seizures

of uncustomed goods were frequent. The third part of the forfeiture of

molasses which belonged to the province amounted before 1761 to nearly

five hundred pounds in money. Bernard arrived in August, 1760. Chief

Justice Sewall, who had expressed doubts as to the legality of writs

of assistance, died September 11th; and Hutchinson, his successor,

took his seat January 27, 1761. As the outstanding writs had become

invalid, their renewal became necessary. But when Charles Paxton, the

surveyor at Boston, appeared for that purpose in the Superior Court,

February term, 1761, he was confronted by a petition signed by sixty

inhabitants of the province, chiefly merchants of Boston, who desired

to be heard in opposition, in person and by their counsel, James Otis

and Oxenbridge Thacher. Otis, Advocate-General for the crown, had

resigned his office to avoid supporting the writ.[34] Gridley, the

Attorney-General, appeared in his stead. No complete report of the

arguments has been preserved.[35] Gridley, who treated the question as

purely one of law, to be determined by statutes and precedents, said of

Otis's argument, that "quoting history is not speaking like a lawyer;"

and as to the arbitrary nature of the writ which allowed the entry of

private houses in search of uncustomed goods, he reminded him that by

a province law a collector of taxes, without execution, judgment, or

trial, could arrest and throw a delinquent taxpayer into prison. "What!

shall my property be wrested from me? Shall my liberty be destroyed by

a collector for a debt unadjudged, without the common indulgence and

lenity of the law? So it is established; and the necessity of having

public taxes effectually and speedily collected is of infinitely

greater moment to the whole than the liberty of any individual."

Otis's argument is well known. Carried to its logical results, it was a

plea for commercial and political independence of the colonies, and was

fully vindicated by the result of the conflict it precipitated. But as

a legal argument it is less conclusive.[36]

The majority of the court, however, were with Otis; and had judgment

been given at the time, the decision would have been in his favor.

But Hutchinson counselled delay until the practice in England could

be learned; and as it appeared that such writs were issued, of

course, from the Exchequer, on the 18th of November, the court, after

re-argument, pronounced them to be legal. Thenceforth they were freely

used. Otis's argument, without doubt, secured his election to the

General Court in May, in which his influence was second to that of no

other in bringing on the struggle which ended in independence. Nor was

its effect limited to Massachusetts. It reached the remotest colonies,

and, as John Adams said, led to "the revolution in the principles,

views, opinions, and feelings of the American people."[37]

Revolution, however, had been long impending. The treaty of

Aix-la-Chapelle in October, 1748, which put an end to the long war

between England and France, opened with the declaration that "Europe

sees the day which the Divine Providence had pointed out for the

reëstablishment of its repose. A general peace succeeds to a long and

bloody war." But neither the peace, nor the treaty by which it was

secured, was satisfactory to one of the belligerents; for England had

failed to secure the commercial advantages for which the war had been

undertaken, and the terms of the treaty, requiring her to give hostages

for the restoration of Cape Breton to France, excited the indignation

of the British people. Nor were other causes for the renewal of

the war wanting. The aggressive policy of France in respect to the

English possessions in Acadia and along the Ohio and the Mississippi,

notwithstanding the treaty, soon produced its legitimate results. The

Seven Years' War followed. In Asia and in the West Indies, the maritime

powers measured their strength by sea. At the same time in North

America, England and her colonies on the one side, and France on the

other, contended for the empire of the continent. Led by Clive, Wolfe,

Amherst, and Rodney, and inspired by the genius of Pitt, the forces of

England everywhere prevailed, and she took the first place among the

nations.

On the 10th of February, 1763, at Paris, was signed the treaty that

recognized the extinction of the French empire in North America. This

treaty marks an epoch in the history of America, as well as in that of

England and of France. To the latter it was a period of humiliation,

not only in the loss of colonies upon which, for nearly a century, she

had expended vast sums without any adequate return, but also in the

frustration of her purpose of gaining sole possession of the continent.

By England it was regarded as the close of a contest to maintain

her power on the same continent, and make it subservient to her

commercial and manufacturing interests, which had lasted for nearly a

hundred years. Yet there was a well-founded apprehension, expressed

at the time, that her colonies, relieved from the fear of French

aggressions, would throw off the authority of the mother country.[38]

What was the fear of the mother country, on the other hand, was the

hope and expectation, more or less remote, of the colonies. For the

experience gained in the French wars was of great value to them in the

revolutionary struggle. Officers had become familiar with the direction

of large bodies of troops, and with the means of their transport

and supply; and soldiers had learned that efficiency depended upon

discipline. Provincial assemblies also had been taught to look for

safety in strategic operations remote from their own territory. But at

no time before the assembling of the congress of 1754 had the colonies

been called to consider such a union of all as would give unity to

military operations, and secure the semblance, at least, of a general

government. The union proposed at that time would have involved some

loss of independence, without securing any efficient means of enforcing

the recommendations of the congress, and so the colonies hesitated, and

finally laid it aside. But there can be no doubt that the consideration

given to it by the several colonies led them more readily to come

together for concerted action in the congress of 1765.

* * * * *

The year 1763 is usually regarded as the beginning of the American

Revolution, because in that year the English ministry determined to

raise a revenue from the colonies. This led to a contest, which, like

most civil wars, was long and embittered. It engendered feelings

which have not yet passed away,—feelings which interfere with a calm

and dispassionate review of the motives of the parties concerned,

and of the circumstances which attended their controversy. It was

a war between Britons and the descendants of Britons, who, with a

common ancestry, laws, and manners, retained their essential race

characteristics in spite of the lapse of time or the change of place:

everywhere and always lovers of liberty, but in power haughty,

insolent, and aggressive on the weak, and in subjection turbulent and

impatient of restraint; proud of ancestry, partial to old customs

and precedents, but quick to resist laws which impede the course of

equity, and never permitting forms to prevent the accomplishment of

substantial justice. Such was the parent and such was the child: and in

the light of these facts we are to read the history of the Revolution.

It exhibited the race in no new light, nor did the contest involve

any new principle. Its sentiments were expressed in the old idiomatic

language,—petition, remonstrance, riot, war.

For more than a hundred years the colonies had been regarded as

appendages to the crown rather than as an integral part of the

empire; and when Parliament, at the instigation of the mercantile

classes and in derogation of royal prerogative, began at the close

of the seventeenth century to assume control over them, and, a few

years later, to vote large sums from the imperial treasury for their

protection, and, in some cases, for the support of their civil

governments, that body looked for reimbursement to the profits which

would inure to British merchants from the monopoly of colonial trade

and navigation, and flow indirectly into the national Exchequer.

But with the close of the French War a new policy seemed to become

necessary. The debt had swelled to frightful proportions. The British

people were groaning under the weight of the annual interest and their

current expenses. Every source of revenue seemed to be drained, and the

ministry turned their eyes for relief to the colonies; not, indeed,

for relief from the present debt, but from the necessity of adding to

it the whole expense of defending the colonies. This was the fatal

mistake which precipitated the Revolution. On this subject, however,

there seems to be some misapprehension. The popular idea was, and still

is, that the colonists were to be taxed to pay the interest on the

national debt and the current expenses of the government, and that all

moneys raised in the colonies were to pass into the British Exchequer

(thus draining them of their specie), there to remain subject to the

king's warrant. Such, however, was not the scheme of the ministry.

Not a farthing was to leave America. All sums collected were to be

deposited in the colonial treasuries, and only certificates thereof

were to be sent to the Exchequer. These were to be kept apart from the

general funds, and, after defraying the charges of the administration

of justice and the support of the civil government within all or any of

the colonies, they were to be subject to parliamentary appropriation

for their defence, protection, and security, and for no other

purpose.[39]

The alleged necessity was this: The government had broken the French

power in Canada, and shaken its hold upon the lakes and great rivers of

the West. This achievement, so glorious to the empire, and therefore to

the colonies as parts of it, and more immediately for their benefit,

had added one hundred and forty millions to the national debt, under

which the subjects within the realm were staggering. While some

colonies had been tardy or negligent in furnishing their quotas of men

and money for the war, yet it was acknowledged that as a whole they had

borne their fair proportion of the expense, and that some had exceeded

their share. So far all was clear. Although Canada had been conquered

mainly for the colonies, still the conquest added to the security

and glory of the empire, and the accounts for past expenditures

were squared. But what of the future? As these possessions had been

acquired, a stable government was needed for them, both for the

safety of the colonies and for the honor of England. They were still

inhabited by Indians under French influence, and they might become

dangerous unless controlled by military power. Choiseul, the great

French minister, informed by the reports of his secret agent, foresaw

the complications likely to arise in the government of the colonies,

and was not without hope of retrieving by diplomacy the losses which

had occurred from war. Forts and garrisons were necessary. Although

the Northern colonies were comparatively secure, the Carolinas and

Georgia were menaced by powerful and hostile tribes. The government

must regard the colonies as a unit, of which all parts were entitled

to imperial protection. To this view of the case there could be no

sound objection. Twenty thousand troops,—Pitt thought more would be

needed,—besides civil officers to regulate such affairs as did not

fall within colonial jurisdictions, were to be sent to the colonies. At

whose expense ought these military and civil forces to be maintained?

The British farmer objected to pay for the protection of his untaxed

colonial competitor in the British market. If the colonies were to

continue to be governed in the interest of the mercantile classes,

upon them might reasonably fall the expense of their protection. But

the acquisition of vast territories required a new policy, and it was

deemed equitable that they should be defended at the expense of the

empire of which the colonies were a part. They had claimed and received

imperial protection, and they ought to bear a proportional part of the

cost, which might be collected under the imperial authority with the

same certainty and promptness as were taxes on other subjects of the

king. This was the ministerial view of the matter as I gather it from

the debates in Parliament.

This claim of the ministry was met by the liberal party on both sides

of the water in two ways. It was asserted that the late war, and in

fact all the wars which affected the colonies, had been waged in the

interest of commerce and for the aggrandizement of the realm of which

they were no part, and that the newly acquired territories were of

doubtful advantage to colonies as yet sparsely populated. But if these

considerations were not conclusive, still the colonists ought not to

be taxed, because the imperial government by monopolizing their trade

received far more than the colonial share of the expense attending

their defence. The liberals also asserted that there was no disposition

on the part of the colonists to seek exemption from a reasonable share

of these imperial expenses; but as in the past they had voluntarily

contributed their part, and in some cases even more, so they would in

the future; and that in the future, as in the past, these contributions

ought to be voluntary, and the frequency and amount to be determined by

the provincial assemblies. Moreover, as the colonists neither had, nor

could have, any equitable or efficient representation in the imperial

Parliament, they could not consent to have their property taken from

them by representatives not chosen by themselves.

The ministry and their adherents replied that the foregoing arguments,

even if sound, were such as no party charged with the administration of

affairs, and obliged to raise a certain amount of money from a people

clamorous for relief from present taxes, could accept; that no reliance

could be placed on voluntary contributions; that the necessities of

government required that money should be raised by some system which

would act with regularity and certainty, and reach the unwilling as

well as the willing; that even in the last war, when the existence of

the English colonies was threatened by a foe moving with celerity by

reason of its unity, the movements of English troops had been delayed

by the backwardness of the colonies in furnishing their quotas; and now

that the pressure of the French power was removed from New England,

that section would leave the Middle and Southern colonies to their own

resources, especially when it was remembered how remiss those colonies

had been in assisting the north and east when attacked.[40] It was also

answered that so far from the monopoly of the colonial trade being a

set-off to the expenses incurred by the mother country in defending the

colonies, the fact was notorious that by the evasion of the navigation

laws and acts of trade the colonists had escaped the restrictions

intended by those laws, and at the same time had received bounties and

drawbacks from the British Exchequer which enabled them to undersell

the British merchants in the markets of Europe.

Here was a deadlock. The arguments on both sides seemed conclusive.

No practical solution of the difficulty was proposed at the time, nor

has been since. Both parties were firm in their convictions. Neither

could yield without the surrender of essential rights. A conflict

was unavoidable unless one party would relinquish the authority

claimed by the imperial government; unavoidable unless the colonies,

essentially free by growth, development, and distance, would yield to

pretensions incompatible with their rights as British subjects. The

new policy contemplated after the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748

was carried into effect after the treaty of Paris in 1763. But nothing

could have been more unfortunate than the time at which Great Britain

inaugurated this policy, and no ministers than those by whom it was

to be carried out. On essential political questions which divided the

colonists and the mother country Great Britain herself was in the midst

of a revolution. The new policy which was inaugurated fell into the

hands of those opposed to it. Whig ministers were charged with the

execution of an illiberal and reactionary scheme. Consequently, the

administration of American affairs was weak and vacillating. The result

was inevitable. Had Pitt, with his large views and great administrative

abilities, been at the head of affairs for ten years after the peace,

the Revolution might have been postponed. On the other hand, had the

mercantile system during the same period been administered with the

unity of purpose and thoroughness of measures which characterized

Carleton's administration in Canada, and had it been enforced by the

military genius of Clive, the rebellion might have been temporarily

suppressed.

In the journals and statutes of the provincial assemblies we find

from the beginning a similarity of causes leading to the final

rupture. There are the same quarrels about the royal prerogative; the

same repugnance to the navigation laws and acts of trade; the same

unwillingness to make permanent provision for the support of the royal

governors and judges, and the same restiveness under interference

with their internal affairs; but owing either to differences in their

original constitutions or of interests, commercial and agricultural,

or because of varied nationality and religion, or by reason of all

these causes combined, discontent was less general in the Southern than

in the Northern colonies. Of the Northern colonies, in Massachusetts

we find the causes which brought on the war operative and continuous

from the beginning. Party strife between friends and opponents of

prerogative existed in other colonies, but in Massachusetts the

conflict broke out with special virulence between the adherents of

Otis and those of Hutchinson. It was also intensified by the pecuniary

interests of a large part of the inhabitants of Boston, which were

affected by the enforcement of the navigation laws through the aid of

writs of assistance. It was for this enforcement that Hutchinson was

held responsible when the mob sacked his house, and were ready to do

violence to his person.

The province had received from the British Exchequer more than £60,000

sterling for the war expenses of 1759, and nearly £43,000 for those of

1761. Money was plentiful, and more was expected from the same source.

There was a lull in the angry storm of local politics when news of the

preliminaries of peace reached Boston in January, 1763. With this came

assurances that Parliament would reimburse the colonies for expenses

incurred, beyond their proportion, in the last year of the war; and

the two Houses of the General Court agreed upon an address expressing

gratitude to the king for protection against the French power, and

full of loyalty and duty. But quiet was not of long continuance.

The close of the war dried up several sources of profitable trade

or adventure,[41]—some legal, such as furnishing supplies to the

king's forces, and some illicit. Then came orders from the Board of

Trade to enforce the navigation laws, heretofore chiefly evaded, but

now to be enforced with the aid of writs of assistance. At the same

time plans were entertained by the cabinet for making changes in the

constitutions of the colonies; and what was hardly less opportune, the

English bishops incessantly pressed upon the ministry the adoption of

archbishop Secker's scheme of introducing an episcopal hierarchy into

America, which would have carried with it some of the worst features

of the prerogative.[42] The history of the period from the treaty of

1763 to the meeting of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia in

1774 is a narrative of an attempt by the British ministry to enforce

certain measures upon unwilling colonists, and of the resistance of the

colonists to those measures. Who were the ministers, what were their

measures, and how did the colonists resist them?

Pitt had carried the country through a long and glorious war; but

he was not satisfied with the results. The cost had been heavy, and

as a guaranty against future expense he meditated the substantial

annihilation of the French power. He knew that France and Spain had

entered into the Family Compact with a view to a war with England. War

with Spain was only a question of time, and he would have anticipated

its declaration by seizing the immense treasure belonging to that

power, then on the sea. This would have replenished the British

Exchequer, and perhaps have deferred a resort to American taxation.

Pitt urged this measure at a cabinet meeting, September 18, 1761.

His advice was not followed, and he resigned October 5. But war was

declared against Spain, January 1, 1762, and carried on with brilliant

results, though the golden opportunity of securing the Spanish treasure

was lost. The preliminaries of peace were signed at Fontainebleau,

November 3, 1763.

[Illustration: GEORGE III.

(From Andrews's _Hist. of the War_, London, 1785, vol. i. It follows a

painting by Reynolds. Cf. cut in Murray's _History_, vol. i.—ED.)]

This virtually ended Pitt's connection with the ministry and with the

conduct of American affairs as a leader; for although he was again at

the head of the ministry from August 2, 1766, to October, 1768, his

direction was merely nominal. It was during his administration that

the Townshend Acts were passed, and the Mutiny Act extended to the

colonies,—facts which show divided counsels and the lack of uniform

purpose. Pitt seldom appeared in the ministry except to oppose his own

government. Whenever his great powers were most needed by sore-pressed

colleagues to devise some practicable policy for replenishing the

Exchequer, or for governing the colonies, he was in the country

wrestling with the gout. This was a serious loss to the mother country,

but it hastened the independence of America.

[Illustration: LORD NORTH.

From Doyle's _Official Baronage_, ii. 89. It follows Dance's picture.

Cf. J. C. Smith's _Brit. Mez. Portraits_, i. p. 135; Gay's _Pop. Hist.

U. S._, iii. 365; Walpole's _Last Journals_.—ED.]

The terms of peace with France were settled by Bute and Bedford,

against the views of Pitt; but on April 16, 1763, Bute retired from

the ministry, before the new policy for the government of the colonies

had been fully developed. He was succeeded by George Grenville, who

continued at the head of the government until July, 1765. Grenville was

able, well informed, and thoroughly honest. His knowledge of financial

matters was extensive and accurate, and, as Chancellor of the Exchequer

during the preceding administration, he had become familiar with the

difficulties of providing for the expenses of government. No question

could have been more perplexing at this time. A certain amount of

revenue was required to meet the interest on the public debt, and to

defray current expenses. Economic theories of commercial policy would

not serve as an item in the budget. The minister needed the money,

and the Stamp Act was framed and passed. He also encountered other

difficulties when public sentiment had become inflamed by the question

of General Warrants. His relations to the king were unfriendly. Pitt

threw his influence into the scale of the opposition, and Grenville's

administration was a failure.

[Illustration]

The Rockingham ministry began July 13, 1765, and ended August 2,

1766. The colonists themselves could hardly have chosen one more to

their mind. It was weak and vacillating. It repealed the Stamp Act,

and passed the Declaratory Bill. To Dowdswell, the Chancellor of the

Exchequer, the Massachusetts House voted their thanks. Then came

the Chatham-Grafton ministry, which was in power until December 31,

1769. This was nominally Pitt's ministry; but his elevation to the

peerage impaired his influence with the people, and after nine months

he retired from public affairs by reason of ill health. Men of such

opposite views and character as Shelburne, Hillsborough, Charles

Townshend, and Lord North were of this ministry.

Lord North was premier from February 10, 1770, to September 6, 1780.

Long after he wished to retire he continued to hold power at the

personal solicitation, and even by the command, of the king. He was

able, faithful, and patriotic; but his heart was not in the work of

subduing the colonies, nor could he pilot the ship of state through

dangerous seas.

Such were the ministers at one of the most critical periods in English

history. No first-class man is to be found among them save Pitt, and

his real attitude was that of opposition. He raised the storm, but when

his hand ought to have been on the helm he was prostrate in the cabin.

Nor were the governors of Massachusetts, during a period when affairs

needed a firm hand, although worthy gentlemen, altogether such as a

far-seeing ministry would have chosen to carry out the new policy.

Shirley was the only governor of Massachusetts who possessed the

favor of the people; and yet he believed in the king's prerogative,

and valued himself highly as its representative. He endeavored to

suppress illicit trade and to enforce the navigation laws; and from

his conferences with Franklin, it is certain that he contemplated some

radical changes in the constitutions of the colonies.[43] But he got

more money from the people for public uses than any previous governor,

and even persuaded them to pass a provincial stamp act.[44] The secret

of Shirley's influence may have been that he was less eager to secure

his own salary than some of his predecessors had shown themselves to

be, and that he had displayed unequalled activity in conducting the

French war, which engaged the attention of the people. Pownall, who

succeeded Shirley, belonged to the popular party. He gave no particular

attention to the navigation laws, and was on the opposite side from

Hutchinson, who was lieutenant-governor during the latter part of his

term, which closed in 1760.

After Pownall came Bernard, and with him the beginning of the

Revolution. Bernard was not without ability, accomplishments, and

good intentions; but he was a Tory. More firmly even than Shirley,

he believed in the royal prerogatives, and in some modification of

the provincial charters to bring their action into harmony with the

imperial system. During his administration, and in some cases at his

suggestion, the ministry entered upon that series of measures which

lost the colonies to Great Britain: the enforcement of the navigation

laws; the use of writs of assistance; Grenville's revenue acts in 1764;

the Stamp Act of 1765; the Townshend duties of 1767; and the arrival of

military forces in 1768.

The purposes contemplated by these successive administrations were not

unreasonable, nor were the measures by which they sought to accomplish

them unwise in themselves. The general policy was the same as that

afterwards pursued by the colonies when they had become a great

empire,—homogeneity, equal contributions to expenses, a preference for

their own shipping, and protection to their own industries.

The difficulty arose from a misconception of the relations of the

colonies to the mother country. They were not a part of the realm, and

could neither equally share its privileges nor justly bear its burdens.

The attempt to bring them within imperial legislation failed, and

could only fail. They were colonies; and the chief benefit the parent

state could legitimately derive from them was the trade which would

flow naturally to Great Britain by reason of the political connection,

and would increase with the prosperity of the colonies.

Early in 1763 the Bute ministry, of which George Grenville and Charles

Townshend were members, entered upon the new policy. To enforce the

navigation laws, armed cutters cruised about the British coast and

along the American shores; their officers, for the first time, and

much to their disgust, being required to act as revenue officers.

To give unity to their efforts, an admiral was stationed on the

coast. To adjudicate upon seizures of contraband goods, and other

offences against the revenue, a vice-admiralty court, with enlarged

jurisdiction, and sitting without juries, was set up.[45] Royal

governors, hitherto chiefly occupied with domestic administration,

were now obliged to watch the commerce of an empire. It was seen long

before this time that the successful administration of the new system

would require some modification of the provincial charters; but the

difficulties were so serious that the matter was deferred.

Such was the new order of things. The student who reflects upon the

complete and radical change effected or threatened by these new

measures, so much at variance with the habits and customary rights

of the colonists, breaking up without notice not only illicit but

legitimate trade, and sweeping away their commercial prosperity, is no

longer at loss to account for the outburst of wrath which followed the

Stamp Act, a year later.[46] To avert these hostile proceedings, the

colonists memorialized the king and Parliament. They employed resident

agents to act in their behalf. They availed themselves of party

divisions and animosities in England. They alarmed British merchants

by non-importation and self-denying agreements. When these measures

seemed likely to prove ineffectual, they aroused public sentiment

through the press, by public gatherings and legislative resolutions, by

committees of correspondence between towns and colonies, and finally

by continental congresses. They did not scruple to avail themselves of

popular violence, nor, in the last extremity, of armed resistance to

British authority.

So far as trade and commerce were concerned, it was a struggle between

British and colonial merchants. The colonial merchants desired freedom

of commerce; the British merchant desired its monopoly. But this does

not state the case precisely; for the colonial merchants were desirous

of retaining what they possessed rather than of acquiring something

new. By the navigation laws the British merchant had a legal monopoly

of certain specified trades; but by evading these laws, the colonial

merchants had gained a large part of this trade for themselves.

One party, standing on legal rights, wished to recover this lost

trade; the other party, basing their claim on natural equity and long

enjoyment, wished to retain it. This was an old question, a hundred

years old; but it had acquired new interest since the government,

with the aid of writs of assistance, had undertaken to enforce the

navigation laws and acts of trade. Such was the first issue between the

parties. The second was this, and it was new: As has been said, Great

Britain had never undertaken to raise a revenue from the colonies,

though she had often contemplated doing so, and especially during

the French war just closed. At the close of the war it was estimated

that £300,000 would be required to man the forts about to be vacated

by the French, and to maintain twenty regiments to hold the Indians

in check, who were still under French influence and might become

dangerous, as happened in Pontiac's time; and to give efficiency to

civil administration by granting to governors, judges, and some other

officers fixed and regular salaries, instead of having them depend on

irregular and fluctuating grants of colonial assemblies. One third of

these expenses—£100,000—the ministry proposed to raise by laying

duties on importations, reserving a direct tax by stamps for fuller

consideration.

The colonists met this proposition by denying both the necessity and

the right of raising a revenue,—at first distinguishing between

external and internal taxes, and finally objecting to all taxes raised

by a Parliament in which they neither were nor practically could be

represented. These issues were complicated with several others of long

standing, but which may be left out of the account here.

The popular idea has been that the Revolution began with the Stamp

Act. But it seems strange that prosperous colonists, in whose behalf

the British people had expended £60,000,000 sterling, should refuse to

pay £100,000, one third of the sum deemed necessary for their future

defence, and that months before they were called upon to raise the

first penny they should fall into a paroxysm of rage, from one end of

the continent to the other, and commit disgraceful acts of violence

upon property and against persons of the most estimable character.

This view, however, overlooks several facts. If we disregard the

chronic quarrels in all the colonies, growing out of the exercise of

the royal prerogatives, Virginia and Massachusetts especially had been

aroused on the abstract questions concerning the relations of the

colonies to Great Britain, and in them the earliest demonstrations of

hostility to the Stamp Act were manifested. In the famous "Parsons

Case" argued by Patrick Henry in December, 1763, in words which rang

through Virginia because they affected every man in that colony,

he drew the prerogative into question, not only in regard to the

ecclesiastical supremacy of the Anglican hierarchy, but also on the

right of the king to negative the "Two-penny Act" of the colonial

assembly. In Massachusetts, James Otis, in 1761, arguing the writs of

assistance, assumed the natural rights of the colonists to absolute

independence. But the promulgation of none of these theories of

abstract rights accounts for the general outbreak in 1765. Its

most potent influence was the enforcement of the navigation acts in

the great commercial centres, and the ruin threatening New England

through the breaking up of her trade with the French West Indies and

the Spanish Main[47] by the modification of the Sugar Act in 1764.

The staples of New England were fish, cattle, and lumber. The better

quality of fish found a market in Europe, but this trade was subject

to competition. For the poorer quality the chief market was in the

French West Indies, where by the French law it could be exchanged only

for molasses. This was shipped to New England, and used not only in

its raw state, but distilled into rum, which, besides supplying home

consumption, was to some extent exported to Africa in exchange for

slaves. This trade and commerce with the Spanish Main was the chief

source of the wealth of New England. But in 1733, to protect the

sugar industry of the English West India islands, a duty amounting

to prohibition was laid on all sugar and molasses imported into the

American colonies from the French islands. So long as this act was not

enforced, it did little harm; but if enforced, it would not only ruin

the trade in rum and lumber, but injure the fisheries also, for the

English islands were limited in population and had no liking for poor

fish. The French, besides being more numerous, were less particular

as to their diet; but if they could not sell molasses, they would not

buy fish. It was proposed to modify and enforce this act. Minot[48]

says: "The business of the fishery, which, it was alleged, would be

broken up by the act, was at this time estimated in Massachusetts at

£164,000 sterling per annum; the vessels employed in it, which would be

nearly useless, at £100,000; the provisions used in it, the casks for

packing fish, and other articles, at £22,700 and upwards; to all which

there was to be added the loss of the advantage of sending lumber,

horses, provisions, and other commodities to the foreign plantations

as cargoes, the vessels employed to carry fish to Spain and Portugal,

the dismissing of 5000 seamen from their employment, the effects of the

annihilation of the fishery upon the trade of the province and of the

mother country in general, and its accumulative evils by increasing the

rival fisheries of France. This was forcibly urged as it respected the

means of remittances to England for goods imported into the province,

which had been made in specie to the amount of £150,000 sterling,

beside £90,000 in the treasurer's bills for the reimbursement money,

within the last eighteen months. The sources for obtaining this money

were through foreign countries by the means of the fishery, and would

be cut off with the trade to their plantations." This was what the

enforcement of the molasses act meant. Neither the duties laid in 1764

nor the collection of the taxes anticipated from the Stamp Act of 1765

would have produced a tithe of the evil that would have followed. John

Adams,[49] confirming the statement of Minot, says: "The strongest

apprehensions arose from the publication of the orders for the strict

execution of the molasses act, which is said to have caused a greater

alarm in the country than the taking of Fort William Henry did in

the year 1757."[50] Rumors of the intention of the ministry had been

rife for some time, and in January, 1764, the Massachusetts Assembly

wrote to their agent in London that the officers of the customs, in

pursuance of orders from the Lords of the Treasury, had lately given

public notice that the act, in all its parts, would be carried into

execution, and that the consequences would be ruinous to the trade of

the province, hurtful to all the colonies, and greatly prejudicial to

the mother country.[51]

Besides the rumors of the modification of the Sugar Act came others

respecting new duties, and a Stamp Act. In its alarm, the General

Court determined to send Hutchinson to London as special agent, to

prevent, if possible, the intended legislation. He was in favor of

allowing the colonies the freest trade, but acknowledged the supremacy

of Parliament.[52] No man knew the colonies better, or was better able

to present their just claims, than Hutchinson. He had much at stake

in the colony in which he was born, and to which he had rendered many

and honorable services. No man loved her better, or was more worthy

of honor from her. He was chosen by both Houses; but Governor Bernard

suggested doubts as to the expediency of his going to England without

the special leave of the king; and subsequently the project was laid

aside in consequence of some rising suspicions as to his political

sentiments.[53]

Ruin threatened New England. A Stamp Act was not needed to set her

aflame; and the other colonies soon had reasons of their own for

joining her in the general opposition. All parties were agreed as to

the danger, but they differed as to the remedy.

The reports which reached America in the winter of 1764, respecting

the intentions of the ministry to raise a revenue from the colonies,

were verified in the following spring. The substance of Grenville's

resolutions (with the exception of that respecting stamps, which was

laid aside for the present) became a law April 6, 1764. Bancroft has

summarized this act as "a bill modifying and perpetuating the act

of 1733, with some changes to the disadvantage of the colonies; an

extension of the navigation acts, making England the storehouse of

Asiatic as well as of European supplies; a diminution of drawbacks on

foreign articles exported to America; imposts in America, especially

on wines; a revenue duty instead of a prohibitory duty on foreign

molasses; an increased duty on sugar; various regulations to restrain

English manufactures, as well as to enforce more diligently acts of

trade; a prohibition of all trade between America and St. Pierre and

Miquelon."[54]

Organized opposition to the ministerial measures began in Boston, and

perhaps, at that time, could have begun nowhere else. For not only were

the interests of that town, in the fisheries, trade, and navigation,

the most considerable in the colonies, but there, as nowhere else in

the same degree, for more than a century, had been operative causes of

dissatisfaction connected with the navigation acts, the exercise of the

royal prerogatives, and ecclesiastical affairs; and in no other section

had Otis's declaration of the general principles of liberty found such

ready acceptance.

The Grenville Act of April, 1764, was to take effect September 30. News

of its passage had scarcely arrived in Boston before the citizens in

town meeting, May 24, voted instructions[55] to their representatives

in the General Court, which had been presented by Samuel Adams. They

were directed to endeavor to prevent proceedings designed to curtail

their trade, and to impose new taxes,—"for if their trade might be

taxed, why not their lands?"—and to obtain from the General Assembly

all needed advice and instruction, so that their agent in London might

effectually "demonstrate for them all those rights and privileges which

justly belonged to them either by charter or birth." Since the other

colonies were equally interested, their representatives were also to

endeavor to obtain coöperation in that direction.

Thus at the very outset the patriots sought counsel and union with

the sister colonies. These instructions were scattered far and wide.

The General Court came in on the 30th. June 1, letters from the

London agent were referred to a committee of which Otis was one. On

the 8th, _The Rights of the British Colonies_ was read,[56] and

again on the 12th, when it was referred to the committee of which

Otis was a member.[57] On the 13th a letter to Mauduit, their agent,

was reported, which must have made his ears tingle,[58] for it was

a scathing rebuke for neglect and inefficiency in not preventing

the injurious legislation, and for making unwarranted concessions

in behalf of the colony.[59] Otis went over the whole question of

colonial rights and grievances, but by implication he admitted that

representation in Parliament would prove satisfactory.[60] The same

committee was directed to correspond with the other governments,

requesting coöperation in their endeavors to effect the repeal of the

Sugar Act and to prevent the Stamp Act. The letter of the committee,

drawn by Otis, together with his _Rights of the Colonies_, was sent

to the agent in London, to make the best use of them in his power. As

this action taken by the House of Representatives, which did not seek

the concurrence of the Council as usual, was not regarded as judicious

by the moderate party, the governor was induced to call the General

Court together on the 12th of October. In the mean time the temper of

the merchants had become soured by revenue seizures to the amount of

£3,000.[61]

The General Court (November 3), in answer to the governor's speech,

elaborately discussed the act of Parliament, and the same day agreed

upon a petition to the House of Commons, setting forth the injurious

nature of the new measures and of the navigation laws, as well as

deprecating their enforcement. This was accompanied by a letter to

their agent, showing historically the services and expenses of the

colony in various wars, and their willingness to share in the defence

of the empire.[62] These papers—the petition and the letter—were

drawn up by Hutchinson; but though able, candid, and convincing,

their tone did not satisfy the more ardent patriots, especially when

they were contrasted with Otis's fiery letter to the agent in June,

or when compared with similar documents emanating from some other

colonies,—that of New York in particular: for the discontent of the

colonies, to which the Boston instructions doubtless contributed,

was general, and manifested itself in petitions, remonstrances, and

correspondence.[63]

The events of 1764 left no doubt as to the manner in which the people

would receive the Stamp Act of 1765; nor, although with grievances

of their own, were they unobservant of what was going on in England.

"Wilkes and Liberty" was a familiar cry in Boston as well as in London,

and the names Whig and Tory became terms of reproach.[64]

Notwithstanding the memorials and petitions of the colonial assemblies,

and the remonstrances of their agents in London, George Grenville

persevered in his determination to bring in a stamp bill. Since its

first suggestion, he had listened patiently to the colony agents and

other friends of America; but they proposed nothing better, or so

good, if the colonies were to be taxed at all. They admitted that the

stamp tax would be inexpensive in its collection, and general in its

effect upon different classes of people. Indeed, so little did the

agents understand the real feeling in America that they—and Franklin

was among them—were quite ready, when the time came, to solicit

positions as stamp-distributors for their friends, and Richard Henry

Lee even asked a place for himself.[65] February 6, 1765, Grenville

introduced his resolutions for a Stamp Act, and put forward his plan in

a carefully prepared speech. Colonel Barré's opposition called forth

the well-known question of Charles Townshend, and the still more famous

rejoinder of the former. Pitt was away and ill. The debate occupied

but one session of the Commons, and the ministers were directed to

bring in a bill, which was done on the 13th. Numerous petitions

against it, presented by colonial agents, were rejected under the rule

which allowed no petition against a money bill. The bill passed both

Houses, and on March 22 received the royal assent. But in America

there was no apathy. If there had been a calm, it presaged the coming

storm. The passage of the bill was known in America before the end

of May, and from Virginia came the first legislative response. She

spoke through the voice of her great orator. Of Patrick Henry's six

resolutions, though supported by a powerful speech, only four, however,

were carried, May 30, by a small majority, in a House in which the

Established Church and the old aristocracy were very powerful.[66]

The General Court of Massachusetts did not meet until May 27, but

set to work so promptly that the House, June 6, under the lead of

James Otis, who had recovered from a fit of vacillation, voted that

it was highly expedient that there should be a meeting, as soon as

might be, of committees from the several colonial assemblies, "to

consult together on the present circumstances of the colonies, and

the difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by operation

of the late acts of Parliament for levying duties and taxes on the

colonies." It was agreed to send them a circular letter to that effect,

recommending a congress, in the city of New York, the first Tuesday

of October. This measure, which led to the Stamp Act Congress, was

pushed through with an unanimous vote of the House (June 6), though

probably not with the equally concordant opinion of the members; and

the circular, which was dated June 8, was immediately dispatched.[67]

James Otis, Oliver Partridge, and Timothy Ruggles—the last two having

little heart in the matter—were chosen delegates. The response to

the Massachusetts circular was neither unanimous, nor, from some of

the assemblies, enthusiastic.[68] At this stage of the Revolution,

in high offices and in provincial assemblies were friends of the

royal government able to make their influence felt in opposition to

popular measures. Nine of the colonies, however, were represented in

the congress, and from others came expressions of good-will. In the

mean time public sentiment was rapidly shaping itself into violent

opposition to the act. In Boston the Sons of Liberty were on the alert.

When the name of Andrew Oliver appeared among the stamp-distributors

he was hanged in effigy from the Liberty Tree on the night of the 13th

of August; and the next night the frame of a building going up on his

land, and supposed to be intended as a stamp-office, was broken in

pieces and used to consume the effigy before his own door.[69] On the

26th of the same month the records of the hated Vice-Admiralty Court

were burned by the mob, the house of the comptroller of the customs

sacked, and that of Chief Justice Hutchinson forcibly entered and

left in ruins. His plate and money were carried off, and his books

and valuable manuscripts were thrown into the streets. Nor did he or

his family escape without difficulty. The militia were not called

out to maintain order, for many of the privates were in the mob. Men

of standing secretly connived at proceedings which they afterwards

insincerely condemned. Though these violent outbreaks came earlier

and were carried to greater excess in Massachusetts than in any other

province, similar demonstrations followed in Rhode Island, Connecticut,

New York, and Pennsylvania.[70]

When the Stamp Act Congress met in New York, October 7, 1765, that

city was the headquarters of the British forces in America, under the

command of General Gage. Lieutenant-Governor Colden, then filling the

executive chair, was in favor of the act, and resolved to execute it;

but the Sons of Liberty expressed different sentiments. The Congress

contained men some of whom became celebrated. Timothy Ruggles was

chosen speaker, but Otis was the leading spirit. In full accord with

him were the Livingstons of New York, Dickinson of Pennsylvania,

McKean and Rodney of Delaware, Tilghman of Maryland, and Rutledge and

the elder Lynch of South Carolina. New Hampshire, Virginia, North

Carolina, and Georgia failed to send delegates, but not for lack of

interest in the cause. The Congress prepared a Declaration of Rights

and Grievances, An Address to the King, a Memorial to the House of

Lords, and a Petition to the House of Commons, and adjourned on October

25th. For a clear, accurate, and calm statement of the position of the

colonies these papers were never surpassed; nor, until the appearance

of the Declaration of Independence, was any advance made from the

ground taken in them.[71]

It is not to be inferred from the results of their proceedings that

there were no differences of opinion among the delegates. Several of

them afterwards took sides with the king; and there was doubtless

diversity of sentiment on the Stamp Act, as well as in Parliament,

which reassembled January 14, 1766, under a different ministry from

that which had carried the measure less than a year before. For in

a few months after the passage of the act, George III., chiefly on

personal grounds, had changed his legal advisers. After negotiations

with Pitt had failed, a new ministry, with the Marquis of Rockingham

as chief, and the Duke of Grafton and General Conway as Secretaries

of State, was installed, July 13, 1765. It was a Whig ministry. With

it, though not of it, was associated Edmund Burke, private secretary

of Rockingham, and not long after, through his influence, a member of

the House of Commons. This change of the ministry was regarded with

favor by the colonists, and doubtless encouraged their resistance to

the Stamp Act. The action of the colonists produced a great effect

on the new ministry, and alarmed the British merchants trading with

America. Their trade had been threatened by non-importation agreements

made to take effect January 1, 1766, and their debts were imperilled by

the determination of the colonists to withhold the amount of them as

pledges for good conduct. The general confusion likely to arise in the

administration of justice, and the transactions of the custom-house,

from want of stamps, brought the ministry to their wits' end.

Parliament assembled December 17th. But notwithstanding an effort by

Grenville to bring on a general consideration of American affairs, the

subject was postponed until after the holidays.

[Illustration: ROCKINGHAM.

From Doyle's _Official Baronage_, iii. 170.—ED.]

In the mean time some embarrassment was anticipated from the want of

stamps, November 1,[72] when the act was to go into operation. Governor

Bernard (September 25) had called the attention of the House of

Representatives to the courts, which guarded the property and persons

of the inhabitants, and to the custom-houses, upon which depended legal

trade and navigation. The House, in its answer, October 23, had not

shared his excellency's apprehensions, but was not then quite ready to

say, as it said three months later (January 17, 1766), "The courts of

justice must be open,—open immediately,—and the law, the great rule

of right in every county of the province, executed."[73] But this

attitude had not been taken without intermediate steps. In December the

town of Boston presented a petition to the governor and council for

the reopening of the courts, which was supported by John Adams, who

then first publicly identified himself with the patriot cause, of which

he became one of the most efficient advocates. After some delay and

inconvenience, the courts and custom-houses throughout the colonies,

early in the spring, took the risk of proceeding without stamped

papers, trusting to find their justification in necessity.

Parliament reassembled January 14, 1766. The king's speech opened with

a reference to "affairs in America, and Mr. Secretary Conway laid

before the House of Commons important letters and papers on the same

subject." On the 17th a petition of the merchants of London trading

with North America against the Stamp Act was presented. Then (January

28) followed the examination of Franklin, in relation to the Stamp

Act, before the House, in committee.[74] With this mass of information

before them, American affairs received an exhaustive discussion. The

Stamp Act was repealed, and the royal assent was given March 18th. The

debates on the Declaratory Act were no less full. It was a memorable

session,—memorable for the first speech of Burke; for those great

speeches of Pitt which placed him at the head of modern orators, for

Grenville's masterly defence of his colonial policy, and for Franklin's

examination. It was also memorable for the constitutional discussions

of Mansfield and Camden in the House of Lords. If the reader finds

it difficult to resist Mansfield's judicial interpretation of the

British Constitution adverse to the American claim, he recognizes in

the great principles then enunciated the force which popularized that

Constitution and marked a forward movement of the British race.

The Declaratory Act—that the king, with the advice of Parliament, had

full power to make laws binding America in all cases whatsoever—was

passed. This gave Pitt some trouble, considering his emphatic

declaration in that regard; but the liberal party in the colonies

soon met it with the counter-affirmation that Parliament possessed

no authority whatever in America except by consent of the provincial

assemblies. If the colonists had not forced the British government from

its position, they had advanced from their own. The repeal, however,

caused great rejoicing on both sides of the Atlantic. British merchants

expected no further trouble from non-importation agreements, and hoped

that the colonists would now pay their debts,—amounting to £4,000,000.

But there were misgivings on both sides. The ardent patriots were

outspoken in condemning the Declaratory Act, which Franklin had thought

would give no trouble. But the act of 1764, laying duties, remained;

and the enforcement of the navigation laws—their real grievance—lost

none of its vigor. Governor Bernard was under instructions to enforce

the laws against illicit trade; and in addition to these official

obligations, his share in the forfeitures of condemned goods laid his

motives open to suspicion. Nothing could have been more unfortunate for

his administration. It was also alleged that merchants were encouraged

in schemes to defraud the revenue; and that when their ships and

cargoes were compromised, they were seized and condemned. At a time

when conciliatory measures were needed to reassure the colonists,

the harshest were followed. Nevertheless, the repeal weakened the

prerogative party on both sides of the water, and encouraged the

liberal party by a knowledge of its power.

[Illustration: GLORIOUS NEWS

Fac-simile of an original in the library of the Mass. Hist.

Society.—ED.]

Governor Bernard opened the General Court, May 29, 1766, with

congratulations on the repeal of the Stamp Act. If he had stopped

there he would have acted wisely; but he alluded to the "fury of

the people" in their treatment of Hutchinson, and to some personal

matters, which called forth a reply from the House couched in terms

showing no abatement of animosity. This was increased on the receipt

of another message from the governor (June 3), enclosing the Act of

Repeal and the Declaratory Act, and at the same time informing them

that he had been directed by Secretary Conway to recommend "that full

and ample compensation be made to the late sufferers by the madness

of the people", agreeably to the votes of the House of Commons. He

also complained of their exclusion of the principal crown officers

from the Council by non-election.[75] The General Court promptly

availed themselves of this last topic for reply, instead of committing

themselves on the matter of compensation. They did not fail, however,

to vote a politic address of thanks to the king for assenting to the

repeal of the Stamp Act, and to offer their grateful acknowledgments

to Pitt and those members of the two Houses who had advocated it.[76]

But the subject of compensation could not be passed by. The governor

urged prompt compliance with the recommendation of Conway. The House,

however, professing the greatest abhorrence of the madness and

barbarity of the rioters, and promising their endeavors "to bring the

perpetrators of so horrid a fact to exemplary justice, and, if it be

in their power, to a pecuniary restitution of all damages", regarded

compensation by the province as not an act of justice, but rather of

generosity, and wished to consult their constituents. Therefore they

referred the matter to the next session.[77]

In December the two Houses passed a bill granting compensation to those

who had suffered losses in the Stamp Act riots, but, on the suggestion

of Joseph Hawley, accompanied it with a general pardon, indemnity and

oblivion to the offenders. Why they should have been so solicitous for

the safety of those who had committed crimes, condemned in June in

the severest terms, does not appear; and this invasion of the royal

prerogative of pardon did not fail to attract the attention of the

Parliament.[78]

In the late contest with Parliament the colonists had gained a victory,

but it was neither final nor precisely on the right ground. As a matter

of practical politics, they were ready to accept Pitt's distinction

between commercial regulations and internal taxes. They took the repeal

of the Stamp Act with thanks, but not as a finality. They participated

in the lively demonstrations of joy which followed that event on both

sides of the Atlantic; but thoughtful observers on both sides perceived

that one of the most powerful agencies in effecting the repeal was

the mercantile class, which had no intention of relinquishing its

grasp upon colonial commerce. Nor was the popular feeling without

guidance. It was the good fortune of the colonists, all through the

long contest, to have statesmen like John Adams, Jay, and Dickinson,

who could supplement the passionate appeals of Otis and some of his

associates with the calm reasons of political philosophy. None rendered

more valuable services in this respect than John Adams. In a series

of papers which appeared in the _Boston Gazette_ in the summer and

fall of 1765,—when the minds of the people were inflamed by the Stamp

Act,—and were afterwards republished in London as _A Dissertation on

the Canon and Feudal Law_, he combated the ecclesiastical and feudal

principles which lay at the bottom of the monarchical and Anglican

system.

The substantial grievance of the commercial colonies was not the Stamp

Act, which had not taken a farthing from their pockets. It was the

enforcement of trade regulations, which impaired the value of the

fisheries and dried up a principal source of revenue. A renewal of

the contest, and for the first time on its true grounds, was not long

postponed. The Rockingham ministry gave way, and Pitt, gazetted Earl

of Chatham July 30, 1766, took the helm of state August 2d, and was

the nominal head of the government until October, 1768. Among those

associated with him were the Duke of Grafton, Charles Townshend,

Conway, and the Earl of Shelburne. It was Pitt's misfortune—and his

country's—during these stormy times, that when he was most needed he

was disabled by sickness. Historians have speculated as to the probable

pacification of America had Pitt—not Chatham—guided affairs.[79]

Pitt's was a great name in America as well as in Europe. By his genius

the French power in America had been destroyed. This the colonists

knew. He had been generous in reimbursing their expenses in the late

war. This, and his efforts in effecting the repeal of the Stamp Act,

they remembered with gratitude. Whatever man could do in restoring

things to their old order Pitt could have done. He might even have

relinquished something of his claims for parliamentary supremacy in

respect to trade and general legislation; but it is doubtful whether,

even at that early period, he could have eradicated the ideas of

independence which had taken possession of the colonists, or have

arrested the movement which resulted in the independence of America and

the overthrow of the royal prerogative in England.

[Illustration: JOHN ADAMS. (_Amsterdam print._)

The Amsterdam edition, 1782, of _Geschiedenis van het Geschil tusschen

Groot-Britannie en Amerika ... door zijne Excellentie, den Heere John

Adams_.

There is a likeness of John Adams as a young man engraved in his _Life

and Works_, vol. ii. He says of himself at the time of the famous scene

when Otis was making his plea against the Writs of Assistance, and he

was taking notes of it, that the artist depicting it would have to

represent the young reporter as "looking like a short, thick Archbishop

of Canterbury" (_Works_, x. 245). There was a print published in London

in 1783 showing a head in a circle, which is reproduced in the _Mag.

of Amer. Hist._, xi. 93. Copley painted him once, in 1783, in court

dress, and the painting now hangs in Memorial Hall, Cambridge. The

head of this full-length picture was engraved for Stockdale's edition

of Adams's _Defence of the Constitutions_, published in 1794; and the

painting was never engraved to show the entire figure till it appeared

in vol. v. of the _Works_ (A. T. Perkins's _Copley_, p. 27). Cf. the

head in Bartlett Woodward's _United States_.

Stuart first painted him in 1812, and this picture belongs to his

descendants, and is engraved in the _Works_, vol. i. There are copies

of this picture by Gilbert Stuart Newton and B. Otis, both of which

have been engraved. The Newton copy is in the Mass. Hist. Society

(_Catal. of Cabinet_, no. 47; _Proc._, 1862, p. 3). The Otis copy

has been engraved by J. B. Longacre (Sanderson's _Signers_, vol.

viii.). Stuart again painted Adams in 1825, the year before he died,

representing him as sitting at one end of a sofa. It is engraved on

steel in the _Works_, vol. x., and on wood in the _Mem. Hist. Boston_,

iii. 192. (Cf. Mason's _Stuart_, p. 125.) Another Stuart is owned by

Mr. T. Jefferson Coolidge, of Boston.

A portrait by Col. John Trumbull also hangs in Memorial Hall,

Cambridge; and Adams's likeness is also in Independence Hall. (Cf.

Irving's _Washington_, quarto ed., vol. v.) A cabinet full-length by

Winstanley, painted while Adams was at the Hague (1782), is in the

Boston Museum (Johnston's _Orig. Portraits of Washington_, p. 93).

Among the contemporary popular engravings, mention may be made of that

by Norman in the _Boston Magazine_, Feb., 1784; one in the _European

Magazine_ (vol. iv. 83).

Stuart also painted a portrait of the wife of John Adams, which is

engraved in the _Works_, vol. ix. A picture of her by Blythe, at the

age of twenty-one, accompanies the _Familiar Letters_.

Views of the Adams homestead in Quincy, Mass., are given in the _Works_

(vol. i. p. 598); in _Appleton's Journal_ (xii. 385); in Mrs. Lamb's

_Homes of America_. An india-ink sketch, showing a distant view of

Boston beyond the house, is in the halls of the Bostonian Society.—ED.]

The Massachusetts Assembly was in no amiable frame of mind. When there

was no cause for quarrel, they made one. Bernard had probably been

advised to preserve a prudent silence respecting political affairs.

At the opening of the session, January 28, 1767, in a message of less

than ten printed lines, he recommended "the support of the authority

of the government, the maintenance of the honor of the province, and

the promotion of the welfare of the people", as the chief objects for

their consultation. This called forth a captious reply, and a complaint

because Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, who had not been reëlected to

the Council, appeared in the council-chamber at the opening of the

session, at the request of the governor and as matter of courtesy.

The House found in his presence, if voluntary, "a new and additional

instance of ambition and lust of power."

[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF JOHN ADAMS, 1815.

Part of a letter in Smith and Watson's _Hist. and Lit. Curios_., 1st

ser., pl. vii.—ED.]

In the spring of 1767, Parliament had occasion to inquire into some

colonial legislation. In April, 1765, the Mutiny Act had been extended

to the colonies. This was intended in part to provide for military

offences not within the jurisdiction of civil courts, and in part

to require the colonies in America, as in England in like cases,

to provide for quartering the king's troops. The New York Assembly

made only partial provision. When Sir Henry Moore, the governor,

communicated to them the letter of Earl Shelburne, to the effect that

the king expected obedience to the act, the Assembly resolved not to

comply, and called in question the authority of Parliament. Parliament

then took the matter in hand, and suspended their legislative authority

until compliance.[80] This action brought them to terms. It made

considerable stir throughout the colonies, and was regarded as a

serious invasion of their rights.

The arrival of several companies of royal artillery at Boston, in

the fall of 1766, and the quartering of them at the expense of the

province, by order of the governor and council, gave the General Court

occasion, at their session in January, 1767, to express their opinion

about unauthorized expenditures of the public money, and to enquire if

more troops were expected.[81] The governor explained the quartering

of the troops, and said he had no expectation, except from common

rumor, of the arrival of additional forces. But his statement failed to

allay apprehensions of a design on the part of the ministry to support

their measures by military power. Added to other causes of alarm in

1767 was a report that Anglican bishops were about to be supported in

the colonies, at the expense and under the patronage of the British

government.

In 1767 strife was renewed on what are known as the Townshend

Acts. Charles Townshend was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the

Chatham-Grafton ministry. He had reluctantly voted for the repeal of

the Stamp Act, and still held to his opinions that the colonists should

pay some share of the civil and military expenses arising from their

defence and government; and if, to secure promptness and uniformity of

action, some modification of their charters should be found necessary,

then that ought to follow. In conformity with these views, he had

given some pledges in respect to deriving a revenue from America,

and, during Chatham's retirement, had brought forward his scheme of

taxation in certain resolutions of the Committee of Ways and Means,

April 16, 1767,[82] the substance of which was enacted June 29th, to go

into effect November 20th. There were two acts known as the Townshend

Acts: the first[83] providing for the more effectual execution of

the laws of trade, and for the appointment of commissioners for that

purpose; and the second[84] granting duties on glass, paper, colors,

and tea, and legalizing writs of assistance. The revenue thus raised

was to be applied to "defraying the charge of the administration of

justice, and the support of the civil government in such provinces

where it should be found necessary; and towards further defraying the

expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said dominions."

Before the act went into operation Charles Townshend died (September

4, 1767), and Chatham's powers continued to be enfeebled by disease.

It was the misfortune of Great Britain that both these able men should

have been withdrawn from the public service during this critical

period, and that the policy of each had to be represented by inferior

men. Chatham's conciliatory methods had no fair trial; and Townshend's

coercive measures were pressed neither with unity of purpose nor vigor

of execution.

Between the passage of Townshend's Acts in the summer of 1767 and their

taking effect in November, the colonists had ample time to study and

organize opposition, stimulated by the arrival (November 5, 1767) of

Burch and Hulton, two of the five commissioners of customs who had

been sent over to enforce them. At first the people expressed their

resentment, in which, as usual, those of Boston took the lead, by

renewing their non-importation agreements. In the mean time efforts

had been made to introduce domestic manufactures.[85] These practical

measures in Massachusetts were supplemented by one of the ablest

discussions of colonial rights which had yet appeared. In the early

winter of 1767-8 John Dickinson published in a Philadelphia newspaper a

series of essays entitled _The Farmer's Letters_, which soon attracted

notice both in America and England.

[Illustration:

From _An impartial History of the War in America_ (Boston, 1781), vol.

i. p. 325, engraved by J. Norman, a Boston engraver.

In 1772, when Adams was forty-nine, John Hancock commissioned Copley

to paint pictures of Adams and himself, to commemorate their political

union, and the two portraits hung for many years in the Hancock mansion

on Beacon Street in Boston, before they were given to the town. That of

Adams is a three-quarters length, and shows him standing at a table,

holding a paper, in the attitude of speaking (Perkins's _Copley_, p.

28). As engraved by H. B. Hall, it is given in Wells's _Life of Samuel

Adams_, vol. i.; and it is also engraved in Delaplaine's _Repository_

(1815); in Bancroft, vol. vii. (orig. ed.), and in other places, as

well as, on wood, in the _Mem. Hist. of Boston_ (iii. 35). After having

hung for some years in Faneuil Hall, it has now been transferred to the

Art Museum. It was engraved—the bust only—by Paul Revere, for the

_Royal American Mag._, April, 1774, and a reproduction of this is given

by Wells (vol. ii.). A copy of the original was made by J. Mitchell,

and from this a mezzotint by Samuel Okey was issued at Newport in 1775.

Another and smaller picture, also by Copley (Perkins, p. 29), and

said to have been painted in 1770, hangs in Memorial Hall, Cambridge,

and has been engraved in the _Mem. Hist. of Boston_, ii. 438. Cf.

Sanderson's _Signers_, vol. ix.

The Copley type of head characterizes the engraving by J. Norman, given

above from the Boston edition of a current history. The London edition

(1780) of the same book has a picture which has little resemblance to

the Copley type, as will be seen by the fac-simile likewise herewith

given, and marked "London, 1780."

There was a picture made late in life by John Johnson, which has been

destroyed; but from a mezzotint of it, made in 1797 by Graham, H. B.

Hall reëngraved it for Wells's third volume, and on wood in Higginson's

_Larger History_, p. 255.

The statue by Miss Whitney follows the Copley head. One copy of this

is in the Capitol at Washington, and another in Dock Square, in

Boston.—ED.]

Their influence among all classes was widespread and profound.

[Illustration: SAMUEL ADAMS, LONDON, 1780.]

The year 1768 was one of the most momentous of the Revolutionary

period. Hitherto the colonists, in defence of their property, had

denied the supremacy of Parliament as based on usurpation; but now,

in defence of their privileges, they denied the prerogative of the

king, the source of their political existence. This grew out of the

Massachusetts Circular Letter. The General Court came together December

30, 1767. John Hancock, James Otis, and Joseph Hawley were prominent

members, but though James Otis was still active, Samuel Adams was

the master spirit. Never was his practical sagacity more serviceable

to the cause; never did his genius for politics shine brighter. His

fruitful pen is apparent in the remarkable series of state papers

called forth by the Townshend Acts, comprising the letter of the

House to their London agent (January 12, 1768), the Petition to the

king (January 20), and the Circular Letter to the assemblies of the

several colonies (February 11).[86] If the Townshend Acts were to be

successfully resisted, union of sentiment and action among all the

colonies was essential. This was the object of the circular letter.

It was an arraignment of Parliament and the ministry in respect to

the revenue acts, and the system by which the British government

proposed to make civil officers, including the judges, the instruments

for its enforcement; and it solicited an interchange of opinions on

these subjects.[87] Governor Bernard watched the proceedings of the

House with the deepest interest, nor was he long in doubt as to the

nature of the circular letter, for two days after its adoption a

copy of it was proffered, in case he desired it.[88] This letter was

preceded (besides the documents already mentioned) by letters to the

Marquis of Rockingham, General Conway, Lord Camden, and to the Lords

Commissioners of the Treasury. The details of these papers cannot

be given here. They present the whole case of the colonies, their

rights, their grievances, their remonstrances, and their petitions.

They proceeded mainly from the pen of Samuel Adams, who, when he

had shaken himself clear from profuse professions of loyalty and

disclaimers of "the most distant thoughts of independence", rose to

the annunciation of the loftiest principles of statesmanship, in

the declaration that "the supreme legislative, in any free country,

derives its power from the constitution, by the fundamental rules of

which it is bounded and circumscribed;"—"that it is the glory of the

British Constitution that it hath its foundation in the law of God

and nature;"—"that the necessity of rights and property is the great

end of government;"—"that the colonists are natural-born subjects by

the spirit of the law of nature and nations;" and "that the laws of

God and nature were not made for politicians to alter." Nor does he

confine himself to the enunciation of abstract principles, but states

the rights of the colonists of Massachusetts on historical grounds,

and shows the oppressive and impolitic nature of the acts complained

of.[89] Changes were taking place in the Grafton ministry which boded

evil to the colonies. Shelburne, the most liberal friend of the

Americans, was succeeded by Hillsborough in December, 1767, and Conway

by Weymouth, January 20, 1768. While the circular letter was on its

way to the colonies and to Westminster (for it was intended also for

England), events were occurring at Boston which showed the temper of

the people, and had no inconsiderable influence upon the action of the

British government. The anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act,

March 18, 1768, did not pass without popular demonstrations of ill-will

to the customs officials, nor did the governor escape abusive language

from the mob.[90] For some years these officers had been resisted in

making seizures of uncustomed goods, which were frequently rescued

from their possession by interested parties, and the determination of

the commissioners of customs to break up this practice frequently led

to collisions; but no flagrant outbreak occurred until the seizure of

John Hancock's sloop "Liberty" (June 10, 1768), laden with a cargo of

Madeira wine. The officer in charge, refusing a bribe, was forcibly

locked up in the cabin, the greater part of the cargo was removed,

and the remainder entered at the custom-house as the whole cargo.

This led to seizure of the vessel, said to have been the first made

by the commissioners, and for security she was placed under the guns

of the "Romney", a man-of-war in the harbor. For this the revenue

officers were roughly handled by the mob. Their boat was burned, their

houses threatened, and they, with their alarmed families, took refuge

on board the "Romney", and finally in the Castle. These proceedings

undoubtedly led to the sending additional military forces to Boston in

September.[91]