[Footnote 274: "Petitions were received by Parliament from the merchants

of London, Bristol, Lancaster, Liverpool, Hull, Glasgow, etc., and

indeed from most of the trading and manufacturing towns and boroughs in

the kingdom. In these petitions they set forth the great decay of their

trade, owing to the laws and regulations made for America; the vast

quantities of our manufactures (besides those articles imported from

abroad, which were enclosed either with our own manufactures or with the

produce of our colonies) which the American trade formerly took off our

hands; by all which many thousand manufacturers, seamen, and labourers

had been employed, to the very great and increasing benefit of the

nation. That in return for these exports the petitioners had received

from the colonies rice, indigo, tobacco, naval stores, oil, whale-fins,

furs, and lately potash, with other staple commodities, besides a large

balance of remittances by bills of exchange and bullion obtained by the

colonists for articles of their produce, not required for the British

market, and therefore exported to other places.

"That from the nature of this trade, consisting of British manufactures

exported, and of the import of raw material from America, many of them

used in our manufactures, and all of them tending to lessen our

dependence on neighbouring states, it must be deemed of the highest

importance in the commercial system of this nation. That this commerce,

so beneficial to the state, and so necessary to the support of

multitudes, then lay under such difficulties and discouragements, that

nothing less than its utter ruin was apprehended without the immediate

interposition of Parliament.

"That the colonies were then indebted to the merchants of Great Britain

to the sum of several millions sterling; and that when pressed for

payment, they appeal to past experience in proof of their willingness;

but declare it is not in their power at present to make good their

engagements, alleging that the taxes and restrictions laid upon them,

and the extension of the jurisdiction of the Vice-Admiralty Courts,

established by some late Acts of Parliament, particularly by an Act

passed in the 4th year of his present Majesty, for granting certain

duties in the British Colonies and Plantations in America, and by an Act

passed in the 5th year of his Majesty, for granting and applying certain

stamp duties, etc., in said colonies, etc., with several regulations and

restraints, which, if founded in Acts of Parliament for defined

purposes, they represent to have been extended in such a manner as to

disturb legal commerce and harass the fair trader, and to have so far

interrupted the usual, former and most useful branches of their

commerce, restrained the sale of their produce, thrown the state of the

several provinces into confusion, and brought on so great a number of

actual bankruptcies that the former opportunities and means of

remittances and payments were utterly lost and taken from them.

"That the petitioners were, by these unhappy events, reduced to the

necessity of applying to the House, in order to secure themselves and

their families from impending ruin; to prevent a multitude of

manufacturers from becoming a burden to the community, or else seeking

their bread in other countries, to the irretrievable loss of the

kingdom; and to preserve the strength of this nation entire, its

commerce flourishing, the revenues increasing, our navigation the

bulwark of the kingdom, in a state of growth and extension, and the

colonies, from inclination, duty, and interest, attached to the mother

country."

"Such a number of petitions from every part of the kingdom, pregnant

with so many interesting facts, stated and attested by such numbers of

people, whose lives had been entirely devoted to trade, and who must be

naturally supposed to be competent judges of a subject which they had so

long and so closely attended to (besides that it showed the general

sense of the nation), could not fail of having great weight with the

House." (Annual Register for 1766, Vol. IX., Chap, vii., pp. 35, 36.)]

[Footnote 275: Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. I., p. 348.

"At the same time that the Stamp Act was repealed, the absolute and

unlimited supremacy of Parliament was, in words, asserted. The opposers

of repeal contended for this as essential. The friends of that measure

acquiesced in it, to strengthen their party and make sure of their

object. Many of both sides thought that the dignity of Great Britain

required something of the kind to counterbalance the loss of authority

that might result from her yielding to the clamours of the colonists.

The Act for this purpose was called the Declaratory Act, and was, in

principle, more hostile to America's rights than the Stamp Act; for it

annulled those resolutions and acts of the Provincial Assemblies in

which they had asserted their right to exemption from all taxes not

imposed by their own representatives; and also enacted that the King and

Parliament had, and of right ought to have, power to bind the colonies

in all cases whatsoever."--_Ib._, p. 349.]

[Footnote 276: "The aborigines were never formidable in battle until

they became supplied with the weapons of European invention."

(Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. I., p. 401.)]

[Footnote 277: The treatment of the Indians by the early New England

Puritans is one of the darkest pages in English colonial history. I have

slightly alluded to it in the preceding pages of this volume. Many

passages might be selected from the early divines of New England,

referring to the Indians as the heathen whom they were to drive out of

the land which God had given to this Israel. I will confine myself to

the quotation of a few words from the late Rev. J.B. Marsden, A.M.,

noted for his Puritan partialities, in the two volumes of his _History

of the Early and Later Puritans_. But his sense of Christian justice,

tolerance, and humanity revolted at the New England Puritans'

intolerance to each other, and their cruel treatment of the Indians. Mr.

Marsden says:

"The New England Puritans were revered beyond the Atlantic as the

Pilgrim Fathers, the founders of great cities, and of States renowned

through the wide world for wealth, intelligence, and liberty. Their

memory is cherished in England with feelings of silent respect rather

than of unmixed admiration; for their inconsistencies were almost equal

to their virtues; and here, while we respect their integrity, we are not

blinded to their faults. A persecuted band themselves, they soon learned

to persecute each other. The disciples of liberty, they confined its

blessings to themselves. The loud champions of the freedom of

conscience, they allowed no freedom which interfered with their narrow

views. Professing a mission of Gospel holiness, they fulfilled it but in

part. When opposed, they were revengeful; when irritated, fanatical and

cruel. In them a great experiment was to be tried, under conditions the

most favourable to its success; and it failed in its most important

point. The question to be solved was this: How would the Puritans, the

hunted, persecuted Puritans behave, were they but once free, once at

liberty to carry their principles into full effect? The answer was

returned from the shores of another world. It was distinct and

unequivocal. And it was this: they were prepared to copy the worst vices

of their English persecutors, and, untaught by experience, to imitate

their worst mistakes. The severities of Whitgift seemed to be justified

when it was made apparent on the plains of North America, that they had

been inflicted upon men who wanted only the opportunity to inflict them

again, and inflict them on one another." (Marsden's History of the Early

Puritans, Chap, xi., pp. 305, 306.)

After referring to early conflicts between the Puritans and Indians, Mr.

Marsden remarks as follows in regard to the manner in which the Puritans

destroyed the Pequod nation:

"If there be a justifiable cause of war, it surely must be this, when

our territory is invaded and our means of existence threatened. That the

Indians fell upon their enemies by the most nefarious stratagems, or

exposed them, when taken in war, to cruel torments (though such ferocity

is not alleged in this instance), does not much affect the question.

They were savages, and fought white men as they and their fathers had

always fought each other. How then should a community of Christian men

have dealt with them? Were they to contend as savages or civilized men?

As civilized men, or rather as men who had forsaken a land of

civilization for purer abodes of piety and peace? The Pequod war shows

how little their piety could be trusted when their passions were

aroused."

"After a week's marching, they came at day-break on the Indian wigwams

and immediately assaulted them. The 'massacre' (so their own chronicler,

Mr. Bancroft, has termed it) spread from one hut to another; for the

Indians were asleep and unarmed. But the work of slaughter was too slow.

'We must burn them,' exclaimed the fanatic chieftain of the Puritans;

and he cast the first firebrand to windward among their wigwams. In an

instant the encampment was in a blaze. Not a soul escaped. Six hundred

Indians, men, women, and children, perished by the steady hand of the

marksman, by the unresisted broadsword, and by the hideous

conflagration.

"The work of revenge was not yet accomplished. In a few days a fresh

body of troops arrived from Massachusetts, accompanied by their

minister, Wilson. The remnants of the proscribed race were now hunted

down in their hiding places; every wigwam was burned; every settlement

broken up; every cornfield laid waste. There remained, says their

exulting historian, not a man or a woman, not a warrior or child of the

Pequod name. A nation had disappeared from the family of men." "History

records many deeds of blood equal in ferocity to this; but we shall seek

in vain for a parallel to the massacre of the Pequod Indians. It brought

out the worst points in the Puritan character, and displayed it in the

strongest light. When their passions were once inflamed, their religion

itself was cruelty. A dark, fanatical spirit of revenge took possession,

not, as in other men, by first expelling every religious and every human

consideration, but, what was infinitely more terrible, by calling to its

aid every stimulant, every motive that religion, jaundiced and

perverted, could supply. It is terrible to read, when cities are

stormed, of children thrown into the flames, and shrieking women

butchered by infuriated men who have burst the restraints of discipline.

It is a dreadful licence; and true and gallant soldiers, occur when it

may, feel that their profession is disgraced. But this was worse. Here

all was deliberately calm; all was sanctioned by religion. It was no

outbreak of mere brutality. The fast was kept; the Sabbath was observed;

the staff of office, as a sacred ensign, was consecrated by one

Christian minister, while another attended upon the marching of

soldiery, and cheered them in the murderous design with his presence and

his prayers. Piety was supposed not to abhor, but to exult in the

exploit. This was true fanaticism. God's word and ordinances were made

subservient to the greatest crimes. They were rudely forced and

violated, and made the ministers of sin. When the assailants, reeking

from the slaughter and blackened with the smoke, returned home, they

were everywhere received with a pious ovation. God was devoutly praised,

because the first principles of justice, nay, the stinted humanities of

war, had been outraged, and unresisting savages, with their wives and

children, had been ferociously destroyed." (Marsden's History of the

Early Puritans, Chap, xi., pp. 305-311.)

Such was the early Puritan method of fulfilling the Royal Charter to the

Massachusetts Company of "Christianizing and civilizing the idolatrous

Indians;" and such is a practical comment upon Colonel Barré's statement

as to Indian cruelties.

But the intolerance of the Puritans to each other was as conspicuous as

their cruel treatment of the Indians. On this point Mr. Marsden adds:

"The intolerance with which the Puritans had been treated at home might

at least have taught them a lesson of forbearance to each other. But it

had no such effect. It would almost seem as if, true disciples in the

school of the High Commission and Star Chamber, their ambition was to

excel their former tyrants in the art of persecution. They imitated,

with a pertinacious accuracy, the bad examples of their worst

oppressors; and with far less to excuse them, repeated in America the

self-same crimes from which they and their fathers had suffered so much

in England. No political considerations of real importance, no ancient

prejudices interwoven with the framework of society, could be pleaded

here. Their institutions were new, their course was hampered by no

precedents. Imagination cannot suggest a state of things more favourable

to the easy, safe, and sure development of their views. Had they

cherished a catholic spirit, there was nothing to prevent the exercise

of the most enlarged beneficence. Their choice was made freely, and they

decided in favour of intolerance; and their fault was aggravated by the

consideration that the experiment had been tried, and that they

themselves were the living witnesses of its folly." (Marsden's History

of the Early Puritans, p. 311.)]

[Footnote 278: It was but just to have added that the trade between

England and America was as profitable to America as it was to England,

and that the value of property and rents advanced more rapidly in

America than in England.]

[Footnote 279: This is a withering rebuke to a conceited though clever

young statesman, Lord Nugent, who, in a previous part of the debate,

insisted that the honour and dignity of the kingdom obligated them to

compel the execution of the Stamp Act, "unless the right was

acknowledged and the repeal solicited as a favour," concluding with the

remark that "a peppercorn, in acknowledgment of the right, is of more

value than millions without."]

[Footnote 280: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. V., Chap.

xxi.]

[Footnote 281: History of the United States, Vol. V., Chap. xxi., pp.

397, 398.]

[Footnote 282: Prior Documents, pp. 64-81.]

CHAPTER XI.

AUTHORITY OF PARLIAMENT OVER THE BRITISH COLONIES.

Before proceeding with a summary statement of events which followed the

repeal of the Stamp Act, I think it proper to state the nature and

extent of the authority of Parliament over the colonies, as interpreted

by legislative bodies and statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr.

Bancroft well remarks:

"It is the glory of England that the rightfulness of the Stamp Act was

in England itself a subject of dispute. It could have been so nowhere

else. The King of France taxed the French colonies as a matter of

course; the King of Spain collected a revenue by his own will in Mexico

and Peru, in Cuba and Porto Rico, and wherever he ruled. The

States-General of the Netherlands had no constitutional doubt about

imposing duties on their outlying colonies. To England exclusively

belongs the honour that between her and her colonies the question of

right could arise; it is still more to her glory, as well as to her

happiness and freedom, that in that contest her success was not

possible. Her principles, her traditions, her liberty, her constitution,

all forbade that arbitrary rule should become her characteristic. The

shaft aimed at her new colonial policy was tipped with a feather from

her own wing."[283]

In the dispute which took place in 1757 between the Legislative Assembly

of Massachusetts and the Earl of Loudoun as to the extension of the

Mutiny Act to the colonies, and the passing of an Act by the local

Legislature for the billeting of the troops, as similar in its

provisions as possible to those of the Mutiny Act--so that it was

accepted by the Earl of Loudoun--the Massachusetts Assembly vindicated

their motives for denying the application of the Mutiny Act to the

colonies, and for providing quarters for the military by an Act of their

own, yet recognizing the legitimate authority of Parliament, in a

message to Governor Barnard containing the following words:

"We wish to stand perfectly right with his lordship (the Earl of

Loudoun), and it will be a great satisfaction to us if we may be able to

remove his misapprehension of the spring and motives of our proceedings.

His lordship is pleased to say that we seem willing to enter into a

dispute upon the necessity of a provincial law to enforce a British Act

of Parliament.

"We are utterly ignorant as to what part of our conduct could give

occasion for this expression. The point in which we were obliged to

differ from his lordship was the extent of the provision made by Act of

Parliament for regulating quarters. We thought it did not reach the

colonies. _Had we thought it did reach us, and yet made an Act of our

own to enforce it, there would have been good grounds for his lordships

exception_; but being fully persuaded that the provision was never

intended for us, what better step could we take than, agreeable to the

twentieth section of the Articles of War, to regulate quarters as the

circumstances of the province require, but still as similar to the

provisions made in England as possible? And how can it be inferred from

thence that we suppose a provincial Act necessary to enforce an Act of

Parliament?

"We are willing, by a due exercise of the powers of civil government

(and we have the pleasure of seeing your Excellency concur with us), to

remove, as much as may be, all pretence of necessity of military

government. Such measures, we are sure, will never be disapproved by the

Parliament of Great Britain, _our dependence upon which, we never had a

desire or thought of lessening_. From the knowledge your Excellency has

acquired of us, you will be able to do us justice in this regard.

"In our message to your Excellency, which you transmitted to his

lordship, we declared that the Act of Parliament, the extent of which

was then in dispute, as far as it related to the Plantations, had always

been observed by us.

"_The authority of all Acts of Parliament which concern the colonies,

and extend to them, is ever acknowledged in all the Courts of law, and

made the rule in all judicial proceedings in the province. There is not

a member of the General Court, we know no inhabitant within the bounds

of the Government, that ever questioned this authority._

"_To prevent any ill consequences which may arise from an opinion of our

holding such principles, we now utterly disavow them, as we should

readily have done at any time past if there had been occasion for it_;

and we pray that his lordship may be acquainted therewith, that we may

appear in a true light, and that no impressions may remain to our

disadvantage."[284]

This is a full and indefinite recognition of the supreme authority of

Parliament, even to the providing of accommodation for the soldiers; and

such was the recognition of the authority of Parliament throughout the

colonies. "It was generally allowed," says Dr. Ramsay, "that as the

planting of colonies was not designed to erect an independent

Government, but to extend an old one, the parent state had a right to

restrain their trade in every way which conduced to the common

emolument. They for the most part considered the mother country as

authorized to name ports and nations to which alone their merchandise

should be carried, and with which alone they should trade; but the novel

claim of taxing them without their consent was universally reprobated as

contrary to their natural, chartered, and constitutional rights. In

opposition to it, they not only alleged the general principles of

liberty, but ancient usage. During the first hundred and fifty years of

their existence they had been left to tax themselves and in their own

way." "In the war of 1755, the events of which were fresh in the

recollection of every one, the Parliament had in no instance attempted

to raise either men or money in the colonies by its own authority. As

the claim of taxation on one side and the refusal on the other were the

very hinges on which the revolution turned they merit a particular

discussion."[285]

The only exception to the authority of Parliament over the colonies was

levying _internal_ taxes. A marked distinction was made between

_external_ and _internal_ taxes. It was admitted upon all hands that the

Parliament had the constitutional right to impose the former, but not

the latter. The Tory opposition in the British Parliament denied the

distinction between _external_ and _internal_ taxes, and maintained that

if Parliament had the right to impose the one they had equally the right

to impose the other; but the advocates of American rights maintained the

distinction between _external_ and _internal_ taxation; and also Dr.

Franklin, in his evidence at the bar of the House of Commons, in

February, 1766, which I have quoted at length above, as the best

exposition of the colonial side of the questions at issue between

England and America. I will here reproduce two questions and answers on

the subject now under consideration:

Q.--"You say they do not object to the right of Parliament, in levying

duties on goods, to be paid on their importation; now, is there any kind

of difference between a duty on the importation of goods and an excise

on their consumption?"

A.--"Yes, a very material one; an excise, for the reasons I have just

mentioned, they think you can have no right to levy within their

country. But the sea is yours; you maintain by your fleets the safety of

navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may have therefore a

natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on merchandise carried

through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expense you

are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage."

Q.--"Does this reasoning hold in the case of a duty laid on the produce

of their lands exported? And would they not then object to make a duty?"

A.--"If it tended to make the produce so much dearer abroad as to lessen

the demand for it, to be sure they would object to such a duty; _not to

your right of levying it_, but they would complain of it as a burden,

and petition you to lighten it."

It will be observed that in these words of Dr. Franklin there is the

fullest recognition of the right of Parliament to impose duties on all

articles imported into, or exported from, the colonies; the only

exception was the levying direct or _internal_ taxes for the purposes of

revenue, the right to impose which was held, and we think justly held,

to belong to the representative Legislatures elected by the colonists

themselves. Such also were the views of the two great statesmen, Pitt

and Burke, who with such matchless eloquence advocated the rights of

the colonies--whose speeches have become household words in America, and

are found in all their school books. Mr. Pitt, in a speech which I have

quoted at length in a previous chapter, said expressly:

"Let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be

asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to

every point of legislation whatsoever, that we may bind their trade,

confine their manufactures, and exercise every power except that of

taking their money out of their pockets without their consent."

Mr. Pitt therefore advocated the repeal of the Stamp Act with all his

fiery eloquence and energy, saying that he rejoiced that the colonists

had resisted that Act--not by riots or force of arms, but by every

constitutional mode of resistance, in the expression of public opinion

against an unjust and oppressive measure. Mr. Pitt's speech has been

quoted by American writers, and inserted in American school books, to

justify the resistance of America to England in the revolution which was

declared in 1776; but his speech was delivered, and the Act against

which it was delivered was repealed, ten years before. The United Empire

Loyalists were as much opposed to the Stamp Act as any other colonists,

and rejoiced as heartily at its repeal.

Edmund Burke was the appointed agent of the province of New York, and no

member of the House of Commons equalled him in the eloquent and

elaborate advocacy of the popular rights of the colonies. Extracts from

his speeches have been circulated in every form, and in unnumbered

repetition in American periodicals and school books; but what he said as

to the authority of Parliament over the colonies has not found so wide a

circulation in America. In advocating the repeal of the Stamp Act, in

his celebrated speech on _American taxation_, Mr. Burke said:

"What is to become of the Declaratory Act, asserting the entireness of

British legislative authority, if we abandon the practice of taxation?

For my part, I look upon the rights stated in that Act exactly in the

manner in which I viewed them on its very first proposition, and which I

have often taken the liberty, with great humility, to lay before you. I

look, I say, on the imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges

which the colonists ought to enjoy under those rights, to be just the

most reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great Britain

sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: one, as the

local Legislature of this island, providing for all things at home,

immediately, and by no other instrument than the executive power; the

other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her _imperial

character_, in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all

the several inferior Legislatures, and guides and controls them all,

without annihilating any. As all these Provincial Legislatures are only

co-ordinate with each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her,

else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual

justice, nor effectually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary to

coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and

deficient, by the overruling plenitude of its power. She is never to

intrude into the place of the others while they are equal to the common

ends of their institution. But in order to enable Parliament to answer

all these ends of provident and beneficent superintendence, her powers

must be boundless. The gentlemen who think the powers of Parliament

limited, may please themselves to talk of requisitions. But suppose the

requisitions are not obeyed? What! Shall there be no reserved power in

the empire to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide, and

dissipate the whole? We are engaged in war; the Secretary of State calls

upon the colonies to contribute; some would do it; I think most would

cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded. One or two, suppose, hang back,

and, easing themselves, let the stress of the draft be on the

others--surely it is proper that some authority might legally say, 'Tax

yourselves for the common supply, or Parliament will do it for you.'

This backwardness was, as I am told, actually the case of Pennsylvania,

for some short time towards the beginning of the last war, owing to some

internal dissensions in the colony. But whether the act were so, or

otherwise, the case is equally to be provided for by a competent

sovereign power. But then this ought to be no ordinary power, nor ever

used in the first instance. This is what I meant when I have said at

various times that I consider the power of taxing in Parliament as an

instrument of empire, and not as a means of supply."[286]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 283: History of the United States, Vol. V., Chap, xx., pp.

366, 367.]

[Footnote 284: Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. III.,

Chap. i, pp. 65, 66.]

[Footnote 285: Colonial History, Vol. I., pp. 327, 328.]

[Footnote 286: Speech on American taxation.]

CHAPTER XII.

SUMMARY OF EVENTS FROM THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT, MARCH, 1766, TO THE

END OF THE YEAR.

The universal joy caused in both Great Britain and America by the repeal

of the Stamp Act foreshadowed a new era of unity and co-operation

between the mother country and the colonies. But though trade and

commerce resumed their activity, and mutual expressions of respect and

affection characterized the correspondence, private and official,

between England and America, the rejoicings of re-union were soon

silenced, and mutual confidence, if restored at all, soon yielded to

mutual suspicion. The King regretted the repeal of the Stamp Act as "a

fatal compliance" which had "wounded the majesty" of England, and

planted "thorns under his own pillow." He soon found a pretext for

ridding himself of the Ministers who had influenced the Parliament, and

compelled himself to adopt and sanction that measure, and to surround

himself with Ministers, some of whom sympathized with the King in his

regrets, and all of whom were prepared to compensate for the humiliation

to America in the repeal of the Stamp Act, by imposing obligations and

taxes on the colonies in other forms, under the absolute authority of

Parliament affirmed in the Declaratory Act, and which the Americans had

fondly regarded as a mere salve to English pride, and not intended for

any practical purpose. Mr. Pitt had rested his opposition to the Stamp

Act upon the distinction between _external_ and _internal_ taxes, as did

Dr. Franklin in his evidence at the bar of the House of Commons; the

opposition and the protesting Lords denied the distinction; and when Dr.

Franklin was asked--

"Does the distinction between internal and external taxes exist in the

Charter?" he answered: "No, I believe not;" and being asked, "Then may

they not, by the same interpretation, object to the Parliament's right

of external taxation?" he answered: "They never have hitherto. Many

arguments have been lately used here to show them that there is no

difference, and that if you have no right to tax them internally, you

have no right to tax them externally, or make any other law to bind

them. At present they do not reason so, but in time they may possibly be

convinced by these arguments."[287]

I now proceed to give a summary statement of the events between Great

Britain and the colonies which followed the repeal of the Stamp Act,

March 19th, 1766.

Within ten days of its passing, the Act repealing the Stamp Act was

officially transmitted to America by General Conway,[288] then

Secretary of State for America, who accompanied them with a circular to

the several Governors, in which, while he firmly insisted upon a proper

reverence for the King's Government, endeavoured affectionately to allay

the discontents of the colonists. When the Governor of Virginia

communicated this letter to the House of Burgesses, they unanimously

voted a statue to the King, and the Assembly of Massachusetts voted a

letter of thanks to Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Grafton.

But in addition to the circular letter to the several Governors,

counselling forgetfulness and oblivion as to the disorders and

contentions of the past, General Conway wrote a separate letter to

Governor Barnard, of Massachusetts, in which he said: "Nothing will tend

more effectually to every conciliating purpose, and there is nothing,

therefore, I have in command more earnestly to require of you, than that

you should exert yourself in _recommending_ it strongly to the Assembly,

that full and ample compensation be made to those who, from the madness

of the people, have suffered for their acts in deference to the British

Legislature." This letter was but a _recommendation_, not a _command_ or

_requisition_, to the Legislature, and seems to have been intended as an

instruction to Governor Barnard alone; but he, now indulging his

personal resentments as well as haughty spirit, represented the letter

of General Conway as a _command_ and _requisition_ founded on "justice

and humanity," and that the authority from which it came ought to

preclude all doubts about complying with it, adding, "Both the business

and the time are most critical--let me entreat you to recollect

yourselves, and to consider well what you are about. Shall the private

interests, passions, or resentments of a few men deprive the whole

people of the great and manifold advantages which the favour and

indulgence of their King and his Parliament are now preparing for them?

Surely after _his Majesty's commands_ are known, the very persons who

have created the prejudices and prepossessions I now endeavour to combat

will be the first to remove them."

The opposition to the Stamp Act, which the Governor interpreted as

"prejudices and prepossessions which he now endeavoured to combat," had

been justified by the King and Parliament themselves in rejecting it;

and he thus continued to make enemies of those whom he might have easily

conciliated and made friends. The Assembly answered him in an indignant

and sarcastic tone, and charged him with having exceeded the authority

given in Secretary Conway's letter; concluding in the following words:

"If this _recommendation_, which your Excellency terms a _requisition_,

be founded on so much justice and humanity that it cannot be

controverted--if the _authority_ with which it is introduced should

preclude all disputation about complying with it, we should be glad to

know what freedom we have in the case?

"In answer to the questions which your Excellency has proposed with

seeming emotion, we beg leave to declare, that we will not suffer

ourselves to be in the least influenced by party animosities or domestic

feuds, let them exist where they may; that if we can possibly prevent

it, this fine country shall never be ruined by any person; that it shall

be through no default of ours should this people be deprived of the

great and manifest advantages which the favour and indulgence of our

most gracious Sovereign and his Parliament are even now providing for

them. On the contrary, that it shall ever be our highest ambition, as it

is our duty, so to demean ourselves in public and in private life as

shall most clearly demonstrate our loyalty and gratitude to the best of

kings, and thereby recommend his people to further gracious marks of the

royal clemency and favour.

"With regard to the rest of your Excellency's speech, we are constrained

to observe, that the general air and style of it savours more of an act

of grace and pardon than of a parliamentary address to the two Houses of

Assembly; and we most sincerely wish your Excellency had been pleased to

reserve it, _if needful_, for a proclamation."

It was thus that fresh seed of animosity and hostility was sown between

Governor Barnard and the Massachusetts Assembly, and sown by the

Governor himself, and the growth of which he further promoted by

refusing to confirm the choice of Mr. Hancock, whom the Assembly had

elected as their Speaker, and refused to sanction six of their

twenty-eight nominations to the Council, because they had not nominated

the four judges of the Supreme Court and the Crown officers. Hence the

animosity of their reply to his speech above quoted. But as the Governor

had, by the Charter, a veto on the election of Speaker and Councillors,

the Legislature submitted without a murmur.

But in the course of the session (six months after the Governor's speech

upon the subject), the Assembly passed an Act granting compensation to

the sufferers by the late riots, the principal of whom were the

Lieutenant-Governor, the Collector of Customs, and the appointed

Distributor of Stamps. The Act was accompanied by a declaration that it

was a free gift of the Province, and not an acknowledgment of the

justice of their claim; it also contained a provision of amnesty to the

rioters. The Act was agreed to by the Council and assented to by the

Governor; but it was disallowed by the King on the advice of the English

Attorney and Solicitor General, because, as alleged, it assumed an act

of grace which it belonged to the King to bestow, through an act of

oblivion of the evils of those who had acted unlawfully in endeavouring

to enforce the Stamp Act, which had been passed by the British

Parliament the same year. The Massachusetts Assembly ordered that their

debates should henceforth be open to the public.

The Legislature of New York also passed an Act granting compensation to

those who had suffered a loss of property for their adherence to the

Stamp Act, but stated it to be a free gift.

Before the close of 1766, dissatisfaction and distrust were manifest in

several colonies, and apprehensions of other encroachments by the

British Parliament upon what they held to be their constitutional

rights. Even the General Assembly of Virginia, which had in the spring

session voted a statue to the King, and an obelisk to Mr. Pitt and

several other members of Parliament, postponed, in the December

following, the final consideration of the resolution until the next

session. The Virginia press said: "The Americans are hasty in

expressing their gratitude, if the repeal of the Stamp Act is not, at

least, a tacit compact that Great Britain will never again tax us;" and

advised the different Assemblies, without mentioning the proceedings of

Parliament, to enter upon their journals as strong declarations of their

own rights as words could express.[289]

The Assembly of New York met early in 1766, in the best spirit; voted to

raise on Bowling Green an equestrian statue to the King, and a statue of

William Pitt--"twice the preserver of his country."

"But the clause of the Mutiny or Billeting Act (passed in 1765, in the

same session in which the Stamp Act was passed), directing Colonial

Legislatures to make specific contributions towards the support of the

army, placed New York, where the head-quarters were established, in the

dilemma of submitting immediately and unconditionally to the authority

of Parliament, or taking the lead in a new career of resistance. The

rescript was in theory worse than the Stamp Act. For how could one

legislative body command what another legislative body should enact? And

viewed as a tax it was unjust, for it threw all the burden of the colony

where the troops chanced to be collected. The requisition of the

General, made through the Governor, 'agreeably to the Act of

Parliament,' was therefore declared to be unprecedented in its character

and unreasonable in its amount; yet in the exercise of the right of free

deliberation, everything asked for was voted, except such articles as

were not provided in Europe for British troops which were in

barracks."[290]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 287: In the House of Lords, Lord Mansfield, replying to Lord

Camden, said: "The noble lord who quoted so much law, and denied the

right of the Parliament of Great Britain to levy _internal_ taxes upon

the colonies, allowed at the same time that _restrictions upon trade and

duties upon the ports were legal_. But I cannot see any real difference

in this distinction; for I hold it to be true, that a tax laid in any

place is like a pebble falling into and making a circle in a lake, till

one circle produces and gives motion to another, and the whole

circumference is agitated from the centre. A tax on tobacco, either in

the ports of Virginia or London, is a duty laid upon the inland

Plantations of Virginia, a hundred miles from the sea, wherever the

tobacco grows." (Quoted in Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol.

V., p. 411.)

Mr. Grenville argued in the same strain in the House of Commons; and the

Americans, as apt pupils, soon learned by such arguments to resist

_external_ as they had successfully resisted _internal_ taxes.]

[Footnote 288: General Conway, as leader of the House of Commons, moved

the resolution for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and also moved the

resolution for the Declaratory Bill. Colonel Barré moved an amendment to

strike out from the resolution the words "in all cases whatsoever." He

was seconded by Pitt, and sustained by Beckford. "Only three men, or

rather Pitt alone, 'debated strenuously the rights of America' against

more than as many hundred; and yet the House of Commons, half-conscious

of the fatality of its decision, was so awed by the overhanging shadow

of coming events that it seemed to shrink from pronouncing its opinion.

Edmund Burke, eager to add glory as an orator to his just renown as an

author, argued for England's right in such a manner that the strongest

friends of power declared his speech to have been 'far superior to that

of every other speaker;' while Grenville, Yorke, and all the lawyers;

the temperate Richard Hussey, who yet was practically for humanity and

justice; Blackstone, the commentator on the laws of England, who still

disliked internal taxation of America by Parliament, filled many hours

with solemn arguments for England's unlimited supremacy. They persuaded

one another, and the House, that the Charters which kings had granted

were, by the unbroken opinions of lawyers, from 1689, subordinate to the

good-will of the Houses of Parliament; that Parliament, for a stronger

reason, had power to tax--a power which it had been proposed to exert in

1713, while Harley was at the head of the Treasury, and again at the

opening of the Seven Years' War." ...

"So the watches of the long winter's night wore away, and at about four

o'clock in the morning, when the question was called, less than ten

voices, some say five, or four, some said but three, spoke out in the

minority; and the resolution passed for England's right to do what the

Treasury pleased with three millions of freemen in America." (Bancroft's

History of the United States., Vol. V., pp. 415-417.)]

[Footnote 289: Allen's History of the American Revolution, Vol. I.,

Chap. v., p. 101. Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VI.,

Chap. xxv., p. 6.]

[Footnote 290: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VI., Chap.

xxv., pp. 15, 16.

"The colonies were required, at their own expense, to furnish the troops

quartered upon them by Parliament with fuel, bedding, utensils for

cooking, and various articles of food and drink. To take off the edge

from this bill, bounties were granted on the importation of lumber and

timber from the plantations; coffee of domestic growth was exempted from

additional duty; and iron was permitted to be carried to Ireland."

(Barry's History of Massachusetts, Second Period, Chap. x., p. 295.)]

CHAPTER XIII.

EVENTS OF 1767--A NEW PARLIAMENT--FIRST ACT AGAINST THE PROVINCE OF NEW

YORK--BILLETING SOLDIERS ON THE COLONIES.

A new House of Commons was elected in 1766, less favourable to the

colonies than the preceding one; and one of the first acts of the new

Parliament was founded on the intelligence received from New York, that

the Assembly had refused to comply with all the requirements of the

Billeting Act in providing for his Majesty's troops which had been

quartered upon that province.[291]

A Bill was introduced by Mr. Grenville, the object of which was to

restrain the Assembly and Council of New York from passing any Act until

they had complied with the requisitions of the Billeting Act. Though the

Bill was introduced by the leader of the opposition, it received the

countenance and support of Ministers (Pitt being Premier, though absent

through illness), "who regarded it as a measure at once dignified and

forbearing." The Bill passed with little opposition; the Legislature of

New York was at once frightened into immediate compliance, though the

feeling with which it was done may be easily conceived. The effect,

however, in other colonies, was not only to excite fears and

dissatisfaction, but to call forth public expressions of hostile

sentiment, regarding the Act as an infringement of their chartered

privileges; and they argued that if the legislative powers of so loyal a

colony as New York could be thus suspended, they had little security for

their own privileges guaranteed to them by Charter.[292]

On the 26th of January, while the House of Commons, in Committee of

Supply, was considering the estimate for the garrison and land forces in

the colonies, Mr. Grenville took the opportunity of expressing his

dissatisfaction with the repeal of the Stamp Act, and insisted upon the

necessity of relieving England from the burden, which should be borne by

the colonies, and which, with contingencies, exceeded £400,000. Mr.

Charles Townshend, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, replied that "the

Administration has given its attention to give relief to Great Britain

from bearing the whole expense of securing, defending, and protecting

America and the West India islands. I shall bring into the House some

propositions that I hope may tend, in time, to ease the people of

England upon this head, and yet not be heavy in any manner upon the

people in the colonies. _I know the mode by which a revenue may be drawn

from America without offence._" He was applauded from all sides of the

House, and continued: "I am still a firm advocate for the Stamp Act, for

its principle, and for the duty itself; only the heats which prevailed

made it an improper time to press it. I laugh at the absurd distinction

between internal and external taxes. I know of no such distinction. It

is a distinction without a difference. It is perfect nonsense. If we

have a right to impose the one, we have a right to impose the other. The

distinction is ridiculous in the opinion of everybody except the

Americans."[293] In conclusion, laying his hand on the table in front of

him, he declared to the House, "England is undone if this taxation of

America is given up."[294] Grenville demanded Townsend to pledge himself

to his declaration of obtaining a revenue from the colonies; and did so

promptly amid the applause of the House. In June, Townshend proceeded to

redeem his pledge, and for that purpose brought successively three Bills

into the House, all of which were passed by nearly unanimous votes.

"The first of these Bills, in the preamble, declared an American revenue

expedient, and promised to raise it by granting duties on glass, red

and white lead, painters' oil and paper, and threepence a pound on

tea--all English productions except the last--all objects of taxation in

the colonies. The exportation of tea to America was encouraged by

another Act which allowed a drawback for five years of the whole duty

payable on importation into England."[295] The preamble of the Bill

stated that the duties are laid for the better support of the government

and the administration of the colonies. One clause of the Act enabled

the King, by sign manual, to establish a general civil list for each

province of North America, with any salaries, pensions, or appointments

his Majesty might think proper. The Act also provided, after all such

ministerial warrants under the sign manual "as are thought proper and

necessary" shall be satisfied, the residue of the revenue shall be at

the disposal of the Parliament.[296]

2. The second Bill, intended to ensure the execution of the first,

authorized his Majesty to appoint a Board of Commissioners of Customs to

reside in the colonies, to give them such orders and instructions from

time to time as his Majesty might think proper. This Board of Customs

had its seat at Boston; its duty was to see to the strict enforcement of

the revenue laws in America, and it was authorized to make as many

appointments as the Commissioners might think fit, and to pay the

appointees what sums they pleased, and were not accountable for their

malconduct, though they were authorized to seize vessels suspected of

having goods which had not been duly entered.[297]

3. A third Bill, in Mr. Charles Townshend's scheme for the taxation of

the colonies, was for the establishment in America of _Courts of

Vice-Admiralty_--at Halifax, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston--Courts

in which the colonists were deprived of the right of trial by jury,

which were invested with authority to seize and transport accused persons

to England to be tried there--Courts of which the officers and informers

were paid out of the proceeds of sales of confiscated goods, and in

proportion to their amounts, and were therefore personally interested

in confiscating as many goods as possible, and from their decisions

there was no appeal except to England--a process not only tedious,

but ruinously expensive, even if successful, of which there could

be little hope.

In connection with these three Acts (the operations and effects of which

Charles Townshend did not live to see),[298] the navy and military in

America were commanded, not as a defence against foreign or even Indian

invasions, but as Custom-house guards and officers, to enforce the

payment of taxes on the colonists. The very next day after the King had

given the royal sanction to the system of Courts of Admiralty in

America, "orders were issued directly to the Commander-in-Chief in

America, that the troops under his command should give their assistance

to the officers of the revenue for the effectual suppression of the

contraband trade. Nor was there delay in following up the new law, to

employ the navy to enforce the Navigation Acts. To this end Admiral

Colville, the naval Commander-in-Chief on the coasts of North America,

from the River St. Lawrence to Cape Florida and the Bahama Islands,

became the head of a new corps of revenue officers. Each captain of his

squadron had Custom-house commissions, and a set of instructions from

the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty for his guidance; and other

instructions were given them by the Admiral, to enter into the harbours

or lie off the coasts of America; to qualify themselves, by taking the

usual Custom-house oaths, to do the office of Custom-house officers; to

seize such persons as were suspected by them to be engaged in illicit

trade."[299]

The effect of these acts and measures was to create universal

dissatisfaction throughout the colonies, as they were not even in

pretence for the regulation of trade, but for the purpose of raising a

parliamentary revenue in America, and therefore differed not in

principle from the tax imposed by the Stamp Act. "The colonists

contended that there was no real difference between the principle of

these new duties and the Stamp Act. They were both designed to raise a

revenue in America, and in the same manner. The payment of the duties

imposed by the Stamp Act might have been evaded by the total disuse of

stamped paper, and so might the payment of these duties by the total

disuse of those articles on which they were laid; but in neither case

without great difficulty. The Revenue Act of 1767 produced resolves,

petitions, addresses, remonstrances, similar to those with which the

colonists opposed the Stamp Act. It also gave rise to a second

association for suspending further importations of British manufactures

till those offensive duties should be taken off."[300]

The year 1767 closed with enlarging and multiplying associations to

dispense with the use of goods of British manufacture, the appointment

of Lord North to succeed Charles Townshend as Chancellor of the

Exchequer, and of the Earl of Hillsborough to succeed the Earl of

Shelburne as Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lord North had voted

for the Stamp Act and against its repeal; and Lord Hillsborough was less

indulgent to the colonies than Lord Shelburne.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 291: "This affair being brought before the House occasioned

many debates, and some vigorous measures were proposed. June 15th, a

Bill was passed by which the Governor, Council, and Assembly of New York

were prohibited from passing or assenting to any Act of Assembly for any

purpose whatsoever, till they had in every respect complied with all the

terms of the Act of Parliament. This restriction, though limited to one

colony, was a lesson to them all, and showed their comparative

inferiority, when brought in question with the supreme legislative

power." (Annual Register for 1767, Vol. X., p. 48.)]

[Footnote 292: The carrying into effect of the Billeting Act in Boston

is thus stated by Mr. Holmes:

"An Act had been passed by Parliament, the same session in which the

Stamp Act was passed, that obliged the Colonial Assemblies to provide

quarters for the soldiers, and furnish them with fire, beds, candles,

and other articles at the expense of the colonies. The jealousy of

Massachusetts was awakened by the attempt of the Governor to execute

this law. In June an addition was made to the British troops at the

castle, in the harbour of Boston, and the Governor requested that

provision be made by the Assembly for their support. After due

deliberation, the House resolved that such provision be made for them

while they remain here, as has been heretofore usually made for his

Majesty's regular troops when occasionally in the province. The caution

with which this resolution was drawn shows how reluctant the Assembly

were to have a military force placed in the province; and how careful

neither to yield any portion of their legislative rights, nor to furnish

a precedent for the repetition of a measure equally obnoxious and

dangerous to the colonists. The suspension of the power of legislation

in New York justly excited alarm throughout all the colonies; for it was

perceived that every Colonial Assembly would, by parity of reasoning, be

put on their trial for good behaviour, of which the British Ministry

would be the judge. Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, said, 'An Act for

suspending the Legislature of that province hangs, like a flaming sword,

over all our heads, and requires by all means to be removed.'" (Annals,

etc., Vol. II., p. 149.)]

[Footnote 293: The Americans took the Chancellor of the Exchequer at his

word, the plain and logical inference from which was, that if it was

unlawful to impose _internal_ taxes, it was equally unlawful to impose

_external_ taxes. The colonies had unanimously denied the lawfulness of

_internal_ taxes imposed by Parliament, and in that denial had been

sustained by the opinions of Lord Camden, Pitt, and other English

statesmen, and virtually by the repeal of the Stamp Act itself.

Henceforth they resisted the imposition by Parliament of external as

well as internal taxes.]

[Footnote 294: Referring to the applause of the Commons which greeted

Townshend's utterances of his intention to draw a revenue from the

colonies, Mr. Bancroft says: "The loud burst of rapture dismayed Conway,

who sat in silent astonishment at the unauthorized but premeditated

rashness of his presumptuous colleague. The next night the Cabinet

questioned the insubordinate Minister 'how he had ventured to depart on

so essential a point from the profession of the whole Ministry;' and he

browbeat them all. 'I appeal to you,' said he, turning to Conway,

'whether the House is not bent on obtaining a revenue of some sort from

the colonies?' Not one of the Ministry then in London (Pitt being absent

and ill) had sufficient authority to advise his dismission, and nothing

less could have stopped his measures." (History of the United States,

Vol. VI., Chap. xxvii., pp. 47-49.)]

[Footnote 295: "The colonists had been previously restrained from

manufacturing certain articles for their own consumption. Other Acts

confined them to the exclusive use of British merchandise. The addition

of duties put them wholly in the power and discretion of Great Britain.

'We are not,' said they, 'permitted to import from any nation other than

our own parent state, and have been, in some cases, restrained by her

from manufacturing for ourselves; and she claims a right to do so in

every instance which is incompatible with her interest. To these

restrictions we have hitherto submitted; but she now rises in her

demands, and imposes duties on those commodities, the purchasing of

which elsewhere than in her own market her laws forbid, and the

manufacturing of which for her own use she may, at any moment she

pleases, restrain. Nothing is left for us to do but to complain and

pay.'" (Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. I., Chap. iii., pp. 351, 352.)]

[Footnote 296: "Townshend opened the debate with professions of candour,

and the air of a man of business. Exculpating alike Pennsylvania and

Connecticut, he named as the delinquent colonies--Massachusetts, which

had invaded the King's prerogative by a general amnesty, and in a

message to its Governor had used expressions derogatory to the authority

of Parliament; Rhode Island, which had postponed but not refused to

indemnify the sufferers by the Stamp Act; and New Jersey, which had

evaded the Billeting Act, but had yet furnished the King's troops with

every essential thing to their perfect satisfaction. Against these

colonies it was not necessary to institute severe proceedings. But New

York, in the month of June last, besides appointing its own Commissary,

had limited its supplies to two regiments, and to those articles only

which were provided in the rest of the King's dominions, and in December

had refused to do more.

"It became Parliament not to engage in controversy with its colonies,

but to assert its sovereignty without uniting them in a common cause.

For this end he proposed to proceed against New York, and against New

York alone. To levy a local tax would be to accept a penalty in lieu of

obedience. He should, therefore, move that New York, having disobeyed

Parliament, should be restrained from any legislative act of its own

till it should comply.

"He then proceeded to advocate the establishment of a Board of

Commissioners of the Customs, to be stationed in America.

"'Our right of taxation,' he continued, 'is indubitable; yet, to prevent

mischief, I was myself in favour of repealing the Stamp Act. But there

can be no objection to port duties on wine, oil, and fruits, if allowed

to be carried to America directly from Spain and Portugal; on glass,

paper, lead, and colours; and especially on tea. Owing to the high

charges in England, America has supplied itself with tea by smuggling it

from the Dutch possessions; to remedy this, duties hitherto levied upon

it in England are to be given up, and a specific duty collected in

America itself.'"

"The American revenue, it was further explained, was to be placed at the

disposal of the King for the payment of his civil officers.

"This speech, pronounced with gravity and an air of moderation by an

orator who was the delight of the House, implied a revolution in favour

of authority. The Minister was to have the irresponsible power of

establishing, by sign manual, a general civil list in every American

province, and at his pleasure to grant salaries and pensions, limited

only by the amount of the American revenue. The proposition bore on its

face the mark of owing its parentage to the holders and patrons of

American offices; and yet it was received in the House with general

favour. Richard Jackson was not regarded when he spoke against the

duties themselves, and foretold the mischief that would ensue."

(Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VI., Chap. xxix., pp.

75-77.)]

[Footnote 297: The Commissioners, from the first moment of their

institution, had been an eyesore to the people of Boston. This, though

partly owing to their active zeal in detecting smugglers, principally

arose from the association which existed in the minds of the inhabitants

between the Board of Customs and an American revenue. The Declaratory

Act of 1766, the Revenue Act of 1767, together with the pomp and expense

of this Board, so disproportionate to the small income of the present

duties, conspired to convince not only the few who were benefitted by

smuggling, but the great body of enlightened freemen, that further and

greater impositions of parliamentary taxes were intended. In proportion

as this opinion gained ground, the inhabitants became more disrespectful

to the executive officers of the revenue, and more disposed, in the

frenzy of patriotism, to commit outrages on their persons and property.

The constant bickering that existed between them and the inhabitants,

together with the steady opposition given by the latter to the discharge

of the official duties of the former, induced the Commissioners and

friends of an American revenue to solicit the protection of a regular

force at Boston. In compliance with their wishes, his Majesty ordered

two regiments and some armed vessels to repair thither for supporting

and assisting the officers of Customs in the execution of their duty.

(Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. I., Chap. iii., pp. 355, 356.)]

[Footnote 298: His Revenue Act, and the two subsequent Acts to give it

effect, produced an excitement throughout the American colonies that

will be noticed hereafter. Mr. Bancroft remarks: "They would nullify

Townshend's Revenue Act by consuming nothing on which he had laid a

duty, and avenge themselves on England by importing no more British

goods. At the beginning of this excitement (September, 1767), Charles

Townshend was seized with fever, and after a short illness, during which

he met danger with the unconcerned levity that had marked his conduct of

the most serious affairs, he died at the age of forty-one, famed alike

for incomparable talents and extreme instability." (History of the

United States, Vol. VI., p. 98.)]

[Footnote 299: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. V., Chapter

ix., pp. 161, 162. Mr. Bancroft adds:

"The promise of large emoluments in case of forfeiture stimulated their

natural and irregular vivacity to enforce laws which had become

obsolete, and they pounced upon American property as they would have

gone to war in quest of prize-money. Even at first their acts were

equivocal, and they soon came to be as illegal as they were oppressive.

There was no redress. An appeal to the Privy Council was costly and

difficult; and besides, when it so happened, before the end of the year,

that an officer had to defend himself on an appeal, the suffering

colonists were exhausted by the delay and expense, while the Treasury

took care to indemnify their agent."--_Ib._, p. 162.]

[Footnote 300: Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol I., Chapter iii., pp. 352,

353.

"Towards the last of October, the inhabitants of Boston, 'ever sensitive

to the sound of liberty,' assembled in a town meeting, and voted to

dispense with a large number of articles of British manufacture, which,

were particularly specified; to adhere to former agreements respecting

funerals; and to purchase no new clothing for mourning. Committees were

appointed to obtain subscribers to this agreement, and the resolves were

sent in to all the towns of the province and abroad to other colonies.

The 20th of the ensuing month (20th of November, the time when the Acts

went into operation) passed without tumult. Placards were exhibited and

effigies were set up, but the people in general were quiet. Otis (the

most popular man in Boston), at a town meeting _held to discountenance

riot_, delivered a speech in which he recommended caution, and advised

that no opposition should be made to the new duties. 'The King has a

right,' said he, 'to appoint officers of the Customs in what manner he

pleases and by what denominations; and to resist his authority will but

provoke his displeasure.' Such counsel was displeasing to the zealous,

but it was followed." (Barry's History of Massachusetts, Vol. II.,

Chapter xi., pp. 340, 341.)]

CHAPTER XIV.

EVENTS OF 1768--PROTESTS AND LOYAL PETITIONS OF THE COLONISTS AGAINST

THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENTARY ACTS FOR RAISING REVENUE IN THE COLONIES.

The meetings and protests against the Revenue Acts and petitions for

their repeal, which began in the autumn of 1767, increased throughout

the colonies in 1768. In January, the General Assembly of Massachusetts

voted a temperate and loyal petition to the King,[301] and letters

urging the rights of the province, addressed to Lord Shelburne, General

Conway, the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord Camden, and the Earl of Chatham.

The petition and these letters were all to the same effect. The petition

to the King was enclosed to Denis de Berdt, a London merchant (who was

appointed agent for the colony), with a long letter of instructions. All

these papers are pervaded with a spirit of loyalty, and ask for nothing

more than the enjoyment of the rights and privileges which they had ever

possessed and enjoyed down to the year after the peace of Paris in

1763.

In addition to these representations and letters sent to England, the

Massachusetts General Assembly adopted, on the 11th of February, and

sent a circular letter to the Speakers of the respective Houses of

Burgesses of the other American provinces. In this ably-written letter

there is no dictation or assumption of authority, but a statement of

their representations to England, and a desire for mutual consultation

and harmonious action. They say: "This House hope that this letter will

be candidly considered in no other light than as expressing a

disposition freely to communicate their mind to a sister colony, upon a

common concern, in the same manner as they would be glad to receive the

sentiments of your or any other House of Assembly on the continent."

As this letter was the first step to the union of the American colonies,

and was followed by results that culminated in the War of Independence,

it may be proper to give such extracts from it as will show its

character and design; in neither of which do I find anything which I

think is inconsistent with the principles and spirit of a loyal subject.

The general principles on which they rested their claims to the rights

and privileges of British subjects are stated as follows:

"The House have humbly represented to the Ministry their own sentiments:

That his Majesty's High Court of Parliament is the supreme legislative

power over the whole empire. That in all free States the constitution is

fixed; and as the supreme legislative derives its power and authority

from the constitution, it cannot overleap the bounds of it without

destroying its foundation. That the constitution ascertains and limits

both sovereignty and allegiance; and therefore his Majesty's American

subjects, who acknowledge themselves bound by the ties of allegiance,

have an equitable claim to the full enjoyment of the fundamental rules

of the British constitution. That it is an essential, unalterable right

in nature, ingrafted into the British constitution as a fundamental law,

and ever held sacred and irrevocable by the subjects within the realm,

that what a man hath honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he

may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent. That

the American subjects may, therefore, exclusive of any consideration of

Charter rights, with a decent firmness adapted to the character of

freemen and subjects, assert this natural constitutional right.

"It is moreover their humble opinion, which they express with the

greatest deference to the wisdom of the Parliament, that the Acts made

there, imposing duties on the people of this Province, _with the sole

and express purpose of raising a revenue_, are infringements of their

natural and constitutional rights; because, as they are not represented

in the British Parliament, his Majesty's Commons in Great Britain by

those Acts grant their property without their consent."

Then, after showing the impracticability, on various grounds, of the

representation of the colonies in the British Parliament, on which

account local subordinate Legislatures were established, that the

colonists might enjoy the inalienable right of representation, the

circular letter proceeds:

"Upon these principles, and also considering that were the right in the

Parliament ever so clear, yet for obvious reasons it would be beyond the

rule of equity, that their constituents should be taxed on the

manufactures of Great Britain here, in addition to the duties they pay

for them in England, and other advantages arising to Great Britain from

the Acts of Trade, this House have preferred a humble, dutiful, and

loyal petition to our most gracious Sovereign, and made such

representation to his Majesty's Ministers as they apprehend would tend

to obtain redress.

"They have also submitted to consideration, whether any people can be

said to enjoy any degree of freedom if the Crown, in addition to its

undoubted authority of constituting a Governor, should appoint him such

a stipend as it shall judge proper, without the consent of the people,

and at their expense; and whether, while the judges of the land and

other civil officers hold not their commissions during good behaviour,

their having salaries appointed for them by the Crown, independent of

the people, hath not a tendency to subvert the principles of equity and

endanger the happiness and security of the subjects.

"In addition to these measures, the House have wrote a letter to their

agent, Mr. De Berdt, the sentiments of which he is directed to lay

before the Ministry, wherein they take notice of the hardship of the Act

for Preventing Mutiny and Desertion, which requires the Governor and

Council to provide enumerated articles for the King's marching troops,

and the people to pay the expense; and also the commission of the

gentlemen appointed Commissioners of Customs to reside in America, which

authorizes them to make as many appointments as they think fit, and to

pay the appointees what sums they please, for whose malconduct they are

not accountable." ...

"These are the sentiments and proceedings of this House; and as they

have too much reason to believe that the enemies of the colonies have

represented them to his Majesty's Ministers and the Parliament as

factious, disloyal, and having a disposition to make themselves

independent of the mother country, they have taken occasion, in the most

humble terms, to assure his Majesty and his Ministers that, with regard

to the people of this province, and, as they doubt not, of all the

colonies, the charge is unjust.

"The House is fully satisfied that your Assembly is too generous and

enlarged in sentiment to believe that this letter proceeds from an

ambition of taking the lead, or dictating to other Assemblies; they

freely submit their opinion to the judgment of others, and shall take it

kind in your House to point out to them anything further that may be

thought necessary.

"This House cannot conclude without expressing their firm confidence in

the King, our common Head and Father, that the united and dutiful

supplications of his distressed American subjects will meet with his

Royal and favourable acceptance.

"SIGNED BY THE SPEAKER."

This circular letter of the Massachusetts Assembly was exceedingly

displeasing to the British Ministry, and called forth two letters from

the Earl of Hillsborough, who had succeeded the Earl of Shelburne as

Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.

One of these letters was a circular addressed through the Governor to

the General Assemblies of each of the several colonies. This letter is

dated "Whitehall, April 21, 1768." The first paragraph is as follows:

"GENTLEMEN,--I have his Majesty's commands to transmit to you the

enclosed copy of a letter from the Speaker of the House of

Representatives of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, addressed by order

of that House to the Speaker of the Assembly of each colony upon the

continent of North America; as his Majesty considers this measure to be

of a most dangerous and factious tendency, calculated to inflame the

minds of his good subjects in the colonies, to promote an unwarrantable

combination, and to excite and encourage an open opposition to and

denial of the authority of Parliament, and to subvert the true

principles of the constitution, it is his Majesty's pleasure that you

should, immediately upon the receipt hereof, exert your utmost influence

to defeat this flagitious attempt to disturb the public peace, by

prevailing upon the Assembly of your province to take no notice of it,

which will be treating it with the contempt it deserves."

This most ill-advised letter of Lord Hillsborough had the very opposite

effect from that which he had hoped and intended. It increased the

importance of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the

estimation of other colonies, and produced responses of approval from

most of their General Assemblies.

The Speaker of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, in a letter to the

Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, dated

Virginia, May 9, 1768, says:

"The House of Burgesses of this colony proceeded, very soon after they

met, to the consideration of your important letter of the 11th of

February, 1768, written in the name and by the order of the House of

Representatives of your province; and I have received their particular

direction to desire you to inform that honourable House that they

applaud them for their attention to American liberty, and that the steps

they have taken thereon will convince them of their opinion of the fatal

tendency of the Acts of Parliament complained of, and of their fixed

resolution to concur with the other colonies in their application for

redress.

"After the most deliberate consultation, they thought it their duty to

represent to the Parliament of Great Britain that they are truly

sensible of the happiness and security they derive from their connection

with and dependence upon Great Britain, and are under the greatest

concern that any unlucky incident should interrupt that salutary harmony

which they wish ever to subsist. They lament that the remoteness of

their situation often exposes them to such misrepresentations as are apt

to involve them in censures of disloyalty to their Sovereign, and the

want of proper respect to the British Parliament; whereas they have

indulged themselves in the agreeable persuasion, that they ought to be

considered as inferior to none of their fellow-subjects in loyalty and

affection.

"They do not affect an independency of their parent kingdom, the

prosperity of which they are bound to the utmost of their abilities to

promote, but cheerfully acquiesce in the authority of Parliament to make

laws for preserving a necessary dependence and for regulating the trade

of the colonies. Yet they cannot conceive, and humbly insist it is not

essential to support a proper relation between the mother country and

colonies transplanted from her, that she should have a right to raise

money from them without their consent, and presume they do not aspire to

more than the natural rights of British subjects when they assert that

no power on earth has a right to impose taxes on the people, or take the

smallest portion of their property, without their consent given by their

representatives in Parliament. This has ever been considered as the

chief pillar of the constitution. Without this support no man can be

said to have the least shadow of liberty, since they can have no

property in that which another can by right take from them when he

pleases, without their consent."

After referring to the antiquity and grounds of their rights as British

subjects, and to the fact of their not being represented in Parliament,

of the impracticability of being so, and "the oppressive Stamp Act,

confessedly imposing internal taxes, and the late Acts of Parliament

giving and granting certain duties in the British colonies, mainly

tending to the same end," the Virginia House of Burgesses proceed as

follows:

"The Act suspending the legislative power of New York, they consider as

still more alarming to the colonists, though it has that single province

in view. If the Parliament can compel them to furnish a single article

to the troops sent over, they may by the same rule oblige them to

furnish clothes, arms, and every other necessary, even the pay of the

officers and soldiers--a doctrine replete with every mischief, and

utterly subversive of all that is dear and valuable. For what advantage

can the people of the colonies derive from their right of choosing their

own representatives, if those representatives, when chosen, were not

permitted to exercise their own judgments--were under a necessity (on

pain of being deprived of their legislative authority) of enforcing the

mandates of the British Parliament?

"They trust they have expressed themselves with a firmness that becomes

freemen pleading for essential rights, and with a decency that will take

off every imputation of faction or disloyalty. They repose entire

confidence in his Majesty, who is ever attentive to the complaints of

his subjects, and is ever ready to relieve their distress; and they are

not without hopes that the colonies, united in a decent and regular

opposition, may prevail on the new House of Commons to put a stop to

measures so directly repugnant to the interests both of the mother

country and her colonies."

The day after these proceedings by the House of Burgesses, the Governor

of Virginia dissolved them.

The House of Representatives of New Jersey, after gratefully

acknowledging the receipt of the Massachusetts circular, observe:

"The freedom with which the House of Representatives of the

Massachusetts Bay have communicated their sentiments upon a matter of so

great concern to all the colonies, hath been received by this House with

that candour the spirit and design of your letter merits. And at the

same time that they acknowledge themselves obliged to you for

communicating your sentiments to them, they have directed me to assure

you that they are desirous to keep up a correspondence with you, and to

unite with the colonies, if necessary, in further supplications to his

Majesty to relieve his distressed American subjects."

Answers to the Massachusetts circular from the Houses of Representatives

of Connecticut, of Georgia, and of Maryland, were given to the same

effect. The Maryland House of Representatives, in addition to the answer

to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, presented an address to

Governor Sharpe, of Maryland, in reply to the letter of Lord

Hillsborough. Their address is dated June 23rd, 1768, and contains the

following words:

"In answer to your Excellency's message of the 20th, we must observe,

that if the letter from the Speaker of the House of Representatives of

the colony of Massachusetts Bay, addressed to and communicated by our

Speaker to this House, be the same with the letter, a copy of which you

are pleased to intimate hath been communicated to the King's Ministers,

it is very alarming to find, at a time when the people of America think

themselves aggrieved by the late Acts of Parliament imposing taxes on

them for the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue, and in the

most dutiful manner are seeking redress from the Throne, any endeavours

to unite in laying before their Sovereign what is apprehended to be

their just complaint, should be looked upon 'as a measure of most

dangerous and factious tendency, calculated to inflame the minds of his

Majesty's good subjects in the colonies, and to promote an unwarrantable

combination, to excite and encourage an open opposition to and denial of

the authority of Parliament, and to subvert the true principles of the

constitution.'

"We cannot but view this as an attempt in some of his Majesty's

Ministers to suppress all communication of sentiments between the

colonies, and to prevent the united supplications of America from

reaching the royal ear. We hope the conduct of this House will ever

evince their reverence and respect for the laws, and faithful

attachment to the constitution; but we cannot be brought to resent an

exertion of the most undoubted constitutional right of petitioning the

Throne, or any endeavours to procure and preserve a union of the

colonies, as an unjustifiable attempt to revive those distractions which

it is said have operated so fatally to the prejudice of both the

colonies and the mother country. We have the warmest and most

affectionate attachment to our most gracious Sovereign, and shall ever

pay the readiest and most respectful regard to the just and

constitutional power of the British Parliament; but we shall not be

intimidated by a few sounding expressions from doing what we think is

right."[302]

Thus the unconstitutional assumptions and despotic instructions of Lord

Hillsborough to the Legislative Assemblies of the several colonies were

manfully and in a moderate and loyal spirit repelled by them, in the

clear knowledge of the constitutional rights of Englishmen, whether

resident in America or England. But while Lord Hillsborough foolishly

and vainly dictated to the several colonies to treat the colony of

Massachusetts with contempt, he advanced a step further in his would-be

domination over Massachusetts itself by directing Governor Barnard to

order the House of Representatives, under a threat of dissolution, to

rescind the resolution which they had adopted to send the circular to

the representative Assemblies of other colonies. Lord Hillsborough, in a

letter to the Governor of Massachusetts Bay, dated April 22nd, 1768,

said:

"It is the King's pleasure, that so soon as the General Court is again

assembled, at the time prescribed by the Charter, you should require of

the House of Representatives, in his Majesty's name, to rescind the

resolution which gave birth to the circular letter from the Speaker, and

to declare their disapprobation thereof, and dissent to that rash and

hasty proceeding." "But if, notwithstanding the apprehensions which may

justly be entertained of the ill-consequences of a continuance of this

factious spirit, which seems to have influenced the resolutions of the

Assembly at the conclusion of the last session, the new Assembly should

refuse to comply with his Majesty's reasonable expectation, it is the

King's pleasure that you should immediately dissolve them, and transmit

to me, to be laid before his Majesty, an account of their proceedings

thereupon, to the end that his Majesty may, if he thinks fit, lay the

whole matter before his Parliament, that such provisions as shall be

found necessary may be made to prevent for the future a conduct of so

extraordinary and unconstitutional a nature."[303]

If it was unwise for Lord Hillsborough to write letters to the Governors

of the several colonies to induce their Assemblies to treat with silent

contempt the circular letter of the Massachusetts Assembly, it was

absurd for him to order that Assembly to rescind its resolution to send

a letter which had been sent, and acted upon, and answered--a resolution

and letter, indeed, of a preceding House of Assembly. But the new House

of Assembly, after long deliberation and discussion, refused, by a

majority of 92 to 17, to rescind the obnoxious resolution of the late

House of Assembly, and at the same time prepared and addressed to Lord

Hillsborough an elaborate letter in vindication of their proceedings.

The House was, of course, forthwith _dissolved_.

Lord Hillsborough's letter produced discontent not only in

Massachusetts, but in all the American provinces. It, in effect, denied

the right of consultation and petition to the colonists; for, as was

said by Dr. Franklin, "a demand attended with a penalty of dissolution

seemed a command, not a requisition, leaving no deliberative or

discretionary power in the Assembly; and the ground of its being a

petition to the King, guarded with a most explicit declaration of the

supreme legislative power of Parliament, it wore the severe and dreadful

appearance of a penal prohibition against petitioning. It was, in

effect, saying you shall not even presume to complain, and reducing them

below the common state of slavery, in which, if men complain with

decency, they are heard unless their masters happen to be monsters. It

warmed moderation into zeal, and inflamed zeal into rage. Yet still

there appeared a disposition to express their grievances in humble

petitions. All the Assemblies on the continent, in answer to a

requisition of similar import to that already mentioned, asserted the

right of the subject to petition for redress of grievances. They joined

in petitions stating the imposition of taxes upon them without their

consent, and the abolition of juries in revenue cases, as intolerable

grievances, from which they prayed relief."[304]

It is singular and proper to observe that the Massachusetts Assembly

were now complaining, and justly complaining, of the denial of their

right of petition, and of being taxed without their own consent, when

more than a century before their forefathers had not only denied the

right of religious worship according to their conscience to Baptists,

Presbyterians, and Episcopalians, but the right of petition for the

redress of grievances to both the local Legislature and the King and

Parliament, and seized their private papers and fined and imprisoned

them for attempting thus to petition; denied to four-fifths of the

inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay the right of franchise itself, because

they were not certified members of the Congregational Church; taxed them

for half a century without allowing them any representation in the

Legislature that taxed them, and then fined and imprisoned those of them

who complained by petition of thus being taxed without representation,

as well as being denied the freedom of religious worship.

But though the General Assembly of Massachusetts Bay were now receiving

a part of the measure which their preceding General Assemblies had meted

out in full measure to four-fifths of their own fellow-citizens during

more than half of the previous century, yet that does not make Lord

Hillsborough's letter the less unconstitutional and tyrannical, nor the

conduct and vindication of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts

Bay less manly and justifiable. The Governor of the colony and his

abettors had represented constitutional opposition and remonstrances

against single Acts of Parliament, and of the Ministers of the day, as

disloyalty to the King and treasonable resistance to lawful authority,

and had already pursued such a course of action as to create a pretext

for bringing soldiers and ships of war to the city, and consequent

hostility and collisions between citizens and the soldiery, so as

apparently to justify the suspension of the constituted legislative

authorities in Massachusetts Bay, and enable the governors, judges, and

executive officers to obtain large salaries and perquisites out of the

colonists for present gratification and future residence and expenditure

in England.

Massachusetts was at that time the most populous and the most wealthy

colony in America, and Boston was the port of the largest trade; and

though the House of Representatives there had not used stronger language

in its remonstrances to Parliament and petitions to the King than the

House of Representatives of Virginia (the next most populous colony), or

Pennsylvania, or New York, or Maryland, or New Jersey, or Connecticut,

or Rhode Island, yet the British Ministry determined to establish the

newly-asserted parliamentary power in America by making an example of

Massachusetts and of the port of Boston. There was the appointed seat of

the English Board of Commissioners of Customs, attended by a _posse_ of

officers whose haughtiness and taunts and threats contributed not a

little to irritate those with whom they had intercourse.

Three circumstances occurred which tended to increase the popular

irritation, and hasten the approaching crisis--the seizure and detention

of a sloop, the stationing of soldiers in the city, and pressing of

seamen contrary to law.

As to the seizure of the vessel, accounts differ. Dr. Holmes, in his

Annals, says:

"The laws of trade had been hitherto greatly eluded, but the

Commissioners of the Customs were now determined that they should be

executed. On the arrival of the sloop _Liberty_, laden with wines from

Madeira, belonging to Mr. John Hancock, an eminent merchant of Boston,

the tidesman, Thomas Kirk, went on board, and was followed by Captain

Marshall, who was in Mr. Hancock's employ. On Kirk's refusing several

proposals made to him, Marshall with five or six others confined him

below three hours, during which time the wine was taken out. The master

entered some pipes next morning; but the sloop was seized for a false

entry, and removed from the wharf under the guns of the _Romney_

man-of-war. The removal of the sloop was highly resented, as implying

apprehension of a rescue, and every method was taken to interrupt the

officers in the execution of their business; and many persons determined

to be revenged. A mob was soon collected; and Mr. Harrison, the

collector, Mr. Hallowell, the comptroller, Mr. Irving, the inspector of

imports and exports, and a son of the collector, very narrowly escaped

with their lives. The mob proceeded to the houses of the collector and

comptroller, and having broken their windows, and those of the

inspector-general, they next took and dragged the collector's (pleasure)

boat through the town and burned it on the common. These outrages

induced the Custom-house officers to take refuge, first on board the

_Romney_ man-of-war and afterwards in Castle William."[305]

On the other hand, Dr. Franklin states the affair as follows:

"On the 10th of June a seizure was made of a sloop fastened to the

wharf, by an armed force, and the seizure carried by violence to the

man-of-war. That this seizure was made with every circumstance of

violence and insult which could irritate a mob, is proved by the oaths

of thirteen eye-witnesses whose credibility has never been impeached.

Unhappily, the irritation succeeded but too well. The collector and

comptroller who made the seizure in that manner were treated with great

indignity and personal injury by the mob."[306]

Another circumstance, productive of more intense and general excitement,

if possible, and which transpired very shortly after the seizure and

detention of the sloop _Liberty_, was the impressment of some seamen

belonging to the town by the captain of the man-of-war _Romney_. This

was done, as alleged, in violation of an Act of Parliament for the

encouragement of trade to America--6 Anne, chap. xxvii., section

9--which says:

"No mariner or other person who shall serve on board, or be retained to

serve on board, any privateer or trading ship or vessel that shall be

employed in any port of America, nor any mariner or person being on

shore in any port thereof, shall be liable to be impressed or taken

away by any officer or officers belonging to her Majesty's ships of

war." To prevent the tumults which were feared from such a flagrant and

dangerous infraction of the law, a legal town-meeting was called, in

which the inhabitants assembled petitioned the Governor to interpose and

prevent such outrages upon the rights and liberties of the people; but

the Governor declined to interfere--stated that he had no control over

his Majesty's ships of war--that he would, however, use his utmost

endeavours to get the impressing of men for the King's ships of war so

regulated as to avoid all the inconveniences to the town which the

petitioners apprehended.

In the midst of these excitements and discontents, so threatening and

dangerous without some form of expression, many of the peace-loving and

respectable inhabitants of Boston urged the Governor to convene the

Legislature, but he refused without a command from the King. The select

men of Boston then proposed to the several towns and townships of the

colony the election of a Convention, to meet in Boston the 22nd of

September, "to deliberate on constitutional measures to obtain redress

of their grievances." Ninety-six towns and eight districts elected

delegates to the Convention, which sat four days; "disclaimed any

legislative authority, petitioned the Governor, made loyal professions,

expressed their aversion to standing armies, to tumults and disorders,

their readiness to assist in suppressing riots and preserving the peace;

recommended patience and good order; and after a short session

dissolved."[307]

The day before the close of this Convention, it was announced that three

men-of-war and transports had arrived at Boston harbour with about 900

troops, and the fleet next day came to anchor near Castle William. The

Commissioners of Customs and their friends had solicited the stationing

of a regular force in the town.

"The ships having taken a station which commanded the town, the troops,

under cover of the cannon of the ships, landed without molestation, and

to the number of 700 men marched, with muskets charged and bayonets

fixed, martial music, and the usual military parade, into the common.

In the evening the Select Men of Boston were required to quarter the

regiments in the town; but they absolutely refused. A temporary shelter,

however, in Faneuil Hall was permitted to one regiment that was without

camp equipage. The next day the State House, by the order of the

Governor, was opened for the reception of the soldiers; and after the

quarters were settled, two field pieces with the main guard were

stationed just in its front. Everything was calculated to excite the

indignation of the inhabitants. The lower floor of the State House,

which had been used by gentlemen and merchants as an exchange; the

representatives' chamber, the Court-house, Faneuil Hall--places with

which were associated ideas of justice and freedom, as well as of

convenience and utility--were now filled with regular soldiers. Guards

were placed at the doors of the State House, through which the Council

must pass in going to their own chamber. The common was covered with

tents. The soldiers were constantly marching and countermarching to

relieve the guards. The sentinels challenged the inhabitants as they

passed. The Lord's day was profaned, and the devotion of the sanctuary

was disturbed by the sound of drums and other military music. There was

every appearance of a garrisoned town. The colonists felt disgusted and

injured, but not overawed, by the obtruded soldiery. After the troops

had obtained quarters, the Council were required to provide barracks for

them, agreeably to Act of Parliament, but they resolutely declined any

measure which might be construed into submission to that Act. Several

large transports arrived at Boston from Cork, having on board part of

the 64th and 65th British regiments, under Colonels MacKay and Pomeroy;

the object of which was to protect the revenue officers in the

collection of duties."[308]

Such was the state of things in Massachusetts and in other colonies at

the close of the year 1768.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 301: The following are the concluding paragraphs of this

petition to the King, dated 20th January, 1768:

"With great sincerity permit us to assure your Majesty, that your

subjects of this province ever have and will continue to acknowledge

your Majesty's High Court of Parliament as the supreme legislative power

of the whole empire, the superintending authority of which is clearly

admitted in all cases that can consist with the fundamental rights of

nature and the constitution, to which your Majesty's happy subjects in

all parts of your empire conceive they have a just and equitable claim.

"It is with the deepest concern that your humble suppliants would

represent to your Majesty, that your Parliament, the rectitude of whose

intentions is never to be questioned, has thought proper to pass divers

Acts imposing taxes on your Majesty's subjects in America, with the sole

and express purpose of raising a revenue. If your Majesty's subjects

here shall be deprived of the honour and privilege of voluntarily

contributing their aid to your Majesty in supporting your government and

authority in the province, and defending and securing your rights and

territories in America, which they have always hitherto done with the

utmost cheerfulness: if these Acts of Parliament shall remain in force,

and your Majesty's Commons in Great Britain shall continue to exercise

the power of granting the property of their fellow-subjects in this

province, your people must then regret their unhappy fate in having only

the name left of free subjects.

"With all humility we conceive that a representation of your Majesty's

subjects of this province in the Parliament, considering their local

circumstances, is utterly impracticable. Your Majesty has heretofore

been graciously pleased to order your requisitions to be laid before the

representatives of your people in the General Assembly, who have never

failed to afford the necessary aid to the extent of their ability, and

sometimes beyond it; and it would be ever grievous to your Majesty's

faithful subjects to be called upon in a way that should appear to them

to imply a distrust of their most ready and willing compliance.

"Under the most sensible impressions of your Majesty's wise and paternal

care for the remotest of your faithful subjects, and in full dependence

on the royal declarations in the Charter of this province, we most

humbly beseech your Majesty to take our present unhappy circumstances

under your Royal consideration, and afford us relief in such manner as

in your Majesty's great wisdom and clemency shall seem meet." (Prior

Documents, etc., pp. 175-7.)]

[Footnote 302: Prior Documents, etc., p. 219.]

[Footnote 303: Prior Documents, etc.]

[Footnote 304: Prior Documents, etc., p. 262.]

[Footnote 305: American Annals, etc., Vol II., pp. 157, 158; the

authority given is Gordon, Vol. I., pp. 168-172. Dr. Ramsay gives a

similar account of the affair in his Colonial History, Vol. I., Chap.

iii., p. 355.]

[Footnote 306: Prior Documents, pp. 262, 263.

Dr. Franklin adds in a note: "That the seizure was unjust, is plain from

this, that they were obliged to restore the vessel, after detaining her

a long time, not being able to find any evidence to support a

prosecution. The suits for enormous sums against a number of persons,

brought in the Court of Admiralty, being found insupportable, were,

after long continuance, to the great expense and trouble of these

persons, dropt by a declaration of the King's advocate that his Majesty

would prosecute no further; but the prosecuted could obtain no costs or

damages, for so is the law."--_Ib_., p. 263.]

[Footnote 307: Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. II., p. 158.]

[Footnote 308: Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. II., pp. 158, 159.

The Boston _American Gazette_, under the head of "A Journal of

Transactions in Boston," says, September 30th, 1768: "Early this morning

a number of boats were observed round the town, making soundings, etc.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the _Launceston_, of 40 guns; the

_Mermaid_, of 28; the _Glasgow_, 20; the _Beaver_, 14; _Senegal_, 14;

_Bonetta_, 10, and several armed schooners, which, together with the

_Romney_, of 60 guns, and the other ships of war before in the harbour,

all commanded by Captain Smith, came up to town, bringing with them the

14th Regiment, Colonel Dalrymple, and the 29th Regiment, Colonel Carr,

none having been disembarked at Castle Island; so that we now behold

Boston surrounded, in a time of profound peace, with about fourteen

ships of war, with springs on their cables, and their broadsides to the

town. It the people of England could but look into the town, they would

smile to see the utmost good order and observance of the laws, and that

this mighty armament has no other rebellion to subdue than what has

existed in the brain and letters of the inveterate G------r B-----d

(Governor Barnard), and the detested Commiss (Commissioners) of the

Board of Cust--s (Customs). What advantage the Court of Versailles may

take of the present policy of the British Ministry can be better

determined hereafter." (pp. 177, 178.)]

CHAPTER XV.

EVENTS OF 1769--UNJUST IMPUTATIONS OF PARLIAMENT ON THE LOYALTY OF THE

COLONISTS, AND MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THEIR JUST AND LOYAL PETITIONS.

The earliest proceedings of this year in regard to the American colonies

took place in the British Parliament. In all the resolutions, protests,

addresses, and petitions which had been adopted by American Assemblies

and at town meetings, asserting the exclusive right of the colonists to

tax themselves, and against taxation without representation by the

British Parliament, they professed heartfelt loyalty to the King, and

disclaimed all views of independence; while in England the Parliament

asserted unlimited supremacy in and over the colonies, and the Royal

speeches, as well as the resolutions and addresses adopted by the Lords

and Commons, represented the colonies as being in a state of

disobedience to law and government, adopting measures subversive of the

constitution, and manifesting a disposition to throw off all allegiance

to the mother country. The House of Lords passed resolutions censuring

the resolutions and proceedings of the Massachusetts House of

Representatives, pronouncing the election of deputies to sit in

Convention, and the meeting of that Convention at Boston, daring insults

to his Majesty's authority, and audacious usurpations of the powers of

Government; yet, as has been seen, that Convention expressly disclaimed

any assumption of government, and simply expressed the grievances

complained of, prayed for their redress, declared their loyalty to the

King, and recognition of the supreme authority of Parliament according

to the constitution, and quietly dissolved. But the House of Commons

declared concurrence in the resolutions of the Lords; and both Houses,

in their address to the King, endorsed the measures of his Ministers,

declared their readiness to give effectual support to such further

measures as might be found necessary to execute the laws in

Massachusetts Bay, and prayed his Majesty "to direct the Governor

(Barnard) to take the most effectual methods for procuring the fullest

information touching all treason or misprision of treason within the

Government since the 30th day of December, 1767, and to transmit the

same, together with the names of the persons who were most active in the

commission of such offences, to one of the Secretaries of State, in

order that his Majesty might issue a special commission for inquiring,

hearing and determining the said offences, _within the realm of Great

Britain_, pursuant to the provision of the statute of the 35th of Henry

the Eighth."

The holding of town-meetings and their election of deputies, etc., were

as much provided for in the provincial laws as the meeting and

proceedings of the House of Representatives, or as are the meetings and

proceedings of town, and township, and county municipal councils in

Canada. The wholesale denunciations of disloyalty and treason against

the people of a country was calculated to exasperate and produce the

very feelings imputed; and the proposal of the two Houses of Parliament

to make the Governor of Massachusetts Bay a detective and

informer-general against persons opposed to his administration and the

measures of the British Ministry, and the proposition to have them

arrested and brought 3,000 miles over the ocean to England, for trial

before a special commission, for treason or misprision of treason, show

what unjust, unconstitutional, and foolish things Parliaments as well as

individuals may sometimes perpetrate. Nothing has more impressed the

writer, in going through this protracted war of words, preliminary to

the unhappy war of swords, than the great superiority, even as literary

compositions, much more as State documents, of the addresses and

petitions of the Colonial Assemblies, and even public meetings, and the

letters of their representatives, when compared with the dispatches of

the British Ministry of that day and the writings of their partizans.

The resolutions and joint address of the Houses of Parliament, which

were adopted in February, reached America in April, and gave great

offence to the colonists generally instead of exciting terror,

especially the part of the address which proposed bringing alleged

offenders from Massachusetts to be tried at a tribunal in Great Britain.

Massachusetts had no General Assembly at that time, as Governor Barnard

had dissolved the last Assembly, and the time prescribed by the Charter

for calling one had not arrived; but the House of Burgesses of the old,

loyal Church of England colony of Virginia took the state of all the

colonies into serious consideration, passed several resolutions, and

directed their Speaker to transmit them without delay to the Speakers of

the Assemblies of all the colonies on the continent for their

concurrence. In these resolutions the House of Burgesses declare--"That

the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this colony is

now, and ever hath been, legally and constitutionally vested in the

House of Burgesses, with consent of the Council, and of the King or his

Governor for the time being; that it is the privilege of the inhabitants

to petition their Sovereign for redress of grievances, and that it is

lawful to procure the concurrence of his Majesty's other colonies in

dutiful addresses, praying the Royal interposition in favour of the

violated rights of America; that all trials for treason, misprision of

treason, or for any felony or crime whatsoever, committed by any persons

residing in any colony, ought to be in his Majesty's courts within said

colony, and that the seizing of any person residing in the colony,

suspected of any crime whatsoever committed therein, and sending such

person to places beyond the sea to be tried, is highly derogatory of the

rights of British subjects, as thereby the inestimable privilege of

being tried by jury from the vicinage, as well as the liberty of

producing witnesses on such trial, will be taken away from the accused."

The House agreed also to an address to his Majesty, which stated, in the

style of loyalty and real attachment to the Crown, a deep conviction

that the complaints of the colonists were well founded. The next day

Lord Botetourt, the Governor of Virginia, dissolved the House in the

following words: "Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses, I

have heard of your resolves, and augur ill of their effects. You have

made it my duty to dissolve you; and you are dissolved accordingly."

The Assembly of South Carolina adopted resolutions similar to those of

Virginia, as did the Lower House of Maryland and the Delaware counties,

and the Assembly of North Carolina, and was on that account dissolved by

Governor Tyron. Towards the close of the year, the Assembly of New York

passed resolutions in concurrence with those of Virginia. The members of

the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and of the Assembly of North

Carolina, after their dissolution, met as private gentlemen, chose for

moderators their late Speakers, and adopted resolutions against

importing British goods. This was followed by other colonies, and the

non-importation agreement became general. Boston had entered into the

non-importation agreement as early as August, 1768, which was soon after

adopted in Salem, the city of New York, and the province of Connecticut;

but the agreement was not generally entered into until after the

Virginia resolutions. "The meetings of non-importation associations were

regularly held in the various provinces. Committees were appointed to

examine all vessels arriving from Britain. Censures were freely passed

on such as refused to concur in these associations, and their names were

published in the newspapers as enemies of their country. The regular

Acts of the Provincial Assemblies were not so much respected and obeyed

as the decrees of these Committees."[309]

Governor Barnard could not delay calling the General Assembly of

Massachusetts beyond the time prescribed by the Charter for its meeting

in May; and when it met, its first act was to appoint a Committee to

wait on the Governor, and represent to him "that an armament by sea and

land investing this metropolis, and a military guard with cannon pointed

at the door of the State House, where the Assembly is held, are

inconsistent with the dignity and freedom with which they have a right

to deliberate, consult, and determine," and added, "They expect that

your Excellency will, as his Majesty's representative, give effectual

orders for the removal of the above-mentioned forces by sea and land out

of this port, and the gates of this city, during the session of the said

Assembly." The Governor answered: "Gentlemen, I have no authority over

his Majesty's ships in this port, or his troops within this town, nor

can I give any orders for the removal of the same." The House persisted

in declining to do business while surrounded with an armed force, and

the Governor at length adjourned it to Cambridge.

On the 6th of July the Governor sent a message to the House with

accounts of expenditures already incurred in quartering his Majesty's

troops, desiring funds for their payment, and requiring a provision for

the quartering of the troops in the town and on Castle Island,

"according to Act of Parliament." The next day, among other things, the

House passed the following resolutions:

"That a general discontent on account of the Revenue Acts, an

expectation of the sudden arrival of a military power to enforce said

Acts, an apprehension of the troops being quartered upon the

inhabitants, the General Court (or Assembly) dissolved, the Governor

refusing to call a new one, and the people almost reduced to a state of

despair, rendered it highly expedient and necessary for the people to

convene their (town) committees to associate (in convention), consult,

and advise the best means to promote peace and good order; to present

their united complaints to the Throne, and jointly to pray for the Royal

interposition in favour of their violated rights; nor can this procedure

possibly be illegal, as they expressly disclaim all governmental acts.

"That the establishment of a standing army in this colony, in time of

peace, is an invasion of national rights.

"That a standing army is not known as a part of the British

constitution.

"That sending an armed force into the colony, under pretence of

assisting the civil authority, is highly dangerous to the people,

unprecedented and unconstitutional."

On the 12th of July the Governor sent a message to the House requesting

an explicit answer to his message of the 6th, as to whether the House

would or would not make provision for quartering the troops. After

anxious deliberation, the unusually full House of 107 members present

unanimously answered:

"As representatives, by the Royal Charter and the nature of our trust,

we are only empowered to grant such aids as are reasonable, of which we

are free and independent judges, at liberty to follow the dictates of

our own understanding, without regard to the mandates of another. Your

Excellency must, therefore, excuse us in this express declaration that

as we cannot, consistently with our honour or interest, and much less

with the duty we owe to our constituents, so we shall never make

provision for the purposes mentioned in your messages."

Governor Barnard rejoined, in his last words to the Assembly, "To his

Majesty, and if he pleases to his Parliament, must be referred your

invasion of the rights of the Imperial sovereignty. By your own acts you

will be judged. Your publications are plain and explicit, and need no

comment." And he prorogued the Assembly until the 10th day of January,

1770. He wrote to Lord Hillsborough: "Their last message exceeds

everything." Three weeks afterwards, the 1st of August, unexpectedly to

himself, Barnard was recalled. He had expected to be appointed Governor

of Virginia; but on his arrival in England he found that the British

Ministers had promised the London-American merchants that they would

never employ him again in America.[310] He answered the purposes of the

corrupt Ministerial oligarchy in England, to mislead the Sovereign on

one hand and oppress the colonists on the other. But for him there would

have been no ships of war or military sent to Boston; no conflicts

between the citizens and soldiers; probably no revolutionary war.

Barnard's departure from Boston was signalized by the ringing of bells,

and firing of cannon, and bonfires at night. He was succeeded in the

government by Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, a man who had rendered

great service to his native country by his History, and his labours in

the Legislature for ten years, but who had become extremely unpopular by

his secret support of the English Revenue Acts and duplicate policy of

Barnard, whom he at length equalled in avarice and deception, and

greatly excelled in ability.

One of the most effective and least objectionable means of obtaining the

repeal of the Revenue Acts was the agreement not to purchase or import

goods of British manufacture or goods imported from British ports. At

best the revenues arising from the operation of these Acts would not

amount to £20,000 a year. They were maintained in England as a badge of

the absolute authority of Parliament; they were resisted in America as a

badge of colonial independence of taxation--without representation.

There was no crime, political or moral, in refusing to buy goods of any

kind, much less goods burdened with what they considered unlawful

duties. Mr. Bancroft remarks:

"The agreement of non-importation originated in New York, where it was

rigidly carried into effect. No acrimony appeared; every one, without so

much as a single dissentient, approved of the combination as wise and

legal; persons in the highest stations declared against the Revenue

Acts, and the Governor wished their repeal. His acquiescence in the

association for coercing that repeal led the moderate men among the

patriots of New York to plan a union of the colonies in an American

Parliament (similar to that which now exists in the Dominion of Canada),

preserving the Governments of the several colonies, and having the

members of the General Parliament chosen by their respective

Legislatures. They were preparing the greatest work of their generation,

to be matured at a later day. Their confidence of immediate success

assisted to make them alike disinclined to independence and firm in

their expectation of bringing England to reason by suspending their

mutual trade.

"The people of Boston, stimulated by the unanimity and scrupulous

fidelity of New York, were impatient that a son of Barnard, two sons of

Hutchinson, and about five others, would not accede to the agreement. At

a great meeting of merchants in Faneuil Hall, Hancock proposed to send

for Hutchinson's two sons, hinting, what was true, that the

Lieutenant-Governor was himself a partner with them in their late

extraordinary importations of tea. As the best means of coercion, it was

voted not to purchase anything of the recusants. Subscription papers to

that effect were carried around from house to house, and everybody

complied."

"A letter from New York next invited Boston to extend the agreement

against importing indefinitely, until every Act imposing duties should

be repealed; and on the 17th (of October), by the great influence of

Molineux, Otis, Samuel Adams, and William Cooper, this new form was

adopted."[311] The opposition in Boston to the reception of goods from

England became so general and determined, that even Governor Hutchinson

quailed before it, and the soldiers stood silent and inactive witnesses

of it. Mr. Bancroft says: