HOOD AT BOSTON--THE GENERAL COURT REFUSES TO DO BUSINESS UNDER MILITARY
SWAY--RESISTS THE BILLETING ACT--EFFECT OF THE NON-IMPORTATION
ASSOCIATION--LORD NORTH PREMIER--DUTIES REVOKED EXCEPT ON TEA--THE BOSTON
MASSACRE--DISUSE OF TEA--CONCILIATORY CONDUCT OF LORD BOTETOURT--HIS DEATH.
"The worst is past, and the spirit of sedition broken," writes Hood to
Grenville, early in the spring of 1769. [Footnote: Grenville Papers, vol.
iii.] When the commodore wrote this, his ships were in the harbor, and
troops occupied the town, and he flattered himself that at length turbulent
Boston was quelled. But it only awaited its time to be seditious according
to rule; there was always an irresistible "method in its madness."
In the month of May, the General Court, hitherto prorogued, met according
to charter. A committee immediately waited on the governor, stating it was
impossible to do business with dignity and freedom while the town was
invested by sea and land, and a military guard was stationed at the
state-house, with cannon pointed at the door; and they requested the
governor, as his majesty's representative, to have such forces removed out
of the port and gates of the city during the session of the Assembly.
The governor replied that he had no authority over either the ships or
troops. The court persisted in refusing to transact business while so
circumstanced, and the governor was obliged to transfer the session to
Cambridge. There he addressed a message to that body in July, requiring
funds for the payment of the troops, and quarters for their accommodation.
The Assembly, after ample discussion of past grievances, resolved, that the
establishment of a standing army in the colony in a time of peace was an
invasion of natural rights; that a standing army was not known as a part of
the British constitution, and that the sending an armed force to aid the
civil authority was unprecedented, and highly dangerous to the people.
After waiting some days without receiving an answer to his message, the
governor sent to know whether the Assembly would, or would not, make
provision for the troops. In their reply, they followed the example of the
Legislature of New York, in commenting on the mutiny, or billeting act, and
ended by declining to furnish funds for the purposes specified, "being
incompatible with their own honor and interest, and their duty to their
constituents." They were in consequence again prorogued, to meet in Boston
on the 10th of January.
So stood affairs in Massachusetts. In the mean time, the non-importation
associations, being generally observed throughout the colonies, produced
the effect on British commerce which Washington had anticipated, and
Parliament was incessantly importuned by petitions from British merchants,
imploring its intervention to save them from ruin.
Early in 1770, an important change took place in the British cabinet. The
Duke of Grafton suddenly resigned, and the reins of government passed into
the hands of Lord North. He was a man of limited capacity, but a favorite
of the king, and subservient to his narrow colonial policy. His
administration, so eventful to America, commenced with an error. In the
month of March, an act was passed, revoking all the duties laid in 1767,
_excepting that on tea_. This single tax was continued, as he
observed, "to maintain the parliamentary right of taxation,"--the very
right which was the grand object of contest. In this, however, he was in
fact yielding, against his better judgment, to the stubborn tenacity of the
king.
He endeavored to reconcile the opposition, and perhaps himself, to the
measure, by plausible reasoning. An impost of threepence on the pound could
never, he alleged, be opposed by the colonists, unless they were determined
to rebel against Great Britain. Besides, a duty on that article, payable in
England, and amounting to nearly one shilling on the pound, was taken off
on its exportation to America, so that the inhabitants of the colonies
saved ninepence on the pound.
Here was the stumbling-block at the threshold of Lord North's
administration. In vain the members of the opposition urged that this
single exception, while it would produce no revenue, would keep alive the
whole cause of contention; that so long as a single external duty was
enforced, the colonies would consider their rights invaded, and would
remain unappeased. Lord North was not to be convinced; or rather, he knew
the royal will was inflexible, and he complied with its behests. "The
properest time to exert our right of taxation," said he, "is when the right
is refused. To temporize is to yield; and the authority of the mother
country, if it is now unsupported, will be relinquished for ever: _a
total repeal cannot be thought of, till America is prostrate at our
feet_." [Footnote: Holmes's Amer. Annals, vol. ii., p. 173.]
On the very day in which this ominous bill was passed in Parliament, a
sinister occurrence took place in Boston. Some of the young men of the
place insulted the military while under arms; the latter resented it; the
young men, after a scuffle, were put to flight, and pursued. The alarm
bells rang,--a mob assembled; the custom-house was threatened; the troops,
in protecting it, were assailed with clubs and stones, and obliged to use
their fire-arms, before the tumult could be quelled. Four of the populace
were killed, and several wounded. The troops were now removed from the
town, which remained in the highest state of exasperation; and this
untoward occurrence received the opprobrious, and somewhat extravagant name
of "the Boston massacre."
The colonists, as a matter of convenience, resumed the consumption of those
articles on which the duties had been repealed; but continued, on
principle, the rigorous disuse of tea, excepting such as had been smuggled
in. New England was particularly earnest in the matter; many of the
inhabitants, in the spirit of their Puritan progenitors, made a covenant to
drink no more of the forbidden beverage, until the duty on tea should be
repealed.
In Virginia the public discontents, which had been allayed by the
conciliatory conduct of Lord Botetourt, and by his assurances, made on the
strength of letters received from the ministry, that the grievances
complained of would be speedily redressed, now broke out with more violence
than ever. The Virginians spurned the mock-remedy which left the real cause
of complaint untouched. His lordship also felt deeply wounded by the
disingenuousness of ministers which had led him into such a predicament,
and wrote home demanding his discharge. Before it arrived, an attack of
bilious fever, acting upon a delicate and sensitive frame, enfeebled by
anxiety and chagrin, laid him in his grave. He left behind him a name
endeared to the Virginians by his amiable manners, his liberal patronage of
the arts, and, above all, by his zealous intercession for their rights.
Washington himself testifies that he was inclined "to render every just and
reasonable service to the people whom he governed." A statue to his memory
was decreed by the House of Burgesses, to be erected in the area of the
capitol. It is still to be seen, though in a mutilated condition, in
Williamsburg, the old seat of government, and a county in Virginia
continues to bear his honored name.