Writs of Assistance Issued--Excitement in Boston--The Stamp Act--Protests
Against Taxation Without Representation--Massachusetts Appoints a
Committee of Correspondence--Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry--Henry's
Celebrated Resolutions--His Warning to King George--Growing Agitation in
the Colonies--The Stamp Act Repealed--Parliament Levies Duties on Tea and
Other Imports to America--Lord North's Choice of Infamy--Measures Of
Resistance in America--The Massachusetts Circular Letter--British Troops
in Boston--The Boston Massacre--Burning of the "Gaspee"--North Carolina
"Regulators"--The Boston Tea Party--The Boston Port Bill--The First
Continental Congress--A Declaration of Rights--"Give Me Liberty or Give
Me Death!"
Even before peace had been made with France the king's officers in
America began to enforce the revenue laws with a rigor to which the
colonists had been unaccustomed. Charles Paxton, commissioner of customs
in Boston, applied to the Superior Court for authority to use writs of
assistance in searching for smuggled goods. These writs were warrants for
the officers to search when and where they pleased and to call upon
others to assist them, instead of procuring a special search-warrant for
some designated place. Thomas Hutchinson, chief justice, and afterward
royalist governor and refugee, favored the application, which was
earnestly opposed by the merchants and the people generally.[1] "To my
dying day," exclaimed James Otis, in pleading against the measure, "I
will oppose with all the power and faculties God has given me, all such
instruments of slavery on one hand and of villainy on the other."
Parliament had authorized the issue of the writs, however, and the custom
house officers therefore had the law on their side. Writs were granted,
but their enforcement was attended with so many difficulties that the
customs authorities virtually gave up this attempt to encroach upon the
rights of the people. The next step in provoking the colonists to
revolution was the Stamp Act. The object of this enactment was to raise
money for the support of British troops and the payment of salaries to
certain public officers in the colonies who had depended upon the
colonial treasuries for their compensation. In this there was a threefold
invasion of colonial rights. Taxation without representation was contrary
to a principle recognized for centuries in England, vindicated in the
revolution which cost Charles I his head, and upheld in America from the
very beginning of the settlements here. Again, while British troops had
been welcome as allies in battling against the French and the Indians,
they were not desired as garrisons to overawe the free people of the
colonies, and finally the colonial officers whom it was proposed to pay
from the royal treasury would become the masters instead of servants of
the people--or they would be servants only of the king. The purpose of
the Stamp Act obviously was to make America the vassal of Great Britain.
The act required that legal documents and commercial instruments should
be written, and that newspapers should be printed on stamped paper.
[1] John Adams, in his letter to the President of Congress, July 17,
1780, attributes the outbreak of the Revolution to Hutchinson's
course in this and other matters. "He was perhaps the only man in
the world," wrote Adams, "who could have brought on the controversy
between Great Britain and America in the manner and at the time it
was done, and involved the two countries in an enmity which must end
in their everlasting separation."
* * *
The people everywhere protested against the tyrannical action of
Parliament. Samuel Adams drew up the instructions to the newly elected
representatives of Boston to use all efforts against the plan of
parliamentary taxation. It was resolved "that the imposition of duties
and taxes by the Parliament of Great Britain upon a people not
represented in the House of Commons is irreconcilable with their rights."
A committee of correspondence was appointed in Massachusetts to
communicate with other colonial assemblies, and the idea of union for the
common defence began to take firm hold on the public mind. Benjamin
Franklin, in the Congress held at Albany in 1754 to insure the aid of the
Six Nations in the war then breaking out with France, had proposed a plan
of union for the colonies, with a grand council having extensive powers
and a president to be appointed by the crown. The plan was not adopted.
Adams had written about the same time that "the only way to keep us from
setting up for ourselves is to disunite us." Everybody now began to
perceive the need of union, which the great intellects of Franklin and
Adams had discerned long before.
No influence was so powerful in leading the South to stand side by side
with the Northern colonies as that of Patrick Henry, the great orator of
Virginia. In the House of Burgesses, in 1765, Mr. Henry introduced his
celebrated resolutions against the Stamp Act, as follows:
"Resolved, That the first adventurers and settlers of this his
majesty's colony and dominion, brought with them, and transmitted to
their posterity, and all other his majesty's subjects, since
inhabiting in this, his majesty's said colony, all the privileges,
franchises and immunities, that have at any time been held, enjoyed
and possessed by the people of Great Britain.
"Resolved, That by two royal charters, granted by King James the
First, the colonists, aforesaid, are declared entitled to all the
privileges, liberties and immunities of denizens and natural born
subjects, to all intents and purposes, as if they had been abiding
and born within the realm of England.
"Resolved, That the taxation of the people by themselves, or by
persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know
what taxes the people are able to bear, and the easiest mode of
raising them, and are equally affected by such taxes themselves, is
the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without
which the ancient constitution cannot subsist.
"Resolved, That his majesty's liege people of this most ancient
colony have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus governed
by their own assembly in the article of their taxes and internal
police, and that the same hath never been forfeited, or any other way
given up, but hath been constantly recognized by the king and people
of Great Britain.
"Resolved, therefore, That the General Assembly of this colony have
the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions upon the
inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest such power
in any person or persons whatsoever, other than the General Assembly
aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as
American freedom."
On the back of the paper containing those resolutions, and found among
Henry's papers after his death, was the following endorsement in the
handwriting of Mr. Henry himself: "The within resolutions passed the
House of Burgesses in May, 1765. They formed the first opposition to the
Stamp Act, and the scheme of taxing America by the British Parliament.
All the colonies, either through fear or want of opportunity to form an
opposition, or from influence of some kind or other, had remained silent.
I had been for the first time elected a burgess, a few days before; was
young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the forms of the House, and the
members that composed it. Finding the men of weight averse to opposition,
and the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person was likely to
step forth, I determined to venture, and alone, unadvised and unassisted,
on a blank leaf of an old law book wrote the within. Upon offering them
to the House, violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered, and much
abuse cast upon me by the party for submission. After a long and warm
contest, the resolutions passed by a very small majority, perhaps of one
or two only. The alarm spread throughout America with astonishing
quickness, and the ministerial party were overwhelmed. The great point of
resistance to British taxation was universally established in the
colonies. This brought on the war, which finally separated the two
countries, and gave independence to ours. Whether this will prove a
blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the
blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise,
they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they
will be miserable--Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation.
"Reader, whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere practice
virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.--P. HENRY."
Every American realized the truth expressed in Mr. Henry's resolutions;
but no man beside himself dared to utter it. All wished for independence;
and all hitherto trembled at the thought of asserting it. Randolph,
Bland, Pendleton and Wythe, with "all the old members whose influence in
the House had, till then, been unbroken," opposed the resolutions, and
had not Henry's unrivalled eloquence supported them, they would have been
strangled in their birth. "The last and strongest resolution was carried
by a single vote;" and Peyton Randolph said, immediately after, "I would
have given 500 guineas for a single vote!" From this we may easily imagine
how spirited was the opposition, and how energetic the eloquence exerted
against Henry. It was in the midst of this magnificent debate, while he
was descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious act, that he exclaimed
in a voice of thunder, and with the look of a god, "Caesar had his
Brutus--Charles the First his Cromwell--and George the Third--('Treason,'
cried the Speaker--'treason, treason,' echoed from every part of the
House--it was one of those trying moments which is decisive of
character--Henry faltered not for an instant; but rising to a loftier
attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye of the most determined fire,
he finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis) _may profit by
their example. If this be treason, make the most of it_."[2]
[2] Wirts' "Life of Patrick Henry," pages 64, 65.
On the following day, when Henry was absent, the more timid asserted
themselves and the most important of the resolutions was reconsidered and
expunged.
A congress held at New York declared against, the Stamp Act, and sent a
protest to Parliament. Americans would not buy or use the stamps, and
those who undertook agencies for their sale were treated as public
enemies. Boxes of stamped paper were burned on arrival in port; the
newspapers ignored the act, and legal documents were, by general consent,
treated as valid without the stamp. In the following year Parliament,
after a prolonged debate, in which William Pitt earnestly supported the
American cause, repealed the act. The news of the repeal was received
with great rejoicing in America, and the colonists hoped that there would
be no more attempts to invade their rights as English subjects.
* * *
King George III., however, was bent upon reducing the colonists to abject
submission to his will, and the fact that William Pitt, whom the king
detested, had championed the Americans, made the monarch all the more
obstinate in his purpose to humiliate them. In 1767 Charles Townshend,
chancellor of the exchequer, carried through Parliament a bill putting a
duty upon tea, glass, paper and other articles entering American ports.
In connection with this measure the scheme of the British crown to reduce
the colonies to a vassal condition was fully disclosed. Not only were
troops to be supported out of the revenue thus raised, but the salaries
of governors, judges and crown attorneys were to be paid from it, and any
surplus remaining could be used by the king to pension Americans who had
gained the royal grace by their subserviency. Townshend suddenly died
after these measures had been adopted, and was succeeded by Lord North,
who soon afterward became prime minister. North was not personally in
favor of dealing harshly with the colonies, but he yielded to the royal
will as the price of remaining in office, and shares in history the
infamy of his master's course.
The Americans began to concert measures of resistance. They refused to
use the dutiable articles, and made it unprofitable to import them. The
Massachusetts legislature was dissolved by order of the king, because it
had sent a circular-letter to other colonies inviting common action
against the aggressions of Parliament. Other colonial assemblies were
dissolved by the king's governors because they answered the letter
favorably. The people's representatives continued to attend to the
people's interests in informal conventions, and had the more time to give
to the overshadowing issue of colonial rights, because royal displeasure
had relieved them from the ordinary business of law making. Boston and
Richmond worked in harmony in the one great cause, and North and South
forgot social and religious differences in common effort for the common
weal.
* * *
King George regarded Massachusetts as the hotbed and centre of colonial
discontent, and in the autumn of 1768 he sent two regiments of British
regulars to that city to assist in enforcing the Townshend acts. The
troops and the citizens had frequent disputes, for the colonists were
unused to military arrogance, and refused to be ordered about by
martinets in uniform. The Boston Massacre, so-called, in March, 1770,
when seven soldiers fired into a crowd of townspeople, killing five and
wounding several others, helped to inflame the antagonism between the
provincials and the military, and Governor Hutchinson, at the demand of
Samuel Adams, speaking in behalf of three thousand resolute citizens,
removed the troops to an island in the harbor. In April, 1770, Parliament
again yielded to the Americans in so far as to take off all the Townshend
duties except the duty on tea, which the king insisted upon retaining as
a vindication of England's right to impose the duty.
The colonists continued as determined as ever not to submit to British
taxation, or to the domineering course of the king's officers, which in
some of the provinces had led to harsh and even bloody strife between the
people and their oppressors. An armed schooner in the British revenue
service called the Gaspee, gave offence to American navigators on
Narragansett Bay by requiring that their flag should be lowered in token
of respect whenever they passed the king's vessel. The Gaspee ran aground
while chasing a Providence sloop. Word of the mishap was carried up to
Providence and, on the same night (June 9, 1772) sixty-four armed men
went down in boats, attacked and captured the Gaspee, and burned the
vessel. Abraham Whipple, afterward a commodore in the Continental Navy,
and one of the founders of the State of Ohio, led the expedition. The
royal authorities were greatly exasperated on hearing of the daring
achievement, and Joseph Wanton, Governor of Rhode Island, afterward
deposed from office for his loyalty to King George, issued a proclamation
ordering diligent search for the perpetrators of the act. The British
government offered a reward of $5000 for the leader, but although the
people of Providence well knew who had taken part in the exploit, neither
Whipple nor his associates were betrayed. In North Carolina insurgents
calling themselves "Regulators" fought a sanguinary battle with Governor
Tryon's troops, and were defeated, and six of them hanged for treason. In
South Carolina the people also divided on the issue between England and
the colonists, but for the time stopped short of violence.
The famous "Boston Tea Party" occurred in December, 1773. This was not a
riotous, or, from the colonial standpoint, a lawless act, for the
colonists were already administering their own affairs to a certain
extent independently of royal authority, with the view to the
preservation and defence of their liberties. The English East India
Company had been anxious to regain the American trade and offered to pay
an export duty more than equivalent to the import duty imposed in
America, if the government would permit tea to be delivered at colonial
ports free of duty. To this the British government would not consent, on
the ground that it would be a surrender of the principle which the import
duty represented. The government permitted the East India Company,
however, to export tea to America free from export duty, thus allowing
the Americans to buy tea as cheaply as if no import duty had been levied.
The British authorities assumed that Americans would be satisfied to sell
the principle for which they were contending for threepence on a pound of
tea. They learned the American character better when two ships laden with
tea arrived in Boston. The citizens gathered in the old South
Meeting-house, and in the evening about sixty men, disguised as Indians,
boarded the ships and cast the tea into the harbor. Upon news of this
event reaching England, King George and his ministers decided to make an
example of Boston. A bill was introduced by Lord North and passed almost
unanimously closing the port of Boston and making Salem the seat of
government. Another act annulled the charter of Massachusetts, and a
military governor, General Thomas Gage, was appointed, with absolute
authority over the province.
* * *
With the enactment of the Boston Port Bill, King George and his
Parliament crossed the Rubicon. America was aflame. The other colonies
joined in expressing their sympathy with Massachusetts, and their resolve
to stand by her people and share their fate. A Continental Congress
convened in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, on the fourth of September,
1774. The most eminent men in the colonies were now brought together for
the first time to decide upon action which would affect the liberties of
three millions of people. Patrick Henry was the first to speak, and he
delivered an address worthy of his fame and worthy of the occasion.
Colonel, afterward General Washington, then made the impression which
earned for him the command of the American armies. The Congress drew up a
Declaration of Rights, and sent it to the king. The people of
Massachusetts formed a Provincial Congress with John Hancock for
President, and began organizing provincial troops, and collecting
military stores. Virginia continued to keep pace with Massachusetts. At a
convention of delegates from the several counties and corporations of
Virginia, held in Richmond, March, 1775, Patrick Henry stood resolutely
forth for armed resistance. "Three millions of people," he said, "armed
in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we
possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God
who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends
to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone;
it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no
election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to
retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and
slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains
of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come!! I repeat it, sir, let
it come!!!
"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace,
peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale
that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here
idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so
dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and
slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!--I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"