us, I have already told you was one source of our misery. Last week
I endeavoured to convince you of the necessity of her regulating, or
rather establishing some government amongst us. I am now to point
out the principles and motives upon which the blockade act was made.
The violent attack upon the property of the East-India company, in
the destruction of their tea, was the cause of it. In order to form
a right judgment of that transaction, it is necessary to go back and
view the cause of its being sent here. As the government of England
is mixt, so the spirit or genius of the nation is at once monarchial,
aristocratical, democratical, martial and commercial. It is difficult
to determine which is the most predominant principle, but it is
worthy of remark, that, to injure the British nation upon either of
these points, is like injuring a Frenchman in the point of honor.
Commerce is the great source of national wealth; for this reason it
is cherished by all orders of men from the palace to the cottage.
In some countries, a merchant is held in contempt by the nobles;
in England they respect him. He rises to high honors in the state,
often contracts alliances with the first families in the kingdom, and
noble blood flows in the veins of his posterity. Trade is founded
upon persons or countries mutually supplying each other with their
redundances. Thus none are impoverished, all enriched, the asperities
of human life worne away, and mankind made happier by it. Husbandry,
manufacture and merchandize are its triple support; deprived of
either of these, it would cease.
Agriculture is the natural livelihood of a country but thinly
inhabited, as arts and manufactures are of a populous one. The high
price of labour prevents manufactures being carried on to advantage
in the first, scarcity of soil obliges the inhabitants to pursue
them in the latter. Upon these, and considerations arising from
the fertility and produce of different climates, and such like
principles, the grand system of the British trade is founded. The
collected wisdom of the nation has always been attentive to this
great point of policy, that the national trade might be so balanced
and poised, as that each part of her extended dominions might be
benefitted, and the whole concentre to the good of the empire. This
evinces the necessity of acts for regulating trade.
To prevent one part of the empire being enriched at the expence and
to the impoverishing of another, checks, restrictions, and sometimes
absolute prohibitions are necessary. These are imposed or taken off
as circumstances vary. To carry the acts of trade into execution,
many officers are necessary. Thus, we see a number of custom-house
officers, so constituted as to be checks and controuls upon each
other, and prevent their swerving from their duty, should they be
tempted, and a board of commissioners appointed to superintend the
whole, like the commissioners of the customs in England. Hence also
arises the necessity of courts of admiralty.
The laws and regulations of trade, are esteemed in England, as
sacred. An estate made by smuggling or pursuing an illicit trade, is
there looked upon as filthy lucre, as monies amassed by gaming, and
upon the same principle, because it is obtained at the expence, and
often ruin of others. The smuggler not only injures the public, but
often ruins the fair trader.
The great extent of sea-coast, many harbours, the variety of islands,
the numerous creeks and navigable rivers, afford the greatest
opportunity to drive an illicit trade, in these colonies, without
detection. This advantage has not been overlooked by the avaricious,
and many persons seem to have set the laws of trade at defiance.
This accounts for so many new regulations being made, new officers
appointed, and ships of war, from time to time, stationed along the
continent. The way to Holland and back again is well known, and by
much the greatest part of the tea that has been drank in America
for several years, has been imported from thence and other places,
in direct violation of law. By this the smugglers have amassed great
estates, to the prejudice of the fair trader. It was sensibly felt
by the East-India company; they were prohibited from exporting their
teas to America, and were obliged to sell it at auction in London;
the London merchant purchased it, and put a profit upon it when he
shipt it for America; the American merchant, in his turn, put a
profit upon it, and after him the shopkeeper; so that it came to
the consumer's hands, at a very advanced price. Such quantities of
tea were annually smuggled that it was scarcely worth while for the
American merchant to import tea from England at all. Some of the
principal trading towns in America were wholly supplied with this
commodity by smuggling; Boston however continued to import it, until
advice was received that the parliament had it in contemplation to
permit the East-India company to send their teas directly to America.
The Boston merchants then sent their orders conditionally to their
correspondents in England, to have tea shipt for them in case the
East-India company's tea did not come out; one merchant, a great
whig, had such an order lying in England for sixty chests, on his own
account, when the company's tea was sent. An act of parliament was
made to enable the East-India company to send their tea directly to
America, and sell it at auction there, not with a view of raising a
revenue from the three penny duty, but to put it out of the power of
the smugglers to injure them by their infamous trade. We have it from
good authority, that the revenue was not the consideration before
parliament, and it is reasonable to suppose it; for had that been the
point in view, it was only to restore the former regulation, which
was then allowed to be constitutional, and the revenue would have
been respectable. Had this new regulation taken effect, the people in
America would have been great gainers. The wholesale merchant might
have been deprived of some of his gains; but the retailer would have
supplied himself with this article, directly from the auction, and
the consumer reap the benefit, as tea would have been sold under the
price that had been usual, by near one half. Thus the country in
general would have been great gainers, the East-India company secured
in supplying the American market with this article, which they are
entitled to by the laws of trade, and smuggling suppressed, at least
as to tea. A smuggler and a whig are cousin germans, the offspring
of two sisters, avarice and ambition. They had been playing into
each others hands a long time. The smuggler received protection from
the whig, and he in his turn received support from the smuggler.
The illicit trader now demanded protection from his kinsman, and it
would have been unnatural in him to have refused it; and beside,
an opportunity presented of strengthening his own interest. The
consignees were connected with the tories, and that was a further
stimulus. Accordingly the press was again set to work, and the old
story repeated with addition about monopolies, and many infatuated
persons once more wrought up to a proper pitch to carry into
execution any violent measures, that their leaders should propose.
A bold stroke was resolved upon. The whigs, though they had got the
art of managing the people, had too much sense to be ignorant that
it was all a mere finesse, not only without, but directly repugnant
to law, constitution and government, and could not last always. They
determined to put all at hazard, and to be _aut Cæsar aut nullus_.
The approaching storm was foreseen, and the first ship that arrived
with the tea, detained below Castle William. A body meeting was
assembled at the old south meeting-house, which has great advantage
over a town meeting, as no law has yet ascertained the qualification
of the voters; each person present, of whatever age, estate or
country, may take the liberty to speak or vote at such an assembly;
and that might serve as a screen to the town where it originated,
in case of any disastrous consequence. The body meeting consisting
of several thousands, being thus assembled, with the leading whigs
at its head, in the first place sent for the owner of the tea ship,
and required him to bring her to the wharf, upon pain of their
displeasure; the ship was accordingly brought up, and the master was
obliged to enter at the custom house. He reported the tea, after
which twenty days are allowed for landing it and paying the duty.
The next step was to resolve. They resolved that the tea should not
be landed nor the duty paid, that it should go home in the same
bottom that it came in, &c. &c. This was the same as resolving to
destroy it, for as the ship had been compelled to come to the wharf,
and was entered at the custom house, it could not, by law, be cleared
out, without the duties being first paid, nor could the governor
grant a permit for the vessel to pass Castle William, without a
certificate from the custom house of such clearance, consistent
with his duty. The body accordingly, ordered a military guard to
watch the ship every night until further orders. The consignees had
been applied to, by the selectmen, to send the tea to England, they
answered that they could not; for if they did, it would be forfeited
by the acts of trade, and they should be liable to make good the loss
to the East India company. Some of the consignees were mobbed, and
all were obliged to fly to the castle, and there immure themselves.
They petitioned the governor and council to take the property of
the East India company under their protection. The council declined
being concerned in it. The consignees then offered the body to store
the tea under the care of the selectmen or a committee of the town
of Boston, and to have no further concern in the matter until they
could send to England, and receive further instructions from their
principals. This was refused with disdain. The military guard was
regularly kept in rotation till the eve of the twentieth day, when
the duties must have been paid, the tea landed, or be liable to
seizure; then the military guard was withdrawn, or rather omitted
being posted, and a number of persons in disguise, forcibly entered
the ships, (three being by this time arrived) split open the chests,
and emptied all the tea, being of 10,000_l._ sterling value, into the
dock, and perfumed the town with its fragrance. Another circumstance
ought not to be omitted: the afternoon before the destruction of the
tea, the body sent the owner of one of the ships to the governor
to demand a pass; he answered, that he would as soon give a pass
for that as any other vessel, if he had the proper certificate from
the custom house; without which he could not give a pass for any,
consistent with his duty. It was known that this would be the answer,
when the message was sent, and it was with the utmost difficulty that
the body were kept together till the messenger returned. When the
report was made, a shout was set up in the galleries and at the door,
and the meeting immediately dispersed. The governor had, previous
to this, sent a proclamation by the sheriff, commanding the body
to disperse; they permitted it to be read, and answered it with a
general hiss. These are the facts, as truly and fairly stated, as I
am able to state them. The ostensible reason for this conduct, was
the tea's being subject to the three-penny duty. Let us take the
advocates for this transaction upon their own principle, and admit
the duty to be unconstitutional, and see how the argument stands.
Here is a cargo of tea subject upon its being entered and landed,
to a duty of three-pence per pound, which is paid by the East India
company or by their factors, which amounts to the same thing. Unless
we purchase the tea, we shall never pay the duty; if we purchase it,
we pay the three-pence included in the price: therefore, lest we
should purchase it, we have a right to destroy it. A flimsy pretext!
and either supposes the people destitute of virtue, or that their
purchasing the tea was a matter of no importance to the community;
but even this gauze covering is stript off, when we consider that the
Boston merchants, and some who were active at the body meeting, were
every day importing from England, large quantities of tea subject to
the same duty and vending it unmolested; and at this time had orders
lying in their correspondent's hands, to send them considerable
quantities of tea, in case the East-India company should not send it
themselves.
When the news of this transaction arrived in England, and it was
considered in what manner almost every other regulation of trade
had been evaded by artifice, and when artifice could no longer
serve, recourse was had to violence; the British lion was roused.
The crown lawyers were called upon for the law; they answered, high
treason. Had a Cromwell, whom some amongst us deify and imitate in
all his imitable perfections, had the guidance of the national ire,
unless compensation had been made to the sufferers immediately upon
its being demanded, your proud capital had been levelled with the
dust; not content with that, rivers of blood would have been shed to
make atonement for the injured honor of the nation. It was debated
whether to attaint the principals of treason. We have a gracious
king upon the throne; he felt the resentment of a man, softened by
the relentings of a parent. The bowels of our mother country yearned
towards her refractory, obstinate child.
It was determined to consider the offence in a milder light, and to
compel an indemnification for the sufferers, and prevent the like for
the future, by such means as would be mild, compared with the insult
to the nation, or severe, as our future conduct should be; that was
to depend upon us. Accordingly the blockade act was passed, and had
an act of justice been done in indemnifying the sufferers, and an
act of loyalty in putting a stop to seditious practices, our port
had long since been opened. This act has been called unjust, because
it involves the innocent in the same predicament with the guilty;
but it ought to be considered, that our newspapers had announced to
the world, that several thousands attended those body meetings, and
it did not appear that there was one dissentient, or any protest
entered. I do not know how a person could expect distinction, in
such a case, if he neglected to distinguish himself. When the noble
lord proposed it in the house of commons, he called upon all the
members present, to mention a better method of obtaining justice in
this case; scarce one denied the necessity of doing something, but
none could mention a more eligible way. Even ministerial opposition
was abashed. If any parts of the act strike us, like the severity
of a master, let us coolly advert to the aggravated insult, and
perhaps we shall wonder at the lenity of a parent. After this
transaction, all parties seem to have lain upon their oars, waiting
to see what parliament would do. When the blockade act arrived,
many and many were desirous of paying for the tea immediately, and
some who were guiltless of the crime, offered to contribute to the
compensation; but our leading whigs must still rule the roost, and
that inauspicious influence that had brought us hitherto, plunged us
still deeper in misery. The whigs saw their ruin connected with a
compliance with the terms of opening the port, as it would furnish
a convincing proof of the wretchedness of their policy in the
destruction of the tea, and they might justly have been expected to
pay the money demanded themselves, and set themselves industriously
to work to prevent it, and engage the other colonies to espouse their
cause.
This was a crisis too important and alarming to the province to be
neglected by its friends. A number of as respectable persons as
any in this province, belonging to Boston, Cambridge, Salem and
Marblehead, now came forward, publicly to disavow the proceedings
of the whigs, to do justice to the much injured character of Mr.
Hutchinson, and to strengthen his influence at the court of Great
Britain, where he was going to receive the well deserved plaudit
of his sovereign, that he might be able to obtain a repeal or
some mitigation of that act, the terms of which they foresaw, the
perverseness of the whigs would prevent a compliance with. This was
done by several addresses, which were subscribed by upwards of two
hundred persons, and would have been by many more, had not the sudden
embarkation of Mr. Hutchinson prevented it. The justices of the court
of common pleas and general sessions of the peace for the county of
Plymouth, sent their address to him in England. There were some of
almost all orders of men among these addressers, but they consisted
principally of men of property, large family connections, and several
were independent in their circumstances, and lived wholly upon the
income of their estates. Some indeed might be called partizans;
but a very considerable proportion were persons that had of choice
kept themselves at a distance from the political vortex; had beheld
the competition of the whigs and tories without any emotion, while
the community remained safe; had looked down on the political
dance in its various mazes and intricacies, and saw one falling,
another rising, rather as a matter of amusement; but when they saw
the capital of the province upon the point of being sacrificed by
political cunning, it called up all their feelings.
Their motives were truly patriotic. Let us now attend to the ways
and means by which the whigs prevented these exertions producing
such effects. Previous to this, a new, and until lately, unheard
of, mode of opposition had been devised, said to be the invention
of the fertile brain of one of our party agents, called a committee
of correspondence. This is the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous
serpent that ever issued from the eggs of sedition. These committees
generally consist of the highest whigs, or at least there is some
high whig upon them, that is the ruling spirit of the whole. They are
commonly appointed at thin town meetings, or if the meetings happen
to be full, the moderate men seldom speak or act at all, when this
sort of business comes on. They have been by much too modest. Thus
the meeting is often prefaced with, "at a full town meeting," and
the several resolves headed with nem. con. with strict truth, when
in fact, but a small proportion of the town have had a hand in the
matter. It is said that the committee for the town of Boston was
appointed for a special purpose, and that their commission long since
expired. However that may be, these committees when once established,
think themselves amenable to none, they assume a dictatorial style,
and have an opportunity under the apparent sanction of their several
towns, of clandestinely wreaking private revenge on individuals, by
traducing their characters, and holding them up as enemies to their
country, wherever they go, as also of misrepresenting facts and
propagating sedition through the country. Thus, a man of principle
and property, in travelling through the country, would be insulted by
persons, whose faces he had never before seen; he would often feel
the smart without suspecting the hand that administered the blow.
These committees, as they are not known in law, and can derive no
authority from thence, lest they should not get their share of power,
sometimes engross it all; they frequently erect themselves into a
tribunal, where the same persons are at once legislators, accusers,
witnesses, judges, and jurors, and the mob the executioners. The
accused has no day in court, and the execution of the sentence is the
first notice he receives. This is the channel through which liberty
matters have been chiefly conducted the summer and fall past. This
accounts for the same distempers breaking out in different parts of
the province, at one and the same time, which might be attributed
to something supernatural, by those that were unacquainted with the
secret conductors of the infection. It is chiefly owing to these
committees, that so many respectable persons have been abused, and
forced to sign recantations and resignations; that so many persons,
to avoid such reiterated insults, as are more to be deprecated by
a man of sentiment than death itself, have been obliged to quit
their houses, families, and business, and fly to the army for
protection; that husband has been separated from wife, father from
son, brother from brother, the sweet intercourse of conjugal and
natural affection interrupted, and the unfortunate refugee forced to
abandon all the comforts of domestic life. My countrymen, I beg you
to pause and reflect on this conduct. Have not these people, that
are thus insulted, as good a right to think and act for themselves
in matters of the last importance, as the whigs? Are they not as
closely connected with the interest of their country as the whigs?
Do not their former lives and conversations appear to have been
regulated by principle, as much as those of the whigs? You must
answer, yes. Why, then, do you suffer them to be cruelly treated for
differing in sentiment from you? Is it consistent with that liberty
you profess? Let us wave the consideration of right and liberty,
and see if this conduct can be reconciled to good policy. Do you
expect to make converts by it? Persecution has the same effect in
politics, that it has in religion; it confirms the sectary. Do you
wish to silence them, that the inhabitants of the province may appear
unanimous? The maltreatment they receive, for differing from you, is
undeniable evidence that we are not unanimous. It may not be amiss to
consider, that this is a changeable world, and time's rolling wheel
may ere long bring them uppermost; in that case I am sure you would
not wish to have them fraught with resentment. It is astonishing,
my friends, that those who are in pursuit of liberty, should ever
suffer arbitrary power, in such an hideous form and squalid hue,
to get a footing among them. I appeal to your good sense; I know
you have it, and hope to penetrate to it, before I have finished my
publications, notwithstanding the thick atmosphere that now envelopes
it. But to return from my digression, the committee of correspondence
represented the destruction of the tea in their own way; they
represented those that addressed Gov. Hutchinson, as persons of no
note or property, as mean, base wretches, and seekers that had been
sacrificing their country in adulation of him. Whole nations have
worshipped the rising, but if this be an instance, it is the only
one of people's worshipping the setting sun. By this means the humane
and benevolent, in various parts of the continent, were induced to
advise us not to comply with the terms for opening our port, and
engage to relieve us with their charities, from the distress that
must otherwise fall upon the poor. Their charitable intentions ascend
to heaven, like incense from the altar, in sweet memorial before
the throne of God; but their donations came near proving fatal to
the province. It encouraged the whigs to persevere in injustice,
and has been the means of seducing many an honest man into the
commission of a crime, that he did not suspect himself capable of
being guilty of. What I have told you, is not the mere suggestions
of a speculatist; there are some mistakes as to numbers, and there
may be some as to time and place, partly owing to miscopying, and
partly to my not always having had the books and papers necessary to
greater accuracy, at hand; but the relation of facts is in substance
true, I had almost said, as holy writ. I do not ask you to take the
truths of them from an anonymous writer. The evidence of most of
them is within your reach; examine for yourselves. I promise that
the benefit you will reap therefrom will abundantly pay you, for the
trouble of the research; you will find I have faithfully unriddled
the whole mystery of our political iniquity. I do not address myself
to whigs or tories, but to the whole people. I know you well. You are
loyal at heart, friends to good order, and do violence to yourselves
in harboring, one moment, disrespectful sentiments towards Great
Britain, the land of our forefathers' nativity, and sacred repository
of their bones; but you have been most insidiously induced to believe
that Great Britain is rapacious, cruel, and vindictive, and envies us
the inheritance purchased by the sweat and blood of our ancestors.
Could that thick mist, that hovers over the land and involves in it
more than Egyptian darkness, be but once dispelled, that you might
see our Sovereign, the provident father of all his people, and Great
Britain a nursing mother to these colonies, as they really are, long
live our gracious king, and happiness to Britain, would resound from
one end of the province to the other.
MASSACHUSETTENSIS.
ADDRESSED
_To the Inhabitants of the Province of Massachusetts Bay_,
January 9, 1775.
MY DEAR COUNTRYMEN,