USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. II > Part 11
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122
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
The measure was slowly reduced to form and laid before parliament, not to be acted upon hastily, but to be debated, revised, and perfected. The proposed impost was to be laid upon "every skin, or piece of vellum, or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper," on which should be engraved or written any pleadings in courts, any deed, lease, bond, or policy of insurance, and was to be so framed, with specifications em- bodied in the bill, as to embrace nearly all the transactions of a business nature between man and man. The material used to perpetuate contracts, records, nay, the very elements of learning and the vital thoughts of genius, was to be taxed and paid for according to a fixed rate throughout all the American colonies.
Strange to say, this proposition did not at first attract much attention in America. A terrible war had again broken out on the western frontier, and diverted the thoughts of the people from this threatened calamity. A part of the colonial agents resident at London, wrote to their constituents, informing them of the proposition, and asking for instruc- tions; but their correspondence excited little alarm.
Thus passed away the winter of 1763. In March 1764, Grenville, who had now become prime minister, presented to the House of Commons his matured plan of taxing the colo- nies. The house advised the minister that he had a right to do what he had so much at heart, and advised the passage of a Stamp Act, after giving the colonies notice to hit upon some other method, if they should choose, of raising the sum of money demanded by the British government. The "Sugar Act," however, was passed without delay, taking off a part of the duty formerly imposed on foreign sugar and molasses, and laying a duty on coffee, French and India goods, wines from Madeira and the Azores, and prohibiting the exporta- tion of iron from the colonies to any other country except England .* This act added something to the already over- grown stature of the colonial courts of admiralty, while its
* Hildreth, i. 2d series, 520 and ante.
123
CONNECTICUT OPPOSES IT.
[1764.]
preamble stated in plain terms that its primary object was revenue.
The American colonies were inhabited by an earnest yet philanthropic people. They had sprung from the blood of the better order of England, and their culture, as we have before seen, had eminently fitted them to think before they ventured to act. When the news of the passage of the sugar bill, and of the still more odious proposition for a stamp act, reached Boston, there were visible everywhere tokens of astonishment and apprehension. Men were seen standing in groups at the corners of the streets, and enforcing, with animated gestures, words that could hardly have been called respectful or conciliatory ; yet there was at first no violent demonstration. The waters trembled, but it was long before they began to roll their angry waves and toss their white foam against the foundations of a throne sanctified in its supremacy by so many hallowed associations. At length, Samuel Adams, under instructions from Boston, entered a written protest against the doings of the ministry.
The news soon reached Hartford. The General Assem- bly of Connecticut, at its May session, before the protest of Adams was framed, and before any decided action was taken by the Legislature of Massachusetts, selected Ebenezer Silliman, George Wyllys, and Jared Ingersoll, a committee to assist Governor Fitch in preparing a state paper that should set forth at length the reasons against the bill. This committee met from time to time during the summer of that year to confer with each other, and to suggest all the argu- ments that occurred to their minds against the odious mea- sure that was pending. The document, setting forth their views, was drawn up by Governor Fitch, and was presented to the General Assembly at their October session .* It is a paper of great clearness, and shows a perfect knowledge of the history of the colony, the immunities conferred by its charter freely granted by the king, and acquiesced in by all the departments of the national government for more than a
* Colonial Records, MS.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
hundred years ; it shows too an intimate acquaintance with the principles of the British constitution, and the rights of the subject under it, that is unsurpassed, it is believed, by any paper originating in any other colony during that exciting period. The deformities of the proposed measure, its injus- tice, its defiance of the liberties immemorially vested in the people; the blind force with which it tramples upon the rights of trial by jury and of the people to represent and to tax themselves, are animadverted upon with great force.
The Assembly adopted these reasons as their own, and resolved that a copy of them with an address to parliament, that was also to be drawn up by the governor, should be sent to Richard Jackson, Esquire, the agent of the colony in London. Mr. Jackson was directed "firmly to insist on the exclusive right of the colonies to tax themselves and on the privilege of trial by jury."* These cardinal doctrines of their political faith they declared that they "never could recede from."
Mr. Ingersoll, who soon after sailed for England, took out with him about one hundred printed copies of a pamphlet containing the reasons set forth by the colony against the stamp act. He presented one to Lord Grenville, who praised the mild temper with which it was written, and said that he had seen no better arguments than those exhibited by Con- necticut. He regarded the reasoning as fallacious, however, as it premised what he said was not true, that the colonies were not represented in parliament. Soon after Mr. Inger- soll arrived in London, he was made acquainted with the re- solve of the Assembly, associating him with Mr. Jackson to represent the colony as its agent in England.
Meanwhile the preparations for perpetrating this fraud upon the colonial treasuries went forward with cold pre- cision. In vain did Franklin, Jackson, Ingersoll, and other gentlemen, remonstrate in behalf of their constituents ; and to no purpose did the London merchants, interested in
. Colonial Records, MS.
125
LORD HALIFAX AND CONNECTICUT.
[1764.]
the American trade, forward statements of their grievances that were doomed to be cast aside without being read. The passage of the bill in some form was obviously decreed in the councils of the government. Still the lords of the treasury were willing if they could to smooth the path to obedience by any modifications that were not likely to interfere with the prospect of raising the desired revenue. Information was therefore sought from the colonies that might show the min- istry where to strike the surest blow, and at the same time mitigate the pain.
Lord Halifax addressed inquiries to the governor and com- pany of Connecticut, asking for statistics and data that might serve as the basis of the proposed law. He desired to know the modes of doing business in the colony, the kinds of business carried on there, and the amount of revenue that they would yield ; and called for an inventory of all the in- struments in use for public records, pleadings in courts of justice, and the various relations of private life, as well as an appraisal of their respective values. This seeming leniency was only a refined mode of cruelty, like that of an executioner who should compel the victim upon the platform to tie the fatal knot about his own neck. Still the requisition was loyally obeyed, and the schedule made out and dispatched to England as soon as practicable. Yet, lest the colony should appear by this act of compliance to have acquiesced in the doings of the ministry, Governor Fitch accompanied the list with a letter, pleading in the most manly and earnest tones for the forbearance of the government. "It will appear by this list," writes his excellency to Lord Halifax, "that the public can be charged with no burden but what must lie im- mediately upon the colony treasury, which is already exhaus- ted by the war to that degree as not to be capable of such a recruit as is requisite to answer the necessities of the gov- ernment for some time to come. The people in general are also so involved, that new burdens will not only be distress- ing but greatly discouraging in their struggles to extricate themselves from their debts incurred during the late war.
126
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Suffer me, my lord, to entreat on their behalf that they may be excused from this new duty, which appears to them so grievous."
Mr. Ingersoll was also interrogated in a similar way by Thomas Whately, one of the joint Secretaries of the Trea- sury, and was answered in language that seems now almost prophetic, as we read it by the light of those events that have made the year 1765, nearly as renowned as the one that gave birth to our national Independence. In this noble letter words of warning are added to those of remonstrance. "The people think if the precedent of a stamp act is once established, you will have it in your power to keep us as poor as you please. The people's minds, not only here, but in the neighboring provinces, are filled with the most dreadful apprehensions from such a step's taking place ; from whence I leave you to guess how easily a tax of that kind would be collected." In the same letter he says, "don't think me im- pertinent, since you desire information, when I tell you that I have heard gentlemen of the greatest property in neigh- boring governments say, seemingly very cooly, that should such a step take place, they would immediately remove themselves with their families and fortunes, into some foreign kingdom. You see I am quite prevented from suggesting to you which of the several methods of taxation that you men- tion would be the best or least exceptionable, because I plainly perceive that every one of them, or any supposable one, other than such as shall be laid by the legislative bodies here, to say no more of them, would go down with the people like chopt hay." It did indeed prove to be dry food in the throats of the parties who from choice or compulsion attempted to swallow it. But listen still further to this keen-sighted poli- tician. "As for your allied plan of enforcing the acts of trade and navigation, and preventing smuggling, let me tell you that enough would not be collected here in the course of ten years to defray the expense of fitting out one, the least, frigate for an American voyage; and that the whole labor would be like burning a barn to roast an egg !" So wrote
127
COL. BARRE'S SPEECH.
[1764.]
Jared Ingersoll of New Haven, throwing against the darling project of Grenville, and his financial compeers, great masses of solid sense and homely scorn, hard to be withstood, and dangerous to the ribs as if they had been square blocks of the native trap rock of his own town.
Nor were there wanting those in parliament who, born and bred in England and having her cause most fondly at heart, had the sagacity to foresee the danger, and the courage to forewarn its authors in good time. Among these was the gallant Colonel Barre, who had served in America during the late war, and knew well the courage and spirit of the people. Townshend, one of the ministers, had indulged in rash declarations against the colonies, and among other things had spoken of the Americans as "children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, and protected by our arms." The reply of Colonel Barre, is one of the most spontaneous and soul-stirring in all the repositories of eloquence, ancient or modern. It is to Jared Ingersoll, who was in the House of Commons and heard it, that we owe its preservation. It was reported by him at the time, and soon after sent to Con- necticut, and was first given to the world in the columns of a New London newspaper. "The sentiments of Colonel Barre," says Mr. Ingersoll in a letter to Governor Fitch, "were thrown out so entirely without premeditation, so forcibly and so firmly, and the breaking off was so beauti- fully abrupt, that the whole house sat awhile as if amazed, intently looking, and without answering a word. I, even I, felt emotions that I never felt before, and went the next morning and thanked Colonel Barre, in behalf of my country."
As a part of the language of this speech was soon after- wards the watchword of organized opposition throughout the American colonies, and as it was preserved for the admiration of the future ages by a son of Connecticut, it seems naturally to belong to her history. It is as follows :
"They planted by your care! No, your oppressions plan- ted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country; where they
128
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable ; and among others, to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle, and I take it upon me to say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of God's earth ; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all these hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country, from the hands of those who should have been their friends.
"They nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect of them. 'As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them, in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some member of this house, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them; men, whose behavior on many occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them ; men promoted to the highest seats of justice, some, who to my knowledge, were glad by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own.
" They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defense ; have exerted a valor amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defense of a country whose frontier, while drenched in blood, its interior parts have yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And, believe me, remember I this day told you so, that same spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first, will accom- pany them still ; but prudence forbids that I should explain myself further. God knows I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat; what I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience, the re- spectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has ; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them, if they should
129
INGERSOLL AND THE STAMP ACT.
[1765.]
be violated; but the subject is too delicate, and I will say no more."*
In spite of those manly and eloquent voices raised against the consummation of this great wrong, the blind and stiff- necked ministry persisted in their course. Yet, although Con- necticut was not able to avert the impending blow, she was still able, through the agency of Mr. Ingersoll, to lighten its grevious weight by interposing such arguments as induced the ministry to modify the bill in some of its more oppressive provisions.t When Mr. Ingersoll arrived in England in the winter of 1764, he found the stamp act already drawn, but still remaining in the hands of his friend, Mr. Whateley, as Secretary of the Treasury, for revision and amendment before it should be put upon its passage. Mr. Ingersoll availed himself of his personal influence with that gentleman to soften as much as he could the rigors of the bill. Thus the duty on marriage licenses that might, among the poor, prevent many honest and worthy people from sharing the blessings of connubial life ; on registers of vessels ; and on the salaries of judges and magistrates who could ill-afford to pay for the honors that scarcely served to feed and clothe them, were crossed from the bill. Connecti- cut had also the honor, through the solicitations of Ingersoll, to render the whole country a still more important service, by getting the day of its going into operation postponed until the 1st of November, 1765. This postponement, as will appear in the sequel, was of the utmost consequence.
* Colonel Isaac Barre, the noble defender of the colonies, had been in early life an officer in the army, and as such, had spent much time in America. In parlia- ment he obtained a high reputation as a debater. For several years previous to his death, (which took place in 1802, at the age of seventy-five,) he was afflicted with blindness.
+I am indebted to Hon. I. William Stuart, for the extracts quoted from Fitch's and Ingersoll's letters, and for much of the information relating to Ingersoll, Jack- son, and others. As Mr. Stuart was kind enough to offer me his noble lectures upon the Stamp Act, in MS., with the liberty to use whatever I could find in them, I have availed myself of his generosity. When those lectures are published, the public will have a more lively picture of the scenes of that day than I can hope to sketch
41
130
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Thus modified, the stamp act passed the House of Com- mons on the 22d of March, 1765. As a part of this financial scheme, a clause was inserted in the mutiny act giving to the ministers the power of sending as many troops to America as they should see fit. Another odious enactment, called the quartering act, obliged the colonies to find quarters, fire- wood, bedding, drink, soap, and candles for all the soldiers that might from time to time be sent into their borders and stationed there.
It has been already stated that the administration had no fears that they should be unable to enforce the stamp act. Even Dr. Franklin was of the same opinion. He therefore advised Mr. Ingersoll, as he had done all that he could to oppose the passage of the bill, to avail himself now of the appointment of stamp agent for the colony of Connecticut .* If the law was to be enforced, it was difficult to see why Mr. Ingersoll should not have the collateral benefit flowing from it that could hardly fall into hands more deserving. He therefore did not hesitate to accept the trust-an act for which he was blamed in moments of party heat, but with motives as honor- able as those of Franklin who sanctioned it.
But Grenville and Franklin were both mistaken. Although Connecticut had shown such an early opposition to the pas- sage of the stamp act, there was afterwards manifested in the colony a disposition to submit to it in silence. Some of the principal civil functionaries were of the number. Of the cultivated classes, the clergymen were for awhile almost alone in their opposition to the measure. The successors of Hooker, Davenport, Wareham, Smith, Prudden, Fitch, Pierpont, Stoddard, and Stone, still retained the patrician rank that had fallen upon their shoulders with the mantles of those bold pioneers, and, though less learned in the dead languages, had inherited all the jealousy of oppression that had character- ized their fathers, and all their sharpness of intellect, firm- ness, courage, and strong nervous eloquence. One of these,
* These facts are asserted in one of Ingersoll's letters to Governor Fitch, and in a note to one of his letters to Whately. Stuart's MS.
131
REV. STEPHEN JOHNSON.
[1765.]
the Rev. Stephen Johnson, of Lyme, seeing with pain the dangerous lethargy that had lulled the judges to sleep and had taken strong hold of the council, began to write essays for the Connecticut Gazette, which he sent secretly to the printer by the hands of an Irish gentleman who was friendly to the cause of liberty .* With a bony grasp, this fearless soldier of the cross seized the noisome dragon of ministerial tyranny by the throat, and clung around its neck with such strangling force, that it was compelled to disclose its deformi- ties to the people by the writhings of its pain. Other clergy- men took up the warfare. They impugned the stamp act in their sermons, they classed its loathed name in their prayers with those of sin, satan, and the mammon of unrighteousness. t The people were soon roused to a sense of danger. The flames of opposition, so long suppressed, now began to break forth. The name of "sons of liberty," given by Colonel Barre to the Americans, was adopted by the press, and sent to every part of the country. Societies, originating, as is believed in Connecticut, and made up of men the most bold, if not the most responsible in the land, were suddenly formed for the express though secret purpose of resisting the stamp act by violent means should it become necessary. The members of these associations were called " Sons of Liberty." The principal business reserved for them was that of com- pelling stamp-masters and other officials to resign their places. They were also to see that no stamps were sold in the colony, and that all stamped paper should be taken wherever it could be found. This powerful institution soon extended itself into New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
Public meetings were also held in every part of the colony, for the avowed purpose of protesting against the execution of the odious law. Town meetings, too, were convened, and
* Gordon, i. 117.
+ "The congregational ministers," says Gordon, " saw farther into the designs of the British administration than the bulk of the colony ; and by their publications and conversation, increased and strengthened the opposition." Hist. Revolution, j. 119.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
town clerks authorized to receive and record deeds and other instruments passing the title to property, without regard to the stamp act .*
Short, pithy sentences, ridiculing the ministry and setting forth the stamp act in vivid, though not always refined lan- guage, circulated from sheet to sheet of the colonial news- papers, or passed from neighbor to neighbor in familiar dis- course ; quaint proverbs, scornful satires, jests with biting edge, pamphlets, their pages all glowing with indignant remonstrance or wailing with the cry of expiring freedom ; handbills, with single sentences of dark warning, posted upon the doors of public offices or hawked about the streets by daylight, moon-light, and torch-light ; anonymous letters ad- dressed to gentlemen in high judicial or executive places- all flew hither and thither upon their several errands. The passions and the understanding were also addressed through the eye. Copies of the stamp act were carried in proces- sions and buried with funeral honors as equivocal as could well be conceived. Sometimes it was burned with the effi- gies of the officers who had been appointed to execute it. Grotesque caricatures of the ministry and their functiona- ries were circulated on the most public occasions and placed in situations the most provokingly conspicuous. Still, Gov. Fitch, and a part of his council, fearful lest they should expose the charter of the colony to a new attack, remained firm in their determination to sustain the law, much as they loathed
* In Norwich, April 7, 1765, a public meeting was convened by the town clerk, and the question was submitted by him to the freemen whether he should proceed in the duties of his office as heretofore, without using the stamps. It was unanimously voted "in full town meeting, that the clerk shall proceed in his office as usual, and the town will save him harmless from all damage that he may sustain thereby." In many other towns, the stamp act was the occasion of public meet- ings, some of which were informal gatherings of the people, and had not the dignity of "town meetings." Some of them were riotous in their character. In New Haven, at the regular town meeting in September for the choice of repre- sentatives, the gentlemen elected were unanimously desired " to use their utmost endeavors to secure the repeal of the stamp act." It was also resolved-Mr. stamp-master Ingersoll, being present-that Mr. Ingersoll is desired to resign his stamp-office immediately."
133
INGERSOLL REFUSES TO RESIGN.
[1765.]
it. Colonel Trumbull had been one of the first to decide upon a different course of action. Governor Fitch at last made the proposition in open council, that they should all take the oath in conformity with the stamp act. Trumbull's eye flashed, and his cheek darkened with anger at the proposal. He refused to witness the hollow-hearted ceremony, and rising indignantly, turned his back upon the governor, and walked out of the chamber, followed by a majority of the assistants. Only four members of the council remained .*
The time had now arrived for action. Mr. Ingersoll, having accepted the place of stamp-master, was determined to discharge its duties. Still he sought to conciliate his fel- low-townsmen at New Haven, who for the most part were opposed to the law. "The act is so contrived," he argued, " as to make it for your interest to buy the stamps. When I undertook the office I meant a service to you." "Stop ad- vertising your wares till they arrive safe at market," said one. "The two first letters of his name are those of a traitor of old," shouted a second; and added bitterly, "It was decreed that our Saviour should suffer ; but was it better for Judas Iscariot to betray him so that the price of his blood might be saved by his friends ?"+ At last the citizens gathered around his house in great numbers. "Will you resign ?" was the pointed inquiry that they put to him. "" I know not if I have the power to resign," answered the resolute man. On the 17th of September, a town meeting was held there, and Ingersoll was called upon by a public vote, to resign his office without delay. "I shall await to see how the General Assembly is inclined," said the stamp-master, evasively.
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