USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 45
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As is well known, William Pitt headed the new ministry of 1766; but through his illness the mantle fell upon Charles Townshend, a man of bold and ready wit who charmed his followers into a colonial program of indiscretion and folly. Believing that the American military establishment should be for the most part self-supporting and that the chief civil officials should be independent of local control, he announced his intention of raising funds for these purposes from the colonies by a method consistent with their logic. He had no sympathy with the distinction they drew between external and internal taxes; but he was willing to concede to what he thought was the colonial interpretation of the constitutional power of Parliament. He introduced a bill laying duties on lead, glass, paper, paint and tea imported into the colonies, the funds to be used first for payment of the salaries of civil officers and second for defence. He did not attempt to gloss over the fact that the act was intended as a revenue measure, for a statement to that effect was made in the preamble. Another act was passed the same day, providing machinery for the stricter administration of the laws of trade. An American board of customs commissioners was established with headquarters at Boston and powers formerly possessed by the customs board in England. Two weeks earlier, Parlia- ment had enacted a measure which did not directly touch Massachusetts but which was almost as much resented in that colony as though it did. The New York Assembly, having re- fused to provide supplies exactly as required by the Quarter- ing Act of 1765, was by act ordered suspended until it should comply.
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THE COMMERCIAL BOYCOTT OF 1767
The commercial colonies appear to have seen the economic effects of the Townshend Revenue Act before they realized its full constitutional significance. The inhabitants of Boston took the lead by a town-meeting agreement ( October 28, 1767) not to use certain enumerated articles of luxury and others which could be replaced by colonial manufacture. £ The
meeting also declared itself in favor of non-importation and encouragement of manufactures. The selectmen sent a copy of this agreement with a letter of explanation to the other towns in the province and to the near-by colonies. This non- consumption movement soon spread throughout New England and to the middle and southern colonies, and was received everywhere with enthusiasm. It became the fashion to use clothes of home manufacture and to drink a substitute for tea.
Non-importation as a boycott measure for forcing redress of grievances seems to have come later. March 1, 1768, the merchants of Boston held a meeting of the Society, and a few days later adopted a pretty thorough-going non-importation agreement. They agreed that for one year they would not order any European commodities except a very few enumer- ated necessities, they would give the preference in trade to subscribers, and they would put the agreement into opera- tion as soon as similar ones were adopted by the principal trading towns of Massachusetts and the neighboring colonies. A committee appointed for the purpose sent letters as far south as Charleston. The movement took effect more slowly in the southern colonies, which suffered much less from the trade restrictions than did the northern and middle colonies. Hence the southern agreements were not so strict, permitting as a rule the importation of all British goods except those taxed by Parliament and a few others carefully specified; the agreement to continue until the taxes were removed. By November, 1769, twelve of the continental colonies-New Hampshire still stood out-declared in favor of non-impor- tation.
Rigorous measures were used to enforce the agreements : first, by enrolling additional subscribers; second, by holding them to their promises. Those refusing to conform were boy-
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!
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cotted politically, commercially and socially, and if they be- came conspicuous in their refusal to cooperate they often suf- fered from the violence of the mob. Tar and feathers, effigy hanging and severe beatings were common. The system at this time was really upheld more by intimidation than by enthusiasm.
MASSACHUSETTS CIRCULAR LETTER (1768)
The most important political protest against the Town- shend Acts was the Massachusetts circular letter of Febru- ary 11, 1768. The radicals first introduced a motion in the House of Representatives on January 21, suggesting that a letter be sent to the other colonies urging them to join with Massachusetts against the new measures. The motion was lost by a considerable majority. Samuel Adams refused to accept this decision as final; and after two weeks of cam- paigning, succeeded in bringing the motion again to vote. This time it passed and Adams was appointed to prepare the text of the explanatory letter. The final draft contained a remon- strance against the taxation feature of the revenue measure, against the use of the funds accruing therefrom for the salaries of governors and judges, and against the establishment of the new customs board. This letter was sent to the assem- blies of all the continental colonies, suggesting united action and asking each one to take a similar stand. British states- men considered the whole procedure seditious, particularly the proposal for cooperation of all the colonies against the Townshend Acts. Hillsborough, the new secretary of state for the colonies, at the King's command ordered the Massa- chusetts General Court to rescind the resolutions upon pain of dissolution, and threatened the other assemblies with like treatment if they acted on the letter. This demand stung Massachusetts into further defiance, the General Court voting by 92 to 17 against rescinding. Dissolution failed to break the spirit of resistance. Throughout the colony the supporters of the vote were lauded for their courage. Paul Revere made a silver punch-bowl "to the memory of the Glorious Ninety-Two Members" who furnished the necessary major- ity, and even in England toasts were drunk to them. The
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other colonies were no less difficult to intimidate, for they ac- cepted the idea of united action, as a result of which their assemblies were in many cases dissolved by the governors, who of course throughout received instructions from England and stood for the English policy.
MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION OF 1768
As the time of the regular session of the General Court in the autumn of 1768 drew near, the Boston Town Meeting petitioned the Governor to convene that body. Upon his re- fusal the town decided to call a convention of delegates from the various localities of Massachusetts to consider the state of the province. Every effort was taken to make this meeting appear like a regular session of the General Court. Boston and many other towns chose as delegates to the extra legal convention their regular representatives. The meeting, when convened September 22, 1768, elected Thomas Cushing, the previous speaker of the House, chairman. During the week in which the convention was in session, the radicals sought to swing the balance toward revolution; but found they were prevented by the conservatism of the country delegates. Circulation of a rumor that troops had been sent to Boston gave the radicals their best weapon. It seems probable that they approved of Samuel Adams' threat to "destroy every Soldier that dares put his foot on Shore," and hoped to stir the town to armed resistance upon the arrival of the soldiers. All that the convention achieved were two petitions to Gover- nor Bernard to call the Assembly, a letter to the colony's agent in England, and a set of resolutions.
From the time of the Stamp Act controversy, Governor Bernard had grown increasingly unpopular. The radicals endeavored to make things too hot for him in the summer of 1768, but dissolution of the General Court prevented. The next year a petition, charging him with gross misrepre- sentation of province conditions to the home government, and asking for his recall, passed the General Court unanimously. Hence, when he was summoned to England in July, the radi- cals interpreted it as a victory.
Probably in answer to the defiant action of Massachusetts
T
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in calling a convention, Parliament in the autumn of 1768 addressed the King, praying him to give order that colonial inciters of rebellion be sent to England for trial according to the treason act of Henry VIII. The most outspoken resent- ment against this action came from the Virginia House of Representatives where George Washington introduced the so-called Virginia Resolves of 1769. These contained, besides the usual assertion of exemption from parliamentary taxation, an insistence on colonial right to petition the King for redress of grievances; and a protest against taking any one out of his colony for trial beyond the sea. These resolves, like other revolutionary literature, were distributed among the rest of the colonies and everywhere met with approval.
REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE AND ARGUMENT (1766-1770)
Although one finds the petitions and resolutions of assem- blies and town meetings for this period much alike in tone and arguments, throughout the colonies there was a greater variety in the political pamphlets and newspapers. The former emphasized the right of the colonies to be taxed only by their elected assemblies; and emphasized the impossibility of their being represented in the British Parliament. Articles in the newspapers ranged from rhapsodic and sentimental ravings about saving unborn generations from slavery, to carefully thought-out reasoning concerning the nature of the Empire and the relationships of its various parts. Among the pam- phleteers of the period none was more able than John Dickin- son, the author of Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer. His chief effort was to explain what was wrong with the Townshend Revenue Act. He admitted that Parliament had the right to regulate the trade of the Empire. Such a supreme central legis- lative control was necessary for the good of the whole, and had long been exercised. But he insisted that only the colo- nial assemblies could tax the colonies. In placing restrictions on colonial trade, then, the power of Parliament extended to the levying of duties intended for regulation, but not for rev- enue. He argued that the motive of the lawmakers, or the purpose of the act, should determine the legality of the meas- ure. His articles were read eagerly by the radicals in Mas- sachusetts.
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Samuel Adams also tried his hand at drawing a distinction between the power of Parliament and of the colonies. He conceded to Parliament a supreme legislative authority in the Empire, but claimed for the colonial assemblies freedom in local matters. These rights he derived from the British Conti- tution, which was fixed in the law of God and nature. Since man's natural right is to enjoy and dispose of his own prop- erty, Parliament could not overstep its bounds and tax the colonies without destroying the very foundations of the con- stitution.
Many people, including Benjamin Franklin, found these distinctions too subtle to be convincing. He confessed he was "not yet master ... of the idea these writers have of the relation between Britain and her colonies. I know not what the Boston people mean by the 'subordination' they acknowl- edge in their Assembly to Parliament, while they deny its power to make laws for them, nor what bounds the Farmer sets to the power he acknowledges in Parliament to 'regulate the trade of the colonies.'" He accented the difficulty of draw- ing lines between duties for regulation and those for revenue. These fine-spun discussions on abstract rights interested the thinking men of Franklin's type; and they had their place in the evolution of a revolutionary philosophy ; but they prob- ably exercised far less influence on the actual development of public opinion than the picturesque emotional appeals flung out by the newspapers, the preachers, and mass meeting speak- ers. The threat of bondage for their children and their children's children was a more potent stimulus than a disser- tation on the character of the British Constitution.
FEAR OF AN AMERICAN EPISCOPATE
Among other causes for irritation in 1768 was the dread of an American episcopate. There seems to be no indication that England had any serious intentions of establishing one, but the fear was as genuine, particularly in the northern colo- nies, as though it were well founded. During the years 1767- 1771 there was much agitation in some of the colonies over the matter, for here and there Anglican clergymen actually peti- tioned England for an American bishop. It was unfortunate
From the portrait in the Boston Public Library
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
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that a controversy should have arisen in the colonies over episcopacy during these crucial years, for the political agi- tators made use of it to stir the masses against the mother country. They pointed out that Parliament would doubtless tax the colonies for the support of the bishop, and the Anglican faith would be the established church in all the colonies. The House of Representatives in Massachusetts declared the pros- pect very alarming to a people whose fathers had fled from England because of the hardships they there suffered under such an establishment. Even in the southern colonies where the Church of England was strongly intrenched there was opposition to the episcopate because of fear of outside con- trol. Although England's unwise imperial policy of the seven- teen-sixties did not include appointment of an American bishop, the share which colonial fear of such action contributed to the revolutionary movement must not be overlooked. It had considerable weight, especially in Puritan and Congrega- tional New England.
ACTIVITIES OF THE NEW CUSTOMS BOARD (1768)
The coming of the Customs Board was anticipated with dread by the supporters of government, particularly when the vessel bringing them arrived just in time to land them on Guy Fawkes Day. November 5th had always been somewhat hilariously celebrated in Boston, and ever since the Stamp Act was associated in the minds of propertied Bostonians with mob violence. The five commissioners were escorted through the town by the holiday procession, along with figures of the Pope and the Pretender. The Devil of the celebration bore the placarded name "Charles," meaning one Paxton, a former unpopular customs officer, who was now returning as one of the commissioners. Whenever Paxton stopped, the Devil imi- tated him; but beyond this embarrassment no insults were offered. The crisis having passed without bloodshed, people watched with nervous tension to see how seriously these new officials would take their responsibility.
It was soon apparent that the trade laws were to be for the future strictly enforced. Among those most concerned over the prospects were the smugglers of Madeira and Span-
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ish wines on which there was a heavy duty under the act of 1764. John Hancock's sloop Liberty was among the first to suffer. It arrived May 9, 1768, with a considerable cargo. The tide-waiter upon boarding the vessel was treated to punch, and then approached on the subject of allowing a few casks of wine to be landed that night without paying duty. When he refused to countenance it, he was forcibly detained below, while the noise of hoisting and landing cargo could be plainly heard.
Some time afterward he got up his courage to report these proceedings, as a result of which the sloop was seized for non-payment of duty and placed under the protection of the Romney man-of-war. Almost immediately a mob was gathered, and it attacked two of the commissioners, beating them with clubs and in its frenzy nearly killing them. Afterward the mob visited their houses and broke the windows, but departed without destroying the buildings. Finding a boat used by one of the collectors, the rioters dragged it to the Common and there made a bonfire of it. The commissioners, who fled to the man-of-war after this assault, appealed to the Governor for protection, but he had to admit that he could offer nothing except refuge for them and their families at Castle William. They repaired thither, establishing the Customs Board office there. They knew, however, that it would be impossible to carry on business in such a state of siege, so they petitioned Admiral Hood at Halifax for aid. The Liberty was eventually confiscated under legal proceedings, Hancock refusing the proposal of the port authorities to return the vessel if Hancock would pay the duties.
BRITISH TROOPS AND "THE BOSTON MASSACRE" (1770)
Other information concerning the need of troops for police purposes had already reached England. The time had come, the ministry believed, for strengthening the weak civil authority with force. Two regiments were ordered to Boston, where they arrived September 28, 1768. It is difficult to tell whether their presence was more mob preventative or provocative. The townspeople naturally viewed them with
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hostility, since they represented not only law enforcement but outside interference. Ultimate trouble seemed inevitable.
The crisis came, March 5, 1770, when the sentinel stationed before the Customs House door was pelted with snowballs by some boisterous youths. He called for aid, which only served to draw a crowd to see the excitement. Some of the soldiers were roughly handled, and at last several shots were fired, whether under order or not is difficult to tell. As a result four of the crowd were killed. Paul Revere afterward made a colored engraving, showing the troops shooting down defenceless people in the streets, and labelled it "the Boston Massacre." To call this clash between an irresponsible crowd and soldiers on police duty a massacre was melodramatic, but it stirred the excitable inhabitants of Boston to a frenzy and gave the revolutionary leaders cause for demanding the removal of the troops from the town. Governor Hutchinson dared not refuse. The soldiers implicated were given a fair trial and all but two were acquitted, these receiving only a light punishment.
John Adams, who up to this point had been rising to prominence in the popular cause, served as one of the counsel for defence of the soldiers. Apparently he accepted this posi- tion somewhat reluctantly, but his New England conscience forced him to face what appeared to be his duty. He believed that the soldiers had not been treated fairly; and that a few radical leaders, thirsting for power, had taken advantage of the whole affair to stir the people against England. He him- self had been keen in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act, but he recognized the distinction between a real and a concocted grievance. For this hearkening to the still small voice, he paid the price of temporary unpopularity, and had to suffer the humiliating charge of having undertaken the case for the reward of heavy fees.
REPEAL OF THE TOWNSHEND ACT AND EFFECT ON NON-IMPORTATION (1770)
On the very day of the Boston Massacre, Lord North proposed to the House the repeal of the Townshend duties. In answer to the petition of the London merchants he stated
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it as his belief that their trade difficulties were due to the associations formed in the colonies and not to the character of the duties. These he now proposed to repeal, not because of pressure from the colonies but because taxing British manufactures was "contrary to the true principles of com- merce." But for what he considered the rebellious state of the colonies he would have urged removing all the duties; under the circumstances he believed it expedient to retain the duty on tea (not a British manufacture) as an assertion of Parliament's right to tax the colonies.
For the Boston merchants the retention of the duty on tea offset the advantages of the repeal of the other duties laid by the Townshend Revenue Act. Upon the arrival, April 24, 1770, of news concerning parliamentary action, they held a meeting and resolved to stand by the non- importation agreement until the tax on tea was removed. Other towns in eastern Massachusetts supported Boston; and soon the leading centers in New England had followed suit, except Newport. Because of the latter's defection the north- ern and middle colonies passed a vote of non-intercourse with Rhode Island. The southern colonies charged Georgia with the same offense of accepting the British decisions. In the meantime the conservative element among the merchants every- where was growing in strength. In New York it defeated the radicals; and soon that colony declared its intention to import all British goods except those on which the duty still remained. New York's action was at first bitterly denounced, but in a short time Philadelphia followed the example, and with the arrival of news of that city's decision, the Boston merchants voted, October 11, to follow suit. Soon the north- ern ports were open from Portsmouth to the Delaware, after which the southern colonies also abandoned non-importation.
This break-down in non-importation in 1770 was due chiefly to the unwillingness of the merchants to undergo further commercial losses merely for a constitutional princi- ple. The tradesmen were weary fighting business ruin. The people everywhere felt the pressure of the scarcity of goods and the increased cost of living, and were growing suspicious of the real patriotism of the merchants. As long as the radical agitators could combine commercial and constitutional
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grievances they could carry the support of the merchants and consumers both; but when these groups saw the trade re- strictions partly removed, they were not willing to hold out any longer in the hope of obtaining English recognition of the colonial theory of taxation. Moreover there had been many injustices in the working of the boycott, and not even the most radical of the subscribers had always acted with sincerity. The non-importation movement, begun as a weapon of the merchants for winning redress of commercial grievances, ended in the hands of the radicals who used it in the battle with England over constitutional liberty. The commercial interests of the colonies, having obtained a part at least of what they had struggled for, were now more ap- prehensive of business stagnation and of the danger from anarchy, stirred up by the political agitators, than of further injury to trade by the continuation of the remaining restric- tive statutes.
COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE (1772)
Deprived of non-importation as a weapon of agitation, Samuel Adams now turned his attention to the forging of another instrument. The immediate occasion for action was the announcement that the salary of the judges as well as of the Governor would be henceforth paid by England. A Boston Town Meeting, October 28, 1772, voted that this de- cision tended to "compleat the system of slavery which origi- nated in the House of Commons." Adams introduced a mo- tion for the appointment of a committee to "state the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular," listing the infringements; to publish the same to the world; and to ask each town in the province to communicate its sentiments on the subject. Report was made November 20. Herein all the grievances were noted: extension of the power of the admiralty courts; use of writs of assistance; restrictions on manufactures; intimidation by fleet and troops; threat of episcopacy ; control of governors by royal instructions; and payment of his salary from English funds. The suggestion that each town appoint a committee of correspondence to reply brought into existence a revolutionary machine, which
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later became highly effective in developing public opinion and bringing united action.
This local device soon was taken up by other colonies, stirred by the Gaspee affair. In all the colonies, attempts to prevent smuggling had been met with resentment, sometimes passively and sullenly and occasionally with violence, as in the case of the Liberty sloop at Boston. The customs officers found it particularly difficult to enforce the trade laws in Connecticut and Rhode Island. To aid them, ships of war and revenue cutters were stationed in American waters. One of these, the Gaspee, commanded by Lieutenant Dudington, patrolled Narragansett Bay, where there was so much feeling against the commander that he could not set his foot on land without risking insult. June 9, 1772, the Gaspee ran ashore a few miles below Providence, thereby falling into the hands of a mob from the town who seized the vessel and burned her on the sands. The British ministry, stirred to wrath by this act of vandalism, appointed a special commission of investiga- tion instructed to send the offenders to England for trial on the charge of treason. In response, the Virginia Assembly appointed a standing committee of correspondence to super- vise what was done, and asked the other colonies to follow her example. The British commission could not obtain evidence sufficient to warrant any arrests, so the only outcome of this unfortunate affair was the creation of a new and very effective organ of international association.
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