USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 46
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THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS (1773)
The years 1770-1773 offered opportunity for the embers of agitation to die out. There was no longer on the British statute book any one outstanding measure against which all the colonies were crying. England, having conceded the in- expediency of the Townshend Revenue Act, held out only for the principle in the form of a tax too small to have been an economic grievance. The merchants, tired of the incessant bickering, accepted this decision as sufficient excuse for a truce. The people of Boston, with the removal of the troops, had much less to remind them of the slavery which Samuel Adams prophesied was to be forced upon them. And if Boston
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would keep quiet, the chances were that the spirit of revolution in Massachusetts and other colonies would die out for want of leadership. This apathy Samuel Adams feared and tried to fight by incendiary letters and essays in the local papers. Governor Hutchinson, instead of passing them by unnoticed, took pains "to procure writers to answer the pieces in the newspapers which do so much mischief among the people." Naturally these articles did not silence Adams's guns, but still the old Governor wished to present the side of government. In an address to the General Court in January, 1773, he declared that he could no longer delay "communicating his sentiments"; and he proceeded to give an exposition of his conception of the nature of the Empire and the power of Parliament over the colonies. To this speech the House made a long and elaborate argumentative answer which showed that body very far from being won over to the Governor's point of view.
Within a few months the General Court by unexpected good fortune found the means to drive the unpopular Governor from his post forever. In June, Samuel Adams dramatically asked that the galleries of the House be emptied so that he might communicate a matter of very great importance. He then announced that through a friend he had come into pos- session of letters procured in England, highly inimical to the liberties of America. These documents, written by officials of the colony to those in authority in England, could be pre- sented to them only on condition that no copy be made or printed. The House, after hearing Adams read a number of the letters, appointed a committee to examine them and agreed with its report that they were designed to undermine the constitution and to introduce arbitrary government.
The hostile buzzing soon reached the ears of Governor Hutchinson, who requested the General Court to let him see the letters. The House refused, but sent him the dates of some of them, hoping thereby to force him to publish his own letters. But the wily Governor was not to be tricked into exposing himself further to popular disapproval. He admitted having written letters on those dates, but denied that they contained sentiments different from those he was already known to have expressed in his public speeches and in his history. In some
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way copies of the letters, among them several of his, began to appear on the street, after which the House decided to print them in spite of its promise. Knowing that their publication would destroy what little confidence people might still have in Hutchinson, the House, just before the letters came out, pub- lished a set of resolves asking that the King remove Hutchin- son and Oliver. The influence of the Governor was at an end ; he held out for a year, and then left for England, never to return. Thus the radical group, which had already driven one governor out of office and had won control of both houses in the General Court, scored an irrevocable triumph.
THE TEA ACT (1773)
In spite of local causes of friction and of the strict enforce- ment of the Acts of Trade everywhere, the radicals lacked a general grievance which could be made the rallying point for all the colonies against the mother country. Suddenly the British ministry played into their hands by passing the Tea Act of 1773. It was the purpose and not the form of this new measure which made it objectionable, for it was designed to aid the East India Company, at that time in a bankrupt condition, by granting to it a monopoly of the colonial tea market. While retaining the three-penny duty on tea imported into America, it allowed a full drawback of duties charged in England on all tea exported to the colonies, and gave the com- pany the privilege of shipping the tea directly from its ware- houses to consignees of its own appointment in America. In- asmuch as the colonial merchants, even the Bostonians, had been paying the duty since the abandonment of non-importa- tion, the measure could not be interpreted as a new attempt of England to tax the colonies in order to prove parliamentary right; nor was there any more reason for protest against the tea duty than against that paid on molasses since the revision of the Sugar Act in 1766. Furthermore, American consumers could now purchase tea at about half its former price. Having eliminated the middlemen by arranging to retail the tea through its own consignees, the company could sell it at less even than the smuggled product. As an economic measure, then, it brought no hardship to the majority of people, but
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handicapped only the merchants. The first outcry against the act came from the latter, who objected to it as an unfair monopoly. On this score it is doubtful whether they could have roused public opinion to the point of supporting them in any serious campaign of protest.
The radicals made the most of their opportunity to feature the act as a grievance against the mother country. At a joint meeting of the Caucus Club and the Boston Committee of Correspondence a vote was taken that the tea should not be landed. The Sons of Liberty demanded the resignation of the consignees, who, by the way, were related to the much- despised Hutchinson. Upon their refusal the organization tried to intimidate them, but unsuccessfully. The Boston Town Meeting now turned the issue into a political one by resolutions reviving the old argument on taxation without representation, and announcing its intention of preventing, if possible, the sale of the tea. The merchants were urged not to import any dutiable tea until the act was repealed, and the consignees were to be again invited to resign. This action was immediately reported by the Committee of Correspondence to the other towns of the province. The radicals believed the ideal measure for uniting economic and political opposition against the mother country had come to hand. It remained only to keep the more conservative merchants and the agitated masses working together.
THE BOSTON TEA PARTY (1773)
At this juncture the first of the three tea ships arrived in Boston harbor. Samuel Adams called a meeting of the com- mittees of Boston and the nearby towns at Faneuil Hall to consider what should be done. Because of the eager crowds that came to hear the discussion he soon found it necessary to adjourn the gathering to the Old South Meeting House and turn it into a general mass meeting. Resolves were passed proclaiming that the tea be not allowed to land. The owner of the tea ship, thus facing a serious dilemma, asked the governor for a permit to leave before unloading the tea, but was refused. According to law, if the tea were not landed by
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December 17, and the duty paid, the customs officer could seize the vessel and sell the tea at auction.
The controversy was deadlocked, since the consignees would not resign, the Governor would not give the vessel permission to leave, the customs officer refused to make any exception con- cerning the seizure, and the people kept a guard day and night on the shore to prevent the landing of the tea. On the evening of December 16, several thousand inhabitants of Boston and the nearby towns gathered at the Old South Meeting House, and made one last demand upon the Governor and of the customs officer, but to no avail. Samuel Adams then declared to the assembled throng that they could "do nothing more to save the country." This statement was apparently taken as the cue for action by some men waiting outside. Conspicuous in their Indian disguise, they rushed through the streets to the wharf, boarded the vessels (for there were now three in harbor ), broke open the tea chests and dumped the tea into the water.
The radicals were much elated over the "tea party." Samuel Adams considered it "as remarkable an event as has yet hap- pened since the commencement of our struggle for American liberty." James Warren claimed to have long desired to see the people "strike some bold stroke and try the Issue." Now that they had done it, he believed they were for the most part, "universally pleas'd." John Adams in exhilaration confided to his diary, "There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity in this last effort of the patriots, that I greatly admire." Others in Boston were more dubious. John Rowe was "sincerely sorry for the event" and noted in his diary that some people were "much alarmed at the disastrous affair."
The work of the radicals of Boston was not yet complete. The Tea Party had been staged as much for its effect outside the colony as within. They believed with James Warren that the ministry "could not have devised a more effectual Measure to unite the Colonies," and proceeded at once to correspond with them over the event. Here and there the Tea Act roused antipathy, but nowhere did the radicals act with such daring as at Boston. At New York and Philadelphia the tea ships were not allowed to land, but there was no attempt to destroy the property of the company. At Charleston the people pre-
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vented the landing of the tea until it was finally seized by the collector for non-payment of the duty and stored.
Opinion in the colonies varied concerning the violence of the Bostonians. At New York and Philadelphia crowds of people excitedly proclaimed their approval, but prominent in- dividuals who could better appreciate its full significance were much concerned for the future. Benjamin Franklin called it "an act of violent injustice," while Henry Laurens, unwilling to go so far as to condemn the destruction of the tea, said he preferred the action taken by Charleston. To the disappoint- ment of the perpetrators, the 'Tea Party' nowhere produced anything more than momentary applause.
Gradually radicalism began to die down, even in Massa- chusetts. Again the efforts of the Boston leaders to unite the colonies in a common grievance had failed. But for Eng- land's unwise decision to punish Massachusetts and her capital town, the Tea Party would have been considered in England, like the destruction of Hutchinson's house, an isolated example of the vandalism of a few radicals; and the promoters of revolution would have had to wait for another and better opportunity to force the issue with the mother country. It was not the Tea Act then, which turned the tide of public opinion toward revolution, but the repressive acts of 1774 which followed in its wake. The Boston Tea Party for a time concentrated public attention upon the constitutional issue of taxation. It did not nerve even the Boston people up to the point of armed resistance.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADAMS, JAMES TRUSLOW .- Revolutionary New England, 1691-1776 (Boston, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1923)-This account is written in a charming and graceful style, and is free from the traditional bias.
ANDREWS, CHARLES MCLEAN .- The Colonial Background of the American Revolution (New Haven,, Yale Univ. Press, 1924)-A collection of four essays, the third and fourth of which cover this period.
ANDREWS, CHARLES MCLEAN .- "The Boston Merchants and the Non-Im- portation Movement" (Colonial Society of Mass., Publications, Vol. XIX, pp. 159-259, Boston, 1917)-A detailed study of the non-importa- tion and non-consumption agreements and their importance in the revolutionary movement.
BANCROFT, GEORGE .- History of the United States: author's last revision (6 vols., N. Y., Appleton, 1887)-Vol. III.
BEARD, CHARLES AUSTIN, AND MARY R .- The Rise of American Civilisa- tion (2 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1927)-Volume I, chap. v, gives a brief but clear account of England's new measures, with emphasis on their economic effect on the colonies.
BECKER, CARL LOTUS .- The Eve of the Revolution (Chronicles of America Series, No. 11, New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1921)-Chapters IV, V, and vI give a very readable account of the revolutionary movement during these years. Although the author deals with all the thirteen colonies, he emphasizes the leadership of Massachusetts.
CHANNING, EDWARD .- A History of the United States (6 vols., N. Y., Mac- millan, 1912)-A scholarly account in Vol. III, chaps. Iv and v, with considerable emphasis on the commercial side.
CHANNING, EDWARD, HART, A. B., AND TURNER, FREDERICK JACKSON .- Guide to the Study and Reading of American History (Boston, Ginn, 1912)-See pp. 298-301.
CROSS, ARTHUR LYON .- The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colo- nies (N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1902)-The standard authority on this subject.
EGERTON, HUGH EDWARD .- The Causes and Character of the American Revolution (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923)-Chapter v covers this period.
ELLIS, GEORGE E .- The Royal Governors (JUSTIN WINSOR, Memorial History of Boston, 4 vols., Boston, Osgood, 1882-1886)-See Vol. II, pp. 27-92. FISHER, SYDNEY GEORGE .- The Struggle for American Independence (Phila. and London, Lippincott, 1908)-Very pro-British, but clearly written and useful as an antidote to some of the strongly biased accounts of the patriot cause.
FISKE, JOHN .- The American Revolution (2 vols., Houghton Mifflin, 1896) -See Vol. I. chap. II.
HARLOW, RALPH VOLNEY .- Samuel Adams, Promoter of the American Revolution (N. Y., Holt, 1923)-Chapters IV-VIII contain an exceed- ingly valuable account of the political progress of events in Massachu- setts, the clash of parties, the triumph of radicalism, and the leader- ship of Samuel Adams; a slight tendency to overrate the influence of Adams in proportion to other factors in the revolutionary movement must be noticed.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
HART, ALBERT BUSHNELL .- American History Told by Contemporaries (4 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1897-1901)-See Vol. II, chaps. XXI, XXIII, XXIV; these contain papers, resolutions, accounts of town meetings, of the Stamp Act Congress, etc.
HOWARD, GEORGE ELLIOTT .- Preliminaries of the Revolution (American Na- tion : a history, Vol. VIII, N. Y., Harper, 1905).
HUTCHINSON, THOMAS .- The History of the Province of Massachusetts- Bay from the year 1750. Until June 1774 (London, Murray, 1828)- A contemporary account, written from the sources and painful experi- ences.
LECKY, WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE .- A History of England in the Eight- eenth Century (8 vols., N. Y., Appleton, 1888-1891) .- See Vol. III.
MCDONALD, WILLIAM .- Select Charters and other Documents of American History, 1606-1775 (N. Y., Macmillan, 1906)-An easily accessible body of official documents covering this period. The parliamentary acts and the most conspicuous colonial official and semi-official protests are included.
McILWAIN, CHARLES HOWARD .- The American Revolution; a Constitutional Interpretation (N. Y., Macmillan, 1923)-Favorable to the legal point of view taken by the colonies in their propaganda literature. A clear and interesting presentation of a most controverted question.
MORISON, SAMUEL ELIOT .- Sources and Documents Illustrating the Ameri- can Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitu- tion (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923)-The most satisfactory collec- tion of documents for study of the constitutional and argumentative side of the Revolution.
PORTER, EDWARD GRIFFIN .- "The Beginning of the Revolution" (JUSTIN WINSOR, Memorial History of Boston, 4 vols., Boston, Osgood, 1882- 1886)-See Vol. II, pp. 1-66.
SCHLESINGER, ARTHUR MEIER .- The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763-1776 (Columbia Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. LXXVIII, Whole No. 182, N. Y., 1918)-The best account in print of the part played by the merchants in the Revolution and the use of economic boycott.
TREVELYAN, Sir GEORGE OTTO .- The American Revolution (6 vols., N. Y., and London, Longmans, Green, 1905-1915)-Volume I gives one of the best accounts of the causes of the Revolution, written in a sympa- thetic spirit. The first part, vols. 1-4, extends only to. 1778. The second part, George the Third and Charles Fox, 2 vols., concludes the account of the Revolution.
Diaries and correspondence of prominent Massachusetts men (such as Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Rowe, Thomas Hutchinson, and the colonial agents) contain much that is exceedingly interesting and valuable.
CHAPTER XVII.
LAST CHANCE FOR THE EMPIRE (1774)
BY JAMES PHINNEY MUNROE President Munroe Felt and Paper Co.
Two ENDS OF THE EMPIRE
Intense is the interest of the American student in his politi- cal origins, which loom to him so large; yet as a nation we have had little experience with colonial problems. Hence it is diffi- cult for us to visualize the remoteness of New England from old England in 1774, and to understand the almost complete indifference with which the British people, up to the issue of the war, viewed the acts, whether unfriendly or actually hos- tile, of what seemed to them a group of turbulent malcontents across the only less turbulent Atlantic Ocean. We do not realize the negative attitude of the pre-Revolutionary Briton. We are far too ready to ascribe to George the Third, to his ministers and to the English in general an active dislike, a de- sire to punish, a vindictive interest in the acts of the provin- cials of which they themselves were in no degree aware.
If a modern student of colonial relations will compare the nearness of the Philippine Islands to the America of to-day as against the distance of the American Colonies from England in the eighteenth century, and will note the almost complete indifference of even the more intelligent continental popula- tion towards the current history and political aspirations of the Filipinos, he will have some conception of the immensely greater indifference, in 1774, of an ill-educated mother country toward her far-distant and turbulent colonies.
A small, group of British merchants engaged in provincial trade was obliged, for commercial reasons, to keep cognizant of the attitude, sometimes quiescent, sometimes rebellious, of their overseas customers. A few officials doomed to service in America, or seeking opportunity in that remote wilderness for
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bettering their fortunes, might attempt, for their special pur- poses, to acquire some understanding of what the colonials were thinking. A few genuine statesmen, such as Pitt and Barré, might feel an interest in their brethren overseas, how- ever academic, as a part of their general intention to be broad in their political views. The homesick and harassed soldiers on American service might roundly curse the provincials as obstreperous nuisances. Nevertheless to ninety-nine out of a hundred average Englishmen, the acts of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay or of Virginia,-which seemed perhaps to the otherwise intelligent Londoner to be but a few miles apart, -possessed less interest than did the actions of the East Indi- ans or the Africans, to say nothing of the neighboring Irish. Indeed, the oriental folk depicted by imaginative travelers had far more of the picturesque, and occupied more fully the popular mind. Nothing could be less interesting to English society-busy with its own affairs-than the ill behavior of those whom they considered dull fanatics, who had stupidly exiled themselves to the dreary farther shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
LACK OF UNDERSTANDING IN ENGLAND (1774)
It is important to stress this remoteness and this indiffer- ence, for they account in great measure for the mishandling by England of a situation which, difficult in itself, was im- measurably complicated by an almost total lack of understand- ing on both sides. Under such conditions, it was hard to con- vince the provincials that the English Government was merely stupid; and it was practically hopeless for friends of the colo- nies in England to make their countrymen, both in and out of Parliament, see that the American behavior was inspired by the highest British ideals.
King George and his ministers would not listen to any argu- ment to the effect that coercion of a citizenry who had been practically independent for one hundred and fifty years would be a task beyond the powers of any army which England, in view of the hostile attitude of France and of Holland, could possibly keep in the field in America. The sound and elo- quent arguments of such men as Burke met with nothing but
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vainglorious scoffings from King George's complacent reac- tionaries.
John Fiske summarizes admirably the opinion of that group. He begins with Lord George Germaine, who fatuously re- marked: "This is what comes of their wretched old town meetings. The Americans have really no government. These are the proceedings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble, who ought, if they had the least prudence, to follow their mercantile employments, and not trouble themselves with politics and gov- ernment, which they do not understand. Some gentlemen say, 'Oh, don't break their charter; don't take away rights granted them by the predecessors of the Crown.' Whoever wishes to preserve such charters, I wish him no worse than to govern such subjects." "These remarks," said Lord North, "are worthy of a great mind." "If we take a determined stand now," said Lord Mansfield, "Boston will submit, and all will end in vic- tory without carnage." "The town of Boston," said Mr. Venn, "ought to be knocked about their ears and destroyed. You will never meet with proper obedience until you have destroyed this nest of locusts."
General Gage, who had just come from America on a visit in 1774 assured the king that the other colonies might speak fair words to Massachusetts, but would do nothing to help her. "They will be lions", said Gage, "while we are lambs; but if we take the resolute part, they will prove very meek, I promise you."
THE CASE AGAINST MASSACHUSETTS (1774)
In an elaborate report submitted to the House of Lords by the Earl of Buckinghamshire, April 20, 1774, a committee says : "They have attentively read and considered the several papers relative to the proceedings of the Colony of Massachu- setts Bay, in opposition to the sovereignty of his Majesty in his Parliament of Great Britain, and have carefully inspected the journals of the House from the 1st of January, 1764, to the present time." They then proceed with a detailed account of the doings of this colony for the period of ten years- showing that Massachusetts had, during that period, not only denied the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, but had
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uniformly thrown every obstacle in the way of collecting a revenue in America. The people they maintained had over- awed the officers of the Crown and compelled them to resign; refused to quarter troops sent over to enforce the laws, and even denied the right of sending troops into the Province in times of peace without their consent; asserting for themselves an exemption from the laws of Parliament; and also claiming for themselves the right to legislate in all cases whatsoever. The committee proceed to assert that the Massachusetts peo- ples, while they had in this manner denied the power of Parlia- ment and resisted the execution of the laws, had also taken active measures to draw the other colonies into rebellion.
THE FIVE FATEFUL ACTS (1774)
March 7, 1774, therefore, Lord North as premier brought before the House of Commons a message from His Majesty in- forming his liege servants "that in consequence of the unwar- rantable practices carried on in North America; and particu- larly of the violent and outrageous proceedings at the town and port of Boston ... it was thought fit to lay the whole matter before Parliament."
Between that date and prorogation on June 22 following, both Houses indulged in violent debates in which the con- spicuous friends of the colonies-such as Governor Johnston, the Earl of Shelburne, General Conway, Barré, Dowdeswell, and especially Burke, in his famous speech on American tax- ation-took a lively though inefficacious part, Parliament passed five measures, all of them striking at the very life of the American colonies.
First was the law always referred to as the "Regulating Act." This was an entire subversion of the original charter, since members of the upper House, theretofore elected by the people, would become appointees of the Crown. Likewise, since it placed the nomination of councillors and indeed of all magistrates of the Province in the hands of the governor, these officers being also removable at the king's command.
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